The question I should like to try to answer in this paper is whether by the Hellenistic period there existed something that we could call a west Greek view of the past.There is no simple answer to this since, until one gets down as far as Diodorus, who was writing at the time of Julius Caesar, all the western Greek historians exist only in fragments; and indeed, after looking at the fragments,1 I fairly soon reached the conclusion that any discussion of their views about the past would have to centre on Timaeus.For that there is a good reason.Apart from Timaeus, the attested fragments of authors such as Antiochus and Philistus, not to mention lesser figures like Athanis of Syracuse, Timonides of Leucas, Callias and Antander, the brothers of Agathocles, and Alcimus, are so meagre -indeed in some cases we have little more than their names -that they emerge as wholly shadowy person alities.Nor is it simply that the fragments are few in number.In adition there is a strong likelihood that often these writers are being quoted at second hand via Timaeus.Consequently, if the fragments seem to suggest that their authors were interested predominantly in the same kind of things as Timaeus, that may well be because he quoted material from them which happened to fall in with his own interests.For Timaeus himself the situation is a little better, though by no means wholly satisfactory.Jacoby lists over a hundred and fifty attested fraqments of the historian.Many come from Polybius, who consistently sets him in a *A paper read at a conference on the Attitudes to the Past in Hellenistic Historiography, held at the Hebrew University o f Jerusalem on 14-15.11.

The second edition of the CAH VII has been eagerly awaited for many years. great deal of material has been added since Vol.VII first appeared in 1928, and as a result our knowledge of the period is now much better.The years 323-217BCE are treated in this volume, while the second century BCE including Roman affairs will be discussed in Vol.VII, 2. The third century BCE dealt with in this volume is a particularly interesting period as concerns the Eastern Mediterranean.After the death of Alex ander the Great, there emerged the Hellenistic monarchies of the Diadochi, in which the Greek conquerors found themselves in a completely new world.In the 3rd century BCE Greek culture underwent far-reaching changes as a result of greatly increased contact between East and West.Vol.VII, 1 surveys many aspects of the Hellenistic period, but mainly from the point of view of the conquerors, the Greeks.In chapter 1 F.W. Walbank gives us a very good, comprehensive survey of the sources for the period.Although such a volume does not allow for too much detail, perhaps more elaboration of certain issues would have been useful, for instance the problem of the sources of Diodorus Siculus, in particular Hieronymus of Cardia and Hecataeus of Abdera, who are pertinent to the third century.Also some of the Eastern sources for the third century BCE, e.g.some later biblical books, might have been mentioned to aid the general reader.This is not an unimportant point, and I shall return to it.Walbank explicitly says that " It was not feasible to include a full critical account of the art, literature and philosophical speculations of the period" (XII) and refers the reader to the Cambridge History o f Classical Literature, Robertson's History of Greek Art, etc.Nevertheless, I still think a short survey of the literature and art of the period, within the historical context, should have been included in this volume.Unfortu nately, very little attention is given to the literature of the time by any of the authors.For instance, D. Musti's chapter on " Syria and the East" (chap.6) gives the somewhat misleading impression that the Hellenistic period in the region was merely a matter of

I.

Of all the Greek tragedies, Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound bears closest resem blance to Job", writes M.

This study describes the scribal practices characterising the paleo-Hebrew scrolls found in the Qumran caves. They differ from the practices applied to scrolls written in the square (Aramaic) script.

I. The East in

The article offers an overview of the phenomenon of Greek (and Latin) words in Syriac. Topics covered include: the treatment of Greek inflectional endings, aspiration, gender, verbs (rarely taken over directly), particles and adverbs. Finally, various inner-Syriac developments are discussed.