The Power to Impress and Impressing to Power: Translocal Developments in Baktrian Kingship and Royal Representation in the Third and Second Centuries BC

In Hellenistic Eurasia, kingship and royal power were dependent on dynamic networks of power, ideological interplay, and cultural exchange in a world shaped by transimperial and supralocal connections and interactions. Hellenistic kingship practices were, however, neither distinctly Macedonian nor globally uniform, but should be seen as translocally networked practices of sameness and differentiation. In Baktria, the historical context within which such practices took place hint at conscious efforts to participate in broader networks of power and prestige, engaging with visual languages of legitimacy and distinction that resonated both globally and locally. As in other Hellenistic empires and post-satrapal kingdoms, legitimate kingship in Baktria seemed to have been charismatic in nature which matured in a dynamic world of strife and war. Kingship was neither natural nor absolute but was contingent upon claims to royal power based on (impressions of) grand military success, prestigious material display, and increasing heroization of a strong victorious leader in a highly competitive milieu of rival kings and adversaries. Although the position as legitimate king depended on local acceptance by soldiers, administrators, elites, and to an extent the broader populace, Baktrian rulers advocated an ideology of kingship that deeply engaged with and developed from translocally networked practices of power and differentiation across Hellenistic Eurasia.