Kings and Usurpers in the Seleukid Empire

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 185 of nomadic tribes who dwell on the farthest end of the inhabitable world, as a people who obey nomos phusikos (the adaptation of nomos to phusis). For Provencal, the lower axis of the Scythian-Egyptian polarity provides a cross-cultural foil for Herodotus’ most complex commonality between the Greek sophists and Persians in the Histories: they both champion ideologies that favour natural justice (nomos phuseōs, akin to nomos phusikos) and a “lust for absolute power” (erōs turannidos, 223) over the “equal subjection of all to the rule of law” (isonomia, 202) upon which to Hellenikon was founded (nomos basileus, akin to nomos hieros). In his final, most persuasive chapter (215–250), Provencal offers specific examples of sophist kings, primarily the Persosophist leaders of Media and Persia, but also the mythological Paris, Persian ambassadors to Argos, Atossa, Mardonius, and even Themistocles . Deioces emerges as the founder and archetype of the sophist king, the first wise man (sophos aner) motivated by a desire for sovereignty (erōs turannidos). His legacy is continued by his heirs, but achieves its fullest potential in the Achaemenid king Darius , the master Persosophist (sophotatos aner), whose sophistic influence comes mostly from the Protagorean ideology of man’s power to determine justice. Darius’ success lies in the balance between his sophistry (sophia) and his selfish erōs turannidos that is best exemplified in the constitutional debate of 3.80–83, in which he defends the ancestral monarchy established by Deioces. Herodotus finds an unlikely counterpart for Darius in the Athenian general Themistocles, who will ultimately betray the interests of Athens in favour of his own self-preservation in exile. In a clever and fitting twist, a characterization derived from Greek culture ultimately remains Greek in the end, even if filtered through the Other. Provencal’s nuanced contributions to the conversation about Herodotus’ treatment of Persians are not only much needed but also encouraging for the evolution of our understanding of the Greeks’ varied perceptions of the Other. Although broadly confirming the commonly held conclusion that the dichotomy between Self and Other illuminates the Self more than the Other, as Herodotus’ final characterization of the Persosophist Themistocles demonstrates, the foregrounding of the Greek-Persian axis as an antagonistic relationship adds an intriguing dimension to a highly contentious topic. Even if one essentially disagrees with Provencal’s position on the Histories’ alleged ideological posturing vis-à-vis environmental determinism and orientalizing, it is still possible to appreciate this thoroughly researched and exhaustively argued (if at times antithetical) project that highlights Herodotus’ clever representation of Persians as learned rhetoricians of the sophistic tradition. University of Toronto E. C. Mohr Kings and Usurpers in the Seleukid Empire: The Men Who Would Be King. By Boris Chrubasik. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2016. Pp. xxiv, 308. Chrubasik's focus is on usurpers in the Seleucid empire, more precisely Antiochus Hierax, Achaeus, Timarchus, Alexander Balas, Tryphon, and Alexander Zabinas. His purpose is not just to illuminate the stories of these individuals, but to seek structural explanations for the phenomenon and assess the strength of the Seleucid kingdom. The conclusion is clear: the Seleucid kingdom was weak. But its weakness did not lie where older scholarship located it. Rather, it was one of kingship. There was a 186 PHOENIX systemic possibility of tension between the king and his most important power-holders, and attempts to create a Seleucid identity for the state failed to invest the Seleucid king with any inherent legitimacy. Kings were under constant pressure to reify authority by performance of kingly tasks and by communicative interaction with various audiences. An audience that accepted a king’s message was not acknowledging but creating royal status, and thus the king was accepted in a social sense rather than legitimate in a dynastic sense. As a consequence, kingship “remained in its Diadochic infancy” (234) and was constantly challenged from the mid-third century onwards in ways that left Seleucid authority fragile. In this the Seleucid realm differed fundamentally from the Achaemenid empire, in which the relationship between king and ruling elite ran along quite different lines. The argument is not all about usurpers. The first chapter examines the types

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