“ Commanding the plains of the Tigris and Euphrates and the principal caravan roads of Assyria and Babylonia, on the confines of which it was situated, and peopled by settlers from various countries of western Asia, it rapidly rose in wealth and splendor, and, eclipsing Babylon, became the capital of that part of Asia, till it was in its turn eclipsed by Ctesiphon, built by the Parthians on the opposite bank of the Tigris. The later wars of the Romans against that people proved destructive to Seleucia. ”