Overview

Historians have long wondered at the improbable rise of the Attalids of Pergamon after 188 BCE. The Roman-brokered Settlement of Apameia offered a new map – a brittle framework for sovereignty in Anatolia and the eastern Aegean. What allowed the Attalids to make this map a reality and leave their indelible Pergamene imprint on our Classical imagination? In this uniquely comprehensive study of the political economy of the kingdom, Noah Kaye rethinks the impact of Attalid imperialism on the Greek polis and the multicultural character of the dynasty's notorious propaganda. By synthesizing new findings in epigraphy, archaeology, and numismatics, he shows the kingdom for the first time from the inside. The Pergamene way of ruling was a distinctively non-coercive and efficient means of taxing and winning loyalty. Royal tax collectors collaborated with city and village officials on budgets and minting, while the kings utterly transformed the civic space of the gymnasium.

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9781316510599

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Reviews

'… essential reading for those interested in not only the history of the Attalids, but also the history of western Asia Minor and ancient fiscal regimes.' Bradley Jordan, Bryn Mawr Classical Review 'Kaye closes with the observation that the Attalids' success was not inevitable and urges us to consider the reasons why they were successful. His monograph offers a lucid, engaging, and persuasive account of precisely that. As such, it is essential reading for those interested in not only the history of the Attalids, but also the history of western Asia Minor and ancient fiscal regimes.' Bradley Jordan, Bryn Mawr Classical Review 'This brilliant study is a very rare bird that combines the study of economic and administrative history with the history of culture and identity. … this is a highly stimulating book, which deserves to be read attentively by very many different audiences.' Kostas Vlassopoulos, Greece and Rome

Author Information

Noah Kaye is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History at Michigan State University. He is an ancient historian who has worked extensively throughout the eastern Mediterranean, in Greece, where he was the Heinrich Schliemann Fellow at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, in Israel, where he was a Fulbright Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Haifa, and in Turkey, where he was a Senior Fellow at the Koç University Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations. He has conducted and published archaeological fieldwork in Greece (Molyvoti Thrace Archaeological Project) and Turkey (Boğsak Archaeological Survey, Cilicia). He is also an epigrapher and a numismatist, and has contributed to the multi-lingual corpus of inscriptions, Corpus Inscriptionum Iudaeae/Palestinae.

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