Séleucie of the Tiger (in Greek old Σελεύκεια ) is a ruined ancient city located in Iraq at thirty-five kilometers approximately of Baghdad (). It was one of the largest cities of Mésopotamie at the end of the Antiquité, falling under the history between Babylon and Baghdad. Founded by the successor of Alexandre Large the, Séleucos I {{er}} Nicator, it quickly became very a big city and a shopping mall impossible to circumvent. After its passage in the empire of the Arsacides, it remained strongly marked by its Greek origins, which gave him a special place in the empire and which should not hide the very cosmopolitan character of the agglomeration. Often disputed by the Romans, the large city declined at the third century, competed with by the foundation close to Stage coach by the sovereigns Sassanides.

History

The large foundation of Séleucos I {{er}} Nicator

Séleucie was founded by Séleucos Ier Nicator, one of the large generals of Alexandre the Large one who disputed his empire after his death. Séleucos was at the origin of the royal dynasty of the Séleucides which reigned on the Eastern part of the empire of the large conqueror Macedonian and tried to preserve his capacity of Syria at India. The exact date of the foundation is disputed and dubious, and one can hesitate between -311 and -306. The foundation of new cities, urban centres of cities of the Greek type, is characteristic of the large sovereigns of the hellenistic time who took again the example of Alexandre thus. Consequently, and like Alexandre, the king founder gave his name to the city. Many reasons explain the foundation of Séleucie of the Tiger. Séleucos was to sit the legitimacy of its capacity and to affirm its recent royal statute - or its claims with the royalty. It was to also found a town of Greek type for the Greek population brought in Mésopotamie by the conquests of Alexandre. One needed also a dynamic city to take again the torch of a Babylon aged and perhaps less better located because of the divagation of the beds of the rivers. The creation of a new capital then seems to have dissatisfied the clergy of Babylon. Séleucie was located in a place favourable with the exchanges, on left bank of the Tigre towards its confluence with the Diyala river, at the beginning of the main roads towards the Iranian plate. Did one can however ask for why Séleucos rather prefer a capital located in Mésopotamie than an Iranian localization in the central territories of the old empire achéménide? Great richness of the area as well agricultural perhaps as commercial explains this choice, at all events Mésopotamie was very faithful to the dynasty thereafter.

There were however some unhappy episodes like the catch of the city by the Molon rebel in -222. According to Polybe, the city was then struck of a fine of 1.000 talents and its magistrates, the péliganes , were exiled. That enables us to note that the constitution of the city took as a starting point that of the other cities Macedonians. The king Antiochos III however reduced the repression carried out by his Herméias minister and brought back the fine to 150 talents.

However, the displacement of the center of preponderance of the empire séleucide towards the Mediterranean, or perhaps rather its ingérable gigantism made that Séleucie did not remain the single capital of an empire impossible to centralize and whose bipolarity continued very quickly. Séleucie de Piérie and Antioche in the long term constituted political centers impossible to circumvent and much closer to the Mediterranean. Séleucie remained however the large capital of the higher satrapies, i.e. is, where Séleucos had installed, towards -294, his/her son and Co-regent, Antiochos. This last undoubtedly resided often also at Bactres.

Séleucie found in this opening towards the Far East the occasion of particularly prosperous marketing activities; the city was a stage impossible to circumvent in the roads towards India, which they are maritime, by the Persian Gulf, or terrestrial, by the Iranian plate. Séleucie seems to reach the top of its prosperity in the middle of the hellenistic time. This apogee is noted in the ceramic production which then knows its more qualitative high level. This radiation was probably expressed in good of other fields and Séleucie seems to have been an important intellectual center as the name testifies some to the astronomer Séleucos de Séleucie. Lastly, to its population Séleucie also counted among more the big cities of the old world: at the time of Strabon, at the beginning of the Christian era, its power and its population were comparable with those of Alexandria and higher than those of Antioche: Pline Old the speaks about six hundred and thousand inhabitants.

A Greek city in the middle of the Parthian empire

The destiny of the city rocked with its conquest by the Parthes in -141. Weakened, divided, the empire séleucide had seen, in the satrapies is, a rival to emerge within the Iranian people with the dynasty of the Arsacides. It is in July -141 which the Parthian kingdom, directed by Mithridate I {{er}}, overflowing of the Iranian plate, definitively settled in Mésopotamie. The counter-offensive séleucide carried out by Démétrios II failed lamentably and it was made prisoner, perhaps had had time to again briefly occupy meanwhile its old capital of the east? From now on the kingdom of Parthes became really an empire, but Séleucie could not claim under capital any more. Arsacides could be however made accept Greek inhabitants of their empire and did not hesitate to adopt their values, or at least to use them in their monetary propaganda.

In spite of the presence at its sides, but on Right Bank of the Tiger, the official residence of the Parthian king with Ctésiphon, Séleucie thus preserved its prosperity under the empire arsacide. To the eyes of the Romans she recalled the size of the heirs to Alexandre and seemed a small island of hellenism in the Parthian empire considered to be barbarian. She is described as “the ostentatious work of Séleucus Nicator”, a “powerful city, surrounded by walls, which had not been contaminated by cruelty but preserved the print of its founder”. But as of the first century before our era its hellenism seems isolated and badly considered by the Greeks from Occident: the city lost its radiation.

The sovereigns parthes had however left in the city its institutions. It is true that they had readily shown philhellenes at the beginning of their dynasty. It is necessary as to think as the city was undoubtedly too prosperous and useful so that they take the risk to put it at back, its monetary workshop struck many currencies. The complexity of the political life of such a large Greek city undoubtedly enabled them also to control it indirectly, partly thanks to the support of part of the notable Greeks of the city if one believes Tacite of it: “Three hundred citizens are chosen, for their richness or their wisdom, and form a senate, the people has prerogatives which are clean for him. And as a long time as they are of agreement one does not take account of the Parthian one, but when they are in disagreement, each one seeking for itself a support against its rivals, one calls upon him to take party and its influence increases, vis-a-vis everyone”. On this occasion, Artaban, the Parthian sovereign, supported the notable ones vis-a-vis the people of the city and supported an oligarchical mode. Also sometimes the current dynastic crises in the empire arsacide made it possible the city to make pressure on the sovereign.

Finally Flavius Josèphe offers very an other glance to us on the political life of the city. In addition to the descendants of the Greek colonists, the city accommodated many inhabitants of various origins and thus a rather great number of Jews of the diaspora, whose presence in Mésopotamie was old. Séleucie is named besides in the Talmud where it is called Selik or Selika . Flavius Josèphe describes Séleucie like primarily characterized by an opposition between Greeks and Syrians, where the Greeks would have had the top until the alliance of the Syrians to the Jews. But finally, Greeks, Babylonians and Syrians ended up linking themselves and being turned over violently against the Jews until massacring them in 41. Up to what point this cultural categorization and religious fragment the social oppositions described by Tacit to the same time, one could not say it. But the image of a very large ancient city with the very particular character, and the tended political life, comes out from our sources: Greek city and cosmopolitan city in an Iranian empire, Séleucie was a large commercial metropolis in roads which led the merchants of Rome to China, an exceptional space of cultural mediation between the Occident and the East.

A stake of the wars between Parthes and Romains

Many causes thus determined Séleucie to be a strong stake between Parthes and Romains: the memory of Alexandre the Large one, richness of the city and its Greek identity, many wars between the two empires. The first confrontation about Séleucie goes back to the unhappy forwarding of Crassus which could never reach the big city that he coveted. According to Plutarque, the city was not very well laid out towards the Parthian capacity, and Suréna tried to consolidate its fidelity by exhibant the vices of the overcome Romans. Thereafter, Séleucie was taken several times by the Romans. It accommodated initially Trajan, then took part in rising against him in 116. To subdue its revolt, Trajan sent two legates it to take, sign of the importance of the city which would then have been burned. At all events, it is very large and very prosperous city which opened its doors later fifty years with the Roman troops of Avidius Cassius. This good agreement did not last and the city was plundered by the Roman soldiers who would have brought back the Peste antonine from there according to the ancient sources. The rapid withdrawal of Avidius Cassius in 165 - 166 is indeed often explained by the epidemic, but it was hardly beneficial to occupy a plundered and isolated city. Plundering did not prevent the city from still striking currency as of 166. Thirty years later, in 197 - 198, in fact the troops of Septime Sévère reached the city. They would have found given up it according to Dion Cassius. It acts there, undoubtedly, only of one exaggeration of the Greek historian anxious to denounce the rapacity of the Roman soldiers; he is not less clear than the city had suffered in 166 and than its decline accelerated. When Carus again carried out the Roman troops in the area, in 283, Séleucie on the other hand really had undoubtedly lost of its importance vis-a-vis a new urban foundation.

A prosperity eclipsed by a new royal foundation

Séleucie seems to have declined definitively under Sassanides after the foundation, towards 230 - 240, of the concurrent city close to Stage coach, whose ruins were confused a long time with those of Ctésiphon. It is old a catholicos nestorien (see Liste of the primacies of the Assyrian apostolic Church of the East). Founded by Ardachîr I {{er}}, Veh-Ardashir or Notches, Koké for the araméennes sources, was located on Right Bank vis-a-vis Séleucie. Of circular and irregular plan, the “beautiful town of Ardashir” contrasted with Séleucie but did not delay to eclipse it in all the fields before being in its turn given up after the Arab conquest. The proximity of Séleucie, Ctésiphon, the “Séleucie news” that was Coche/Veh-Ardashir and perhaps of other urban establishments like Vologesias , made that their exact identification was quickly forgotten after their abandonment. Also this zone marked by many ruins it was called thereafter Al-Madâ' in by the populations Arabic-speaking people, i.e. “the Cities”.

Town planning and monuments

Sources and excavations

Taking into account its importance, Séleucie of the Tiger is still badly known. Built primarily out of brick, material very érodable, Séleucie of the Tiger did not leave of ruin to the height of its last magnificence. Many passages of the old historians attest it however and the city or some of its buildings describes us. The archaeological excavations were relatively limited there and episodical; one can point out the excavations in the Années 1930 by the Université of Michigan which started in 1927, professors Leroy Waterman and Clark Hopkins the leader for the Kelsey Museum off Archeology . It allowed the description of the plan of the city, the establishment of the chronology of local ceramics by Nelson C. Debevoise and reflect in value the multiple cultural influences which met in Séleucie. From 1964 to 1989, the excavation campaigns were carried out by the university of Turin, under the direction of G. Gullini and A. Invernizzi. Covering nearly 500 hectares, the urban area of Séleucie only was hardly started.

A Greek city in regular plan

The city had a relatively quadrangular form, even if Pline wanted to recognize in the shape of its walls an eagle with the wide wings. The excavations confirmed that the city was organized according to an orthogonal plan organizing of the rectangular small islands of standardized size. The latter measured 500 feet by 250, that is to say approximately 144 meters by 72: they are among largest of the world hellenistic. Two broader axes crossed the city: a channel in the center and main street with gantry in the south. Two great places were identified, of which that of the theater, in the north of the channel. One of the small islands was completely excavated on the levels going back to times parthes by the team of the University of Michigan. The excavations revealed the progressive substitution of the Iwan to the gantries with columns, and thus the progressive iranisation of the domestic and urban framework. At the end of the first century of our era, Tacit, in its description of the city, insists on its ramparts and its situation: “solid city, protected well by defenses which formed the obstacle of the river and the ramparts and supplied well”.

The city undoubtedly counted many religious sanctuaries of which the important temple with Apollon Komaios which is mentioned by our ancient sources, on the occasion in particular of the catch of the city by Avidius Cassius when it was plundered and that its statue of worship was taken along to Rome. This Apollo seems to have been at the beginning the shape of the divinity honoured in Macedonia. It is not certain that the sanctuary of Apollo mentioned on the inscription of Héraclès is identifiable with the sanctuary of Komaios Apollo.

Several public buildings were released including one very large theater, out of brick, which opened in the south on a vast place, perhaps the agora of the city. A long building cash two rows of rooms bordered the place and accommodated the files of the city. Its fire towards -140 - -130, perhaps at the time of the catch of the city by Parthes, undoubtedly destroyed completely the files but preserved fragile the Sceau X of clay which accompanied them: approximately 30.000 were found, us informing about the types of documents which they sealed: relative texts with the taxation on salt, seals of individuals. Their style is also rich of teaching on the culture of the city: if the style and the iconography are often hellenistic, of the Babylonian or Persian influences are also detectable on many prints. Such a meeting of various cultural horizons can be also read in the many decorations of discovered stuccos with Séleucie. If the presence of reasons Greek and hellenistic characterizes them, their use and certain reasons (rivet washers) also return to the traditions and the techniques parthes. The discovery of Greek terra cotta statues or hones illustrates also the continuity of the hellenism with Séleucie.

Héraclès de Mésène found with Séleucie

The excavations of the Italian mission of Séleucie-Ctésiphon allowed the publication of a very beautiful statuette out of bronze representing Héraclès, fortuitously found in Séleucie and bought in 1984 by the museum of Iraq. The statuette, a copy of Héraclès of Lysippe, was offered by the large Parthian king Vologèse IV as spoils of war. As we learns it a gréco-Parthian bilingual inscription engraved on the statue, this one had been taken in the capital of the small kingdom of Mésène, with the outlet of the rivers, when it again passed under Parthian influence after the defeat of its king Méherdate (or Mérédatés) wire of Pacorus, vis-a-vis Vologèse IV in 150. Méherdate is known by its coining of 131 and 142 and was rather favorable to the Romans: the victory of Vologèse thus had an important direction for the return to a control arsacide on the totality of Mésopotamie. Such an amount of the place dedication of the statue that the use of the Greek show the respect that the sovereigns parthes still had for Séleucie on a late date. The publication of this inscription clarified one day new the relations romano-parthes at the second century by revealing at the same time the maintenance of an indirect Roman control - by princes customers - in Mésopotamie after Trajan and the swing of situation with the war carried out by Vologèse IV. The revelation of this conflict made also more coherent its action in Arménie in the years 160. The catch of Mésène however did not prevent the caravans from continuing to forward between the Persian Gulf and Palmyre.

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