The Dynasts of Persian and Hellenistic Anatolia: Towards a New Account

This talk will be led by Dr Marcus Chin. He will discuss how local rulership was a persistent feature of the political landscape of Anatolia in the Persian and Hellenistic periods (c. 540-30 BC). These are rulers who were based in Anatolia, and functioned within the larger spaces of imperial sovereignty represented by the Achaemenid Persian and then Seleukid, Ptolemaic and Antigonid kings: well-known examples are the Hekatomnid dynasty based in Karia, or the Attalids at Pergamon. However, the phenomenon of local rulership has mainly been confined to studies of the political history of individual rulers and families, while the overall continuity of the phenomenon over these post-classical centuries has not often been acknowledged or understood. This talk will present the background to a study, still very much in progress, which aims to present a new account of such Anatolian local rulership stressing its role in shaping local regional identities and socio-economic life, through a focus on the insights offered by epigraphy and coinage. Marcus will end by briefly discussing work from one of the chapters, on the political competition between the minor kingdoms of late Hellenistic Kappadokia and Pontos.

Members of the Cluster are invited to the reserved AWRC lunch table in Hall starting at 12.30 to meet Marcus. Marcus’ talk in the Florey Room at 13:15 will be catered with cake and tea/coffee (all welcome).