The following article is a very significant historical study related to the Middle East of the ancient past and today with regard to the visions of the Bible prophets
Syria Becomes the New Babylon [Historical]
http://www.askelm.com/people/peo016.htm
We now come to a matter concerning ancient history that all historians are able to accept without controversy. That is this: The Seleucid kingdom which succeeded the rule of Alexander the Great in Syria, Asia Minor and other eastern areas can be designated a Babylonian kingdom.
It has been customary to call the Seleucid realm a Greco-Macedonian regime. And, this is true, but only on the surface. After Alexander the Great conquered Asia, he made as capital of this vast eastern domain, the city of Babylon. He planned further African and European conquests but was prevented from carrying out his designs by his untimely death at Babylon when he was 33 years of age. His death put the government into confusion.
There was, however, a treaty between the major claimants to the domain. It was finally divided into four major areas with rulers over each. After some further bickering between the new rulers, the central area of the former empire fell out to Seleucus, a general of Alexander’s army. He took over this central Babylonian region and proclaimed himself the king of Babylon. In a short time he took over all of Syria. And, for over 250 years he and his descendants controlled the areas of Syria and Mesopotamia.
"Seleucus, surnamed Nicator, who had received this province [of Syria] in his lot in the division of the Macedonian dominions, raised it into an empire, known in history by the name of the kingdom of Syria or Babylon."
• Lemprierre, A Classical Dictionary, 3rd ed.
(Boston: Routledge & K. Paul, 1984) p. 587
Seleucus’ kingdom was called either a Syrian or a Babylonian one. The two terms became synonymous with Seleucus’ rule beginning in 312 B.C.E. What is interesting, in later times the kings of the Seleucid empire consistently call themselves not the kings of Syria, but rather the Kings of Babylon (e.g., Bevan, House of Seleucus, vol.1, p.255). They wanted to maintain the historical tradition of the old Babylonian empire that they were its successors, not that they were simply "Syrians." And as we will presently see, the Seleucid kings represented their realm as a resurrection of the old Babylonian kingdom.
What type of kingdom was this realm of Seleucus in a racial sense? At first, it was made up of about five per cent Greeks and Macedonians (mainly of soldiers, veterans of Alexander and a few Greek colonists) while the rest was made up of the native populations of the various countries of the kingdom. Seleucus was very prone to build new cities in his Asian empire. He built no less than thirty. They were all designed on the Greek manner.
The architecture was Greek and so were the social institutions. Some few Greek colonists were brought in to give the cities the "Greek" flavor. And more importantly, Greek was the language imposed on the citizens of this kingdom.
From this, we might imagine that the kingdom was, in fact, a real Greek kingdom. Nothing could be further from the truth. The actual Greek racial element which Alexander the Great introduced soon became a thin veneer upon the old traditions, religions and society in general.
What the old stock did, who had been transported there in the days of Esar-haddon, was to adopt practically everything "Greek" into all their elements that made up their society. But in no way did they give up the fundamental attributes of their own Babylonian society which they had been reared in for centuries.
While the Greek religions were brought to Syria and Babylon, they soon became Babylonian. And while some Greek peoples came to the area, they soon amalgamated with the native races, who were the Syrians and Babylonians. The Seleucid kingdom was only "Greek" in name. It was actually a Babylonian kingdom that now had Greek names being used for its traditions, religions and society in general. It was "Babylon" in Greek guise.
Dr. W.W. Tarn (one of the authors of the Cambridge Ancient History) shows how this "Greek" kingdom of Seleucus reverted quickly back into being a Babylonian and Syrian one.
"Mercenaries settled in Asia [the Seleucid Empire] had from the start taken native wives; certainly by the first century intermarriage and the mixture of peoples in daily life and trade was doing its work, and, precisely as in Egypt at the time, the term ‘Greek’ sometimes denoted culture, not blood; the ‘Greek woman, a Syro-Phoenician by race’ of
Mark 7:26 was such a ‘culture Greek,’ perhaps with Greek political rights in her city.
After the European immigration of the few Greek colonists in the third century B.C. came to an end, first a balance was established, then the Greek began to lose ground, partly through mixing his blood with Asiatic stocks."
• Tarn, Hellenistic Civilisation, p. 139
The disintegration of this Greek veneer was started very early, even with Alexander. He commanded the bulk of his army officers to marry into the native population. This was done on a wide scale. Even Seleucus, the beginner of the new empire centered at Babylon, was married to an eastern princess. The fruit of that mixed union was Antiochus the First, the king who followed Seleucus to the throne.
From that time onward, the deterioration continued to such an extent that Greek blood almost wholly disappeared except in a few isolated districts in the extreme western part of the empire. Certain forms of Greek culture retained their force, and especially the Greek language became the official language of the empire, but the Greek race in the areas that Alexander conquered almost entirely disappeared within a few generations.
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