This article examines imperial and economic forces of colonisation surrounding post-exilic Israel, specifically the late Persian period (334-330 BCE) transitioning into the Hellenistic era (332-64 BCE), to do a suspicious reading of Daniel 1 as a text of imperial resistance. Using a paradigm constructed from elements of James Scott's theory of hidden transcripts from “Domination and the arts of resistance”, Daniel 1 becomes a Hellenistic text capable of placating and appeasing as much as (or perhaps more than) opposing and resisting empire. This work emphasises suspicious tensions to examine socio-economic class structures in and around the composition of the book of Daniel to interpret Daniel 1 through a hermeneutic of suspicion with a focus on postcolonial theory.