# Great king > Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Great_king > Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Great_king.md > Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_king > Source revision: 1347118390 > License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) For the 1942 German film, see [The Great King](/source/The_Great_King). **Great king**, and the equivalent in many languages, refers to historical titles of certain [monarchs](/source/Monarch), suggesting an elevated status among the host of kings and [princes](/source/Prince). ## History The title is most usually associated with the *[shahanshah](/source/Shahanshah)* (shah of shahs, i.e., king of kings, indeed translated to the Greek as *[basileus](/source/Basileus) tōn basileōn*, later adopted by the Byzantine emperors) of [Persia](/source/Persia) under the [Achaemenid dynasty](/source/Achaemenid_dynasty) whose vast empire in Asia lasted for 200 years up to the year 330 BC, which was later adopted by successors of the [Achaemenid Empire](/source/Achaemenid_Empire) whose monarchial names were also succeeded by "the great." In comparison, "[high king](/source/High_king)" was used by ancient rulers in Great Britain, Ireland, and Greece. In the 2nd millennium BC Near East, there was a tradition of reciprocally using such addresses between powers to recognize each other as equal diplomatically. Only the kings of countries who were not subject to any other king and were powerful enough to draw the respect of their adversaries were allowed to use the title of "great king." Those were the kings of [Egypt](/source/Ancient_Egypt), [Yamhad](/source/Yamhad), [Hatti](/source/Hittite_Empire), [Babylonia](/source/Babylonia), [Mitanni](/source/Mitanni) (until its demise in the 14th century), [Assyria](/source/Assyria) (only after the demise of Mitanni), and for a brief time, the [Myceneans](/source/Mycenae). Great kings referred to each other as brothers and often established close relationships through marriages and frequent gift exchanges.[1] Letters exchanged between these rulers, several of which have been recovered, especially in [Amarna](/source/Amarna_letters) and [Hittite](/source/Hittites) archives, provide details of this diplomacy.[2] The case of the *[maharaja](/source/Maharaja)* ("great *raja,*" the great king and prince, in [Sanskrit](/source/Sanskrit) and [Hindi](/source/Hindi)) on the Indian subcontinent, initially reserved for the regional hegemon such as the [Gupta](/source/Gupta_Empire), is an example of how such a lofty style can get caught in a cycle of devaluation by "title inflation" as ever more, mostly less powerful rulers adopt the style. This is often followed by the emergence of one or more new, more exclusive and prestigious styles, as, in this case, *[maharajadhiraja](/source/Maharajadhiraja)* (king of great kings"). The Turkic-Mongol title *[khan](/source/Khan_(title))* also came to be "augmented" to tiles like *[khagan](/source/Khagan)*, *chagan* or *hakan*, meaning "khan of khans," i.e., equivalent to the king of kings. The aforementioned Indian style *maharajadhiraja* is also an example of an alternative semantic title for similar "higher" royal styles such as *[King of Kings](/source/King_of_Kings)*. Alternatively, a more idiomatic style may develop into an equally prestigious tradition of titles because of the shining example of the original. Thus, various styles of [emperors](/source/Emperor) trace back to the Roman *[imperator](/source/Imperator)* (strictly speaking a republican military honorific) or the family surname [Caesar](/source/Caesar_(title)) (turned into an imperial title since [Diocletian](/source/Diocletian)'s [tetrarchy](/source/Tetrarchy)). As the conventional use of the *king* and its equivalents to render various other monarchical styles illustrates, there are many roughly equivalent styles, each of which may spawn a "great *X*" variant, either unique or becoming a rank in a corresponding tradition; in this context, "grand" is equivalent to "great" and sometimes interchangeable if the convention does not firmly prescribe one of the two. Examples include the [Grand Duke](/source/Grand_duke) and German *[Grosswojwod](/source/Grosswojwod)*. ## Examples - [Antiochus III the Great](/source/Antiochus_III_the_Great), a Hellenistic Greek king and the sixth ruler of the [Seleucid Empire](/source/Seleucid_Empire), was known as *Basileus Megas.* - [Eucratides I the Great](/source/Eucratides_I), a Hellenistic king of [Bactria](/source/Bactria), was called *Basileus Megas* on his coins. - [Mithridates I the Great](/source/Mithridates_I_of_Parthia), a [Parthian](/source/Parthian_Empire) king, was called *Basileus Megas* on his silver coins. - [Menander I Soter](/source/Menander_I), a Hellenistic king of India, was referred to as *Maharaja Menadra*, ("Great King Menander") in [Pali language](/source/Pali). - In medieval Serbia, [Stefan the First-Crowned](/source/Stefan_the_First-Crowned), likely [Stefan Uroš I](/source/Stefan_Uro%C5%A1_I), [Stefan Dečanski](/source/Stefan_De%C4%8Danski) and [Stefan Dušan](/source/Stefan_Du%C5%A1an) had the title of "great king" (Велики краљ, *Veliki kralj*)[3] - [Alexander the Great](/source/Alexander_the_Great) of Macedonia - [Ramses II](/source/Ramses_II) of Egypt - [Edward I of England](/source/Edward_I_of_England) - [Catherine the Great](/source/Catherine_the_Great) and [Peter the Great](/source/Peter_the_Great) of Russia - [Frederick the Great](/source/Frederick_the_Great) of Germany ## See also - [Great Catholic Monarch](/source/Great_Catholic_Monarch) - [Katechon](/source/Katechon) - [Shahryar](/source/List_of_One_Thousand_and_One_Nights_characters#Shahryar) - [Overking](/source/Overking) ## References 1. Cohen, Raymond & Westbrook, Raymond (eds.) (1999). *Amarna Diplomacy*. Johns Hopkins. ISBN 0801861993. 1. See Trevor, Bryce (1992). *Letters of the Great Kings of the Ancient Near East*. Routledge. ISBN 041525857X.; for [Amarna letters](/source/Amarna_letters) see William L., Moran (1992). [*The Amarna Letters*](https://archive.org/details/amarnaletters0000unse). Johns Hopkins. ISBN 0801842514. 1. Svetislav Mandić (1986). [*Velika gospoda sve srpske zemlje i drugi prosopografski prilozi*](https://books.google.com/books?id=RPkyAAAAMAAJ). Srpska književna zadruga. p. 60. ISBN 9788637900122. Велики краљ --- Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Great king](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_king) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_king?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.