Seleucus
I (Seleucus Nicator), d. 280 B.C., king of ancient Syria. An able general of Alexander the Great, he played a
leading part in the wars of the Diadochi. In the new partition of the
empire in 312 B.C. he received Babylonia. Conquest of Susiana and Media enlarged his holdings,
and he invaded NW India. Later (c. 305) he yielded part of present Afghanistan
to Chandragupta. Seleucus was drawn into the league against Antigonus I, and when Antigonus
was defeated at Ipsus in 301 B.C., Seleucus gained a large part of Asia Minor and all of Syria. Of the Macedonian
generals he was the one who tried hardest to set up a kingdom following
Alexander's ideas. He founded Greek colonies such as Seleucia and Antioch.
He also tried to govern the subject people according to the methods
of the Persian Empire. He finally won Asia Minor by defeating Lysimachus
in the battle at Corupedion in Lydia in 281, an event that marked the
end of the Diadochi. Seleucus was murdered before he could achieve his
ambition of seizing the vacant throne of Macedonia as well. He was succeeded
by Antiochus I.
The Seleucid empire at its greatest extent stretched from
Thrace to India and included almost all of Alexander the Great's conquests
except Egypt. Seleucus, one of Alexander's generals, became satrap of
Babylonia in 321 BC. In a prolonged power struggle between the Successors
(Diadochoi) as they were called, Ptolemy (Egypt), Lysimachos (Thrace),
Cassander (Macedon and Greece) and Seleucus ganged up on Antigonas (Asia)
and defeated him at the battle of Ipsus in 301 BC. Seleucus was assassinated
by the disgruntled son of Ptolomy in 281 BC.
The kindom was a major center of Hellenistic culture which maintained
the pre-eminence of Greek customs and manners over the Middle East.
It began to decline in 190 BC after a first defeat by the Romans and
lasted until 64 BC when the last Seleucid king, Antiochus XIII, was
murdered by Sampsiceramus, an Arab emir, at the behest of Pompey the
Great.
