Book contents
- The Cambridge Companion to the Ancient Greek Economy
- The Cambridge Companion to the Ancient Greek Economy
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Maps
- Notes on the Contributors
- Abbreviations
- Maps
- 1 Introduction
- Part I Diachronic Perspectives
- Part II Regional Perspectives
- 6 Asia Minor
- 7 Northern Greece and the Black Sea
- 8 Athens and the Aegean
- 9 Egypt and the Ptolemaic Empire
- 10 Hellenistic Babylonia
- Part III Structures and Processes
- Part IV Networks
- Part V Performance
- References
- Index
- Cambridge Companions to the Ancient World
10 - Hellenistic Babylonia
from Part II - Regional Perspectives
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 July 2022
- The Cambridge Companion to the Ancient Greek Economy
- The Cambridge Companion to the Ancient Greek Economy
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Maps
- Notes on the Contributors
- Abbreviations
- Maps
- 1 Introduction
- Part I Diachronic Perspectives
- Part II Regional Perspectives
- 6 Asia Minor
- 7 Northern Greece and the Black Sea
- 8 Athens and the Aegean
- 9 Egypt and the Ptolemaic Empire
- 10 Hellenistic Babylonia
- Part III Structures and Processes
- Part IV Networks
- Part V Performance
- References
- Index
- Cambridge Companions to the Ancient World
Summary
Babylonia held a crucial position in a network of overland and naval routes, connecting Arabia, India, and the Graeco-Bactrian empire with the Levant, Syria, and Anatolia via the Fertile Crescent in the west. This network enabled the royal administration to combine the functions of trade and communication with settlement politics, the melioration of agriculture, and the supply of war zones. In this latter role, the Babylonian economy might have played an important part in Seleucid warfare, despite Babylonians never being actively involved in military campaigns. A new Graeco-Babylonian elite with particular demands, the dynamic development of settlements, the network of trade routes, communication, mobility connecting the western parts of the empire in the Aegean with the east, and increased monetization may have provided the conditions for some economic growth in Hellenistic Babylonia. Nevertheless, Babylonia had already been a very productive and economically dynamic region in the Achaemenid period. There were certainly great continuities from the Persian and Seleucid empires, and one may wonder whether the efforts of the early Seleucid kings to improve lines of communication, temple economies, and monetary exchange aimed at regaining the levels of prosperity that had already been achieved before Alexander’s conquests.
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- The Cambridge Companion to the Ancient Greek Economy , pp. 139 - 150Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022