In Syria Seleucus tried to follow the example of Alexander and in this he was the most successful of all the generals. Owing to the twenty years of war among the successors, Seleucus could not in the early years of his reign devote time to develop his high purposes. He restored the ancient culture of Babylonia, although at one time Antigonus had almost ruined the town of Babylon and the population had fled to the adjourning country. He fulfilled the promise of Alexander to rebuild the temple of E-Sagila; the work was completed by his son, Antiochus I. When Babylon once more become powerful and prosperous the great temple again laid in ruins by the Parthian conquerors. Today neither town nor temple can be traced; excavators seek for their remains beneath mounds of sand and earth.

On the Tigris Seleucus made Seleucia his capital; there it was conveniently situated for the ever-increasing volume of trade between the East and West which followed the sea route first navigated by Nearchus. When inland communication was interrupted, the ocean became, as Alexander had foreseen, the chief path from the Indus to the Persian Gulf. The country around Seleucia was fertile, owing to the alluvial deposit from two great rivers, the Euphrates and the Tigris, and the good system of irrigation. Seleucus founded many cities on the Greek pattern, and his example was continued by his son and grandson. When settlers from Macedonia and Greece came to new cities, Hellenism in Asia extended to northern Syria, Mesopotamia, eastern Persia, and Asia Minor.

By the intermarriage of Europeans and Orientals the age-long distinction of Greek and "barbarian" was broken down. Seleucus was the general who retained the Oriental wife chosen for him by Alexander at the wedding feast in Susa; as a daughter of Spitamenes, the Sogdian chief, she had been educated with the family of Darius and given a sound knowledge of the Greek language and culture. With such an advantage she would be a true companion to her husband. Her son, Antiochus I, carried on the extension of Hellenism throughout his empire.

Seleucus had none of the monopolies which were the King's privilege in Egypt; as he had a legal right to only one-tenth of the harvest, in a bad year losses did not, as under Ptolemy, fall upon the peasant alone. In Asia Seleucus could not centralize the government as was possible in the compact land of Egypt, which had one people and natural defensive borders. Persia had many races, traditions, and religious beliefs; in its mountain regions there was ever-recurring danger; the valleys and gorges invited the unruly spirits of every new generation to return to their primitive habits as roving nomads and bandits. The complications in Asia which Alexander had experienced in administration are thus summarized by Tarn: "In Egypt Alexander was an autocrat and a god. In Asia, he was an autocrat and not a god. In old Greece he was a god, and not an autocrat. In Macedonia he was neither an autocrat nor god, but a quasi-constitutional King over whom his people enjoyed certain customary rights. The Phoenician Kings were subject allies; the Cyprian Kings were free allies, who coined gold, the token of independence. To the Iranian landowners he was feudal superior." Although his empire was less extensive than that of Alexander, Seleucus was faced with similar difficulties; the civilian government of the separate cities was so complicated that books have been written on that subject alone.

During the war of the successors Seleucus could not attend to the troubles brewing in the Punjab when Chandragupta rose to power and drove out the Macedonian garrisons. This great Indian King had met Alexander and learned from him the advantage of a well-trained army. But he had no use for Hellenic culture; it could not be combined with his aims for northern India. He overran the whole country from the Bay of Bengal to the Arabian Sea; his Mauryian empire was all-powerful from 321-296 BC. When at length Seleucus turned his attention to the Punjab it was too late to do other than come to friendly terms with Chandragupta. He ceded to the Indian sovereign the land of the Gandhara, from the Cophen to the Indus; its inhabitants, the "kingless people", had always fiercely resisted Alexander. Some years later Chandragupta sent 500 elephants to Seleucus to aid him in the coalition against Antigonus when claiming to be Head of Alexander's empire.

Chandragupta's efficient but harsh methods of rule had led to recurring revolts. Taxtiles was deposed because of his sympathy with Hellenism and preference for Persian and Greek culture. A great change came about when Asoka, the grandson of Chandragupta, becoming converted to Buddhism, decided to forego the use of force and to unite his peoples in bonds of love and friendship; the success of his missionary zeal is evidenced in the still existing remains of Buddhist temples, statues, and monasteries in Gandhara and Kashmir.

Some have said that the effect of Alexander's invasion of the Punjab vanished within seven years of his death. The two cities of the Indus soon disappeared; but the influence of Alexander's transit was enduring. With clear insight he had realized from association with Indian princes, rajahs, and ascetics that Hellenic culture could have no permanent place in a country of disconnected states, some highly civilized, some comparatively primitive; they could not have been run into the mold of his complex empire. The recent excavations of Sir John Marshall prove that Hellenism left many traces; in Taxila, objects of Greek art were found which dated up to the fifth century AD.

As the centuries passed, the European settlers became influenced by the Oriental mode of life. For a time Hellenism revived when Demetrius of Bacteria, half Macedonian, half Greek, tried in 187 BC to reclaim the Indian empire of Alexander. He acquired more territory than Alexander, but he had not to meet the strong opposition overcome by his model. A gradual modification of the characters of the races was in part due to the climate of India, Persia, and Egypt. By the second century, said Livy, the Macedonians who dwelt in Alexandria, Seleucia, and Babylon had grown to be Egyptians, Syrians, and Parthians.

Seleucus, like Alexander, permitted freedom to practice any form of religion. In that sphere of thought the Greeks had always shown tolerance because they considered that the deities of Nature were the same all the world over, however their names might vary. But the Orientals could not reconcile Greek gods and goddesses with their own religious beliefs. Gradually the Pagan religion became blended with that in the East; in some regions Greek statues shed the refinement, restraint, and dignity of Greece and developed into coarse representations of fertility; but in other parts of India the Pagan deities acquired a spirituality foreign to their Greek counterparts. In Bacteria and in India some of the coarser Eastern statues took on the delicate charm of the Hellenic deities.

The town of Pergamum rose to prominence and exerted a strong Hellenising influence, preserving the pattern of the Greek city-state, with an Assembly, or Council, and annually elected officers. The chief ruler never interfered with the deliberations of the city, but remained in the background as a friend, ready to give advice when requested. As the Greek language came into general use, Hellenic and education came brought about a civilized influence. Much of the New Testament bears evidence of contact with Greek thought. As Greek philosophy and science were studied and translated by the Arabs, the teaching of Aristotle had a predominating influence for many centuries throughout the whole of Europe.

In the coarse of time Rome, unable to prevent recurrence of civil war in Greece and Macedonia, conquered both countries, gathered much from their culture, adopted many of the Greek deities and studied her philosophers. But the expansion of Rome belongs to another story. Within 140 years of the day when Philip had been elected Head of the League of Corinth the Macedonians had forgotten all the lessons of warfare introduced by him and his son, and were forbidden by their Roman conquerors to venture beyond their own borders. Their soldiers had become demoralized, fighting only as mercenaries for any master, Greek or foreign, and practicing brutal cruelties such as in foreign days had been perpetrated only by Oriental warriors.

Yet, by a strange turn of the wheel of Fortune, Hannibal, who was acquainted with the Greek language, studied the methods of war introduced by Alexander, and thus it happened that he taught the military art to the Romans. And long centuries later, Napoleon also devoted much time to analyzing the uninterrupted successes of Alexander, and acknowledged the debt which he owed to his great predecessor.

When Cassander died in 298 BC the propaganda of disparagement of Alexander, ordered by the man who had exterminated his family and secured his throne, was at last arrested. The new generation, who had heard nothing other than evil concerning the character and achievements of Alexander, were at length able to learn the truth about the greatest of their countrymen. Several great Romans showed a lively interest in the astonishing career of the conqueror of Asia; Julius Caesar, the Emperors Trajan and Augustus longed to emulate his exploits. Caesar was assassinated. Trajan looked at the sea and concluded that he was not young enough to embark on such a journey to the Far East, but he visited Babylon and paid tribute to the genius of Alexander by sacrificing to his memory in the chamber of the palace where he had died. Augustus was the first to bestow upon Alexander the title of "The Great"; he placed the effigy of the Macedonian upon his signet ring and made the decision to try to copy his example in the government of his immense empire. He succeeded in founding a form of policy which ensured a peace which lasted for two centuries.

The latest edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica has a remarkable tribute: