Hellenistic Middle East

Map of the Hellenistic Middle East, Greece, and Ashoka's Empire in cultural syncretism, 260 BC

The Hellenistic Middle East (Greek: Έλληνιστική Μέση Ανατολή) was an area of cultural syncretism between Greece and the Middle East (Ancient Egypt, Persia, India), creating international Hellenistic cultures. Greco-Egyptian, Greco-Persian, and Greco-Sanskrit religions, such as Mithraism and Greco-Buddhism, came from a fusion of deities and religious practices of African and Asian culture. Alexandria in Egypt, Antioch in Syria, Persepolis in Persia, Bactra in Bactria (Afghanistan), and Sirkap in India became important cultural centers of Hellenistic culture.

Hellenism in the Middle East

A soldier from Ionia

The Hellenistic Middle East was an area that facilitated the exchange of ideas between the cultures of Greece, Persia, Egypt, India, and Africa. Hellenistic culture was defined by its secular aspect, and facility to absorb elements from non-Greek sources such as local ideas and religion. Hellenists formed this diverse world culture.

The Hellenistic Middle East changed in size and area throughout its lifetime. It began with Alexander's conquests in the 3rd century BC; even before Alexander, Greeks had inhabited Ionia in Asia Minor and established colonies all around the Mediterranean coast like Cyrenaica in North Africa. Later, the Hellenistic Middle East was fully annexed by the Romans with the death of Cleopatra of the Ptolemaic dynasty in 30 BC. Afterwards the area produced the Greco-Roman culture, becoming Christian with the founding of Constantinople in 395 AD. Hellenistic culture permeated Africa and Western Asia for over a millennium.

Hellenistic religion

Hellenistic culture was secular and mixed; it taught Greek philosophy and interpreted faith through the lense of Interpretatio graeca. People of diverse religions and cultures participated in the Hellenistic world by getting a Greek education; an example of this participation is Hellenistic Judaism where Jews adopted aspects of Greek culture.

Adaptation to Hellenic culture did not require compromise of Jewish precepts or conscience. When a Greek gymnasium was introduced into Jerusalem, it was installed by a Jewish High Priest. And other priests soon engaged in wrestling matches in the palaestra.

Later in the Hellenistic Middle East, Christianity rose with Jesus Christ, a Jew from the province of Judea. He was from Nazareth village near Caesarea city, a major hub of Hellenistic Jews.

Hellenistic world and India

Alexander the Great campaigned in India from 327 to 325 BC. Afterwards, a new trade route was opened between India, Western Asia and Greece. Four distinct sea and land routes paved the way to greater trade and cultural contact between the two regions.

Greek art influenced the subsequent period of India, and its influence can be seen in architecture such as the Pillars of Ashoka. Greek scholars began travelling to India in great numbers, making literature such as treatises on Indian history. As the formation of the Hellenistic world removed the major threats to India, the Mauryan Empire was able to consolidate its power and expand unchecked.

A major cementation of peace with the Hellenistic world was the Seleucid-Mauryan alliance that came from Chandragupta Maurya's marriage with Seleucus Nicator's daughter Helena in 303 BC. Later ties were reinforced with the spread of Greco-Buddhism and Buddhist embassies from Ashoka:

"The conquest by Dharma has been won here, on the borders, and even six hundred yojanas (5,400-9,600 km) away, where the Greek king Antiochos rules, beyond there where the four kings named Ptolemy, Antigonos, Magas, and Alexander rule, like in the south among the Cholas, the Pandyas, and as far as Tamraparni (Sri Lanka)."

The fusion of Greek and Indian cultures helped produce Mahayana Buddhism; parts of Indian abstraction and Greek individualism interacted to create a new personal, emotional form of religion.

Hellenistic city-states

Tbe establishment of the Hellenistic Middle East and the spread of Greek thought lead to a social revolution; prior to the Greeks, under the Persian Empire most of the regions had more restrictive social hierarchies closely tied to function in society. After the establishment of Greek governments, ambitious locals had the opportunity to participate and acquire citizenship by getting a Greek education. Hellenistic citizens maintained their regional social and cultural patterns, intergrating cultural elements into the local Hellenistic culture.

During the Hellenistic period, heavy interregional migration took place, with a great portion of immigrants coming from Greece, Macedonia, Thrace, the Aegean Islands, and Asia Minor. Other groups immigrated to other regions too, such as the Jews who from the 3rd century BC emigrated from Judea in large numbers. These groups assimilated into the local Hellenistic culture, with citizens adopting Greek or hellenized names and using the Greek language and legal institutions: Greek law and Greek courts.

City-states in the Roman period

Fresco of buildings in the City-state of Gaza (Greek: Γάζα)

Under the Romans, citizenship determined the laws provincial inhabitants followed; Roman law had different tiers of citizenship- Roman citizenship "Jus romanum", City-state citizenship "Jus civitatis", and Provincial citizenship "Jus gentium". In Judea, for example, provincials followed Jewish law, and in Egypt, provincials followed Egyptian law. Here is a letter from Pliny the Younger about his Egyptian friend Harpocras's application for Roman citizenship:

"I was advised by people more experienced than I am that, since he is an Egyptian, I should have first obtained for him Alexandrian citizenship, then Roman. Not realizing that there was any difference between Egyptians and other provincials, I contented myself with writing to you only that he was a freedman of a provincial woman and that his patron has died some time ago."

Hellenistic city-states maintained a special independence in provinces; in Judea for example, Caesarea and Gaza were major city-states, with Caesarea being the second most important city, and Gaza being a center of Greek education and learning.

Eventually Roman citizenship became available to all Christians; the requisite for citizenship was membership in the Roman Church. Byzantine cultures rose in the Middle East from a common Roman-Christian background. In the Eastern Roman Empire, Greeks, Copts of Egypt, Syrians, Armenians, and Goths formed a population that continued Greek education and called itself Romans (Greek: Ῥωμαῖοι).

Decline

After Caliph Omar ended the Muslim invasion with his entrance of Jerusalem in 638 AD, many regions of the Greco-Roman Middle East came under the control of Islam. The new Muslim rulers treated the subjugated Byzantine citizens with great religious tolerance; many former citizens were relieved by the tolerance, and almost every province came to accept the new Muslim rulers. This peace and tolerance was pronounced, and could be seen places such as Damascus in Syria and Jerusalem in Palestine where Muslims and Christians shared churches and prayed together.

Over time however, the peace came to an end. Starting with the reign of Caliph Ali, internal conflicts- waves of assassination plots and instability- began to plague the caliphate. Islamic religious rigorism was enforced, and Christianity began to decline. Later the Ottoman Empire conquered the last remains of the Byzantine Middle East, and transformed the area into the Rum Millet (Rumelia), "Roman Country", Ottoman Christian provinces, where autonomy and privileges were given to Christian subjects.

List of Hellenistic regions

Further information: Partition of Babylon and Hellenistic period

Then Hellenistic world began in June 323 BC with the Partition of Babylon, immediately after the conquests and death of Alexander the Great. The following is a list of the Hellenistic regions:

North Africa

An Egyptiot man with Anubis

Further information: Ptolemaic Empire

Egypt

Libya

Arabia

Ptolemaic Empire

Alexander the Great conquered Egypt at an early stage of his conquests. He respected the pharaonic religions and customs and he was proclaimed Pharaoh of Egypt. He established the city of Alexandria; at the partition of Babylon, Egypt was given to Ptolemy I Soter, whose descendants would give Egypt her final royal dynasty – one of great fame. The dynasty was composed solely by ethnic Greeks and produced dynasts such as the famous Cleopatra.

Asia Minor

A Phrygian horseman with griffin

Greater Phrygia

Lesser/Hellespontine Phrygia

Cappadocia

Paphlagonia

Lydia

Cilicia

Caria

Lycia

Pamphylia

Ionia

Western Asia

Antiochus with Persian god Mithra

Further information: Seleucid Empire

Syria

Mesopotamia

Babylonia

Persia

Carmania

Hyrcania

Parthia

Lesser Media

Greater Media

Susiana

Seleucid Empire

The Seleucid Empire was the largest state in the early Hellenistic world. At its height, the state reached all the way from India to southeastern Europe; in the beginning, the empire was poor, and even the richest areas were failing. The area's early economic state was due to centuries of neglect by the Persian Empire, and exascerbated by Alexander the Great's 20 year campaign.

The Seleucids were able to turn around the region's economic development: they built many new enterprising city-states, and revitalized local economies. While the Seleucids helped recover the region's economy, their government collapsed twice, the first time creating split Hellenistic Kingdoms, like the Hellenistic Judean Maccabees of the Hasmonean dynasty, the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom, and the Indo-Greek Kingdom. The second collapse restricted the Seleucid Empire to the area around Syria, and it was such that the Romans came to refer to the later Empire simply as "Syrians". The legacy left by the Seleucids created economic stability in the region all the way until the Crusades more than a thousand years later.

Central Asia

A Greco-Bactrian Sun and Moon plate

A Greco-Buddhist Bodhisattva

Further information: Bactrian Kingdom

Bactria

Sogdiana

Drangiana

Aria

Arachosia

Gedrosia

Paropamisia

Greco-Bactrian Kingdom

The Greco-Bactrian Kingdom was highly urbanized and considered one of the richest of the Orient (opulentissimum illud mille urbium Bactrianum imperium "The extremely prosperous Bactrian empire of the thousand cities", according to Justin), was to further grow in power and engage in territorial expansion to the east and the west:

The Greeks who caused Bactria to revolt grew so powerful on account of the fertility of the country that they became masters, not only of Ariana, but also of India, as Apollodorus of Artemita says: and more tribes were subdued by them than by Alexander… Their cities were Bactra (also called Zariaspa, through which flows a river bearing the same name and emptying into the Oxus), and Darapsa, and several others. Among these was Eucratidia, which was named after its ruler.

Indian subcontinent

Further information: Indo-Greek Kingdom

Indus

Punjab

Other Indian colonies

Greco-Buddhism

Further information: Greco-Buddhism

The Greeks in India played an active role in the propagation of Buddhism, as some of the emissaries of Ashoka such as Dharmaraksita, or the teacher Mahadharmaraksita, are described in Pali sources as leading Greek ("Yona", i.e., Ionian) Buddhist monks, active in Buddhist proselytism (the Mahavamsa, XII). It is also thought that Greeks contributed to the sculptural work of the Pillars of Ashoka, and more generally to the blossoming of Mauryan art. Some Greeks (Yavanas) may have played an administrative role in the territories ruled by Ashoka: the Junagadh rock inscription of Rudradaman records that during the rule of Ashoka, a Yavana King/ Governor named Tushaspha was in charge in the area of Girnar, Gujarat, mentioning his role in the construction of a water reservoir.