Index Heliopolis: as part of territory of Bery-
tus, ; made a separate colony by
Septimius Severus, , –.See also
Berytus
Hellenisation: complex nature of in Syria,
xiii, –; evident in Syria only under
Roman Empire, xiii, ; expressed in
city-foundation, –, ; territorial
extent of, –.See alsoDroysen’s idea
of fusion (Verschmelzung); Syria
Hellenistic history, starting point of,
–, ,
Hellenistic monarchies: attitude to local
cults, –; enigmatic system of, ;
Parthia counts as one in one respect, ;
portrayal of Seleucid monarchy as Near
Eastern rather than Greek state,
Historical interpretations
—Bernal’sBlack Athenaas challenge to
traditional and biased ‘‘Western’’ ap-
proach to antiquity justified in certain
respects,
—criteria for historical truth in Gospels
(plausible and implausible constructs),
xiv, –, , –; impossibility
of amalgamating data from all four
Gospels, –,
—Cumont’s description of Berytus, Heli-
opolis, and Ptolemais as ‘‘Latin islands
in Semitic ocean,’’ –
—erroneous interpretations of Jewish
Hellenisation and events of –..
in Palestine, xiv, –, , –.See
alsoJudaism and its Hellenisation
—Finley’s theory of ‘‘ancient economy’’:
shortcomings of, –, –;
vindication of in honorific inscriptions
from Palmyra, –
—implausibility of ‘‘Orient’’ setting itself
against Greek Christianity and culture
in episode of Paul of Samosata, –
passim,
—modern Semitizing constructions,
–
—no clinching evidence for existence of a
Syrianethnosin Near East, –
—no major disputes in church arise from
or are marked by ethnic or linguistic
divisions down to.., –,
—Porphyry’s constructed oriental iden-
tity: modern unproven preconception,
– passim
—S. Schwartz wrongly takes Jewish his-
tory of th and th centuries to be
restricted to that of Jews in Palestine,
xvii, ,
—suggested school syllabus of ancient his-
tory derived from material generated
in ancient world itself, which goes up
to Islamic conquests, and is seen in its
wider Near Eastern context, –; for
which one should start with Greek and
Hebrew rather than with Greek and
Latin, –
—Walbank on Polybius and Rome,
—Zoroaster and Zoroastrianism: as an
example of a construction, or represen-
tation, of an ‘‘oriental’’ religious system
by classical writers, –
Historical reading of canonical texts: Bible
and literary documents from Judaean
desert (especially Qumran), –; Ro-
man Law, its application and, –;
standard texts of Talmudic (rabbinic)
Judaism, documents from Judaean
desert, –Jewish community in Judaea under Helle-
nistic kings: high priest as governor of,
–, ; its privileges, , –, ;
use of Hebrew and Aramaic in writings
of, ; Yehud and Yehuda coins, .See
alsoJudaism and its Hellenisation