City
Seleucia
~ Bagdad
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At Seleucia the road on the map forks, one branch heading for Babylon, the other towards Ecbatana. The city lay on the right bank of the Tigris, opposite Ctesiphon and close to modern Baghdad in Iraq. It took its name from Seleucus Nicator, who founded or enlarged it, as the Roman writer Pliny says, to flourish at Babylon's expense. A great canal carrying Euphrates water into the Tigris linked it to the major trade routes, and its walls were said to spread like an eagle's wings. Trajan and later Lucius Verus destroyed it, and the emperor Julian found only a marsh.