Imaginary Kings

This volume looks at various ways in which royal images functioned within different ideological frameworks in the ancient Near East, Greece and Rome. It argues that visibility lies at the heart of power, especially under monarchic rule. The contributions highlight how, throughout the ancient Mediterranean, patterns can be detected in the use of royal images. There seem to have been continuous (re)negotiations between innovation and tradition, East and West, and between aerealAe and aeimaginaryAe kings. Contents Richard Fowler / Olivier Hekster: Imagining kings: From Persia to Rome Lindsay Allen: Le roi imaginaire: An audience with the Achaemenid king Peter Thonemann: The tragic king: Demetrios Poliorketes and the city of Athens Margherita Facella: Roman perception of Commagenian royalty Matthew Gisborne: A curia of kings: Sulla and royal imagery Richard Fowler: aeMost fortunate rootsAe: Tradition and legitimacy in Parthian royal ideology Olivier Hekster: Captured in the gaze of power: Visibility, games and Roman imperial representation Ted Kaizer: Kingly priests in the Roman Near East? Bibliography Index

A timely and academically-significant contribution to scholarship on community, identity, and globalization in the Roman and Hellenistic worlds Community and Identity at the Edges of the Classical World examines the construction of personal and communal identities in the ancient world, exploring how globalism, multi-culturalism, and other macro events influenced micro identities throughout the Hellenistic and Roman empires. This innovative volume discusses where contact and the sharing of ideas was occurring in the time period, and applies modern theories based on networks and communication to historical and archaeological data. A new generation of international scholars challenge traditional views of Classical history and offer original perspectives on the impact globalizing trends had on localized areas—insights that resonate with similar issues today. This singular resource presents a broad, multi-national view rarely found in western collected volumes, including Serbian, Macedonian, and Russian scholarship on the Roman Empire, as well as on Roman and Hellenistic archaeological sites in Eastern Europe. Topics include Egyptian identity in the Hellenistic world, cultural identity in Roman Greece, Romanization in Slovenia, Balkan Latin, the provincial organization of cults in Roman Britain, and Soviet studies of Roman Empire and imperialism. Serving as a synthesis of contemporary scholarship on the wider topic of identity and community, this volume: Provides an expansive materialist approach to the topic of globalization in the Roman world Examines ethnicity in the Roman empire from the viewpoint of minority populations Offers several views of metascholarship, a growing sub-discipline that compares ancient material to modern scholarship Covers a range of themes, time periods, and geographic areas not included in most western publications Community and Identity at the Edges of the Classical World is a valuable resource for academics, researchers, and graduate students examining identity and ethnicity in the ancient world, as well as for those working in multiple fields of study, from Classical, Hellenistic, and Roman historians, to the study of ethnicity, identity, and globalizing trends in time.

Rolf Strootman brings together various aspects of court culture in the Macedonian empires of the post-Achaemenid Near East. During the Hellenistic Period (c. 330-30 BCE), Alexander the Great and his successors reshaped their Persian and Greco-Macedonian legacies to create a new kind of rulership that was neither 'western' nor 'eastern' and would profoundly influence the later development of court culture and monarchy in both the Roman West and Iranian East.Drawing on the socio-political models of Norbert Elias and Charles Tilly, After the Achaemenids shows how the Hellenistic dynastic courts were instrumental in the integration of local elites in the empires, and the (re)distribution of power, wealth, and status. It analyses the competition among courtiers for royal favour and the, not always successful, attempts of the Hellenistic rulers to use these struggles to their own advantage.It demonstrates the interrelationships of the three competing 'Hellenistic' empires of the Seleukids, Antigonids and Ptolemies, casts new light on the phenomenon of Hellenistic Kingship by approaching it from the angle of the court and covers topics such as palace architecture, royal women, court ceremonial, and coronation ritual.

A riveting profile of William Randolph Hearst's astonishing rise in the golden age of newspaper journalism. ''Exhaustively researched and elegantly written . . . brims with charming characters and stories. It deftly captures the bygone era of Gilded Age new papering . valuable contribution to the literature of Hearst and the history of journalism.''

“Kids of all stripes will identify with EllRay and his unwittingly hilarious antics.”—Booklist Eight-year-old EllRay is down to one-and-a-half best friends, and his little sister points out the obvious: he needs more! So EllRay decides to audition other boys for the part, the way his sister is auditioning for the lead role in her day care’s spring play. Now, EllRay has to come up with fun things to do at recess, because when he’s the Recess King, everyone will want to be his friend!

A recent surge of interest in network approaches to the study of the ancient world has enabled scholars of the Roman Empire to move beyond traditional narratives of domination, resistance, integration and fragmentation. This relational turn has not only offers tools to identify, map, visualize and, in some cases, even quantify interaction based on a variety of ancient source material, but also provides a terminology to deal with the everyday ties of power, trade, and ideology that operated within, below, and beyond the superstructure of imperial rule. Thirteen contributions employ a range of quantitative, qualitative and descriptive network approaches in order to provide new perspectives on trade, communication, administration, technology, religion and municipal life in the Roman Near East and adjacent regions.