A Western Empire in the East?: The Historiography of the Seleukid Empire and the Cultural Boundaries of Europe (discussion paper, 2012)

Abstract

Modern ideas about European identity have to a significant extent informed the historiography of the Hellenistic World. Thus, the Seleukid Empire (c. 211-64/3) has been rendered a product of "Classical" civilization, an "Oriental" state, and of course an empire "between East and West". In these simplifications, Greece is usually seen in opposition to a more or less amorphous (Near) East, where the latter has recently been presented as essentially static through the emphasis on the "continuity" of indigenous "traditions" during the Hellenistic period. The West by contrast is conceptualized as either more dynamic and more advanced than the East, or as intrusive, suppressive and colonialist. This paper reviews the various ways in which a modernist East-West dichotomy has distorted historical interpretations of the Hellenistic world. The conventional equation of the Seleukid Empire with a European nation state by ascribing to it such modern features as official borders, average population density, a capital, an impersonal centralized administration, and so forth, is also criticized. As a new avenue of research, it is proposed to see ancient empires not as rigidly structured “states” but as dynamic, negotiated enterprises and flexible networks of personal relations centered on the dynasty.