The Provinces of the Roman Empire 61

The Provinces of the Roman Empire 61

It is more important, however, to oppose the current conception,

according to which the polemic is directed against the Neronian

persecution of the Christians and the siege or the destruction

of Jerusalem, whereas it is pointed against the Roman provincial

government generally, and in particular against the worship of the

emperors. If of the seven emperors Nero alone is named (by his

numerical __EXPRESSION__), this is so, not because he was the worst of

the seven, but because the naming of the reigning emperor, while

prophesying a speedy end of his reign in a published writing, had its

risk, and some consideration towards the one “who is” beseems even

a prophet. Nero’s name was given up, and besides, the legend of his

healing and of his return was in every one’s mouth; thereby he has

become for the Apocalypse the representative of the Roman imperial

rule, and the Antichrist. The crime of the monster of the sea, and of

his image and instrument, the monster of the land, is not the violence

to the city of Jerusalem (xi. 2)--which appears not as their misdeed,

but rather as a portion of the world-judgment (in which case also

consideration for the reigning emperor may have been at work)--but

the divine worship, which the heathen pay to the monster of the sea

(xiii. 8: προσκυνήσουσιν αὐτὸν πάντες οἱ κατοικοῦντες ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς),

and which the monster of the land--called for that reason also the

pseudo-prophet--demands and compels for that of the sea (xiii. 12:

ποιεῖ τὴν γῆν καὶ τοὺς κατοικοῦντας ἐν αὐτῇ ἵνα προσκυνήσουσιν τὸ

θηρίον τὸ πρῶτον, οὗ ἐθεραπεύθη ἡ πληγὴ τοῦ θανάτου αὐτοῦ); above all,

he is upbraided with the desire to make an image for the former (xiii.

14: λέγων τοῖς κατοικοῦσιν ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς, ποιῆσαι εἰκόνα τῷ θηρίῳ ὃς

ἔχει τὴν πληγὴν τῆς μαχαίρης καὶ ἔζησεν, comp. xiv. 9; xvi. 2; xix.

20). This, it is plain, is partly the imperial government beyond the

sea, partly the lieutenancy on the Asiatic continent, not of this

or that province or even of this or that person, but generally such

representation of the emperor as the provincials of Asia and Syria

knew. If trade and commerce appear associated with the use of the

χάραγμα of the monster of the sea (xiii. 16, 17), there lies clearly

at bottom an abhorrence of the image and legend of the imperial

money--certainly transformed in a fanciful way, as in fact Satan makes

the image of the emperor speak. These very governors appear afterwards

(xvii.) as the ten horns, which are assigned to the monster in its

copy, and are here called, quite correctly, the “ten kings, which have

not the royal dignity, but have authority like kings;” the number,

which is taken over from the vision of Daniel, may not, it is true, be

taken too strictly.

 

In the sentences of death pronounced over the righteous, John is

thinking of the regular judicial procedure on account of the refusal

to worship the emperor’s image, such as the Letters of Pliny describe

(xiii. 15: ποιήσῃ ἵνα ὅσοι ἐὰν μὴ προσκυνήσωσιν τὴν εἰκόνα τοῦ

θηρίου ἀποκτανθῶσιν, comp. vi. 9; xx. 4). When stress is laid on

these sentences of death being executed with special frequency in

Rome (xvii. 6; xvii. 24), what is thereby meant is the execution of

sentences wherein men were condemned to fight as gladiators or with

wild beasts, which often could not take place on the spot where they

were pronounced, and, as is well known, took place chiefly in Rome

itself (Modestinus, _Dig._ xlviii. 19, 31). The Neronian executions on

account of alleged incendiarism do not formally belong to the class of

religious processes at all, and it is only prepossession that can refer

the martyrs’ blood shed in Rome, of which John speaks, exclusively

or pre-eminently to these events. The current conceptions as to the

so-called persecutions of the Christians labour under a defective

apprehension of the rule of law and the practice of law subsisting

in the Roman empire; in reality the persecution of the Christians

was a standing matter as was that of robbers; only such regulations

were put into practice at times more gently or even negligently, at

other times more strictly, and were doubtless on occasion specially

enforced from high quarters. The “war against the saints” is only a

subsequent interpolation on the part of some, for whom John’s words

did not suffice (xiii. 7). The Apocalypse is a remarkable evidence of

the national and religious hatred of the Jews towards the Occidental

government; but to illustrate with these colours the Neronian tale of

horrors, as Renan does in particular, is to shift the place of the

facts and to detract from their depth of significance. The Jewish

national hatred did not wait for the conquest of Jerusalem to originate

it, and it made, as might be expected, no distinction between the good

and the bad Caesar; its Anti-Messias is named Nero, doubtless, but not

less Vespasian or Marcus.

 

[177] The circumstance that Suetonius (_Claud._ 25) names a certain

Chrestus as instigator of the constant troubles in Rome, that had

in the first instance called forth these measures (according to him

the expulsion from Rome; in contrast to Dio, lx. 6) has been without

sufficient reason conceived as a misunderstanding of the movement

called forth by Christ among Jews and proselytes. The Book of Acts

xviii. 2, speaks only of the expulsion of the Jews. At any rate it

is not to be doubted that, with the attitude at that time of the

Christians to Judaism, they too fell under the edict.

 

[178] The Jews there at least appear later to have had only the fourth

of the five wards of the city in their possession (Josephus, _Bell.

Jud._ ii. 18, 8). Probably, if the 400 houses that were razed had been

given back again to them in so striking a manner, the Jewish authors

Josephus and Philo, who lay stress on all the imperial marks of favour

shown to the Jews, would not have been silent on the subject.

 

[179] The question was, apparently, whether the gift of the tenth

sheaf belonged to Aaron the priest (Numb. xviii. 28), to the priest

generally, or to the high-priest (Ewald, _Jüd. Gesch._ vi.^3 635).

 

[180] It is nothing but an empty fancy, when the statesman Josephus,

in his preface to his History of the war, puts it as if the Jews

of Palestine had reckoned on the one hand upon a rising of the

Euphrates-lands, on the other hand, upon the troubles in Gaul and the

threatening attitude of the Germans and on the crises of the year of

four emperors. The Jewish war had long been in full course when Vindex

appeared against Nero, and the Druids really did what is here assigned

to the Rabbis; and, however great was the importance of the Jewish

Diaspora in the lands of the Euphrates, a Jewish expedition from that

quarter against the Romans of the East was almost as inconceivable as

from Egypt and Asia Minor. Doubtless some free-lances came from thence,

as _e.g._ some young princes of the zealously Jewish royal house of

Adiabene (Josephus, _Bell. Jud._ ii. 19, 2; vi. 6, 4), and suppliant

embassies went thither from the insurgents (_ib._ vi. 6, 2); but even

money hardly flowed to the Jews from this quarter in any considerable

amount. This statement is characteristic of the author more than of the

war. If it is easy to understand how the Jewish leader of insurgents

and subsequent courtier of the Flavians was fond of comparing himself

with the Parthians exiled at Rome, it is the less to be excused that

modern historical authorship should walk in similar paths, and in

endeavouring to apprehend these events as constituent parts of the

history of the Roman court and city or even of the Romano-Parthian

quarrels, should by this insipid introduction of so-called great policy

obscure the fearful necessity of this tragic development.

 

[181] Josephus (_Arch._ xx. 8, 9), makes him indeed secretary of Nero

for Greek correspondence, although he, where he follows Roman sources

(xx. 8, 2), designates him correctly as prefect; but certainly the same

person is meant. He is called παιδαγωγός with him as with Tacitus,

_Ann._ xiii. 2: _rector imperatoriae iuventae_.

 

[182] It is not quite clear what were the arrangements for the forces

occupying Syria after the Parthian war was ended in the year 63. At

its close there were seven legions stationed in the East, the four

originally Syrian, 3d Gallica, 6th Ferrata, 10th Fretensis, 12th

Fulminata, and three brought up from the West, the 4th Scythica from

Moesia (I. 213), the 5th Macedonica, probably from the same place (I.

219; for which probably an upper German legion was sent to Moesia I.

132), the 15th Apollinaris from Pannonia (I. 219). Since, excepting

Syria, no Asiatic province was at that time furnished with legions,

and the governor of Syria certainly in times of peace had never more

than four legions, the Syrian army beyond doubt had at that time been

brought back, or at least ought to have been brought back, to this

footing. The four legions which accordingly were to remain in Syria

were, as this was most natural, the four old Syrian ones; for the

3d had in the year 70 just marched from Syria to Moesia (Suetonius,

_Vesp._ 6; Tacitus, _Hist._ ii. 74), and that the 6th, 10th, 12th

belonged to the army of Cestius follows from Josephus, _Bell. Jud._

ii. 18, 9, c. 19, 7; vii. 1, 3. Then, when the Jewish war broke out,

seven legions were again destined for Asia, and of these four for Syria

(Tacitus, _Hist._ i. 10), three for Palestine; the three legions added

were just those employed for the Parthian war, the 4th, 5th, 15th,

which perhaps at that time were still in course of marching back to

their old quarters. The 4th probably went at that time definitively to

Syria, where it thenceforth remained; on the other hand, the Syrian

army gave off the 10th to Vespasian, presumably because this had

suffered least in the campaign of Cestius. In addition he received the

5th and the 15th. The 5th and the 10th legions came from Alexandria

(Josephus, _Bell. Jud._ iii. 1, 3, c. 4, 2); but that they were brought

up from Egypt cannot well be conceived, not merely because the 10th

was one of the Syrian, but especially because the march by land from

Alexandria on the Nile to Ptolemais through the middle of the insurgent

territory at the beginning of the Jewish war could not have been

so narrated by Josephus. Far more probably Titus went by ship from

Achaia to Alexandria on the Gulf of Issus, the modern Alexandretta,

and brought the two legions thence to Ptolemais. The orders to march

may have reached the 15th somewhere in Asia Minor, since Vespasian,

doubtless in order to take them over, went to Syria by land (Josephus,

_Bell. Jud._ iii. 1, 3). To these three legions, with which Vespasian

began the war, there was added under Titus a further one of the

Syrian, the 12th. Of the four legions that occupied Jerusalem the two

previously Syrian remained in the East, the 10th in Judaea, the 12th in

Cappadocia, while the 5th returned to Moesia, and the 15th to Pannonia

(Josephus, _Bell. Jud._ vii. 1, 3 c. 5, 3).

 

[183] To the three legions there belonged five _alae_ and eighteen

cohorts, and the army of Palestine consisting of one _ala_ and five

cohorts. These _auxilia_ numbered accordingly 3000 alarians and (since

among the twenty-three cohorts ten were 1000 strong, thirteen 720,

or probably rather only 420 strong; for instead of the startling

ἑξακοσίους we expect rather τριακοσίους ἑξάκοντα) 16,240 (or, if 720 is

retained, 19,360) cohortales. To these fell to be added 1000 horsemen

from each of the four kings, and 5000 Arabian archers, with 2000 from

each of the other three kings. This gives together--reckoning the

legion at 6000 men--52,240 men, and so towards 60,000, as Josephus

(_Bell. Jud._ iii. 4, 2) says. But as the divisions are thus all

calculated at the utmost normal strength, the effective aggregate

number can hardly be estimated at 50,000. These numbers of Josephus

appear in the main trustworthy, just as the analogous ones for the army

of Cestius (_Bell. Jud._ ii. 18, 9); whereas his figures, resting on

the census, are throughout measured after the scale of the smallest

village in Galilee numbering 15,000 inhabitants (_Bell. Jud._ iii. 3,

2), and are historically as useless as the figures of Falstaff. It is

but seldom, _e.g._ at the siege of Jotapata, that we recognise reported

numbers.

 

[184] This arch was erected to Titus after his death by the imperial

senate. Another, dedicated to him during his short government by the

same senate in the circus (_C. I. L._ vi. 944) specifies even with

express words as the ground of erecting the monument, “because he,

according to the precept and direction and under the superintendence

of his father, subdued the people of the Jews and destroyed the town

of Hierusolyma, which up to his time had either been besieged in

vain by all generals, kings, and peoples, or not assailed at all.”

The historic knowledge of this singular document, which ignores not

merely Nebuchadnezzar and Antiochus Epiphanes, but their own Pompeius,

stands on the same level with its extravagance in the praise of a very

ordinary feat of arms.

 

[185] The account of Josephus, that Titus with his council of war

resolved not to destroy the temple, excites suspicion by the manifest

intention of it, and, as the use made of Tacitus in the chronicle of

Sulpicius Severus is completely proved by Bernays, it may certainly

well be a question whether his quite opposite account (_Chron._ ii.

30, 6), that the council of war had resolved to destroy the temple,

does not proceed from Tacitus, and whether the preference is not to be

given to it, although it bears traces of Christian revision. This view

further commends itself through the fact that the dedication addressed

to Vespasian of the Argonautica of the poet Valerius Flaccus celebrates

the victor of Solyma, who hurls the fiery torches.