Ancient sources suggest that the installation of a new king and the burial of his predecessor were interrelated ritual events: the transmission of basileia, preferably from father to son. The successor was transformed into the new master of the household. This obliged him to pay the last honours to his predecessor and, if necessary and possible, to revenge his death. Thus, in 336, Alexander, ‘succeeding to the kingship, first inflicted due punishment on his father's murderers, and then devoted himself to the funeral of his father’.

Before succession could take place, a period of mourning had to be observed. This allowed time for the burial and inauguration to be prepared and announced. It took time for people to travel to the court to attend the inauguration of the new ruler. Also, the army had to be assembled and its allegiance secured. The presence of the army at the coronation was imperative. The period of mourning was a period of ritually enacted anomy. When Antiochos, the favourite son and intended successor of Antiochos the Great, died, relations between the Seleukid court and the outside world were formally brought to a standstill, as if time itself had temporarily stopped: ‘There was a great sorrow at the court [and] grave mourning filled the palace for several days; and the Roman ambassador, who did not want to be an untimely guest at such an inconvenient moment, retired to Pergamon … [for] the court was closed during the mourning.’

Edinburgh Studies in Ancient Persia focuses on the world of ancient Persia (pre-Islamic Iran) and its reception. Academic interest and fascination in ancient Persia has burgeoned in recent decades and research on Persian history and culture is now routinely filtered into studies of the Greek and Roman worlds; Biblical scholarship too is now more keenly aware of Persian-period history than ever before, while, most importantly, the study of the history, cultures, languages and societies of ancient Iran is now a well-established discipline in its own right.

Persia was, after all, at the centre of ancient world civilisations. This series explores that centrality throughout several successive ‘Persian empires’: the Achaemenid dynasty (founded c. 550 BCE) saw Persia rise to its highest level of political and cultural influence, as the Great Kings of Iran fought for, and maintained, an empire which stretched from India to Libya and from Macedonia to Ethiopia. The art and architecture of the period reflect both the diversity of the empire and proclaim a single centrally-constructed theme: a harmonious world-order brought about by a benevolent and beneficent king. Following the conquests of Alexander the Great, the Persian Empire fragmented but maintained some of its infrastructures and ideologies in the new kingdoms established by Alexander's successors, in particular the Seleucid dynasts who occupied the territories of western Iran, Mesopotamia, the Levant and Asia Minor.

In the previous chapter we looked at the ritual arrangement of royals visiting cities. We will now focus on centralised public ritual – the religious festivals and processions that drew people from the periphery to the centre. Whereas in entering particular cities Hellenistic kings played a variety of cultural roles, as we saw in Chapter 11, in centralised public rituals kings assumed a supracultural imperial persona. In the context of the imperial centre, Graeco-Macedonian religious festivals provided a template for the development of new monarchical ritual – a process going back to at least Philip II's imperial festival at Aigai in 336. Of particular importance, especially in the Ptolemaic empire, for the creation of Hellenistic royal pomp were the developing mythology and iconography of Dionysos, the semihuman epiphanic god, whose prestige as conqueror and bringer of peace and joy to the world was manipulated to become a model of kingship closely connected with the Ptolemaic ‘royal gods’ Sarapis and Osiris.

In this chapter the ideological dimensions of monarchical ritual and symbolism will also be evaluated. The main argument will be that the two principal, interconnected, ‘messages’ that were symbolically conveyed in royal rituals were (1) an articulation of the militaristic, heroic nature of the monarchy, and (2) an image of peaceful universal rulership. Here, too, the Ptolemies were able to advance successfully their version of Dionysos. Since the image of Dionysos the conqueror of the east was intrinsically anti-Seleukid, just as he had been an anti-Persian role-model for Alexander, Dionysos was very much a Ptolemaic deity.

Not much has been preserved of Hellenistic palaces. Often we can only identify their (approximate) location, and sometimes not even that. The proverbial exceptions are Pella and Vergina in Macedonia, Pergamon, and the Hasmonean and Herodean palaces in Judaea. This lack of material is the result of sites being built over or otherwise lost, but also of archaeological habit. The exceptions mentioned above demonstrate what can be realised if a real effort is made (recent work in Messene on the Peloponnese is another example of how a shift of focus can have spectacular results).

Most Hellenistic palaces we know of were located inside, or adjacent to, cities. This is indicative of the importance that cities held for the empires. There was also a logistical reason: only at civic markets could enough surplus food be accumulated to feed the king's household and army, as well as fodder for horses and pack animals. Logistical requirements were presumably an additional reason for the nomadic behaviour of the Seleukid court and army. The Ptolemies, on the other hand, were able to provide their court with a more or less permanent base because their principal city, Alexandria, could be easily supplied from Egypt by river transport.

Polybios reports that Antiochos III was awakened each morning at the same time by a select group of philoi. This custom has also been attested for the court of Alexander and Mithradates Eupator, and is reminiscent of the ceremonial of lever known from the French court of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. To be present when the king got dressed was a form of ‘favour’, a privilege that gave a courtier direct influence through access to the king. Like being a companion of the king in the hunt or a guest at his dinners and drinking bouts, this was a privilege indicative of a courtier's relative status within the informal hierarchy of the court. Polybios makes it clear that controlling court hierarchy was not at all a simple task for the king. In this specific instance it proved impossible for Antiochos to change the persons whose prerogative it was to be present. The king had to feign an illness to be alone in the early morning and be able to talk in private with one of his confidants, his personal physician Apollophanes, who subsequently secretly acted as messenger between the young king and his supporters. Thus, although the selection of men attending the royal dressing room could be turned into an instrument of the king to manipulate access to his person, as Elias would have suggested, it could as well be a reflection of established positions and prerogatives beyond the grasp of the ruler.