Author’s Prologue Thatrolehasneverbeenfullyexplored,norhavetheconsequencesofits
endbeenexamined.IstressithereonlytoemphasisethatIbelieveittobe
important,andalso(onceagain)toindicatethatitisnotamongthetopics
coveredinthechaptersofthisvolume,or,inanysignificantway,inthetwo
followingones.
The subject of all three volumes could be summed up as the commu-
nal culture and civil government of the Graeco-Roman world, essentially
fromtheHellenisticperiodtothefifthcentury..Inonesenseatleast,as
theauthorofthearticlesandreviewarticlesassembledaschaptersinthese
threevolumes,Ihavetoadmitthatboththequestionsaskedinthemandthe
material deployed to answer these questions are traditional and even old-
fashioned.Theyshowexpertiseneitherinthebiologicalanddemographic
historyofmankindoverthesevenoreightcenturiesconcerned,norinthe
materialevidence,nor,exceptinaverymodestandperipheralway,inurban-
ism,architecture,orvisualimagery.Theevidenceusedisfundamentallythat
provided by words, whether literary texts reaching us through medieval
manuscripts,ororiginal documents, inscriptions above all, but also papyri
andcoinlegends.Ifanyoriginalitycanbeclaimed,itisnotassuchinthe
typeofmaterialused,namelythewrittenword,butintheextensionofthe
culturalandlinguisticrangeofthewrittenwordsconcerned,tocoverJew-
ishliterarysourcesanddocumentsinGreek,Hebrew,andAramaic,aswell
asmaterialinotherSemiticlanguages—forinstance,PalmyreneandNaba-
taeaninscriptions,andSyriacdocuments(inscriptionsandparchments)and
literarytexts.Butthethemeoftheco-existenceandinterpenetrationofcul-
tures and traditions in the Near East,of the interpretation of classical and
Jewishtraditions,andoftheearlystagesofArabself-identificationinterms
ofdescentfromAbraham,belongsinvolume.Forthemoment,itwillbe
enoughtocallattentiontoanarticlebyHannahCotton,WalterCockle,and
myself,whichitwasnotappropriatetoincludeinthesevolumes,andwhich
surveysthepapyrologyoftheNearEastintheimperialperiod.^20 Itmaybe
worth noting that the texts listed there include examples in Latin, Greek,
Hebrew,JewishAramaic,Nabataean,Palmyrene,andSyriac.Tome,itmust
besaid,theNearEastrepresentsthemostsignificantpartofmywork,and,
iffateallows,Ihopeafteralltoreturntoitshistoryintheperiodbetween
ConstantineandMohamed.
WithinthestrictlyGraeco-Romansphere,andacceptingthatthearticles
collected here derive fundamentally from written material, literary and
. H.M.Cotton,W.E.H.Cockle,andF.G.B.Millar,‘‘ThePapyrologyoftheRoman
NearEast:ASurvey,’’JRS():.