Ελευθερια κου Θανατος: A history of the Greeks after the Persian Conquest

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Update 0: POD and setting the scene
  • Index

    • Arcavia

    "This is a publication of the inquiry of Herodotos of Thurii, so that the affairs of men do not fade with time, and the righteous and ignominious deeds--some done by Hellenes, other by Barbarians--not go unsung, as well as the causes that lead to the subjugation of Hellas by the Mede."
    --Herodotos, Histories I.1

    "While the speech of Themistokles, I believe, was wise, it did not persuade Eurybiades, who--I supposed--placed greater weight on the Pelopponesian's desire to protect the cities that were still held by Hellenes, than to the desire of the Athenians, who had already lost theirs. And so Themistokles, who foresaw the danger the Hellenes so placed themselves in, advised the captains of the Athenians to depart for Siris, and to found there the colony the oracle had spoken of. For although he had been until that point the best and most courageous defender of the freedom of Hellas, he preferred the liberty of exile to the ignominy of defeat"
    --Herodotos, Histories 8.63

    "The precise fate of the Peloponnesus, after the dissolution of the combined fleet at Salamis, is uncertain at best. Herodotus reports that the Peloponnesian fleet, lead by Eurybiades, never gave battle, and the Persians on advice from Greek deserters instead sailed to the Argolis after a token encounter with the fleet of Aegina. The Argives, 'preferring the tyranny of Xerxes to that of the Spartans', gave earth and water, according to Herodotus, and the Persian army marching north from the Argolis trapped the Spartans and their allies in the Isthmus of Corinth, where they fought in vain until their death. However, there is no archaeological evidence for the fortifications the Peloponnesians are traditionally said to have made at their isthmus, nor of a battle having taken place there. Indeed, aside from the total devastation of Sparta itself, and some signs of a reduction of the walls of Corinth, none of the devastation Herodotus reports can be confirmed as occurring. It is far likelier that the Peloponnesians deserted contingent by contingent as the Persians threatened their homes, and that the cities gradually accepted subjugation. The exception to this, of course, is Sparta and Messenia. In any event, however, their ultimate fate is clear enough; while no Greek inscriptions have been found at Susa, the prevalence of Doric inscriptions in both Bactria "where Zeus is called Tengrios" and Syria Palaestina has confirmed the deportation of Greeks to these territories roughly as Herodotus outlines".
    --from the conclusion of a twentieth century paper on the incongruities of Herodotus and the archaeological record

    "Can we really say that the Persians were tyrants and the Greeks fighting for freedom? I mean, they already had established some democracies in Ionia, and they by and large left alone the Argive democracy (or so it seems from Herodotus). Besides, they were the ones who liberated the helots and established them in Messenia."

    "I mean yeah, but at the same time they unambiguously enslaved and deported a whole lot of Greeks. Herodotus recounts that some were sent to Susa to be slaves of the king, and presumably they were made the 'handmaidens' (concubines?) of the royal household that he outlined in Book IV. Others, of course, were sent against their will to Judea or central Asia."
    --comments on a discussion forum for a liberal arts course on Herodotus.
     
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  • Index
    • Update 1: The Fate of Hellas
  • Index

    • Arcavia

    "Devastation, devastation, all is devastation"
    --Last words of Gorgo, Queen of Sparta, before her suicide, as described in Aeschylus' Gorgo. The play then goes on to describe how every man of the Spartans--from teenaged youths to the elderly--was sacrificed by the Persians and the women and children taken into slavery in Persia.

    "The Gorgo's description of the utter slaughter of the Spartan menfolk, and of the removal of the women and children of the polis to Susa, is the most complete account of the generally believed fate of the Spartans following the Persian invasion of the Peloponnese. While Aeschylus' description is undoubtedly extreme, it is uncertain to what extent this is the case: Plutarch's Life of Gorgo recounts a much less extreme slaughter of only Spartiate men, and at that only those either influential in the city and/or unwilling to surrender to the Persians. Herodotus, meanwhile, does not recount any slaughter at Sparta, and rather describes a heroic Spartan "last stand" by the gerontes and a few survivors who broke out from Corinth. Furthermore, the inscriptions and letters found at Gaza, Ashkelon, and other sites in Judea clearly establish that the Greeks of 1 and 2 Hellenes are indeed Lakedaimonians, although whether and to what extent they were perioikoi or indeed Spartiates is impossible to determine. Likewise, although the belief of the Hellenes in the complete 'Massacre of the Spartans' is indeed strong, it is neither without contention in surviving historical--as opposed to dramatic--evidence nor strongly corroborated in any source. All sources agree, however, that the city itself was razed and that the economic and political centers of the region shifted to other sites."
    --passage from "Gaza and the Gorgo: reconciling archaeological and literary evidence of the fate of Sparta"

    "Although all other Hellenes call the Persians, either willingly or unwillingly, the subjugators of Hellas, the Messenians alone call them their liberators. For although the Persians imposed upon them a sort of subjugation, it is a tyranny in every way less extreme than that of the Spartans over them. For indeed the Persians, after the extirpation of Lakedaimonia, gave the Messenians liberty in their homeland, establishing democracies at Pylos, Ira, and Messenopolis*, and set up sister democracies to them in Lakedaimonia at Tyros, Zarax, and Therapne as well as other places. While the democracy of Athens had been to them a great enemy, it was the case that the democracies they had established at the expense of revolting tyrants in Ionia and Asia were always the best of subjects, and so the Persians as a rule established tyrannies where democracies had resisted them and democracies where they had been opposed by tyrannies or oligarchies, not from any sense of principle but merely of prudence. In any case, the cities and country districts of the Messenians and the Lakedaimonians--who, after their expulsion, were in any case dominated by colonists from Messenia--were in all manners self-governing, save that they were bound members of the Messenian League, whose guarantor was appointed by the Persians to veto any decision of alliances, wars, or foreign diplomacy contrary to their interest."
    --excerpt from the anonymous Constitution of the Messenians.

    "...Xerxes the Great King, then, gives all these things to the Delphians, and swears to respect the freedom of the god [Apollo] and his oracle. While Delphi does not levy war against the King, or his subjects, or his allies, nor shelters deserters and exiles against the King, or his subjects, or his allies, the King shall make no war upon them and shall trust in the good will of Delphinius. And besides the King shall enquire of Delphi in his affairs, as is appropriate, and shall give the gifts that are customary to the Oracle when he consults her. Nor shall the King obstruct other Hellenes from consulting the Pythia, nor shall he confiscate their donatives to Delphi, nor obstruct the [Pythian] Games, but in all things the Oracle shall remain..."
    --Fragment of a damaged stele found at Delphi, translated from the Greek. A stele in Aramaic, containing similar text but more heavily damaged, was found nearby.

    "After the exiles had made these sacrifices, Peisistratus the son of Hippias observed the olive sprig already shooting from the stump of the sacred tree**. Ambitious to regain the tyranny, he approached the King and offered his interpretation: 'know this, o King: the Persians have purified by fire the Acropolis and the City of its sin and have made good what was done to Sardis. Behold that a new branch of what was old and sacred at Athens has risen up, and nothing of what was new and base at Athens has done the same. See, then, that it will turn out well for you to water a new growth of an old root.' Xerxes, understanding his intent and believing him wise--or, in any case, believing him an authority more likely to be trusted by the exiles than any other--made him governor and tyrant over Athens, or at least over its remainder after The People had abandoned it. In truth it was not a tyranny but an oligarchy, for the brothers of Peisistratus and the other exiles variously supported and opposed him and he was not able to govern without their consensus..."
    --Herodotus, Histories 8.55

    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    *IOTL Messene, the city was not founded until after the Persian Wars.
    **Herodotus describes at this passage, IOTL, the destruction of the Acropolis by the Persians and its reconsideration by the Athenian exiles accompanying Xerxes, who discovered a new shoot emerging from the felled and burned remains of Athena's sacred olive tree.

    Hello all and welcome to my first timeline, an alternate history of the Mediterranean Basin following a failure of the Greek states to unite and beat the Persians, as they did IOTL. I will be writing with two focuses: firstly, a detailed look at the alternate history of Greeks in Italy and Sicily following the arrival of many exiles, and secondly, a description of the interactions of Lakedaimonian exiles in Judea with the Jews. Each of these histories will provide a lens in looking on the one hand at the history of the Western Mediterranean and eventual rise of an imperial power to rival Persia, and on the other at the Persian Empire through the eyes of the Jews and the Dorian Greeks forcibly settled among them. Additionally, there will also be a brief discussion of the intellectual history of this timeline, and while I do not anticipate the timeline will extend far enough to reveal the ultimate religious fate of IOTL I imagine it will be clear what the religious and philosophical alignment of this alternate Mediterranean basin will be by the time of the timeline's conclusion. I anticipate the timeline will cover about four centuries, and will conclude with the rise of a Mediterranean power similar in its level of extent and influence to the OTL Roman Republic, though I will avoid spoilers for now.

    Today's update is a brief look at the history of Greece proper after the Persian conquest, expanding on the last post. ITTL, after the dissolution of the Greek fleet, the Persians landed an army behind the Isthmus of Corinth and slowly subjugated and vassalized the various cities of the Peloponnese, and so became dominant over all of Greece proper. The history of most cities can be summarized as a general pattern of surrender at the eleventh hour and forcible installation of a Persian-friendly government, except for Athens and Lakedaimonia/Messenia, as I described above. While the timeline will occasionally return to Greece proper, this will not be its primary focus. However, I felt it necessary to expand on the first post and give some inclination of the status in Greece. Be aware, however, that the next update will be departing from the country, likely not to return for quite some time--specifically, it will focus on the Athenians' settlement in southern Italy and the resulting immediate geopolitical effects.

    I'm anticipating that the timeline will generally follow a similar format to this post. I will attempt to write most of the timeline in character as either a primary source of the period or a secondary source commenting on it, but in either case the content of the work will be my own, though written in as best an emulation of the appropriate style as I can attempt. As such, I will provide "citations" of this style for the sake of flavor. If I feel it necessary to directly quote a genuine source that is not my own work, I will provide a citation in bold font to clarify that I am doing so and provide complete details of how to access the source, if it seems necessary to do so. I will also write out-of-character explainers such as this one, providing more context and my personal commentary on the TL. As I mentioned, this is my first attempt at such a project, so I welcome any feedback you'd like to give and hope that you like what's been put up so far. I aim to provide an update at least once a week, and probably most likely on Saturday evenings, but this will certainly need to be flexible as I have a full slate of classes on top of this side project (thankfully, half of them are on Greek history, so there's a lot of overlap between my homework and my research).
     
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  • Index

    • Glory2Cabinda

    Arcavia said:
    "Devastation, devastation, all is devastation"
    --Last words of Gorgo, Queen of Sparta, before her suicide, as described in Aeschylus' Gorgo. The play then goes on to describe how every man of the Spartans--from teenaged youths to the elderly--was sacrificed by the Persians and the women and children taken into slavery in Persia.

    "The Gorgo's description of the utter slaughter of the Spartan menfolk, and of the removal of the women and children of the polis to Susa, is the most complete account of the generally believed fate of the Spartans following the Persian invasion of the Peloponnese. While Aeschylus' description is undoubtedly extreme, it is uncertain to what extent this is the case: Plutarch's Life of Gorgo recounts a much less extreme slaughter of only Spartiate men, and at that only those either influential in the city and/or unwilling to surrender to the Persians. Herodotus, meanwhile, does not recount any slaughter at Sparta, and rather describes a heroic Spartan "last stand" by the gerontes and a few survivors who broke out from Corinth. Furthermore, the inscriptions and letters found at Gaza, Ashkelon, and other sites in Judea clearly establish that the Greeks of 1 and 2 Hellenes are indeed Lakedaimonians, although whether and to what extent they were perioikoi or indeed Spartiates is impossible to determine. Likewise, although the belief of the Hellenes in the complete 'Massacre of the Spartans' is indeed strong, it is neither without contention in surviving historical--as opposed to dramatic--evidence nor strongly corroborated in any source. All sources agree, however, that the city itself was razed and that the economic and political centers of the region shifted to other sites."
    --passage from "Gaza and the Gorgo: reconciling archaeological and literary evidence of the fate of Sparta"

    "Although all other Hellenes call the Persians, either willingly or unwillingly, the subjugators of Hellas, the Messenians alone call them their liberators. For although the Persians imposed upon them a sort of subjugation, it is a tyranny in every way less extreme than that of the Spartans over them. For indeed the Persians, after the extirpation of Lakedaimonia, gave the Messenians liberty in their homeland, establishing democracies at Pylos, Ira, and Messenopolis*, and set up sister democracies to them in Lakedaimonia at Tyros, Zarax, and Therapne as well as other places. While the democracy of Athens had been to them a great enemy, it was the case that the democracies they had established at the expense of revolting tyrants in Ionia and Asia were always the best of subjects, and so the Persians as a rule established tyrannies where democracies had resisted them and democracies where they had been opposed by tyrannies or oligarchies, not from any sense of principle but merely of prudence. In any case, the cities and country districts of the Messenians and the Lakedaimonians--who, after their expulsion, were in any case dominated by colonists from Messenia--were in all manners self-governing, save that they were bound members of the Messenian League, whose guarantor was appointed by the Persians to veto any decision of alliances, wars, or foreign diplomacy contrary to their interest."
    --excerpt from the anonymous Constitution of the Messenians.

    "...Xerxes the Great King, then, gives all these things to the Delphians, and swears to respect the freedom of the god [Apollo] and his oracle. While Delphi does not levy war against the King, or his subjects, or his allies, nor shelters deserters and exiles against the King, or his subjects, or his allies, the King shall make no war upon them and shall trust in the good will of Delphinius. And besides the King shall enquire of Delphi in his affairs, as is appropriate, and shall give the gifts that are customary to the Oracle when he consults her. Nor shall the King obstruct other Hellenes from consulting the Pythia, nor shall he confiscate their donatives to Delphi, nor obstruct the [Pythian] Games, but in all things the Oracle shall remain..."
    --Fragment of a damaged stele found at Delphi, translated from the Greek. A stele in Aramaic, containing similar text but more heavily damaged, was found nearby.

    "After the exiles had made these sacrifices, Peisistratus the son of Hippias observed the olive sprig already shooting from the stump of the sacred tree**. Ambitious to regain the tyranny, he approached the King and offered his interpretation: 'know this, o King: the Persians have purified by fire the Acropolis and the City of its sin and have made good what was done to Sardis. Behold that a new branch of what was old and sacred at Athens has risen up, and nothing of what was new and base at Athens has done the same. See, then, that it will turn out well for you to water a new growth of an old root.' Xerxes, understanding his intent and believing him wise--or, in any case, believing him an authority more likely to be trusted by the exiles than any other--made him governor and tyrant over Athens, or at least over its remainder after The People had abandoned it. In truth it was not a tyranny but an oligarchy, for the brothers of Peisistratus and the other exiles variously supported and opposed him and he was not able to govern without their consensus..."
    --Herodotus, Histories 8.55

    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    *IOTL Messene, the city was not founded until after the Persian Wars.
    **Herodotus describes at this passage, IOTL, the destruction of the Acropolis by the Persians and its reconsideration by the Athenian exiles accompanying Xerxes, who discovered a new shoot emerging from the felled and burned remains of Athena's sacred olive tree.

    Hello all and welcome to my first timeline, an alternate history of the Mediterranean Basin following a failure of the Greek states to unite and beat the Persians, as they did IOTL. I will be writing with two focuses: firstly, a detailed look at the alternate history of Greeks in Italy and Sicily following the arrival of many exiles, and secondly, a description of the interactions of Lakedaimonian exiles in Judea with the Jews. Each of these histories will provide a lens in looking on the one hand at the history of the Western Mediterranean and eventual rise of an imperial power to rival Persia, and on the other at the Persian Empire through the eyes of the Jews and the Dorian Greeks forcibly settled among them. Additionally, there will also be a brief discussion of the intellectual history of this timeline, and while I do not anticipate the timeline will extend far enough to reveal the ultimate religious fate of IOTL I imagine it will be clear what the religious and philosophical alignment of this alternate Mediterranean basin will be by the time of the timeline's conclusion. I anticipate the timeline will cover about four centuries, and will conclude with the rise of a Mediterranean power similar in its level of extent and influence to the OTL Roman Republic, though I will avoid spoilers for now.

    Today's update is a brief look at the history of Greece proper after the Persian conquest, expanding on the last post. ITTL, after the dissolution of the Greek fleet, the Persians landed an army behind the Isthmus of Corinth and slowly subjugated and vassalized the various cities of the Peloponnese, and so became dominant over all of Greece proper. The history of most cities can be summarized as a general pattern of surrender at the eleventh hour and forcible installation of a Persian-friendly government, except for Athens and Lakedaimonia/Messenia, as I described above. While the timeline will occasionally return to Greece proper, this will not be its primary focus. However, I felt it necessary to expand on the first post and give some inclination of the status in Greece. Be aware, however, that the next update will be departing from the country, likely not to return for quite some time--specifically, it will focus on the Athenians' settlement in southern Italy and the resulting immediate geopolitical effects.

    I'm anticipating that the timeline will generally follow a similar format to this post. I will attempt to write most of the timeline in character as either a primary source of the period or a secondary source commenting on it, but in either case the content of the work will be my own, though written in as best an emulation of the appropriate style as I can attempt. As such, I will provide "citations" of this style for the sake of flavor. If I feel it necessary to directly quote a genuine source that is not my own work, I will provide a citation in bold font to clarify that I am doing so and provide complete details of how to access the source, if it seems necessary to do so. I will also write out-of-character explainers such as this one, providing more context and my personal commentary on the TL. As I mentioned, this is my first attempt at such a project, so I welcome any feedback you'd like to give and hope that you like what's been put up so far. I aim to provide an update at least once a week, and probably most likely on Saturday evenings, but this will certainly need to be flexible as I have a full slate of classes on top of this side project (thankfully, half of them are on Greek history, so there's a lot of overlap between my homework and my research).
    Click to expand...
    the type religious movements that would pop with Spartans mixing with Jews is going to be one hell of a doozy
     

    mial42

    Gone Fishin'
    Arcavia said:
    "I mean yeah, but at the same time they unambiguously enslaved and deported a whole lot of Greeks. Herodotus recounts that some were sent to Susa to be slaves of the king, and presumably they were made the 'handmaidens' (concubines?) of the royal household that he outlined in Book IV. Others, of course, were sent against their will to Judea or central Asia."
    --comments on a discussion forum for a liberal arts course on Herodotus.
    Click to expand...
    Would the concept of "liberal arts" even exist TTL? The concept has Greek roots and was only fully fleshed out by the Romans, who will be very different TTL. For that matter, would the internet (or something analogous) exist?
     

    Arcavia

    mial42 said:
    Would the concept of "liberal arts" even exist TTL? The concept has Greek roots and was only fully fleshed out by the Romans, who will be very different TTL. For that matter, would the internet (or something analogous) exist?
    Click to expand...
    For that matter, modern English wouldn't exist. I believe that a measure of butterfly genocide for the sake of my audience's familiarity is an acceptable sacrifice for a literary TL.
     
    Sarufiyyun

    Sarufiyyun

    IOTL, the Spartans and Jews had an alliance against the Seleucid Empire. The Spartans were seen as fellow descendants of Abraham by the Jews.
     

    Glory2Cabinda

    mial42 said:
    Would the concept of "liberal arts" even exist TTL? The concept has Greek roots and was only fully fleshed out by the Romans, who will be very different TTL. For that matter, would the internet (or something analogous) exist?
    Click to expand...
    The concept of liberal arts could have been further developed in the Greek colonies in Italy.


    Also assuming if humanity doesn't stagnate at some point the odds are something like the internet would be developed somewhere.
     
    EmperorOfTheNorthSea

    EmperorOfTheNorthSea

    Will Xerxes attempt to march on Magna Graecia and Sicily? Granted even with Greece the Achaemenids are overstretched like hell; can't see them holding onto it for too long.

    When the Gallic invasion of Greece happens could we perhaps see a Celticization of the Hellenic city-states as the Gauls kick out the overstretched and stagnant Achaemenids?

    I doubt the Native Hellenes would be in a position to resist given if they were still under Persian rule this whole time then I'd expect their military ethos to not exactly be as impressive as it was.
     

    Glory2Cabinda

    Wouldn't it make more sense to send Athenians to exile in Judea if you wanted some interesting religious ideas? Also a Pod this far back butterflys Socrates.
     
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    Arcavia

    OK I'm loving the speculation we've got going on here, I'm not going to spoil anything but suffice it to say a lot of this will be brought up. I'm currently stuck in the middle of finals and haven't had time to update for a while, but hopefully will do so this weekend or at the latest next weekend.
     
    Update 2: I'm Back
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    • Arcavia

    “1. In the eighth year of Hashiarash* the son of Darius, King of Persia, the LORD moved the spirit of the King, that he decree, and bring about:

    “2. ‘There are a people of the land of Yavan who are disloyal and breakers of covenants, who assaulted the land of the King, and made war against him, and compelled him to summon the peoples of the four corners of Persia to defend his land and make war upon them.

    “3. And the LORD who gave all the kingdoms of the Earth to Cyrus was with me, and gave me victory, and reduced their strength to naught.

    “4. So since the LORD the God of Israel has brought me victory, and the People of Israel were loyal to me and keepers of covenants, and the People of Baal and Molech were shirkers of duty and disobedient of my command,

    “5. It is just and fitting that I punish the People of Baal and Molech for their impudence and reward the People of Israel for their steadfastness.

    “6. So I, Hashiarash, King of Kings, declare that the People of Yavan who have come into my power shall dwell between Tyre and Yahud, and the People of Israel shall keep a strong watch over them, and shall tax them and their goods and their animals on behalf of the King.

    “7. And therefore likewise the People of Baal and Molech shall pay also for the maintenance of the Yavanites, and shall give tribute as I ordain for each of their cities, and the tribute shall be given to the People of Israel and sent to the House of the LORD each year, and the ordained amounts shall be these:”

    “8. Tyre shall give forty talents, and Sidon and Biblos thirty, and Arwad, Sarepta, and Acre ten. These shall be the tributes of the Baalites and Molechites to the People of Israel for the maintenance of Yavan, and the sum shall be one hundred and thirty talents from year to year.”

    –1 Hellenes (1 Yavanim) 1-8

    “As this book had made note, the preparations of the Persians, and in particular their assembly of a great fleet, had seemed in number and in prowess at sea to be a match only for the Carthaginians, and it was rumored that the true intention of Xerxes was to sail to Carthage after pacifying Greece and add it to his empire. Fearing this, the Phoenecians, the kindred of the Carthaginians, mutinied when Xerxes ordered them to sail west pursuing the Athenians. To the King they declared they would not take up arms against him, but neither would they bring war against their brethren. Xerxes did not persuade them that his only aim was to subjugate the Athenians, and had not the power to compel them to voyage against their will. Neither did he, fearing lest he send away loyal men and be left surrounded by disloyal ones, order the Greeks who were in his navy to go west. However he punished the Phoenecians by levying an extraordinary tax on them for their disobedience.”

    –Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica XI

    “The coming of the Greeks to Judea is little understood for such a momentous event. The gentile historical record is sparse, while the account found in the Writings of the Hebrew Bible almost certainly represents a propagandistic narrative to justify the assimilation and cultural syncretism of the Jews and Greeks. Other accounts have mainly taken these traditions at face value, focusing on the early record of Greek displacement in the Galilee, but this does not explain the fact that our longest and most in-depth evidence of Greek presence was further south, within the Judean coastal plain centered around Gaza and extending westward along the Petran trade routes. To account for this discrepancy, I propose that Greek migration towards Judea occurred in two distinct phases: firstly, a forcible displacement of the Greeks to the Galilee as I Hellenes describes shortly following the Persian Conquest, and secondly, a gradual migration of Greeks southward driven by better economic opportunities arising from the shift of commercial and economic power in the Levant away from Phoenecia and towards cities under Judean control or influence.”
    –Seamus Kirke, The two-stage model of the Hellenic Levantine Migration(s)
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    *The Hebrew spelling of Xerxes

    Welp, I'm back. If anyone is still watching. It's been an interesting six months that I have neither the time nor the desire to get into, but suffice it to say that this has had to go on the back burner for a while. I want to stick with it this time, but I'm not going to promise anything. Certainly things will be much more sporadic than I was first hoping, at least until I graduate.

    Anyhow, today's update is rather simple for the amount of content I composed. In brief, as a result of their refusal to sail against Carthage, Xerxes punishes them by making them responsible for the upkeep of resettled Greeks, while depriving them of any prestige or tax revenue by giving those rights to the Judeans instead. The political and cultural results of this will be explored further later, but suffice it to say that this disfavor slowly caused a chain of events that led to Judea becoming the center of trade at Phoenecia's expense. As a result of this shift and of cultural integration which will be the focus of a future update, many Greeks eventually began to move south, further integrating into Judean economic and cultural life. This will all be described further later.

    Next time I'll probably go back to the Athenians and discuss their fate after reaching Magna Graecia.
     
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