The Provinces of the Roman Empire 25

The Provinces of the Roman Empire 25

The internal dualism of the empire expresses itself in nothing more

sharply than in the different treatment of the Jews in the respective

domains of the Latin and Greek languages. In the West autonomous bodies

of Jews were never allowed. There was toleration doubtless there for

the Jewish religious usages as for the Syrian and the Egyptian, or

rather somewhat less than for these; Augustus showed himself favourable

to the Jewish colony in the suburb of Rome beyond the Tiber, and made

supplementary allowance in his largesses for those who missed them on

account of the Sabbath. But he personally avoided all contact with the

Jewish worship as with the Egyptian; and, as he himself when in Egypt

had gone out of the way of the sacred ox, so he thoroughly approved

the conduct of his son Gaius, when he went to the East, in passing

by Jerusalem. Under Tiberius in the year 19 the Jewish worship was

even prohibited along with the Egyptian in Rome and in all Italy, and

those who did not consent openly to renounce it and to throw the holy

vessels into the fire were expelled from Italy--so far as they could

not be employed as useful for military service in convict-companies,

whereupon not a few became liable to court-martial on account of their

religious scruples. If, as we shall see afterwards, this same emperor

in the East almost anxiously evaded every conflict with the Rabbi, it

is here plainly apparent that he, the ablest ruler whom the empire had,

just as clearly perceived the dangers of the Jewish immigration as the

unfairness and the impossibility of setting aside Judaism, where it

existed.[162] Under the later rulers, as we shall see in the sequel,

the attitude of disinclination towards the Jews of the West did not in

the main undergo change, although they in other respects follow more

the example of Augustus than that of Tiberius. They did not prevent

the Jews from collecting the temple-tribute in the form of voluntary

contributions and sending it to Jerusalem. They were not checked, if

they preferred to bring a legal dispute before a Jewish arbiter rather

than before a Roman tribunal. Of compulsory levy for service, such as

Tiberius enjoined, there is no further mention afterwards in the West.

But the Jews never obtained in heathen Rome or generally in the Latin

West a publicly recognised distinctive position and publicly recognised

separate courts. Above all in the West--apart from the capital, which

in the nature of the case represented the East also, and already in

Cicero’s time included in it a numerous body of Jews--the Jewish

communities nowhere had special extent or importance in the earlier

imperial period.[163]

 

[Sidenote: and in the East.]

 

It was only in the East that the government yielded from the first, or

rather made no attempt to change the existing state of things and to

obviate the dangers thence resulting; and accordingly, as the sacred

books of the Jews were first made known to the Latin world in the

Latin language by means of the Christians, the great Jewish movements

of the imperial period were restricted throughout to the Greek East.

Here no attempt was made gradually to stop the spring of hatred

towards the Jews by assigning to them a separate position in law, but

just as little--apart from the caprice and perversities of individual

rulers--was the hatred and persecution of the Jews fomented on the part

of the government. In reality the catastrophe of Judaism did not arise

from the treatment of the Jewish Diaspora in the East. It was simply

the relations, as they became fatefully developed, of the imperial

government to the Jewish Rabbinical state that not merely brought about

the destruction of the commonwealth of Jerusalem, but further shook and

changed the position of the Jews in the empire generally. We turn to

describe the events in Palestine under the Roman rule.

 

[Sidenote: Judaea under the republic.]

 

The state of things in northern Syria was organised by the generals

of the republic, Pompeius and his immediate successors, on such a

footing, that the larger powers that were beginning to be formed

there were again reduced, and the whole land was broken up into

single city-domains and petty lordships. The Jews were most severely

affected by this course; not merely were they obliged to give up all

the possessions which they had hitherto gained, particularly the whole

coast (iv. 142) {iv. 136.}, but Gabinius had even broken up the empire

formerly subsisting into five independent self-administering districts,

and withdrawn from the high priest Hyrcanus his secular privileges (iv.

158) {iv. 151.}. Thus, as the protecting power was restored on the one

hand, so was the pure theocracy on the other.

 

[Sidenote: Antipater the Idumaean.]

 

This, however, was soon changed. Hyrcanus, or rather the minister

governing for him, the Idumaean Antipater,[164] attained once more the

leading position in southern Syria doubtless through Gabinius himself,

to whom he knew how to make himself indispensable in his Parthian and

Egyptian undertakings (iv. 345) {iv. 329.}. After the pillage of the

temple of Jerusalem by Crassus the insurrection of the Jews thereby

occasioned was chiefly subdued by him (iv. 355) {iv. 339.}. It was

for him a fortunate dispensation that the Jewish government was not

compelled to interfere actively in the crisis between Caesar and

Pompeius, for whom it, like the whole East, had declared. Nevertheless,

after the brother and rival of Hyrcanus, Aristobulus as well as his son

Alexander, had on account of their taking part for Caesar lost their

lives at the hands of the Pompeians, the second son, Antigonus, would

doubtless after Caesar’s victory have been installed by the latter as

ruler in Judaea. But when Caesar, coming to Egypt after the decisive

victory, found himself in a dangerous position at Alexandria, it was

chiefly Antipater who delivered him from it (iv. 452) {iv. 430.}, and

this carried the day; Antigonus had to give way before the more recent,

but more effective, fidelity.

 

[Sidenote: Caesar’s arrangements.]

 

Caesar’s personal gratitude was not the least element in promoting the

formal restoration of the Jewish state. The Jewish kingdom obtained

the best position which could be granted to a client-state, complete

freedom from dues to the Romans[165] and from military occupation

and levy,[166] whereas certainly the duties and the expenses of

frontier-defence were to be undertaken by the native government. The

town of Joppa, and thereby the connection with the sea, were given

back, the independence of internal administration as well as the free

exercise of religion was guaranteed; the re-establishment, hitherto

refused, of the fortifications of Jerusalem razed by Pompeius was

allowed (707) {47 B.C.}. Thus under the name of the Hasmonaean prince,

a half foreigner--for the Idumaeans stood towards the Jews proper

that returned from Babylon nearly as did the Samaritans--governed the

Jewish state under the protection and according to the will of Rome.

The Jews with national sentiments were anything but inclined towards

the new government. The old families, who led in the council of

Jerusalem, held in their hearts to Aristobulus, and, after his death,

to his son Antigonus. In the mountains of Galilee the fanatics fought

quite as much against the Romans as against their own government; when

Antipater’s son Herod took captive Ezekias, the leader of this wild

band, and had caused him to be put to death, the priestly council of

Jerusalem compelled the weak Hyrcanus to banish Herod under the pretext

of a violation of religious precepts. The latter thereupon entered the

Roman army, and rendered good service to the Caesarian governor of

Syria against the insurrection of the last Pompeians. But when, after

the murder of Caesar, the republicans gained the upper hand in the

East, Antipater was again the first who not merely submitted to the

stronger but placed the new holders of power under obligation to him by

a rapid levying of the contribution imposed by them.

 

[Sidenote: Herod.]

 

Thus it happened that the leader of the republicans, when he withdrew

from Syria, left Antipater in his position, and entrusted his son Herod

even with a command in Syria. Then, when Antipater died, poisoned as it

was said by one of his officers, Antigonus, who had found a refuge with

his father-in-law, the prince Ptolemaeus of Chalcis, believed that the

moment had come to set aside his weak uncle. But the sons of Antipater,

Phasael and Herod, thoroughly defeated his band, and Hyrcanus agreed

to grant to them the position of their father, nay, even to receive

Herod in a certain measure into the reigning house by betrothing to him

his niece Mariamne. Meanwhile the leaders of the republican party were

beaten at Philippi. The opposition in Jerusalem hoped now to procure

the overthrow of the hated Antipatrids at the hands of the victors;

but Antonius, to whom fell the office of arbiter, decidedly repelled

their deputations first in Ephesus, then in Antioch, and last in Tyre;

caused, indeed, the last envoys to be put to death; and confirmed

Phasael and Herod formally as “tetrarchs”[167] of the Jews (713) {41

B.C.}.

 

[Sidenote: The Parthians in Judaea.]

 

[Sidenote: Herod, king of Judaea.]

 

Soon the vicissitudes of world politics dragged the Jewish state

once more into their vortex. The invasion of the Parthians in the

following year (714) {40 B.C.} put an end in the first instance to

the rule of the Antipatrids. The pretender Antigonus joined them,

and possessed himself of Jerusalem and almost the whole territory.

Hyrcanus went as a prisoner to the Parthians: Phasael, the eldest

son of Antipater, likewise a captive, put himself to death in prison.

With great difficulty Herod concealed his family in a rock-stronghold

on the border of Judaea, and went himself a fugitive and in search of

aid first to Egypt, and, when he no longer found Antonius there, to

the two holders of power just at that time ruling in new harmony (714)

{40 B.C.} at Rome. Readily they allowed him--as indeed it was only

in the interest of Rome--to gain back for himself the Jewish kingdom;

he returned to Syria, so far as the matter depended on the Romans,

as recognised ruler, and even equipped with the royal title. But,

just like a pretender, he had to wrest the land not so much from the

Parthians as from the patriots. He fought his battles pre-eminently

with the help of Samaritans and Idumaeans and hired soldiers, and

attained at length, through the support of the Roman legions, to

the possession of the long-defended capital. The Roman executioners

delivered him likewise from his rival of many years, Antigonus; his own

made havoc among the noble families of the council of Jerusalem.

 

[Sidenote: Herod under Antonius and Cleopatra.]

 

[Sidenote: Herod under Augustus.]

 

But the days of trouble were by no means over with his installation.

The unfortunate expedition of Antonius against the Parthians remained

without consequences for Herod, since the victors did not venture

to advance into Syria; but he suffered severely under the ever

increasing claims of the Egyptian queen, who at that time more than

Antonius ruled the East; her womanly policy, primarily directed to

the extension of her domestic power and above all of her revenues,

was far indeed from obtaining at the hands of Antonius all that she

desired, but she wrested at any rate from the king of the Jews a

portion of his most valuable possessions on the Syrian coast and in

the territory lying between Egypt and Syria, nay, even the rich balsam

plantations and palm-groves of Jericho, and laid upon him severe

financial burdens. In order to maintain the remnant of his rule, he

was obliged either himself to lease the new Syrian possessions of the

queen or to be guarantee for other lessees less able to pay. After all

these troubles, and in expectation of still worse demands as little

capable of being declined, the outbreak of the war between Antonius

and Caesar was hopeful for him, and the fact that Cleopatra in her

selfish perversity released him from active participation in the war,

because he needed his troops to collect her Syrian revenues, was a

further piece of good fortune, since this facilitated his submission

to the victor. Fortune favoured him yet further on his changing sides;