Professor Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones

Since a king could have many wives, but he could only ever have one mother, of course, so she holds that principal position.

Then he can have numerous consorts.

Now, we know that in Persia, the queens, the wives of kings, only come from Persian families.

So they never marry outside of the Persian blood.

Well, it's to keep these family lines, these great noble alliances with the great households of the Persian tribes to keep them going.

But then he could take foreign concubines, many, many foreign concubines.

And these came in so many different forms.

So they could be given as gifts, diplomatic gifts.

They can be taken as war captives, war booty.

Basically, what we're dealing there, of course, is with sex trafficking.

But these women, you know, these women who become concubines, they are not...

insignificant because we have several occasions when the sons of concubines become king.

And so a concubine from the lowest rung of the harem suddenly finds herself in the next generation as the queen mother, you know?

So there's a political game going on in the harem all the time.

Now, some colleagues feel, you know, this is all a Greek fantasy.

I don't think so at all.

The harem is a feature of many ancient courts and in courts ever since.

You know, think of the Qing in China.

Think of the Mughals in India.

You know, these are important aspects of the politicking of a royal family.