Sprawski, Sławomir(Wydawnictwo Naukowe UMK w Toruniu, 2014)
Alexander the Great and his successors often referred to Heracles as the primogenitor of the Macedonian royal family. It is generally assumed that the earlier Macedonian kings had acted in a similar manner. However, an analysis of surviving evidence leads us to believe that Heracles did not play as important a role in the local dynastic tradition as it is often presumed....
Kuras, Katarzyna(Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Mikołaja Kopernika w Toruniu, 2014)
The article refers to the circumstances of deaths of the Polish kings, especially Zygmunt III Waza, Jan III Sobieski and August the Strong. The analysis is focused on the time and place of those deaths and especially, on the persons surroundings the kings during the last minutes of their lives. It turns out that these moments were more human and religious than majestic event and only in the case of Zygmunt III Waza the farewell ceremony was organized. The circumstances of deaths were various and depended largely on the personality of monarchs. The agony of the king was many times an excellent occasion to pursue some personal interest. That was why in the case of death of Zygmunt III Waza the closes and senators were intentionally misinformed on the royal health; after the death of Jan III Sobieski the struggle for power was launched and at the same time August the Strong was isolated from his Polish subjects during his agony....
Grabowski, Tomasz(Wydawnictwo Naukowe UMK w Toruniu, 2014)
Religion was very highly placed in the politics and propaganda of the Ptolemaic dynasty. Ptolemy IV Philopator belonged to the kings of Egypt who were particularly active in this field. The person of Ptolemy I Soter, who was the founder of the dynasty, was of considerable importance in his policy. Among many other things, Ptolemy IV established his eponymous cult in Ptolemais. He also invested the dynastic cult with its final form by incorporating into it the cult of Theoi Soters (Ptolemy I and Berenice I). Philopator paid a lot of attention to Egyptian religion as well as the relationships with the Egyptian clergy, using for strengthening his position, most of all, the victory at Raphia in 217 BC. Intensification of his activities in the religious field was one of the means of preventing the state internal problems. Propagating the cult of his mother, Berenice II is an interesting aspect of his religious policy. In one of its forms it referred to the cult of Arsinoe II as the protector of sailors, thanks to which it inscribed itself into the catalogue of devices used in the Ptolemaic foreign propaganda....