18. J. G. Droysen between Greeks and Jews

Abstract

If asked what we mean by Hellenism, we should probably answer that we mean the historical period which goes from the death of Alexander the Great (323 B.C.) to the death of Cleopatra in 30 B.C. Egypt was the last important survivor of the political system which had developed as a consequence both of the victories of Alexander and of his premature death. With the absorption of Egypt into the Roman empire, that political system came to an end. Even today, however, there is considerable disagreement among historians as to what the word Hellenism is intended to signify. Hellenism suggests to us more the idea of a civilization than the idea of a mere political system. When used to indicate a civilization, the word Hellenism is seldom confined to the chronologies and spatial limits within which we use it to indicate a political system. We often speak of Hellenism in the Roman Empire to indicate the cultural tradition of the Greek-speaking part of the Roman Empire: we even incline to extend the Hellenistic tradition into the Byzantine Empire. On the other hand, the word Hellenism is often associated with the cultures of Carthage and Rome not to speak of Southern Italy and Sicily -which were never part of the empire of Alexander. As a rule terminological ambiguities should never detain a scholar for long. We all know what a waste of time the word Renaissance has represented. But at the root of this particular terminological ambiguity there are the ambiguities of the Geschichte des Hellenismus by Johann Gustav Droysen, one of the greatest historians of any time.' It was J. G. Droysen who intro-