First comparative analysis of the role of local elites and populations in the formation of the two main Hellenistic empires.

Winner of the Runciman Award Winner of the Charles J. Goodwin Award “Tells the story of how the Seleucid Empire revolutionized chronology by picking a Year One and counting from there, rather than starting a new count, as other states did, each time a new monarch was crowned...Fascinating.” —Harper’s In the aftermath of Alexander the Great’s conquests, his successors, the Seleucid kings, ruled a vast territory stretching from Central Asia and Anatolia to the Persian Gulf. In 305 BCE, in a radical move to impose unity and regulate behavior, Seleucus I introduced a linear conception of time. Time would no longer restart with each new monarch. Instead, progressively numbered years—continuous and irreversible—became the de facto measure of historical duration. This new temporality, propagated throughout the empire and identical to the system we use today, changed how people did business, recorded events, and oriented themselves to the larger world. Some rebellious subjects, eager to resurrect their pre-Hellenic past, rejected this new approach and created apocalyptic time frames, predicting the total end of history. In this magisterial work, Paul Kosmin shows how the Seleucid Empire’s invention of a new kind of time—and the rebellions against this worldview—had far reaching political and religious consequences, transforming the way we organize our thoughts about the past, present, and future. “Without Paul Kosmin’s meticulous investigation of what Seleucus achieved in creating his calendar without end we would never have been able to comprehend the traces of it that appear in late antiquity...A magisterial contribution to this hitherto obscure but clearly important restructuring of time in the ancient Mediterranean world.” —G. W. Bowersock, New York Review of Books “With erudition, theoretical sophistication, and meticulous discussion of the sources, Paul Kosmin sheds new light on the meaning of time, memory, and identity in a multicultural setting.” —Angelos Chaniotis, author of Age of Conquests

The notion of the “Silk Road” that the German geographer Ferdinand von Richthofen invented in the 19th century has lost attraction to scholars in light of large amounts of new evidence and new approaches. The handbook suggests new conceptual and methodological tools for researching ancient economic exchange in a global perspective with a strong focus on recent debates on the nature of pre-modern empires. The interdisciplinary team of Chinese, Indian and Graeco-Roman historians, archaeologists and anthropologists that has written this handbook compares different forms of economic development in agrarian and steppe regions in a period of accelerated empire formation during 300 BCE and 300 CE. It investigates inter-imperial zones and networks of exchange which were crucial for ancient Eurasian connections. Volume I provides a comparative history of the most important empires forming in Northern Africa, Europe and Asia between 300 BCE and 300 CE. It surveys a wide range of evidence that can be brought to bear on economic development in the these empires, and takes stock of the ways academic traditions have shaped different understandings of economic and imperial development as well as Silk-Road exchange in Russia, China, India and Western Graeco-Roman history.

This is the first book-length exploration of the ways art from the edges of the Roman Empire represented the future, examining visual representations of time and the role of artwork in Roman imperial systems. This book focuses on four kingdoms from across the empire: Cottius’s Alpine kingdom in the north, King Juba II’s Mauretania in the south-west, Herodian Judea in the east, and Kommagene to the north-east. Art from the imperial frontier is rarely considered through the lens of the aesthetics of time, and Roman provincial art and the monuments of allied rulers are typically interpreted as evidence of the interaction between Roman and local identities. In this interdisciplinary study, which explores statues, wall paintings, coins, monuments, and inscriptions, readers learn that these artworks served as something more: they were created to represent the futures that allied rulers and their people foresaw. The pressure of Roman imperialism drove patrons and artists on the empire’s borders to imbue their creations with increasingly sophisticated ideas about the future, as they wrestled with consequential decisions made under periods of intense political pressure. Comprehensively illustrated and providing an important new approach to Roman material culture at the edge of empire, Visions of the Future in Roman Frontier Kingdoms 100 BCE–100 CE is suitable for students and scholars working on Rome and its frontiers, as well as Roman material culture more broadly, and those studying the aesthetics of time in art and art history.

Despite Roman claims to have brought peace, unrest was widespread in the Roman empire. Revolts, protests and piracy were common occurrences. How did contemporaries relate to and make sense of such phenomena? This volume gathers eleven contributions by specialists in the various literatures and modes of thinking that flourished in the empire between the second century BCE and the fifth century CE - including Graeco-Roman historiography and philosophy, Jewish prophecy, Christian apology and the writings of the Tannaitic rabbis - to investigate these questions. Each contribution analyses the discourses by which the diverse authors of these texts understood instances of unrest. Together the contributions expand our understanding of the varied politics that pervaded the Roman empire. They highlight the intellectual labour at every level of society that went to (re)making this imperial formation throughout its long history.

A focused, interdisciplinary examination of a tumultuous, history-making era The Middle Maccabees lays out the charged, complicated beginnings of the independent Jewish state founded in the second century BCE. Contributors offer focused analyses of the archaeological, epigraphic, numismatic, and textual evidence, framed within a wider world of conflicts between the Ptolemies of Egypt, the Seleucids of Syria, and the Romans. The result is a holistic view of the Hasmonean rise to power that acknowledges broader political developments, evolving social responses, and the particularities of local history. Contributors include Uzi ‘Ad, Donald T. Ariel, Andrea M. Berlin, Efrat Bocher, Altay Coşkun, Benedikt Eckhardt, Gerald Finkielsztejn, Christelle Fischer-Bovet, Yuval Gadot, Erich Gruen, Sylvie Honigman, Jutta Jokiranta, Paul J. Kosmin, Uzi Leibner, Catharine Lorber, Duncan E. MacRae, Dvir Raviv, Helena Roth, Débora Sandhaus, Yiftah Shalev, Nitsan Shalom, Danny Syon, Yehiel Zelinger, and Ayala Zilberstein. Features Up-to-date, generously illustrated essays analyzing the relevant archaeological remains A revised understanding of how local and imperial histories overlapped and intersected New analysis of the book of 1 Maccabees as a tool of Hasmonean strategic interest

The Handbook of Ancient Afro-Eurasian Economies offers in three volumes the first comprehensive discussion of economic development in the empires of the Afro-Eurasian world region to elucidate the conditions under which large quantities of goods and people moved across continents and between empires. Volume 3: Frontier-Zone Processes and Transimperial Exchange analyzes frontier zones as particular landscapes of encounter, economic development, and transimperial network formation. The chapters offer problematizing approaches to frontier zone processes as part of and in between empires, with the goal of better understanding how and why goods and resources moved across the Afro-Eurasian region. Key frontiers in mountains and steppes, along coasts, rivers, and deserts are investigated in depth, demonstrating how local landscapes, politics, and pathways explain network practices and participation in long-distance trade. The chapters seek to retrieve local knowledge ignored in popular Silk Road models and to show the potential of frontier-zone research for understanding the Afro-Eurasian region as a connected space.

A compelling history of the Ptolemies, the decline of Egypt, and the rising power of the Roman Empire The Ptolemaic era, Egypt’s last and one of its longest dynasties, was in many ways a gilded age. Its early rulers restored and even expanded Egyptian power. Over a span of 300 years the period was witness to intellectual enlightenment, imaginative state-building, and some of the most memorable characters in ancient history, including Alexander the Great and Cleopatra VII. But these Macedonian Greek pharaohs embarked on ruinous warfare, faced rebellion, and descended into murderous family feuds. Increasingly reliant on the dizzying rise of Roman power, Ptolemaic Egypt was finally annexed by Augustus in 30 BCE. How did such an ancient civilization come to this? Exploring the lives of the Ptolemaic pharaohs, de la Bédoyère reveals the jealousy, greed, and murderous ambition in their Egypt and the legendary city of Alexandria, their capital. This is a lively, accessible account of Ancient Egypt’s last days—and of the new power rising in its place.

This book traces the roots of modern notions of celebrity, fame, and infamy back to the Hellenistic period of classical antiquity, when sensational personages like Cleopatra of Egypt and Alexander the Great became famous world-wide.

This book investigates some aspects of the cultural consequences of the settlement of Greeks in Egypt during the Hellenistic period, through a discussion of papyrological material, archaeological evidence, and literary sources. It is divided into three sections. The first, Space and Images, reflects on the evolutions and changes in iconography, spatial organization, and landscape. The second, Ethnic Interactions, offers new hints on the long debated topic of ethnicity, relying on a wide range of Greek and Demotic sources. The third, The Literary Experience, shifts the attention from documents to literature, examining the circulation of Greek texts and books in Egypt from different perspectives. Mixing case studies and overviews, the volume offers an updated, multifaceted representation of complex phaenomena which can be understood only going beyond disciplinary boundaries.