Category Archives: Phoenicians / Canaanites

Assyrian / Babylonian wisdom: Sibyl of Babylon on the superiority of the Judean people (second century BCE)

Babylonian diasporas: Josephos and others on legends of migration from Babel (first-second centuries CE)

Baliaridians and other barbarian peoples off Iberia: Diodoros on their paradoxical customs (mid-first century BCE)

Barbarian wisdom: Celsus and Origen of Alexandria (second-third centuries CE)

Barbarian wisdom: Porphyry of Tyre’s Neoplatonic perspective (third century CE)

Boiotians: Ephoros on the superiority of Boiotia and on a Phoenician connection (mid-fourth century BCE)

Canaanites / non-Judean peoples: Jubilees on the Dinah story and intermarriage (mid-second century BCE)

Carthaginians: Appian of Alexandria (mid-second century CE)

Celtiberians, Iberians, and Lusitanians: Diodoros on their customs and military skill (mid-first century BCE)

Cretans, Spartans, Carthaginians, and Romans: Polybios on superior and inferior societal organization (second century BCE)

Egyptian, Pheonician, and Phrygian wisdom: Ephoros on inventors (mid-fourth century BCE)

Egyptians and Canaanites: Wisdom of Solomon on worship of animals and images (first century BCE)

Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Phoenicians: Julius Africanus on competitive chronologies (ca. 222 CE)

Egyptians: Herodotos on customs and legendary kings (fifth century BCE)

Ethiopians: Herodotos on southern peoples at the ends of the earth (mid-fifth century BCE)

Iberians: Appian of Alexandria (mid-second century CE)

Iberians: Artemidoros, Poseidonios, Strabo, and others (second century BCE to first century CE)

Idumean diasporas: Inscriptions and papyri (second century BCE-third century CE)

Indians: Nearchos, Megasthenes, and Arrian (fourth century BCE-second century CE)

Judean wisdom: Anonymous on Abraham’s contributions (before the mid-first century BCE)

Judean wisdom: Eupolemos on contributions by Abraham and Moses (before the mid-first century BCE)

Judean wisdom: Josephos’ Against Apion in full (late first century CE)

Judeans, Syrians, Celts, Scythians and others: Plutarch on the “barbarian” origins of fearing the gods, or “superstition” (early second century CE)

Judeans, Syrians, Indians, and others: Porphyry of Tyre on abstinence from meat (third century CE)

Libyans / Africans: Sallust (mid-first century BCE)

Libyans: Dionysios of Mytilene and Diodoros on competing claims about the god Dionysos (third / mid-first century BCE)

Libyans: Hanno the Carthaginian (fourth century BCE or earlier)

Medes, Assyrians, Baktrians, and others: Herodotos on the mixed composition of the Persian army under Xerxes (fifth century BCE)

Mediterranean peoples: Claudius Ptolemy on astrological effects on peoples (second century CE)

Mediterranean peoples: Pliny the Elder on inventors around the world (first century CE)

Mediterranean peoples: Pseudo-Skylax (fourth century BCE)

Mediterranean peoples: Pseudo-Skymnos’ Voyage Around the Earth for Nikomedes in full (mid-second century BCE)

People on an idyllic island in the Atlantic off Libya: Diodoros on their natural resources and on Carthaginian colonization plans (mid-first century BCE)

Phoenician diasporas: Ephoros on Kadmos and legends of migration to Boiotia (mid-fourth century BCE)

Phoenician perspectives: Philo of Byblos on “Phoenician Matters” (early second century CE)

Phoenician wisdom: Damascius on Eudemos of Rhodes and Mochos of Sidon (fourth century BCE)

Phoenician, Egyptian and Babylonian wisdom: Porphyry of Tyre and Antonius Diogenes on Pythagoras (third century CE)

Phoenicians and Sardinians: Cicero’s ethnic invective in defending Marcus Scaurus (mid-first century BCE)

Phoenicians: Gospel of Mark on Jesus and a Syro-Phoenician woman (late first century CE)

Phoenicians: Herodotos on customs and colonizing efforts (fifth century BCE)

Scythians and other Pontic peoples: Herodotos on the “most ignorant peoples of all” (fifth century BCE)

Scythians: Lucian on a competition between Toxaris and Mnesippos about ethnic superiority (mid-second century CE)

Sikanians, Sicilians, Sardinians and Iolaeians: Diodoros on ancient migrations and local customs on Sicily (mid-first century BCE)

Sikanians, Sikelians, Phoenicians and Greeks: Thucydides on settlement of Sicily (late fifth century BCE)

Syrian and Phoenician diasporas: Inscriptional and archeological evidence

Syrian perspectives: Lucian of Samosata on The Syrian Goddess in full (mid-second century CE)

Thracians, Getians, Paionians, and others: Herodotos (mid-fifth century BCE)