Daughters, princesses, and agents of empire. Royal women as transcultural agents in the Seleucid Empire

Abstract

This article uses the vast Seleucid Empire of the Hellenistic Period as a case study for understanding the intersection of gender and authority in the context of pre-modern empires. The Seleucid Empire was a vast and disparate realm whose inhabitants hailed from dozens of diverse and well-established cultural backgrounds with their own traditions of gender, authority, and power. As a means of overcoming this sheer geographical scope and cultural plurality, I argue that the Seleucid dynasty projected a carefully-crafted image of itself as an artificially-narrowed nuclear family comprised of the three figures of king/ husband, the queen/wife, and the heir/son. By communicating their prestige and legitimacy through familial terms, the Seleucids created a model of dynastic authority which required both male and female figures, overturning the old supposition of Hellenistic royalty as being almost exclusivelyamale realm. By examining source material from throughout the empire I argue that this familial image was projected to both Greek- and non-Greek audiences throughout the empire. As a further means of unifying their empire, I argue that the Seleucids created a dynastic web throughout their territories by marrying princesses of the royal family to local potentates and elites, thereby creating client dynasties. Such a practice combined with the prestige and authority of the royal family led to a process of cultural adaptation among these client dynasties that resulted in their rapid Hellenization. I argue that this process of acculturation is in no small part a side-effect of the marriages of these royal women, and that this unique concept of royal gender and legitimacy left an indelible mark on the cultural landscape of the empire.