A Kingship Ritual in Baktria. Antiochos III and the Reorganization of Seleukid Central Asia

The article analyzes Polybios’ account of the ritual reception of Demetrios, the son of Euthydemos of Baktria, at the court of the Seleukid emperor, Antiochos III, outside of Baktra. In 206 BCE, after a long and inconclusive war, Antiochos III gave the title of king to the rebellious ruler Euthydemos. Euthydemos thereby gained legitimacy through imperial recognition of his royal status in return for his acceptance of Seleukid suzerainty and incidental military support. Creating a friendly satellite kingdom in Central Asia was more useful for the empire than reestablishing direct control. The alliance was sealed with a dynastic marriage. Baktria and Sogdia were thus reintegrated into the Seleukid imperial networks of connectivity and exchange, especially after Antiochos III reopened the ancient sea routes between the Indus Valley and Mesopotamia

The Lost Valley of Iskander

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The Serpent Column : The persistent meanings of a pagan relic in Christian and Islamic Constantinople

In the heart of Istanbul, on the site of the former Hippodrome, stand the remains of the Serpent Column, one of the most ancient and most enigmatic monuments in the city: a three-headed snake made of bronze to which various sacral and magical properties have been attributed in the past by pagans, Christians, Muslims and Jews. Originally set up as a votive offering in Greece’s central sacred site, Delphi, the column commemorated the Greek triumph in the Second Graeco-Persian War (480-479 BCE). This powerful icon of victory couched in pagan principles of cosmology was brought to Constantinople in the Fourth Century CE to become an emblem of the universal rule of the Christian Roman emperor. In late Byzantine and Ottoman times the Serpent Column was seen as an apotropaic talismans safeguarding Constantinople from poisonous snakes. In this paper it is argued that the column retained its status as a powerful sacred object for so many centuries because in Constantinople it came to be associated with the Brazen Serpent lifted up in the desert by Moses (Numbers 21:4-9), which in turn was believed to prefigure the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ (John 3:14-15)

Power and legitimacy: Alexander the Great

Recensie van Kai Trampedach en Alexander Meeus (red.), The Legitimation of Conquest: Monarchical Representation and the Art of Government in the Empire of Alexander the Great. Studies in Ancient Monarchies 7 (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2020)