Historical Background: General
After the end of the Peloponnesian War in 404 B. C.E., Greece was fragmented politically, with no major powers or power blocs. This situation changed in the middle of the fourth century with the rise of Macedon. Macedon was a tribal kingdom on the northeast periphery of the Greek world ruled by Philip II, a warrior-king. The Greeks considered the Macedonians semi-barbarians — that is, not fully Greek. The word barbarian derives from “bar-bar-bar," which was how the Greeks described the sound of other languages. In 338 B. C.E., Philip II defeated a coalition of Greek city-states at the battle of Chaeronea and united Greece under Macedonian rule. Philip II's preparations to invade the Persian Empire were cut short, however, when he was assassinated in 336 B. C.E.
Philip II was succeeded to the Macedonian throne by his 18-year-old son, Alexander. Two years later (334 B. C.E.), Alexander launched an invasion of the Persian Empire, crossing the Hellespont and landing on Persian soil in the area of Troy. From there, Alexander marched eastward with his troops. The Persian king Darius III led his army against the invaders; over the next four years, he fought a series of battles against Alexander. Alexander was victorious in all the battles, until finally, after the last battle (at Gaugamela in 331 B. C.E.), Darius was murdered by his own men, paving the way for Alexander to become ruler of the Persian Empire. Alexander continued to march eastward with his army, conquering lands that had not been subject to the Persians, through Bactria and Sogdiana (modern Afganistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan), into southern Russia, and across the Indus River Valley into India. Alexander apparently planned to invade Arabia, but his Macedonian troops refused to go any farther, putting an end to future expansion and setting the limits of his empire.
4.1 Map of Alexander's Empire. Ancient World Mapping Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Www. unc. edu/awmc).
In 332 B. C.E., in the midst of his campaign, Alexander detoured south from Asia Minor and Syria to Egypt, bringing Palestine under his rule. Alexander was eager to take the land of the pharaohs, which was rich in gold and wheat. While in Egypt, Alexander founded a new city on the coast, which he named after himself: Alexandria. Alexander also visited an oracular shrine dedicated to Zeus Ammon at the remote desert oasis of Siwa, where the priests reportedly greeted him as a god, a concept alien to the Greeks (discussed later).
Alexander never returned to Greece, and instead set up court in Babylon, where he died of a fever in 323 B. C.E. Alexander's conquests had a lasting impact that changed the face of the ancient Near East for centuries. We refer to the three centuries following Alexander's conquests as Hellenistic (“Greek-like") because, for the first time, Greek culture was introduced directly — by Greeks — into the lands of the ancient Near East, which previously had been under Persian rule. Hellenistic comes from the word Hellas, which is Greek for “Greece" (similarly, Hellenic is an adjective that means “Greek" — for example, Hellenic culture = Greek culture). Alexander promoted the mingling of Near Eastern and Greek culture by setting up an Oriental-style court in Babylon and encouraging his Macedonian soldiers to marry native women. The intermingling of Greek and ancient Near Eastern cultures was a two-way street. On the one hand, Alexander's successors promoted the spread of Greek language, customs, religion, and styles of architecture and art through the lands of the ancient Near East. On the other hand, Near Eastern culture influenced the Greeks. For example, unlike previous Greek leaders and rulers, Alexander and his successors were worshiped or venerated as gods or godlike beings, a tradition that had a long history in the ancient Near East (as, for example, the Egyptian pharaohs).
Alexander's empire disintegrated immediately upon his death, as a 20-year-long war erupted over the succession to the throne. Eventually, Alexander's three wives and his offspring were killed and his empire was divided up among his generals. Two of Alexander's generals seized the lion's share of the empire. Seleucus took Asia Minor, Syria, and Mesopotamia, establishing a kingdom ruled by his successors (the Seleucids). Ptolemy established a kingdom in Egypt that was ruled by his successors (the Ptolemies). The Ptolemies and Seleucids fought over control of Palestine, which lay between their kingdoms. For most of the third century B. C.E. Palestine was under Ptolemaic rule; in the second century, it was under Seleucid rule.
Because the Ptolemies and Seleucids were not related to Alexander, they were concerned about establishing their legitimacy as his successors. They therefore imitated Alexander, in an attempt to make themselves appear like him in the eyes of their subjects. For example, these rulers had themselves depicted as physically resembling Alexander (in statues, in portrait busts, and on coins), with a wavy leonine mane of hair or wearing a lion skin cape — an attribute of the hero Heracles (Hercules), which alluded to divine status — and with eyes directed up toward the gods. In antiquity, few people ever saw the ruler and therefore were unfamiliar with his appearance. Because coins circulated widely, they were used by rulers as vehicles of mass media to broadcast messages. The only image of the king that most people ever saw was the one on coins.
Alexander's successors also followed his example by establishing new cities around their kingdoms. For example, in the third century B. C.E., the Palestinian coastal city of Akko (modern Acre) was refounded as Ptolemais, and Rabbath-Ammon, the ancient capital of the Ammonites (modern Amman in Jordan), was renamed Philadelphia (in honor of Ptolemy II Philadelphos). Many of these cities were not established de novo (from scratch), but rather were towns or villages that were rebuilt as Greek cities by the king and renamed — usually after themselves, following Alexander's precedent in founding Alexandria. Greek cities (s. polis; pl. poleis) were awarded certain privileges and benefits. Poleis had a Greek style of government (such as a city council [boule]) and Greek institutions (such as theaters for the performance of Greek plays, gymnasia for the education of youth in the Greek manner, and temples for the worship of Greek gods), and were granted other advantages, such as tax benefits and the opportunity to send athletes to compete in international games. Alexander's successors used the dissemination of Greek culture as a means of unifying the diverse populations in their kingdoms. By establishing poleis, the Hellenistic kings also won the loyalty of the residents, who benefited from a rise in their standard of living.
Historical Background: Palestine
Alexander's conquest had little immediate impact on the population of Palestine. Most of the inhabitants would have hardly noticed Alexander's replacement of Persian officials and administrators with his own men. However, in later centuries, after Alexander's fame increased, traditions developed as native populations sought to establish a connection to this legendary figure. For example, according to the first-century C. E. Jewish historian Josephus, Alexander took a detour inland to Jerusalem on his way to Egypt, to pay homage to the God of Israel and the high priest Jaddua (Antiquities 11: 325—31). This story was fabricated to show that even Alexander the Great acknowledged the omnipotence of the God of Israel.
In the book of Daniel (8:1—21), the author foretells Alexander's conquests, using a secret language in which animals denote humans:
In the third year of the reign of King Belshazzar a vision appeared to
Me, Daniel. . . . I looked up and saw a ram standing beside the river. It
Had two horns.... I saw the ram charging westward and northward and southward. All beasts were powerless to withstand it, and no one could rescue from its power; it did as it pleased and became strong. As I was watching, a male goat appeared from the west, coming across the face of the whole earth without touching the ground. The goat had a horn between its eyes. It came toward the ram with the two horns that I had seen standing beside the river, and it ran at it with savage force. ... The ram did not have the power to withstand it; it threw the ram down to the ground and trampled upon it, and there was no one who could rescue the ram from its power.. . . He [Gabriel] said, “Listen, and I will tell you what will take place later in the period of wrath; for it refers to the appointed time of the end. As for the ram that you saw with the two horns, these are the kings of Media and Persia. The male goat is the king of Greece [Alexander]." (NRSV)
The book of Daniel is an apocalyptic work — that is, a work that predicts the downfall of this world and a coming time of salvation — and it is pseud-epigraphic, which means that Daniel is not the author's real name (his true identity is unknown). Although the angel Gabriel supposedly reveals that one day Alexander will defeat the Persian king, the book of Daniel was composed around 167—164 B. C.E. (the time of the Maccabean revolt), which means that it postdates Alexander's conquests by a century and a half!
Under the Ptolemies, Jerusalem and Judea were part of the province of Syria. This province (and others) included different kinds of administrative units, which were governed in different ways. For example, there were Greek cities (poleis), such as Akko/Acre (Ptolemais) and Gaza; Greek colonies, such as Samaria, Beth-Shean (Scythopolis), and Amman (ancient Rabbath-Ammon/Philadelphia); and military colonies, such as the district of Ammon (governed by the Tobiads). Judea (with Jerusalem) was an autonomous unit governed by the Gerousia, a council of priests and elders led by the high priest. This administrative structure was retained even after the Seleucid king Anti-ochus III conquered Palestine in 198 B. C.E. The Judeans were classified as an ethnos — that is, a tribal nation in possession of its own territory. According to this definition, a Jew (Greek loudaios) was a person of Judean parentage, whose place of origin legally was Judea, and who was obligated to worship the Judean national deity — the God of Israel. Antiochus III proclaimed that “all members of this ethnos shall be governed in accordance with their ancestral laws." This means that the Torah had the status of royal law. In other words, the Ptolemies and Seleucids followed and preserved the policy that had been set by the Persians and implemented by Ezra, according to which Jewish law was the law of the land.
4.2 Map of Hellenistic Palestine. Ancient World Mapping Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Www. unc. edu/awmc).
Archaeology: Sites
World History
