Elephants, Greeks, and Gold

Abstract

The Hellenistic period (323–31 BCE) was a time in which the worlds of the ancient Mediterranean and Western Asia became more systematically connected with the worlds of Central and Eastern Asia than they had ever previously been before. This chapter argues that these unprecedented levels of long-distance connections, recognizable today as Silk Road exchange, were primarily facilitated in the Hellenistic period by ancient empires. This facilitation was carried out most dramatically by the imperial initiative of the Seleucid empire and its activity in Western and Central Asia.