Seleucid-Mauryan War (305 BC): Chandragupta and Seleucus

The Seleucid-Mauryan War was a conflict fought around 305–303 BC between Seleucus I Nicator, the Macedonian ruler of Alexander the Great’s eastern conquests, and Chandragupta Maurya, founder of the Maurya Empire. Little is known about the fighting, but the peace treaty that ended it reshaped the map of South and Central Asia. Seleucus handed over his easternmost provinces in return for 500 war elephants, and the two rulers agreed a marriage alliance that began a long period of friendly diplomacy.

Background

After the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC, his generals fought for control of his empire in the Wars of the Diadochi. Seleucus, one of Alexander’s officers, became satrap of Babylonia, lost it to his rival Antigonus, and recaptured Babylon in 312 BC, the event later used to begin the Seleucid era.

Over the following years Seleucus fought his way east through Iran into Bactria, aiming to recover all of Alexander’s eastern lands. These included the Indian provinces along the Indus that Alexander had conquered in 327–325 BC.

In the meantime, India had changed. Chandragupta Maurya had overthrown the Nanda dynasty of Magadha around 322 BC and taken over the Punjab after the Macedonian garrisons withdrew. By the time Seleucus arrived, he faced not scattered governors but the ruler of a large and well-organised empire.

The two rulers

Seleucus was born around 358 BC in Macedonia and served under Alexander throughout his eastern campaigns. In India he commanded the royal shield-bearers, the elite infantry guard, and Arrian records his part in the Battle of the Hydaspes in 326 BC. He therefore knew the region and its war elephants at first hand. His later surname, Nicator, means “the Victor”.

Chandragupta was younger, probably born around 350–340 BC, and had built his power within India. Greek writers report that he had met Alexander as a young man, and his armies were said to be enormous. Plutarch credits him with 600,000 men, and Pliny gives a later Mauryan army of 600,000 infantry, 30,000 cavalry and 9,000 elephants. Even allowing for exaggeration, he commanded resources far larger than an expedition sent from Babylon over the mountains of Iran.

The war

Our sources for the war itself are extremely brief. The Greek historian Appian, writing in the 2nd century AD, says that Seleucus crossed the Indus and waged war on Sandrocottus, king of the Indians, until they came to an understanding and a marriage relationship. Justin, summarising the earlier historian Pompeius Trogus, mentions that Seleucus made a treaty with Sandrocottus before returning west to fight Antigonus.

No battle is described anywhere, and there is no Indian account of the war. Historians infer from the terms of the treaty that Chandragupta held the upper hand, or at least that Seleucus decided the eastern provinces were not worth a long war while his rivals threatened him in the west.

The treaty

The terms are known mainly from Strabo, writing around the turn of the era, and from Plutarch and Appian. Seleucus ceded to Chandragupta lands west of the Indus that the Greeks had considered part of their empire. Strabo names Arachosia, around modern Kandahar, Gedrosia, in modern Baluchistan, and the Paropamisadae, the region around Kabul. Some scholars think Aria, around Herat, was also included, but most now doubt it.

In return, Chandragupta gave Seleucus 500 war elephants. Plutarch, Strabo and other writers mention this figure. The agreement was sealed by a marriage pact, which Strabo calls epigamia, a right of intermarriage, and Appian a marriage connection. This may mean that a woman of Seleucus’s family married into the Maurya court, or that Greeks and Indians were allowed to intermarry. No name is recorded, and later stories that Chandragupta married a daughter of Seleucus are not found in the ancient sources.

Interpreting the outcome

Historians have read the treaty in different ways. Older scholarship often described a clear Mauryan victory in which Seleucus was forced to surrender territory. Others, including the historian John Grainger, see a negotiated deal in which Seleucus gave up distant provinces that he could not hold and had never really controlled, in return for something he badly needed.

Both readings agree on the strategic logic. By 302 BC, Seleucus had joined Cassander, Lysimachus and Ptolemy in a coalition against Antigonus, who dominated Asia Minor and Syria. A long war in India would have left Babylon exposed. Peace in the east, and a powerful force of elephants, allowed him to turn west at exactly the right moment.

For Chandragupta the gains were lasting. The new frontier gave the Maurya Empire control of the passes and trade routes between India, Iran and Central Asia, including the region of Kandahar, and made it the largest state yet seen in South Asia.

Elephants at Ipsus

The elephants mattered at once. In 301 BC Seleucus and his ally Lysimachus fought Antigonus and his son Demetrius at the Battle of Ipsus in Phrygia, in modern Turkey. Ancient writers credit Seleucus with between 400 and 480 elephants. Used to cut off Demetrius’s cavalry from the main battle, they helped secure a decisive victory in which Antigonus was killed.

The victory made Seleucus master of Syria and much of Anatolia, and the Seleucid Empire became the largest of the successor kingdoms. Elephants became a symbol of Seleucid power and appeared on their coins for generations.

Diplomacy after the war

The treaty opened a period of peaceful contact between the Seleucid and Mauryan states. Seleucus sent Megasthenes as ambassador to the Maurya capital at Pataliputra, where he wrote the Indica, the most detailed Greek account of India in antiquity. A later envoy, Deimachus, was sent to Chandragupta’s son Bindusara.

A story preserved by the Greek writer Athenaeus says that Bindusara asked Antiochus I, Seleucus’s son, to send him sweet wine, dried figs and a sophist, a Greek philosopher. Antiochus is said to have replied that he would send the figs and wine but that Greeks did not sell philosophers.

Mauryan rule west of the Indus is confirmed by archaeology. Under Chandragupta’s grandson Ashoka, inscriptions in Greek and Aramaic were set up at Kandahar in Afghanistan, showing that Arachosia remained part of the empire half a century after the treaty. Ashoka’s edicts also name Greek kings, including Antiochus II, to whom he sent envoys. Around 206 BC, Antiochus III renewed friendship with an Indian king named by Polybius as Sophagasenus and received more elephants, a sign that the relationship set up by the treaty still mattered a century later.

Timeline

• 323 BC: Death of Alexander the Great in Babylon.
• c. 322 BC: Chandragupta Maurya overthrows the Nandas.
• 312 BC: Seleucus recaptures Babylon.
• c. 305 BC: Seleucus crosses the Indus and fights Chandragupta.
• c. 303 BC: Treaty: territories ceded for 500 elephants and a marriage pact.
• c. 302 BC: Megasthenes is sent as ambassador to Pataliputra.
• 301 BC: Seleucus’s elephants help win the Battle of Ipsus.
• c. 260 BC: Ashoka’s Greek and Aramaic inscription is set up at Kandahar.

Why it matters

The Seleucid-Mauryan War fixed the frontier between the Hellenistic world and India for about a century and gave the Maurya Empire its greatest territorial extent. It also began a remarkable period of diplomatic and cultural exchange between Greek and Indian states, whose traces survive in Greek literature and in Ashoka’s bilingual inscriptions.