The Jews Among the Greeks and Romans, by Max Radin-A Project Gutenberg eBook

237. The reading of the last phrase in the mss. is quod servata, which is scarcely consistent with the rest of the passage. Bernays, Rh. Mus. 1857, p. 464 seq., conjectured that it was a Jewish or Christian marginal gloss which found its way into the text, a supposition by no means to be dismissed as cavalierly as Reinach does (Textes, p. 241, n. 1). A Christian scribe might easily have been moved by the taunt quam dis cara, to retort with the triumphant quod servata! It will be remembered that the Christians accepted as part of their own all the history and literature of the Jews till the birth of Christ, and resented as attacks upon themselves any slur against the Jews of pre-Christian times. Cf. the very interesting passage in Lactantius, Div. inst. iv. 2.

238. Cic. In Vat. 5, 12.

239. It may be worth while to indicate briefly the relation between the senatorial authority and the executive power at Rome. Unless the senate acted at the instance of the magistrate himself, a senatusconsultum was an advisory resolution, passed upon motion and suggesting to the holder of executive power, or imperium, a certain course of action. The words were generally: Placet senatui ut A. A., N. N. consules, alter ambove, si eis videretur, ilia faciant. In practice, it is true, such a resolution was almost mandatory. A strong magistrate, however, or a rash one, might and did disregard it. While, accordingly, a magistrate might neglect a course of action prescribed by the senate, there was nothing to hinder any action on his part (whether or not there was senatorial authority for it), except the veto power residing in the tribune or in an equal or superior magistrate. The only restrictions were made by the laws concerning the inviolability of the person of a civis Romanus, and of the aerarium.

240. The contio was a formal assembly of citizens, called by a magistrate holding imperium. The purpose was generally to hear projected legislation either favorably or unfavorably discussed. No one spoke except the magistrate or those whom he designated. The contio took no action except to indicate its assent by acclamation, or its dissent equally emphatically. At the actual legislative assembly, for which the contiones were preparations, no discussion whatever took place. The law was presented to be accepted or refused. It will be seen that a mass of Orientals who less than two years before had been Aramaic-speaking slaves can scarcely have been a power in such gatherings as these.

241. Philo, Leg. ad. Gaium, 23.

242. The language of the inscriptions in the various Jewish cemeteries at Rome is almost always Greek, as is that of most of the monuments in the Christian catacombs. Latin is rare and generally later. But these monuments belong to Jews who lived several generations after 63 B.C.E. As far as Palestine is concerned, both inscriptions and literature leave no doubt that the masses spoke only Aramaic or Hebrew.

243. Caesar, Bell. Gall. II. xxxiii. 7; III. xvi. 4.

244. Foucart, Mém. sur l’affranchissement des esclaves.

245. Suet. Div. Iul. 84, 76, 80.

246. The pretensions of the senatorial party to be the only true Romans were not altogether unfounded. The terms boni and optimates which they gave themselves were perhaps consciously adapted from the καλοὶ κἀγαθοί of Athens. The importance of nobilitas as a criterion of true Roman blood lay in the fact that it attested lineage in a wholly unmistakable way. We may compare the insistence of Nehemiah upon documentary evidence of Israelitish blood (Neh. vii. 61, 64).

247. Pro Flacco, 15, 36, compared with 26, 62 seq.

248. Cf. ch. XIV., notes 11, 12.

249. The chief political asset of the triumvirs was the orientalized plebs of the city, whose origin and poverty would combine to make them bitterly detest the organized tax-farmers. Now Crassus, one of the triumvirs, was himself the head of a powerful financial group. It may be that the tax-farmers persecuted by Gabinius belonged to a rival organization, or that Crassus had withdrawn from that form of speculation before 60 B.C.E. In the case of Flaccus, the complaint of the tax-financier Decianus was a pretext, or else Decianus may have been forethoughtful enough to have joined the right syndicate.

250. Cicero ad Att. ii. 9.

251. Augustinus, De Civ. Dei, iv. 31, 2.

Chapter XVI

JEWS IN ROME DURING THE EARLY EMPIRE

252. Myths are understood by modern anthropologists exclusively as a “folk-way,” with the effects of single creative imaginations almost wholly eliminated. However, the better-known Greek myths are not at all folk-devised. As far as the Romans are concerned, it has so far been impossible to pick out a definite story which does not appear to have been derived from an existing Greek myth by quite sophisticated methods.

253. The phrase referred to is Ubi bene ibi patria, although just this form of it may not be ancient. However, the idea, that a fatherland might brutally ill-use its citizens and still claim their loyalty, was something that the average Greek scarcely recognized even in theory. When Socrates propounds some such doctrine in Plato’s Crito, 51 B, he is consciously advocating a paradox. It was regarded as a noble ideal somewhat beyond the reach of ordinary men. Its disregard involved no moral turpitude.

In Cicero, Tusc. v. 37, 108, the phrase runs, Patria est ubicunque est bene. That is an evident adaptation of a Greek phrase, such as the one in Aristoph. Plut. 1151, πατρὶς γάρ ἐστι πᾶσ’ ἵν’ ἂν πράττη τις εὖ.

254. Livy, Epit. lvi. Eunous, the leader, called his followers Syri, and himself King Antiochus. Cf. Florus, ii. 7 (iii. 9), Diodorus fr. xxxiv. 2, 5. Atargatis was the Dea Syria that played so important a rôle in the life of the empire.

255. The philosophic schools had the usual corporate names of θίασος, σύνοδος, and the like. Or like other corporations they have a cult name in the plural, οἱ Διογενισταί, οἱ Ἀντιπατρισταί, οἱ Παναιτιασταί (Athen. v. 186). For the International Athletic Union, ἡ περιπολιστικὴ ξυστικὴ σύνοδος, cf. Gk. Pap. in Brit. Mus. i. 214 seq.

256. Cf. ch. III., n. 9.

257. Cf. Menippus in Lucian’s Icaromenippus, 6 seq. Menippus does not spare his fellow Cynics (ibid. 16).

258. Macrobius, Sat. II. i. 13. The jest has unfortunately not come down to us.

259. The book we know as the “Wisdom of Solomon” is unquestionably the finest in style and the profoundest in treatment of the Apocrypha. Such passages as i.; ii. 1 seq.; ii. 6; iii. 1 seq. can hardly have appealed to any but highly cultured men.

260. Until the time of Claudius, we are told by John Lydus, no Roman citizen might actively participate in the rites of Cybele. Cf. Dendrophori, Pauly-Wissowa, p. 216. Claudius removed the restriction, perhaps to make Cybele a counterfoil to Isis.

261. The story in Livy, XXXIX., viii. seq. is a case in point. The abominable excesses which, as Hispala testifies, took place among the Bacchae (ibid. 13) are almost certainly gross exaggerations.

This hostility to new-comers was not a sudden departure from previous usage. Sporadic instances are mentioned in Livy’s narrative. As early as 429 B.C.E., he tells us, Datum negotium aedilibus ne qui nisi Romani dii neu quo alio more quam patrio colerentur (Livy, IV. xxx. 11). The notice is of value as an indication that the general Roman feeling was not always so cordially receptive as is often assumed.

262. Valerius Max. I. iii. 3.

263. Cf. Cic. ad Att. iii. 15, 4; Asconius ad Pison. 8.

264. Suetonius, Div. Iul. 42. Josephus, Ant. XIV. x. 8. Suetonius (ibid. 84) states that many exterae gentes enjoyed his favor. The Jews may have been only one group among many. However, the statement is indirectly made by Suetonius and directly by Josephus, that they received his special protection to a striking extent. We have only the political support given the triumvirs and Caesar personally to fall back upon for a motive.

265. I undertake with some diffidence to revive a conjecture made before without much success, that the 30th Sabbath was the Day of Atonement. One remarkable misunderstanding of the Sabbath institution was that it was a fast-day. When we consider the number and activity of the Roman Jews, it seems scarcely credible that so many otherwise well-informed persons supposed that the Jews fasted once a week. Augustus in his letter to Tiberius seems to do so (Suet. Aug. 76). Pomp. Trogus (Justinus), xxxvi. 2, explicitly states it. Cf. also Petronius (Bücheler, Anth. Lat. Frg. 37) and Martial, iv. 4. But at least one man, Plutarch, not only knew that it was not so, but was aware that, if anything, the Sabbath was a joyous feast-day (Moralia ii., Quaest. Con. v. 2). To this testimony must be added that of Persius, Sat. v. 182 seq. It is in the highest degree surprising that Reinach (p. 265, n. 3) could have accepted the theory that the pallor alluded to is the faintness brought on by fasting. The tunny fish on the plate should have convinced him of his error. It may be remembered that fish in all its forms was one of the chief delicacies of the Romans. Tunny, however, was a very common fish, and one of the principal food staples of the proletariat.

Persius writes from personal experience. Of the other writers it is only Pompeius Trogus who makes the unqualified statement that the Sabbath as such was a fast-day. When Strabo writes that Pompey is said to have taken Jerusalem τὴν τῆς νηστείας ἡμέραν τηρήσας (xvi. 40), he is assumed to have been guilty of the same confusion. But it is not easy to see why he should have hesitated to say the Sabbath if he meant the Sabbath. Nor is it so certain that Josephus is mechanically copying Strabo (Reinach, p. 104. n. 1) when he says (Ant. XIV. iv. 3) that Jerusalem was taken περὶ τρίτον μηνα τῇ τῆς νηστείας ἡμέρᾳ. The details of Josephus are vastly fuller than those of Strabo, and he is not guilty of the latter’s error regarding Jewish observance of the Sabbath in times of war (Ant. XIV. iv. 2). Besides, the siege lasted several weeks—more than two months—so that Pompey’s maneuver, if it depended wholly upon the Sabbath, might have been performed at once.

Hilgenfeld’s supposition (Monatsschrift, 1885, pp. 109-115) that the day was the Atonement, is better founded than Reinach would have us think. In the mouth of Josephus, ἡ τῆς νηστείας ἡμέρα can scarcely have any other sense. And if Josephus believed that Jerusalem fell on the Kippur, he believed so from more intimate tradition than the writings of Strabo.

Now, ἡ τῆς νηστείας ἡμέρα, the great fast of the Jews, must have been as marked a feature in their life two thousand years ago as to-day. While all the other feasts have individual names, it does not appear that this one did. יום הכפורים (Lev. xxiii. 27; LXX, ἡμέρα ἐξιλασμοῦ) seems rather a descriptive term than a proper name. Josephus (Ant. IV. x.) has no name for it, although he has for the others. In the Talmud, it is ימא “the Day,” יומא רבא “the Great Day,” צומא רבא, “the Great Fast.” In Acts xxvii. 9 we meet the phrase ἡ νηστεία, “the fast κατ’ ἐξοχήν.” Similarly in Philo, De Septenario, all the festivals have names except this, which is referred to simply as “the Fast.” It must be, however, evident that with the institution of other fasts, ἡ νηστεία would hardly be adequate. As a distinctive appellation, some other name had to be chosen.

In the Pentateuch the term (שבת שבתון) is used of ordinary Sabbaths (Ex. xxxi. 15, xxxv. 2, Lev. xxiii. 3) as well as of the Atonement (Lev. xvi. 31, xxiii. 32). But the LXX expressly distinguishes the application of it to ordinary Sabbaths from its application to the Atonement. The former, it renders σάββατα ἀναπαύσεως, the latter σάββατα σαββάτων. This latter term may therefore be considered the specific designation of the Atonement Day, and it is so used by Philo, De Septen. 23, σάββατον σαββάτων, τῶν ἁγίων ἁγιώτεραι (ἑβδόμαδες).

We may, therefore, assume that in the Greek-speaking Jewish community of Rome, σάββατα σαββάτων, “the Great Sabbath,” was the common designation—or at least a familiar designation—of the Day of Atonement. In that case it could scarcely be otherwise than familiar to those who had any dealings whatever with the Jews.

Fuscus pretends to share a very general observance, and on the strength of it to be disinclined to discuss any personal matters with his friend. Can that day have been a simple Sabbath? The tone indicates a rarer and more solemn occasion. Besides, we are definitely told that it is a special Sabbath, the “thirtieth.”

The Jews at that time seem to have reckoned their festivals by strict lunar months (Josephus, Ant. IV. x.) and their civil year by the Macedonian calendar. The thirtieth Sabbath, if we reckon by the Roman calendar, might conceivably have fallen on the Atonement. By the Macedonian or Athenian it could not have done so. However, as the Roman calendar was a solar one, the correspondence of the thirtieth Sabbath with the Atonement can only have been a fortuitous one in a single year. Tricesima sabbata can hardly apply to that.

It is just possible that the reason for the word “thirtieth” is to be found in the widely and devoutly pursued astrology of that time. The number thirty had a certain significance in astrology, Firmicus Maternus, IV. xvii. 5; xxii. 3. If for one reason or another the mansio of the moon, which coincided with the second week of the seventh lunar month (cf. Firm. Mat. IV. i. seq. for the importance of the moon in astrology), bore the number thirty, then tricesima sabbata, to initiated and uninitiated, might bear the portentous meaning required for the Horatian passage.

Whether that is so or not, the only Sabbath which we know to have been specially singled out from the rest of the year, was this σάββατα σαββάτων, the Day of Atonement. Whatever reason there was for calling it the thirtieth, the mere fact of its being particularly designated makes it likely that Horace referred to that day.

Nearly every one of the festivals in Tishri has already been suggested for the phrase, but these results have been reached by elaborate and intricate calculations, which bring the thirtieth Sabbath on the festival required. The main difficulty with all such calculations has been noted. The coincidence can only have been exceptional, and an exceptional coincidence will not help us here. Some especially rigorous Jews undoubtedly fasted every week like the Pharisee in Luke xviii. 11-20, but that was intended as a form of asceticism. The custom survived in some Christian communities, notably in Rome, which elevated it almost to a dogma, so that Augustine had to combat the point with especial vigor. (Ep. xxxvi., and Casulanum, Corp. Scr. Eccl. xxxiv. pp. 33 seq.) It may be interesting to remember that from a passage of this epistle referring to this Sabbath fast (xiv. 32) is derived the famous proverb, “When you are in Rome, do as the Romans do.”

266. Sat. I. iv. 18.

268. Apellas is a common name for a slave or freedman. Cic. ad Fam. vii. 25; C. I. L. x. 6114. That a Jew should bear a name derived from that of Apollo, is not at all strange. Cf. ch. IX., n. 6.

269. Cf. Ep. I. vi. 1 seq. The nil admirari of the first line is Horace’s equivalent for the ἀταραξία of Epicurus.

270. As is stated in the text, the peregrina Sabbata and the septima festa, which is merely a metrical paraphrase for Sabbata, are treated here as of annual occurrence. The word redeunt itself points to that. It has been suggested in Note 264, that the great annual Sabbath was the Day of Atonement. If that is referred to here, the application is very natural. The season of the Tishri festivals coincided in the Mediterranean with rather severe storms. These generally began after the Day of Atonement, so that among Jews sailing was rarely undertaken after that day. This is strikingly shown by Acts xxvii. 9. But the equinoctial storms, while sufficient to make a sea-voyage dangerous, do not seem to have caused serious discomfort on land. The reference, accordingly, must in each case be understood from its context. In the first the courtship is to be begun, tu licet incipias, at the great Sabbath, to take advantage of the exquisite autumn of Italy. In the second, the voyage is not to be deferred even for this same Sabbath, which ordinarily marked the danger line of navigation.

271. Vogelstein u. Rieger, Gesch. der Jud. in der Stadt Rom., p. 39 seq.

272. Reinach, Textes, p. 259.

273. Pliny, Hist. Nat. XXIX. i. 6. Plaut. Amphitruo, 1013.

274. Cf. Garrucci, Cimitero ... in Signa Randanini; F. X. Kraus, Roma Sott. p. 286 ff.; Garucci, Storia del arte Cristiana, VI. tav. 489-491.

275. Verg. Ecl. i. 6-7; Georg. i. 503; Horace, Odes, I. ii. 43; Ovid, Ex Ponto, ii. 8.

276. Xen. An. IV. i. 2-3.

277. Cic. ad Att. i. 1.

278. While notoriously corrupt governors like Cotta (130 B.C. E.), Cic. Pro Mur. 58, and Aquilius (126 B.C.E.), Cic. Div. in Caec. 69, were acquitted, a rigidly honest man like Rufus was convicted under such a charge. Dio Cassius, fr. 97.

279. Ditt. Or. inscr. no. 456, l. 35; from Mytilene, 457, 659.

280. The Edict of Caracalla, called the Constitutio Antonina or Antoniniana, has been known in substance for a long time. Recently fragments of its exact words in Greek were discovered in a papyrus (Giessen, Pap. II. (P. Meyer), p. 30 seq): δίδωμι τοῖς συνάπασιν ξένοις τοῖς κατὰ τὴν οἰκονμένην πολίτειαν Ρωμαίων μένοντος παντὸς γένους πολιτευμάτων χωρὶς τῶν δεδειτικίων. The exact effect of the decree is not yet quite clear. It seems evident that the dediticii were excluded.

281. Dio Cassius, xxxvi. 6.

283. Josephus, Ant. XIV. x.; XII. iii. 2.

284. The “heterodox Jewish propaganda” is of course Christianity. The success of Paul and other missionaries in Asia Minor is best indicated by the churches of Asia to which Revelations is addressed.

285. Horace, Ep. II. ii. 184. The sumptuous present of Aristobulus, which formed part of Pompey’s triumphal procession, Josephus, Ant. XIV. iii. 1. Pliny, Hist. Nat. XXXVII. ii. 12, must have made the Jewish kings symbols of enormous wealth. None the less, Herod’s unsparing severity toward his own sons was also well known, and it is said to have elicited from Augustus the phrase mallem Herodis porcus esse quam filius—Macrob. Sat. II. iv. 11—a jest which, as Reinach points out (Textes, p. 358), is of doubtful authenticity, and certainly not original.

286. Josephus, Ant. XX. iii.

287. Judea herself was free from tribute, but Herod was responsible for certain Arab revenues. Besides, he received from Augustus a number of Greek towns (Josephus, Wars, I. xx. seq.), and his kingdom included further Batanaea south of Damascus, Galilee, and Peraea, the Greek cities across the Jordan and south through Idumaea. All this was held by him as the acknowledged beneficiary of Rome (Josephus, Ant. XV. vi. 7).

288. Josephus, Ant. XV. i. 2.

289. Josephus, Ant. XVII. vi. 6.

290. Cf. ch. XI., n. 15. Cf. also Josephus, Ant. XVII. x.

291. Not merely composed of Herod’s old soldiers (Josephus, Ant. XVII. x. 4). Matt. xxii. 16; Mark iii. 6; xii. 13.

292. Madden, Coins of the Jews. Cf. also Josephus, Ant. XVIII. iii. 1.

293. Josephus, Ant. XX. viii. 11.

294. Josephus, Ant. XX. v. 4.

295. Josephus, Ant. XV. xi. 15.

296. Josephus, Ant. XVI. vii.-viii. seq. The many children of Herod’s ten wives were in almost constant intrigues against him and one another.

297. Strabo, xvi. 755.

298. It is necessary at every point to note the uncertain character of our evidence. The Historiae Philippicae of Pompeius Trogus written under Augustus would have been of inestimable value for us, if we had them in full. But we possess them merely in the summary of Justin (third century?), which gives us all the substance, but little or none of the personality of the writer. And in this case the loss is the more serious because Trogus seems to have had a keener feeling for the dramatic character of events and a broader sympathy than many other ancient historians.

299. Josephus, Ant. XVII. x. 9.

300. This is the Varus made famous in the Teutoburg battle. The insurrection mentioned in the text is the polemos shel Varos of the Seder Olam.

301. Caesar, Bell. Gall. iii. 10.

302. Josephus, Ant. XVII. x. 9.

303. Nicolaus of Damascus, philosopher and historian, was Herod’s principal Greek adviser and the advocate of the Jews in many public controversies. As far as we can judge from fragments, his History of the World, in no less than 114 Books, was a loosely connected compilation rather than a work of literary merit.

304. Josephus, Ant. XVIII. i. 1 and 6.

305. A complete investigation of this subject is contained in Domaszewski, Die Religion des römischen Heeres.

306. Cagnat. in Dar.-Sagl. Dict. des ant. s. v. legio, p. 1084.

307. The signa were actually worshiped by the soldiers. They are the propria legionum numina. Tac. Ann. ii. 17. Cf. Cagnat., op. cit. p. 1065. Domaszewski, op. cit. p. 115.

308. To the sense and tact of this typical Roman official the averting of a crisis in the history of Palestinian Jewry is due. The rebellion which Gaius would undoubtedly have provoked might have dragged other parts of the world with it, and at that time the conditions were less favorable for re-establishment of the empire than in 68 C.E.

309. Josephus, Ant. XVIII. vii. 2.

310. Josephus, Ant. XIX. vi.

311. That Tacitus shows a strong antipathy to the Jews can scarcely be questioned. It is in these chapters (Hist. v. 2. seq.) more than most others, that we are able to see the rhetorical historian of ancient times almost in the act of preparing his narrative. The sources of Tacitus are open to us. That he used Manetho and Apion instead of Josephus and Nicolaus is itself ample indication of the complete lack of conscience with which such a writer could select his evidence according to the thesis he meant to establish.

312. Cagnat. Inscr. Gr. ad res Rom. pertin. ii. n. 176.

313. Cf. for the Jewish feeling toward him, Jos. Ant. VI. i. 2; Ketub. 17a; Pes. 88b. He is represented as a rigidly observant and pious Jew. However, the boon companion of the young Gaius and the voluptuaries of the imperial court must have undergone an overwhelming change of heart if he was really worthy of the praise lavished upon him.

314. Josephus, Ant. XIX. vii.

315. Josephus, Ant. XX. i. One of the slain rioters is named Hannibal.

316. Josephus, Ant. XX. v.

317. Josephus, Ant. XX. viii.

318. Cf. Livy, Books XXXIX and XL.

319. Tac. Ann. iii. 40 seq.; ibid. ii. 52; iv. 23. In 52 C.E., Cilicia rose in revolt; ibid. xii. 55. The Jewish disturbances of the same year are alluded to in Tac. Ann. xii. 54—a passage omitted in Reinach.

320. Josephus, Wars, II. xvi.

321. The entire life of this curious impostor, as portrayed by Lucian, is of the highest interest. The maddest and most insolent pranks received no severer punishment than exclusion from Rome.

322. C. I. L. vii. 5471.

323. For the Armenian, British, etc., rebellions, see Suet. Nero, 39, 40. In at least one other part of the empire, prophecy and poetry maintained the hope of an ultimate supremacy, something like the Messianic hope of the Jews. This was in Spain, and upon this fact Galba laid great stress. Suet. Galba, 9: Quorum carminum sententia erat, oriturum quandoque ex Hispania principem dominumque rerum.

Chapter XV

THE ROMANS

Chapter XVI

JEWS IN ROME DURING THE EARLY EMPIRE

Chapter XVII

THE JEWS OF THE EMPIRE TILL THE REVOLT

Chapter XVIII

THE REVOLT OF 68 C.E.

Chapter XV THE ROMANS

Chapter XVI JEWS IN ROME DURING THE EARLY EMPIRE

Chapter XVII THE JEWS OF THE EMPIRE TILL THE REVOLT

Chapter XVIII THE REVOLT OF 68 C.E.

Chapter XV

THE ROMANS

Chapter XVI

JEWS IN ROME DURING THE EARLY EMPIRE

Chapter XVII

THE JEWS OF THE EMPIRE TILL THE REVOLT

Chapter XVIII

THE REVOLT OF 68 C.E.