Introduction xiiilong to the Hellenistic period, beforeRNEbegins, yet it would be no ex-
aggeration to say that the first chapter, ‘‘The Problem of Hellenistic Syria’’
(), has it all in a nutshell. Here is struck the first chord of dissent from and
challenge to widely accepted and much venerated traditions. Millar’s em-
pirical approach needed no more than a few strokes to sweep away numerous
comfortable views on the time-honored concept of Hellenization as fusion
(Verschmeltzung) of Greek and local cultures. ‘‘The ‘Hellenistic’ Syria, with a
distinctive mixed culture’’ turns out to be a product of its Roman phase, ‘‘that
which evolved under the Roman Empire’’ (chapter , text to n. below).
The advent of Rome brought with it considerable intensification of the pro-
cess of Hellenization as attested in the written corpus as well as in material
culture. Until then our evidence for the Greek presence in Syria is ‘‘lim-
ited, variable, and erratic.’’ Even more disconcerting is the piercing question:
‘‘the Hellenisation of what?’’ What do we know of the Achaemenid period
in Syria? This is taken up again inRNE: ‘‘So far as our evidence goes, the
preceding Hellenistic period has left almost nothing which can count as the
expression of a regional or a local culture’’ (). As it happens the indigenous
local culturestooowe their very appearance in the historical record to their
adoption of the ‘‘epigraphic habit’’ of the Greco-Roman world, mostly in
Greek, but sometimes in their own languages, under Roman sway. A tempt-
ing solution to ‘‘the amnesia of the Semitic cultures’’ is, of course, the model
offered by Glen Bowersock, namely that ‘‘one of the functions of Graeco-
Roman culture in this region may precisely have been to offer a vehicle for
the expression of an indigenous local culture’’ in the area.^5
The counterpoint to this is the subject of chapter : ‘‘The Phoenician
Cities: A Case-Study of Hellenisation’’ (), where true fusion of indige-
nous and Greek cultures in the old sense seems to have taken place. However,
the Hellenization of the Phoenician cities began long before Alexander and
has rarely been discussed in this context. A Jewish version of the fusion is
the book of Daniel (chapter : ‘‘Hellenistic History in a Near Eastern Per-
spective: The Book of Daniel,’’ ), written in the s.., which may
borrow from Hellenism ‘‘the notion of history as a succession of world em-
pires,’’ but it does so only in order to reaffirm Jewish monotheism against the
Hellenistic persecutor Antiochus IV Epiphanes. Neither should the events
of –..be seen as the culmination of a profound and long process
of evolution within Judaism, assimilating it to Hellenism (chapter : ‘‘The
Background to the Maccabean Revolution: Reflections on Martin Hengel’s
. Millar’s phrasing inRNE, , referring to G. R. Bowersock,Hellenism in Late An-
tiquity(Thomas Spencer Jerome Lectures, ), esp. chap. .