Talk:Antiochus I Soter

Political designation instead of cultural designation

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I think some corrections that imply the Macedonian nature of the Macedonian states, from early times and down to the fall of the last Macedonian state, are needed on this page (addition of “Macedonian” at appropriate place), designating the states not only as Hellenistic but also as “Macedonian”. Some discussions on this theme, sometimes with certainly unpleasant political bias, have been carried out previously. However, these changes are supported by the latest academic literature and by the most respected authorities on the subject. Retaining “Macedonian” to designate the political nature of the states is necessary also to avoid transition from cultural, which goes far beyond political organisation and introduces a risk of neglecting far more important political characteristics of the communities and states which were of importance for the geopolitical and historical developments during Hellenistic period all over territory of the Alexander’s empire.

These, now classical works, all show that Macedonians distinguished themselves from the Greeks (Hellenes), had significantly different language (which may or may not be from the Greek family of languages – this is still disputed), and insisted very strongly on these differences. Also these academic works show, what is of particular relevance here, that the political state organisation, particularly from Philip onwards, was “Macedonian” and was preserved throughout the diadochi reign in all three late successor states or empires. In addition, the Argeid dynasty being of Macedonian (or Greek) origin – what is also disputed, was strongly attached to their Macedonian people to often express substantial doses of nationalism, probably as a result of obvious Greek repudiation of all what was barbarous, i.e. the nations that did not speak Greek. Culturally, Macedonia was early Hellenised, at least its aristocracy, but this was kept separate from the political and to great extent administrative organisation of the state or succession states. The dynasties were closed toward external world, although hetero-national polygamy was a practice, but the successions was carefully preserved between the members of the Macedonian families (sometimes to the unprecedented extremes – Ptolemy’s intermarried even with the 1st degree relatives). I give the summary of the relevant literature: NGL Hammond and FW Walbank: A History of Macedonia, volume III, particularly chapter V (The legacy of Alexander – what concerns the political Macedonian nature of the diadochi kingdoms) (1988); NGL Hammond: The Macedonian State (also implying Macedonian nature of the diadochi kingdoms), particularly the chapter X (1998); EN Borza: In the Shadow of Olympus - The Emergence of Macedon, particularly chapter 10, what concerns the nature of the Philip’s and Alexander’s reign (1990); EN Borza: Makedonika, particularly chapter 8 (on military conservative and nationalist Macedonian army); EN Borza: Before Alexander: Constructing Early Macedonia, chapter II (about Macedonian nationalism). More popular is RL Fox: The Classical World, an Epic History of Greece and Rome, particularly chapter 22, Alexander early successors (2006).Draganparis (talk) 13:50, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Using only high quality images of high quality numismatic examples

There is no reason for this page to feature low - mid tier examples of a ruler's coinage, when we have access to massive database of images of Seleucid coins, courtesy of CNG's generous license. Nausinikos (talk) 17:56, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

Good point. But the image now in the infobox is quite wide and squishes the text of the page a bit. Could we replace with one with just the obverse? Furius (talk) 23:12, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

Fixed this last week. Thanks for the suggestion. Nausinikos (talk) 14:52, 9 March 2022 (UTC)