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The Hellenistic Court
Ediited by Andrew Erskine, LLoyd Llewellyn-Jones and Shane Wallace
ISBN 9781910589625, Hardback
 
Hellenistic courts were centres of monarchic power, social prestige and high culture in the kingdoms that emerged after the death of Alexander. They were places of refinement, learning and luxury, and also of corruption, rivalry and murder. Surrounded by courtiers of varying loyalty, Hellenistic royal families played roles in a theatre of spectacle and ceremony. Architecture, art, ritual and scholarship were deployed to defend the existence of their dynasties.
The present volume, from a team of international experts, examines royal methods and ideologies. It treats the courts of the Ptolemies, Seleucids, Attalids, Antigonids and of lesser dynasties. It also explores the influence, on Greek-speaking courts, of non- Greek culture, of Achaemenid and other Near Eastern royal institutions. It studies the careers of courtesans, concubines and `friends’ of royalty, and the intellectual, ceremonial, and artistic world of the Greek monarchies.
The work demonstrates the complexity and motivations of Hellenistic royal civilisation, of courts which governed the transmission of Greek culture to the wider Mediterranean world – and to later age



The contributors:
Sheila Ager
Kostas Buraselis
Livia Capponi
Paola Ceccarelli
David Engels
Oleg Gabelko
Eric Gruen
Craig Hardiman
Alex McAuley
Peter Franz Mittag
Janett Morgan
Olga Palagia
Ivana Petrovic
Ivana Savalli-Lestrade
Rolf Strootman
Dorothy Thompson
Shane Wallace
Stephanie Winde