The Rule Of Seleucid Kingdom And Hellenism

Since the German historian J. G. Droysen raised the concept of Hellenism, many scholars began to study the history of the Hellenistic age, and with the accumulation of historical data and relative research, their views have become more and more close to the truth of the history. This master paper is based on classical literature and the research results of modern scholars. I choose the Seleucid kingdom as a starting point, and try to proceed from historical facts to talk about Hellenism, because the House of Seleucus showed the Hellenism in its most typical form, but we can not say of other two Hellenistic kingdoms in the same way.This master paper have three parts:In the first part, I will consider the Droyen's version of Hellenism and discuss its original meaning as J. G. Droysen defined it, using the classical literature to trace the origin of the German word of Hellenismus, and then I analyze the meaning of the corresponding English word Hellenism. Finally, I talk about its understandings and translations of this term in the contexts of both English and Chinese.In the second part, investigating the policies of Seleucid kingdom in such aspects as politic, economy and culture, I wish to find out whether the Greek-Macedonians as a ruling class wished to spread the Greek culture in the East and to fuse with the local culture or not, through considering these policies which the Seleucid kingdom had practiced I intend to explore the purpose and reason of their policies of domination. For the politic, I will analyze mainly in view of the fabric of government, the establishment of Greek cities and the composition of army; For the economy, I will focus on the system of farm land, commerce trade and taxation; For the culture, the analysis is based on the promotion of the Greek language, religion and the Hellenistic education.In the third part, I will survey the relationship between the Seleucid kingdom and Hellenism, and how this relationship affected the locals and Greek-Macedonians. the rule of Seleucid kingdom in Asia promoted the spread of Greek culture, and it combined Greece, Egypt, Babylon, India and other regions into a single entity, then it promoted the exchange and fusion among the peoples of these countries, while the House of Seleucus wished to maintain their rule and had to absorb the local cultural factors, then the ruling Greek-Macedonians in Asia on their part had inevitable under gone the process of Orientalization.Finally, although the rulers of the Seleucid kingdom wished to plant the Greek culture into the Asia soil, but they rejected fiercely the local peoples from the ruling class and cultural education, and with their narrow city-state outlook, which made their destiny that although the Greek culture could partly spread in Asia and had a certain influence, but failed to make a real fusion of the local and Greek culture.