Visscher has made a ground-breaking contribution to our understanding of Hellenistic literature and kingship, unearthing a heretofore almost unseen pole of cultural production in the east Mediterranean and west Asia. This is the first book to explore in depth the literary response to the rivalry of the Seleucid and Ptolemaic mega kingdoms, and succeeds as much in bringing new attention to little studied works and authors as in fundamentally reshaping our
understanding of the agendas at work in Alexandrian literature. This is a new, multilateral model of court and culture in the Hellenistic age.
Marijn S. Visscher is an independent scholar of Greek literature.