The Land of the Elephant Kings: Space, Territory, and Ideology in the Seleucid Empire, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA–London 2014, pp. 423, b/w ill., 9 maps, ISBN 978-0-674-72882-0

Summary

After many years of stagnation, we are observing a huge interest in the history of the Seleucid Empire. This revival can be attributed to at least several factors, including the publication of Babylonian astronomical diaries written in the Hellenistic period and containing information about previously unknown historical events in Mesopotamia, as well as finds of new inscriptions, numerous studies on the numismatics of the Seleucids and, to a limited extent, archaeological discoveries. To these, we should also add scholars’ extensive interest in the political history of the Hellenistic world and those aspects of its past which had previously not been the object of much attention: the structure of power and its operation, the role of social elites, ideology and propaganda in the service of the Hellenistic rulers, the place of the cultural legacy of the civilisations that the Greeks conquered in the structures of the states they created, etc.

Owing to these factors, the history of the Greeks in Central Asia, Mesopotamia and Iran also came to interest scholars. This interest is shown by the rapidly growing number of publications in recent years. One of the latest of these is Paul J. Kosmin's book, which tackles a problem previously given scant attention in studies on the Seleucids. In what way, the author asks, did they build the foundations of their rule in areas that were extremely diverse culturally and geographically? He is interested in the symbols and propaganda tools they used to legitimise their government and in how they used the geographical realities of the various lands and organised the space over which they ruled (pp. 4–5), taking as his starting point Megasthenes’ work Indica. Kosmin is aware that the conclusions his research leads to only refer to th e limited geographical area that constitutes the object of his interest.

Notably, the author uses interesting and innovative research methodology, in which he combines the historical approach standard in most previous studies of the Hellenistic era with an anthropological one that allows him to look at the problems that interest him from a different research perspective. The book is divided into four parts, titled “Border”, “Homeland”, “Movement” and “Colony”, each of them containing two chapters.