As the title reveals, the book under review is a biography of Seleucus I and the enormous empire he founded. The study includes a chronological treatment of Seleucus’ life from the years of Alexander's campaign in the 320s to his death in 281 bce and more general thematical studies of the Seleucid Empire spanning across the reigns of Antigonus, Seleucus and Antiochus.
Seleucus has received considerable attention in modern scholarship compared to other Hellenistic generals and monarchs with works from A. Mehl (Seleukos Nikator und sein Reich [1986]), J. Grainger (Seleukos Nikator: Constructing a Hellenistic Kingdom [1990]), P. Kosmin (The Land of the Elephant Kings: Space, Territory and Ideology in the Seleucid Empire [2014] and Time and its Adversaries in the Seleucid Empire [2018]) and D. Ogden (The Legend of Seleucus: Kingship, Narrative and Mythmaking in the Ancient World [2017]). While this background context should entail discussion of how a new interpretation engages with the broader research context, H. is surprisingly silent on this matter, only noting that what ‘keeps generation after generation of scholars fascinated [is] perhaps Seleucus’ life as a whole’ (p. 8). Regrettably, we are, therefore, not provided with the key questions that H. intends to address nor any consideration of why this new biography on Seleucus is needed.
The book consists of nine chapters, a bibliography and an index, and is divided into two parts: the first five chapters treat the life and achievements of Seleucus from 326 to 281. The remaining four chapters tackle the Seleucid Empire in different thematical studies.
The book begins with a brief introduction sketching the written sources that make up the foundation of the study, among others Arrian, Diodorus Siculus, Plutarch, Pompeius Trogus, Appian and Polybius. Because H. ends up relying heavily on Diodorus for the biographical study in the first five chapters, I would have preferred a more selective discussion of those most important authors. For example, Trogus and Polybius take up the same amount of space as Diodorus in the chapter, but are only mentioned three times combined in the rest of the book.
In the first chapter we jump directly into the action at the battle at Hydaspes in 326. Seleucus is mentioned here in our accounts for the first time because Arrian (5.12.4) records that ‘Seleucus, one of the Companions, who afterwards became king, followed Alexander in a triaconter in a surprise attack across Indus’. No information on Seleucus’ early career survives, and all we surely know, at this point, is his position as commander of the royal hypaspists. While H. admits that she hypothesises on Seleucus’ possible membership in this group from the beginning of the campaign, she uses that assumption to devote the rest of the chapter to these very important ‘shield-bearers’.
Chapter 2 begins with the aftermath of the death of Alexander in 323. Not yet having the esteem to control a satrapy, Seleucus was chosen by Perdiccas as the next commander of the cavalry companions, a position previously held by Hephastion and Perdiccas. We follow Perdiccas’ campaign in Cappadocia and then his disastrous expedition to Egypt, ending with him being murdered at the hands of his own soldiers. The chapter concludes with the treaty of Triparadeisus in 321, which sees Antipater elevating Seleucus to satrap of Babylon.
Chapter 3 covers Seleucus in Babylon, but the sources are extremely sparse. Seleucus was forced to make an alliance with Antigonus because Eumenes from the West began to threaten his possessions. While this manoeuvre defeated Eumenes, it also had the unforeseen consequence that Seleucus was forced to flee to Egypt soon after the arrival of Antigonus in Babylon because his relationship with the one-eyed Macedonian general quickly turned cold. Chapter 4 continues the narrative down to the decisive battle at Ipsus in 301. This period includes Seleucus’ time in Egypt and India, the Babylonian War and the concluding war with Antiochus ending with the latter's death on the battlefield.
The last biographical chapter brings the story from Ipsus to the death of Seleucus in 281. Remarkably, Seleucus’ victory in 281 over Lysimachus in Asia Minor made him the only living contemporary of Alexander controlling the entire East except for Egypt for a short while. However, this time was not to last for very long. The displaced Ptolemy Ceraunus assassinated him after crossing into Europe in the same year, intending to take Thrace and Macedonia.
Moving into more thematic sections, Chapter 6 considers the economy and administration of the Seleucid Empire during the reigns of Antigonus, Seleucus and Antiochus. H. focuses her treatment on coinage, finances, resources, crops, market prices, revenue and ‘court friends’. Chapter 7 considers royal propaganda and ideology touching mainly on iconography and inscriptions from Didyma, Ilium, Aigai and Borsippa, while Chapter 8 treats the founding of settlements under the reigns of Seleucus and Antiochus. H. focuses on the archaeological sites of Seleucia-on-the-Tigris, the Syrian Tetrapolis, Dura-Europus and Ai-Khanum and smaller settlements in Northern Syria and in Asia Minor. The lengthy Chapter 9 further takes up the issue of early material culture, which includes discussions on the architecture, ceramics, terracottas and seal impressions found in some of the sites mentioned in the previous chapter. The book ends with a short conclusion in which H. addresses the wider importance of Seleucus’ achievements.
A consistent problem throughout the chapters is the lack of context. For reasons not entirely clear, H. gives no context for Alexander's campaign nor devotes any pages to situate Seleucus at the Macedonian court. Despite the unfortunate source situation, at least some considerations of his background, age, early life or role at the court would have suited the biographical nature of the first couple of chapters. Because generals and kings were more than keen to use Alexander to claim power and territories, it is surprising that we find no discussion intending to move us closer to an understanding of possible connections between the two. This problem seems to be a deep-seated issue in most of the book: general readers with no prior knowledge of the early Hellenistic period will have difficulties following the aims and motives of the different generals contending for Alexander's empire and understanding the causes and consequences of the numerous military conflicts in which they participated.
Another problem is the lack of engagement with modern scholarship. An obvious example is Ogden's fascinating book on the different literary traditions surrounding Seleucus found in Greek and Roman historiography, folk tales and legends from Eastern mythology. Discussing Ogden's findings concerning royal propaganda more explicitly or considering other important works related to different chapters, H. would have been able to effectively place her own interpretations within the wider research context to qualify why a new book on Seleucus is needed.
That said, the book is well written and structured. The strength of the book is the use of historiographical works, coinage, tablets and inscriptions in combination. H.'s study is best when such diverse material is applied to create broader pictures of the reign of Seleucus and the empire he founded.
