Kings and Usurpers in the Seleukid Empire
The Men who would be King
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Oxford University Press
Published:27th Oct '16
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
Kings and Usurpers in the Seleukid Empire: The Men who would be King focuses on ideas of kingship and power in the Seleukid empire, the largest of the successor states of Alexander the Great. Exploring the question of how a man becomes a king, it specifically examines the role of usurpers in this particular kingdom - those who attempted to become king, and who were labelled as rebels by ancient authors after their demise - by placing these individuals in their appropriate historical contexts through careful analysis of the literary, numismatic, and epigraphic material. By writing about kings and rebels, literary accounts make a clear statement about who had the right to rule and who did not, and the Seleukid kings actively fostered their own images of this right throughout the third and second centuries BCE. However, what emerges from the documentary evidence is a revelatory picture of a political landscape in which kings and those who would be kings were in constant competition to persuade whole cities and armies that they were the only plausible monarch, and of a right to rule that, advanced and refuted on so many sides, simply did not exist. Through careful analysis, this volume advances a new political history of the Seleukid empire that is predicated on social power, redefining the role of the king as only one of several players within the social world and offering new approaches to the interpretation of the relationship between these individuals themselves and with the empire they sought to rule. In doing so, it both questions the current consensus on the Seleukid state, arguing instead that despite its many strong rulers the empire was structurally weak, and offers a new approach to writing political history of the ancient world.
[Chrubasik]'s publication... covers welcome[d] new ground. * Kyle Erickson, University of Wales Trinity Saint David, Lampeter, Classical Review *
[Boris Chrubasik] contributes to the strong renewal of Seleucid studies; a field which has experienced unprecedented vitality over the last decade. . . . On reaching the end of this exciting book the reader will be convinced of having read an indispensable contribution to the very current debate on the nature of royal Hellenistic power. * Laurent Capdetrey, Université Bordeaux Montaigne, Bryn Mawr Classical Review [translated from French] *
It can be concluded that Chrubasik has reached his formulated aim. With Kings and Usurpers in the Seleukid Empire, he offers not only a very readable, but also an argumentatively persuasive monograph which opens up numerous fascinating avenues for future research on Seleukid history. * Philip Egetenmeier, Tyche *
In challenging us to rethink our understanding of Seleukid kingship, Chrubasik has made a strong case. He displays a firm command of the historiographical, epigraphical, archaeological, and (especially) numismatic evidence, whose limitations he is careful to acknowledge ... For scholars of the Seleukids as well as other Hellenistic monarchies, the book is a must -- read. * Jeremy LaBuff, American Journal of Philology *
Overall the book is well taken care, and almost all the bibliography is usefully put to good (which does not happen too often, lately, to some scholarship). The work of Chrubasik is therefore on par with other recent monographs on the Seleucids, contributing substantially to make a clearer framework * Federicomaria Muccioli, Sehepunkte *
Much of Chrubasik's argument is quite persuasive ... and heuristically powerful: it certainly raises questions that Seleucid historians must address. * Christopher Tuplin (University of Liverpool), Phoenix: Journal of the Classical Association of Canada *
ISBN: 9780198786924
Dimensions: 221mm x 146mm x 24mm
Weight: 508g
336 pages