Hellenism and the Local Communities of the Eastern Mediterranean: 400 BCE-250 CE

Description

Hellenism and the Local Communities of the Eastern Mediterranean offers a timely re-examination of the relationship between Greek and non-Greek cultures in this region between 400 BCE and 250 CE. The conquests of Alexander the Great and his Successors not only radically reshaped the political landscape, but also significantly accelerated cultural change: in recent decades there has been an important historiographical emphasis on the study of the non-Greek cultures of the Eastern Mediterranean, but less focus on how Greek cultural elements became increasingly visible. Although the process of cross-cultural interaction differed greatly across Asia Minor, Egypt, the Levant, and Mesopotamia, the same overarching questions apply: why did the non-Greek communities of the Eastern Mediterranean engage so closely with Greek cultural forms as well as political practices, and how did this engagement translate into their daily lives? In exploring the versatility and adaptability of Greek political structures, such as the polis, and the ways in which Greek and non-Greek cultures interacted in fields such as medicine, literature, and art, the essays in this volume aim to provide new insight into these questions. At the same time, they prompt a re-interrogation of the process of Hellenization, exploring whether it is still a useful concept for explaining and understanding the dynamics of cultural exchange in the Eastern Mediterranean of this period. Title Pages - Oxford Scholarship Acknowledgements - Oxford Scholarship List of Maps, Figures and Table - Oxford Scholarship Abbreviations Used for Standard Corpora and Reference Works - Oxford Scholarship Notes on Contributors - Oxford Scholarship Maps - Oxford Scholarship Hellenism_ An Introduction - Oxford Scholarship Greek Impact in Asia Minor 400–250 BCE - Oxford Scholarship Trajectories of Hellenism at Tadmor-Palmyra and Dura-Europos - Oxford Scholarship Polis of Babylon_ An Historiographical Approach - Oxford Scholarship From Pre-Makkabaean Judaea to Hekatomnid Karia and Back Again - Oxford Scholarship Converging Perspectives on Antiochos III - Oxford Scholarship Greek and Egyptian Associations in Egypt_ Fact or Fiction_ - Oxford Scholarship Text and Wisdom in the Letter of Aristeas - Oxford Scholarship Medicine between Cultures in the Hellenistic Fayum - Oxford Scholarship Bibliography - Oxford Scholarship Index - Oxford Scholarship