Joseph, the nephew of Onias, a man of resources, was appointed tax-gatherer of the Palestinian lands. A tax-gatherer was given a military retinue to enforce his claims. It was a position of great importance, and made him practically governor of all Palestine with title of Satrap. He exercised his power with severity. Still he brought wealth and improvement to Judea and awakened in the Jews a greater confidence in themselves. Certainly contact with the Greeks widened the horizon of the Jews, furthered their culture, and gave them a taste for the arts of architecture and sculpture. The Greeks also inculcated love of freedom, the dignity of man, and intellectual research in the realms of science and philosophy. But Greek civilization had perils as well as advantages. Nor was it transplanted to the East in its noblest form. The best of Greek thought was evolved in Athens, not in Alexandria. Then too, the Greeks everywhere were fond of conviviality, so often the stepping-stone to immorality. That was why the prophets, from Samuel on so frowned upon Canaanitish revelries. Some Jews quickly imitated this pagan frivolity and dissipation. Joseph, the satrap, in order to please Ptolemy Philopater, the Greco-Egyptian monarch, introduced the festivities of Dionysus (Bacchus) into Jerusalem; these really meant drunken orgies. Next he imported to the Jewish capital dissolute dancing-women. These associations began to loosen the adherence of the people to Judaism's strictly moral code. Epicureanism, that had become a sanction for indulgence, was beginning to take its place. Judea Part of Greco-Syria. In the meantime the greed and ambition of kings changed the map once more. Antiochus the Great, of Syria, seized Egypt and its Asiatic possessions in 203. This transferred Judea from the Egyptian to the Seleucidan rule. Warring nations had played battledore and shuttlecock with the land of our ancestors since the year 600. Antiochus was checked by the newly rising power of Rome from retaining all the Greco-Egyptian dominions, but Celo-Syria including Judea remained under his sway. In the struggle some Jews sided with the Egyptian and some with the Seleucidan party.