Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T20:35:45.715Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 11 - Imitating the Emperor?

Cities and Client Kings in the Hellenistic East and the Western Regions of the Han Realm

from Part IV - Fringe Places and Endpoints

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2024

By
Alex McAuley
Edited by
Hans Beck  and
Griet Vankeerberghen
Hans Beck
Affiliation:
Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Germany
Griet Vankeerberghen
Affiliation:
McGill University, Montréal
Get access

Summary

The chapters in this final part deal with places that permeate peripheries and accentuate endpoints – of individuals and of states. Their focus is, first, on how borders were experienced as markers of the confines of one civilization and zones of transition to another and, second, what types of performance were established to deal with the existential crisis of death. Alex McAuley begins with the discussion of the Hindu Kush region, typically considered a realm in between: at its most western stretches, the city of Ai Khanoum has been labelled an outpost of Hellenism, while in the east, the city of Dunhuang in today’s Gansu province is understood as a fringe settlement on the edges of the Western Han. Traditional views of centre and periphery highlight the remoteness of both sites from the cultural core of their civilization and the corresponding centres of political authority. McAuley, too, asserts that the cultural traditions of Ai Khanoum and Dunhuang were designed to stand out from their environments. He takes this distinction as indicative of a peculiar dynamic between imperial centre and periphery, and between place and political culture. Seleucids and Western Han established remarkably similar mechanisms to link distant reaches to their domain. McAuley explores two means in particular: the strengthening of imperial integration through urban connections and designs, and the establishing of dynastic networks that linked client kings to the central core. Prevailing orthodoxies view these measures from the centre. McAuley’s chapter distinguishes itself by bringing local experience on the periphery to life, that is, by demonstrating how the central regions of empire, around Chang’an and the Seleucid tetrapolis, were transported by these measures to the edge of empire, where they wielded their own dynamic in place – and whence they radiated back to the imperial court. Effectively, this chapter not only enriches perspectives on the Hellenistic world and Han China from the vantage point of the Hindu Kush but also demonstrates how the imperial frontiers of both civilizations overlapped in Central Asia, suggesting that the divide between East and West in antiquity is shrinking.

Keywords

peripheriesurban networksettlements programimperial integrationdynastic kinship networks
Type
Chapter
Information
Place and Performance in Ancient Greece, Rome, and China , pp. 349 - 377
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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.)

References

Austin, M. M. 2005. ‘The Seleukids and Asia’. In Erskine, A., ed., A Companion to the Hellenistic World, 121–33. Oxford: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Beck, H., and Vankeerberghen, G., eds. 2021. Rulers and Ruled in Ancient Greece, Rome, and China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bevan, E. 1902. The House of Seleucus. London: E. Arnold.Google Scholar
Bickerman, E. 1938. Institutions des Séleucides. Paris. Haut-Commissariat de la République Française en Syrie et au Liban. Service des Antiquités. Bibliothèque Archéologique et Historique, T. XXVI. Paris: P. Geuthner.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Billows, R. 1995. Kings and Colonists: Aspects of Macedonian Imperialism. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Bo, Chen, and Shelach, G.. 2014. ‘Fortified Settlements and the Settlement System in the Northern Zone of the Han Empire’. Antiquity 88: 222–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Capdetrey, L. 2007. Le pouvoir séleucide: territoire, administration, et finances d’un royaume hellénistique. Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chahin, M. 2001. The Kingdom of Armenia: A History, 2nd ed. Richmond: Curzon.Google Scholar
Chang, Chun-shu. 2007. The Rise of the Chinese Empire (2 vols.). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Chin, T. T. 2014. Savage Exchange: Han Imperialism, Chinese Literary Style, and the Economic Imagination. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Cohen, G. M. 1978. The Seleucid Colonies: Studies in Founding, Administration, and Organization. Wiesbaden: Steiner.Google Scholar
Cohen, G. M. 1995. The Hellenistic Settlements in Europe, the Islands, and Asia Minor. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Cohen, G. M. 2006. The Hellenistic Settlements in Syria, the Red Sea Basin and North Africa. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Coşkun, A., and McAuley, A., eds. 2016. Seleukid Royal Women: Creation, Representation and Distortion of Hellenistic Queenship in the Seleukid Empire. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
D’Agostini, M. 2013. ‘La strutturazione del potere seleucidico in Anatolia: il caso di Acheo il Vecchio e Alessandro di Sardi’. Erga/Logoi 1: 87–106.Google Scholar
D’Agostini, M. 2018. ‘Antioco II, Laodice I e il network matrimoniale anatolico’. Rivista di Diritto Ellenico 8: 21–42.Google Scholar
D’Agostini, M. 2021. ‘Seleukid Marriage Alliances’. In Carney, E. and Müller, S., eds., The Routledge Companion to Women and Monarchy in the Ancient Mediterranean, 198–209. Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Dettenhofer, M. H. 2009. ‘Eunuchs, Women, and Imperial Courts’. In Scheidel, W., ed., Rome and China: Comparative Perspectives on Ancient Empires, 83–99. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Di Cosmo, N. 2002. Ancient China and Its Enemies: The Rise of Nomadic Power in East Asian History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Downey, G. 1961. A History of Antioch in Syria from Seleucus to the Arab Conquest. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Engels, D. 2017. Benefactors, Kings, Rulers: Studies on the Seleukid Empire Between East and West. Leuven: Peeters.Google Scholar
Erickson, K., ed. 2018. The Seleukid Empire, 281–222 BC: War within the Family. Swansea: Classical Press of Wales.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fraser, P. M. 1972. Ptolemaic Alexandria. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Fraser, P. M. 1996. Cities of Alexander the Great. Oxford: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grainger, J. D. 1990. The Cities of Seleukid Syria. Oxford: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grainger, J. D. 2010. The Syrian Wars. Leiden: Brill.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Habberstad, L. 2018. Forming the Early Chinese Court: Rituals, Spaces, Roles. Seattle: University of Washington Press.Google Scholar
Hansen, V. 2012. The Silk Road: A New History. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Harris, W. V., and Ruffini, G., eds. 2004. Ancient Alexandria between Egypt and Greece. Leiden: Brill.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hsieh, Meiyu. 2011. ‘Viewing the Han Empire from the Edge’. Unpublished PhD dissertation. Stanford University.Google Scholar
Hulsewé, A. F. P. 1979. China in Central Asia. The Early Stage: 125 BC–AD 23. An Annotated Translation of Chapters 61 and 96 of the History of the Former Han Dynasty. Leiden: Brill.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kim, Hyun Jin. 2009. Ethnicity and Foreigners in Ancient Greece and China. London: Duckworth.Google Scholar
Kosmin, P. 2014. The Land of the Elephant Kings. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, M. E. 2006. The Construction of Space in Early China. Albany: State University of New York Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Loewe, M. 1986a. ‘The Former Han Dynasty’. In Twitchett, D. and Loewe, M., eds., The Cambridge History of China, 103–222. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Loewe, M. 1986b. ‘The Structure and Practice of Government’. In Twitchett, D. and Loewe, M., eds., The Cambridge History of China, 463–90. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Loewe, M. 2000. A Biographical Dictionary of the Qin, Former Han and Xin Periods (221 BC–AD 24). Leiden: Brill.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mairs, R. 2007. ‘Ethnicity and Funerary Practice in Hellenistic Bactria’. In Schroeder, H., Bray, P., Gardner, P., Jefferson, V., and Macaulay-Lewis, E., eds., Crossing Frontiers: The Opportunities and Challenges of Interdisciplinary Approaches to Archaeology, 111–24. Oxford: School of Archaeology.Google Scholar
Mairs, R. 2013. ‘The “Temple with Indented Niches” at Ai Khanoum: Ethnic and Civic Identity in Hellenistic Bactria’. In Alston, R., van Nijf, O. M., and Williamson, C., eds, Cults, Creeds and Contests: Religion in the Post-Classical City, 85–117. Leuven: Peeters.Google Scholar
Mairs, R. 2014. The Hellenistic Far East. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Martinez-Sève, L. 2014. ‘The Spatial Organization of Ai Khanoum, a Greek City in Afghanistan’. American Journal of Archaeology, 118(2): 267–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McAuley, A. 2016. ‘Princess and Tigress: Apama of Kyrene’. In Coskun, A. and McAuley, A., eds., Seleukid Royal Women: Creation, Representation and Distortion of Hellenistic Queenship in the Seleukid Empire, 175–90. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag.Google Scholar
McAuley, A. 2017. ‘Once a Seleucid, Always a Seleucid’. In Erskine, A., Llewellyn-Jones, L., and Wallace, S., eds., The Hellenistic Court: Monarchic Power and Elite Society from Alexander to Cleopatra, 189–212. Swansea: Classical Press of Wales.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McAuley, A. 2018. ‘The House of Achaios: Reconstructing an Early Client Dynasty in Seleukid Anatolia’. In Erickson, K., ed., The Seleukid Empire 281–222 BC: War within the Family, 37–58. Swansea: Classical Press of Wales.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McAuley, A. 2019. ‘Terra cognita sed vacua? (Re-)appropriating Territory through Hellenistic City Foundations’. In Evans, R. and de Marre, M., eds., Piracy, Pillage, and Plunder in Antiquity, 60–83. Abingdon: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McKenzie, J. 2007. The Architecture of Alexandria and Egypt, c.300 BC to AD 700. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Michels, C. 2012. ‘The Spread of Polis Institutions in Hellenistic Cappadocia and the Peer Polity Interaction Model’. In Stavrianopoulou, E., ed., Shifting Social Imaginaries in the Hellenistic Period, 283–310. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Nishijima, Sadao. 1986. ‘The Economic and Social History of Former Han’. In Twitchett, D. and Loewe, M., eds., The Cambridge History of China, 545–607. Cambridge: Cambridge University PressGoogle Scholar
Noreña, C. 2015. ‘Urban Systems in the Han and Roman Empires: State Power and Social Control’. In Scheidel, W., ed., State Power in Ancient China & Rome, 150–80. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Nylan, M., and Vankeerberghen, G., eds. 2015. Chang’an 26 BCE: An Augustan Age in China. Seattle: University of Washington Press.Google Scholar
Olbrycht, M. J. 2021. ‘Seleukid Women’. In Carney, E. and Müller, S., eds., The Routledge Companion to Women and Monarchy in the Ancient Mediterranean, 173–85. Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Picón, C. A., and Hemingway, S., eds. 2016. Pergamon and the Hellenistic Kingdoms of the Ancient World. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art.Google Scholar
Rosenstein, N. 2009. ‘War, State Formation, and the Evolution of Military Institutions in Ancient China and Rome’. In Scheidel, W., ed., Rome and China: Comparative Perspectives on Ancient World Empires, 24–52. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scheidel, W., ed. 2015. State Power in Ancient China & Rome. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Scheidel, W. ed. 2009. Rome and China: Comparative Perspectives on Ancient World Empires. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schinz, A. 1996. The Magic Square: Cities in Ancient China. Stuttgart: Axel Menges.Google Scholar
Selbitchka, A. 2015. ‘Early Chinese Diplomacy: Realpolitik Versus the So-called Tributary System’. Asia Major (3rd series) 28(1): 61–114.Google Scholar
Sherwin-White, S., and Kuhrt, A.. 1993. From Samarkhand to Sardis: A New Approach to the Seleucid Empire. London: Duckworth.Google Scholar
Strootman, R. 2014. Courts and Elites in the Hellenistic Empires. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Strootman, R. 2017. ‘Imperial Persianism: Seleukids, Arsakids and Fratarakā’. In Strootman, R. and Versluys, M. J., eds., Persianism in Antiquity, 177–200. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Szuchman, J., ed. 2009. Nomads, Tribes, and the State in the Ancient Near East: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives. Chicago: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Trombert, É. 2020. Le glaive et la charrue. Soldats et paysans chinois à la conquête de l’Ouest. L’histoire d’un échec [The Sword and the Plough. Chinese Soldiers and Peasants Conquer the West. The Story of Failure]. Paris: Collège de France, Institut des Hautes Études Chinoises.Google Scholar
Twitchett, D., and Loewe, M., eds. 1986. The Cambridge History of China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wallace, S. 2016. ‘Greek Culture in Afghanistan and India: Old Evidence and New Discoveries’. Greece and Rome, 63(2): 205–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wenghofer, R., and Houle, D. J.. 2016. ‘Marriage Diplomacy and the Political Role of Royal Women in the Seleukid Far East’. In Coskun, A. and McAuley, A., eds., Seleukid Royal Women: Creation, Representation and Distortion of Hellenistic Queenship in the Seleukid Empire, 191–208. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag.Google Scholar
Yao, A. 2014. The Ancient Highlands of Southwest China: From the Bronze Age to the Han Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Yü, Ying-Shih. 1986. ‘Han Foreign Relations’. In Twitchett, D. and Loewe, M., eds., The Cambridge History of China, 377–462. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Zhao, Dingxin. 2015. ‘The Han Bureaucracy: Its Origin, Nature and Development’. In Scheidel, W., ed., State Power in Ancient China & Rome, 56–89. New York : Oxford University Press.Google Scholar

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.

  • Imitating the Emperor?
  • Edited by Hans Beck, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Germany, Griet Vankeerberghen, McGill University, Montréal
  • Book: Place and Performance in Ancient Greece, Rome, and China
  • Online publication: 28 November 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009389983.014
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.

  • Imitating the Emperor?
  • Edited by Hans Beck, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Germany, Griet Vankeerberghen, McGill University, Montréal
  • Book: Place and Performance in Ancient Greece, Rome, and China
  • Online publication: 28 November 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009389983.014
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.

  • Imitating the Emperor?
  • Edited by Hans Beck, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Germany, Griet Vankeerberghen, McGill University, Montréal
  • Book: Place and Performance in Ancient Greece, Rome, and China
  • Online publication: 28 November 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009389983.014
Available formats
×