Ancient Kingship

The foundation myth of Antioch in Syria, which describes the archaiologia of the Seleukid city and its founding by Seleukos I Nikator, is transmitted at length by two very late authors. The first is Libanius who lived in the fourth century AD and described the foundation of Antioch in his oration in praise of the city (Antiochikos 11.84-93); the second is John Malalas a sixth-century-AD chronographer who, in his Chronographia, preserves an excursus on the foundation of Antioch and other Seleukid cities written by Pausanias of Antioch (4th century AD) (Malal.

My paper will explore the imposition of Seleukos’ authority over Babylon in the years after the death of Alexander the Great. Continuity is central to understanding the nature of the transition of power from Alexander to Seleukos. We are immediately presented, however, with an obstacle regarding our evidence for the post-Alexander period at Babylon. On the one hand, literary sources (Appian, Plutarch, Diodorus Siculus, among others) are at pains to present Seleukos as Alexander’s divinely-favored successor in order to promote an image of a seemingly smooth rise to power.

At Odysseus’ first appearance in the Odyssey, he is still stranded on the island of Calypso.  Why, then, when he is at his most helpless and hopeless does Athena preface his introduction by calling him “σκηπτοῦχος βασιλεύς” – “sceptered king,” (5.9)?  I argue that the image of the σκῆπτρον, scepter, present through the epithet ‘σκηπτοῦχος’ is meaningful here: it communicates information about Odysseus that at times lies latent, but is never wholly lost or negated. 

A fragment of Kallixeinos of Rhodes’ Peri Alexandreias (FGrH 627 F 1, ap. Ath., Deipn. 5.204d-206d) provides a lengthy description of the Thalamegos, the luxurious Nile barge of Ptolemy IV Philopator. Unlike the Tessarakonteres, Philopator’s giant warship, the Thalamegos was built for pleasure cruises, a purpose reflected in its lavish interior design. Distributed over its two decks were promenades, bed chambers, and several dining rooms, including one dining room decorated in an Egyptian style and another with columns of Indian stone.

            This paper explores a long-neglected intertextual allusion to shed new light on one of the most striking endings in Roman literature: Sallust’s portrayal of the aftermath of the Battle of Pistoria (62 BCE) in the final chapter of his Bellum Catilinae.