Abstract
Hellenistic and Roman Imperial fiction sprang from the ashes of the Achaemenid Empire (c. 550–330 BCE). The autonomy that Iranian regents afforded their subject peoples laid the groundwork for social policy under Alexander, the Diadokhoi, and Roman governance of the Near East. As literary fiction developed over the course of the “long” Hellenistic period, the diversity of languages and cultures not only shaped the kinds of narratives produced: polyglos…