BMCR 2009.07.33: Strootman on Spawforth, The Court and Court Society in Ancient Monarchies

A. J. S. Spawforth (ed.), The Court and Court Society in Ancient
Monarchies.  Cambridge/New York:  Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Pp. xiii, 358.  ISBN 9780521874489.  $115.00.

Reviewed by Rolf Strootman, Utrecht University ([email protected])
Word count:  1929 words
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[Authors and titles are listed at the end of the review.]

The book under review is the result of a workshop held in 2004 in
Newcastle, where seven scholars met to discuss and compare seven royal
courts in different cultures and periods: the Achaemenid, Argead
Macedonian, and Sassanid, early and late imperial Roman, Han Chinese
and New Kingdom Egyptian. What these courts have in common, is that
they formed the cores (with the exception of pharaonic Egypt) of
imperial states.[[1]] The Court and Court Society in Ancient Monarchies
first of all aims at analyzing the political functioning of ancient
imperial courts in a comparative perspective. It is furthermore an
attempt to assign to the royal court a more central place in the study
of ancient states (most of which were, after all, monarchical states)
by making use of recent scholarship concerning the court in the early
modern period. Ever since the seminal works of Juergen von Kruedener
(1973) and notably Norbert Elias (1969),[[2]] historians studying the
cultural and political history of Europe after the Middle Ages have
understood the pivotal importance of the court for the functioning of
monarchical states, and the number of publications is substantial. In
the study of ancient states, the court has played a far less central
role.

Given the prevalence of monarchy in the political history of the
Ancient World, it is remarkable that royal courts have received such
limited attention. Most literature on ancient courts is concerned with
the institutional and prosopographical aspects of court society, the
archaeology of palaces (including ideological readings of palace
architecture and iconography), or, more recently, literary patronage.
Attempts at analysis are still rare and aside from the odd obligatory
reference to Elias most ancient historians still study their ancient
courts in vacuo.[[3]] In the past decades, moreover, many of Elias'
ideas about the court have been adjusted or even completely rejected,
in particular his fundamental theory that the court was a "gilded cage"
for the nobility, an instrument in the hands of the king to subjugate
unruly aristocrats and so establish absolutist rule. The obligatory
presence at court, the restrictions of court etiquette and the heavy
burden of status expenditures, with which the ruler supposedly tied
down the nobility, probably burdened the aristocrats less than the king
himself, being the person of highest status. It is doubtful whether
kings in the age of absolutism really controlled their courts. Rather,
the court is now seen as the arena where power was (re)negotiated and
not always to the king's advantage. But the notion that absolutist
claims in the "official" theory of kingship do not necessarily reflect
absolutist power in actuality has yet to make its imprint on the field
of ancient history.

In the introduction, Spawforth demonstrates that he is well aware of
new developments in court studies, taking as his point of departure
Elias as well as more recent research, notably the work of Jeroen
Duindam.[[4]] Spawforth defines a royal court broadly as "both the
spatial framework of the ruler's existence and also the social
configuration with which he shares that space", but with the important
addition that this space was essentially a place for communication and
negotiation: between on the one hand the ruler (and his entourage) and
on the other hand various elites within the empire, envoys of foreign
powers, and -- in the Late Roman and Han empires -- the state
bureaucracy. In most cases, courtiers close to the king operated as
brokers. A distinction is furthermore made between an inner court and
an outer court. The first consists of the royal entourage (or
household) that was permanently in the king's vicinity (including
attendants and royal women), the second of those who were at court
occasionally, particularly for specific 'great events' such as royal
weddings or religious festivals. Another sensible notion is to consider
the court as simultaneously a platform for political negotiations and
monarchical representation. The latter aspect is neglected by Elias but
forms an intrinsic component of Kruedener's model of the court.
(Kruedener emphasized in particular the significance of the court for
competition between kingdoms.)

>From this well-considered methodological backdrop the contributors to
the workshop were asked to reflect on two main questions: "whether it
was legitimate to talk of a 'court' in the specific monarchy being
discussed, and how crucial the ruler's court was for understanding the
machinery of power in the double sense of actual decision-making and
power's 'representation'" (p. 8). Issues to be considered were i.a. if
there existed some contemporary notion of 'court', how courtiers were
recruited, if a division into an inner and an outer court could be
discerned, how physical access to the person of the king was
articulated, and what symbolic meanings of the court surface in
monarchical ritual and ceremonial.

The first contribution, by Maria Brosius, deals with the court of the
Persian Achaemenids, discussing as well its Elamite, Assyrian and
Neo-Babylonian precedents. Drawing on Achaemenid royal inscriptions,
administrative cuneiform records (in particular the Persepolis
Fortification Tablets), Greek historians and archaeology, Brosius
discusses various aspects of the social composition and functioning of
the court within its physical surroundings (the palaces of Susa,
Ekbatana and, notably, Persepolis). Although apparently it remains
difficult for the modern historian to make out the actual workings of
power behind the smoke screen of the Persian "theatre of power" which
presents the empire as a solid and harmonious unity and the king as a
lofty autocrat in full control of the recruitment of his courtiers,
Brosius reaches the interesting conclusion that through the court
members of non-Persian elites were integrated in the empire. Whether
this only "helped maintain the stability of the empire" (p. 56) or must
also be seen in the context of a power struggle between the king and
his Persian nobility remains an open question.

Josef Wiesehoefer's chapter on the court in the Sassanian Empire shows
a keen awareness of the theoretical aspects of the study of the court.
After a short history of the Sassanian monarchy and an overview of the
(unbalanced and difficult to handle) sources, Wiesehoefer, too,
discusses both the social composition of the court society as well as
court ceremonial. In contrast to the Achaemenid Empire, the Sassanian
Empire suffers from a relative lack of interest from modern historians
and hence from a lack of secondary literature. Wiesehoefer contribution
provides a preliminary survey of the evidence and concludes with
recommendations for further research (e.g. on the interesting
possibility of a mutual influence of Iranian and Byzantine court
institutions) and an appeal for more archaeological research on
Sassanian palace architecture and royal representation.

Tony Spawforth discusses aspects of the court culture of Alexander the
Great, about which we are relatively well-informed. Focussing on public
ceremonial, Spawforth places emphasis on the court's physical
environment. Given the peripatetic nature of Alexander's court, and
hence the absence of a central palace, royal receptions frequently took
place in feasting- and audience-tents. Central to Spawforth's
discussion is Alexander's gradual adoption of aspects of Achaemenid
court ceremonial as a medium to consolidate his empire, in particular
to pacify the Iranian aristocracy. As regards the success of
Alexander's state-building Spawforth registers a non liquet  because of
the king's early death, but suggests (against the common opinion that
Alexander was a failed empire-builder) that he could have been as
successful in this respect as "his great predecessor in Asia as
imperial conqueror, Cyrus the Great", had he ruled for about
twenty-seven years, too.[[5]] The chapter is followed by a collection
of ancient texts describing audience-tents of Alexander and the
Achaemenids, with translation and commentary.

The Roman imperial court is covered by two chapters. Jeremy Paterson
deals with the creation and evolution of an imperial court in the early
Principate, showing how court society, ceremonial and palace
architecture developed from Hellenistic models to an ever-changing
context for the negotiation of power between the emperor and various
others. The principal argument is that the nature of imperial power did
not fundamentally change in the course of the first century CE (often
presented as "a gradual descent into absolutism" [p. 155]), but rather
that the court changed and that the emperor adjusted his position
within the court accordingly. This is one of the more successful
contributions. With more sources at his disposal than Brosius,
Wiesehoefer or even Spawforth, as well as a growing number of modern
studies, Patterson offers an insightful analysis of the functioning of
the Roman court. Rowland Smith then considers the 'absolutist' court in
the later Roman empire (from Diocletian to the fall of the western
empire), discussing the political context, palaces, the (changing)
organization and social composition of the court elite, and, most
extensively, court ceremonial and protocol. While showing that the
development of the late Roman court was as dynamic as the early Roman
court, Smith concludes that "Christianity did not exert a significant
shaping influence on the structures and ceremonial of the court" (p.
231).

The chapter by Hans van Ess on the imperial court in Han China
concentrates on the function of the court as a center for the brokerage
of power. A typical feature of Han government was a conspicuous
separation of bureaucracy and (inner) court, the latter coinciding with
the palace. Originally, the outer court of magistrates and provincial
administrator was composed mainly of members of the noble households,
descendant from the retinue that helped the Han to attain power, who
also monopolized court offices and thus dominated the emperor. From the
accession of the emperor Wu in 141 BCE an examination system for career
bureaucrats developed, giving the emperor more freedom in recruiting
and manipulating officials, although from this professional bureaucracy
eventually an oligarchy of powerful families developed, too.

The volume ends with a chapter by Kate Spence, who considers the court
in pharaonic Egypt in the late Second Millennium BCE -- a difficult
task since official royal texts rarely mention individuals other than
the pharaoh: "building temples, fighting wars and performing ritual
were recorded as historical events but were usually presented as if
kings acted in isolation" (p. 267). Spence therefore focuses on the
relatively well-documented court of the reformer Akhenaten at
el-Amarna. As in most other ancient monarchies, courtiers in pharaonic
Egypt doubled as administrators. Since priests played a crucial role in
pharaonic administration, Spence interprets Akhenaten's abolition of
the powerful priesthood of Amun -- normally considered as a religious
measure -- as an effort by the king to shift the balance between
himself and his officials, an active reform of the administration
encountered more often in Egyptian history.

Overall, this volume is a valuable and stimulating contribution to the
study of ancient politics. Its most striking feature is its coherence.
The contributors really took to heart the preliminaries set out in the
introduction, posing similar questions to divergent historical
material, and often referring in-depth to theoretical literature on
courts themselves.

Table of contents:

Tony Spawforth, 'Introduction', pp. 1-16.
Maria Brosius, 'New out of old? Court and court ceremonies in
Achaemenid Persia', pp. 17-57.
Josef Wiesehoefer, 'King, court and royal representation in the
Sassanian empire', pp. 58-81.
Tony Spawforth, 'The court of Alexander the Great between Europe and
Asia', 82-120.
Jeremy Paterson, 'Friends in high places: The creation of the court of
the Roman emperor', pp. 121-56.
Rowland Smith, 'The imperial court of the late Roman empire, c. AD
300-c. AD 450', pp. 157-232.
Hans van Ess, 'The imperial court in Han China', pp. 233-66.
Kate Spence, 'Court and palace in ancient Egypt: The Amarna period and
later Eighteenth Dynasty', pp. 267-328.
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Notes:


1.   Conspicuously absent are the empires of the Hellenistic period,
the "missing link" between on the one hand the Ancient Near Eastern and
Achaemenid kingdoms, and on the other hand the Roman (and Parthian)
Empire. In the introduction Spawforth justifies the omission at some
length. Of course his own contribution on the court of Alexander the
Great is 'Hellenistic', especially since he focuses on the interplay
between Macedonian and Iranian influences at the Argead court.

2.   N. Elias, Die hoefische Gesellschaft. Untersuchungen zur
Soziologie des Koenigtums und der hoefischen Aristokratie  (Neuwied and
Berlin 1969); J. von Kruedener, Die Rolle des Hofes im Absolutismus
(Stuttgart 1973).

3.   One notable exception is A. Winterling, who has worked on both
early modern German courts and the court of the Roman Empire;
especially relevant for the volume under review is his '"Hof": Versuch
einer idealtypischen Bestimmung anhand der mittelalterlichen und
neufruehzeitlichen Geschichte', in: R. Butz, J. Hirschbiegel and D.
Willoweit eds., Hof und Theorie  (Cologne, Weimar, Vienna 2004) 77-90.

4.   Myths of Power: Norbert Elias and the Early Modern European Court
(Amsterdam 1995); Vienna and Versailles: The Courts of Europe's
Dynastic Rivals, 1559-1780  (Cambridge 2003).

5.   The success that Seleukos Nikator later had in cultivating, and
winning the active military support, of members of the Iranian nobility
supports at least the potential viability of Alexander's Iranian
policy. In particular Seleukos' marriage at Susa with the
Baktrian-Iranian noblewoman Apama (at the instigation of Alexander) was
most helpful in this respect; his successors continued to create bonds
with Iranian royal families through dynastic marriage.