This solid work has many qualities ... Visscher provides an inspiring model for new researches on literature in Hellenistic kingdoms. * Luca Lorenzon, Bryn Mawr Classical Review * This is an important book, of great value for Hellenistic historians and literary scholars alike. V.'s study enriches our understanding of Ptolemaic as much as Seleucid literature and encourages us to rethink the scope, intent and impact of Hellenistic literature. * Thomas J. Nelson, The Classical Review * This solid work has many qualities.... Visscher provides an inspiring model for new researches on literature in Hellenistic kingdoms, never fully isolated from each other. * Bryn Mawr Classical Review * Visscher's is the first book-length study of the period's literature.... Highly recommended. * CHOICE * Visscher offers an original study of literature associated with the Seleucid court. She shows how intellectual and imperial projects intertwined in the aftermath of Alexander's conquests, arguing that what happened in Syria, Babylon and even Bactria shaped the character of Hellenistic literature not just in the Seleucid Empire but in Ptolemaic Alexandria too. An important new work of scholarship. * Johannes Haubold, Princeton University * 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. * Paul Kosmin, Harvard University *
