The King’s Friends In The Hellenistic Age

The three centuries after Macedonia’s conquest of Asia,that is,the period from Alexander the Great’s death in Babylon(323 BC)to the fall of the Ptolemaic Kingdom in Egypt(30 BC),is historically known as the Hellenistic Age.This was an era of great change.Along with Alexander’s Asian conquests,an unprecedented exchange and integration of Eastern and Western cultures began,with complex social and cultural changes taking place on all sides.The most important development in the Hellenistic Period was the establishment of an absolute monarchy modeled on the systems of Persia and Egypt.Under the blow of military conquest and political unification,the city-state system declined rapidly,and began to transform from city-state politics to centralization.Three major kingdoms ruled the eastern Mediterranean at the same time during this period: the Kingdom of Antioch in Macedonia,the Ptolemaic Kingdom in Egypt,and the Seleucid Kingdom in West and Central Asia.The king in the Hellenistic Period was an absolute monarch,with an army in his hand and ruled by power.However,it is not easy to stabilize the country.Although the emperor holds supreme power,he is absolutely incapable of manipulating it by himself.The kingdom established through conquests has a large land and complex race,and is not easy to rule.Establishing a stable multi-ethnic kingdom requires an efficient administrative system and a large number of political elites,so the group of King’s friends appeared.The King’s friends,as a brand-new political group that emerged in the Hellenistic era,were different from the city-state citizens in the Classical Age,and also different from the companions in the Macedonian,but embodied the cultural exchange and integration that characterized the Hellenistic Age.This dissertation is divided into three main parts.The first part expounds the related issues of King’s friends: what is it,the relationship between friends and the king,the characteristics of friends,and the issue of cultural identity as reflected in racial discrimination in the selection process of the king’s friends.The second part analyzes the background of the emergence of the King’s Friends.The emergence of the King’s Friends originated from the cultural exchange between the East and the West,borrowing from the Macedonian tradition,as well as from Alexander’s absorption and utilization of the ancient Eastern tradition during his conquests to the East,and the practical need of the successors to consolidate their kingship.The third part introduces the functions of the king’s friends,who,as participants in court politics,played different roles in the inner and outer court and were an essential part of the Hellenistic monarch’s rule.In summary,the king’s friends embodied various new features of the Hellenistic Age that were different from those of the past,and through the study of the king’s friends,we can better interpret the Hellenistic Age.