Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T08:49:43.221Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 5 - Imperial and Indigenous Temporalities in the Ptolemaic and Seleucid Dynasties

A Comparison of Times

from Part II - Communication and Exchange

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 September 2021

Christelle Fischer-Bovet
Affiliation:
University of Southern California
Sitta von Reden
Affiliation:
Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Germany
Get access

Summary

This chapter compares different temporal regimes developed by the Seleucids and Ptolemies. Kosmin suggests that the Seleucids created a new “historical field” when Seleucus proclaimed a new epoch of Babylonian history and called the year of his conquest of Babylon year 1. The Babylonian historian and priest Berossus, despite writing a history of pre-Seleucid Babylonia, situated himself in the new world of the Seleucids. Yet in Egypt the Ptolemies continued reckoning with traditional regnal years, showing their subordination to traditional uses of historical time. But there were changes, too. Greek regnal years started with the anniversary of the king’s accession, oaths were sworn by the divinized royal members and Demotic dating formulae used the eponymous priests of the royal cult. All this established the Ptolemaic dynasty as a unit and a method of structuring time in its own way. Manetho and Berossus took over dynastic history, creating thirty dynasties up to the Macedonian conquest. The Ptolemies created a neue Zeit, but the Seleucids were more revolutionary. In both empires the local elites and populations participated in shaping the new politics of time.

Type
Chapter
Information
Comparing the Ptolemaic and Seleucid Empires
Integration, Communication, and Resistance
, pp. 129 - 163
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×