06-26-2008, 07:27 PM
For those stumbling into this thread: Amelie Kuhrt and Susan Sherwin-White's From Samarkhand to Sardis: A New Approach to the Seleucid Empire is one best books ever written on the subject. If you start Seleucid research, this book is the place to start.
One of the nicest things about Seleucid studies is the growing corpus of non-Greek sources; my friend Bert van der Spek is (together with Irving Finkel) preparing a book on what they call the Babylonian Chronicles of the Hellenistic Period. So far, about twenty Hellenistic chronocles have been identified in the archive of the British Museum, where about 100,000 cuneiform tablets are waiting to be studied. I had the honor to make the online publications of BCHP (and I added translations of all other Mesopotamian chronicles). Those online pages are used by specialists in cuneiform texts to discuss the new discoveries. You can find it here; suggestions are welcome.
For us RATs, the Invasion of Ptolemy III chronicle is probably the most interesting, as it proves that the Ptolemaic army captured Babylon during the Third Syrian War.
My personal favorite is the Alexander Chronicle (easy version), which mentions the fall of Darius, the rise of Bessus, and what appears to be the Philotas affair.
One of the nicest things about Seleucid studies is the growing corpus of non-Greek sources; my friend Bert van der Spek is (together with Irving Finkel) preparing a book on what they call the Babylonian Chronicles of the Hellenistic Period. So far, about twenty Hellenistic chronocles have been identified in the archive of the British Museum, where about 100,000 cuneiform tablets are waiting to be studied. I had the honor to make the online publications of BCHP (and I added translations of all other Mesopotamian chronicles). Those online pages are used by specialists in cuneiform texts to discuss the new discoveries. You can find it here; suggestions are welcome.
For us RATs, the Invasion of Ptolemy III chronicle is probably the most interesting, as it proves that the Ptolemaic army captured Babylon during the Third Syrian War.
My personal favorite is the Alexander Chronicle (easy version), which mentions the fall of Darius, the rise of Bessus, and what appears to be the Philotas affair.
