History
Greek presence is attested from early on and in fact the name of Syria itself is of Greek provenance from the Greek word for the Assyrians. However it was during the Hellenist times that it was most prominent. In particular, the Seleucid Empire, which was centered in modern day Syria and Lebanon and reached as far as Pakistan at the height of its power, was a major centre of Hellenistic culture which maintained the preeminence of Greek customs and where a Greek elite dominated, mostly in the urban areas. Following the decline of the Seleucid Empire, Greek culture began to wane, particularly following the Muslim conquest.
Read more about this topic: Greeks In Syria
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of mankind interests us only as it exhibits a steady gain of truth and right, in the incessant conflict which it records between the material and the moral nature.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The disadvantage of men not knowing the past is that they do not know the present. History is a hill or high point of vantage, from which alone men see the town in which they live or the age in which they are living.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“The history of any nation follows an undulatory course. In the trough of the wave we find more or less complete anarchy; but the crest is not more or less complete Utopia, but only, at best, a tolerably humane, partially free and fairly just society that invariably carries within itself the seeds of its own decadence.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)