Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

syria, palestine and mesopotamia 589
area was, however, sadly exposed to attacks from the east; no natural
barriers separated it from the lands of the Persian empire, and its exposure
always meant that the towns and villages of this area suffered badly in any
hostilities between the two empires.
The people of these areas were separated into distinct but mingling
groups, divided by language into Greek, Syriac (a north Syrian and
Mesopotamian version of the Aramaic lingua franca of the ancient near
east which also developed as a literary language) and Arabic speakers. The
division was partly a geographical one: on the whole, Greek was spoken in
the settlements along the Mediterranean coast, whereas Syriac was widespread
in the hinterland, especially in Syria and the north-eastern provinces.
The division was partly social as well, the inhabitants of large towns
tending to speak Greek while Syriac was the language of the villages.
Having said that, it is clear that Syriac was also spoken in towns, and we find
examples of people with clearly Semitic names erecting inscriptions in
Greek. 1 Arabic remained essentially the language of the nomads and those
along the fringes of the desert, though it seems to have been expanding by
the end of the sixth century. 2
There were also important Jewish communities in many of the main
cities like Antioch and Edessa in antiquity, but little is known of their
history in the later fifth and sixth century. 3 They were also to be found in
the small villages and towns of Galilee, the Golan (Gaulanitis) and parts of
southern Palestine. Historical narratives and religious polemic tell of persecution
and rebellion, but the archaeological record gives a more positive
picture. True, ‘the numbers of churches in the Land of Israel constructed
during this period is close to three hundred whereas only a few score synagogues
were built at that time’, 4 but good-quality buildings continued to
be constructed throughout, with activity peaking in the late third and early
fourth century, and again during the sixth. Many of these were in small
country towns and villages, suggesting the survival of numerous Jewish
communities in quiet rural prosperity. 5
1 See Sartre (1985) 142–9 and the ‘index onomastique’, 165–276 for numerous examples; also
MacAdam (1986) 101–46.
2 For the settlement of Arabs in the villages of Syria along the fringes of the desert and the
Damascus area after the break-up of the Ghassānid federation in 581, see Sartre (1982) 191–2; for a
more general account of the Arab presence in Syria in the early seventh century, Donner (1981) 101–11;
for Arab expansion in Iraq in the sixth century, Morony (1984) 214–23. Further, ch. 22c (Conrad), p. 691
below, and in general Shahı - d (1995).
3 For the meagre evidence for Jewish life in Antioch, Downey (1961) 571; in Edessa, Segal (1970)
103–4. Sartre (1985) 158–9 found no evidence of Jews in Bostra after the early fifth century, and the
same seems to be true of Scythopolis: see Binns (1994) 135–7; for Caesarea, Levine (1985) 135–9.
Further, Cameron (1996).
4 Hachlili (1988) 370, 399–400. For a general survey of the synagogues in Palestine, Levine (1981),
which concentrates on archaeological and artistic aspects; the most recent discussion is Urman and
Flesher (1995). 5 See, for example, the communities of the Golan described in Urman (1985).
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008