[publicclassics] D. Engels, Benefactors, Kings, Rulers. Studies on the Seleukid Empire between East and West, Leuven, Peeters, 2017 (Studia Hellenistica 57), 604p.

[David Engels]

Dear friends and colleagues,

I am very happy to announce the publication of my new book:

David Engels, Benefactors, Kings, Rulers. Studies on the Seleukid
Empire between East and West, Leuven, Peeters, 2017 (Studia
Hellenistica 57), 604p.

And here's the abstract: "The present volume unites a series of
critical studies devoted to the political, institutional and
ideological construction of the Seleukid empire, with particular focus
on the complex interplay between the Seleukids’ Graeco-Macedonian
background and their Achaimenid heritage. In order to explore to what
extent the Seleukids can be considered heirs to the Achaimenids and
precursors of the Parthians, and to what extent they simply ‘imported’
cultural and political behavioural patterns developed in Greece and
Macedonia, the studies collected here adopt a decidedly
interdisciplinary and diachronic approach. They investigate diverse
fields, including the construction of the Seleukid royal court; the
title of ‘Great king’; the prosopography of early Seleukid Iran; the
integration of the ‘Upper Satrapies’ into the new Seleukid empire; the
continued importance of the Iranian religions under the early
Seleukids; the reign of the Persian Frataraka; the ‘feudalisation’ of
the Seleukid empire under Antiochos III; the construction of a
Hellenistic gymnasion in Seleukid Jerusalem; the importance of the
Seleukid kingdom as model for Eunous’ Sicilian slave-state; the
evolution of the Syrian civic elite; and the potential influence of
Seleukos’ royal propaganda on the religious self-legitimation of
Augustus. Finally, a general comparison is proposed between the
Seleukid empire and 19th century European colonialism."

-- 
Prof. Dr. David Engels

Titulaire de la chaire d'histoire du monde romain

Université libre de Bruxelles (U.L.B.)
Avenue F.D. Roosevelt 50, CP 133/01
Bureau NA 5-203
1050 Bruxelles
BELGIUM
Tél.: +32(0)26503805
www.davidengels.be