Hellenistic World – serie

The Hellenistic courts and monarchies have in recent years become one of the most intensively studied areas of ancient history. Among the most influential pioneers in this process has been the American historian Elizabeth Carney. The present book collects for the first time in a single volume her most influential articles. Previously published in a range of learned journals, the articles are here re-edited, each with a substantive Afterword by the author bringing the discussion up to date and adding new bibliography. The main themes of this volume include Macedonian monarchy in practice and as an image; the role of conspiracies and violence at court; royal women; aspects of court life and institutions.

Modern treatments of Peloponnesian history are often fragmented by poleis and period. This book offers a comprehensive narrative of the political history of the entire Peloponnese from 371 to 146 bc, using both literary and epigraphic evidence. In the Hellenistic Peloponnese a long shadow was cast by the great changes of the 4th century. After Sparta's long-invincible army had been defeated at the battle of Leuktra (371), internal divisions and alliances were patterned by the interventions of external powers: Thebans, Macedonian rulers, and finally the Romans. The author's findings reveal remarkable consistencies in the history of the Peloponnese. Sparta's confidence and ambition refused to die; other Peloponnesian states conducted foreign policies in reaction initially to Sparta's decline but, later, to her resurgence – and to the prospect of further resurgence still. The book reveals continuity as regards Sparta in the foreign policies of Elis, most of Arkadia, Messenia, and the Achaian Confederacy. These definite patterns formed Peloponnesian history far beyond the narrow relation of each community to Sparta: they also shaped the relation of most major Peloponnesian states to each other and to external powers.

Hellenistic courts were centres of monarchic power, social prestige and high culture in the kingdoms that emerged after the death of Alexander. They were places of refinement, learning and luxury, and also of corruption, rivalry and murder. Surrounded by courtiers of varying loyalty, Hellenistic royal families played roles in a theatre of spectacle and ceremony. Architecture, art, ritual and scholarship were deployed to defend the existence of their dynasties. The present volume, from a team of international experts, examines royal methods and ideologies. It treats the courts of the Ptolemies, Seleucids, Attalids, Antigonids and of lesser dynasties. It also explores the influence, on Greek-speaking courts, of non- Greek culture, of Achaemenid and other Near Eastern royal institutions. It studies the careers of courtesans, concubines and `friends' of royalty, and the intellectual, ceremonial, and artistic world of the Greek monarchies. The work demonstrates the complexity and motivations of Hellenistic royal civilisation, of courts which governed the transmission of Greek culture to the wider Mediterranean world – and to later age.

The Seleukids, the easternmost of the Greekspeaking dynasties which succeeded Alexander the Great, were long portrayed by historians as inherently weak and doomed to decline after the passing of their remarkable first king, Seleukos (died 281 BC). And yet they succeeded in ruling much of the Near and Middle East for over two centuries, overcoming problems of a multi-ethnic empire. In this book an international team of scholars argues that in the decades after Seleukos the empire developed flexible structures that successfully bound it together in the face of a series of catastrophes. The strength of the Seleukid realm lay not simply in its vast swathes of territory, but more in knowing how to tie the new, frequently non-Greek, nobility to the king through mutual recognition of sovereignty.

The history of the Hellenistic world has long been more popular than has widely been realized. This volume seeks to contribute to that popularity. Here are fourteen new perspectives on the period from a distinguished and international group of scholars. Their varied papers are grouped around five key themes: Structure and System, King and Court, Family and Kinship, Landscape and People, Art and Image. The popularity of the Hellenistic world is reflected in the CPW series dedicated to it: D. Ogden, Polygamy, Prostitutes and Death; and, I; A. Erskine & L. Llwellyn-Jones (eds), Creating a Hellenistic World; E. Carney, King and Court in Ancient Macedonia; I. Kralli, The Hellenistic Peloponnese; A. Erskine, L. Llwellyn-Jones and S. Wallace (eds), The Hellenistic Court; T. Howe and F. Pownall (eds) Ancient Macedonians in the Greek and Roman Sources; K. Erickson (ed.), The Seleukid Empire (281-222 BC).