Benefactors, Kings, Rulers

Studies on the Seleukid Empire between East and West

By (author) D. Engels

Book cover: Benefactors, Kings, Rulers

Extent: 617 pages

Publisher: Peeters Publishers

Subjects: Ancient Near East, Classical Studies

Series: Studia Hellenistica

Series volume number: 57

Language: English

Paperback (Published)

(July 2017)

ISBN: 9789042933279

Price: $138.00

Out of stock

The present volume unites a series of critical studies devoted to the political, institutional and ideological construction of the Seleukid empire, with particular focus on the complex interplay between the Seleukids’ Greco-Macedonian background and their Achaimenid heritage. In order to explore whether, and the extent to which, the Seleukids can be considered heirs to the Achaimenids and precursors of the Parthians, and to what extent they simply ‘imported’ cultural and political behavioural patterns developed in Greece and Macedonia, the studies united here adopt a decidedly interdisciplinary and diachronic approach. They investigate diverse fields, including the construction of the Seleukid royal court; the title of ‘Great King’; the prosopography of early Seleukid Iran; the integration of the ‘Upper Satrapies’ into the new Seleukid empire; the continued importance of the Iranian religions under the early Seleukids; the reign of the Persian Frataraka; the ‘feudalisation’ of the Seleukid empire under Antiochos III; the construction of a Hellenistic gymnasion in Seleukid Jerusalem; the importance of the Seleukid kingdom as model for Eunous’ Sicilian slave-state; the evolution of the Syrian civic elite; and the potential influence of Seleukos’ royal propaganda on the religious self-legitimation of Augustus. Finally a general comparison is proposed between the Seleukid empire and 19th century European colonialism.

  • By (author) D. Engels

"Engel's comprehensive approach is a welcome complement to the dominating trend in current scholarship of studies focusing on single aspects in the history of a geographically delimited constituent area of the vast Hellenistic (or Roman, for that matter) Empires." --Reinhard Pirngruber, Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2018.08.18
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