The Greeks in Bactria and India c12.114

c12.114

Now why did Ptolemy II, in the original Questions, go to the trouble of giving seven great banquets to the Elders in order to ask only ten questions each night, both questions and answers being very short? There must be some explanation of that number ten. The Jewish author of the Questions was steeped in Greek learning, as he knew about Greek treatises on kingship; had he before him some tradition, or some model, presumably Greek, which indicated that when a king questioned foreign wise men ten was the right number of questions for him to put? To answer that we shall have to do what one has to do sooner or later with so many Hellenistic problems and get back to Alexander.