The Provinces of the Roman Empire 59

The Provinces of the Roman Empire 59

 Perhaps through Gabinius (Appian, _Syr._ 51).

 

[150] Strabo, xvi. 4, 21, p. 779. The coins of these kings, however,

do not show the emperor’s head. But that in the Nabataean kingdom

dates might run by the Roman imperial years is shown by the Nabataean

inscription of Hebrân (Vogué, _Syrie Centrale_, _insc._ n. 1), dated from

the seventh year of Claudius, and so from the year 47. Hebrân, a little

to the north of Bostra, appears to have been reckoned also at a later

time to Arabia (Lebas-Waddington, 2287); and Nabataean inscriptions of

a public tenor are not met with outside of the Nabataean state; the few

of the kind from Trachonitis are of a private nature.

 

[151] “Leuke Kome in the land of the Nabataeans,” says Strabo under

Tiberius, xvi. 4, 23, p. 780, “is a great place of trade, whither and

whence the caravan-traders (καμηλέμποροι) go safely and easily from and

to Petra with so large numbers of men and camels that they differ in

nothing from encampments.” The Egyptian merchant also, writing under

Vespasian, in his description of the coasts of the Red Sea (c. 19),

mentions “the port and the fortress (φρούριον) of Leuce Come, whence

the route leads towards Petra to the king of the Nabataeans Malichas.

It may be regarded as the emporium for the goods conveyed thither from

Arabia in not very large vessels. Therefore there is sent thither

(ἀποστέλλεται) a receiver of the import-dues of a fourth of the value,

and for the sake of security a centurion (ἑκατοντάρχης) with men.” As

one belonging to the Roman empire here mentions officials and soldiers,

these can only be Roman; the centurion does not suit the army of the

Nabataean king, and the form of tax is quite the Roman. The bringing a

client-state within the sphere of imperial taxation occurs elsewhere,

_e.g._ in the regions of the Alps. The road from Petra to Gaza is

mentioned by Plin. _H. N._ vi. 28, 144.

 

[152] Waddington, 2196; Ἀδριανοῦ τοῦ καὶ Σοαίδου Μαλέχου ἐθνάρχου

στρατηγοῦ νομάδων τὸ μνημεῖον.

 

[153] Epiphanius, _Haeres._ li. p. 483, Dind., sets forth that the 25th

December, the birthday of Christ, had already been festally observed

after an analogous manner at Rome in the festival of the Saturnalia, at

Alexandria in the festival (mentioned also in the decree of Canopus)

of the Kikellia, and in other heathen worships. “This takes place in

Alexandria at the so-called Virgin’s shrine (Κόριον) ... and if we ask

people what this mystery means, they answer and say that to-day at

this hour the Virgin has given birth to the Eternal (τὸν αἰῶνα). This

takes place in like manner at Petra, the capital of Arabia, in the

temple there, and in the Arabic language they sing the praise of the

Virgin, whom they call in Arabic Chaamu, that is the maiden, and Him

born of her Dusares, that is the Only-begotten of the Lord.” The name

Chaamu is perhaps akin to the Aumu or Aumos of the Greek inscriptions

of this region, who is compared with Ζεὺς ἀνίκητος Ἥλιος (Waddington,

2392-2395, 2441, 2445, 2456).

 

[154] This is said apart from the remarkable Arabo-Greek inscription

(see below) found in Harrân, not far from Zorava, of the year A.D. 568,

set up by the phylarch Asaraelos, son of Talemos (Waddington, 2464).

This Christian is a precursor of Mohammed.

 

[155] Αὐσονίων μούσης ὑψινόου πρύτανις, Kaibel, _Epigr._ 440.

 

[156] According to the Arabian accounts the Benu Sâlih migrated from

the region of Mecca (about A.D. 190, according to the conjectures of

Caussin de Perceval, _Hist. des Arabes_, i. 212) to Syria, and settled

there alongside of the Benu-Samaida, in whom Waddington finds anew the

φυλὴ Σομαιθηνῶν of an inscription of Suwêda (n. 2308). The Ghassanids,

who (according to Caussin, about 205) migrated from Batn-Marr likewise

to Syria and to the same region, were compelled by the Salihites, at

the suggestion of the Romans, to pay tribute, and paid it for a time,

until they (according to the same, about the year 292) overcame the

Salihites, and their leader Thalaba, son of Amos, was recognised by the

Romans as phylarch. This narrative may contain correct elements; but

our standard authority remains always the account of Procopius, _de

bello Pers._ i. 17, reproduced in the text. The phylarchs of individual

provinces of Arabia (_i.e._ the province Bostra; _Nov._ 102 c.) and of

Palestine (_i.e._ province of Petra; Procop. _de bello Pers._ i. 19),

are older, but doubtless not much. Had a sheikh-in-chief of this sort

been recognised by the Romans in the times before Justinian, the Roman

authors and the inscriptions would doubtless show traces of it; but

there are no such traces from the period before Justinian.

 

[157] [This statement and several others of a kindred tenor in

this chapter appear to rest on an unhesitating acceptance of views

entertained by a recent school of Old Testament criticism, as to which

it may at least be said: _Adhuc sub iudice lis est._--TR.]

 

[158] Whether the legal position of the Jews in Alexandria is

warrantably traced back by Josephus (_contra Ap._ ii. 4) to Alexander

is so far doubtful, as, to the best of our knowledge, not he, but the

first Ptolemy, settled Jews in masses there (Josephus, _Arch._ xii. 1.;

Appian, _Syr._ 50). The remarkable similarity of form assumed by the

bodies of Jews in the different states of the Diadochi must, if it is

not based on Alexander’s ordinances, be traced to rivalry and imitation

in the founding of towns. The fact that Palestine was now Egyptian, now

Syrian, doubtless exercised an essential influence in the case of these

settlements.

 

[159] The community of Jews in Smyrna is mentioned in an inscription

recently found there (Reinach, _Revue des études juives_, 1883, p.

161): Ῥουφεῖνα Ἰουδαί(α) ἀρχισυναγωγὸς κατεσκεύασεν τὸ ἐνσόριον τοῖς

ἀπελευθέροις καὶ θρέμ(μ)ασιν μηδένος ἄλ(λ)ου ἐξουσίαν ἔχοντος θάψαι

τινά· εἰ δέ τις τολμήσει, δώσει τῷ ἱερωτάτῳ ταμείῳ (δηναρίους) ͵αφ, καὶ

τῷ ἔθνει τῶν Ἰουδαίων (δηναρίους) ͵α. Ταύτης τῆς ἐπιγραφῆς τὸ ἀντίγραφον

ἀποκεῖται εἰς τὸ ἀρχεῖον. Simple _collegia_ are, in penal threats of

this sort, not readily put on a level with the state or the community.

 

[160] If the Alexandrian Jews subsequently maintained that they

were legally on an equal footing with the Alexandrian Macedonians

(Josephus, _contra Ap._ ii. 4; _Bell. Jud._ ii. 18, 7) this was a

misrepresentation of the true state of the case. They were clients

in the first instance of the Phyle of the Macedonians, probably the

most eminent of all, and therefore named after Dionysos (Theophilus,

_ad Autolycum_, ii. 7), and, because the Jewish quarter was a part

of this Phyle, Josephus in his way makes themselves Macedonians. The

legal position of the population of the Greek towns of this category

is most clearly apparent from the account of Strabo (in Josephus,

_Arch._ xiv. 7, 2) as to the four categories of that of Cyrene:

city-burgesses, husbandmen (γεωργοί), strangers, and Jews. If we lay

aside the _metoeci_, who have their legal home elsewhere, there remain

as Cyrenaeans having rights in their home the burgesses of full rights,

that is, the Hellenes and what were allowed to pass as such, and the

two categories of those excluded from active burgess-rights--the Jews,

who form a community of their own, and the subjects, the Libyans,

without autonomy. This might easily be so shifted, that the two

privileged categories should appear as having equal rights.

 

[161] Pseudo-Longinus, περὶ ὕψους, 9: “Far better than the war of

the gods in Homer is the description of the gods in their perfection

and genuine greatness and purity, like that of Poseidon (_Ilias_,

xiii. 18 ff.). Just so writes the legislator of the Jews, no mean man

(οὐχ ὁ τυχὼν ἀνήρ), after he has worthily apprehended and brought

to __EXPRESSION__ the Divine power, at the very beginning of the Laws

(_Genesis_, i. 3): ‘God said’--what? ‘Let there be light, and there was

light; let the earth be, and the earth was.’”

 

[162] The Jew Philo sets down the treatment of the Jews in Italy to the

account of Sejanus (_Leg._ 24; _in Flacc._ 1), that of the Jews in the

East to the account of the emperor himself. But Josephus rather traces

back what happened in Italy to a scandal in the capital, which had been

occasioned by three Jewish pious swindlers and a lady of rank converted

to Judaism; and Philo himself states that Tiberius, after the fall of

Sejanus, allowed to the governors only certain modifications in the

procedure against the Jews. The policy of the emperor and that of his

ministers towards the Jews was essentially the same.

 

[163] Agrippa II., who enumerates the Jewish settlements abroad (in

Philo, _Leg. ad Gaium_, 36), names no country westward of Greece, and

among the strangers sojourning in Jerusalem, whom the Book of Acts, ii.

5 f., records, only Romans are named from the West.

 

[164] Antipater began his career as governor (στρατηγός) of Idumaea

(Josephus, _Arch._ xiv. 1, 3), and is there called administrator of

the Jewish kingdom (ὁ τῶν Ἰουδαίων ἐπιμελητής Joseph. _Arch._ xiv.

8, 1), that is, nearly first minister. More is not implied in the

narrative of Josephus coloured with flattery towards Rome as towards

Herod (_Arch._ xiv. 8, 5; _Bell. Jud._ i. 10, 3), that Caesar had

left to Antipater the option of himself determining his position of

power (δυναστεία), and, when the latter left the decision with him,

had appointed him administrator (ἐπίτροπος) of Judaea. This is not,

as Marquardt, _Staatsalth._ v. 1, 408, would have it, the (at that

time not yet existing) Roman procuratorship of the imperial period,

but an office formally conferred by the Jewish ethnarch, an

ἐπιτροπή, like that mentioned by Josephus, _Bell. Jud._ ii. 18, 6. In

the official documents of Caesar’s time the high priest and ethnarch

Hyrcanus alone represents the Jews; Caesar gave to Antipater what could

be granted to the subjects of a dependent state, Roman burgess-rights

and personal immunity (Josephus, _Arch._ xiv. 8, 3; _Bell. Jud._ i. 9,

5), but he did not make him an official of Rome. That Herod, driven out

of Judaea, obtained from the Romans a Roman officer’s post possibly in

Samaria, is credible; but the designations στρατηγὸς τῆς Κοίλης Συρίας

(Josephus, _Arch._ xiv. 9, 5, c. 11, 4), or στρατηγὸς Κοίλης Συρίας καὶ

Σαμαρείας (_Bell. Jud._ i. 10, 8) are at least misleading, and with as

much incorrectness the same author names Herod subsequently, for the

reason that he is to serve as counsellor τοῖς ἐπιτροπεύουσι τῆς Συρίας

(_Arch._ xv. 10, 3), even Συρίας ὅλης ἐπίτροπον (_Bell. Jud._ i. 20,

4), where Marquardt’s change, _Staatsalth._ v. i. 408, Κοίλης destroys

the sense.

 

[165] In the decree of Caesar in Josephus, _Arch._ xiv. 10, 5, 6,

the reading which results from Epiphanius is the only possible

one; according to this the land is freed from the tribute (imposed

by Pompeius; Josephus, _Arch._ xiv. 4, 4) from the second year of

the current lease onward, and it is further ordained that the town

of Joppa, which at that time passed over from Roman into Jewish

possession, should continue indeed to deliver the fourth part of

field-fruits at Sidon to the Romans, but for that there should be

granted to Hyrcanus, likewise at Sidon, as an equivalent annually

20,675 bushels of grain, besides which the people of Joppa paid also

the tenth to Hyrcanus. The whole narrative otherwise shows that

the Jewish state was thenceforth free from payment of tribute; the

circumstance that Herod pays φόροι from the districts assigned to

Cleopatra which he leases from her (_Arch._ xv. 4, 2, 4, c. 5, 3) only

confirms the rule. If Appian, _B. C._ v. 75, adduces among the kings

on whom Antonius laid tribute Herod for Idumaea and Samaria, Judaea is

not absent here without good reason; and even for these accessory lands

the tribute may have been remitted to him by Augustus. The detailed and

trustworthy account as to the census enjoined by Quirinius shows with

entire clearness that the land was hitherto free from Roman tribute.

 

[166] In the same decree it is said: καὶ ὅπως μηδεὶς μήτε ἄρχων μήτε

στρατηγὸς ἢ πρεσβευτὴς ἐν τοῖς ὅροις τῶν Ἰουδαίων ἀνιστᾷ (“perhaps

συνιστᾷ” Wilamowitz) συμμαχίαν καὶ στρατιώτας ἐξιῇ (so

Wilamowitz, for ἐξείη) ἢ τὰ χρήματα τούτων εἰσπράττεσθαι ἢ εἰς

παραχειμασίαν ἢ ἄλλῳ τινὶ ὀνόματι, ἀλλ’ εἶναι πανταχόθεν ἀνεπηρεάστους

(comp. _Arch._ xiv. 10, 2: παραχειμασίαν δὲ καὶ χρήματα πράττεσθαι

οὐ δοκιμάζω). This corresponds in the main to the formula of the

charter, a little older, for Termessus (_C. I. L._ i. n. 204): _nei

quis magistratu prove magistratu legatus ne[ive] quis alius meilites

in oppidum Thermesum ... agrumve ... hiemandi caussa introducito ...

nisei senatus nominatim utei Thermesum ... in hibernacula meilites

deducantur decreverit_. The marching through is accordingly allowed.

In the Privilegium for Judaea the levy seems, moreover, to have been prohibited.