Alexander the Great and the Oasis at Siwah: kingship ideology and divine honours at the edge of the 'world'. (original) (raw)

2017

Abstract

Alexander's journey to Siwah is overwhelmed by an emphasis on the king's engagement with the gods and the recognition of his divine paternity. The hands of Ptolemy, Callisthenes, and Aristoboulos are self-evident and significant, but so is the chronology of the Graeco-Roman sources for an engagement with divine honours to Roman Emperors. The source of this divinity has often been understood as stemming from a belief that Alexander held of himself, but a range of engagements from the Neo-Assyrian, through the Persian, and into the Macedonian periods tell a different story, which the archaeological evidence from Siwah supports. Alexander was a king, king of Macedon, king of Egypt, king of the western satrapies, and claimant to the Persian throne. Siwah was a journey that he had to make ideologically. This paper will critically expose the tradition that Alexander was following in, as well as the legacy his journey to Siwah left on antiquity. It is Alexander the king that we find, not Alexander the god.

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