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In "Ozymandias" by Percy Bysshe Shelley, why does the king refer to himself as the King of Kings?

King Ozymandias, who had a huge statue built of himself, was claiming to be the greatest of kings.


In the ancient world, kingdoms were typically very small.  Most kings were what we would today call local warlords.  It was possible for one king from a larger civilization to conquer many other kings of smaller kingdoms, building an empire.  He would then be greatest king, ruling over the small-scale kings, literally a "king of kings." 


When...

King Ozymandias, who had a huge statue built of himself, was claiming to be the greatest of kings.


In the ancient world, kingdoms were typically very small.  Most kings were what we would today call local warlords.  It was possible for one king from a larger civilization to conquer many other kings of smaller kingdoms, building an empire.  He would then be greatest king, ruling over the small-scale kings, literally a "king of kings." 


When an empire-building king did conquer a foreign city or kingdom, it was not unusual for him to set up a stela, a stone pillar commemorating his victory, inscribed with a highly flattering description of how he had conquered.  Stelae were set up by conquering kings from Babylon, Assyria, Egypt, and Greece, among many others. 


The statue of Ozymandias and its inscription were apparently a version of a boastful stela, this time accompanied by a huge statue of the king (also not unheard of in the ancient world).  


The statue should remind us of the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar, who had a golden image made of himself, ninety feet high and nine feet wide, as recorded in the book of Daniel, Chapter 3.  Earlier in the book of Daniel, we see a similar statue being smashed to bits by a great rock.  Apparently a similar kind of humbling happened to Ozymandias. 


The irony in the poem is that this "king of kings," who was once so mighty and apparently feared by many people, is now reduced to a crumbling statue far out in the desert in an "antique land," who is heard of by no one except occasionally in a traveler's tale.

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