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The Babylonian War: Seleucus vs. Antigonus

Seleucus I Nicator faced opposition from Antigonus I Monophthalmus as his rise to power in Babylon threatened Antigonus' territory in Asia. Antigonus led an unsuccessful campaign to take Babylon, allowing Seleucus to establish control over Babylon and legitimacy over the large eastern territories of Alexander the Great's former empire, including Mesopotamia, Persia, Bactria, and others as far as the Indus River. Chandragupta Maurya founded the Maurya Empire in India and conquered the remaining Greek satraps left by Alexander the Great in the Indus region by 317 BC. Seleucus gathered his army to confront Chand

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Jerome Brusas
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12 views1 page

The Babylonian War: Seleucus vs. Antigonus

Seleucus I Nicator faced opposition from Antigonus I Monophthalmus as his rise to power in Babylon threatened Antigonus' territory in Asia. Antigonus led an unsuccessful campaign to take Babylon, allowing Seleucus to establish control over Babylon and legitimacy over the large eastern territories of Alexander the Great's former empire, including Mesopotamia, Persia, Bactria, and others as far as the Indus River. Chandragupta Maurya founded the Maurya Empire in India and conquered the remaining Greek satraps left by Alexander the Great in the Indus region by 317 BC. Seleucus gathered his army to confront Chand

Uploaded by

Jerome Brusas
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

Babylonian War (311–309 BC)[edit]

Main article: Babylonian War


The rise of Seleucus in Babylon threatened the eastern extent of Antigonus I territory in Asia.
Antigonus, along with his son Demetrius I of Macedon, unsuccessfully led a campaign to annex
Babylon. The victory of Seleucus ensured his claim of Babylon and legitimacy. He ruled not only
Babylonia, but the entire enormous eastern part of Alexander's empire, as described by Appian:
Always lying in wait for the neighboring nations, strong in arms and persuasive in council, he
[Seleucus] acquired Mesopotamia, Armenia, 'Seleucid' Cappadocia, Persis, Parthia, Bactria, Arabia,
Tapouria, Sogdia, Arachosia, Hyrcania, and other adjacent peoples that had been subdued by
Alexander, as far as the river Indus, so that the boundaries of his empire were the most extensive in
Asia after that of Alexander. The whole region from Phrygia to the Indus was subject to Seleucus. [17]

Seleucid–Mauryan War (305–303 BC)[edit]


Main article: Seleucid–Mauryan war
In the region of Punjab, Chandragupta Maurya (Sandrokottos) founded the Maurya Empire in 321
BC. Chandragupta conquered the Nanda Empire in Magadha, and relocated to the capital
of Pataliputra. Chandragupta then redirected his attention back to the Indus and by 317 BC he
conquered the remaining Greek satraps left by Alexander. Expecting a confrontation, Seleucus
gathered his army and marched to the Indus. It is said that Chandragupta himself fielded an army of
600,000 men and 9,000 war elephants.[18]
Mainstream scholarship asserts that Chandragupta received, formalized through a treaty, vast
territory west of the Indus, including the Hindu Kush, modern day Afghanistan, and
the Balochistan province of Pakistan.[19][20] Archaeologically, concrete indications of Mauryan rule,
such as the inscriptions of the Edicts of Ashoka, are known as far as Kandahar in southern
Afghanistan. According to Appian:

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