Sonja Plischke’s Die Seleukiden und Iran is an attempt to study Seleucid empire building in Iran. In view of the fact that indigenous written sources from Iran are practically absent, Plischke decided to include Babylonia in this work, since the written cuneiform evidence from that region is fairly abundant. She detects some general tendencies—such as religious policy and the general wish to connect the different parts of the empire—supported by a personal conception of Seleucid kingship, beside more specific treatment of (...) different regions. In my view, the Seleucids probably did not pay sufficient attention to the East, so that their control weakened. I take the opportunity to discuss the Babylonian sources, correct errors in Plischke’s use of them, and adduce some new publications. (shrink)

The Astronomical Diaries are a unique corpus of documents from Babylon containing daily observations of celestial and terrestrial phenomena in the last half millennium before the Common Era. They provide direct information on how Babylonian scholars conducted scientific research and viewed political, economic, and religious events of their time—in other words, how they experienced their era. The book under review is a good introduction to this corpus.