The Diadochi.—Alexander left no heir. Consequently, his death not only ended the scheme of universal conquest, but led to an immediate Macedonian reaction. The army, which was considered as the representative of the people, took over the government under the direction of its generals. The Persian wives were prac tically all discarded and the Persian satraps removed—at least from all important provinces. But the attempt to maintain the empire in its unity proved impracticable; and almost immediately there began the embittered war, waged for several decades by the generals (diadochi), for the inheritance of the great king.' It was soon obvious that the eastern rulers, at all events, could not dis pense with the native element. Peucestas, the governor of Persis, there played the role of Alexander and won the Persians com pletely to his side ; for which he was dismissed by Antigonus in 315 (Diod. xix. 48). A similar position was attained by Seleucus—the only one of the diadochi who had not divorced his Persian wife, Apama—in Babylonia, which he governed from 319 to 316 and regained in the autumn of 312. While Antigonus, who, since 315, had striven to win the kingdom of Alexander for himself, was de tained by the war with his rivals in the west, Seleucus, with Babylon as his headquarters, conquered the whole of Iran as far as the Indus. In northern Media alone, which lay outside the main scene of operations and had only been partially subject to the later Achaemenids, the Persian satrap Atropates, appointed by Alexander, maintained his independence and bequeathed his province to his successors. His name is borne by north Media, to the present day—Atropatene, modern Azerbaijan or Adher beijan (see MEDIA). So, too, in Armenia the Persian dynasty of the Hydarnids held its ground ; and to these must be added, in the east of Asia Minor, the kingdoms of Pontus and Cappadocia, founded c. 301, by the Persians Mithradates I. and Ariarathes I. These states were fragments of the Achaemenid empire, which had safely transferred themselves to the Hellenistic state system.
The annexation of Iran by Seleucus Nicator led to a war for the countries on the Indian frontier; his opponent being Sandra cottus or Chandragupta Maurya (q.v.), the founder of the great Indian empire of Maurya (Palimbothra). The result was that Seleucus abandoned to the Indian king, not merely the Indian provinces, but even the frontier districts west of the Indus (Strabo 'We can accept neither the discussion of these events by Hogarth, "The Deification of Alexander the Great," in the English Historical Review, u. (1887) (cf. E. Meyer, Kleine Schriften i. 330) nor the article of W. Tarn, "Alexander's inropYliar ma and the World-Kingdom" Journ. of Hellenic Studies, XLI. 1921, who tries to prove that the account of Diodorus 18, 4 H. about Alexander's plans and their cessa tion by the army after his death is not taken from Hieronymus of Cardia and is quite untrustworthy.
xv. 689-724) receiving as compensation 500 elephants, with other presents (Appian, Syr. 55; Justin xv. 4; Plut. Alex. 62; Athen. i. 18 D.). His next expedition was to the west to assist Lysimachus, Ptolemy and Cassander in the overthrow of Antigonus.
The battle of Ipsus, in 301, gave him Syria and the east of Asia Minor ; and from then he resided at the Syrian town of Antiochia on the Orontes. Shortly afterwards he handed over the provinces east of the Euphrates to his son Antiochus, who, in the following years, till 282, exercised in the East a very energetic and beneficial activity, which continued the work of his father and gave the new empire and the Oriental Hellenistic civilization their form. In his campaigns Alexander had founded several cities in Bactria, Sog diana and India, in which he settled his veterans, and before his death he had begun or planned the foundation of Greek cities in Media and other parts of Iran. These plans were now executed
by the Seleucids on the largest scale. Most of the new cities were based on older settlements; but the essential point is, that they were peopled by Greek and Macedonian colonists, and enjoyed civic independence with laws, officials, councils and assemblies of their own; in other words, an autonomous communal constitution, under the suzerainty of the empire. A portion, moreover, of the surrounding land was assigned to them. Thus a great number of the country districts—the gthin above mentioned—were trans formed into municipal corporations, and thereby withdrawn from the immediate government of the king and his officials (satraps or strategi), though still subject to their control, except in the cases where they received unconditional freedom and so ranked as "confederates." The native population of these villages and rural districts, at first, had no civic rights, but were governed by the foreign settlers. Soon, however, the two elements began to coalesce ; in the Seleucid empire, the process seems generally to have been both rapid and complete. Thus the cities became the main factors in the diffusion of Hellenism, the Greek language and the Greek civilization over all Asia as far as the Indus. At the same time they were the centres of commerce and industrial life : and this, in conjunction with the royal favour, and the privileges accorded them, continually drew new settlers (especially Jews), and many of them developed into great and flourishing towns (see further under HELLENISM) (cf. Eduard Meyer, Bliite and Niedergang des Hellenismus in Asien, 1925).
Shortly after his conquest of Babylonia, Seleucus had founded a new capital, Seleucia (q.v.), on the Tigris: his intention being at once to displace the ancient Babylon from its former central position, and to replace it by a Greek city. This was followed by a series of other foundations in Mesopotamia, Babylonia and Susi ana (Elam). "Media," says Polybius (x. 27), "was encircled by a sequence of Greek towns, designed as a barrier against the bar barians." Among those mentioned are: Rhagae (Rai), which Seleucus metamorphosed into a Hellenic city, Europus, Laodiceia, Apamea and Heraclea (Strabo xi. 525; Plin. vi. 43 : cf. MEDIA). To these must be added Achaea in Parthia, and, farther to the east, Alexandria Anion in Aria the modern Herat : also Antiochia Mar giana (Strabo xi. 514, 516; Plin. 46, 93), now Merv, and many others; further, Alexandria in Arachosia, near Kandahar, and the towns founded by Alexander on the Hindu-Kush and in Sogdiana. Thus an active Hellenic life soon arose in the East ; and Greek settlers must have come in numbers and founded new cities which afterwards formed the basis of the Graeco-Bactrian kingdom. Antiochus's general Demodamas crossed the Iaxartes and set up an altar to the Didymaean Apollo (Plin. vi. 49). Another general, Patrocles, took up the investigation of the Caspian, already begun by Alexander. In contrast with the better knowledge of an older period, he came to the conclusion that the Caspian was connected with the ocean, and that it was possible to reach India on ship board by that route (Strabo ii. 74, xi. 518; Plin. vi. 38). A project of Seleucus to connect the Caspian with the Sea of Azov by means of a canal is mentioned by Plin. (vi. 31). To Patrocles is due the information that an active commerce in Indian wares was carried on with the shores of the Black sea, via the Caspian (Strabo xi. 509).