D'Alexandre a Zoilos

About this book

The cuneiform sources of the 1st millennium BC have preserved evidence of 250 individuals with Greek names, the great majority of whom date to the period of Macedonian domination (331-141 BC) and to the beginning of the Parthian period (beginning in 141 BC). In these sources, the reader encounters notable local figures such as Macedonian generals and Hellenistic rulers, about whom the Babylonian documentation provides sparse but precise information. The prosopographical section of this work collects this information for the first time. An index of names is preceded by two studies: the first, which deals with the practice of transcribing Greek names in cuneiform, includes previously unpublished information about the appropriation of that language into the letters of Mesopotamian culture and about the pronunciation of Greek in Hellenistic Babylonian; the second covers the mechanisms of acculturation of local elites to the culture of the Macedonian conquerors, and the cultural evolution of the region after the conquest of Alexander.