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Seleukid Settlements: Between Ethnic Identity and Mobility

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 December 2014

Omar Coloru
Affiliation:
Università di Pisa
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Summary

Go noiselessly by, stranger; the old man sleeps among the pious dead, wrapped in the slumber that is the lot of all. This is Meleager, the son of Eucrates, who linked sweet tearful Love and the Muses with the merry Graces. Heavenborn Tyre and Gadara's holy soil reared him to manhood, and beloved Cos of the Meropes tended his old age. If you are a Syrian, Salam! If you are a Phoenician, Naidius! If you are a Greek, Chaire! And say the same yourself.

Meleager of Gadara, I cent. BC, Greek Anth. 7.419, English trans. W.R. Paton

Abstract: The present paper deals with the population of the Seleukid settlements in order to address issues about the settlers' mobility and ethnic identity. By surveying the available evidence, this study aims in particular to understand the role played by non-Greek populations in the Seleukid Empire, trying to go beyond the thesis of an apartheid-like regime in which those ethnic groups would be socially as well as politically isolated from the Greco-Macedonian settlers.

Key words: Seleukid Empire, Ethnic Identity, Hellenism, Jews, Mobility, Macedonian.

In his celebrative portrait of the deeds accomplished by Seleukos I, Appian (Syr. 57) states that the king had founded many towns throughout his vast empire. From this particular point of view, the figure of Seleukos emerges not only as the continuator of Alexander the Great, the builder king par excellence, but also as a competitor of the Macedonian conqueror.

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Publisher: Jagiellonian University Press
Print publication year: 2013

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