The Hellenistic Royal Court. Court Culture, Ceremonial and Ideology in Greece, Egypt and the Near East, 336-30 BCE

In the Hellenistic empires of Alexander the Great and his successors in Greece, Egypt and the Near East, new forms of court culture and political ideology developed during the last three centuries BCE. Appropriated by Parthian kings and Roman emperors alike, the culture of these Macedonian courts eventually influenced the evolution of royal ideology and court culture in both western Europe and the Islamic East. In this first all-embracing study of the Hellenistic royal court the author endeavours to explain, among other things, the success and long life of Hellenistic royal culture. This study has a broad set-up. It discusses the social, cultural and formal aspects of court society, palace architecture, royal patronage of the arts and sciences, and monarchic representation. The focus is on the three principal Macedonian dynasties: the Antigonids (Macedonia and Greece), Ptolemies (Egypt and the eastern Mediterranean) and Seleukids (Asia Minor, the Near East and Iran). , In Chapter 1 (titled 'Court, kingship and ideology') the methodological en theoretical framework is set out, using recent literature about court culture, state formation and political representation in varying cultures and periods. Hellenistic kingship is defined by the centrality of war and conquest in both ideology and practice. Chapter 2 ('Palaces') discusses the architecture and decoration of royal residences, accentuating the ideological implications, particularly regarding the connection of (royal) palace and (autonomous) city. Chapter 3 ('Court society') discusses the social, formal and political aspects of the court: the courtiers (the so-called 'friends of the king'), the royal family, giving i.a. new interpretations of the position of the queen and the crown prince, as well as the dynamics of faction and succession strife. In Chapter 4 ('Cultural and scientific patronage') a new explanation is given for the remarkable fact that the artistic and scientific life, notably, but not exclusively, at the Ptolemaic Museum at Alexandria, was characterised by intellectual freedom and a preference for innovation, leading e.g. to the formulation of heliocentric theory in astronomy, the first steam engine, the empirical examination of the human vascular and nervous system, and the development of new forms of poetry and scholarship. This chapter also discusses cultural interaction and the significance of the 'Hellenism' of the courts for royal imperial rule. Chapter 4 ('Ritual and ceremonial') extensively deals with public representation: inauguration rituals, ceremonial entries into cities, religious festivals and processions. It will be shown that ritual and ceremonial emphasised the divinity of the ruler, particularly his role as a victorious saviour and bringer of peace, prosperity and order. In the last chapter ('Synthesis: A Golden Age') it is argued, contrary to prevailing opinion, that the Hellenistic monarchies followed the example of their Mesopotamian, Persian and Egyptian predecessors of claiming absolute rulership over world empires that knew no limits. As they also incorporated more 'individualistic' or 'western' aspects of kingship from Greco-Macedonian tradition, the Hellenistic empires developed a form of monarchical representation that was suitable to serve as the foundation for the imperial ideology of the Roman Empire succeeding them