So what it looks like is that the cultural transfer is a lot less one-sided than everything the author has shown rather than told so far implies. We've been shown a bunch of Greek named people, largely immigrants from other city-states, being responsible for stuff.
I've been applying an analogy of early modern European mentalities expanding over the world to create the Atlantic meta-culture, if you know what I mean. Greek chauvinism in the Hellenistic period seems to largely work the way European/"Christendom" chauvinism worked in early modern times. You have your cosmopolitan early explorers, of the Marco Polo type, such as Pytheas, who I presume achieved success in the "wild" northlands by astutely blending in with the people he found up there, Celts and Germans, learning their languages, paying for passage on their ships, and paying attention to what he had to learn. Much as Marco Polo at one point was a Yuan Dynasty official of sorts in China. But then when they get out en masse there would be (were Massaliote society as analogous to Christian Europe as I feared) a certain arrogance. Magellan for instance, despite having lost a large number of his crew crossing the Pacific blindly, assumed the heathen "Filipinos," as his patron country would come to call them, would be awed by his amazing European tech and general virtues and take him for a god. Instead angry natives killed off him and much of his remaining crew; just one ship made it home out of 5 that set out to circumnavigate the globe. After that, it fluctuated--the Portuguese had limited manpower and learned to be more astute in securing their bases; the Dutch would cynically do anything that seemed expedient--kowtow to the Tokugawa shoguns but commit genocide in the spice islands of Indonesia to secure their monopoly. The various powers contending for India would gradually learn to play local politics, but even after getting the upper hand in India around 1800 the East India company men would tend to blend in to local high society--until the degree of contact rose to the level that they started importing their wives and children to reside in the subcontinent, at which point suddenly the British held themselves as a caste apart and above and began to despise the culture their predecessors navigated in cheerfully enough. In North America we have the sketch of two approaches; English heavy, intense settlement that predictably provoked considerable resentment among native peoples--but even those who decided to hew to European ways and Christianize would be so decimated by plague and general environmental disruption the noisy British mode of settlement caused (Alexis de Tocqueville, though lacking insight into the specific aspect of epidemiology, has some acerbic things to say about the wave of disruption among the wildlife preceding the front line of Anglo settlements by some hundred miles) that they were simply brushed aside--after sufficient contact that is--and the survivors who diligently assimilated were simply absorbed with their heritage scarcely acknowledged except for purposes of discrimination against them. Versus the French model, where due to royal policy to not risk using heterodox Protestants and rely solely on Catholics who however were not particularly keen to emigrate, relied on small numbers of ethnic French people to diffuse among the Native peoples, and recruit them as allies and trading partners, meaning French force was leveraged considerably but also diffused, casting a thin but wide net over vast continental reaches. In early days France held an advantage in having a lot of force to bring to bear on the initially small English colonies, but as these survived and grew the balance of force tipped over to make them unstoppable.
OTL, Hellenistic ability to form some sort of hybrid, composite society with various non-Hellenes seems to boil down, at least to my perhaps unnuanced eye, as being a matter of enlightened policy by a few tyrants, such as Alexander himself or the Ptolemies. But even then, the form it took was a matter of strategically settling some Hellenic city-states with privileged populations to set against a parallel structure of native hierarchies, and like the later form of the British East India Company/Raj civil service, the Greeks tended to hold themselves apart and consider themselves somewhat above any natives, no matter how exalted. And the best compliment any Hellene would pay any non-Hellene was to remark how very Hellenized they had become. In certain forms non-Hellenic influences did spread--notably new religions, for both the Greeks and the Romans, in their days of ascendency, had long tired of their ancient traditional faiths and become Seekers for something new and more cosmopolitan. But this hardly meant a desire to be assimilated to non-Hellenes in a fused hybrid block! It meant Hellenizing everything and hoping (if one were generous) the aliens they lived among would drop their traditional ways and become fully Hellenized themselves.
In this respect, I'd say that Hellenistic culture was closely analogous to the attitudes of modern European peoples who spanned a spectrum from a haughty intent to exploit and remain on top of a heap of manifestly and eternally inferior "natives" to the more "enlightened" stance that these benighted people also might become truly civilized and therefore equal someday in the future. In 1800, this attitude might do among stay-at-home Europeans and folk such as the American frontiersmen or Afrikaner Voortrekkers (mainly veering to the former attitude with more or less apologies toward the "noble savagery" that must perish along with the savages bearing it) but it would hardly profit an ambitious merchant-adventurer in India or China--but 100 years ago the third option of respecting and admiring aspects of foreign civilizations was largely gone and insofar as it remained at all, a wistful and romantic position at best.
The difference was that despite its virtues and advanced (seeming to us anyway, being largely derived from their foundations) characteristics, the Hellenes were not in fact in such an overwhelmingly powerful position as Europeans were circa 1900, and in general they eventually wound up getting absorbed one way or another--as the Hellenistic dynasties fell, the only ones not absorbed into non-Hellenic societies with relatively little trace were the ones who succumbed to the strongly Hellenized but proudly distinct Romans. Gradually Rome itself was Hellenized, in the east anyway, to the point of speaking Greek, but this process took hundreds of years and happened in part via general Christianization. This now-domininant seeker religion was indeed able to gradually dissolve and fuse Hellenic and other cultures into a hybrid, so that when Egypt and Palestine submitted to Islamic Arab invasion the latter did not have separate Greeks and Egyptians to deal with, or anyway Islamization completed what Christianity had started and fused them into various Arabized peoples at last. And in the remaining Greek regions, a fused Greek-speaking Roman identity evolved.
But on the timescale of this TL, OTL history gives us little hope to expect a more New France sort of Hellenization of Gaul. One would expect more of a New England sort of model, except that unlike in the New World, the arrogant invading culture does not have a discriminating arsenal of epidemics to thin out the Gaullish herd and reduce the remainder to historical footnotes (in official histories that is--in reality Native peoples tend to actually survive in hybridized but distinct form far more than they are acknowledged to). This is why I have been nervously wringing my hands, hoping for evidence that the Massaliote League is something new under the sun--a bunch of Hellenes who are interested in mixing and matching with their "host" peoples. Reason being that these "hosts" have the numbers, despite the heavy flow of immigration we've seen ATL encouraged, and the sort of mediocre to poor relations people like the English Puritan colonists had with the New England regional native peoples would be a formula for much more successful versions of something like King Phillip's War, even if the Celts have no "French" analog to help them. And they do--the Carthaginians!
If this weren't a TL dedicated to Massaliote victory, I'd be cheering Carthage myself for superior ethics.
However that depends on whether my hitherto jaundiced view of what the Massaliote League is and what its Hellenes are up to should be as dark as it has been. Hitherto, most of the "evidence," what is shown happening as opposed to simply claimed, looks pretty darn Puritan-style. We hear about Gauls mustered anonymously into Hellene-led armies, but we don't hear the names of Gaulish towns that grow alongside Greek city-states in south Gaul--maybe because Gauls aren't as civic-minded and more likely to disperse into the countryside in smaller villages and independent freeholds. But anyway, Gaulish regions where the Gauls still predominate and Greeks are simply welcome guests just as Gauls are guests in Greek city states should, in a more optimistic view of the true fusion of two ways, exist and, presuming an evolving fusion between the peoples, be just as committed to Massaliote collective success and therefore its more ambitious enterprises as the city-states are. Greeks should appreciate that Gauls who remain distinct, though adopting many Hellenic ways at least as polite manners when dealing with Hellenes, bring special strengths to their League. There should be generals who are clearly Gaulish in origin, and traders, and philosophers at the Museaion, and so forth.
This sort of fusion might well cost them something in dealing with other Hellenes, perhaps make them look half-barbaric, as American frontiersmen were regarded as such by civilized Europeans of the 19th century. Therefore the tales we've been hearing of Hellenic cities transplanted wholesale into Massaliote land sound some alarms to me--one expects some friction and conflict in assimilating these more normal Hellenes, not to mention concerns Gauls might have about just which lands might be "emptied" of (other, one hopes--can one be sure?) Gauls to make room for them.
The nature of Gaulish society before the Greeks came along suggests to me that they might be cheerful enough if it is some loser rival tribe that suffers, as we have seen describes, ethnic cleansing in favor of Greek immigrants. But only if they have some confidence that they are in a different category.
To return to my Modern Europe analogy, suppose that the Native peoples of North America had not in fact been vulnerable to Eurasian plagues (any more than Eurasian derived peoples were I mean) and had a technology level below but much closer to Early Modern Europeans--say roughly High Middle Ages, no gunpowder but lots of steel and horses. And the Europeans attempted to settle among them due to the drives of population pressure plus developing aspects of early capitalism. They'd have to combine something of both the French and English approaches I'd think. Ruthless attempts to divide and rule might open up space in the form of devastating conquest and enserfment of loser groups, but only with the alliance of rival Native groups who could be expected to gradually, largely on their own terms, assimilate useful or interesting aspects of European civilization, and acquire what the Europeans regarded as cultivation, but also set the general terms of contact to a much greater degree than seen OTL in aggressive settler colonies. The settlers would not be nearly as able to shove the natives aside, and the best surviving colonies would be those who learned to make long-term, lasting alliances with Native peoples who would be drawn into their orbit, but only by letting themselves in turn be drawn into Native orbits.
This is the sort of fusion I've been hoping to find evidence of, and I fear largely looking in vain. I'm still hung up on the whole Bordeaux thing you see, which is much more like what English might do than French in North America. On the lack of Celtic names, on the lack of attribution to useful innovations to Celtic influence, on the lack of mention of strongly Gaulish though loyal districts in the Massilote heartland, etc etc.
So it is a bit heartening to be told, "don't worry, the Gauls are fine." But the only evidence one sees is that the devastating social wars I'd fear would result if the Massaliotes are in fact a one-sided Hellenization project--which the overwhelming number of specific citations of people and events hitherto seems to support--have not in fact taken place yet.
A hybridized Helleno-Gaulic Massaliote region would have some limitations that have not been mentioned yet (such as being somewhat alien and off-putting to "purer" Hellenes, which should have come into play by now) but also some big advantages--the author seems to be attributing these advantages to the League without as it were paying dues for them by acknowledging the likely side effects nor demonstrating the actual presence of Gauls in Massaliote high society--not even as thoroughly Hellenized model products of a French-style (19th century French I mean here) mission civilitrice transformation, let alone showing us Gauls who proudly retain Gaulish cultural traits suitably modified but definitely not Hellenic, nor Greeks who are adopting distinctly Gaulish ways.
My vision need not be the author's of course! The author has done impressive work and it is a lot of fun. I just suggest that a decision needs to be made, by the peoples in the timeline, which path they are taking, and logical consequences of this path have to be acknowledged. If the League is mainly Hellenizing in the way the Roman conquest of Gaul was Latinizing, then we have to have some serious conflict going on now, in which the Carthaginians have opportunities they appear to be denied in the TL. If this implies that the Gaulification of the League's Hellenes and the partnership of Gauls in the League I was hoping to see is happening--we should see this happen, and it should have some bearing on the experience of immigrant Hellenes, and on the premise that the League is a natural ally of Epiros and Egypt. The Ptolemies probably could appreciate what the League people are doing and accommodate it--though they will be smugly proud of how their Hellenes don't get barbarized and look down on the half-wild Greeks of Gaul; Pyrrhus presumably was used to rag-tag alliances and won't mind much either though again he probably gets a boost in pride in reflecting that whatever those stuck-up Greeks might think, his Epiriotes and Macedonians are anyway less bumpkinish than these half-Gaulish Massaliotes. The latter I think would get the last laugh, but it won't perhaps be evident for some centuries. At this point in the narrative would be when the long-term benefits of the truly hybridizing approach I wish to see happening would start to prevail over the liabilities. I bet if you go back and look over some of the military innovations of the Massliotes, at least some of them make sense as Gaulish ideas in origin, and some might rely in execution on cultural talents the Gauls bring to the table. Solid Gaulish loyalty and partnership are huge assets in dealing not only with the rivalry with Carthage in the northlands, but with the Cisalpine Gauls, and these people can be gateways in turn to yet more Celtic peoples who live in what is today Slovenia, Serbia, Austria and Hungary.
It may be easier to retcon what has been told so far than I think; the author has chosen to take a rather distant and broad-brush perspective. It is indeed the nature of Hellenistic civilization to glorify itself, just as my hypothetical ATL composite New England would almost certainly represent itself as basically English with a certain Native flavor, and one would have to go to the Native counties to get the story in their languages, from their perspective--the official schoolbook history published 200 years later would be in some English dialect and very settler-centric. Just so, a retrospective ATL history written in "modern" times might be in some Greek dialect (albeit one with loads of Celtic loanwords and other influences) and simply choose to focus on a top-down view from Massalia itself, subsuming perfectly present and active Gaulish actors.
Or the author can face the consequences of a more strongly Hellenistic arrogance that might in the long run tend to erase traces of stronger earlier Gaulish influence--but that I think would call for a dark age of Social Wars, a showdown. And about now would be the time for them to start I'd think, before the League society can resume its manifest destiny on harsher terms than I'd like to see.
Harsher terms maybe. But anyway it remains a fascinating what -if and I encourage it to go on on any terms. Just please, fill in a few more blanks, and don't try to have things both ways for free! It makes it more real if these decisions are made. You did very well with the Triple Alliance and Rome and Carthage (except for Carthage's advantages in the hinterlands being shortchanged I feel) and I'd just like to see more of that sort of gritty commitment to facing consequences of decisions.
