The Greeks in Bactria and India c9.s2.165

c9.s2.165

The most important thing in Babylonia was Seleuceia,² the greatest of all the Seleucid foundations in the East, so often referred to in this book. Few cities in history have ever dominated the trade of a continent as Seleuceia dominated the trade of Asia in the Hellenistic period. The city had been built to replace ruined Babylon, and as a centre of commerce it more than replaced it; Seleucus displayed Alexander’s own insight in his choice of a site for his first name-city. It is now known that the ruins with the great double wall which used to be called Seleuceia are really those of Parthian Ctesiphon, on the east of the Tigris, for the Tigris then flowed farther to the westward than it does to-day, and formed a natural lake; Seleuceia stood not on the river but on the lake, which was her harbour and received shipping coming up the Tigris; though far inland, the city was a deep water port,³ and cols. 2423 *sqq*. The date of Teucros is unknown; probably not before the Christian Era. Gundel, following Eisler, thinks he may have come from Babylon near Memphis in Egypt, as his work has Egyptian affinities; if so, he must have been far later than usually supposed, for in Strabo’s own day, XVII, 807 (under Augustus or Tiberius), this Babylon was only a fortified post; all other references to it are late, see Sethe, *Babylon* in PW col. 2700. Probably ‘Babylonian’, as usual, means Seleuceian.