Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Take one particular, relatively well documented case, a particular king in this age of kings: Antiochos III, the Great (Megas), the ‘Great King’ of the Seleukid realm (regn. 223–186). Here are some moments in his long reign. Antiochos in the ancient Ionian polis, Teos: entering the town with royal Friends and troops, giving a speech before the ekklesia, proclaiming the city ‘holy and inviolate and free from tribute’, as confirmed in a follow-up interview and celebrated by the Teians in a long epigraphical dossier (c. 203). Antiochos III in Babylon (187): sacrificing and prostrating himself in the great temple of Marduk, the Esagil, appearing before the assembled Babylonians, being presented with ‘a golden crown …a golden box of Beltiya, and the purple garment of King Nebuchadnezzar’. Quite different the impression from Antiochos III in Elymais, the following year: marching East, plundering a local shrine, slaughtered in a night attack launched on his camp by the local population in revenge for the spoliation. We could yet multiply such images: young Antiochos on his morning constitutional, retiring to relieve himself, taking his time while his Friends knife to death a troublesome but solidly entrenched minister; shortly after, Antiochos marrying his Pontic bride at Zeugma, the city on the Euphrates crossing; dancing in arms and listening to hexameter verse (if not quite at the same ... log in or subscribe to read full text