Bret Devereaux

Even including Egypt, most ANE kings did not have pretensions of divinity. Especially - say it with me now - Achaemenid Great Kings Weren't Living Gods. And yes, I literally have my in-person classes chant that back to me to make the point.

Moreover, legitimacy is more complex than declaring that you either 1) a god, or 2) chosen by the gods! You have to convince somebody of that, which brings us right back to "complex systems of generating royal legitimacy through judicial, religious and military activity..."

So, I'd say that video (and the book it is based on) are good for *some* of the dynamics. The main missing component there are norms - but that is a really big, important component!

The thing to remember is that each of the people in that system - the leader, the keys, etc. - are embedded with a society with particular beliefs and assumptions. They operate on those beliefs and assumptions and that influences their behaviors.

So for instance, even though they might not benefit, there might be a strong cultural expectation that, say, a king ought to engage in military activity. And so in turn a king who doesn't wage aggressive warfare, even if he has no reason to, might suffer legitimacy problems.

You also need to think about how the religious calculus changes when all of the keys believe their own religion. Suddenly, the carrying out of state religious activity has massive import well beyond its materialistic impacts. Keeping Marduk happy is vital for everyone.

Those norms can also work to the public benefit. Roman emperors answered petitions from truly unimportant communities all over the empire because their keys to power - other elite Romans - expected them to and doing so was part of being emperor.