{"product_id":"the-land-of-the-elephant-kings-space-territory-and-ideology-in-the-seleucid-empire","title":"The Land of the Elephant Kings: Space  Territory  and Ideology in the Seleucid Empire","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe Seleucid Empire (311-64 BCE) was unlike anything the ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern worlds had seen. Stretching from present-day Bulgaria to Tajikistan--the bulk of Alexander the Greats Asian conquests--the kingdom encompassed a territory of remarkable ethnic  religious  and linguistic diversity; yet it did not include Macedonia  the ancestral homeland of the dynasty. The Land of the Elephant Kings investigates how the Seleucid kings  ruling over lands to which they had no historic claim  attempted to transform this territory into a coherent and meaningful space.  Based on recent archaeological evidence and ancient primary sources  Paul J. Kosmins multidisciplinary approach treats the Seleucid Empire not as a mosaic of regions but as a land unified in imperial ideology and articulated by spatial practices. Kosmin uncovers how Seleucid geographers and ethnographers worked to naturalize the kingdoms borders with India and Central Asia in ways that shaped Roman and later medieval understandings of \"the East.\" In the West  Seleucid rulers turned their backs on Macedonia  shifting their sense of homeland to Syria. By mapping the Seleucid kings travels and studying the cities they founded--an ambitious colonial policy that has influenced the Near East to this day--Kosmin shows how the empires territorial identity was constructed on the ground. In the empires final century  with enemies pressing harder and central power disintegrating  we see that the very modes by which Seleucid territory had been formed determined the way in which it fell apart.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44965419384885,"sku":"ByrdShop_0674728823","price":315.59,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780674728820.jpg?v=1770496142","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-land-of-the-elephant-kings-space-territory-and-ideology-in-the-seleucid-empire","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}