A Study of Political Borders and Their Formation in the Hellenistic Period
Much work on ancient borders has been concerned with placing them on the map; this dissertation addresses the question, how were political borders conceptualised, developed and operated during the Hellenistic period across Seleucid, Ptolemaic, Antigonid, Attalid and Roman contexts? The aims of this dissertation are threefold, firstly, to analyse the different border models in operation during the Hellenistic period; secondly, to assess whether it is possible to give an account of how borders developed on a macro-scale across the Macedonian kingdoms and the Roman Republic; and lastly, to provide an account of how borders operated on the ground. Political borders are shown to be as diverse as the polities that developed them, environmentally determined in some cases, artificially delimited in others. They are contested and transgressed, defended and demarcated, recognised and ignored. Their development attests to varied imperial aspirations and failures. This dissertation thus expands our knowledge of border development in the Hellenistic period by adopting a wider geographical scope than previously employed.
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