The Legend of Stratonics: political and religious aspects

Abstract

The issues of family and marriage relations have traditionally been of concern to historians and politicians since ancient times. In this regard, the unusual circumstances of the marriage of the sole heir of the Seleucid empire, Antiochus, and his stepmother Stratonica could not remain without the attention of ancient authors who tried to rationally explain this event. The purpose of this work is to study one incident from the life of the Seleucid queen Stratonica, compare different versions in the sources and clarify the factors that influenced the historical and literary tradition about her. The identification of two aspects within which the plot of the marriage of Antiochus and Stratonica should be considered will allow changing modern ideas about the exclusively political nature of this decision of Seleucus Nicator. The researсh used traditional methods for ancient history: comparative historical, comparative genetic, retrospective. The novelty of the study lies in the fact that the authors examined the legend not only from the point of view of its content, but also the form of presentation of the material in the context of politics and religion of the early Seleucids. This approach allowed us to assert that during their reign, the historical myth of Seleucus and his family began to form, into which the incident with the queen's second marriage organically fit. As a result of the study, the authors conclude that the legend of Antiochus's infatuation with Stratonica was artificially created at the royal court, it strengthened the political image of the dynasty with the help of religious symbols and external similarities with the policy of "merging peoples" of Alexander the Great. At the same time, it was the interrelationship of the political and religious aspects that influenced the form and content of this legend.