The Provinces of the Roman Empire 62

The Provinces of the Roman Empire 62

That the emperor took this land for himself (ἰδίαν αὐτῷ τὴν χώραν

φυλάττων) is stated by Josephus, _Bell. Jud._ vii. 6, 6; not in accord

with this is his command πᾶσαν γῆν ἀποδόσθαι τῶν Ἰουδαίων (_l. c._), in

which doubtless there lurks an error or a copyist’s mistake. It is in

keeping with the expropriation that land was by way of grace assigned

elsewhere to individual Jewish landowners (Josephus, _vit._ 16). We

may add that the territory was probably employed as an endowment for

the legion stationed there (_Eph. epigr._ ii. n. 696; Tacitus, _Ann._

xiii. 54).

 

[187] Eusebius, _H. E._ iv. 2, puts the outbreak on the 18th, and so,

according to his reckoning (in the Chronicle), the penultimate year of

Trajan; and therewith Dio, lxviii. 32, agrees.

 

[188] Eusebius himself (in Syncellus) says only: Ἀδριανὸς Ἰουδαίους

κατὰ Ἀλεξανδρέων στασιάζοντας ἐκόλασεν. The Armenian and Latin

translations appear to have erroneously made out of this a restoration

of Alexandria destroyed by the Jews, of which Eusebius, _H. E._ iv. 2,

and Dio, lxviii. 32, know nothing.

 

[189] This is shown by the __EXPRESSION__s of Dio, lxix. 13: οἱ ἁπανταχοῦ

γῆς Ἰουδαῖοι and πάσης ὡς εἰπεῖν κινουμένης ἐπὶ τούτῳ τῆς οἰκουμένης.

 

[190] If, according to the contemporary Appian (_Syr._ 50), Hadrian

once more destroyed (κατέσκαψε) the town, this proves as well that it

was preceded by an at least in some measure complete formation of the

colony, as that it was captured by the insurgents. Only thereby is

explained the great loss which the Romans suffered (Fronto, _de bello

Parth._ p. 218 Nab.: _Hadriano imperium obtinente quantum militum a

Iudaesis ... caesum_; Dio, lxix. 14); and it accords at least well

with this, that the governor of Syria, Publicius Marcellus, left his

province to bring help to his colleague Tineius Rufus (Eusebius, _H.

E._ iv. 6; Borghesi, _Opp._ iii. 64), in Palestine (_C. I. Gr._ 4033,

4034).

 

[191] That the coins with this name belong to the Hadrianic

insurrection is now proved (v. Sallet, _Zeitschr. für Numism._ v.

110); this is consequently the Rabbi Eleazar from Modein of the Jewish

accounts (Ewald, _Gesch. Isr._ vii.^2, 418; Schürer, _Lehrbuch_, p.

357). That the Simon whom these coins name partly with Eleazar, partly

alone, is the Bar-Kokheba of Justin Martyr and Eusebius is at least

very probable.

 

[192] Dio (lxix. 12) calls the war protracted (οὔτ’ ὀλιγοχρόνιος);

Eusebius in his Chronicle puts its beginning in the sixteenth, its

end in the eighteenth or nineteenth year of Hadrian; the coins of the

insurgents are dated from the first or from the second year of the

deliverance of Israel. We have not trustworthy dates; the Rabbinic

tradition (Schürer, _Lehrbuch_, p. 361) is not available in this

respect.

 

[193] Biography of Alexander, c. 22: _Iudaeis privilegia reservavit,

Christianos esse passus est_. Clearly the privileged position of the

Jews as compared with the Christians comes here to light--a position,

which certainly rests in its turn on the fact that the former represent

a nation the latter do not.

 

[194] In order to make good that even in bondage the Jews were able to‘’“”

exercise a certain self-administration, Origen (about the year 226)

writes to Africanus, c. 14: “How much even now, where the Romans rule

and the Jews pay to them the tribute (τὸ δίδραχμον), has the president

of the people (ὁ ἐθνάρχης) among them in his power with permission

of the emperor (συγχωροῦντος Καίσαρος)? Even courts are secretly

held according to the law, and even on various occasions sentence of

death is pronounced. This I, who have long lived in the land of this

people, have myself experienced and ascertained.” The patriarch of

Judaea already makes his appearance in the letter forged in the name

of Hadrian in the biography of the tyrant Saturninus (c. 8), in the

ordinances first in the year 392 (_C. Th._ xvi. 8, 8). Patriarchs as

presidents of individual Jewish communities, for which the word from

its signification is better adapted, meet us already in the ordinances

of Constantine I. (_C. Th._ xvi. 8, 1, 2).

 

[195] The jurists of the third century lay down this rule, appealing to

an edict of Severus (_Dig._ xxvii. 1, 15, 6; l. 2, 3, 3). According to

the ordinance of the year 321 (_C. Th._ xvi. 8, 3) this appears even

as a right, not as a duty of the Jews, so that it depended on them to

undertake or decline the office.

 

[196] The analogous treatment of castration in the Hadrianic edict,

_Dig._ xlviii. 8, 4, 2, and of circumcision in Paulus, _Sent._ v. 22,

3, 4, and Modestinus, _Dig._ xlviii. 8, 11 pr., naturally suggests this

point of view. The statement that Severus _Judaeos fieri sub gravi

poena vetuit_ (_Vita_, 17), is doubtless nothing but the enforcement of

this prohibition.

 

[197] The remarkable account in Origen’s treatise _against Celsus_,

ii. 13 (written about 250), shows that the circumcision of the non-Jew

involved _de iure_ the penalty of death, although it is not clear how

far this found application to Samaritans or Sicarii.

 

[198] This exclusion of the joint rule of the senate as of the senators

is indicated by Tacitus (_Hist._ i. 11) with the words that Augustus

wished to have Egypt administered exclusively by his personal servants

(_domi retinere_; comp. _Staatsrecht_, ii. p. 963). In principle this

abnormal form of government was applicable for all the provinces not

administered by senators, the presidents of which were also at the

outset called chiefly _praefecti_ (_C. I. L._ v. p. 809, 902). But

at the first division of the provinces between emperor and senate

there was probably no other of these but just Egypt; and subsequently

the distinction here came into sharper prominence, in so far as all

the other provinces of this category obtained no legions. For in the

emergence of the equestrian commandants of the legion instead of the

senatorial, as was the rule in Egypt, the exclusion of the senatorial

government finds its most palpable __EXPRESSION__.

 

[199] This ordinance holds only for Egypt, not for the other

territories administered by non-senators. How essential it appeared to

the government, we see from the constitutional and religious apparatus

called into requisition to secure it (_Trig. tyr._ c. 22).

 

[200] The current assertion that _provincia_ is only by an abuse of

language put for the districts not administered by senators is not

well founded. Egypt was private property of the emperor just as much

or just as little as Gaul and Syria--yet Augustus himself says (_Mon.

Ancyr._ 5, 24) _Aegyptum imperio populi Romani adieci_, and assigns

to the governor, since he as _eques_ could not be _pro praetore_, by

special law the same jurisdiction in processes as the Roman praetors

had (Tacitus, _Ann._ xii. 60).

 

[201] As a matter of course what is here meant is the land of Egypt,

not the possessions subject to the Lagids. Cyrene was similarly

organised (p. 165). But the properly Egyptian government was never

applied to southern Syria and to the other territories which were for a

longer or a shorter time under the power of Egypt.

 

[202] To these falls to be added Naucratis, the oldest Greek town

already founded in Egypt before the Ptolemies, and further Paraetonium,

which indeed in some measure lies beyond the bounds of Egypt.

 

[203] There was not wanting of course a certain joint action, similar

to that which is exercised by the _regiones_ and the _vici_ of

self-administering urban communities; to this category belongs what

we meet with of agoranomy and gymnasiarchy in the nomes, as also the

erection of honorary memorials and the like, all of which, we may add,

make their appearance only to a small extent and for the most part but

late. According to the edict of Alexander (_C. I. Gr._ 4957, l. 34) the

_strategoi_ do not seem to have been, properly speaking, nominated by

the governor, but only to have been confirmed after an examination; we

do not know who had the proposing of them.

 

[204] The position of matters is clearly apparent in the inscription

set up at the beginning of the reign of Pius to the well-known orator

Aristides by the Egyptian Greeks (_C. I. Gr._ 4679); as dedicants are

named ἡ πόλις τῶν Ἀλεξανδρέων καὶ Ἑρμούπολις ἡ μεγάλη καὶ ἡ βουλὴ ἡ

Ἀντινοέων νέων Ἑλλήνων καὶ οἱ ἐν τῷ Δέλτᾳ τῆς Αἰγύπτου καὶ οἱ τὸν

Θηβαϊκὸν νομὸν οἰκοῦντες Ἕλληνες. Thus only Antinoopolis, the city of

the “new Hellenes,” has a Boule; Alexandria appears without this, but

as a Greek city in the aggregate. Moreover there take part in this

dedication the Greeks living in the Delta and those living in Thebes,

but of the Egyptian towns Great-Hermopolis alone, on which probably

the immediate vicinity of Antinoopolis has exercised an influence.

To Ptolemais Strabo (xvii. 1, 42, p. 813) attributes a σύστημα

πολιτικὸν ἐν τῷ Ἑλληνικῷ τρόπῳ; but in this we may hardly think of

more than what belonged to the capital according to its constitution

more exactly known to us--and so specially of the division of the

burgesses into _phylae_. That the pre-Ptolemaic Greek city Naucratis

retained in the Ptolemaic time the Boule, which it doubtless had, is

possible, but cannot be decisive for the Ptolemaic arrangements.--Dio’s

statement (ii. 17) that Augustus left the other Egyptian towns with

their existing organisation, but took the common council from the

Alexandrians on account of their untrustworthiness, rests doubtless on

misunderstanding, the more especially as, according to it, Alexandria

appears slighted in comparison with the other Egyptian communities,

which is not at all in keeping with probability.

 

[205] The Egyptian coining of gold naturally ceased with the annexation

of the land, for there was in the Roman empire only imperial gold.

With the silver also Augustus dealt in like manner, and as ruler of

Egypt caused simply copper to be struck, and even this only in moderate

quantities. At first Tiberius coined, after A.D. 27-28, silver money

for Egyptian circulation, apparently as token-money, as the pieces

correspond nearly in point of weight to four, in point of silver

value to one, of the Roman denarius (Feuardent, _Numismatique, Égypte

ancienne_, ii. p. xi.). But as in legal currency the Alexandrian

drachma was estimated as obolus (consequently as a sixth, not as a

fourth; comp. _Röm. Münzwesen_, p. 43, 723) of the Roman denarius

(_Hermes_, v. p. 136), and the provincial silver always lost as

compared with the imperial silver, the Alexandrian tetradrachmon of the

silver value of a denarius has rather been estimated at the current

value of two-thirds of a denarius. Accordingly down to Commodus, from

whose time the Alexandrian tetradrachmon is essentially a copper

coin, the same has been quite as much a coin of value as the Syrian

tetradrachmon and the Cappadocian drachma; they only left to the former the old name and the old weight.