The Geography of Kingship in Apollonius of Rhodes.

Abstract

This dissertation explores how, through adaptations of the familiar Homeric motifs of hospitality, supplication, and the figure of the basileus, Apollonius designed the world of his Argonautica as a political map of the Hellenistic Mediterranean. Chapter 1 investigates the implications of Apollonian hospitality scenes. Read against their Homeric models and one another, and considered against the geographic backdrop of the poem, these scenes reveal Jason’s world as a geographic mirror of the early Hellenistic kingdoms, one which reflects the Ptolemies as different from (and superior to) the kings in Greece and the Near East. Chapter 2 evaluates the models for and characteristics of the Argonautica’s kings. In doing so, it argues that Apollonius drew more upon contemporary political models for his kings than he did upon their previous poetic incarnations: though he of course relied upon earlier poets’ portrayals of the six men called basileus in the poem, the variations he works upon those portrayals align the kings with either specific Hellenistic monarchs or else specific types of Hellenistic kingship. The way those kings interact with Jason and his men echoes the way kings dealt with cities, and therefore not only casts the kings as poetic avatars of Hellenistic monarchs but the Argonauts as a Hellenistic polis on the move. Once again, the Ptolemies emerge in a favorable light: the king fashioned as a pre-figuring of Ptolemy Soter is the only one to emerge from the poem with his kingdom intact and his position secure. The final chapter addresses Apollonian supplication scenes. As is true for the hospitality scenes, the distance between Apollonian supplications and their Homeric models is filled by an aspect of the Hellenistic world: in this case, the specific forms of distrust that dominated the early Hellenistic kingdoms. Once again, the Ptolemies outpace their rival kings: they alone are associated with the king who tempers that distrust with cautious wisdom. When considered in light of the previous chapters, this final chapter suggests that the Argonautica is not simply a foundation story for Alexandria, but rather a significant contribution to the Alexandrian poetic discourse on kingship and kings.