ABSTRACT

The Seleukids were a Macedonian dynasty that gained control of most of Alexander the Great’s conquests after his death. From c. 306 to 164 BCE, the Seleukid Empire exerted a loose hegemony over Margiana, Bactria and Sogdiana. The impact of the empire was twofold. First, the Seleukid reorganization of Central Asia was the foundation upon which the kingdoms of the Euthydemids and their successors were built. Second, Seleukid imperialism integrated Central Asia into long-distance networks that connected it to the Mediterranean. The Hellenistic ‘Far East’ thus became fully engaged in a ‘globalizing’ Hellenistic koine of connected cities and societies.