Seleucus Nicator established the GrecoBactrian empire and continued the intercourse with India.
The founder Seleucus (surnamed for later generations Nicator) was a Macedonian, the son of Antiochus, one of Philip's generals.
Nicator (first reign 145-140) was a mere boy,' and the misgovernment of his Cretan supporters led to the infant son of Alexander Balas, Antiochus Vi.
Among the travellers of whose information he was thus able to avail himself were Pytheas of Massilia, Patroclus, who had visited the Caspian (285-282 B.C.), Megasthenes, who visited Palibothra on the Ganges, as ambassador of Seleucus Nicator (302-291 B.C.), Timosthenus of Rhodes, the commander of the fleet of Ptolemy Philadelphus (284-246 B.C.) who wrote a treatise " On harbours," and Philo, who visited Meroe on the upper Nile.
Seleucus Nicator gave it a Macedonian name, Beroea; but Chalcis, some distance S., was the capital of the province, Chalcidice (later, Kinnasrin), in which it lay, and the centre of that hellenized region, now a.