CHAPTER XX

THE FINAL REVOLTS OF THE JEWS

In the generations that followed the fall of the temple, changes of great moment took place, which we can only partially follow from the sources at our disposal.

The Mishnah gives in considerable detail the laws that governed the life of the Jew at this period, and also those that regulated the intercourse of Jew and non-Jew. But the Mishnah may after all have been the expression of an ideal as often as it was the record of real occurrences, and the range of its influence during the time of its compilation may have been more limited than its necessarily general phraseology indicates. The Mishnah of Rabbi Judah became the standard text-book in the Jewish academies of Palestine and Babylonia, although not to the total exclusion of other sources of Halakah. That did not occur at once; and even when it was complete, the authority of the presidents of the schools over the Jews resident throughout the world is more or less problematic.

For that reason it is especially necessary to note the invaluable records of actual life that appear in the papyri and inscriptions, especially where they show that the intercourse between Jews and pagans was far from being as precisely limited as the Mishnah would compel us to suppose, and men who are at no pains to conceal their Jewish origin permitted themselves certain indulgences that would certainly not have met with the approval of the doctors at Jamnia and Tiberias.

The tractate of the Mishnah which is called Aboda Zara, “Idolatry” or “Foreign Worship,” lays down the rules under which Jew and heathen may transact such business as common citizenship or residence made inevitable. The essential point throughout is that the Jew must not either directly or indirectly take part, or seem to take part, in the worship accorded the Abomination. Nor are the seemingly trivial regulations despicable for their anxious minuteness. In all probability they are decisions of actual cases, and derive their precision from that fact.[354]

Certain passages in Aboda Zara (ii. 1) would unquestionably have made intercourse between Jew and pagan practically impossible except in public or semi-public places. But in the very same treatise it is implied that a pagan might be a guest at the Jew’s table (v. 5); and indeed much of the detail of the entire tractate would be unnecessary if the provision contained in ii. 1 were literally followed out.

The Epigrams of Martial (above, p. 326), if we believe them, indicate that so far from fleeing the society of pagans for its sexual vices, some Jews at least sought it for the sake of these vices, as was the case with the rival of the Syrian Greek Meleager, more than two centuries before Martial. But it will be noticed that the subject of the last Epigram (xi. 94) is a renegade, who swears strange oaths, and is taunted by Martial with what he is obviously trying to conceal. Besides, as to the particular vice there mentioned, it rests on the malice of the satirist alone. The victim of his wit denies his guilt.

Indeed it is just this particular vice, so widely prevalent in the Greek and Roman world, that the Jewish antagonists of the pagans seized upon at all times. It unquestionably characterized continental Greece and Italy much more than the eastern portions of the empire. For the Jews it seemed to justify the application of the words “Sodom and Gomorrah,” particularly to the general city life of the Greeks. Some Jew or Christian scratched those names on a house wall of Pompeii.[355]

It is quite untrue to say that unnatural sexual excesses were so prevalent as to pass without comment among Greeks and Romans generally. However large they loom in the writings of extant poets, we may remember that poets are emotionally privileged people. The sober Roman and Greek did not find any legal or moral offense in illicit love, but unnatural lust was generally offensive from both points of view, and, however widely practised, it was at no time countenanced. Still, Jews and Christians would be justified in comparing their own unmistakable and specific condemnations in this matter with the mere disapproval with which decent heathens regarded it. For the Greek legend that made the fate of Laius, father of Oedipus,[356] a punishment of his crime in first bringing pederasty into the world, the Jews had the much more drastic punishment of Sodom; and, in many passages of the Apocrypha, the fact of this vice’s prevalence is dwelt upon as a characteristic difference between Jewish and gentile life.[357]

In many other matters there are evidences that not all the regulations of Aboda Zara were carried out by all Jews. In the Tosefta[358] we meet the express prohibition of theatrical representations to the Jews, a prohibition which, in view of the fact that dramatic performances were at all times theoretically and actually festivals in honor of Dionysus, seems perfectly natural. But in spite of that, in the great theater at Miletus, some extremely desirable seats in the very front rows are inscribed τόπος τῶν Εἰουδαίων φιλοσεβάστων, “Reserved for His Imperial Majesty’s most loyal Jews.”[359] It will therefore not be safe to assume that the Halakic provision which forbade Jews to attend the theater actually meant that Jews as a class did not do so.

But we find even stronger evidences of the fact that the amenities of social life in Greek cities seemed to some Jews to override the decisions of the law schools in Palestine. In Asia Minor a Jew leaves money not merely for the usual purposes of maintaining his monument, but also for the astounding purpose of actually assisting a heathen ceremonial.[360] The instance is a late one, but perhaps more valuable for that reason, because the spread of the schools’ influence increased constantly during the third century.

At the fall of the temple the voluntary tax of the shekel or didrachm, which had formerly been paid to the temple at Jerusalem, and which was a vital factor in the very first instances of conflict between the Jews and the Roman authorities (comp. above, p. 226), was converted into an official tax for the support of the central sanctuary of the Roman state on the Capitoline Hill. Whether Roman citizens who were Jews paid it, does not appear. All others however did. The bureau that enforced it was known as the _fiscus Iudaicus_, the word _fiscus_ indicating here, as always, that the sums so collected were considered as belonging to the treasury of the reigning prince during the time of his reign, rather than to the public treasury.

It does not seem that this tax, except for its destination, was believed by the Jews to be an act of notable oppression, nor was its enforcement more inquisitorial than that of other taxes; but it became an especial weapon of blackmail in Rome and in all Italy, and this blackmail grew into dimensions so formidable that action had to be taken to suppress it.

In Rome, we may remember, there was no officer at all resembling our public prosecutor or district-attorney. The prosecution of criminals was an individual task, whether of the person aggrieved or of a citizen acting from patriotic motives. Indeed it had at one time been considered a duty of the highest insistence, and innumerable Romans had won their first distinction in this way. The delators of the early empire were in theory no different, though the reward of their activity was not the glory or popularity achieved, but the substantial one of a lump sum, or a share in the fine imposed, a practice still in vogue in our own jurisdictions. Plainly, under such circumstances, there were temptations to a form of blackmail which the Greeks knew as συκοφαντία, and the Romans as _calumnia_; _i.e._ the bringing of suits known to be unjustified, or with reckless disregard of their justification, for the purpose of sharing in some reward for doing this quasi-public service. Private prosecutors at Roman law were required to swear that they were not proceeding _calumniae causa_, “with blackmailing intent.”[361]

The opportunities presented to delators by the _fiscus Iudaicus_ consisted in the fact that anyone of Jewish origin, with the possible exception noted above, was liable to the tax, and that there must have been many who attempted to conceal their Jewish origin in order to evade it. In view of the wide extent of the spread of the Jewish propaganda, the delation was plausible from the beginning. Suetonius tells us at first-hand recollection of a case in which the charge of evading the tax was made and successfully established.[362] In a very large number of cases, however, the charge was not established, but in these cases it was often apparently the policy of prudence to buy off the accuser rather than risk the uncertainties of a judicial decision. It is upon people who act in just such a way that blackmailers, συκοφαντία, _calumniatores_, grew fat. And the charge of evading the Jewish tax was easily made, and disproved with difficulty, since all who followed Jewish customs were amenable to it, and many Jewish customs so closely resembled the practices of certain philosophic sects that confusion on the subject was perfectly natural. We have seen this in the case of Seneca some years before this (comp. above, p. 310).

The emperor Nerva, in 96-98 C.E., removed the occasion of this abuse. Coins are extant with the legend _Fisci Iudaici calumnia sublata_, “To commemorate the suppression of blackmail arising from the Jewish tax.” The _fiscus Iudaicus_ itself continued into much later times, but blackmail by means of it was ended. How this was done we are not told. But an obvious and natural method would be to abolish the money reward which the delator or prosecuting witness received for every conviction. Plainly there would be no blackmail if there was no incentive thereto.

But this reform of Nerva affected rather those who were not Jews than those who were, since in the case of actual Jews, whether by birth or conversion, the tax was enforceable and the accusation of evading it was not _calumnia_, but patriotic zeal. It is likely enough that the measure of Nerva discouraged prosecution, even where it was justified, but the losses which the imperial fiscus sustained by reason of the successful evasion of the tax on the part of some individuals cannot have been great, since the Jews not only publicly professed their faith, but openly and actively spread it.

In the epitome of the sixty-eighth book of Cassius Dio (i. 2), we read that this measure of Nerva was one of general amnesty for the specific crime of “impiety,” or ἀσέβεια: “Nerva ordered the acquittal of those on trial for impiety, and recalled those exiled for that crime.... He permitted no one to bring charges of impiety or of Jewish method of living.”

Unfortunately this passage is extant only in the epitome made of this book by Xiphilinus, a Byzantine monk of the eleventh century. We have no means of knowing to what extent the epitomator is stating the impression he received from his reading, largely colored by his time and personality, and to what extent he is stating the actual substance of the book. If there really was in Rome an indictable offense which consisted in adopting Jewish customs as distinguished from the general charge of impiety, such an offense does not appear elsewhere in our records. We must remember that there is no indication that the men freed by Nerva had been suffering under the despotic caprice of Domitian, but on the contrary there is the specific statement that they were being duly prosecuted under recognized forms.

It is highly likely that the two accusations which Xiphilinus gives are really one: that Nerva discouraged prosecutions for impiety, and that among the instances of men acquitted, which Dio gave, were some who were converts to Judaism, or believed to be so. In one instance, a constantly cited one, that is precisely what is the case, and that is the condemnation, in the last year of Domitian’s reign, of Flavius Clemens and Flavia Domitilla, both of them kinsmen of the emperor.[363]

In the case of these, we hear that Clemens was executed for “atheism,” and that under this charge many others who had lapsed into the customs of the Jews were condemned, some of them to death, others to loss of their property, Domitilla to exile.

In Suetonius we have a wholly different version (Dom. 15). Flavius Clemens, we read, was a man _contemptissimae inertiae_, “of thoroughly contemptible weakness of character,” but enjoying till the very last year of Domitian’s life the latter’s especial favor. Clemens’ two children were even designated for the succession. The emperor was, during this year, a prey to insane suspicions, which amounted to a real _mania persecutoria_, and on a sudden fit had Clemens executed. The context and general tone of the passage suggest that the charge, real or trumped up, against Clemens was one of treason, not impiety.

Clemens’ relationship, his undoubted connection with the palace conspiracy that ultimately resulted in the assassination of Domitian, make this account the more likely one, but the “many” mentioned in the epitome of Xiphilinus require us to assume that at least some of the men actually prosecuted for “impiety,” or atheism, were so charged upon the evidence of Jewish practices.

It has been stated, and it must be constantly reiterated, that impiety was a negative offense, that it implied deliberate refusal to perform a religious act of legal obligation, rather than the actual doing of some other religious act. If “impiety” were really the offense here, the “many” that were charged with it under Domitian and Nerva must have been so charged because they neglected certain ceremonies which the laws made obligatory. In Greek communities ἀσέβεια was a relatively common offense, and indictment for it of frequent occurrence. But it is doubtful whether there was such an indictment at Roman law. There is no Latin term for ἀσέβεια. The word _impietas_ is generally used in a different sense. The Greek Dio or his late Byzantine epitomator has evidently used that term here to describe in his own words what seemed to him to be the substance of the accusation rather than to give a technically exact account of the charge against these men.

In later law writers certain offenses are discussed under which forms of impiety or ἀσέβεια might be included. But these offenses are treated either as sedition or as violations of the Sullan Lex Cornelia de Sicariis et Veneficis, “Statute of Assassins and Poisoners.” The latter law seems to have been a general statute containing a varied assortment of provisions, but all of them relating to acts that tended to the bodily injury of anyone, whatever the motive or pretext of that injury.[364]

The “many,” then, who, as Xiphilinus says, were prosecuted for “impiety,” because they lapsed into Jewish rites, may have been indicted under the Lex Cornelia—no doubt as a pretext—or charged with treason upon proof of Jewish proclivities. The Palestinian Jews, we may remember, were until recently in arms against Rome. In all these cases, the indictments were probably far-fetched pretexts devised by the morose and suspicious Domitian during his last year of veritable terror in order to get rid of men whom he suspected (often justly) of plotting his assassination. These are the men whom Nerva’s act of amnesty freed.

The famous jurist Paul, who wrote in the first part of the third century, discusses the restrictions imposed upon the spread of Jewish rites, under the heading of “sedition” or “treason.” The justification for that treatment lies in the series of insurrections of the Eastern Jews of which the rebellion of 68 C.E. was merely the beginning. Our sources for the events of these rebellions are remote and uncertain, and the transmission is more than usually troubled; but a chance fragment, as well as the kernel of the lurid account presented by Xiphilinus’ epitome of Dio, leaves no doubt that the struggle was carried on with memorable ferocity, and left a lasting impression on the people whom it concerned.

If Dio is to be believed, the outbreak that took place in the reign of Trajan (115 C.E.) in Cyprus, Cyrene, and Egypt (Ep. lxviii. 32) was marked by scenes of indescribable horror. In Cyrene, Dio states, the Jews devoured the flesh of their victims, clothed themselves in their skins, threw them to wild beasts, or compelled them to engage in gladiatorial combats. In Cyrene, two hundred and twenty thousand men perished; in Cyprus, two hundred and forty thousand. One may say with Reinach, _Les chiffres et les détails de Dion inspirent la méfiance_.[365]

It will not be possible to assign the responsibility for these statements to the epitomator Xiphilinus. Unless they were found in Dio, he could not have ventured to place them here, since the epitome and the text were extant together for a long time.

In the Church History of Eusebius (IV. ii.) the revolt is described somewhat differently. Eusebius mentions the Cyprian revolt in his Chronicon (ii. 164). Here however he speaks only of the insurrection in Cyrene and Egypt. The name of the leader is given as Lucua, not Andreas, as Dio has it, and the whole event is described as an ordinary revolt, a στάσις, reviving the revolt of 68 C.E. At first the Jews were generally successful, driving their opponents to take refuge in the city of Alexandria, while they harried the land. At last the Roman prefect, Q. Marcius Turbo, crushed them completely.

As far as Egypt is concerned, many papyri mention the revolt. Appian Arab. Liber (Fg. hist. gr. v. p. 65) gives us a first-hand view of the situation.

Both the papyri and Appian are in complete accordance with Eusebius’ account, and emphasize the extent of the Jewish insurrection and the impression it produced upon others.

In Jewish writings the references to what must have been a matter of prime importance to all Jews are vague and confused. The punishment of the Mesopotamian Jews by Lusius Quietus[366] is mentioned, but beyond that we have only much later statements, in which a deal of legend-making has been imbedded. The “day of Trajan,” which appears as a festival day, is connected by a persistent tradition with the permission to rebuild the temple, alleged to have been given by that emperor. The Roman and Greek writers know nothing of this, and in Jewish tradition likewise the permission is represented as abortive, and the “day of Trajan” ceased, according to another story, to be observed when the martyrs Papius and Lollianus were executed.[367]

However, it must be noted that for Palestine in particular details are lacking. Indeed we might well believe that Palestine itself took no part in it whatever. The expedition of Quietus to Mesopotamia may have been an ordinary military expedition against the Parthians’ territory, with whom the Romans had been then at war. There is evidence that the Jews of Parthia were almost autonomous, and a foray into the section which they happened to control would not be considered as anything more than an attack on other Parthian dominions. The Mesopotamian provinces of Parthia were then under the theoretical rule of Rome, but the precarious character of the conquest was apparent to everyone, so that the first act of the conqueror’s successor, Hadrian, was to abandon both Mesopotamia and Armenia. The revolt of the Mesopotamian Jews was, in consequence, a somewhat different thing from that of the Jews in Cyprus or Cyrene.

Perhaps the difficulties in Cyprus, Cyrene, and Egypt are to be considered nothing more than magnified race riots, which, however, assumed the dimensions of a real war, and demanded systematic military operations to suppress them. But the friction between the Jews and Greeks of Salamis or Alexandria could scarcely have resulted in such serious outbreaks, if the conditions that led to the revolt of 68 C.E. were not still operative. The fall of the temple did not paralyze the Jewish propaganda. We find it as vigorous afterward as before. The Messianic hopes, which were one form of the prevailing spiritual unrest, had not died out in the East among Jews or non-Jews.[368] The calamity of the empire, which the death of Nero seemed to bring with it, did not after all take place.

Our sources represent the era begun by Vespasian, except for a few years of Domitian’s reign, as one of general and increasing felicity. These sources, however, are in the highest degree suspect, and while the period between Vespasian and Marcus Aurelius represents an undoubted rise in administrative and legal development, they represent a deterioration in the economic condition due to the gathering pressure of the huge state machinery itself. The increase of the more degraded forms of superstition marks the spiritual destitution of the time.

The Jewish communities in Cyprus, Egypt, and Cyrene consisted largely of craftsmen and small merchants. Perhaps among them were a number of former Palestinian rebels, sold as slaves in the neighboring markets, and since ransomed. The conditions, the active Messianic hope, the presence of former soldiers, were themselves provocative of riot, and the outbreaks in the places indicated are scarcely surprising. We hear only of those that became formidable insurrections. It is possible that slighter ones have failed wholly to be recorded.

But during the reign of Hadrian there broke out an unmistakable insurrection in Palestine, which more clearly than its predecessors showed the motive force of these movements. In 131 C.E. a certain Simeon bar Kosiba led his people again to war on the all-overwhelming power of the empire. The occasion for the revolt is variously given, but that it was in the eyes of those that fought in it vastly more than an attempt to shake off a foreign yoke is shown by the Messiahship to which Simeon openly laid claim, and for which he had the invaluable support of the head of the Palestinian schools, the eloquent and passionate Akiba.[369]

Dio[370] states that the immediate instigation of the revolt was the building on the ruins of Jerusalem the new city and temple that were to be the official home of the colony of Aelia Capitolina, a community founded by Hadrian and composed perhaps of native Syrians, since it did not possess the _ius Italicum_, the full rights of citizenship.[371] This statement is much more probable than that of Eusebius, which reverses the order of events, and makes the founding of the Colonia Aelia Capitolina a consequence and not the cause of the revolt.[372]

The rebellion of 68 had enormously depopulated Judea. Those that were left had neither the power nor the inclination to try conclusions with the legionaries again, and, as we have seen, remained passive when closely related communities rose in arms. But the hopes they nourished, no doubt systematically fostered by the powerful communities in Mesopotamia and the Parthian lords of the latter, were none the less real for their suppression. The erection of Aelia was the signal. Just as the desecration of the temple by Epiphanes was the last measure of oppression, which brought upon the king the vengeance of Heaven, so this second desecration, the dedication of the holy hill to one of the _elillim_, one of the Abominations of the heathen, roused the frenzy of the people that witnessed it to such a pitch that the chances of success could no longer be considered. At the same time, assurances of ultimate help from Parthia were perhaps not lacking. Among those who streamed to aid the rebellious Jews were doubtless many of Rome’s hereditary enemies, since of other rebellions within the empire at that time we have no evidence.

The Jewish tradition speaks of a systematic and cruel persecution instituted by Hadrian. The details mentioned are very much like the remembered incidents of the persecution by Epiphanes. We must keep in mind that every one of the statements connected with this persecution is late, and is in so far of dubious historical value.[373] As a matter of fact the character of Hadrian makes the reality of the persecution in the highest degree improbable. No doubt the revolt was punished with ruthless severity, and for the permanent prohibition against the entrance of a Jew into Aelia Capitolina there is excellent evidence;[374] but to attempt to root out Judaism as Antiochus had done is something that simply cannot be credited to Hadrian, if only for the fact that the overwhelming majority of Jews did not dwell in Palestine at all, and all the alleged persecutions of Hadrian are localized only in Palestine. In Hadrian’s letter of 134 C.E., to his brother-in-law Servianus, the Jews of Egypt are referred to in a manner quite irreconcilable with the theory that Judaism was then a proscribed religion.[375]

In this connection we may mention a decree which, according to Jewish tradition, constituted one of the most deeply resented of Hadrian’s persecutions—the prohibition of circumcision. Here again the late biographer of Hadrian, Spartianus, makes this edict precede and not follow the war; but the reliability of the _Historia Augusta_, of which Spartianus’ biography is part, is not very high. We have the _Historia Augusta_, if it is not wholly a fabrication of the fourth century, only in a recension of that time, so that its testimony on such a detail is practically valueless.[376]

As a matter of fact, all bodily mutilation had been under the ban of the Roman law, but that prohibition applied only to Roman citizens. In practice circumcision had been openly carried on both by Jews who were Roman citizens and by their converts, in disregard of this provision, probably under the tacit assumption that the privileges of the Jewish corporations covered this as well. Primarily the prohibition was directed against castration, but it was quite general. The only formulation which the edict against these practices had received was in the Sullan Lex Cornelia de Sicariis et Veneficis (above, p. 241). This was a _lex per saturam_, or miscellaneous statute. Under one of its captions, any act, perhaps any act performed with a weapon or instrument of any kind, that resulted in bodily injury, was prohibited. A senatorial decree of the year 83 C.E. specified castration as one of the mutilations referred to; similarly abortion was punished as a violation of the Lex Cornelia.[377]

Hadrian’s rescripts seem to have dealt on several occasions with this law. His obvious intention to extend the statute may have caused him to use terms of general effect. Perhaps an isolated case of the practice of circumcision among people outside of those to whom it was an ancient custom may have been followed by indictment and punishment. If Hadrian really had attempted to carry out this prohibition generally, he would have provoked a rebellion in Egypt as well as in Judea, since in Egypt the priests practised it likewise.[378] The rescript of Antoninus, a few years later, which expressly exempted Jews from the broad condemnation of the practice, simply restated established law.[379] Indeed it may well be that the occasion of Pius’ rescript was rather one that restricted the Jews than one that enlarged their privileges. Even in the case of the severest form of mutilation, it is forbidden if it is done _promercii aut libidinis causa_. A similar insistence on criminal intent must have been present in the case of the lesser mutilation involved in the Jewish rite. There could of course never have been any question that circumcision was not performed _promercii aut libidinis causa_, and therefore there seems to be little reason for the rescript of Pius, unless we assume it to have been a direct attempt to check the spread of Judaism by making the performance of the rite in the case of non-Jews criminal _per se_, without proof of wrongful intent.

Paul, writing about seventy-five years later, states the limitation on the performance of the rite even more broadly, by including within it slaves of non-Jewish origin.[380] In all circumstances there does not seem to have been any real effort to enforce it. The Jewish propaganda went on in spite of it, not surreptitiously, as in the case of the still-proscribed Christians, but quite frankly. The statement of Paul is the stranger because of the open favor shown by Paul’s master, the Syrian Severus Alexander, toward all foreign cults, including that of the Jews. The Sentences of Paul may have been written before the decree of the emperor which his biographer mentions, by which, he says, Severus strengthened the privileged position of the Jews, _Iudaeis privilegia reservavit_.[381] When one contrasts this with the immediately following statement, _Christianos esse passus est_, “He allowed the Christians to profess their faith,” it is plain that in the case of the Jews there is no question of mere toleration, but of the recognition of an established position, and that is not quite in accord with the statement in Paul’s Sentences, according to which the spread of Judaism was rigorously checked, even to the extent of modifying one of the fundamental concepts of the law—the unlimited character of the master’s dominion over his slaves.

As has been said, the authenticity of the _Historia Augusta_ is dubious, but the number of details offered to show the interest of both Alexander and his predecessor Elagabalus in Judaism and Christianity is too great to be ignored. The Sentences of Paul, it must be noted, have come down to us only in the abridged and perhaps interpolated form in which they are found in the Lex Romana Wisigothorum, a code issued by Alaric II in 506, and called therefore the Breviarium Alaricianum. At that time, however, proselytizing on the part of the Jews had been expressly prohibited by a rescript of Theodosius (Cod. Theod. 16, 8, 9, 19) of 415. Even then it was completely ineffective, but at any rate the rite of circumcision was definitely under a legal ban.[382]

Whether or not a qualified restriction on the spread of Judaism has been changed in our texts of the Sentences into a general and all-embracing one, it is impossible to say, but that some such change has taken place may be called even likely, by reason of the point just raised; viz., that it is wholly contrary to the spirit and principles of the Roman law to impose any restrictions whatever on the master’s authority.

We have examined the decrees that regulated the rite of circumcision, merely because general inferences have been drawn from it—inferences that are in no sense justified. The Roman law regarded bodily mutilation, when practised as part of a religious rite, and especially for sordid purposes, as against public policy. It was a _privilegium_ of the Jews, that to the members of their organizations the general rule of the law did not apply, and the various statements quoted from the jurists were simply judicial decisions limiting, by a well-known principle of interpretation, the exercise of the privilege to the narrowest possible bounds.

The rebellion of Bar-Kosiba was probably the last time that the Jews confronted the Roman troops on issues that were even partly national. We hear that between 150 and 161, under Antoninus Pius, another rebellion broke out, but we have no other record of it than the notices in the _Historia Augusta_,[383] upon which little reliance can be placed. After the death of Commodus and Pertinax,[384] the eastern empire, including Palestine, sided with the local claimant Pescennius Niger, and Palestine became the scene of battles sufficiently important to justify the decreeing of a “Jewish triumph” to Caracalla. It is likely that these various “rebellions” were the more or less serious insurrections of bandits, who terrorized the countryside until suppressed by the authorities. This view derives some support from the fact that of one of these bandits who submitted to Severus we know the name, Claudius (Dio Cass. Ep. lxxv. 2). There is even no certainty as to whether those who took part in them were wholly or mainly Jews. At any rate, there were no national ends which they attempted to serve.

A fact, which may be accidental, and is certainly noteworthy, is that, of all the struggles of the Jews with their surroundings, after 68, none are localized in Asia Minor.

It was, however, in Asia Minor that the Jews were especially numerous and influential. To a certain extent their propaganda had become most firmly established there, and their position was so intrenched that even the hostile legislation of the later Byzantine emperors found them in successful resistance. We find evidences of certain laxity in the practice of Jewish rites, but neither in 68 nor under Trajan or Hadrian did the Asiatic Jews take part in the movements that convulsed that section of the Jews of the empire. And yet it was in the cities of Asia that the Jews in earlier days did meet hostility and direct attacks, and needed the assistance of the Roman central government, to be maintained in the position which they claimed for themselves.[385] However, in that most ancient and fertile nursery of beliefs and mysteries, the Jewish mystery evidently found a grateful soil and, as we have seen, sent its roots deep.[386]