This book deals with the emergence of an oral ethical inter-state system in the world of the Ancient Mediterranean during the years 200-168 BCE, and provides a comprehensive overview of this set of values. This discovery adds a new dimension to our knowledge of classical and Hellenistic political theory in which the individual state, rather than an inter-state relationship, is the main concern.

Against the background of a reconstructed set of inter-state ethical behavior, the rise of the Hasmoneans, Judea's ruling dynasty, is given a new perspective. Doron Mendels explores how concepts such as liberty, justice, fairness, loyalty, reciprocity, adherence to ancestral laws, compassion, accountability and love of fatherland became meaningful in the relations between nations in the sphere of ancient Mediterranean, as well as between ruling empires and their subject states. The emerging Jewish national entity which corresponded with the Hellenistic ethical system and its patterns of conduct manifests, among other things, how skin-deep the Hellenization of the core Hasmonean family was.