Basilissa

Beschreibung

Volume I. The Representation Starting with Olympias, the mother of Alexander III [the Great] as prototype and ending with Cleopatra VII, the Hellenistic queen was integrally bound up with all aspects of the king’s life and a vital part of his monarchic rule. Publicly, she was always seen at the king’s side, but occasionally also on her own, as shown in many contemporary documents. In three steps, this book illustrates the figure of the basilissa, this new kind of woman that emerged with Hellenistic monarchy. In the first part, the author searches for earlier models and contextualises the queen in the historical development of the time and the royal court. Based on a broad and critical study of the available sources, the second part reconstructs individual biographies of all known queens of the Antigonid, Seleucid and Ptolemaic dynasties. The final part explores the role of the queen in the three areas of dynasty, ritual and power from the point of view of structural history. Volume II. The sources The two-volume work “Basilissa. The queen in Hellenism” is the first to offer a collection of sources and a monograph on one of the central themes of Hellenism [323-30 B.C.]: the Hellenistic monarchy. The volume of sources not only provides an overview of the literary texts and the narratives of female kingship they contain, but especially also collects contemporary material: epigraphic sources such as decrees, dedications and honorific inscriptions, as well as papyri with Egyptian documents and document prescripts. In addition, there are limited numbers of coins and statues. Following on from the literary representation of Hellenistic kingship and existing role models for Archaic Period and Persian queens, the volume then introduces sources on individual queens from Olympias to Cleopatra, grouped according to their dynasties. Beginning with Argead women and ending with the women surrounding Alexander the Great, the queens and female companions of the Antigonid, Seleucid, Ptolemaic and Attalid dynasties are presented. In this way, this bilingual and comprehensive collection of texts offers a direct insight into Hellenic sources and thereby into the Basilissa herself.

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Christiane Kunst

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