in sculpture, painting, architecture, town planning, coinage, and seals, some recent scholars have begun to speak of a pre-Alexandrine oikumene during the fourth century in western portions of the Persian empire (e.g., Hornblower 1982; 1983; Elayi 1980; 1988; Leith 1997; Boardman 1999; 2000). In short, Alexander’s conquest should be discontinued as a benchmark to establish a terminus ante quem for the composition of the Chronicler’s work. Ironically, jettisoning this criterion does not entail that