Index —Language and cultural and ethnic iden-
tity in Roman Near East, ,
—Latin: as language of Roman army, ;
namesandplacenames,
—Persian: no manuscripts for Sassanid
period (early rd to th century),
–
—Semitic languages remained in active
use throughout Graeco-Roman period,
—Syriac: as Christian language of cul-
ture, ; literature as an off-shoot of
Christian Greek culture, , –;
in narrow sense as Aramaic dialect of
Edessa, –, , , ,
—transliteration in Semitic of Greek
translations of Latin terms, ,
—trilingualism (Latin, Greek, and a
Semitic language), –
Maccabees, books of: as contemporary
source for southern Syria,
Millar: aims and methods inThe Roman
Near East, ..–..(), xii,
–; brief intellectual autobiogra-
phy, –; empirical approach of,
xiii; fifteen-year excursus to Repub-
lic and power of Populus Romanus,
–; as ‘‘non-Roman’’ historian of
Rome looking eastwards inThe Roman
Near East, ..–..of and
to late Christian Empire inA Greek
Roman Empire: Power and Belief under
Theodosius II (–), ; reading
Josephus promptsThe Emperor in the
Roman Worldand revision of Schürer’s
History of the Jewish Peoplewith Geza
Ve r m e s,
Origines gentium: and method adopted
by Josephus in his interpretation of
Genesis to locate peoples in his con-
temporary world, , –, ; not
preserved in case of Arab peoples, ,
; provides outsiders with an ancestry
within pagan mythology (Bickerman),
–.See alsoArabs/Arabioi/ArabesPalestine of the th and th centuries:
bilingual and trilingual inscriptions in
synagogue mosaics of, –; lan-
guages used in, –; Samaritans,
–
Palmyra: –, ; as caravan city, ,
, , , –; as Greek city
speaking a Semitic language, , ;
honorific bilingual inscriptions (Greek
and Palmyrene) of, –, –;
infiltration of Roman concepts of
status in, –; overland trade faintly
reflected in inscriptions of, –;
tax-law of.. does not throw
light on long distance trade of, ,
–; trilingual inscriptions from
pre-colonial phase of, –.See also
Caravan cities; Historical interpre-
tations: Finley’s theory of ‘‘ancient
economy’’; Trade
Periplus Maris Erythraei(‘‘Voyage around
the Red Sea’’), –, , –;
absence of such a handbook for trade
by land with Asia,
Petra: –, –; as caravan city, ;
and papyri,
Phoenician cities and culture: –
passim, –
Ptolemais, –Racism.SeeAsia and the classical worldSemitic, problematic use of term, ,
Syria: enigma of Hellenistic Syria, –;
invisibility of Aramaic culture, ; lack
of evidence for Achaemenid period in,