Comparing the Ptolemaic and Seleucid Empires: Integration, Communication, and Resistance

Christelle Fischer-Bovet · Sitta von Reden

sept 2021 · Cambridge University Press

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The Ptolemaic and Seleucid empires are usually studied separately, or else included in broader examinations of the Hellenistic world. This book provides a systematic comparison of the roles of local elites and local populations in the construction, negotiation, and adaptation of political, economic, military and ideological power within these states in formation. The two states, conceived as multi-ethnic empires, are sufficiently similar to make comparisons valid, while the process of comparison highlights and better explains differences. Regions that were successively incorporated into the Ptolemaic and then Seleucid state receive particular attention, and are understood within the broader picture of the ruling strategies of both empires. The book focusses on forms of communication through coins, inscriptions and visual culture; settlement policies and the relationship between local and immigrant populations; and the forms of collaboration with and resistance of local elites against immigrant populations and government institutions.

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Christelle Fischer-Bovet is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Classics and History at the University of Southern California. She specializes in the social and cultural history of the Eastern Mediterranean from Alexander to the Romans, with a particular interest in Greco-Roman Egypt. Her book Army and Society in Ptolemaic Egypt (Cambridge, 2014) combines documentary evidence with social theory to examine the role of the army in Hellenistic Egypt.

Sitta von Reden is Professor Ancient History at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg. She is a specialist in ancient Greek economic history and her books include Money in Ptolemaic Egypt: From the Macedonian Conquest to the End of the Third Century BC (Cambridge, 2007) and Money in Classical Antiquity (Cambridge, 2010). In 2017 she won an Advanced Grant of the European Research Council for the Project 'Beyond the Silk Road: Exchange, Economic Development and Inter-Imperial Relationships in the Afro-Eurasian World Region (300 BCE-300 CE)'.