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Rh agricultural and industrial products of Syria as well as of goods in transit from lands east of it. An important com- ponent of this trade was the slave traffic, which was most active at this time, with the Seleucids more interested in it than the Ptolemies. War supplied the slave market with prisoners, and piracy supplied it with victims of kidnapping. Throughout the third and second centuries a steady flow of slaves moved from Syria and neighbouring lands into the cities of Greece. Slaves were in demand as domestic ser- vants and as labourers in mines, construction and public works.

In this commercial renaissance of Seleucid Syria the Jews seem to have played no more conspicuous a part than in any earlier period. In the words of their historian and spokesman Josephus : c We neither inhabit a maritime country nor delight in commerce, nor in such intercourse with other men as arises from it'.

In the later Hellenistic age Syria developed into an im- portant agricultural-horticultural country. The upward curve began under the Ptolemies in the Biqa, Phoenicia and Palestine. Stimulated by greater demand, the traditional crops of barley and wheat, grapes and other fruits, wine and vegetables were increased by improved methods. A wider market for unguents for which native flowers were used was now created. The lively intercourse with neighbouring foreign lands resulted in the exchange of agricultural pro- ducts and the introduction of new plants — Egyptian beans, lentils, mustard and gourds from Egypt; pistachio trees from Persia; apricot, peach and cherry trees from Persia by way, strangely enough, of Italy. Attempts to acclimatize aromatic and cinnamon shrubs were unsuccessful.

Under the Ptolemies the wine and oil industry became more lively. These two products, together with olives, bread and fish formed a substantial part of the diet of the people. In Hellenistic times the lumber industry was no less flourishing than in Pharaonic days. Treeless Egypt Rh