In the chaos that followed the death of Alexander the Great his distinguished marshal Seleucus was reduced to a fugitive, with only a horse to his name. But by the time of his own death, Seceucus had reconstructed the bulk of Alexander's empire, built Antioch, and become a king in his turn, one respected for justness in an age of cruelty. The dynasty he founded was to endure for three centuries. Such achievements richly deserved to be projected into legend, and so they were. This legend told of Seleucus' divine siring by Apollo, his escape from Babylon with an enchanted talisman, his foundations of cities along a dragon-river with the help of Zeus' eagles, his surrender of his new wife to his besotted son, and his revenge, as a ghost, upon his assassin. This is the first book in any language devoted to the reconstruction of this fascinating tradition.
When the vast empire of Alexander the Great broke up, the Macedonian general Seleucus secured the lion’s share for himself and went on to become the longest-lived of Alexander’s successors. His tactical skills and his military innovations – including his use of war elephants on a scale never seen before in the West – earned him the epithet Nicator, “victorious”. When he died at the hands of an assassin in 281 BC, Seleucus ruled over a larger territory than any Hellenistic monarch before or since his time, stretching from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean. This book is a study of his life and achievements, his time and his legacy. It is based on Graeco-Roman and Babylonian written sources as well as on the rapidly growing body of archaeological evidence. Lise Hannestad is professor emerita of Classical Archaeology at Aarhus University. Her main research areas are the Near East in the Hellenistic period, the Etruscans and Black Sea archaeology.
This outstanding introductory survey collects, presents and examines, for the very first time, the portraits and representations of Alexander the Great on the ancient coins of the Greek and Roman period. From 320 BC to AD 400, Karsten Dahmen examines not only Alexander’s own coinage and the posthumous coinages of his successors, but also the re-use of his image by rulers from the Greek world and the Roman empire, to late antiquity. Also including numismatic material that exceeds all previous published works, and well-illustrated, this historical survey brings Alexander and his legacy to life.
Alexander the Great and Propaganda explores the use of propaganda - whether literature, coinage, or iconography – in the court of Alexander the Great, as well as those of his Successors, demonstrating that it was as integral to Hellenistic courts as it was to Imperial Rome. This volume brings together ten essays from leading international scholars in Alexander studies. There is currently no equivalent collection which has a specialist focus of themes or issues relating to the use of propaganda in the courts of Alexander or his Successors. This book will be an invaluable resource for students and scholars of Alexander studies, as well as those studying the use of propaganda across the ancient world, and to the more general reader with an interest in Alexander the Great and his reign.
Before Alexander, the Near East was ruled by dynasts who could draw on the significant resources and power base of their homeland, but this was not the case for the Seleukids who never controlled their original homeland of Macedon. The Early Seleukids, their Gods and their Coins argues that rather than projecting an imperialistic Greek image of rule, the Seleukid kings deliberately produced images that represented their personal power, and that were comprehensible to the majority of their subjects within their own cultural traditions. These images relied heavily on the syncretism between Greek and local gods, in particular their ancestor Apollo. The Early Seleukids, their Gods and their Coins examines how the Seleukids, from Seleukos I to Antiochos IV, used coinage to propagandise their governing ideology. It offers a valuable resource to students of the Seleukids and of Hellenistic kingship more broadly, numismatics, and the interplay of ancient Greek religion and politics.
A lucid introduction to the life and career of one of the most significant figures in world history. A geographically articulated biography is followed by studies of the key themes of his campaign and analyses of ways in which the king's image was presented and manipulated in antiquity itself.
Beyond Alexandria aims to provide a better understanding of Seleucid literature, covering the period from Seleucus I to Antiochus III. Despite the historical importance of the Seleucid Empire during the long third century BCE, little attention has been devoted to its literature. The works of authors affiliated with the Seleucid court have tended to be overshadowed by works coming out of Alexandria, emerging from the court of the Ptolemies, the main rivals of the Seleucids. This book makes two key points, both of which challenge the idea that "Alexandrian" literature is coterminous with Hellenistic literature as a whole. First, the book sets out to demonstrate that a distinctly strand of writing emerged from the Seleucid court, characterized by shared perspectives and thematic concerns. Second, Beyond Alexandria explores how Seleucid literature was significant on the wider Hellenistic stage. Specifically, it shows that the works of Seleucid authors influenced and provided counterpoints to writers based in Alexandria, including key figures such as Eratosthenes and Callimachus. For this reason, the literature of the Seleucids is not only interesting in its own right; it also provides an important entry point for furthering our understanding of Hellenistic literature in general.