Hellenization

thumb|300px|One of the mosaics of Delos, [[Greece with the symbol of the Punic-Phoenician goddess Tanit]] Hellenization or Hellenification is the adoption of Greek culture, religion, language, and identity by non-Greeks. In the ancient period, colonization often led to the Hellenization of indigenous people. In the Hellenistic period, many of the territories which were conquered by Alexander the Great were Hellenized.

== Etymology == The first known use of a verb that means "to Hellenize" was in Greek (ἑλληνίζειν) and by Thucydides (5th century BC), who wrote that the Amphilochian Argives were Hellenized as to their language by the Ambraciots, which shows that the word perhaps already referred to more than language. The similar word Hellenism, which is often used as a synonym, is used in 2 Maccabees (c. 124 BC) and the Book of Acts (c. AD 80–90) to refer to clearly much more than language, though it is disputed what that may have entailed.