Seleucid Empire

Hellenistic state in West Asia (312–63 BC)

The Seleucid Empire ( sih-LEW-sid) was a Greek state in West Asia during the Hellenistic period. It was founded by the Macedonian general Seleucus I Nicator in 312 BC, following the division of Alexander the Great's Empire, and was ruled by the Seleucid dynasty from Seleucia and later Antioch until its annexation by the Roman Republic under Pompey in 63 BC. After receiving the Mesopotamian regions of Babylonia and Assyria in 321 BC, Seleucus I began expanding his dominions to include the Near Eastern territories that include modern-day Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Syria, and Lebanon, all of which had been under Macedonian control after the fall of the former Achaemenid Empire. At the Seleucid Empire's height, it had consisted of territory that covered Anatolia, Persia, the Levant, Mesopotamia, and what are now modern Kuwait, Afghanistan, and parts of Turkmenistan in Central Asia.

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