#also - we have no idea who Nysa was but if a city was named after her I wonder if her marriage was to boost local alliances?

[wishesofeternity]

"Antiochos’ and Stratonike’s activities in the eastern part of the [Seleukid] empire are largely shrouded in mystery, but, as Engels has argued, Antiochos was far from idle since he embarked on a large building programme and was active in securing the frontier. There is some evidence to suggest that his new bride accompanied him for much of this period. We can perhaps identify Stratonike’s presence with her new husband in the Upper Satrapies through the gold coinage minted in Susa and Baktria in c . 287. The two gold coin sets are of the same type, the obverse features the laureate head of Apollo facing right and the reverse features Artemis in an elephant biga facing left with the legend ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΣΕΛΕΥΚΟΥ in exergue.

Figure 1: Coin of Seleukos I from Baktria Depicting Apollo on the Obverse and Artemis with Elephant Biga on the Reverse (Houghton and Lorber 2002, SC I no. 163).

Figure 2: Coin of Seleukos I from Baktria Depicting Apollo on the Obverse and Artemis with Elephant Biga on the Reverse (Houghton and Lorber 2002, SC I no. 257).

The reverse image of Artemis in the elephant biga is within the same design type as a large range of other coinage issued by Seleukos I celebrating the success of his elephants and thus his eastern campaigns. The appearance of Artemis is however unique to these coin types. This suggests the emphasis on the close links between the twin gods, Artemis and Apollo, depicted on the obverse and reverse of this coinage . Since there appears to be as a close link between Apollo and Antiochos as there is between Zeus and Seleukos, the presence of Artemis could be seen as a symbol for Stratonike. This would create a series of parallels: Seleukos/Zeus, Antiochos/Apollo, and Stratonike/Artemis. The first two reflect what we see for these two kings at the list of priests of Seleukid kings in Seleukeia in Pieria . Additionally, it may be notable that the sister-wife ideology [...] appears to be evident later in the reign of Antiochos.

As all of the Apollo/Artemis cointypes were produced on high value gold coinage, this suggests that it was issued in order to commemorate a significant event. While the type was similar to other Seleukid coinage, the shift from Athena to Artemis was clearly discernible and unique. The arrival of the new joint-King and Queen in the region to take up residence would have been a suitable moment for the issuing of the new coin type. This advertisement of their new rule certainly falls in line with Seleukos’ wedding speech which confirmed their new roles."

-David Engels & Kyle Erickson, "Apama and Stratonike – Marriage and Legitimacy", "Seleukid Royal Women" (edited by Edited by Altay Coşkun and Alex McAuley). The pictures of the coins are screenshots from the book.

[aegor-bamfsteel]

How do you think Rohanne’s perception of slavery changed from her time in Westeros? And how would the westerosi handle slavery during their exile?

Xen, could you go back to asking me which of the Great Bastards is ticklish? Because this is a hard one. It involves knowing about both Rohanne’s personality and background, of which we have no information. It also has me make assumptions about the history of Golden Company based on very scant information from A Dance with Dragons. For the first question, I will try to suggest some factors that may have contributed to Rohanne’s views of slavery, and how they may have changed in Westeros. For the second, I’m going to take what I assume about the character of the first generation of Westerosi exiles and compare it to information about the asoiaf-era Golden Company.

Question 1: How do you think Rohanne’s perception of slavery changed from her time in Westeros?

I think that Rohanne’s views on slavery before she got to Westeros were influenced by her:

Social status: We know very little about Rohanne’s background other than that the Archon was responsible for arranging her marriage, suggesting  that he was something like her paterfamilias or male head of house. As a high status woman in a city that lives off of the slave trade (so says Xaro Xhoan Daxos. I’m rolling my eyes at how unhistorical that a tiny island with no arable farmland has a population of 3 slaves for every 1 free person, but that’s the world building GRRM has created), she almost certainly came from a family who owned slaves. GRRM seems to base his slavery off of the ancient Roman model (it isn’t ethnically based, there doesn’t seem to be a ban on slaves reading/holding specific occupations, there is a reasonable chance of gaining one’s freedom), so if she were the lady of her household, she would have been responsible for tending to the basic needs of all of the slaves of her house—their food, clothing, physical health, and lodgings; even if she weren’t, her older female relatives would have taught her. Rohanne must have lived in a house mostly managed by slaves, and interacted with them on a personal level in her day-to-day life; would have been tutored by a slave in mathematics/science, her family accounts were seen to by a slave, her family’s agents were likely mostly slaves, and all the domestic chores were done by slaves. Perhaps she even had a personal maidservant from girlhood who slept beside her bed on a mat, as upper-class Roman women did. Due to her education, she may have developed a maternalistic attitude toward slaves, in which she considered it her moral duty to tend to her family’s dependents. However, she may not have necessarily considered them inherently inferior because…

Family background: Rohanne does not have any surname, let alone one with the Tyroshi-Valyrian “-is” suffix (Quaynis, Uhuris, Tumitis, Naharis), which might mean any number of things: that she was not of immediate Valyrian descent (likely, as the name “Rohanne" does not look or sound like any Valyrian names that we know, whereas the name “Kiera” is similar to the Lysene/Targaryen-Valyrian names Shiera and Shaera) or that her family was originally of a lower class that only recently reached the upper echelons of power (in Westeros if not in Tyrosh, a lack of a surname indicates smallfolk status; since Tyroshi culture is based on wealth rather than birth, those families which do have surnames could be Valyrian “old money,” although much reduced in circumstances). I don’t know if her lack of a surname definitely means that Rohanne’s family were originally slaves themselves; in Planetos, many ex-slaves don’t have surnames (though some like Rylona Rhee, Marq Mandrake, and Tumco Lho do have last names that belong to their own Ghiscari or Westerosi or Naathi culture, although these people were born free. If Rohanne’s ancestors were born slaves, they may not have surnames), but neither do most of the Myrish (close to Tyrosh, also many not of Valyrian descent). What it does mean is that she likely came from a “new money” family, and that doubtless had an effect on how she saw slaves. To clarify, the Valyrians believed themselves superior to all other peoples on the basis of blood, and many of their descendants (the Volantenes, the Lyseni, and the Targaryens) adopted the same attitude; Rohanne did not belong to this “in-group” and may have even faced passive-aggressive snubbing because of it, so she could have had a very different point of view on slavery than the “old money” families. Like many slaveowners who came from poor or even ex-slave backgrounds, she might have had the understanding that slaves were not enslaved because they were naturally morally/intellectually inferior, but were subjected to slavery through kidnapping or being born to a slave mother. The idea that slavery was a moral rather than an economic institution might have already seemed strange to her before her arrival in Westeros. 

After her arrival in Westeros and marriage to a Crownlands knight, Rohanne’s position on slavery may have further changed due to…

The Faith of the Seven: Daemon followed the Faith of the Seven, and while he did not spend a great deal of his time with septons, he was considered such an exceptional knight (who was required to take oaths based on each of the Seven) that his prowess was tied to the religious figure of the Warrior; whatever Yandel might say about his apathy to religion, he seems to have been bound up in Faith principles to a considerable degree. We don’t know whether or not Rohanne converted to the Seven before or during her marriage, as other interfaith marriages did not require the bride to convert (Catelyn Tully didn’t convert to worship of the Old Gods when she married Eddard Stark. In fact, he built her a sept for her worship, hired Septon Chayle as a librarian, and had Septa Mordane educate his daughters), although she may have done so to better integrate with the King’s Landing elite, especially due to the influx of septons in Daeron II’s court. If she did convert, she may have been taught that slavery was wrong on a moral basis, as all men belong to the Seven and owning them was to equate oneself to the divine (that was the argument of the 4th-century CE Christian bishop Gregory of Nysa, the only known abolitionist in antiquity). Even if she did not convert, the Faith was still present in her daily life because it was the religion of her husband, children (her daughters would have been educated by a Septa), smallfolk, and was centered in the nearby capital, so she would have been familiar with its teachings. Yet at the same time, her views on slavery might also have been influenced by…

The smallfolk: Tyrion Lannister observed that the smallfolk were similar to slaves because of the cruel treatment they suffered at the hands of their masters/lords with no hope for justice, but I believe the smallfolk have more rights than slaves. It seems that they were treated even better than serfs in at least one aspect; Brynden Rivers ordered them back to their lands following the Great Spring Sickness, indicating they had the right to move around and seek better employment as they wished. That leads into another point that gives smallfolk an advantage over being slaves: as primarily agricultural workers, smallfolk are spread out over a wider area and certainly don’t see their local lord on a day-to-day basis, whereas in tiny Tyrosh all of the slaves would have been familiar to their masters because everyone lives so close together. Rohanne may have even thought that the relationship between lord and smallfolk was rather distant for this reason, or she wondered why Daemon was not keeping his smallfolk close by in order to avoid potential rebellions. As she spent more time in Westeros, it may have occurred to her that the reason they didn’t rebel (and in fact raked their lives to pay tribute to him after his death) was because he was an honest man who made a fair liege; they had the freedom to follow him out of love, and were all the more loyal for it.  People are willing to fight for the preservation of that freedom. She could observe that the economic arguments for slavery she’d learned—that it was an integral part of the economy, that slaves would become lazy when freed, that fear of harsh punishments was needed to keep them obedient—just didn’t apply in this society. So I believe that Rohanne would have become less maternalistic toward her servants (as she now realized that they were capable of not causing trouble when independent) and may have come to see enslavement as a moral wrong due to the influence of the Seven/her family/her tenants (rather than just a “misfortune of circumstances”).

Question 2: How would the Westerosi handle slavery in their exile?

In the asoiaf era, the Golden Company disallows slaves from joining, calling themselves a “free brotherhood;” however, one of their prominent members is an ex-slave, Marq Mandrake (who has a hole in his cheek where his branding scar was), so they don’t appear to discriminate against men for having slave backgrounds. On the other hand, the Yunkish attempted to contract them by offering a “slave for every man in the company, ten for every officer, and a hundred choice maidens for the captain-commander” plus twice of what Myr would give them, so they obviously don’t have problems working for slaving cities. At the same time, it’s not made explicitly clear that the Company accepts slaves as a form of payment (Harry Strickland only pretended to think about the offer because he thought a blunt refusal would make their real plans too obvious); it would make more sense if they didn’t, since it’s said that they wear their wealth in gold and that their itinerant profession makes it hard to keep slaves. One could say that they have a sort of mercenary (heh) attitude toward slavery: they don’t mind if a slaver is willing to pay them to do a job, and they don’t care what a man’s background is as long as he is currently free, but don’t own slaves themselves for largely pragmatic reasons.

I assume that they felt differently in Aegor Rivers’ time; as many of Daemon I’s supporters were born in areas where the Faith has a greater presence (the Reach areas around Oldtown, the Riverlands close to the Crownlands where the Faith is centered, the Vale where the Andals first landed), and were loyal to the him in part because he embodied the knightly ideal of fairness and honor, they must have found the slavery reprehensible. Jon Connington’s words indicate that the grandfathers and fathers of the present members held more to Westerosi and Faith-inspired notions of chivalry and mercy than their descendants. Yet even by the asoiaf-era they still pay tribute to the legacy Aegor Rivers left behind, as breaking a contract is still seen as a stain upon the honor of the Company; it could be that the original members objected to slavery on moral grounds, but over time their prohibition became more pragmatic and a nod to tradition.