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From Samarkhand to Sardis: A New Approach to the Seleucid Empire (Hellenistic Culture & Society)

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This treatise on the Seleucid empire along with other works by the authors are the only major studies done on this subject in over 50 years. Despite its poor editing, this book brings together more recent discoveries and theories as to the formation, administration, expansion, and cultural impact of the Seleucid empire in the Middle East, India, and Central Asia.

Out of the three dynasties that inherited Alexander The Great's vast empire, the Seleucid Empire has been studied the least and brushed off as a sickly empire that was doomed to collapse from its inception despite being the largest and richest of those three. The reason for this conclusion wasn't based so much on historical evidence but the lack of it. Susan Sherwin-White and Amelie Kurt present their own alternative theories about the evolution of the Seleucid empire in an attempt to dispel such misconceptions. They argue that the empire was not one of colonial dominance and segregation but rather one of integration and tolerance as originally envisioned by Alexander The Great. They argue that the vastness of the empire and the diversity of cultures simply made it impossible for the Greeks to hold it for over 200 years by policies of force, colonization and segregation. They support these theories by referring to direct classical sources, later classical texts, and archeological information. This book is a major contribution to the study of the Seleucids as previous scholars such as Tarn simply didn't have the knowledge of the major archeological finds that were uncovered after he published his works in the mid-twentieth century.

I strongly recommend this book to anyone who is seriously in need of important and recent information on the Seleucid empire. Other sources like Tarn are simply too old and limited in their source materials to provide a thorough analysis of this neglected subject. The book is extremely hard to find, trust me, as I had to inquire for over a year with almost every vendor in the world only to find that none of them had it available. Amazon, and Alibris seem to be the ones that are most likely to have a copy available from time to time. If you want to get this work, I recommend you get it as soon as it becomes available because there are few copies out there. It's possible that another edition is on the way but that may be long in the future if ever at all. As a last note, the book is not suited for the casual reader as its jacket claims; one would at least need to have a thorough background on Alexander The Great if not Persian and Greek history. The book is also expensive at $100-$150 and not really in the price range of someone who only has a limited interest in the subject. A very good book to go with this one is A. K. Narain's 'Coin Types of the Indo-Greek Kings" that focuses on the Seleucid kingdoms of the Indus valley and Bactria: its several studies focus primarily on numismatic evidence along with archeological and literary sources. The works and theories of the authors as to the development and administration of the Seleucid kingdoms complement each other and therefore make a great pair of books to own.