While there are many Hellenistic histories in circulation, there is no intellectual history of the Hellenistic world. This does not highlight an editorial void regarding the Hellenistic period. However, while the surveys, companions and handbooks in circulation focus on individual aspects as ‘Hellenistic’, there are no all-embracing or synoptic studies, and certainly no intellectual histories, that are fully ‘Hellenistic’, in the sense of having the same boundaries or extent in space, time or meaning as the Hellenistic world as a whole, rather than just its Greek-speaking areas (pp. 6–7).
S. argues for a new approach to the intellectual history of the Hellenistic world, combining Greek and non-Greek sources. By defining the terms ‘intellectual’ and ‘Hellenistic’ (pp. 8–16), ‘intellectual’ acquires a broad sense: not limited to high-level or formalised scholarly enquiry, but potentially including all forms of conceptual engagement with pre-existing traditions (written or oral) and the contemporary world.
S. regards ‘intellectual history’ as precisely encouraging reflection about the modes of intellectual history. She uses ‘intellectual culture’ for the forms of intellectual activity characteristic of a particular institution or social or cultural group; and she uses ‘intellectual life’ for all intellectual activity in a given region.
S. employs the word ‘Hellenistic’ in two different senses. The first refers to the history of areas under the control of the Graeco-Macedonian kingdoms in the period between the conquests of Alexander and the Battle of Actium. The second refers to the new world order created by Alexander and his successors. She studies these two topics from a cross-cultural perspective, linking Greek and Babylonian intellectual histories through a comparative approach. The book combines approaches used in the texts of Herodotus and Diodorus with those of their modern counterparts (especially G. Lloyd and, more recently, J. Haubold).
The introductory definitions are followed by the core of the study, which falls into three parts. The first part (Chapters 2 and 3) deals with the ‘Herodotean’ study of cross-cultural borrowings to re-evaluate three important but problematic points of contact between Hellenistic Greek and Babylonian intellectual culture. The second part (Chapters 4 and 5) attempts to answer the numerous questions related to contexts in which the cross-cultural exchanges happened. Two particular contexts are taken into consideration: royal patronage and the Library of Alexandria. The third part (Chapters 6 and 7) offers a new approach to the cross-cultural connection, i.e., how Greek and Babylonian writers respond or behave to the space around (Chapter 6) and across (Chapter 7) the span of time. Chapter 6 considers the intellectual geographies of both (Greeks/Babylonians), whereas Chapter 7 looks at the local historiographies. The thesis around which this book revolves is that the ‘intellectual culture of Hellenistic Babylonia is in a meaningful sense Hellenistic as well as Babylonian’ (p. 371). S. successfully substantiates her thesis as the book unfolds.
The first part considers the celestial sciences. A range of evidence from Babylonia, Egypt and the Greek world highlights the depth and complexity of Greek borrowings from Babylonian astronomy and astrology. It then considers data and terms relating to celestial observation; methods of predicting celestial phenomena; and the concepts and techniques used to interpret the significance of these phenomena for events on Earth. For example, the Greeks import the Babylonian unit and terminology for measuring the sky (‘cubit’ and ‘finger’): the Akkadian ammatu and ubānu correspond respectively to the Greek words pechus and daktylos (p. 45). While evidence shows that cross-cultural contacts occurred (pp. 91–3), we lack the contexts of transmission, the individuals and the objects that constituted the crucial vectors.
Chapter 3 takes up the interplay of Babylonian and Greek traditions in the work of Berossus’ Babyloniaca, and explores an educational bilingual practice that may have facilitated cross-cultural exchange between Greek and Babylonian scholars: ‘Graeco-Babyloniaca’. The extent of Berossus’ knowledge of Greek and cuneiform scholarship is offered, and S. wonders why and whether he should be viewed as exceptional among the Babylonian elite of his time. Babylonian elites may have come to engage more widely with Greek language and culture.
Graeco-Babyloniaca are unique clay tablets with Sumerian and Akkadian cuneiform school texts on one side and transliterations in Greek script on the reverse. Questions considered include: (i) whether the writer was Greek or Babylonian; (ii) what kind of information about linguistic and cultural bilingualism in Hellenistic Babylonia can be extrapolated from the texts; and (iii) the uncertainties for reconstructing the broader intellectual or cultural worlds in which the writers moved.
The second part (Chapters 4 and 5) switches to a broader comparative approach and applies a socially and politically contextualised comparison in the vein of G. Lloyd. Chapter 4 examines the evidence for Hellenistic royal libraries as significant catalysts for the acquisition of Mesopotamian scholarship and as a channel for its westward transmission (p. 145). It highlights the limitations of the theories that posit the Library of Alexandria and its analogues as the only beneficiaries of Mesopotamian intellectual culture. To connect Greek and Mesopotamian worlds, it is necessary to consider the kings who invested in intellectual culture and interacted with scholars.
Chapter 5 moves from institutional to personal patronage, comparing how Hellenistic kings interacted with Greek and Mesopotamian intellectual culture. The Greek-dominated world of Hellenistic court scholarship was not one in which significant cross-cultural exchange took place. Rather, Greek and Babylonian intellectual practitioners carried out parallel tasks for Hellenistic rulers, who utilised themselves in locally appropriate roles across culturally heterogeneous territories.
The final part (Chapters 6 and 7) uses structural comparativism to draw indirect but specific connections between Greek and Babylonian intellectual practitioners and their activities: how the Greeks and Babylonians related to the time and space around them. Chapter 6 considers the geographical repertoires of Greek and cuneiform texts from the period. There is little evidence for cross-cultural contact, but a comparative study of place names in Greek and Akkadian texts from the early Hellenistic period reveals an absence of Greek geographical and ethnic terminology in the cuneiform material. In the Hellenistic sources, Greeks from all regions still introduced themselves as ‘Ionians’ (Akkadian Yaw(a)nāya), as they had done since the Neo-Assyrian period. In cuneiform there is no transliteration of Hellen or its derivatives. ‘Very few Greek place names are transliterated’ (p. 257). Babylonians regularly refer to the known outer regions by archaic, Akkadian toponyms, even when these have not kept pace with contemporary political or ethnic realities. In the Antiochus Cylinder from Borsippa, for example, Antiochus I seems to have moulded bricks for the Esagila and Ezida temples ina māt Ḫatti, ‘in the land of Ḫattu’. In this context Ḫattu denotes a reference to Syria. Originally the term related to the Hattic and Hittite peoples’ territory in the third and second millennia bc (p. 258).
Chapter 7 focuses on the individuals and communities outside the great learning centres. After highlighting the similarities between the careers, social contexts and intellectual concerns of local intellectual practitioners in the Greek world and Babylonia, S. argues that these individuals used constructions of the past in similar ways to negotiate their identity and status in the new world created by Alexander and his successors. Thus, the emergence of local historiography functioning as a key means of self-assertion for Hellenistic poleis should be viewed as both a Greek phenomenon and a feature of Hellenistic intellectual life.
This chapter also underlines two central premises of the whole book. Firstly, contextualised comparison is important for assessing cross-cultural connections; and, secondly, much more may be gained from gleaning information on intellectual practitioners and their contexts beyond the ‘centre’ of the Hellenistic world that linked with Alexandria, Pergamon and Athens.
In her conclusion S. drives home the message of her work, but does not provide full answers, since this is not the end of her investigation. Rather, this book is the forerunner of a fruitful research path about which we can soon expect to read more.
The book is carefully structured and clear enough to be understood by specialists and non-specialists alike. S.'s arguments are supported by an excellent set of figures and maps. A glossary of selected places, deities and technical terms makes the reading even more appealing and memorable. It can be read in one sitting and is engaging to the point of leaving the reader with the desire to read it a second time. Finally, while the volume is quite expensive, it is essential reading.
