 clarification for those that we haven't spoken before. I am an archaeologist but I also teach back home history of religions and comparative religions and of course classical and ancient civilizations. So I thought it might be a new perspective to this whole context if I take aside for a moment the archaeological record and speak of a long-dure representation of the identities of the region. For the aims of this presentation I will look at Cilicia in the wider region or expanded region of Southeast Anatolia which would include the developments of of Cappadocia and the neighboring area that we used to call Comagenna. What is of a great interest for me from the aspect of development of identities and development of or transformations in religions is the tiny kingdoms that had very very fragile structure but also led to creation of great ideas that would have implications out of their very fragile and small structures. In this context eastern and southeastern Anatolia for me is a very interesting case study where we can actually analyze the importance of identities and perceptions in the study of the classical past and the importance of identities and perception in the classical past as well. What is very important and what we can see from eastern Anatolia is the reassembling in our minds of the peculiar phenomena that we have everyday contrast which is the classicism, the canonization, the romanization, orientalism, Persianism or orientalization as archaeologists as historians we frequently use the terms and most of the cases it is very complex to give a right definition and this case study might be an interesting point to redefine or to retain the whole context and this is Southeast and East Asia is very important out of two important reasons. One of that is being the original topos or related to the original topos in the roman context of being oriental and being orientalism as a concept. Why was that important? Out of two reasons number one Rome approached Silesia or approach Southeast or East Anatolia in a period when Rome was already dominant in the central or the core part of the colonistic world. In the previous centuries the relation to the east of the early Roman elites was a relation of admiration to the east, admiration of the great monarchs but later on in the first century when they approached eastern Asia it was a situation when they had already conquered the big powers of the colonistic world so the very semantics of the world orient and oriental changed and the position when they came into the eastern and southeastern Anatolia. More importantly, Romans or Roman war legions came to southeastern Anatolia in what we call usually post-Semitic period and this is important because already in the Mitridatic and Tigran is the great period what happened in Rome was a confrontation which was more than a war but what we like to call in a contemporary context a war of hearts and minds of the Mediterranean. Why? Because these new guys, newcomers like Mitridates or Tigranes they came with some new resources in the global competition but their their premises, their ideology was truly Hellenistic. So in their context, in Roman context what Rome was very much afraid of was the concept of coming of Mitridates or common leaders as new Alexander, as new Antiochus or new Selaucus Nicator that actually had a great appeal not just for the elites in the East but also among the Mitridates in the Mediterranean which were already part of the Roman Empire and some of them already growing inflation. So what Romans had to do in their war in Societal propaganda they had to change these leaders in their perspective coming from eastern and southeastern Anatolia from new Alexander's new global rulers to something else which was actually an ultimate Oriental, a Persian, a different person or the other which spoke more of the Roman identity than about southeastern identity. What is very important for us to know and we usually underestimate is that while the Romans in the post-Mitridates period approaching southeastern Anatolia perceived many of its local elites like the remnants of the defeated Orientalism or the otherness that we now own actually this region had a pre-Roman identity that would endure during the Roman times and this is an aspect that we should remember analyzing this region and what was this pre-Roman context. We have to remember that while in the early Roman times this region was on the very edges of the Roman world, actually in the Hellenistic context southeastern Anatolia was in as a wider region and eastern Anatolia was quite central. Why is that? Because for example Silesia and Comagena were bordering northern Syria which was actually from an ideological point from the aspect of elite population the center of one of the Hellenistic empires or on the other hand as our colleagues at Silesia and Cyprus were on the very edge where the forces coming from the Mediterranean from not just from Mediterranean but also from the Atlantic or the Indian oceans were confronting in the global confrontation between the Seleucids and the Ptolemies. So these guys were in the center and they were the typical and Cappadocia is even more interesting case and they were a typical representative of the Hellenistic imperial model and what model would that be? It is a model built upon the Middle Eastern imperial model that existed centuries if not millennia before the Hellenistic rulers but with a slight change the change was due to the realities after the Yusuf battle where this world politically fragmented. However, what we should remember is that this world was politically fragmented but not ideologically fragmented. What we have to remember is that any Ptolemic or Seleucid or Iganantimonid leader was actually a new Alexander ruler of the world of the United Universe. He was not a ruler of Syria or Egypt so in that ideology we are changing towards a world that I usually usually title as a model of multiversal rule. What does it mean? These people were living in parallel universes where they were all descendants of Alexander and his global empire and parallel not taking care of the other leader and actually in every next contact they were increasing their credentials. If for example a Seleucid leader would win the Ptolemies they would again say if the global leader knew Alexander ruled this or that or if he lost he would get Ptolemies princes and then again this increases the credentials and then we come to a crucial Ptolemy context which is very important for us and that Ptolemy context is actually the context that the Romans created crashing the big empires. This is the first century BC, first century, the gradual intervention of Rome in southeast Anatolia. What was important for this period? One of the important things of the Os Hellenistic system were the adjustments made in the Hellenistic system by Antiochus the Great. While this incidence or precedence existed very early even in the third century when the Cappadocians were given the first imperial princes, what changed in the second century was that Antiochus the Great actually translated it from an incident to a general policy. The policy was that in the final urge to reunite the world under his lead he actually gave a new pass for entrance of the local elites. He transformed it into a policy where the imperial princes were given and thus the local rulers and the local elites were actually introduced to the Hellenistic world and that's how we come to the claims universalistic pretensions of people like Dmitri Dapasov-Konduz or Tigranus or later in the Roman period elites of Cappadocia come again and even Sicily. So these are not some crazy guys that invented something of themselves, it was an system that actually functioned in the wider Hellenistic coinette and just for a change let's turn the subject in an Os Hellenistic role. How many of you are familiar with the donations of Alexandria? Anyone knows? Okay perfect so just for a minute it's a more complex theme but let's understand what the donations of Alexandria meant for the Romans and for Cleopatra or the Hellenistic rulers. Actually the Romans were given the same deal as the Eastern local elites. See for example in that context the Pompeii Caesar or Mark Antony would actually be very likened to a new diocese or new Heraclus and would be very common as a Hellenistic leader. However even Caesar that was proclaimed god in the local context on the edges of the Hellenistic world in Rome did not have a right to be the new Alexander or in the at least in the Hellenistic context he could not be the new Hellenistic ruler but his sons or daughters that has the bloods of Sadovius Antiochus or Alexander himself or the Argyats they could be the global ruler like new Alexander the son or Alexander Helius or Cleopatra Selina. Now we come to the moment when we question ourselves who is more legitimate for the global throne of Alexander in the post-Hellenistic concept. Antony's children with Cleopatra or the local princes of Comagena or Cappadocia. That explains the mental set the way these local leaders were thinking and in somehow it makes much more normal that Antiochus Theos of Comagena was celebrated in his small patty kingdom as a global ruler as new Alexander as new Persian king. Why? Because on the end of the day he was much more legitimate than Alexander Helius because he had few blood lines connected to the global empire and on the end of the day we have to remember that the Eastern elites like the Cappadocians or other Anatolian elites were actually given this free pass into the Hellenistic Imperial Coronet two centuries before the Roman war-lords the Roman general. Now let's fast forward for a second and see what happened with these consequences on the global Roman world. I will I just try to patch few things which happen. Number one for a second with the incident in Octium the local Roman elites felt safe under the early imperial policies that they are protected. Their conservative local culture stayed there and they didn't integrate totally in the wider Hellenistic world. However, the Mediterranean think have been changing rapidly. Even the next Julian or leaders already acted as Hellenistic rulers as Hellenistic dynasties in many of the things. Then when we speak about which is very particular Southeast Anatolia we usually go back to the Spassian which actually integrated this region into the Roman coin name to the Roman world. But what we have to bear in mind is that he also reintegrated Rome in the Hellenistic world. Why? He was he was put in Rome as empire by the elites of eastern southeastern Anatolia and and the eastern Mediterranean. In the time of his dynasty actually the Hellenistic universalistic and ruler related cults took over the empire and this is the the the connected with Isis and and Serapis cults and many others including a very important cult of mitris and which actually has very close connection to Southeast Anatolia and actually have a great success among the elites that were not exposed to the Hellenistic culture but were important part and will be important part in the in the late Roman times. What is very important is the third century that with our classicistic parts we understand as the as the end of the classical Rome. But in fact one thing that happened in the Hela in the Seleucid reforms or ideological reform is that the kings or the emperors didn't want didn't need to act as Alexander. They didn't need to act as Hellenistic dinosaurs. They were actually we have Roman emperors they're called Alexander Pilipus or they're the holy trees of the of the Helios Baal. They are by all means a new Hellenistic dynasty. So basically this these people are very proud like the the the Severians they are very proud of their Hellenistic heritage. They are very proud of their royal blood and somehow their close relatives and connected with the with the elites that we were talking about in Cappadocia Seleucidae or Comagannum. And the transformation is huge and we come to a point where at the and at the turn of the fourth century that the very empire of Rome emperor of Rome is actually officially safety in Anatolia. And the emperor of Rome for example Julian he's the new mistress like like the most radical case of imitating that the Eastern Anatolian elite and he's recreating his one of the many Alexander-style marches towards Persia. What is very important to to suggest in part of the global development is the change of priorities of the local leaders. Well until who's else let's take him as a first example had actually practical strength in his kingdom. He was important for the balance of power between the Romans and the Parkinson's. The later elites of the three regions had symbolic kingdoms. So their kingdoms practically didn't make a lot. They didn't have any concrete military importance but what they had is the importance of being officially recognized and legitimate. What does it mean? They even established the new connections with the Ptolemaic line, with the Jewish kingdom, with the Armenian kingdom and and even with descendants of Caesar and Augustus. And they were important because they were in the center of this new change of mindset which was happening in the new Rome which was not a republic anymore but it was a global empire very close with its mentality to the Hellenistic previous empires. So in a way what we have to ask ourselves is who won the global battles for the imperial throne? Was that the mighty republic with its general or the petty kingdoms counting on the legitimacy and continuity of the united world? Well there is one way to answer the question differently. If we try just for a moment to go out of our Eurocentric and classicistic lenses we might think that it is obvious that the credentials, traditions, capacities of this centrally positioned elites of the global Hellenistic world were strong enough, at least in the long run, to be the competitors that were coming at the outskirts of the Oecumen. Thank you so much.