Similarly also, Palestine, the northern part of their dominion, the Ptolemies regarded simply as a valuable source of tribute for their treasury and timber (from the forests of Lebanon) for their shipbuilding, and as a useful buffer against their rivals, the Seleucids. The cities, especially those on the coast and on the east of the Jordan, had for some time been feeling the influence of Hellenic civilization. Not only were there new foundations like Pella and Dion in the Peraea (perhaps of the time of Alex ander) and Ptolemy II.'s Philoteria on the sea of Galilee; but older cities changed their names. Thus, probably during the reign of Ptolemy II., Akka became Ptolemais, and Amman, Philadelphia; and even where the old names were retained, as at Gaza and Ascalon, the process of Hellenization still went on.
Apparently the taxes were farmed out to the highest bidder, and it was possible for the adroit to make a fortune as a merchant adventurer, or government agent, or both. The discovery of a large collection of papyri from Gerza (Philadelphia) in the Fayum, consisting of the records of Zeno, a Carian Greek in the employ of a high official under Ptolemy II., has recently made a considerable addition to our scanty knowledge of the general conditions of the period. An extensive and carefully regulated trade was being carried on with Egypt in Syrian cloth, for ex ample, and especially in corn; but it is evident that the gov ernment regulations were frequently disregarded. It appears indeed as if Syrian oil and slaves, the very articles which were not allowed to be imported into Egypt, were the goods traders dealt in by preference. (Rostovtzeff, A large Estate in Egypt in the Third century B.C., p. 34.) Zeno travelled a good deal in Palestine and particularly men tions a certain Tobias, the owner of a castle (birta) in Ammon, with whom he did business and who sent a present to Ptolemy (II.) of horses and dogs, and two white camels. Not improbably this is the building of which ruins still remain at "Arak el-Emir" where, in the entrance to some remarkable cave dwellings near by, the name Tobias may still be read clearly written in Hebrew. On the remains of the wall of this building traces of an animal frieze are to be seen which remind us of the remarkable paint ings of animals round the walls of a tomb of this period, dis covered about the beginning of this century, at Marissa in Judaea.
It was made for a colony of settlers from Sidon (see Peters and Thiersch, Painted Tombs in the Necropolis of Marissa, 1905).
Of the family of this Tobias (very likely descended from Tobiah the Ammonite, Neh. iv. 3) Josephus has an entertaining story to tell (Ant. xii. 4). A certain Joseph, the son of Tobiah, managed to out-bid his rivals and to secure the post of chief collector of the taxes. He then showed his patriotism by exacting the whole amount due to the government from the non-Jews in the country, and allowing his own countrymen to escape scot free. The details of the story need not be pressed, but it seems to be true that the burden of taxation was not felt very heavily and that the people as a whole were fairly content. "The inhab itants of Coele-Syria," says Polybius (V.86.9), "are somehow always more loyally disposed to this family (i.e., the Ptolemies) than to any other."' It seems to be true also that the internal affairs of the Jews were largely in the hands of a few families of whom that of Tobias, already mentioned, and the rival family of Onias, which supplied the High Priests, were perhaps the chief.