In this fascinating study O. considers the mythology surrounding the legendary founder of the Seleucid Empire, Seleucus I Nicator (c. 358–281 bc). Seleucus served as infantry general under Alexander the Great and after 323 became satrap of Babylon under Antipater. In 321 Antigonus forced Seleucus to flee from the capital, but in 312, strengthened by the support of Ptolemy I, he returned to reclaim the city and found his empire. In the decades that followed Seleucus enjoyed great military success. His Eastern campaign culminated in the Battle of Ipsus in 301 against Antigonus, which rendered him completely unopposed in Asia, and his Western ambitions led him to Thrace and Macedonia, where he prevailed in the Battle of Corupedium in 281 against the last of the Diadochi, Lysimachus. However, true to the omens, Seleucus died on European soil, assassinated by Ptolemy Keraunos in the aftermath of his military victory. While Seleucus’ political and military achievements are worthy of study, O.’s focus is not the reign of the great Seleucid king per se, but the legends and mythologies of Seleucus in the textual tradition. The result is a brilliant piece of research in which O. successfully places the legacy of one of the most important successors of Alexander in the wider ancient literary tradition.
The book consists of an introduction, seven chapters and six appendices. In the introduction O. presents the sources used throughout the study (the Alexander Romance plays a dominant role here), provides the reader with a short biography of the life and reign of Seleucus and set outs his chief purpose. O.’s aim is to ‘collate the legendary material and to understand its significance and symbolism in its ancient context’ and to show ‘how closely Seleucus’ legendary episodes align with other ancient Greek narratives of a traditional nature and with international folktales’ (pp. 3–4). O.’s comparative approach aims to present all relevant material in order to contextualise the episode ‘against the broader Seleucus tradition, the Alexander tradition, the Alexander Romance especially, [and] other ancient narratives’ (p. 8). He does so on the premise that the process of comparison is the key to tracing the symbolic meaning of legendary episodes and that this will teach us about how the Greeks liked to remember and how they constructed ‘greatness’.
In Chapter 1, ‘Birth Myths and Omens of Greatness’, O. discusses the omens and prophecies connected to the early life of Seleucus. O. convincingly connects the stories about Seleucus’ birth, the signet ring and Alexander's diadem to the wider cultural context, and especially shows a strong connection to the myth of Alexander in the Alexander Romance (pp. 66–7).
Chapter 2, ‘Seleucus’ Horseback Flight from Babylon’, covers Seleucus’ escape from Babylon. O. begins his discussion with Diodorus (19.55–6) and Appian (Syrian Wars 53.266–7) and argues that the fleeing hero is a significant theme in various traditions: Herodotus’ Perdiccas (pp. 71–7), Nicolaus of Damascus’ Cyrus (p. 77), Chares of Mytilene's Zariadres (pp. 78–9), Alexander in the Alexander Romance (pp. 79–82) and Ardeshir in the Ardeshir Romance (pp. 82–4). Although O. acknowledges the historicity of the escape, he concludes that it was assimilated into a tale-type because Babylon was to be Seleucus’ point of reference in 311, when he founded his vast empire (p. 97).
Chapter 3, ‘Omens and Myths and Cult Foundation’, considers the numerous foundation narratives of the Syrian Tetrapolis (Seleucia-in-Pieria, Antioch, Apamea and Laodicea-on-the-Sea), the Apollo cult at Daphne and the city of Seleucia-on-the-Tigris. The section devoted to the Tetrapolis foundations is highly illuminating, as O. successfully places the thunderbolt imagery (cf. Appian, Syrian Wars 58.299) in the context of no less than nine literary traditions ranging from the fourteenth century bc (the Ugaritic-Canaanite myth) to the sixth century ad (Stephanus of Byzantium).
Chapter 4, ‘Combadus and Stratonice’, and Chapter 5, ‘Antiochus and Stratonice’, both have as their theme the Greek Queen of the Seleucid Empire, Stratonice. First, O. focuses on Stratonice and Combadus, arguing that Lucian modelled his narrative on various folk tales and that the story originated in and for the Seleucid Empire. Next, O. discusses the relationship between Stratonice and Antiochus through various textual traditions such as Valerius Maximus, Pliny, Plutarch, Appian, Lucian and Galen. He interprets the narrative in relation to medical texts and successfully aligns the Antiochus-Stratonice tradition with that of Perdiccas II (who ended up marrying his father's concubine). According to O., both stories fit into a wider theme of future kings gaining legitimacy by marrying a queen (p. 207).
Chapter 6, ‘Omens of Death, Death and Revenge’, looks at the different stories attached to the death of Seleucus: his assassination, the omens foretelling his death, the connection between Seleucus and Lysimachus and the revenge of Seleucus’ ghost. Again, O. shows that the traditions of Seleucus and Alexander share numerous motifs.
The concluding Chapter 7, ‘Coins, Texts, and Traditions’, addresses methodological issues, the textual foundation and fundamental questions related to the origin, nature and development of the Seleucid tradition (as the considerations addressed here are related to the study as a whole and should have been placed in the introduction, I recommend that the reader start with this chapter). O. considers the long-running debate on the merits and shortcomings of Quellenforschung and seeks to locate the Seleucid material behind Diodorus, Justin, Plutarch, Appian, Lucian, Libanius and John Malalas in the lost works of Duris (FGrH 76), Agatharchides (FGrH 86), Timagenes (FGrH 88), Hieronymus (FGrH 154) and Timaeus (FGrH 566). Not surprisingly, the results are inconclusive. Instead, taking as his starting point P.M. Fraser's hypothesis on the existence of a ‘Seleucus Romance’, O. argues for the presence of a coherent organic body of material flourishing in the oral tradition but sometimes manifesting itself in literary works; each legendary episode was shaped with an awareness of the larger picture (pp. 308–10). On the relationship between the Alexander Romance and the Seleucid material O. concludes that they evolved and sustained each other simultaneously and that the former was shaped by Seleucid and Ptolemaic interests in equal measure (p. 317).
O. tends to pose more questions than he answers, and this ‘unfinished’ impression sometimes detracts from the underlying argumentation. Similarly, O.’s use of bullet points rather than running text tends to distract from rather than crystallise his message. For example, in his introduction O. asks sixteen questions arranged under two headings: ‘Questions of Development and Chronology’ and ‘Questions of Independence and Coherence’. This reviewer was rather confused as to what each question refers to in the study and which questions are pivotal to the study. However, this takes nothing away from the overall quality of the work. O. successfully shows that our understanding of the legendary stories of Seleucus is best perceived in the wider literary ancient tradition. The book's greatest achievement is its many in-depth discussions of different literary traditions in Greek and Roman historiography, folk tales and legends from Eastern mythology worked carefully into a coherent framework in relation to the Seleucid tradition. Consequently, O. has made a highly important contribution to Seleucid scholarship.
