The Seleucid Empire was a Hellenistic state in western Asia which existed from 312 BC to 63 BC, with Seleucia (and, after 240 BC, Antioch) serving as its capitals. It was founded by Alexander the Great's general Seleucus after Alexander's death in 323 BC, and it competed in the Wars of the Diadochi with Alexander's other successor kingdoms, especially Ptolemaic Egypt in the south. At the height of its power in 305 BC, the Seleucid Empire included Anatolia, Persia, the Levant, Mesopotamia, Afghanistan, and parts of Central Asia. The Seleucids maintained the preeminence of Greek customs where a Greek political elite dominated, mostly in the urban areas (reinforced by immigration from Greece), but Persian and Aramaic became common languages across the empire. In 305 BC, Seleucus was forced to cede vast territory west of the Indus River to the Mauryan ruler Chandragupta Maurya, surrendering the Hindu Kush, Afghanistan, and Baluchistan to the Indians. During the early 2nd century BC, a decisive defeat at the Battle of Magnesia at the hands of the Roman Republic also prevented Seleucid expansion into Anatolia and Greece. In 188 BC, the Seleucids relinquished their territorial claims west of the Taurus Mountains to Pergamon, and the Parthians under Mithridates I of Parthia conquered much of the Seleucid Empire's remaining eastern provinces in the mid-2nd century BC. The Seleucids continued to rule over a rump state in Syria from Antioch until King Tigranes the Great of Armenia established himself as the ruler of Syria in 83 BC. In 69 BC, the Roman defeat of Tigranes led to Antiochus XIII reigning over an unstable, restored rump state. The Roman general Pompey saw the Seleucids as too troublesome to maintain their independence, so he did away with the rival Seleucid princes and annexed their remaining lands as Roman Syria.
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