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1. Aims of the present volume Long lists of dates and endless series of names hardly make for reading that is especially exciting or even interesting: emperors, kings, princes and holders of various offices follow one another, arranged in columns and accompanied by more columns with the dates of their lives and terms in office. The result: a ‘columned’ or compartmentalised history of antiquity that, at first sight, is just as lifeless as the marble of ancient columns. A second look, however, shows tha…

This section includes the states of a number of Germanic peoples that emerged from the early fifth century AD onwards on the territory of the late Roman Empire and on its borders. The Huns (Hunni) were admittedly not a Germanic nation (Germani), but they certainly belong in the survey below as their sudden expansion triggered the so-called migrations of the Germanic peoples. Moreover, the rapid collapse of Hunnish rule after the death of Attila led to a recovery of imperial power only in the Eas…

V. 1. Phrygia In Graeco-Roman historiography and poetry only three rulers of the Phrygians (Phryges, Phrygia) are attested. These are king Midas, his father and his son. The latter two both have the eponym Gordius [1] (cf. Eponymus), which, however, is also attested for historical individuals (Laminger-Pascher 1989: 29f.). A son of the younger Gordius, Adrastus, is mentioned by Herodotus [1] as a contemporary of the Lydian king Croesus (Lydia), which would place Midas’ purported grandson in ca. 550 BC (Hdt. I.35-45). Yet, the dates given by Apollodorus [7], Sextus [2] Iu…

II. 1. Egyptian rulers until Alexander the Great Egyptian chronology rests on several supports. First there is a native tradition of kinglists as well as the Greek reworking of this tradition by Manetho [1]. These kinglists, however, are quite fragmentary, and the work of Manetho is only transmitted in excerpts replete with textual problems. For periods from which richer textual evidence survives, the dates of administrative texts can also provide good information on the length of reigns. Furthermore, t…

I. 1. Mesopotamia and neighbouring regions in the third and second millennium BC Notwithstanding the invention of Writing by the end of the fourth millennium ( ca. 3200 BC; cf. Mesopotamia II.D, Cuneiform script, Writing II.B), several centuries intervene until, in ca. 2700/2600 BC, the first rulers are attested in contemporary traditions. Later chronographic (cf., among others, the Sumerian Kings’ lists; Chronicles B) and epic (Epic I) literature mentions numerous additional royal names, which are, however, otherwise unattested (such …

X. 1. Archons of Athens According to Aristotle ( Ath. Pol. 3), the kings of Athens were replaced by archons (Archontes [I]), who were first elected for life, then for ten years and in the end for one year only. This statement is clearly based on nothing more than the conjectures of the Atthidographic tradition (cf. Atthis). Still, the introduction of the archonship, the establishment of the powers associated with the office and the regulations regarding the installation of magistrates may have been the re…