Queen of Kings: Kleopatra VII and the Donations of Alexandria
Rolf Strootman
Kingdoms and Principalities in the Roman Near East: Occidens et Oriens 19 (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2010) 140-57.
Abstract
This paper, written for a volume dedicated to client kingdoms in the Roman Near East, focuses on the Hellenistic background of the Roman system of client kingdoms. It is argued that the Roman system was essentially an adaptation of the complex of vassal kingdoms that had existed in (and had survived) the later Seleukid Empire. The Late Hellenistic patchwork of autonomous kingdoms was held together by the charisma and military prestige of the Seleukid ‘Great King’, a title that implied the right to appoint lesser kings and went back to the millennia-old Near Eastern tradition of universal rulership and ontological ideal of world unity.
As the rightful, matrilineal heir to the vanished Seleukid Dynasty and thus the Great Kingship, Kleopatra VII and her son Caesarion possessed the necessary prestige to claim overlordship over the entire Middle East and rival the Parthian kings’ claim to have acquired the title of Great King by right of victory over the Seleukids. Through Caesar’s and Antony’s paternity of Kleopatra’s children, Hellenistic monarchy could thus be brought into the (republican) Roman orbit.
Rolf Strootman
Kingdoms and Principalities in the Roman Near East: Occidens et Oriens 19 (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2010) 140-57.
Abstract
This paper, written for a volume dedicated to client kingdoms in the Roman Near East, focuses on the Hellenistic background of the Roman system of client kingdoms. It is argued that the Roman system was essentially an adaptation of the complex of vassal kingdoms that had existed in (and had survived) the later Seleukid Empire. The Late Hellenistic patchwork of autonomous kingdoms was held together by the charisma and military prestige of the Seleukid ‘Great King’, a title that implied the right to appoint lesser kings and went back to the millennia-old Near Eastern tradition of universal rulership and ontological ideal of world unity.
As the rightful, matrilineal heir to the vanished Seleukid Dynasty and thus the Great Kingship, Kleopatra VII and her son Caesarion possessed the necessary prestige to claim overlordship over the entire Middle East and rival the Parthian kings’ claim to have acquired the title of Great King by right of victory over the Seleukids. Through Caesar’s and Antony’s paternity of Kleopatra’s children, Hellenistic monarchy could thus be brought into the (republican) Roman orbit.
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