Iranian Persianism in the Late Seleukid world: Fratarakā, Arsakids, and Mithradatids

The emergence of Iranian dynasties in the Hellenistic Near East (Parthia, F, Mithradatids, Orontids) and Iran is often seen as evidence for the weakness of the Seleukid Empire and as resistance against ‘Hellenism’. Recent scholarship has challenged this view and emphasized instead the resilience of the empire: already from the reign of Antiochos I the empire replaced beyond its central core (the Fertile Crescent)direct rule through (Macedonian) satraps to indirect rule through (particularly Iranian) vassal rulers who often legitimately obtained royal status from (and intermarried with) the Seleukid imperial dynasty. They did so both to bypass settled imperial elites and to deal with the challenge emergent local powers within their realm. This lecture seeks to trace the consequences of these political transformations on the social imaginaries of the vassal kingdoms, viz., to see how imperial and local cultures interacted in creating a Seleukid-Iranian ‘style’ that would eventually culminate in a ‘Persianistic’ revival of the Achaemenid legacy.