Routledge Companion to Women and Monarchy in the Ancient Mediterranean World

Elizabeth D. Carney is Professor of History and Carol K. Brown Scholar in the Humanities, Emerita, at Clemson University, USA. Her focus has been on Macedonian and Hellenistic monarchy and the role of royal women in monarchy, most recently in Molossia. She has written Women and Monarchy in Ancient Macedonia (2000), Olympias, Mother of Alexander the Great (2006), Arsinoë of Egypt and Macedon: A Royal Life (2013), and Eurydice and the Birth of Macedonian Power (2019). Some of her articles dealing with monarchy, with new afterwords, are collected in King and Court in Ancient Macedonia: Rivalry, Treason and Conspiracy (2015). Sabine Müller is Professor of Ancient History at Marburg University, Germany. Her research focuses on the Persian empire, Argead Macedonia, the Hellenistic empires, Macedonian royal women, Lukian, and reception studies. Her publications include the monographs Das hellenistische Königspaar in der medialen Repräsentation. Ptolemaios II. und Arsinoë II. (2009), Perdikkas II. – Retter Makedoniens (2017), and Alexander der Große. Eroberung – Politik – Rezeption (2019).

"Whilst biographies of individual queens and treatments of their various dynastic families have at last come more into vogue in the new millennium, this is the first book to establish a comprehensive and fully comparative perspective on the royal women of the Ancient East Mediterranean as a larger phenomenon. Elizabeth D. Carney and Sabine Müller have assembled an international team of contributors from leading scholars in their sundry fields. These now supply authoritative accounts of the different dynasties and of the more prominent individual figures amongst them, whilst adopting an admirably diverse series of intellectual approaches…. The volume is presented in an open and engaging style that renders it not only useful for specialists but also accessible and interesting for undergraduates and general readers." - Daniel Ogden, University of Exeter, UK"The work will be the first comprehensive treatment of ancient royal women and their role in the ancient Mediterranean. Especially welcome is the inclusion of such states as Caria, Kush, Palmyra, and the Parthians, which are often ignored in such works. Second, and equally important, the analysis of royal women is firmly located in the context of the institution of monarchy with a clear recognition of the varied forms monarchy took in the ancient Mediterranean world. The editors have assembled an excellent team of authors, which ensures that the chapters will be of high quality… This is an excellent project, and the resulting volume will be a valuable contribution to scholarship on ancient Mediterranean monarchy." - Stanley M. Burstein, California State University, Los Angeles, USA

• Part I: Women and Monarchy in the Ancient Mediterranean 1. Introduction to thinking about women and monarchy in the ancient world Part II: Egypt and the Nile Valley 2. The King’s Mother in Old and Middle Kingdoms 3. Regnant Women in Egypt 4. The Image of Nefertiti 5. The God’s Wife of Amun: Origins and Rise to Power 6. The Role and Status of Royal Women in Kush 7. Ptolemaic Royal Women 8. Berenike II 9. Royal Women and Ptolemaic Cults 10. Ptolemaic Women’s Patronage of the Arts 11. The Kleopatra Problem: Roman sources and a female Ptolemaic ruler Part III: The Ancient Near East 12. Invisible Mesopotamian Royal Women? 13. Achaimenid Women 14. Karian Royal Women and the Creation of a Royal Identity 15. Seleukid Women 16. Apama and Stratonike: the first Seleukid basilissai 17. Seleukid Marriage Alliances 18. Royal Mothers and Dynastic Power in Attalid Pergamon 19. Hasmonean Women 20. Women at the Arsakid Court 21. Women of the Sasanid Dynasty (224-651 CE) 22. Zenobia of Palmyra Part IV: Greece and Macedonia 23. "Royal" Women in the Homeric Epics 24. Royal Women in Greek Tragedy 25. Argead Women 26. Women in Antigonid Monarchy Part V: Commonalities 27. Transitional Royal Women: Kleopatra, sister of Alexander the Great, Adea Eurydike, and Phila 28. Women and Dynasty and the Hellenistic Imperial Courts 29. Royal Brother-Sister marriage, Ptolemaic and otherwise 30. Jugate Images in Ptolemaic and Julio-Claudian Monarchy Part VI: Rome: Late Republic through Empire 31. Octavia Minor and Patronage 32. Livia and the Principate of Augustus and Tiberius 33. Julio-Claudian Imperial women 34. The Imperial Women from the Flavians to the Severi 35. Portraiture of Flavian imperial women 36. The Faustinas 37. Women in the Severan Dynasty 38. Women in the Family of Constantine Part VII: Reception from Antiquity to Present Times 39. Semiramis: Perception and Presentation of Female Power in an Oriental Garb 40. Tanaquil and Tullia in Livy as Roman Caricatures of Greek Mythic and Historic Hellenistic Queens 41. Roman Empresses on Screen: an Epic Failure?