The Hellenistic World and Rome
changes were brought about, outside the area of Greek settlement, in the
culture of the inhabitants, for example, in literacy? What combination of lit-
eracy was there in Semitic languages (Hebrew, Jewish Aramaic, Phoenician,
and later Nabataean Aramaic), in Greek, in both, or in neither?
The only substantial area where it is beyond question that new city foun-
dations transformed the map of the region is northern Syria, with Seleu-
cus I’s foundation of Antioch, Apamea, Seleucia, and Laodicea, a process bril-
liantly described by Seyrig.^20 Near Antioch there was said to have been briefly
a city ‘‘Antigoneia,’’ founded by Antigonus Monophthalmus and settled by
Athenians (so Malalas, apparently following a chronographer named Pausa-
nias,FGrHist. F ). At Laodicea there was similarly said to have been
a village called ‘‘Mazabda,’’ and at Apamea one called ‘‘Pharnace’’ (FGrHist.
F , –).
Excavations on this site have revealed one object from the Persian period,
a fragment of an Attic pyxis.^21 What is significant is that it isonly, so far as I
have discovered to date, in the area of these cities that we find smaller settle-
ments with Greek or Macedonian names. For instance, Diodotus Tryphon,
who seized the Seleucid throne in the s, came from aphrourion(fortified
settlement) called ‘‘Cassiana,’’ which, like others with the names ‘‘Larissa,’’
‘‘Megara,’’ ‘‘Apollonia,’’ and so forth, belonged to Apamea, where Tryphon
was educated (Strabo .. []). Even so, there were also villages in the
territory of Apamea with non-Greek names, like thekōmē Kaprozabadaiōn
(the village of the Karpazabadaioi) which an inscription reveals.^22 The word
‘‘Kapro’’ reflects Kfar, meaning ‘‘village,’’ in Aramaic, as in Hebrew.^23 Some
thirty miles east of Antioch, there was a village with the name ‘‘Maroneia,’’
which may be Greek; but, at any rate in the fourth century..,aper-
son from there would speak Syriac ( Jerome,V. Malchi). Similarly, twenty
kilometres north of Laodicea there was a place called ‘‘Heraclea Thalasse’’
(IGLSIV, , of /..; cf. Pliny,NH, ). If there was any area where
Greek settlement may have produced significant direct effects on property
. H. Seyrig, ‘‘Antiquités Syriennes, : Séleucus I et la fondation de la monarchie
syrienne,’’Syria (): – slightly earlier version in English: ‘‘Seleucus I and the
Foundation of Hellenistic Syria,’’ in W. A. Ward, ed.,The Role of the Phoenicians in the Inter-
actionof MediterraneanCivilization, Papers Presented to the Archaeological Symposium at the
American University of Beirut, March (), –.
. J. Balty and J. C. Balty, ‘‘Apamée de Syrie, archéologie et histoire I. Des origines à
la Tetrarchie,’’ANRWII. (), –.
.IGXIV ; photo in J. C. Balty, ‘‘Nouvelles données topographiques et chrono-
logiques à Apamée de Syrie,’’AAAS (): –; seeBE, .
. SeeBE, no. .