Race Relations in the Seleucid Empire: The Case of the Phoenicians
By Christopher Bravo
Citations: USC McNair Scholars Research Journal, Vol.3 (2007)
Abstract: Though the academic study of race relations has only been established fairly recently in modern scholarship, the social phenomenon of race relations has existed for thousands of years. This paper will examine the relations between different peoples in the Seleucid Empire, an empire that spanned from the coasts of Turkey to the western reaches of the Indian subcontinent from the late fourth to the first centuries BCE. This large nation-state was comprised of numerous diverse groups of peoples, such as Jews, Persians, and Turks, amongst others, who were ruled over by a foreign elite class of Graeco-Macedonians. One of these subject groups, the Phoenicians, is studied in detail in order to understand the quality of the relationships between them and the ruling royal class. This analysis allows for the critical evaluation of the relations between these two peoples.
In order to conduct such a project, a comprehensive study of selected extant primary sources is necessary. While these sources are limited, it is not impossible to draw conclusions from the scarce archaeological and literary evidence that has survived to this day. Accordingly, the state and quality of these relationships will be examined and evaluated through textual analysis and interpretations of not only the aforementioned primary sources, but modern scholarship as well. The findings of this study demonstrate that the Seleucid Graeco-Macedonians did differentiate amongst themselves, though, just as in today’s society, different individuals did so in differing ways. Individuals still viewed different people as either inferior or superior to themselves. For some, race may have been the deciding factor. For others, however, a person’s deeds and character determined another’s opinion of him or her.
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