>Rome's conceptualization of citizenship was radically expansionist compared to that of the Greek states which were flourishing at the same time. Agreed. > As

>Rome's conceptualization of citizenship was radically expansionist compared to that of the Greek states which were flourishing at the same time. Agreed. > As for, say, the Hellenistic kingdoms, I think it's clear that the ability of the Romans to actually absorb those kingdoms and have them come to see themselves as "Romans" (a trick the Seleucids/Antigonids/etc. never pulled off) speaks to a real and meaningful difference here. There's something here, but it's not appropriate to generalize from the polis to the Hellenic Empires and I'm not sure it's so clear cut. Greek culture spread widely. For example, the Maccabeean Revolt shows they were Hellenized Jews willing to go pretty far to partake of Greek culture, especially if you take the modern view that assigns the Hellenized most of the responsibility for the policies sparking the revolt. * There's an unfortunate paucity of sources, that is just about none, on the Hellenistic side of the revolt, so we can't rule out the traditional account. Either way these Jews clearly existed.