Courts and Elites in the Hellenistic Empires, 330-30 BCE
New book by Rolf Strootman
In his new book, Courts and Elites in the Hellenistic Empires, historian Dr Rolf Strootman brings together various aspects of court culture in the Macedonian empires of the post-Achaemenid Near East. During the Hellenistic Period (c. 330-30 BCE), Alexander the Great and his successors reshaped their Persian and Greco-Macedonian legacies to create a new kind of rulership that was neither ‘western’ nor ‘eastern’. This would profoundly influence the later development of court culture and monarchy in both the Roman West and Iranian East.
Drawing on the socio-political models of Norbert Elias and Charles Tilly, the book shows how the Hellenistic dynastic courts were instrumental in the integration of local elites in the empires, and the (re)distribution of power, wealth, and status. It analyses the competition among courtiers for royal favour and the, not always successful, attempts of the Hellenistic rulers to use these struggles to their own advantage.
Rolf Strootman is associate professor of Ancient History at Utrecht University. His research and teaching focus on empire, monarchical ritual and cultural encounters in the Near East, Iran and Central Asia, particularly (but not exclusively) in the Hellenistic Period.
- Titel: Courts and Elites in the Hellenistic Empires. The Near East After the Achaemenids, c. 330 to 30 BCE
- Auteur: Rolf Strootman
- ISBN: 978-0-748691-26-5
- Uitgever: 2014, Edinburgh University Press