Courtly Love, Stars, and Power: The Queens in Third Century Royal Couples, through Poetry and Epigraphic Texts

Abstract

peer reviewedI discuss the role of women and erōs in court poetry, by focusing on the ruling pair, i.e. the couple par excellence, and arguing that a gentle, reciprocal love within the bonds of marriage is presented as a crucial value, ensuring wealth and social order as well as the continuity of the dynasty itself. Because court life is a fashionable source of models for the elite, the poetic motif of requited love also influences the ideal depiction of love outside the ruling pair. After focusing on how internal patterns of relationship between characters shape the role of the queen in Alexandrian court poetry, I turn to non-literary, epigraphic evidence, in order to show how poetic representations of royal love integrate into a wider ideological program. Although my study mainly concerns Ptolemaic ruling pairs, I discuss some epigraphic parallels from the Seleucid dynasty as well, so that some general observations can be made on early Hellenistic queenship