CHAPTER XVI

JEWS IN ROME DURING THE EARLY EMPIRE

Footnote 252:

Myths are understood by modern anthropologists exclusively as a “folk-way,” with the effects of single creative imaginations almost wholly eliminated. However, the better-known Greek myths are not at all folk-devised. As far as the Romans are concerned, it has so far been impossible to pick out a definite story which does not appear to have been derived from an existing Greek myth by quite sophisticated methods.

Footnote 253:

The phrase referred to is _Ubi bene ibi patria_, although just this form of it may not be ancient. However, the idea, that a fatherland might brutally ill-use its citizens and still claim their loyalty, was something that the average Greek scarcely recognized even in theory. When Socrates propounds some such doctrine in Plato’s Crito, 51 B, he is consciously advocating a paradox. It was regarded as a noble ideal somewhat beyond the reach of ordinary men. Its disregard involved no moral turpitude.

In Cicero, Tusc. v. 37, 108, the phrase runs, _Patria est ubicunque est bene_. That is an evident adaptation of a Greek phrase, such as the one in Aristoph. Plut. 1151, πατρὶς γάρ ἐστι πᾶσ’ ἵν’ ἂν πράττη τις εὖ.

Footnote 254:

Livy, Epit. lvi. Eunous, the leader, called his followers _Syri_, and himself King Antiochus. Cf. Florus, ii. 7 (iii. 9), Diodorus fr. xxxiv. 2, 5. Atargatis was the _Dea Syria_ that played so important a rôle in the life of the empire.

Footnote 255:

The philosophic schools had the usual corporate names of θίασος, σύνοδος, and the like. Or like other corporations they have a cult name in the plural, οἱ Διογενισταί, οἱ Ἀντιπατρισταί, οἱ Παναιτιασταί (Athen. v. 186). For the International Athletic Union, ἡ περιπολιστικὴ ξυστικὴ σύνοδος, cf. Gk. Pap. in Brit. Mus. i. 214 seq.

Footnote 256:

Cf. ch. III., n. 9.

Footnote 257:

Cf. Menippus in Lucian’s Icaromenippus, 6 seq. Menippus does not spare his fellow Cynics (_ibid._ 16).

Footnote 258:

Macrobius, Sat. II. i. 13. The jest has unfortunately not come down to us.

Footnote 259:

The book we know as the “Wisdom of Solomon” is unquestionably the finest in style and the profoundest in treatment of the Apocrypha. Such passages as i.; ii. 1 seq.; ii. 6; iii. 1 seq. can hardly have appealed to any but highly cultured men.

Footnote 260:

Until the time of Claudius, we are told by John Lydus, no Roman citizen might actively participate in the rites of Cybele. Cf. Dendrophori, Pauly-Wissowa, p. 216. Claudius removed the restriction, perhaps to make Cybele a counterfoil to Isis.

Footnote 261:

The story in Livy, XXXIX., viii. seq. is a case in point. The abominable excesses which, as Hispala testifies, took place among the Bacchae (_ibid._ 13) are almost certainly gross exaggerations.

This hostility to new-comers was not a sudden departure from previous usage. Sporadic instances are mentioned in Livy’s narrative. As early as 429 B.C.E., he tells us, _Datum negotium aedilibus ne qui nisi Romani dii neu quo alio more quam patrio colerentur_ (Livy, IV. xxx. 11). The notice is of value as an indication that the general Roman feeling was not always so cordially receptive as is often assumed.

Footnote 262:

Valerius Max. I. iii. 3.

Footnote 263:

Cf. Cic. ad Att. iii. 15, 4; Asconius ad Pison. 8.

Footnote 264:

Suetonius, Div. Iul. 42. Josephus, Ant. XIV. x. 8. Suetonius (_ibid._ 84) states that many _exterae gentes_ enjoyed his favor. The Jews may have been only one group among many. However, the statement is indirectly made by Suetonius and directly by Josephus, that they received his special protection to a striking extent. We have only the political support given the triumvirs and Caesar personally to fall back upon for a motive.

Footnote 265:

I undertake with some diffidence to revive a conjecture made before without much success, that the 30th Sabbath was the Day of Atonement. One remarkable misunderstanding of the Sabbath institution was that it was a fast-day. When we consider the number and activity of the Roman Jews, it seems scarcely credible that so many otherwise well-informed persons supposed that the Jews fasted once a week. Augustus in his letter to Tiberius seems to do so (Suet. Aug. 76). Pomp. Trogus (Justinus), xxxvi. 2, explicitly states it. Cf. also Petronius (Bücheler, Anth. Lat. Frg. 37) and Martial, iv. 4. But at least one man, Plutarch, not only knew that it was not so, but was aware that, if anything, the Sabbath was a joyous feast-day (Moralia ii., Quaest. Con. v. 2). To this testimony must be added that of Persius, Sat. v. 182 seq. It is in the highest degree surprising that Reinach (p. 265, n. 3) could have accepted the theory that the _pallor_ alluded to is the faintness brought on by fasting. The tunny fish on the plate should have convinced him of his error. It may be remembered that fish in all its forms was one of the chief delicacies of the Romans. Tunny, however, was a very common fish, and one of the principal food staples of the proletariat.

Persius writes from personal experience. Of the other writers it is only Pompeius Trogus who makes the unqualified statement that the Sabbath as such was a fast-day. When Strabo writes that Pompey is said to have taken Jerusalem τὴν τῆς νηστείας ἡμέραν τηρήσας (xvi. 40), he is assumed to have been guilty of the same confusion. But it is not easy to see why he should have hesitated to say the Sabbath if he meant the Sabbath. Nor is it so certain that Josephus is mechanically copying Strabo (Reinach, p. 104. n. 1) when he says (Ant. XIV. iv. 3) that Jerusalem was taken περὶ τρίτον μηνα τῇ τῆς νηστείας ἡμέρᾳ. The details of Josephus are vastly fuller than those of Strabo, and he is not guilty of the latter’s error regarding Jewish observance of the Sabbath in times of war (Ant. XIV. iv. 2). Besides, the siege lasted several weeks—more than two months—so that Pompey’s maneuver, if it depended wholly upon the Sabbath, might have been performed at once.

Hilgenfeld’s supposition (Monatsschrift, 1885, pp. 109-115) that the day was the Atonement, is better founded than Reinach would have us think. In the mouth of Josephus, ἡ τῆς νηστείας ἡμέρα can scarcely have any other sense. And if Josephus believed that Jerusalem fell on the Kippur, he believed so from more intimate tradition than the writings of Strabo.

Now, ἡ τῆς νηστείας ἡμέρα, the great fast of the Jews, must have been as marked a feature in their life two thousand years ago as to-day. While all the other feasts have individual names, it does not appear that this one did. יום הכפורים (Lev.