The House of Seleucus, Vol. 1

Excerpt from The House of Seleucus, Vol. 1

I must acknowledge the friendly help given me by Mr. D. G. Hogarth, who was good enough to struggle with some of my ms. When it was in a desperately amorphous stage, and by Mr. G. F. Hill of the British Museum, by whose advice I have been guided in choosing the coins for the plates I owe to Mr. Hill also my knowledge of the superb bust which has furnished the frontispieces. I have had the advantage of discussing some numismatic questions with Mr. G. Macdonald of Glasgow, who will shortly publish im portant work on the Seleucid coinage (in vol. Iii. Of the Catalogue of Greek Coins in the Hunteriari Collection). My brother, Professor Ashley Bevan, has given me the benefit of his special knowledge in an attempt to write the Semitic and Persian names on an approximately uniform system.

It is tiresome that at this date it is still necessary to explain one's transcription of Greek. Oh the principle of not giving forms which no one could pronounce in ordinary con versation without pedantry - Seleukos, etc - I have in proper names followed the usage, consecrated by the English literary tradition, of writing the Latin form. In the case of words not proper names I have transliterated the Greek. Surnames of kings and gods are in a sort of intermediate category, and here I have been inconsistent. But it is inevitable that where two distinct systems are in use joins should appear.

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This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Excerpt from The House of Seleucus, Vol. 1 There is much to discourage an attempt to write a history of the Seleucid dynasty. It will be only too apparent how often the narrative must halt for deficiency of materials, how the picture must he disfigured by blanks just where they are most vexatious. I hope, however, that if the reading of this book makes these disabilities felt, the question prompted at the conclusion will be, not "Why has such an attempt been made?" but "How comes it that such a subject has been neglected so long?" If the book itself fails to make clear how closely the subject touches us, as students of the world, as Christians and as Englishmen, it would be absurd to think that a preface could do so. It is indeed surprising, defective though the materials are, that the Seleucid dynasty has not been made as a whole the subject of a special study since the Jesuit Frolich wrote his Annales compendiarii regum et rerum Syriae in the middle of the eighteenth century (1744). In recent times it has only been treated in works dealing with the "Hellenistic" epoch generally, or in catalogues of the Seleucid coinage, such as Mr. Percy Gardner's Coins of the Seleucid Kings of Syria in the British Museum (1878) and M. Ernest Babelon's Rois de Syrie, d'Armenie et de Commagene (Catalogue des monnaies grecques de la Bibliotheque National), Paris, 1890. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."

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