Mesopotamia, then under Parthian rule, and by 85 B.C. was attacking Cilicia and northern Syria. Worn out by civil wars and dynastic feuds, the Syrians were neither able nor eager to offer resistance, and even the Greek cities acquiesced in the new rule. In their southward drive the Armenians reached Acre and thus threatened both the Jewish kingdom and Egypt, where the Ptolemaic house was tottering, but in 69 B.C. the Romans forced their withdrawal from all Syria. Pompey's victories in Asia Minor over Mithradates of Pontus left Syria open to Roman occupation, ending the last throes of its once-glorious Seleucid period.
The Hellenistic civilization enjoyed a far longer span of life in Syria than did Greek political dominance, surviving for nearly a thousand years under Seleucids, Romans and Byzantines, and colouring the Arab civilization which re- placed it in the seventh century of the Christian era. Hellenistic culture was synthetic and eclectic, in contrast to the pure Hellenic culture of Greece, and achieved supremacy not only in Syria but throughout south-western Asia and Egypt. Naturally different parts of Syria re- sponded in differing measure to Hellenistic stimuli. In the north native deities were identified with Greek gods and rechristened, Baal becoming Zeus Olympus. A shrine south of Antioch was given the name of Daphne, the nymph beloved by Apollo and metamorphosed into a laurel tree. Pilgrims flocked from all over Syria to the sanctuary of Apollo there, making it a notorious centre of licentiousness. In fact, northern Syria became a second Macedonia, where the intrusive Greek element made itself thoroughly at home.
The Phoenician cities had already had contacts with the Greek world for several centuries and had no hesitancy in adopting the new synthesis. The Hellenism that developed in Phoenician Syria was more vigorous and productive than that of Aramaean Syria and exhibited none of the internal stresses which characterized contemporary Jewish society. Greek philosophy and literature were assiduously cultivated
