Greeks and Non-Greeks in the Hellenistic World: A Harmonious Society? (20060709)
http://www.newdu.com 2024/11/27 06:11:46 中国世界古代史研究网 XU Xiaoxu 参加讨论
| （感谢徐晓旭博士惠寄大作！） Greeks and Non-Greeks in the Hellenistic World: A Harmonious Society? XU Xiaoxu (Department of History, Central China Normal University) The relationship between immigrant Greeks and the native ethnic groups is one of the important subjects of Hellenistic historiography. The traditional fusion theory, current since the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, that Greek and non-Greek cultures and peoples harmoniously blended into a new cosmopolitan civilization has been disbelieved by most scholars. Nowadays, the popular model of Greek and non-Greek relations emphasizes social and cultural segregation between the ruling ethnic groups and the natives. Here I am inclined to view the relationship between Greeks and Non-Greek peoples as a complex of acculturations, which formed a gradual process of adaptation and had differential effects on different occasions. Ethnic segregation is virtually undeniable. A calculation reveals that in the Seleucid kingdom Syrians, Jews, Persians and other Iranians were completely excluded from the ruling class for about two generations, and even afterwards, they never amounted to more than 2.5% of the whole of it. The few who entered the ruling circle were chiefly commanders of native soldiers. In Asia, Greek settlements being mainly urban, the countryside was immune to Greek influence to a considerable extent. There are only few Greek cities in Egypt, where many Greco-Macedonian immigrants dispersed in villages. Studies of Egyptian villages have revealed an almost total absence of either Greek residents or Greek influence on daily life. Different laws were employed for such different ethnic groups as Greeks, Egyptians, and Jews. A concomitant of this segregation was a certain degree of cultural juxtaposition of various ethnic groups. While Greek culture was thriving in Greek cities and katoikoi in the Hellenistic East, customs and cultures of native peoples in fact survived vigorously. The cultural basis of the Hellenistic kingdoms was doubtless Greek civilization, however their kings usually had no intention of touching and changing native life-ways. Conscious policies of Hellenizing were indeed occasionally performed. For example, Seleucid kings reorganized and renamed ancient Eastern cities so as to bestow Greek attributes on these cities. But Antiochus IV’s coercive Hellenizing policy that ignited the Revolt of the Maccabees in 168-4 B. C. seems to be rather an exceptional incident than to follow the norms. De facto, it was not rare for Hellenistic kings to respect and nourish native religions and traditions in order to gain the support by local priests and elites. That koine Greek was official language does not imply the enforcing of a single language policy. Some non-Greek languages were used as administrative languages. Aramaic remained to prevail in Babylonia. Even cuneiform literature revived, being concomitant with the religious revival, under the Seleucids. The famous Rosetta Stone is inscribed in Hieraglyphic, Demotic, and Greek. In turn, the segregation provided an impetus to acculturation of non-Greeks into Greek culture. Power makes a language more powerful. One must not forget that the Greeks and Macedonians were minorities in the East and they usually would not like to learn other languages. Therefore a rank of lower officials and functionaries as intermediaries between the rulers and the ruled populations were necessarily from non-Greeks. The privilege enjoyed by Greek culture is irresistibly bound to separate the social status of non- Greek elite from their cultural tradition. The learning of the Greek language came to bring about Hellenization in aspects of their lifestyles and mentalities. Certainly, intermarriage also could lead to Hellenization. Intermarriage between Greeks and non-Greeks may not have been a rare phenomenon, since Greek immigrants in Aisa and Egypt were predominantly soldiers and military colonists and therefore male. But on this occasion, Hellenization was only one side of the coin. Those Greeks living the countryside, where the tendency toward intermarriage was grander, acculturated somewhat into the mores of their non-Greek neighbours. In any way, one should observe that Hellenism does not necessarily amount to the forfeit of ethnic identities of non-Greek natives. Moreover, such features as speaking Greek and possessing a Greek name did not form the criteria for Greek ethnic identity, but acted as no more than its symptoms. However, time could transform culturally Hellenized barbarians into ethnic Greeks. For example, Greek papyri reveal several persons designated as “Thracian” but with Greek names, but the number of persons so specified steadily declined from the third century onwards. It may be inferred that Thracians in Egypt progressively adopted Greek names, the Greek language and perhaps eventually Greek religion so that finally they had no cultural features left to ethnically distinguish themselves from the Greeks. Social, political, and psychological advantages brought about by Greek or Greek-educated background sometimes gave rise to ethnic tensions. In the Zenon papyri a camel-driver, probably an Arab, is recorded to complain that his supervisors disdain him and refuse to pay him “because I am a barbarian”, and “I do not know how to behave à la grecque (Hellenizein)”. This story reveals a bit of information on an unharmonious response of natives without Greek-educated background to Hellenism. In summary, in the Hellenistic period, Greeks and non-Greeks were gradually adapted to each other. The society that consisted of both of them was a society of acculturation. The acculturation looked at large harmonious, but the harmony was not conscious or rational, and unharmonious factors existed all the way on some occasions. (责任编辑：admin) |
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