Hellenistic Kingship

This paper (in Dutch) places Alexander's universalism in the context of the tradition of universal empire that was current in the Ancient Near East. It is argued that Alexander's pothos, especially his urge to reach the edges of the earth and "to go where no man has gone before", was a Greco-Macedonian rendering of a rather genuine, and age-old, ideology of empire: the claim to world unity in a single, peaceful empire protected by a single benevolent emperor. Tarn may have been right after all when he postulated that Alexander aimed at creating a "Unity of Mankind", as this was indeed a central notion in the contemporaneous Macedonian ideology and propaganda of empire.

This paper analyzes the relation between the Numido-Mauretanian elites’ self-representation and various Mediterranean influences by discussing three theoretical models – ‘punicization’, ‘hellenization’ and ‘romanization’ – that keep recurring in scholarship on North Africa.
As elites constitute a catalyzing role in trans-cultural contacts, they particularly qualify as research objects in questions of acculturation. Numidian and Mauretanian aristocracies marked a special case of elites, as they incorporated heterogeneous external influences in their self-representation over a short time period. Archaeological evidence indicates that their self-image sensitively reacted to the Mediterranean world's changing power constellations. For instance, in 3rd and 2nd centuries BC the adoption of ‘Punic’ and ‘Hellenistic’ norms can be noticed in their architecture, coinage, sculpture, foreign and economic policy. From the 1st century BC onwards, they supplemented these modes of expression with Roman elements while carefully preserving local traditions.
Theories of ‘punicization’, ‘hellenization’ and ‘romanization’ often are cited in this context. However, they are problematic, since they ignore broad cultural alterations in such domains as language and religion. Furthermore, the misleading view that ethnical identity can be differentiated by ‘typical’ material, is still prevailing. Therefore, the relation of external influences and pre-existing cultural paradigms was usually presented as competing antagonism.
I maintain that these phenomena are more accurately described by ‘compatible actualization’, which was rendered possible by the elite’s intensive exchanges with Mediterranean-wide networks. The rapid and fundamental change of the Numido-Mauretanian elites’ self-image documents their high adaptability and far-reaching comprehension for current trends. Thus ‘compatible actualization’ tells us much about North Africa’s generally under-studied integration in pan-Mediterranean norms.

Now in paperback: https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-courts-and-elites-in-the-hellenistic-empires.html.

During the Hellenistic Period (c. 330-30 BCE), Alexander the Great and his successors reshaped their Persian and Greco-Macedonian legacies to create a new kind of rulership that was neither ‘western’ nor ‘eastern’ and would profoundly influence the later development of court culture and monarchy in both the Roman West and Iranian East. Courts and Elites in the Hellenistic Empires approaches the Argead, Seleucid, Ptolemaic, and Antigonid empires not as territorial states but as network polities based on personal relations converging at the respective dynastic courts. Drawing on the socio-political models of Norbert Elias and Charles Tilly, and covering topics such as palace architecture, royal women, court factions, and monarchical ritual, the book shows how the Hellenistic courts were instrumental in the integration of local elites in the empires, and the (re)distribution of power, wealth, and status. It analyses the competition among courtiers for royal favor and the, not always successful, attempts of the Hellenistic rulers to use these struggles to their own advantage.

This article examines how two dedications by Pyrrhos of Epeiros in 274 BC were carefully fashioned to suit local political and historical contexts, showing how Hellenistic rulers could adapt their self-presentation to local discourses of power even in regions that broadly shared their cultural backgrounds. It also discusses some implications for study of the Hellenistic Epeirote state.

This paper demonstrates that Demetrius Poliorcetes repeatedly scheduled to arrive in Athens during important religious festivals. The commemoration of these instances of kairos enshrined Demetrius in the calendars of the city and furthered his program of divine self-fashioning. The recognition that Demetrius and his Athenian partisans were attentive to timing helps to explain the nature of the divine honors the king received in Athens as well as his desire to be initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries in irregular fashion. When the relationship between city and king soured, timing was a central component of the effort to remove Deme-trius from the cults and calendars of Athens.

Il volume propone un quadro sintetico ma aggiornato delle forme del potere nel mondo greco tra iv e i secolo a.C., fra la tirannide e la nuova concezione di regalità introdotta da Alessandro Magno. La chiave di lettura è la reazione polemica o, spesso, intrisa d’ironia, satira e parodia, che queste suscitarono nella pubblicistica – coeva e non – e tra i sudditi. A tal proposito vengono individuati e discussi alcuni casi di studio particolarmente significativi: re munifici e tiranni spietati, regine virtuose e sovrane viziose riprendono vita in queste pagine, mostrando, tra scurrilità e raffinatezza, sbeffeggio e mito, la persistente attualità del loro volto.

An estimate is made of the capacity of the hinterland of Seleucia on the Tigris and Babylon to feed their inhabitants. The estimate is made on the basis of archaeological surveys, data concerning the Babylonian yields, the size of the cities and irrigated area, data concerning famines. The conclusion is that Seleucia and Babylon could be fed by their own hinterlands even if we accept the highest figures for the population of Seleucia (600,000).

Explores Aquinas’s attempt to show that kingship is both the best and safest form of government and the implications of his teachings for classical rationalism. Aquinas’s alternative to the Socratic tradition attempts to reorient the desire for honor that characterizes political life, away from the honors of politics, and toward the unlimited good of God. In doing so, Aquinas both attempts to remove the limits on the good allowed by a political life, and brings into question the claim that the life of philosophy is the best way of life.

Aquinas aims at overturning the ancient account that philosophers have the right to rule as kings, while at the same time exploring the ground for theologians to make this same claim.  De Regno thus preserves kingship as the best form of government, even as it restricts the purist form of this regime to matters of theology.  By having the reader compare his support for theological kingship with his prescription for a mixed regime in the political realm, Aquinas lays the ground for a fuller consideration of the relationship between classical rationalism, theology, and political life.

Il presente lavoro nasce dalla volontà di analizzare la morte dei protagonisti delle Vite parallele di Plutarco. Si tratta di una ricerca sul comportamento tenuto dagli eroi di fronte al destino ineluttabile che caratterizza ogni essere vivente, il fatto di essere mortale. Mi sono proposto di esaminare minuziosamente la fine dei personaggi principali dell’opera plutarchea e di verificare e confrontare l’atteggiamento di Eumene di Cardia, Demetrio Poliorcete, Pirro ed Alessandro Magno di fronte alla morte, con l’obiettivo di trovare i legami e gli elementi comuni tra l’ultimo attimo della vita di un essere umano e l’intero corso della sua esistenza. Per ogni eroe, dapprima ho ripreso l’intera vita ed in seguito ho analizzato la sua fine, confrontando il testo plutarcheo con gli altri autori antichi, cercando di approfondire e verificare le premesse e gli eventi che condussero alla morte i protagonisti di ciascuna biografia.
Dallo studio delle suddette Vite parallele, emerge il biasimo di Plutarco nei confronti dei re ellenistici soprattutto nel giudizio conclusivo e complessivo dell’eroe, che al momento ultimo della sua vita appare una patetica controfigura rispetto agli altri protagonisti delle biografie plutarchee.
Alessandro Magno, modello ed eroe per i re ellenistici, che cercheranno di calcare le sue orme nel corso della loro vita, finendo però per assimilare per lo più gli aspetti negativi del figlio di Filippo II, rientra infine nella mia analisi, poiché anch’egli nella morte palesa infine gli stessi atteggiamenti di Eumene di Cardia, Demetrio Poliorcete e Pirro.

Throughout history, the Seleucid military might demonstrated
many times its importance for the maintenance, expansion and defense of the Empire. Rarely the Seleucid army was defeated in a campaign and it happened in front of the almighty Rome. After the defeat at Thermopylae and Magnesia, and following the imminent withdrawal must conquer the Ptolemaic Empire, the new king Antiochus IV Epiphanes held a military parade as never been done before, its real purpose is unknown, but the Seleucids showed the world the power that still had the Empire. Through the stories of several classic sources, we can come closer to this event and what
it could entail.

R. Strootman, ‘The Great Kings of Asia: Universalistic titulature in the Seleukid and post-Seleukid East’, forthcoming in: R. Oetjen and F. X. Ryan eds., Seleukeia: Studies in Seleucid History, Archaeology and Numismatics in Honor of Getzel M. Cohen (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2019 [in press]).

In the third century BCE, the Ptolemaic imperial court at Alexandria was the unchallenged center of culture and learning of the Hellenistic world. Backed by the vast wealth and prestige of the Ptolemies, the city of Alexandria became the symbolic capital of the world (pun intended). Third-century Alexandria was the main hub of a global imperial network stretching from the Indian Ocean to the Black Sea. Many poets, philosophers, inventors, geographers, and other men of letters migrated to that center to enjoy the generous patronage of the Ptolemies and to acquire prestige by being associated with the royal city.

The Hellenistic Age was a period of intensified globalization, and it was through the royal court that writers and scientists were able to gain access to the extensive elite networks that connected communities throughout the Mediterranean and beyond. Literary authors contributed to the growth of interconnectivity by creating a common ‘Hellenistic’ imperial culture and language, as well as through the expression of imperial themes in their work. Most notable among the latter was the idea that the civilized world was, or ought to be, a single peaceful oikoumene, of which Alexandria was the glorious, magnetic heart.

This paper traces the transformation of Spartan βασιλεία from constitutionally-bound office to autocratic rule, focusing on the reception of Hellenistic ideas surrounding βασιλεία by three Spartan kings of the Hellenistic period, Areus I (r. 309-265 BCE), Cleomenes III (r. 235-222 BCE), and Nabis (r. 207-192 BCE). The efforts made by these individual kings to assimilate themselves within the Hellenistic paradigm of monarchy shed light on the impact and reach of these new concepts of kingship and legitimate rule.

For more than a century, archaeologists have equated the city of Pergamon with the capital of the Attalid kingdom. In contrast, this article investigates the ‘dark side’ of power, providing for the first time an archaeological perspective on the Pergamon of a broader citizenry and the manifestations of civic life within the urban space of the royal city.
To the question of civic visibility, Hellenistic honorific decrees present the chief hermeneutic key. These texts describe, in abundant terms from the semantic field of 'φαίνεσθαι' (becoming manifest, shining forth) , the municipal honorific practice toward dynasts and local euergetes, as a pivotal means of communal self-appearance. The Ionic city of Priene, with its agora a monumental arena for the civic honorific habit, is an ideal setting in which to study the Hellenistic ethos to make the polis manifest, with deft configurations of architecture, statuary, and inscriptions.
For Pergamon, this article discusses three distinct forms of civic expression in the light of epigraphic and archaeological evidence: first, citizens’ munificence and the donation of public buildings; second, the honorific habit of the demos both toward the king's philoi and the royal house; third, the municipal ruler cult. The last part aims at mapping the civic sphere of Pergamon and examines the Upper Agora – the presumed core of the polis – with respect to its alleged civic character.
As a result we can establish, for the Pergamene demos, an extraordinary internal dynamic in the struggle for presence. Evidence confronts us with an almost complete "blank space" of civic initiative under the first two kings, Attalos I and Eumenes II, suggesting severe political constraints imposed on the Pergamene demos by the Attalids. Only in the final years of Attalid rule, the citizenry entered rather suddenly into direct honorific dialogue with King Attalos III, and in doing so, emerge into visibility with and ‘through’ the ruler.

The present paper intend to explore the way the new kingdoms born from the dissolution of the Greco-Macedonian powers east of the Tigris employed coinage in order to promote kingship ideology based on kinship and family relationships. At the same time, it will try to show the interplay as well as the differences between Greco-Macedonian and local cultures in using family as a propaganda tool.

R. Strootman, ‘Eunuchs, renegades and concubines: The “paradox of power” and the promotion of favorites in the Hellenistic empires’, in: A. Erskine, L. Llewellyn-Jones, and S. Wallace eds., The Hellenistic Court: Monarchic Power and Elite Society From Alexander to Cleopatra (Swansea: The Classical Press of Wales, 2017) 121–142.

The Ptolemaic dynasty of Hellenistic Egypt has a reputation more for opulence, or τρυφή, than for martial prowess. Athenaios, in his Deipnosophistae, could reliably dip into the Egyptian well for images of extravagance. For the Ptolemies, manifestations of wealth were performative politics, and enhanced the fortunes of their state. Ptolemy II Philadelphos was the most successful of the dynasty at converting wealth, through opulent display, into legitimacy and prestige, and was known as the most formidable, most lavish, and most magnificent of Hellenistic kings. His strategy worked well enough but marked a departure from traditionalist royal authority. His father and each of their contemporaries won acclamations from their soldiers on battlefields before their coronations or as confirmation to their accession. Philadelphos has thus gained a reputation as rather more a lover than a fighter, but a careful study of one of his most celebrated displays of wealth--the Grand Procession--not only helps date the event but also demonstrates the centrality of traditional, bellicose feats, particularly over the Galatian menace.

https://books.google.com/books?id=KEaEDwAAQBAJ
Full text available upon request.

From the conquests of Seleukos Nikator, Seleukid rulers presented themselves as heirs to the age-old Near Eastern ideal of universal monarchy. But since their power had started to decline in the 2nd century BC, new claims to 'Great Kingship' were made by the Parthian Arsakids, the Mithradatids of Pontos, the Ptolemies, and conspicuously by Antiochos I of Kommagene, whose house had been bound to the imperial centre by ties of intermarriage and kinship. The same Antiochos famously displayed his royal ancestors in the sanctuary on Nemrut Dağı. While such dynastic expressions are predominantly viewed as fictitious Persian revivalism, it will be argued that the idea of universal monarchy had always been pivotal to Seleukid rule and that with the demise of the Seleukid patriline new claims to empire were based on matrilineal descent. This was possible due to the importance of Seleukid women as transmitters of inheritance and royalty.

Overview of the function and development of royal courts in the Hellenistic kingdoms. The article describes the court as a social system, and analyzes its meaning as an instrument of imperial rule and locus for the redistribution of power and resources.

The article examines the question of who could potentially have used the seals with ruler portraits that are preserved in the form of many impressions from Hellenistic archive complexes. It focuses on finds from the archives of Uruk/ Orchoi and Seleucia on the Tigris that show portraits of Seleucid kings. It turns out that these impressions are most likely from ‘official’ seals, i. e. those used by officeholders. For Ptolemaic Egypt, from where numerous seal impressions with portraits of the Ptolemaic kings are known, especially in the case of the Archive of Nea Paphos, the question of who used such seals can be answered less clearly than for the Seleucid Empire. The distinction between ‘official’ and ‘private’ seals has been much discussed, however, without consensus. Methodologically, the present paper uses the quantitative analysis which offers the possibility to identify characteristics that allow to classify other seals regarding their ‘official’ character. Seals that can be called ‘official’ with certainty, because they carry an inscription naming the officeholder who used them, and seals with e.g., the Seleucid anchor that are known from literary sources to have been used in official contexts, are considered as the material basis to ask the following research questions: Who sealed with the portrait of the king and did this take place in an ‘official’ or ‘private’ context?

R. Strootman, ‘The coming of the Parthians: Crisis and resilience in Seleukid Iran in the reign of Seleukos II’, in: K. Erickson ed., The Seleukid Empire, 281–222 BC: War Within the Family (Swansea: Classical Press of Wales, 2018) 129–150.

I have noticed that this article is often interpreted as an argument against Parthian independence under Arsakes I and his immediate successors. That is not what I believe. I argue that in the later third century BCE, the Arsakid dynasty did become an independent polity but that it remained loosely integrated into a wider Seleukid imperial koine. I also argue that it is wrong to think of the Arsakid kingdom (or any ancient kingdom) as a sovereign territorial state comparable to the modern nation state, and that not every kingdom is also an empire. The Hellenistic ‘state’ system was hierarchical; it did not resemble the Westphalian chess board model. In other words, I argue not against Parthian independence but against the prevailing opinion among contemporary scholars that Parthian independence made the Arsakid royal dynasty the internationally recognized equal of the Seleukid imperial dynasty, and that Parthian independence immediately and irreversibly terminated Seleukid claims to imperial hegemony in the Upper Satrapies (Iran and Central Asia). There is evidence for an ongoing Seleukid presence in the Upper Satrapies until 148 BCE, while Arsakid coinage shows that an Arsakid empire was not established until after that date, when Mithradates I ‘the Great’, conquered western Iran and Babylonia, and appropriated Seleukid imperial titulature and imagery. I assume that during the decades preceding Mithradates’ conquest of Babylonia, Arsakids and Seleukids competed for hegemony in Iran: because premodern Eurasian empires usually are not bounded territorial ‘states’ but dynamic network polities aimed at accessing manpower and resources, it is perfectly possible that two (or more) empires simultaneously maintain networks of allegiance within the same region, in this case Iran. History rarely follows a clear-cut, unidirectional trajectory, and imperial histories in particular can be quite messy.

The Iconography of Macedonian queens from Macedon (5th and 4th century B.C.) to the Hellenistic kingdoms. Roots, associations, developments, later tradition. Hera the queen of Olymp, the representations of the Macedonian queens (Euridice, Olympias etc.) and the veiled brides (veiled peplophoroi), as useful iconographic tools that help to identify the statues of the Hellenistic queens.

Course Description: This course offers an introduction to the history of ancient Greece from the Bronze Age to the end of the Hellenistic Age (roughly the 16 th to the 1 st centuries BCE), drawing on both source materials and modern works. This is a student-driven seminar based on readings, presentations, and in-class discussions on the societal, religious, and political developments of the Greek world in antiquity. Students will become familiar with the Bronze, Archaic, Classical, Hellenistic, and early Roman periods of Greek history. The foundation of this course is the geopolitical history of the expanding Greek world; however, students also will engage the importance of ancient Greek culture, literature, religion, art, and gender roles. Through the investigation of texts, architecture, and archaeology, students will gain an appreciation of not just the ruling classes of the ancient Greek world, but also of the daily lives of normal Greeks and Hellenized native peoples. This will be a reading seminar course driven primarily by student participation. It will focus mostly on modern studies but also will feature a wide array of literary and archaeological source materials. Students will investigate historiographical arguments, lead class discussions, and prepare presentations.

This article argues for a parallelism between the figures of Aeolus in book one and Latinus in book seven of the Aeneid. The similarity lies in their shared inability to regulate the disorderly passions of their (potentially) disorderly subjects, a divergence from the Hellenistic ideal of the “good king” which constitutes, not the common antitype of the tyrant, but what I term the “weak king.” The parallelism is signalled by its place among the structural replications of book one in book seven, and especially by the reciprocal similes which compare Aeolus’ winds to rioters and Latinus’ rioters to winds. The relationship of these similes also encourages a partially allegorical interpretation of Aeolus as a figurative equivalent of the (more) literal Latinus. The differences between Aeolus’ active unleashing of disorder and Latinus’ passive capitulation to its independent outbreak further illuminate the complexities inherent in the figure of the weak king.

This article proposes a sustained politicized reading of the myth of Midas in Ovid's Metamorphoses. It argues that Midas stands, first, as the embodiment of failed, Hellenistic kingship, with its ostentatious display of wealth and heralding of a new Golden Age, and, second, as a warning against the infectious " love of gold " , to which Roman politicians are far from immune. While the capture of Silenus and the golden touch episode link Midas with the tropes of Hellenistic kingship, his involvement in the competition between Pan and Apollo raises questions about the tropes of Roman imperial power itself.

This article presents a reedition of the final columns of Philodemus’ On the Good King According to Homer (columns 95-98 = cols. 40-43 Dorandi). In the final column, an important programatic phrase of Philodemus’ in which he refers to his activity in the treatise as epanorthosis is evaluated at length, since the received reading from Olivieri’s 1909 edition is unsustainable. A brief introduction situates the treatise, dedicated to Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, as being most likely presented between 58 (after Piso had been assigned to his province) and mid-56.