Hellenistic Portraits, McFadden 1951George H. McFadden

49. Seleucus (Seleukos) I. Nikator (Nikator), about 358/4-281/0 B.C.: ruled as satrap from 321, oriental king from 312. Greek king from 306/5. Pl. XCV.

1 Seleucus, born at Europus in Macedonia, the son of Antiochus and Laodice, was of about the same age as Alexander the Great, whom he followed to Asia. He distinguished himself in the battle with the elephants of Porus in India. At the great marriage feast at Susa in 324 he married Apame, the daughter of the great baron Spitamenes of Bactria and Sogdiana. In contrast to most other officers, he did not repudiate his Asiatic wife after Alexander's death, and thus Apame became the ancestress of the house of the Seleucides and even of Cleopatra VII (No. 65).

After the death of Alexander, Seleucus received the satrapy of Babylonia. He won the affection of his subjects, and his army esteemed him and obeyed him gladly. In the wars of the diadochs he defeated Demetrius in 312, Antigonus in 301, and Lysimachus in 281. He built many Macedonian and Greek cities and connected them with roads, which were made safe by means of forts. He became the mightiest and most noble among the diadochs and he possessed the largest empire, which extended from the Aegean Sea to Bactria and India, including Asia Minor, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Persia. He transferred the center of this empire from Seleucia on the Tigris to Antiochia on the Orontes, founded in 301/0. He decorated the new capital with artistic monuments, among them the Tyche of Antioch by Eutychides, the son of Lysippus. The sanctuary of Apollo at Didyma near Miletus received not only many golden and silver works of art.