Place · Mesopotamian capital · Iraq
Babylon
Seleucus I Nicator ruled from Babylon and Seleucia when he marched east against Chandragupta Maurya about 305 BCE, lost, and settled: he ceded the eastern satrapies as far as Gandhara and Arachosia, took five hundred war elephants in exchange, and a marriage alliance was concluded.
- Function
- Authority & administration
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 32.535, 44.428
Worth knowing
Those elephants decided Ipsus in 301 BCE, the battle that settled the shape of the Hellenistic world. Indian animals and, probably, Indian mahouts were the deciding arm in a Macedonian civil war fought in Anatolia.
Connections (3)
- CampaignChandragupta Maurya
Seleucus I Nicator marched east from Babylon about 305 BCE to recover Alexander's Indian conquests and lost. The settlement gave Chandragupta the eastern satrapies as far as Gandhara and Arachosia, gave Seleucus five hundred war elephants, and was sealed by a marriage agreement the Greek sources describe without naming the bride. Those elephants decided Ipsus four years later — Indian animals, and probably Indian mahouts, settling a Macedonian civil war in Anatolia.
- Succession in timeAthens
Seleucus sent Megasthenes to Pataliputra after losing the eastern satrapies about 305 BCE; three centuries later an Indian embassy reached Augustus and one of its members died publicly at Athens. Diplomatic traffic between India and the Mediterranean ran for the whole of that period, and almost everything known about it comes from Greek and Latin authors quoting each other.
- Imperial administration ofMegasthenes
Seleucus sent him from Babylon as resident ambassador after about 303 BCE, and Antiochus I later sent Deimachus to Bindusara on the same footing. Two generations of Greek envoys lived at Pataliputra, and between them they are the reason anything is known about Mauryan administration from outside its own inscriptions.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Babylon”. Archaeological Survey of India and State Archaeology monument records, and the standard regional literature.
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