What has Sparta to do with Jerusalem? The building of a Hellenistic myth?

Abstract

This study on the references to Sparta in the books of Maccabees, written in
the second century b.C., proposes an analysis of the relationship between the Greek city and the Jews, made by the texts in this period. After discussing the political and ideological aspects that underlie this formulation, the author concludes that it is plausible the existence of a political link between Spartans and Jews in the second century b. C., in the context of the emergence of Roman hegemony in the Mediterranean, and defined by a typically Hellenistic rhetorical evocation, although doubts persist regarding the documents quoted by the biblical books.