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Document Details : Title: I Want to See the King! Subtitle: A Note on the Theme of the Access to the Arsacid Monarchs in the Ancient Sources Author(s): GREGORATTI, Leonardo Journal: Latomus Volume: 80 Issue: 1 Date: 2021 Pages: 29-40 DOI: 10.2143/LAT.80.1.3289580 Abstract : Vonones, an Arsacid who had lived in Rome ruled Parthia between 8 and 12 AD. According to Tacitus his fellow countrymen never accepted his Romanized habits and in particular his disdain of the national banquets and his easy accessibility. Tacitus depicting the ill-fated Romanized Vonones like a western monarch aims at showing that the 'normal', and therefore accepted, Parthian kings tended to behave like the ancient Persians, their historical ancestors according to the Roman ideological representation. Like the Achaemenids they used the banquets as a mean to reaffirm the hierarchy among court dignitaries and nobles and lived secluded in their rich palaces. Through Vonones was offered to them the chance to adopt a 'western kingship', a chance they obviously refused, preferring to remain only superficially Hellenized. |
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