The Hellenistic World and Rome
in her great masterpiece,Le monde hellénistiqueI–II (), as previously in
‘‘Réflexions sur l’entité hellénistique,’’Chron. d’Eg. (): , have made
clear that the conscious expressions of Greek opinion available to us envis-
age either an export of Greeks and their culture or at the most an adoption
of that culture by ‘‘barbarians’’; and that is of course also the retrospective
view of Plutarch, with which I began. Pierre Briant (n. ) has also argued that
the Hellenistic foundations did in fact function, at least in the initial phase,
as nuclei of social segregation and dominance in relation to the indigenous
populations.
These analyses in effect seek—more or less successfully—to remove Droy-
sen’s notion ofVerschmelzungfrom the logical field of the intentions of the
actors in the fourth century and Hellenistic period. They are of consider-
able importance, even if—as is obvious—we cannot and do notknowhow
the main actors, Alexander and the Seleucid kings, conceived the role of
the cities which they founded. But two points arise in regard to Phoeni-
cia in particular. Firstly, since the foundation of Greek cities is central to
the process of Hellenisation ‘‘from above,’’ it is important to emphasise that
such foundations, if they took place at all, were not characteristic of coastal
Phoenicia. Of the cities along the coast which Pseudo-Scylax listed in the
mid-fourth century (GGMI, –), almost all preserved their ancient non-
Greek names and were not refounded—Arados, Tyre, Sidon, Botrys, Berytus,
Sarepta, Ake, Doros, Joppa (so also Byblos, which this confused text does not
mention). There is one clear marginal exception: Callimachus, coins, and the
Zenon papyri all show that Ake had become ‘‘Ptolemais’’ by the s..;^3
there is also another possible (and temporary) exception, if coins of the sec-
ond century..with the legendin Phoenician‘‘Laodicea, which is in [orme-
tropolis of ] Canaan’’ are rightly attributed to Berytus.^4 It is also a curious fact
that Tripolis already had this Greek name when Pseudo-Scylax was writing;
what is more he explains it by the fact that the city was in some way tripartite,
divided among Arados, Tyre, and Sidon. None the less, it has been suggested
that a Phoenician root ṬRP with the meaning ‘‘grasp,’’ or here ‘‘new founda-
tion,’’ might lie behind this term. The explanation is speculative, to say the
least, but cannot wholly be ruled out.^5
. For the evidence Schürer, Vermes, and Millar,HistoryII, .
.BMCPhoeniciaff., –. See R. Mouterde, ‘‘Regards sur Beyrouth phénicienne, hel-
lénistique et romaine,’’Mél.Univ. St. Joseph (): .
. K. Galling, ‘‘Die syrisch-palästinische Küste nach der Beschreibung des Pseudo-
Skylax,’’Studien zur Geschichte Israels im persischen Zeitalter(), . The question of the
name is not discussed in the valuable article by J. Elayi, ‘‘Studies in Phoenician Geography
during the Persian Period,’’JNES (): –.