The Jews under the Syrian Seleucids are treated even more liberally than they had been under the Egyptian Ptolemids, being granted a charter to govern themselves by their own constitution, namely, the Torah.

Greek influence, however, is already becoming manifest.

Some of the twenty-nine Greek cities of Palestine attain a high level of culture.

The years from 188 BCE onward are lean years for the dynasty, because the war with Rome, which had ended in a complete Roman victory, had cost it not only almost the whole of Asia Minor but also a yearly indemnity of fifteen thousand talents.

Unsurprisingly, the first account of Seleucid rule in Palestine tells of an attempt by Heliodorus, the leading minister of Seleucus IV, to deprive the Second Temple in Jerusalem of its treasure.

His failure is soon ascribed to divine protection.

The apocryphal writer Jesus ben Sirach so bitterly denounces the Hellenizers in Jerusalem that he is forced by the authorities to temper his words.