Shame and tyranny in Curtius Rufus’ Historiae Alexandri Magni
By Anja Bettenworth, University of Cologne
This paper analyses the narrative function of pudor (shame) in Curtius Rufus, starting from the burning of the royal Persian palace of Persepolis by Alexander the Great in 330 BCE. The destruction of the palace is a defining moment in Alexander’s conquest of Persia. It is frequently mentioned in ancient literature and has attracted the attention of archeological, historical and literary researchers.
The Persian Techniques of Alexander's Historians
By Samantha Blankenship, University of Tennessee Knoxville
Alexander the Great’s decision to employ bematists and professional historians is best understood as another aspect of his appropriation of imperial structures and practices of the Achaemenid Persians. Traditionally this aspect of his campaigns has been considered an Aristotelian legacy (Dilke 1985: 29, 59-60), though the possibility that such an interpretation represents an anachronistic back-projection has been recently raised (Henkelman 2017: 70 n. 39).
Moving away from water-centered narratives of Hellenistic Egypt: Ptolemaic Presences in the Western Desert
By Giulio Leghissa, University of Toronto
Since the seventeenth century and until recently, 'Western' (that is European and settler colonial) scholarly views of Hellenistic Egypt were effectively encapsulated by the following vignette: besides being the ‘gift of the Nile’, Egypt became a ‘Mediterranean-Sea-looking land’ after the foundation of Alexandria in 332 BCE.
Land Transfer and Property Rights: Infrastructural Power in Seleucid Asia Minor
By Qizhen Xie, Brown University
This work explores how Seleucid kings exercised infrastructural power in the third century BCE by allowing individuals to re-attach the land property they received from the royal administration to the Greek cities in Asia Minor.
Rethinking the Role of the Alexandrian "Mob" in Ptolemaic Succession Politics
By Allen Alexander Kendall, University of Michigan
Ptolemaic dynastic successions were often bloody, especially when they devolved into civil wars or when the populace of Alexandria violently intervened. Only Peter Fraser has specifically written on the latter, and he has harshly (and racistly) criticized the role of the Alexandrians in dynastic politics, saying that “the throne [was] at the disposal of the mob…partly because of the gradual Egyptianizing of the Greeks of the middle and lower classes” (Fraser, 131).
The Tale of Two Bad Ptolemies
By David Levene, New York University
Our knowledge of Egyptian political history in the 150s BC is very lacunose, but for the last 100 years its broad contours have been universally accepted. However, one crucial piece of evidence has invariably been ignored, which has significant consequences for our understanding both of Ptolemaic history and Roman-Egyptian relations.