Power, agents and traders in the late Seleucid Empire ( ca. 125–64 BCE)

Abstract

This article investigates the world of the late Seleucid Empire on the eve of Roman control of the Eastern Mediterranean. It introduces additional actors in first-century Syria and uses the local archaeology of Syria and the Levantine coast, and the spread of Eastern Sigillata A wares  in particular, to interrogate rising consumption and disposable wealth in the region. By adding these unnamed traders and merchants as agents of power to our conventional method of studying the late Seleucid Empire, my approach encourages the separation of power from politics and moves away from a top-down interpretive lens. Instead, it emphasizes a multilayered explanation that views local traders and merchants as active participants. Such an approach suggests a much different set of causes for the events that led to the eventual Roman takeover in the first century and offers new avenues for further research on Seleucid history, the Hellenistic world and the collapse of ancient empires.