1,721,074 research outputs found

    Literacy in ancient everyday life - problems and results

    No full text

    Chapitre II. Representation and agency of royal women in Hellenistic dynastic crises. The case of Berenike and Laodike

    No full text
    In the 3rd century the Seleukids faced the first significant fracture in the dynasty. This dynastic crisis originated in 246 with the death of Antiochos II and caused the Third Syrian War between the king Seleukos II and the Egyptian monarch Ptolemy III. The sudden power void left by the death of Antiochos II brought the “secondary” members of the basileia to the attention of the ancient sources, compelling them to inquiry in the power-mechanics of the Seleukid monarchy: indeed, the ancient sources attribute a pivotal role in the events to the two wives of Antiochos II, Laodike and Berenike. The abundant evidence on the female members of the basileia provides information on the role of the basilissa in the absence of male representatives of the dynasty, as well as on the agency of the queen-mother of the new king. Based mainly on ancient historiographical sources, this chapter reconsiders the evidence on Berenike and Laodike, wives of Antiochos II, in order to shed light on the role of royal Seleukid women, as far as the literary representation allows. Answering important questions about female military and diplomatic agency, this study re-opens the debate of Seleukid royalty, demonstrating that Seleukid women were neither “shadow women” nor “tokens”, but they had their own complex political identity and played a key role in the political and economic administration of the Seleukid Empire, as well as in Hellenistic diplomacy.Au IIIe siècle, les Séleucides connaissent la première crise dynastique importante de leur histoire. Cette crise trouve son origine dans la mort d’Antiochos II et provoque la Troisième Guerre de Syrie, qui oppose Séleucos II au roi lagide Ptolémée III. La soudaine vacance du pouvoir créée par la mort d’Antiochos II conduit les sources antiques à tourner leur attention vers les membres « secondaires » de la famille royale (la basileia) et à s’intéresser à la mécanique du pouvoir monarchique séleucide. Or, les sources antiques accordent un rôle central dans ces événements aux deux veuves d’Antiochos II, Laodice et Bérénice. Grâce à cet intérêt pour les membres féminins de la basileia, nous disposons d’informations sur le rôle de la basilissa en l’absence de représentants mâles de la dynastie, et sur l’action de la reine, mère du nouveau roi. Essentiellement basée sur les sources historiographiques antiques, cette contribution revisite les témoignages relatifs à Laodice et à Bérénice, les veuves d’Antiochos II, dans le but de clarifier le rôle des femmes de la maison royale séleucide autant que le permet la documentation littéraire. Tout en répondant à d’importantes questions sur l’action féminine dans le domaine militaire et diplomatique, cette étude relance le débat sur la royauté séleucide en démontrant que les femmes séleucides n’étaient ni des « femmes de l’ombre » ni des « pions » mais qu’elles avaient une identité politique propre, complexe, et qu’elles jouaient un rôle clé dans l’administration politique et économique du royaume séleucide, ainsi que dans la diplomatie hellénistique

    Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis

    Full text link
    The present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
    corecore