The Hellenistic World and Rome
restricted area round Jerusalem and in uneasy relations with their Samari-
tan neighbours.^15 The descendants of the House of David disappear in this
period, leaving the political direction of the community in the hands of the
high priests, the succession of whom can now, thanks to the Samaria papyri,
be more confidently reconstructed.^16 In addition to the high priest there was
also a local Persian governor (peḥah).
No historically valid account survives of the absorption of the Jewish
community into the empire of Alexander and his successors. In default of
any other satisfactory context, therefore, the well-known series of Yehud
coins, one of them bearing the name ‘‘Yeḥezkiyo,’’ has been considered as be-
longing to the late Persian period, as has been one with a longer inscription,
‘‘Yeḥezkiyo ha-peḥah.’’^17 But now there has been published a series of coins
with the legend ‘‘Yehudah,’’ in a script similar to the latter and showing the
portrait of Ptolemy I.^18 Since Ptolemy did not mint coins with his portrait
until .., the coin must relate to the period after when he finally
regained control of Palestine. The coins therefore tend to suggest a conti-
nuity of Judaea as a political unit into the Ptolemaic period. More than that,
however, as Kindler saw, they raise once again the question of the ‘‘Hezekiah,
High Priest of the Jews,’’ whom Hecataeus of Abdera mentions as in office at
the time of Ptolemy’s earlier possession of Palestine, after the battle of Gaza
in ..^19 According to Hecataeus, this man was among a number of Jews
who, impressed by Ptolemy’s mildness and moderation, accompanied him
to Egypt after the battle (the Greek does not imply that he emigrated per-
manently to Egypt). More important, Josephus quotes from Hecataeus the
following sentence: ‘‘This man, having gained this honour and become our
companion, summoning some of those with him read to them the whole
scroll, which contained a written description of their settlement and consti-
tution.’’^20
What was the ‘‘honour’’ (timē) which Hezekiah had received (from
. For a clear treatment, see J. Bright,History of Israel^2 (), chaps. –. Note also
the interesting, if very speculative, treatment by Morton Smith, ‘‘Palestinian Judaism in the
Persian Period,’’ in H. Bengtson,The Greeks and the Persians(), chap. .
. See F. M. Cross, ‘‘A Reconstruction of the Judean Restoration,’’JBL (): –.
. L. Y. Rahmani, ‘‘Silver Coins of the Fourth Century..from Tel Gamma,’’IEJ
(): –.
. A. Kindler, ‘‘Silver Coins Bearing the Name of Judea from the Early Hellenistic
Period,’’IEJ (): –; D. Jeselsohn, ‘‘A New Coin Type with Hebrew Inscription,’’
IEJ (): –.
. Quoted by Josephus,C. Ap.,–Stern,Greek and Latin AuthorsI, no. .
.C. Ap.,,readingδιφθέρανwith Stern (n. ).