Towards an Intellectual History of the Seleucid Empire?

Abstract

When speaking about the “intellectual history” of Classical Athens, Republican Rome or Late Antiquity, even the neophyte to Classical history will be capable of delineating their general trends and tendencies and of showing how philosophy, religion and historiography and art were inseparably linked to each other and subject to a same general evolution. Even the intellectual history of the Ptolemaic Empire, coalescing in the fertile productions of the Alexandrian scholars and artists, has been reconstructed in its broad outlines. However, when it comes to the intellectual history of the Seleukid Empire, even most scholars would have considerable difficulties in sketching its general evolution. Given the lamentable state of our sources, this is, of course, no surprise; however, it is amazing that hitherto, no endeavor has yet been made to at least delimitating this general field of enquiry. The proposed paper will try to remediate to this situation not only by presenting what little information we have about the broader evolution of “Seleukid” intellectual history, but also by taking into account the situation of the late Achaemenid and the early Arsakid Empires which may give some precious information about the general trends which must have taken place in between.