Stranger-Kingship in Antiquity

This volume introduces the notion of "stranger-kingship" to the field of ancient history and evaluates its use as a new way of thinking about kingship as a political, social, and cultural phenomenon.

Julius Guthrie is an Honorary-Research Fellow at the University of Exeter, where he completed his PhD on sole rule in Greek Sicily in 2023, and where he has taught undergraduate courses on Archaic Greek politics and Persian Kingship. Henry Anderson is a Teacher in Late Antiquity at Cardiff University. He previously completed his PhD on the fifth-century East Roman court and emperor at the University of Exeter in 2024. Emma Nicholson is a Senior Lecturer in Classics and Ancient History at the University of Exeter. She has published various articles on Hellenistic history and historiography, as well as a monograph entitled, Philip V of Macedon in Polybius' Histories: Politics, History & Fiction (OUP, 2023).

1. Introduction (The Editors); 2. Strangers and Chameleons: On Hellenistic Kings (Benedikt Eckhardt); SECTION 1: Individuals; 3. Clearchus of Heraclea Pontica as Stranger-King: Power, Religion, and Tyranny on the Black Sea (Marcaline J. Boyd); 4. King, Emperor, or Princeps: Augustus as a Stranger-King in Early Imperial Rome? (Amber Gartrell); 5. The Accession of Marcian and his Marriage to Pulcheria viewed through the Stranger-King Paradigm (Henry Anderson); SECTION 2: Groups; 6. The Cypselids, Stranger-Kingship, and the Immanent Limits of Greek Political Thinking (Julius Guthrie); 7. Hecataeus, Manetho, and the Ptolemies as Stranger-Kings of Egypt (Marc Gehrmann); 8. Waiting for the Barbarians? The notion of the stranger-king among the Ostrogoths and Visigoths (Andrew T. Fear).