The Land of the Elephant Kings: Space, Territory, and Ideology in the Seleucid Empire

by Kosmin

The Seleucid Empire (311-64 BCE) was unlike anything the ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern worlds had seen. Stretching from present-day Bulgaria to Tajikistan--the bulk of Alexander the Great's Asian conquests--the kingdom encompassed a territory of remarkable ethnic, religious, and linguistic diversity; yet it did not include Macedonia, the ancestral homeland of the dynasty. The Land of the Elephant Kings investigates how the Seleucid kings, ruling over lands to which they had no historic claim, attempted to transform this territory into a coherent and meaningful space.

Based on recent archaeological evidence and ancient primary sources, Paul J. Kosmin's multidisciplinary approach treats the Seleucid Empire not as a mosaic of regions but as a land unified in imperial ideology and articulated by spatial practices. Kosmin uncovers how Seleucid geographers and ethnographers worked to naturalize the kingdom's borders with India and Central Asia in ways that shaped Roman and later medieval understandings of "the East." In the West, Seleucid rulers turned their backs on Macedonia, shifting their sense of homeland to Syria. By mapping the Seleucid kings' travels and studying the cities they founded--an ambitious colonial policy that has influenced the Near East to this day--Kosmin shows how the empire's territorial identity was constructed on the ground. In the empire's final century, with enemies pressing harder and central power disintegrating, we see that the very modes by which Seleucid territory had been formed determined the way in which it fell apart.

Genres: History, Greece, Nonfiction, India, Middle East, Ancient History, Geography

448 pages, Paperback

First published July 3, 2014

Reviews

[Czarny Pies · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are two reasons why a general reader might be interested in the Seleucid Empire which lasted from 312 BC to 63 BC and which extended from the Eastern Mediterranean to what is now Pakistan. The first is that as a Greek speaking entity it brought European or Hellenistic culture deep into Asia. Lovers of Western Culture then are given to regret an opportunity that was lost when the Seleucid Empire ultimately failed. The second reason for being interested in the Seleucids is that it was under their regime that the Maccabean rebellions, described in the Orthodox and Catholic Bibles, took place. It was in other words the Seleucids who created the context of rebellion and civil strife in which Christ lived.
The problem for all modern historians is that there are no histories of the Seleucid Empire surviving from antiquity. The contemporary chronicles describe the Seleucid from tangential viewpoints, and all are essentially hostile. Kosmin finds two means to overcome this fundamental. The first is the remarkable and growing body of archeological sources. Using excavations (of palaces, cities and citadels), monuments, coins, and statues, Kosmin reconstructs the ideology and government style of the Seleucids. Kosmin’s second tool is spatial semiotics which sadly, greatly undermines what he achieves with his archeological data,
Kosmin begins with a spatial analysis of the empire’s borders. He notes that the extreme Eastern boundary touching the Mauryan Empire was marked by “Rock Edicts” and was diplomatically defined. The extreme Western boundary with Macedonia was also diplomatically defined. With the Ptolemaic Empire in the region of Holy Land there was no formal diplomatic delineation of boundaries which result in incessant warring. To create a Northern Boundary, the Seleucids despatched an explorer who discovered a fictitious ocean of which the Caspian Sea was a bay.
Kosmin then turns his spatial microscope to the Seleucid Court. Excavations have revealed that the Court was itinerant not fixed moving through a regular circuit of palaces in different regions throughout the year. Kosmin assumes that the purpose was to remind all the various regions of the existence of a Seleucid Emperor. The problem that Kosmin perceives is that ultimately the itinerant nature of the court weakened the regime because in times of crisis there was no centre of strength for the emperor to fall back on.
Kosmin cites archeological sources to argue that the Seleucids did much to increase the overall prosperity of their realm. They founded colonies and dug many irrigation canals. They built cities that used an orderly grid or orthogonal design with wide streets that were good for public hygiene and the additional benefit of making it easy for the Empire to suppress urban revolts. The Seleucids also constructed citadels and erected many new buildings in the older cities of the empire.
Kosmin’s excellent use of archeological data is excellent. His spatial however is consistently irritating and at times is truly perverse. At one point he describes the Jewish desire for an independent homeland to the result of an “inherited ideology of space”. I also fail to see why setting boundaries to a state should be referred to as defining a space. Kosmin’s text is loopy. Nonetheless, he does succeed in presenting an interesting new history of the Seleucid Empire which traditionally has received little interest and even less respect.
For a reader with a strong interest in the era, it is worth the considerable effort required to plow through it. The book is never at any point fun. Given that it is an academic work, Kosmin never entertains even briefly the notion that the Seleucid's might have succeeded in creating a Greek or Hellenistic state that would have survived the advent of Islam. Kosmin is also maddeningly detached about the Maccabean revolt. Instead of outrage at the oppression of the Jewish state, Kosmin simply observes that narratives of the Seleucids and the Maccabbees were profoundly irreconciliable.

[Jo Walton]

This is an awesome book about the Seleucid empire, but it's not for beginners -- if I hadn't already just read several books on this period I'd have been lost, because Kosmin expects you to already be familiar with the details. Having said that, this is exactly what I wanted, it's well-written and really readable, it has a wide perspective, and an interesting thesis. It's brilliant about space and time.

The only thing I really want that he didn't get into (and nobody else has either) is what it meant for Antiochus I to be half-Iranian. We're talking about Macedonians conquering Asia, and keeping it for generations, and the spread of Greek culture and the merging of Greek and indigenous culture, and that's fascinating. And Seleucus was the only one of Alexander's generals to keep his Persian wife after the Susa weddings, and so his son Antiochus was half-Iranian, and he succeeded his father and Kosmin mentions this but doesn't talk about the significance to him or to his subjects (Greek or other) and I really really want to read a discussion of this.

[Jay Fisher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three especially interesting points. 1) The Seleucids were careful to mark he limits of their periphery 2) the artificial Seleucid homeland in Syria was a response to losing access to the Macedonian homeland for Seleucid. 3) there is good evidence for Seleucid cities independently resisting official foundation narratives by reaching back past their Seleucid foundations. Well done.

[Vladimiro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cercavo un libro sulla dinastia seleucide e il più recente che ho trovato è questo. Si tratta di un'opera dall'approccio molto moderno, che vuole identificare le linee guida del pensiero e del modo di agire della dinastia seleucide. La quantità di note e la profondità del dettaglio sono davvero ottimi. Nella maggior parte dei casi l'autore mi ha convinto. Sulle ceneri della conquista di Alessandro, i Seleucidi dovettero creare un impero da zero: città, istituzioni e, soprattutto, una ideologia che sostenesse tutto ciò. L'autore esplora quindi prima i confini dell'impero, definiti dal trattato con i Maurya e dalla guerra con Antigono Monoftalmo; poi esplora le opere letterarie-geografiche create alla corte seleucide. Quindi, si parla della colonizzazione della Siria, terra prima di transito che divenne invece centrale (fondazione di quattro grandi colonie) con i Seleucidi. Vengono indagati anche i rapporti tra i sovrani e le città.

Non è un libro rivolto al pubblico generale: l'autore ha inserito un primo capitolo con un "riassunto" di storia seleucide, ma è comunque limitato, perché i seleucide dominarono dall'Egeo all'Indo, quindi o già si sa un po' della loro storia oppure ci si perde facilmente.

[Maarten · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book providing a convincing counter to the oft-taken approach of constructing the Seleucid empire as a perpetually dying realm with no real territory. How Seleucid spatial ideology translated to actual imperial control remains underexplored in this book, and some of the ideological exploration is slightly vague, but that hardly diminishes the book's contribution.

[David Usharauli · Rating 1 out of 5]

Seleucid Empire existed for more than 200 years inheriting the largest part of Asian territories conquered by Alexander the Great during his Asian campaign.

Its history is not well known. It was founded by one of the Alexander's general, Seleucus, around 312/311 B.C. This alien Macedonian (seleucid) dynasty ruled people of middle east who were before ruled by Achaemenids of Ancient Persia.

For me the most intriguing question of post-Alexander's age is how it was possible that people of Middle East accepted foreign rule without much resistance.

However, this book did not even discuss it as if the answer was obvious one. Not really. Moreover, book content is organized quite unusual way making it difficult to follow and derive any valuable information, if any. It really bothers me when I see that book has an interesting title but content is totally useless and hard to digest. I cannot recommend this book to anyone.

posted by David

[Cory Sine · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The Land of the Elephant Kings: Space, Territory, and Ideology in the Seleucid Empire”, Paul J. Kosmin.

To what extent are empires composed not by statecraft, military success, political ambition, or dynasty-establishment but rather by the symbolic meaning and real power of activities occurring in the actual physical territory of the empire? When an emperor crosses the border into his realm, what are his actions and what purpose do they serve? What if a city in his realm shuts its gates on him? What role do borders between an empire and its neighbours play in defining the ideology of said empire? How do colonies affect the dominant ideology of the empire and its propaganda? What is the significance of naming new cities? How is the act of crowning an emperor tied to the physical territory in which it is performed? Overall, how does an empire build itself from the land it occupies? How does it invest and imprint upon this land its meaning and purpose? How does power make a home for itself? If these questions have you scratching your head in bewilderment, Kosmin’s book on the Seleucid Empire might not be the book for you. However, if you are intrigued by these ideas, regardless of whether or not you’ve ever considered them before, “The Land of the Elephant Kings” makes for a very unique and utterly new approach to understanding history.

The titular ‘Land of the Elephant Kings’ is the Seleucid Empire of the Hellenistic Age. Seleucus Nicator was a minor but well-placed commander of Alexander the Great who, when given the plum satrapy of Babylon (in modern-day Iraq) as reward for betraying his own commander to another one of Alexander’s generals, would go on to build the largest and most diverse of the Successor Kingdoms which followed in the wake of Alexander’s death. At its height this empire would stretch from modern-day Bulgaria through the entire Middle East up to Egypt and across Central Asia all the way to India and Afghanistan. It was an unthinkably vast and extremely heterogenous empire with hundreds of cultures, peoples, and vassal states. Ruling it was a newly-installed upper-class of war-rich Macedonian and Greek settlers. Ruling this empire was never easy and yet the Seleucids persisted in the face of all odds for some 300-years. Kosmin is not concerned with the ‘a’ to ‘b’ historical progression of emperors, conquests, wars, and retreats, but rather the methods employed to make this great swathe of land a great swathe of Seleucid land.

Kosmin is a Big Idea guy to be sure and his theorizing is centred on a new way of looking at power and history called the ‘spatial turn’. As already stated, when it comes to empires, this new view has its eye on how those in power cement their position through the symbolism of physical actions in geographic space. It does take some time to wrap one’s head around this new approach and this book errs in that it has, I think, a little less hand-holding than is necessary to really grasp the ideas at play. That is, however, part of the attraction - Kosmin treats you like a grown-up and side-steps bizarreness in favour of compelling newness. This is a truly radical approach to history and the book is filled with fascinating detail about these highly symbolic acts (e.g. entering a city, designing urban sprawl, naming settlements, establishing imperial ideology). Perhaps the most fascinating is the creation of the “Seleucid Era”. In the Ancient world, keeping track of the years was not a universal thing. Ancient Athenians would recall the past by saying “in the time of such-and-such archons” while Romans would say “in the such-and-such year of such-and-such consul” and Persians might say “in the 4th year of the reign of Xerxes”. The Seleucids brought something entirely new to the table which had never been considered before: time that kept on going. They started their age, their “era”, when Seleucus Nicator was granted Babylon and counted up from there. They didn’t restart when there was a new emperor, they didn’t tie it to a recurring act, they let the years pass unhindered in a forward direction and let all their leaders and events be registered on that sequence of years. They ensured that whatever happened to them in the end, all future kings and emperors in this world would simply be benchmarks on a history that began with them. This was the precursor to how we record years now with B.C. before Christ (or B.C.E. as they say now) and A.D. after Christ (C.E. currently). Literally it was the birth of modern time and the Seleucids were the ones in the delivery room. Kosmin names it as the Seleucids greatest contribution to history.

In closing, this is not an easy book but that is its attractiveness. It challenges you not just with a huge profusion of simple historical facts but by working a paradigm shift on your very way of understanding history and the place of power within it. Choose this book and your labour’s reward will be a daringly fresh state of understanding.

[Nick · Rating 2 out of 5]

From an academic point of view the book is worthy read but from a purely entertaining point of view, you won't be that thrilled. Kosmin chooses a less prevalent approach to the subject of the seleucid empire, not its armies or its conflict with its neighbors and later Rome but rather on how it defined its easters, western and northern borders as well as how cities founded by royal patronage and the travel between them defined the state and monarchs power. It is a complex and often abstract approach but never goes off the rail to far when it comes to sticking to concrete examples.

I found the first segment on the borders intriguing how the Seleucid had to balance reality with ideology such as the complex mythology they devised for India to allow for contact between equal partners involving Dionysian mysteries creating the cities which made India now unconquerable . While in the north the borders with the great plains necessitated an approach that would have been quite familiar to ancient Sumerian hero Gilgamesh; the urban landscape defined the border and the land beyond was the wild other which due to its inherent otherness was now unconquerable. It is easy to spot the contradiction when putting them together. While in the west the death of founder Seuleukos on the border of Macedonia was taken as a near divine sign that the new state was to be set in the east.

the second part of the book tackles Monarchical power in both travel and cities. travel was the core of the Seleucid power according to Kosmin, both a spectacle of decadent wealth and power display meant to shock and awe. Even if to little material remains to fully delve into the details, the departure and even more arrival of the great king reaffirmed royal power in the regions. But something early on became apparent, the travels were particularly focused on north syria and iraq. It is here that they founded the most cities and settlements, cities and settlement that were not quite the docile cultural settler colonies that we might imagine them to be, making the regular appearance of the king a necessity. This, according to Kosmin also explains why the Seleucid did not really have a capital, a core city from which political legitimacy flowed unlike their neighbors the Ptolemaic state in Egypt with Alexandria. This necessity to keep moving to reaffirm legitimacy might have helped to keep in power but in itself weakened the state and reaffirmed its shaky foundations from which in time it would disintegrate. It is here that I do wish that the Kosmin went a bit deeper into how the older cities and the non Greek inhabitants of the empire fit in all of this and helped push to fracture the empire. Secondly Kosmin focuses primarily on the cities in the core of the Seleucid empire but in all honestly I am far more interested in the settlements on the eastern edge. The promises of the first chapter which focuses so much on the north east; made it all the more disappointing that we shift focus to the syrian heartland.

Overall I liked the premise and value the research quite highly but it is not an accessible book both in style and thematic focus while disappointing me personally with far to little to tell on the eastern cities and settlements. I can see how the dynamic worked and how it let to the Seleucid retreating to this Syrian heartland but I am left hungry for more.

[Michael Lewyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is very difficult, sometimes unnecessarily so. Nevertheless, I learned a bit from it. Before reading it, I was vaguely aware that the Seleucid Empire, like that of the Ptolemies in Egypt, was founded by one of Alexander the Great's subordinates after his death.

But I don't think I was really aware of how weird (by modern standards at least) this empire was. Most empires, like the Roman Empire for example, start with a homeland and gradually expand. The Seleucid Empire was whatever the first king was able to conquer- not including his homeland of Macedonia, but including some or all of what is now Israel, Syria, Iraq, Iran and some smaller countries here and there. Thus, the empire never had anything resembling a coherent national identity. The first Seleucid kings created numerous cities, but (unlike some other kings) didn't really create one dominant city.

Perhaps as a result, the Seleucid kingship was not exactly an easy or pleasant occupation. Instead of staying in a capital city while underlings did all the work, Seleucid kings traveled around - sometimes showing off their might, but often fighting wars. Most died violently, and many (especially in the empire's turbulent last century) were involved in civil wars against others who wanted the job.

[Waqar Ahmed · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wandered upon Paul J Kosmin's second book 'Time and its adversaries in the Seleucid empire' when I was discovering titles to read up on the little-known Seleucid empire.

I was unaware that Kosmin's time and its adversaries is the second book in his series on the Seleucid empire. However, I finished the second part before reading the first. The way this book (the land of the elephant kings) is structured, makes it very difficult for the reader to comprehend the Hellenistic empire since the book does not have a linear narrative.

Coming to this book, I was able to get some basic facts about the Seleucid empire but was not able to glean much. As stated above, the book does not narrate the events of the Seleucid empire in a linear manner and hence becomes difficult for the reader to follow the text. Another point is that the text is very dry and it definitely does not read like a page-turning novel, more of a slog to get through.

3/5

[Alan · Rating 3 out of 5]

While AFAICT this book is quite well-researched, full of interesting anecdotes and good source analysis, I found it a slog to actually read. It's academic in the worst sense -- overly theoretical with that particular style of academic writing that makes your eyes glaze over. Although I did end up learning a lot about the Seleucids, I found it hard to really follow the main thesis.

The book did a good job convincing me the Seleucids were theoretically interesting (an ethno-centric empire that doesn't contain its homeland! An empire that does not have universalist ambitions with multiple peer competitor states (sharply unlike Alexander)! A huge source of cities + colonies), and there were many striking observations (e.g. the geographical contortions re: the Caspian sea for ideological purposes), I did not feel like it accumulated to anything crisp or coherent.

[Anna L · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very academic book, focused not so much on events/chronology or personalities but on certain cultural aspects of the Seleucid Empire and how it was run and how Selecucid royal ideology permeated its space and time. Not for beginners, but if you already have a solid understanding of who, what, when and why - it can add a lot of 'how'.

[Christopher · Rating 3 out of 5]

Your mileage will very greatly depending on your view of postmodern inflected scholarship. That being said, its a good study of how the Seleucids saw borders and internal spatial organization.

[Sven · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another verifiable hood classic on the Seleucids.

[Oliver Laming · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kosmin uses the phrase, epistemological teepee or something. This might disqualify a work from a five star rating. However, I did very much enjoy it.
The bit about Hellenistic geographers thinking the Caspian emptied into a greater northern sea is interesting.
The stuff about the spatial turn and reteritoralisation of Syria after the failed attempt to retake Macedon is very good also.

[Tiffany · Rating 2 out of 5]

As a postmodern style historical work it was okay, but overall the work lacked full support for his thesis.