The Hellenistic Age is traditionally viewed and discussed as an epoch of unprecedented cultural exchange and socioeconomic entanglement.[1] As the world became smaller than ever before, kings and élites were afforded an increasingly broad spectrum of languages of power to assert themselves before their competitors, their supporters, and even posterity.[2] But did anything such as a model of Hellenistic kingship ever exist? To put it another way, how do we explain the uncanny similarities in the economic and military organization of the Successor kingdoms, or the ways these rulers asserted their claims to power, while also giving proper consideration to the different audiences of those assertions, their agency, and the ways in which different social groups, regimes of economic values, and even spiritual worlds, impressed themselves on the dynamics of the Hellenistic empires?
Resulting from an international conference held in March 2022 at the University of Münster (Germany), The Same, but Different? seeks to account for this apparent paradox of Hellenism by attempting a spatially and chronologically bold comparative study of Monarchical Rule and Representation across the Hellenistic world. As rightfully stressed in the concluding remarks by J. Wienand (pp. 647-660), the essays collected in the book approach the topic from three main angles.
First, they strive to assess Hellenistic rule across a wide(r) range of dynasties than is usually the case, and they consider a wider range of dynastic strategies. Thus they attend to the institutional and administrative aspects of Hellenistic (royal) power while also emphasizing the sociological aspect of kingship, or what may be called the strategies for validating, rather than simply legitimating power.[3] This two-pronged approach thus offers a comprehensive understanding of the mechanics of Hellenistic kingship upon which future scholarship can profitably build.
The second angle is the comparative gaze at the heart of the volume, which should be commended, as the contributions successfully examine how power and authority was defined, enacted, and contested across different monarchies. Complementing synchronic studies of competing royal houses (as in the case of Shane Wallace’s paper on the genesis and evolution of the epithet Great King), the diachronic perspective afforded by the comparative method provides a more granular understanding of “the diverse regimes, their interdependencies, and their distinctiveness over time” (Wienand, p. 648). Particularly inspiring in this sense is the chapter by Jordan Christoper. The author offers a sort of Parallel Lives of two post-imperial epochs – the aftermath of Alexander’s death down to Ipsos on the one hand, and the Qin-Han interregnum in China a century later – as well as of each epoch’s most towering figure, namely Antigonos Monophthalmos and Xiang Yu of Chu. Why, in the aftermath of a sudden collapse of what looked like the mightiest political formations of the respective sociocultural spheres, were the outcomes so different? The Achaemenid defeat resulted in a collapse of the imperial dream of unification “from the Mediterranean to the Indus” that lasted until the Islamic conquest, while in the other a new imperial dynasty – the Han – brought back and even further expanded “All Under Heaven.” As the author skillfully illustrates, the comparison is useful as it helps to question conventional views of the administrative as well as the ideological entrenchment of both the Makedonian and the Qin Empires across the lands they ruled. Thus, and counterintuitively, the lighter footprint often considered as a sign of Alexander’s failure at empire-building can be shown to have instead facilitated the acceptance of Makedonian rule by indigenous élites across the former Persian realm. By contrast, the famed Qin sociopolitical engineering and administrative ambitions apparently failed to supersede earlier clan loyalties and even geographical belonging. As such, in the Makedonian case, the ruling dynasty was challenged, and eventually destroyed, which allowed for a new wave of powerholders to slip into its role and build new political formations. As for the Qin, its bureaucratic structure “did not bind bureaucrats to local areas and populations” in a way that made it possible to erase the ancestral claims of “local rebelling nobility” (Christopher, p. 85). Furthermore, the comparison illuminates something important about the cultural premises of both societies, for Chinese élites refused any form of sustainable collective activity to preserve the Qin imperial structure, while the Makedonians accepted it – at least long enough to transform Alexander’s conquered empire into something more durable.
The third research axis of the book explores “the complex relations and interdependencies of global and local factors to shed light on the intricacies of monarchical rule” (Wienand, p. 648). This translocal approach is apparent in several contributions (from Stefan Pfeiffer’s investigation of the politics of memory under the Ptolemies to Alex Mcauley’s discussion of Pontic inter-dynastic marriages between Anatolian traditions, Iranian cultural and religious revival, and Makedonian, particularly Seleukid, use of royal women as agents of Empire). However, nowhere is the methodological toolkit of globalization theory more consequently and creatively leveraged to shed light on the dynamics and intricacies of Hellenistic strategies of sameness and differentiation as a means to express royal ambitions than in Milinda Hoo’s paper on translocal developments in Baktrian kingship. Weaving together the visual vocabulary of Far Eastern coins, the scanty epigraphic sources (on stone and parchment), as well as archaeological evidence – particularly from the sites of Āī Xānum (Eastern Baktria) and Takht-i Sangīn (Southern Tajikistan) – Hoo illustrates the ways in which Baktrian kings impressed their claims to rule (and divine sanction) upon the contested, hyper-agonistic, and heavily interconnected world of rival households from Syria to India and the steppes. From Diodotos I to Eukratides the Great, Baktrian (would-be) rulers built upon the legacy of the Achaemenids and their self-fashioning as victorious warring kings and creatively adapted it to the political landscape of Central Asia in the third and second centuries BC. Furthermore, the archaeological evidence at hand suggests that they tapped into the ideal of kingship as conducive to patronage of the arts and the civic body at large by investing heavily in sumptuous building programs, as their peers and rivals – from the Attalids to the Mauryas – also did. Over time, Hoo argues, as shown most clearly by their coinage, “the royal representations of the Baktrian kings progressively diversified” (p. 396) as the rulers appropriated divine features to impress themselves – all the more so as the competition around them grew harsher and their own dynastic claims were often dubious. Importantly, the evident local impact of such displays of power and exceptionalism should not be seen in opposition, but rather as co-constitutive of the global (Afro-Eurasian) resonance of Baktrian rulers’ self-fashioning. Baktrian kingship, in a word, was “inherently translocal in nature” (Hoo, p. 396), and the language of power it developed contributed to a shared discourse on monarchic rule across the former imperial space of the Achaemenids and Alexander, and arguably beyond. While Hoo’s arguments are compellingly crafted, her theoretical starting point (Baktrian kingship as fundamentally charismatic, according to the ideal-type of Max Weber, a shared trait of Hellenistic monarchies as such) may be questioned. As Noah Kaye demonstrates (pp. 513-555), other discursive and performative strategies were available, particularly so in the case of military defeat – which Baktrian kings experienced as any other dynasty. Perhaps more critically, Hoo’s model does not engage enough with recent anthropological models of kingship, which ought to be given more consideration in the (comparative) study of kingship and its entanglement with religious creeds across the ancient world.[4]
The volume is clearly organized and masterfully edited, with no typos of significance to be spotted. It showcases a thorough Index (persons, deities and mythological figures, places, and sources) and is graced by several maps and illustrations. It will no doubt offer scholars across the vibrant field of Hellenistic studies (and beyond) an inspiring resource for future work and discussion.
Authors and Titles
C. Michels. Introduction
Part 1: The Diadochi and the Third Century
The Formation Phase
S. Müller. Argead Representation and Its Impact
J. T. Christopher. Diadochi of the Qin. Early Hellenistic and Chu-Han Ruler Dynamics Compared
von den Hoff. Early Hellenistic Royal Portrait Concepts. “Zeitgesicht”, Difference and Civic Portraiture
The Royal Family and the Divine
G. Weber. Königliche Schutzgottheiten im frühen Hellenismus. „Konzepte“ und Umsetzungen
S. Pfeiffer. Eine prospektive Erinnerungsgemeinschaft. Dynastie und Genealogie in der Repräsentation der Ptolemaier
S. Richter. Zwischen West und Ost. Zur Konzeption von Herrschaft, Dynastie und Kult im Seleukidenreich
Themes and Contexts of Monarchuc Representation
Shane Wallace. Contesting Greatness. The Epithet Megas in the Hellenistic Courts
C. Michels. It’s All Greek to Me. Ethnicity, Culture, and Hellenistic Kingship
C. I. Chrysafis. Der hellenistische König als Friedenswächter. Untersuchungen der Bedeutung des Friedens in der hellenistischen monarchischen Ideologie aus transdynastischer Perspektive
Impact and Foreign Domination
H. Beck. King and Koinon. Ptolemaic Interactions with Greek Federalism (pp. 319-346)
L.-M. Günther. Hieron II und das „hellenistische Königtum“ im syurakusanisch-ostadriatischen Spannungsfeld
M. Hoo. The Power to Impress and Impressing to Power. Translocal Developments in Baktrian Kingship and Royal Representation in the Third and Second Centuries BC
Part 2. The Second and First Centuries
Comparing Themes and Structures of Representation and Communication
P. F. Mittag. Gleichungen mit vielen Unbekannten. Ptolemaiisches auf seleukidischen Münzen
G. Pasquariello. Victorious Kings. Royal Victories over Galatians and a “Multidimensional” Hellenistic Kingship
A. Mcauley. Imitagion and/or Innovation? Royal Incest and the Mithradatids of Pontos
B. Eckhardt. The King’s Men. Loyalist Associations in the Hellenistic Kingdoms
The Image of the Ruler between Tradition and Innovation
N. Kaye. The Twilight of Charisma. Hellenistic Kingship in Transition
K. Martin. König & Stadt. Kommunikationsstrategien in der hellenistischen Münzprägung
P. Sänger. Being “Greek” in Egypt. The Ptolemies of the Second and First Century and Ethno-cultural Concepts
M. Kovacs. Dynastic Image and the Visual Imitation of Alexander the Great. Seleukid Kings between Tradition and Innovation in the Second Century BC
A. Lichtenberger. City Foundations in Late Hellenistic Kingdoms
Concluding Remarks
J. Wienand. The Tapestry of Hellenistic Rule. Reflections on the Fabric of Monarchy in a World of Transition
Notes
[1] Such a stance, however, is problematic, as it keeps underappreciating the dramatic impact of Achaemenid imperialism across Afro-Eurasia. See, forcefully, Robert Rollinger, ‘Contextualizing the Achaemenid-Persian Empire. What does Empire mean in the First Millennium BCE?’ In “Achaemenid Studies Today”. Proceedings of the SIE mid-term conference held in Naples, edited by G. Basello, P. Callieri, and A. V. Rossi. Naples: “L’Orientale” University Press, 289-348.
[2] Milinda Hoo, Eurasian localisms: towards a translocal approach to Hellenism and inbetweenness in central Eurasia, third to first centuries BCE (Stuttgart: Steiner 2022).
[3] See Seth Richardson, “Down with “Legitimacy”: On “Validity” and Narrative in Royal Tales”, in J. Linke and E. Wagner-Durand (eds.), Tales of Royalty. Notions of Kingship in Visual and Textual Narration in the Ancient Near East (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2020, pp. 243-260).
[4] Cf. Alan Strathern, Unearthly Powers. Religion and Political Change in World History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019). Kaye mobilizes Strathern’s work in his discussion of the rise of Rome in the world of Hellenistic kings around the same time treated in Hoo’s paper, but much more needs to be done by historians in this respect.