Great King Research Articles

New Fragments Pertaining to the Hieroglyphic Luwian Inscription of Yalburt

A group of ten limestone fragments (pis. I-V) belonging to the primitive structure of the YALBURT reservoir — on whose blocks the exploits of the Great King Tuthaliya IV, in the course of a victorious south-western campaign, are celebrated — has been in the depot of the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, Ankara, for some time. No mention of these ob jects, however, is made in the original excavation report nor in the subsequent presentation of the material recovered in situ.

Dr. William Marra: Herald of the Great King

Dr. William Marra: Herald of the Great King

A New Star Shining over Bath

The paper is concerned with some previously neglected features of the pediment of the temple of Sulis Minerva. It is argued that the star (related to the sidus Iulium), oak‐wreath (corona civica) and armillary globe as well as the victories and tritons were all well‐established aspects of Imperial iconography and consequently the work can be regarded as a sort of ‘State relief’. The Bath temple appears to be the only major surviving monument concerned with the events of AD 43 and may have been dedicated in the time of the emperor Vespasian by the Great King, Togidubnus, at the western limit of his realm to mark the victory of the Atrebates/Regni and the Romans over a common foe. As such it should be viewed alongside other evidence from Chichester, including a sculptured base, as an indication of his vigorous attachment to the Imperial family and to Roman culture.

Hydraulic Religion: ‘Great King’ Cults in the Ming and Qing

In the middle years of the Ming (1368–1644) dynasty, temples dedicated to the Fourth Son Golden Dragon Great King (jin long si da wang) began to appear on dikes and in administrative centers along the Yellow River and the Grand Canal. The Golden Dragon cult originated as an ancestral cult dedicated to an apotheosized Southern Song (1127–1280) patriot from the Hangzhou area. It later became popular with boatmen and merchants who travelled on the Grand Canal. Beginning in the sixteenth century, hydraulic officials promoted the cult as an adjunct to their administration of the Canal and the Yellow River.

An Indo-European Locution on Early Indian Coin Issues

In an article in Scottish Gaelic Studies 14 (1986): 138-41, I have studied the outcome in the Gaelic term morair, applied to the Great Steward of the king, of the inherited Indo-European syntagma for * GREAT + RULER. In an earlier note (Etudes celtiques 21 [1984]: 139), I recognized this same syntagma in the compound attested in Mediaeval Welsh mech deyrn, which must be derived from (pre-) Celtic * maksi-tegernos < *m∂g-si+teges-no-. The same syntactic phrase has been renewed in Irish, as ard-ri 'great king, High King', elaborated in ancient Greek as 'Aγα-μeμνων, and was applied to Darius in Old Persian. It is of interest to trace the fate of its Indic counterpart mahārāja on coins of this region.

Can we talk about 'Multiple Versions Versions of the Same Thing' in a meaningful way?

TEACHING THE STORY OF ARTHUR14I Vivien's power seems feeble indeed. Her only real accomplishment was imprisoning an already old man in a death-like trance, though not actual death itself, within a tree. If we look at the final stanza from the 'Merlin and Vivien' idyll, perhaps we can discover more than one meaning: Then crying ? have made his glory mine,' and shrieking out ? fool!' the harlot leapt Adown the forest, and the thicket closed Behind her, and the forest echo'd 'fool.' (969-72) The last word we hear echoing through this idyll is apparently directed towards Merlin, who let himselfbe Overtalk'd and overworn' by the harlot, Vivien. But perhaps the fool is Vivien, who believed so strongly in the power of her words. We never see Vivien again within the idylls, and her absence makes her power seem defunct (and foolish) by the end of The Idylb ofthe King. Or perhaps Tennyson himself is the fool for making Vivien an analog for himselfas a story-(re)teller. How powerful have his words been? Is Prince Albert the new model for chivalry? No other (re)tellers of the Arthur story seem to have picked up that stolen pearl. To conclude, I would like to return briefly to the challenges of teaching a comparativist course. While Tennyson's text is easy to discuss in relation to its historical background, that is, as a piece of Victorian literature—especially when one reads such Victorianisms as, 'Too much I trusted when I told you that,/ And stirred this vice in you which ruin'd man/ Thro' woman the first hour,' and while Tennyson's text is also easy to discuss purely in relation to other Arthurian texts, the challenge comes when one tries to move beyond the comparativist confines. There is more to say about the text than its relation to history and other texts. Tennyson's self-conscious handling of story-(re)tclling in the 'Merlin and Vivien' idyll allows one to discuss both historical and literary connections, but it also allows one to engage the text more deeply. Problems of story-(re)telling are as relevant to the twentieth-century American student as they were to Tennyson. An analysis ofTennyson's self-conscious handling ofstory-(re)telling in the 'Merlin and Vivien' idyll serves as a good example of how the Arthurian story can stay interesting even at the mid-semester! AYANNA T. THOMPSON Harvard University CAN WE TALK ABOUT 'MULTIPLE VERSIONS VERSIONS OF THE SAME THING' IN A MEANINGFUL WAY? In the spring term of 1998, I taught two sections of Professor Derek Pearsall's Story of Arthur. In this fast-moving, chronologically-oriented teaching environment, it was often more productive to focus on the smaller, week-by-wcek textual questions than the larger Story ofArthur framework and the implications of Arthur's popularity, though these matters were discussed and, inevitably, never resolved. Hindsight has left me with a more acute sense ofthe difficulties ofapproaching nuanced comparative 142ARTHURIANA work in a large lecture format than I had during the term. Looking back on the course, I feel as though I have seen in action something that has become a truism of pedagogical criticism: that the language used in a syllabus, and the contents of a syllabus, and the conceptual organization ofa course, strongly precondition students and teaching staffalike to approach the class in particular ways. One ofmy retroactive impressions of the class is that Arthur's coherence over time—his existence as a great king and a great literary entity with almost transcendent qualities, such that everyone is always trying to penetrate his one irrecoverable true nature—was implicit in the organization of the class and in the teaching formats of my own sections, and, I speculate, the sections of all the teaching fellows. In class discussions and in exams and papers throughout the term, there was a sense that the earliest texts hinted at, and the later texts realized, different versions of one great Arthur. It was sometimes an almost subliminal assumption, and at other times would be uttered in such a way that it could be questioned, deconstructed, and examined—only to arise again in...

A Note On the Garni Inscription

This short Aramaic inscription, with its title of son of Wologesus is of certain historical importance, as title MLK RB ZY 'RM[NYNJ found in its Aramaic form helps to solve an old problem. The Iranian title RB' MLK' 'rmn'n of pre-Christian kings of known long time ago,' caused a controversy regarding its translation. This title in its Iranian fonn is a very ambiguous one, because *wazurg Armenan gah,2 or *wazurg gah Armenan3 could have been interpreted as the of Armenia, or the great of Annenia, while Aramaic form of title exludes this possibility.4 The problem, however, is complicated by fact that Armenian form, known only from much later period, being a calque from Iranian, t'agawor Hayoc' Mecac', has only one possible meaning, namely the of Armenia[ns]. In previous literature, there were polemics about this question, without referring to our Aramaic inscription, known only since 1964. The title wazurg Armenan gah' was compared to wazurg K-Uan gahan ?ah, generally rendered as Great of Kings of Kagans,6 or King of Kings of KnSans. It is perhaps of interest in this context that Armenian authors and only they, as Frye 1983, 142, had observed mentioned relationship between Arsacids of and Ktians. Henning 1952, 517, wrote: was in where he held office of Vazurg Armenan gah king of Armenia; ibid., n. 4: not Great king of Armenia (as has often been translated); title equals Arm. t'agawor Hayoc' Mecac', similarly, king of Kushan is preferarble to king of Kushan.' These words were written by Henning in 1952; some years later, Maricq 1958, 318-9, translated du Grand roi d'Armenie Hormizd-Ardachir8 for Greek of 9KZ 48 xcc-L f2ppu8apcpaExpou geycaXXo am)X,co Apgvitac Ka-L... and Middle Persian W 'w(w)xrmzd 'rtx?tr ZY LB' MLK' 'Imn'n W....9 Nevertheless, Lang 1983, 517 n. 2, stated: not King of Armenia... during 1st and 2nd centuries A.D., Armenian throne was regularly reserved for Parthian King's nearest kin, who was known as Great king of Armenia rather as their heir apparent to British throne is called Prince of Wales. This custom, political conditions allowing, continued into early Sassanian times: thus, prior to 293, futue King. Narseh was viceroy of with title of Vazurg Armenan Bah (great of Armenia).10 Historically, was a part of Parthia rather that of Persia; it was after rise of Persianl Sassana dynasty in first half of 3rd century CE that thie Armenians, with their Parthian Arsacid royal family, broke up with Iranian monarchy of Sasanians who were seen by Armenian Arsacids as usurpers, and only after

Lady of Avalon by Marión Zimmer Bradley (review)

arthuriana There are also assertions of dubious provenance—on pp. 43, 77, and elsewhere the name of the South American country Brazil, (whose etymology is usually given as Spanish, 'Brasil, short for tierra de Brasil"red-dye wood land'" [The OxfordDictionary ofEnglish Etymology, CT. Onions, ed., 1974]) is said to be 'named for the Celtic legend of Hy Breasil, a mystical and paradisal island.' Where one might expect at least a shadow cast by Roger Sherman Loomis and the Celtic Twilight school, the notes cite W. A. Cummins, King Arthur's Pfóce in Pre-History: The Great Age of Stonehenge, whose arguments that Arthur was a great king who raised Stonehenge (circa 2000 bce) certainly cannot be squared with the argument advanced by Graham Phillips and Martin Keatman, King Arthur: The True Story (London: Arrow, 1993), here endorsed by Filmer-Davis, that Arthur was a fifth-century King of Powys. The book's central thesis, 'that myth and legend and history too for that matter, provide a deep theological and psychological benefit for readers' (p. 2) is amply borne out in a wide range of modern fantasy and historical fiction. In her enthusiasm, however, Professor Filmer-Davis seems to overstate her case; it is hard to accept that every competition between two men for the affections ofa woman in fantasy literature or Arthurian film is a mythic echo from The Mabinogion (pp. 46, 58, 149), or that every act of selflessness is similar to Pwyll's sexual restraint (pp. 17, 148). RICHARD H. OSBERG Santa Clara University marión zimmer Bradley, Lady ofAvalon. New York: Penguin, 1997. Pp. 461. isbn:o670 -85783-1. $24.99 (cloth). Lady ofAvalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley's third instalment in the Avalon series (Mists ofAvalon [1982], The Forest House [1993]), describes the events—part history, part myth, part imagination—of the time she calls the 'middle period' (a.D. 96—452). This new novel begins months after the destruction of the Forest House and the settlement ofsome ofthe priestesses, under Caillean, on the Isle ofAvalon, described at the end oí The Forest House. Each ofthe novel's three parts describes one generation ofthe inhabitants ofAvalon and the changing political world around them, focussing on the recurring relationships between the High Priestesses and the Sacred Kings. Part One recounts the story of Caillean, High Priestess, Gawen (son of Eilan, the High Priestess killed at the Forest House, and her half-Roman lover Gaius, who dies with her at the hands ofthe Druid priests), and Sianna (daughter ofthe Faerie Queen and a benighted mortal lover).This first part establishes the fundamental triangular relationship repeated through the rest of the novel, and grounds the significance of that relationship in the enduring love of the Priestess (Sianna) and the Year King (Gawen). The second part (a.D. 285—293) describes the lives and loves of Dierna, Lady of Avalon; Teleri, princess of the native Durotriges; and Carausius, a senior Roman officer who eventually claimed the title of Emperor of Britain. This section, though significantly different in its configuration of the essential triangular relationship, REVIEWS nevertheless repeats the initial pattern: Lady ofAvalon and the Sacred King; blood shed on and for Avalon in fulfilment of the Sacred King's vows. The third part of the novel (a.D. 440—452) describes the early development and relationships ofcharacters familiar to readers ofBradley's Mists ofAvalon, though she introduces those characters in the context ofthe patterns and motifs from the earlier sections. Bradley focuses on Viviane (sister to Igraine and Morgause), her mother Ana (the High Priestess), and Vortimer (son of Vortigern and yet another of the Sacred Kings). This third part, like the first, explicitly bridges the gap between the new novel and the earlier Mists ofAvalon. In this case, we meet Viviane and her sisters, Taliesin (who becomes the Merlin), and both Ambrosius Aurelianus and the younger Uther. The three parts ofthe novel serve to mirror the three parts ofthe trilogy itself, and Bradley's agenda seems clear in this work: to tie the whole project together while prefiguring and emphasising the themes and concerns central to the first novel, Mists ofAvalon. For instance, after reading Lady ofAvalon, the...

Ortaköy-Şapinuwa: Bir Hitit Merkezi

The township of Ortakoy is situated 55 km northwest of Corum, in the North of Central Anatolia. The Hittite City of Shapinuwa lies on a stepped plateau 3 km southwest of Ortakoy township. The settlement occupied a large area 3 km in width and 2.5 km in length, divided into an upper and a lower part. The excavations which began in 1990 are uncovering two buildings which possess the characteristics of monumental architecture. As excavation of these structures is not yet complete, it is too early to draw any conslusions regarding the buildings usage or relation to one another, ft may be suggested that building 'A' was a palace or some other official building. In building B', the ground floor was used as a large store room. The discovery of a rich archive at Ortakoy is particulary important. The large town Shapinuwa and the cities related to it occupy a large geographical area. In light of the information provided by the archives, it is to be understood that this Hittite town was a significant administrative centre, as well as the capital in which The Great King resided. It has been established that most of the tablets of Ortakoy-Shapinuwa belonged to the Middle Hittite Period (14th Century B.C.). On the otherhand, the archival information illustrates that the Hittite town of Shapinuwa occupied an area of 9 square kilometers and that it was settled not only during the Middle Hittite Period, but for a longer period than this.

"A Coroun Ful Riche": The Rule of History in St. Erkenwald

“A Coroun Ful Riche”: The Rule of History in St. Erkenwald Ruth Nissé Quot et quantos arbitraris fuisse reges, de quibus nusquam sermo est aut cogitatio? How many great kings do you suppose there have been, about whom there is now neither a word nor a thought? John of Salisbury, Policraticus1 By any standards, the late fourteenth-century alliterative poem St. Erkenwald is a strikingly anxious work. It opens by questioning the historical integrity of British Christianity with an explanation of the need to demolish the very center of the English Church, St. Paul’s Cathedral, because of the Saxon use of it “in Hengist dawes” as a pagan temple and reestablish it, free of the pollution of religious syncretism.2 Emphasizing the actual destruction of the cathedral, “drawn doun, þat one dole, to dedifie new” (6), the Erkenwald-poet problematizes the prior exchange of idols for saints, which he evokes in an extensive description of St. Augustine’s renaming of various temples. By means of a linguistic sleight of hand curiously similar in its method to the author’s own alliterative poetics, “Mahoun” is switched to “Saynt Margarete oþir to Maudelayne” (20) and “Jupiter and Jono” to “Jhesus oþir to James,” (22) regardless of gender or any other inherent qualities, because their names sound vaguely alike. St. Paul’s, however, the center of the community, must be refounded—“buggyd eft anew” (36) from a truly Christian origin—not simply retrieved from one of the pagan religions that previously held sway in England. Underlining this crucial difference, the poet suppresses the actual name of the temple’s former deity, “derrist of idols praysid,” (29) leaving its past a cipher. This initial critique of language as radically unstable signals St. Erkenwald’s larger concerns: the loss of the earliest British language and customs, the desire for cultural continuity, and the fragmentary, uncertain nature of history itself. The prologue of St. Erkenwald, in itself an episode from the life of a saint particularly famous [End Page 277] for converting pagans, thematizes not only the tenuous nature of conversion but the fundamental instability of the “stablyed” (2) community. In this essay, I will argue that the Erkenwald-poet responds to the chaotic climate of English politics in the 1380s and ′90s with a searching political skepticism, an enquiry into how much a society can ever know about its past from either its current institutions or surviving written sources. Together with a deep concern for the English nation shared by a number of other poems of the so-called Alliterative Revival, St. Erkenwald displays a singular distrust for the epistemological bases of nations in general.3 Specifically, the poet deploys the instabilities of language, history and religion to re-imagine Trojan Britain, a mythic period usually invoked to glorify the English monarchy, as bequeathing a new and very different idea of political order to late Ricardian England. The uneasiness of the poem, an account of the Londoners’ recovery of an ancient kingly corpse who resists all identification until a miraculous conversation with and baptism by St. Erkenwald, speaks to a host of contemporary theological and political divisions but, above all, to the ever-problematic relations between regal government and custom. By reading St. Erkenwald as a response of sorts to Richard II’s increasingly absolutist policies in the mid- to late-1390s, I am proposing an answer to a problem that has long intrigued critics of the poem: namely, why a work manifestly about London and its citizens was produced in the dialect and style of the Northwest Midlands. In his groundbreaking study of social mobility and culture in Cheshire and Lancashire during the Ricardian period, Michael Bennett suggests that “the author of St. Erkenwald, whose Cheshire dialect and London interests appear superficially incongruous, would seem to have been a local careerist based in the capital.”4 If the poet were indeed a “careerist,” a cleric with some legal training from the circle of Richard II’s Cheshire supporters advanced to a position in London, the poem itself reveals a career in crisis. While Cheshire was a stronghold of royal support at the end of Richard’s reign (from 1397 on...

City of the Great King: Jerusalem from David to the PresentRosovskyNitza City of the Great King: Jerusalem from David to the Present Harvard University PressCambridge MA/London, 1996, xiv, 562, black-and-white illustrations, colour plates, £23.50

City of the Great King: Jerusalem from David to the PresentRosovskyNitza <i>City of the Great King: Jerusalem from David to the Present</i> Harvard University PressCambridge MA/London, 1996, xiv, 562, black-and-white illustrations, colour plates, £23.50

Entertaining the Third Reich: illusions of wholeness in Nazi cinema

In this persuasive reversal of previous scholarship, Linda Schulte-Sasse takes an unorthodox look at Nazi cinema, examining Nazi films as movies that contain propaganda rather than as propaganda vehicles that happen to be movies. Like other Nazi artistic productions, Nazi film has long been regarded as kitsch rather than art, and therefore unworthy of critical textual analysis. By reading these films as consumer entertainment, Schulte-Sasse reveals the similarities between Nazi commercial film and classical Hollywood cinema and, with this shift in emphasis, demonstrates how Hollywood-style movie formulas frequently compromised Nazi messages. Drawing on theoretical work, particularly that of Lacan and Zizek, Schulte-Sasse shows how films such as Jew Susss and The Great King construct fantasies of social harmony, often through distorted versions of familiar stories from eighteenth-century German literature, history, and philosophy. Schulte-Sasse observes, for example, that Nazi films, with their valorization of bourgeois culture and use of familiar narrative models, display a curious affinity with the world of Enlightenment culture that the politics of National Socialism would seem to contradict. Schulte-Sasse argues that film served National Socialism less because of its ideological homogeneity than because of the appeal and familiarity of its underlying literary paradigms and because the medium itself guarantees a pleasurable illusion of wholeness. Entertaining the Third Reich will be of interest to a wide range of scholars, including those engaged in the study of cinema, popular culture, Nazism and Nazi art, the workings of fascist culture, and the history of modern ideology.

Le Vase des Perses, le mythe et l'histoire

The Darius Painter, a contemporary of Alexander, designed the whole decoration of the Darius vase (Naples 3253) in order to link Myth to History. The Lycian episode of Bellerophon's saga, depicted on the reverse of the vase, served to announce, for all eternity, Greece's right to exert sovereignty over Asia. On the obverse, Zeus promises victory to Hellas. The painter shows the result of the promise : the Greek represented on the lowest register, habitually identified as the Great King's treasurer, is in fact a representative of the Greeks to whom the Persians are paying allegiance. He therefore symbolizes Greco-Macedonian rule over the former Persian empire.

Response to Yang Ye's Review of Du Fu's Laments from the South

RESPONSES AND REPLIES Response to Yang Ye's Review ofDu Fu's Lamentsfrom the South. Thanks to Professor Ye for his review (China Review International3, no. 1 [Spring 1996] ). Although the author might want to argue endlessly over a few "nits," he recognizes the review as largely fair and even generous. With hindsight, it seems daring to have tackled Du Fu and folly to have done so in haste. Conceptual problems and insufficiendy thought-through passages will have to stand or fall as they may; for now, the author would like to mention a few particularly galling typos and errors realized only after publication. Page 21 should read "Wang Huizhi," not "Wang Xianshi." Page 183, line 5: given my interpretation that Yu's temple walls have transformed into greenclad cliffs, better green walls than "blue." Pages 192-193: several unwanted commas crept in after stanza/line cites. In addition, under "h" on page 193, read "2.4" for the incorrect "4.4." Page 232: When trying to find a locus classicus for Du Fu's use of an eightstanza -by-eight-line form, I had not yet read C. H. Wang, From Ritual to Allegory (Hong Kong, 1988). Foolishly, I waited and waited for my university library to order Wang's book. Six weeks too late to amend the Du Fu book, I finally saw Wang's work and, witii sinking heart, read (p. 138) that many "Great Odes ofthe Royal Domain" employ an eight-by-eight octad structure either to praise great kings (e.g., nos. 259, 260) or to lament (e.g., nos. 197, 254, 255). How appropriate that Du as court poet should filiate his Autumn Moods to these most venerable, grandest , and most decorous octads in Chinese verse (on p. 144 n. 60, Professor Wang adds that such octads influenced Du Fu)! Only by elaborating his insight could my discussion ofDu Fu's eight-by-eight structure have reached its proper climax. A caution, then, to all tenure-seekers who rush to publish: revise in haste, repent at leisure! David McCraw University ofHawai'i© 1996 by University ofHawai'i Press ...

David I and Henry I

In his History of the Kings of England, which he wrote at the request of Queen Matilda, William of Malmesbury included a pen portrait of her brother David. He described David's boyhood at the court of the Anglo-Norman kings with approval, in that David acquired social polish there and threw off the rusticity of Scottish manners.' The description, of course, tells us more about William's prejudices than the reality of David's experiences, but it encapsulates the image of a king who, having spent his youth with Normans, acquired friends and allies at court, and familiarity with Norman techniques of warfare and government which he was all too ready to import into Scotland. David I has a deserved reputation as one of the great kings of medieval Scotland. There is room for debate as to how far David actually initiated some of these developments, but, whether he began or developed them, his direct personal involvement is undoubted.2 Henry I's reign was, in contrast, less clearly innovative, but he was a very effective ruler, bringing more than three decades of peace to England, and developing and refining the practices of royal administration.3 The two kings shared preoccupations: the 1 William ofMalmesbury, De Gestis Regum Anglorum libri quinque, historiae novella libri tres, ed. N. E. S. A. Hamilton (Rolls Ser., 1870), ii, 476-7. 2 R. L. G. Ritchie, The Normans in Scotland (Edinburgh, 1954); for a view which takes greater account of continuity, see G. W. S. Barrow, David I of Scotland (1124-1153): The Balance of New and Old (Reading, 1985), repr. in G. W. S. Barrow, Scotland and its Neighbours in the Middle Ages (London, 1992). For the view that the reorganisation of the Scottish Church into territorial dioceses had begun before 1124, see G. Donaldson, 'Scottish bishops' sees before the reign of David I', Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot., lxxxvii (1952-3), repr. in G. Donaldson, Scottish Church History (Edinburgh, 1985). For the view that David's introduction of Normans (and Flemings) into Scotland had a restricted if important impact, see A. A. M. Duncan, Scotland: The Making of the Kingdom (Edinburgh, 1975), 133-42. s There is a growing literature on Henry I's reign. See E. Mason, 'Henry I: decoding an enigma', Medieval History, i(3) (1991); and, e.g.: R. W. Southern, 'The place of Henry I in English History', Proc. British Academy, xlvii (1962), repr. in R. W. Southern, Medieval Humanism and other Studies (Oxford, 1970); C. W. Hollister, Monarchy, Magnates and Institutions in the Anglo-Norman World (London, 1986) (which collects Hollister's important articles on the reign); M. Brett, The English Church under Henry I (Oxford, 1975); J. A. Green, The Government of England under Henry I (Cambridge, 1984), esp. 215-19; and W. L. Warren, The Governance ofNorman and Angevin England 1086-1272 (London, 1987), chap. 4.

All in the Family: Ancient Near Eastern Diplomacy

An unusual perspective on international negotiation is obtainable from The Amarna Letters, a recently published 14th century B.C.E. archive of correspondence between pharaonic Egypt and its vassals and other contemporary great powers, known as 'Great Kings'. Although the language and ostensible content of the letters appear obscure, they involve detailed negotiations over dynastic, commercial, strategic, legal, and other issues. The prevailing metaphor in the correspondence, reflecting the world-view of the Ancient Near East, is that of brotherhood and the family. This was not simply a form of words but the way in which contemporary Great Kings conceived of international relationships. Viewing themselves as members of a community in the Gemeinschaft sense, Great Kings derived political obligation and action from friendship and kinship ties rather than abstractions such as the national interest. Negotiating, it is suggested, was conducted at two levels: minor issue subgames in which the nature of the relationship between the parties was assumed, and major relationship metagames in which the parties negotiated, crucially from their point of view, their relative status and mutual, 'familial' obligations.

Mind of an Assassin: Ravaillac and the Murder of Henry IV of France

On 14 May 1610 François Ravaillac stabbed to death Henry IV in a narrow Parisian street. From his responses to his interrogators, it is clear that Ravaillac was only confusedly aware of why he had committed this crime. Using early modern concepts of mental illness and its genesis, together with insights from others’ psychological and sociological analyses of modern assassins, this article argues from a close reading of Ravaillac’s interrogations, framed in the trajectory of his life and the context of his times, that there were motives both liminal and unconscious which drove him to symbolic parricide. Born into a bourgeois family economically ruined and emotionally fragmented by his brutal and rejecting father, Ravaillac, an unmarried social isolate, found compensation in a profound religiosity which expressed itself in visions. Rebuffed in his attempts to join an ascetic religious order because of these visionary experiences, further marginalized economically and socially by a term in prison, and unable to direct his frustration and rage at their proper targets, Ravaillac had grandiose visions, based on the earlier apocalyptic propaganda of the Catholic league. He imagined himself chosen by God to convince Henry IV to force France’s Huguenots to convert. Thwarted in his attempts to tell the king his prophetic message, Ravaillac thought Henry had rejected him. He interpreted the king’s willingness in early 1610 to go to war in the Netherlands as Henry’s decision to make war on the pope, and envisioned himself as God’s instrument in defense of the Holy Father against the evil Father of the kingdom. The assassination of Henry at once vented Ravaillac’s rage, assured him necessary expiation through torture and execution, and brought him instant and lasting notoriety as the murderer of France’s greatest king.

Le syennésis cilicien et Cyrus : l'apport des sources numismatiques

From the literary documentation, relating to the passage of Cyrus the Younger in Cilicia (Xénophon, Diodorus, Ctesias), and the tarsian monetary types (Vth - beginning IVth cent. B.C.), this study re-examines différents arguments relating to : a) the datation of the rider/hoplite coinage often considered as a satrapan issue (Kraay's thesis) or a Cyrus1 one (Weiser's thesis) ; b) the identification of the well- known tarsian rider ; c) the tarsian monetary iconography ; d) the «satrapisation» of Cilicia in the IVth cent. B.C., and the disappearance of the local dynasty. The principal conclusions are : a) there is no true reason to think about the end of the local dynasty after 401 B.C. ; b) the numismatic evidence doesn't exist : the rider/hoplite coinage have nothing to do with the passage of Cyrus in Cilicia or a «satrapisation» of this region. The tarsian monetary iconography is an integral part of the «graeco-persian» repertory and, concerning the rider, the reflection of a vassal privileged relation to the Great King ; c) the existence of a dynastic coinage is not sure. It must be considered in the larger problem of the monetary phenomenon in Cilicia : a short analysis points out that we must distinguish military issues from local/civic coinages, both most probably coexisting (what means a re-examination of the Kraay's chronology).

The wounding of Philip II of Macedon: fact and fabrication

This paper, concerning one element in the ancient biographical tradition of Philip II of Macedon, demonstrates the manner in which facts—that the Macedonian monarch was gravely wounded in the right eye, in the collar bone, and in the leg—become the basis of fictitious fabrications entered into the biographical tradition and accepted as elements of Philip's ‘life’. A diachronic analysis of the complete literary testimonia which convey information concerning these traumata attempts to determine when and how the biographical facts were altered and embellished over the centuries following Philip's death. Since the stunning discovery by Andronicos at Vergina in 1977 of the tomb designated Royal Tomb II, identified by the excavator as the tomb of Philip II, considerable interest has been focused on the wounds of Philip II in linking items recovered from the tomb and the physical remains of the male decedent with the great king of Macedon. A diachronic review of the literary traditions regarding Philip's injuries, useful to those arguing the identification of the occupant of Royal Tomb II, reveals a great deal about ancient biographical practices. Particularly in the case of the blinding wound to Philip's right eye, it is evident that the facts are very soon obscured by an overlay of fictitious embellishments, frequently amusing, which were created to heighten interest in an occurrence of lasting impact on Philip and became stock items in his βίος.

Interpretations of the Old Testament in Modern Fiction

Abstract In what way do artists and novelists who have re‐presented Old Testament narratives differ from biblical critics who seek to explain the texts of Scripture? This paper begins with a brief examination of a Rembrandt etching and the way in which it diverges from the text upon which it is based. Why does the artist change the narrative shape of the Bible? I then proceed to discuss the work of a critic, Robert Alter, who has read the text of the Old Testament as “literature”, and compare him with writers of fiction who have dealt with the same texts — in the first instance considering Thomas Mann and his great work Joseph and His Brothers. The second part of the paper examines a number of novelists who have taken biblical themes — Julian Barnes, Joseph Heller, Torgny Lindgren and Moelwyn Merchant. I will suggest that what they offer is a tragic element which is lost in the biblical texts insofar as they are configured by the history of salvation and its theology. Even for great kings like David, “the...