Aerial View Of Antioch On The Orontes (modern Antakya, in south-eastern Turkey). Founded by Seleucus I in 300 B.C. and named after his son Antiochus, this new city became the capital of the Seleucid Empire. It shows the
typical gridiron plan of the Seleucid foundations, with five avenues running southwest to north-east and at least twenty streets running cross-wise.
The new settlements varied enormously in size and status. First, there were the military colonies founded by the Seleucids in various parts of their kingdom, from western Turkey to (it seems) Kurdestan. These settlements might
be small, with only a few hundred men, and they had few autonomous institutions and little independence from the king. Their purpose was to act as a safeguard against disaffection and their inhabitants were obliged to serve in
the king's army (below, p. 327). Secondly, there were the new, independent cities with populations of several thousands, ranging up to Alexandria, a great cultural centre, which in the first century B.C. was reckoned to be the
largest city in the (Mediterranean) world.
The culture of these cities was strongly Greek. At the most obvious level there developed a new Greek language, the koine or common language, which transcended the divisions of the old Greek dialects (Dorian, Ionic, and so
on). There is generally nothing in the language or the script of a document to indicate from which part of the Greek world it comes. In addition, the political institutions of the cities were closely modeled on traditional Greek
practices. Susa, for example, one of the four Persian royal centres, was refounded in the late fourth century as Seleucia on the Eulaeus. Over 300 years later the city, by then in the Parthian Empire, still had a constitution which
would have been familiar to a Greek of the classical period; the council proposed and scrutinized candidates for public office, who were then elected by the full body of the citizens. There was a treasurer and a college of
magistrates, of whom two gave their name to the year. Seleucia illustrates both the 'exporting' of Greek constitutions and the tenacity with which they were maintained in an alien world.
One of the key institutions which supported the Greek culture of the cities was the gymnasion (above, p. 226). This was not just a place for a casual work-out; it was an educational institution promoting both physical and
intellectual culture. The building itself was often centrally placed and at Alexandria, for instance, was reckoned to be the most beautiful building in the city. More importantly, all full members of the city were expected to belong
to the gymnasion. Strict rules governed eligibility for admission. In mainland Greece we hear of the exclusion of (among others) slaves, freedmen, their sons, and those practising vulgar trades. It is likely that in the new
foundations such rules effectively excluded those who were deemed not to be Greek. But those natives who did succeed in proving their eligibility had to exercise in the gymnasion naked - an abomination to non-Greeks.
Stripping naked marked their alienation from their native background and their incorporation into the Greek world.
The remarkable cultural achievements of the Greeks must not blind us to their exclusivity against indigenous cultures. For example, the population of Seleucia on the Eulaeus remained exclusively Greek. Even 300 years after its
foundation there is no known case where a person with a Greek name did not have a father with a Greek name. That is, there was no Hellenization of the native population, which remained excluded from the civic institutions.
Similarly in Egypt there was a sharp divide between Greek and native culture. The Egyptians continued to build temples on the traditional model and to produce a lively and diverse literature of their own (there are as many
Hellenistic papyri in demotic Egyptian as in Greek). But the Greeks commissioned sculpture which shows no points of contact with Egyptian art and resolutely read literature of the classical period. In the field of law too, there