Σελεύκεια (Seleukeia) and Κτησιφων (Ktesiphon)

Σελεύκεια (Seleukeia), also called Seleuceia and Veh Ardashir¹, was on one side of the Dijlah (Tigris) River while Κτησιφων (Ktesiphon), also called Ctesiphon, and previously called Θησιφων (Thesiphon), and in Middle Persian tranliterated as Tyspwn, was on the other bank. Seleukeia was the older city, being the fourth largest in the world in the year 200 BCE,², when it was within Arche Seleukeia, and the third largest in 100 CE, when it was a capital of the Arsakou Basileos-Basileonate (Arsacid Empire or Parthia).³ Ktesiphon overtook it by 361 CE, when it was a capital of Eranshahr, becoming the second largest city in the world⁴, a position it retained in 500 CE⁵. From 570 until 637 Ktesiphon became the largest city in the world⁶. The two cities's fates declined in the seventh and disappeared in the eighth century.⁷

External References

remains of a palace in Seleukeia (Seleuceia)
colossal arch of the great banqueting-hall of the great palace of Sapor

Footnotes

1. The Middle Persian form is not fully known. Ardashir would be ArtaxšaØra.
2. Tables of the World's Largest Cities, "200 B.C." table, in Tertius Chandler, Four Thousand Years of Urban Growth, 2nd ed. (The Edwin Mellen Press, 1987). It was the largest city in what is now Iraq. Estimate 200 thousand.
3. Tables of the World's Largest Cities, "100 A.D." table, in ibid. It was again the largest city in what is now Iraq. Estimate: 250 thousand.
4. Tables of the World's Largest Cities, "361" table, in ibid. It was the largest city in what is now Iraq. Estimate: 250 thousand.
5. Tables of the World's Largest Cities, "500" table, in ibid. It was again the largest city in what is now Iraq. Estimate: 400 thousand.
6. "Cities that can have been the largest", in ibid.. Estimate: 500 thousand.
7. Seleukeia-Ktesiphon was the sea of a synod in the fifth century (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seleucia, accessed 4/24/2010). The same source mentions Ktesiphon's later fate.