Imperial metropoleis and foundation myths: Ptolemaic and Seleucid capitals compared

Abstract

In the two parts of this chapter, we investigate the ways in which major royal cities of the Ptolemaic and Seleucid realms were constructed as capitals of imperial states. In particular, we discuss how the foundation stories of these cities reflect conflicts and integration politics, which the creation of imperial metropoleis involved and which these stories aimed to control. Against the common assumption that the capitals of the Ptolemaic and Seleucid empires were culturally and politically uncontested, we will suggest that both Ptolemaic and Seleucid royal cities were constantly positioned and re-positioned vis-à-vis other royal or imperial cities that expressed, or had expressed in the past, similar claims. In the foundation myths of royal cities, we observe both competition and accommodation: competition and acommodation, that is, across the imperial zones of the Seleucid and Ptolemaic kings, between Memphis and Alexandria, as well as between Alexandria and Rome.