Seleucide
a dynasty of kings who succeeded to that portion of the empire of Alexander the Great which embraced the Asiatic provinces, and is generally known as Syria. SELEUCUS I., surnamed Nicator, the founder of the line, born about 358 B. c., was a general of Alexander the Great, shortly after whose shortly afte after whose of Babylon. Subsequently Antigonus death (323 B. c.) he obtained the satrapy forced him to withdraw into Egypt (316 B. C.), but having induced Ptolemy, the governor of Egypt, along with Lysimachus and Cassander, to take the field against Antigonus, he was enabled to re turn to Babylon in 312 B. C. He grad ually extended his possessions from the Euphrates to the Indus, assumed the title of king in 306, and latterly acquired Syria and the whole of Asia Minor, but was assassinated in 280 B. C. He is said to have been the most upright of Alexander's successors, and was the founder SELF-DENYING ORDINANCE of Antioch and other cities. He was succeeded by his son Antiochus I. and by a number of monarchs of the name of Seleucus and Antiochus, the most distinguished being Antiochus the Great. The power of the Seleucidæ began to decline as early as the reign of Seleucus II. (246- 226 B. c.), and they successively lost, through revolts and otherwise, Bactria, Parthia, Armenia, Judea, etc., and what subsequently remained was converted into a Roman province in 65 B. C. See AN- TIOCHUS. a