Status of Jews in Ptolemaic and Roman E.

The Status of the Jews in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt: New Light from the Papyri Author(s): Angelo Segré Source: Jewish Social Studies, Vol. 6, No. 4 (Oct., 1944), pp. 375-400 Published by: Indiana University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4464616 Accessed: 17/09/2010 16:52 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=iupress. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Indiana University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Jewish Social Studies.

http://www.jstor.org

THE STATUS OF THE JEWS IN PTOLEMAIC ROMAN

AND

EGYPT

New Light from the Papyri*

By ANGELO SEGRE

Until comparatively recent times our knowledge of Jewish life in Egypt under the Ptolemaic and Roman dispensations was derived almost exclusively from literary sources-the Books of Maccabees, Philo, Josephus and the like. During the past twenty-five years, however, the spade of the excavator has brought to light a considerable quantity of contemporary papyri from which it is possible to recover a great deal of information concerning the legal and civic status of Jews during these obscure periods and also, in some measure, to reconstruct a picture both of the political stressesto which they were subjected and of the political aspirations which they evinced. The material has to be pieced together from scattered fragments and tattered shreds, from a hint here and an allusion there. In the process, many of our cherished preconceptions may fall into the discard; a single * The principal abbreviations employed in the notes are as follows: BGU-Aegyptische Urkunden aus den koniglichen Museen zu Berlin (Berlin 1898 Sf.); Juster-Juster, Jean, Les juifs dans l'empire romain. Leur condition juridique, economique et sociale (Paris 1914); Schuerer-Schuerer, Emil, Geschichte des jiidischen Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu Christi, 4th ed. (Berlin 1901-11); Wilcken, Grundziige (or Chrestomathie) -Mitteis, L., and Wilcken, U., eds., Grundziige und Chrestomathie der Papyruskunde (Leipzig-Berlin 1912). Papyri are cited in the familiar forms, listed in the last-named work, vol. i, pt. i, p. xxv-xxviii. [The reader is asked to bear in mind that technical terms, such as politeuma, prostagma, chrematistai, etc., are not always susceptible of exact translation. The renderings here given must therefore be regarded, in many cases, as mere approximations for the benefit of the uninitiated. The original term has invariably been added.-EDS.]

375

376

JEWISH

SOCIAL STUDIES

oblique reference may suddenly light up an entire institution or enable us to trace more clearly the patterns of political conditions hitherto obscure. The object of the following pages is to present a digest of this new material, dovetailing it with that which is already known and pointing out the necessary modifications and corrections of time-honored views. The task, to be sure, is laborious and tedious, but by no means unrewarding. We obtain new and valuable information on the legal status of the Jews, the civic constitution and fiscal organization of their coimmunity, their cultural patterns and political ideologies, and on the attitude of their neighbors towards them at one of the most important epochs of their history. And through it all we begin to see, if only through a glass darkly, what is in fact a prototype of the latter-day Jewish struggle for emancipation and equality.

Civic Status Under the Ptolemies, the military colonists of Egypt were usually considered to be nominally Greeks, although, in point of fact, they belonged to a wide variety of ethnic groups.' The Jews possessed, in addition, their own distinctive communal organization (politeuma) ,2 but the religious basis upon which it rested prevented any real assimilation or 1The ethnic group (ethnikon) did not necessarily coincide with the officially recognized community (politeuma). See Bikerman, E., in Archiv fair Papyrusforschung, vol. ix (1930), 23 et seq.; vol. xii (1936), 216 et seq.; Heichelheim, F. M., Auswdrtige Bevolkerung (Leipzig 1925) p. 5 et seq. 2 Cf. Ruppel, W., "Politeuma," in Philologus, vol. lxxxi (1926), 130 et seq.; Robert L., in Bulletin Corr. Hell., vol. lix (1935), 428; Bikermann, E., Der Gott der Makkabder (Berlin 1937), p. 61 et seq.; id., Institutions des Seleucides (Paris 1938), p. 88 et seq.; Rostovtzeff, M. I., Social and Economic History of the Hellenistic World (Oxford 1941), p. 1401; Otto W., and Bengston, H., "Zur geschichte des Niederganges des Ptolemaerreiches" in Abhandlungen d. Wiss., Phil.-hist. Abt. N. F. Heft xvii (Munich 1938), p. 68; Pringsheim, F., in Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, vol. xxvi (1941), 147. On the Jewish politeumata, see especially Schuerer, vol. iii, p. 42. The inscription CIG, No. 5361, dating from 20 or 18 B.C.E., mentions the politeuma of the Jews in Berenice, but since its members are expressly distinguished from the ordinary citizens (politai), it would appear that they did not enjoy citizenship in that settlement; cf. Premerstein, A. von, in Sav. Zeitschrift, vol. xlviii (1938), 468 et seq.

JEWS IN PTOLEMAIC AND ROMAN EGYPT

377

cultural syncretism with their non-Jewish neighbors. Contrary to general belief, even in the metropolitan city of Alexandria the hellenization of the Jews was but skin-deep, little more than a veneer, and to all intents and purposes they remained a people apart.3 In the earlier period, the civic status of the Jews seems to have been approximately the same as that of the other military colonists. The celebrated Letter of Aristeas,4for instance, quotes a communication allegedly addressed by Ptolemy I Soter (305-285 B.C.E.) to the high Priest Eleazar, in which that monarch boasts that his father employed Jewish captives in his army, "paid them higher wages than usual" and, when the loyalty of their leaders had been proved, put them in charge of garrisons. He himself, he adds, adopted a similar attitude of benevolence, ransoming at his own expense more than 100,000 captive Jews and paying them indemnities for loss and damage suffered through mob violence. Under this monarch's successor, Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285-247 B.C.E.) the position of the Jews was even better. By this time, their loyalty had been proved and the last traces of suspicion had vanished. Nor, according to the evidence of the papyri, does there seem to have been any change in the legal status of the Jews even under Ptolemy IV Philopator (221-04 B.C.E.). True, that monarch attempted to degrade them, but the incident appears to have been without permanent significance. The details are recorded in the apocryphal Third Book of Maccabees.5 In order to inflict a public stigma on the Jewish nation, we read,6 Ptolemy posted a notice barring from their own temples all who did not sacrifice to his gods, and ordering all Jews to be registered among the laographoumenoi and reduced to a state of servitude. Only those who were willing to be initiated into the mysteries of Dionysus were to be 3 On the basis of an inscription of 1 B.C.E. or C.E., published by M. Norsa in Bulletin de la Societe' Royale d'Alexandrie, vol. xxvi (1931), 243 et seq. Momigliano shows, in Aegyptus, vol. xii (1932), 171 et seq., that the Jews of Leontopolis wvere indeed schismatic and wholly hellenized. This, however, was an exception. Ay and large, they spoke Greek, but their assimilation was purely superficial. 4 ?35.

5The Third Book of Maccabees was written at the beginning of the second century B.C.E.; cf. the Hebrew edition by T. H. Gaster in Sefarim Hizonim u-Meyuhasim (Tel Aviv 1935), vol. ii. The persecution is dated after the battle of Raphia (217 B.C.E.). 8 2:27 et seq.

378

JEWISH

SOCIAL STUDIES

considered on an equal footing with the full-fledged citizens of Alexandria. In a letter to his generals and enlisted men, Ptolemy excused his attitude by asserting that he had been prepared all along to confer on the Jews full Alexandrian citizenship and thus to guarantee them permanent religious rights, but that they themselves had opposed his designs and behaved as enemies of the state.7 It was for that reason alone that he had instituted measures against them. Nevertheless, says our record, as the result of a miracle enacted in the hippodrome at Alexandria, when a herd of elephants charged to trample the Jews had turned upon their trainers,8 the volatile monarch changed his mind. The Jews were freed, but a general registration of them was ordered.9 In order to understand this narrative correctly, it is necessary to determine the precise meaning of the term laographourmenoi. This is usually rendered "persons liable to poll-tax," and it is assumed that Ptolemy intended to subject the Jews to that form of impost. The fact is, however, that laographia did not come to mean "poll-tax" until the time of Nero, some two centuries later.'0 Throughout the Ptolemaic age it meant simply "census." Hence, what our record really indicates is that Ptolemy proposed to have the Jews registered as laoi, that is, reduced from the status of Greeks to that of the native Egyp73:21 et seq. 8 6:38. 9For such registrations (apographai) in the Ptolemaic period cf. Wilcken, Grundziige, p. 137 et seq., and the documents of the third century B.C.E. printed by the same author in his Chrestomathie, pp. 198-99. 10The earlier name was laike syntaxis. Thus, in Papyrus Grenfell i 45 b, of 19-18 B.C.E., an Egyptian public cultivator registers himself as "paying the syntaxis." Similarly, in Papyrus Michigan ii 121 recto, col. ii, 1.8 as also in Inv. Michigan 853-795 (48 C.E.) and in PSI 902 i 7 et seq. (first cent. C.E.), laike syntaxis is the term used for what was later called laographia. For further examples of syntaxis in this sense, cf. Keyes, W., in American Journal of Philology, vol. lii (1931), 263 et seq.; Wallace, S. L., Taxation, etc. (Princeton 1938), p. 129 et seq. Sometimes, to be sure, the term denotes only a trade-tax, like the Byzantine diagraphp (cf. the present writer in Byzantion, vol. xviii), but that a poll-tax indeed existed in the third century B.C.E. is attested by the express mention of an epikephalion in a papyrus of 235 B.C.E. (Pap. Tebt. iii, 1 701, 186) and in another (Pap. Petrie, vol. iii, p. 174, n. 59b), from Arsinoites, which contains a list of persons exempted from it. In Pap. Tebt., ii, 846 (dated 236 B.C.E.), the syntaxis may likewise be a poll-tax, there connected with the temple. See fully, Wallace, S. L., "Census and Poll-tax under the Ptolemies," in American Journal of Philology, vol. lix (1938), 418-42; Preaux, C., L'economie royale des Lagides (Brussels 1939), p. 382 et seq. If this is so, it would refute Wallace's suggestion, loc. cit., that the syntaxis was introduced by Ptolemy Philopator in 220 B.C.E. to raise funds for the campaign which ended in the battle of Raphia.

JEWS

IN PTOLEMAIC

AND ROMAN

EGYPT

379

tians and therebyrenderedliable to the special levy (laike syntaxis) imposedupon the latter. There is no clear evidencethat these paid the polltax. Later, during the second century B.C.E., the law of Egypt came to be determined upon a purely territorialbasis. The distance between Hellenes and Egyptians,and consequentlybetween Jews and Egyptians, tended in this way to decrease. Nevertheless,despite this growingequalization of civic status, the Jews retained their identity; very few of them apostatizedto becomeGreeks. The practicalobstaclesto joint communal life are nowhere better illustrated than in the story of what happened in Jerusalem during the reign of Antiochus IV Epiphanes. The events of that period show clearly enough that the prescriptionsof the Jewishreligion presentedan insuperableobstacle to the existence side by side in the same city of a Jewishand a Greekpoliteuma. Under Antiochus II, the Jews of Jerusalemhad been granteda sort of autonomy;they were permittedto live as an ethnic group (ethnos) in accordancewith their own traditionallaw.1' Under Antiochus IV (173 B.C.E.), however, their condition underwent a radical change. This monarchreplacedthe Law of Mosesby a Greekconstitution. The high priest Jesus (aliasJason) was removedfrom office,a certainOnias (alias Menelaus) being installedin his stead. Jason,however,supportedby the majority of the people, promptly organizedan opposition movement. Thereupon, Onias went to the king, accompaniedby the son of Tobias and offered "collaboration." His party, he said,, was willing-nay, anxious-to abandonits native lawsand the traditionalJewishway of life and to adopt the king'slaw and Greekcustoms. To this end, they offered to pay 150 talentsinto the royalexchequer,if the king would grantthem permissionto build a gymnasiumand a junior college (ephebia) and to registergraduatesof the formerinstitutionsas full-fledged"Antiochians.''12 "nBikerman, Die Makkabaer, p. 51 et seq.; 176 et seq. Our knowledge of this based principally on the First and Second Books of Maccabees (both reliable supplemented by Josephus, Antiquities, xii, 240-41. 121 Maccabees 1:3. Cf. also II Maccabees 4:10, 19. These sources show that of Jerusalem had the privilege of entering a Greek gymnasium and thereby quasi-Greeks or "Antiochians" of the city.

period is sources) the Jevs becoming

380

JEWISH

SOCIAL STUDIES

When this permission was granted, they even went so far as to conceal all evidence of circumcision, so that even when naked they might appear as Greeks and not bear upon their persons the mark of the "covenant of Abraham."13 Under the new dispensation, Jews of the upper classes achieved the status of "Jews of the gymnasium" (apo gymnasiou) and ranked as the civic equals of the Greeks; while the others, who remained outside of the gymnasium, continued as plain Jews. These events are recorded in the First and Second Books of Maccabees, and an interesting passage in the latter book of the Apocrypha sheds further light on the true attitude of Jerusalemitan Jewry during the period in question. We are informed that after returning sick from his luckless campaign in Persia, Antiochus "vowed unto the Lord to proclaim Jerusalem free and to make its inhabitants equal to the Athenians.'14 From these words it is apparent that the bulk of the local Jews did not accept with equanimity the attempts at Hellenization, but that their aspiration was to retain their Jewish identity though at the same time enjoying the same civic privileges as their Greek neighbors. In the long run, their efforts bore fruit, for the original Jewish constitution was finally restored by Antiochus V in 163-2 B.C.E.15

Under Roman rule, the civic position of the Jews in Egypt underwent a radical change. The various ethnic groups (ethnika) were no longer organized as politeumata, and the Jews, who had previously enjoyed the privileged status of Greeks with a separate communal organization, were now accounted plain Egyptians, with the same set-up. The monster of antisemitism soon reared its head. The Alexandrians asserted that they were hostile to the Jews because the latter had twice '8Josephus, loc. cit. 14 1 Maccabees, ch. 15. Cf. also Papyrus Oxyrynchus 2177. "IBikerman, op. cit. p. 85 et seq. Concerning the legal status of the Jews in Syria during the subsequent period down to the Roman conquest we know nothing; but it is perhaps permissible to draw conclusions from the contemporary situation of their brethren in Egypt.

JEWS

IN PTOLEMAIC

AND ROMAN

EGYPT

381

betrayed them;16but the real reason was the recrudescence of chauvinistic Alexandrian nationalism. In an age when its citizens were being martyred for the Greek cause, the upper classes of Alexandria could scarcely view with indifference the presence in their midst of a Jewish community which insisted vociferously upon equal citizenship but at the same time viewed with abhorrence any identification with the common life and mores. In order to meet this popular feeling, the Romans were obliged, once they decided to reorganize the system of communities (politeumata), to reduce the Jews to the rank of mere laographoumenoi, or endenized "natives." To be sure, certain of their womenfolk were permitted to quality as "female citizens" (astai), but this did not imply anything like the citizenship of males, since women played no part in municipal affairs or even in the public life of the city. The new status of the Jews is amply attested by a collection of papyri from Alexandria, dating in the reign of Augustus and coming mainly from the Jewish quarters of the city.'7 One of these documents, for example,18 concerns the petition of a certain Helenos, son of Tryphon, who seeks release from the inferior status of a laographoumenos, to which he had been reduced in a revision of the census lists.'9 Previously registered as a full citizen (astos)20 he now describes himself simply as "a Jew from Alexandria.'"21 Similarly, the so-called A cts of the A4lexandrian Martyrs attest thiepersecution of the Jews and their reduction to the status "ICf. Bell, H. I., in Cambridge Ancient History, vol. x, p. 308. Papyrus Giessen 46, edited by von Premerstein, op. cit., p. 40 et seq., shows that the Greeks of Alexandria made a point of boa.ting to Gaius of their loyalty throughout some six and one-half centuries! 17

Cf. Segre, op. cit., p. 157 et seq.

I' Cf. Wilcken, Chrestomathie, Introduction

to No. 58; Schuerer, op. cit., p. 718; Segre, op. cit., p. 159. "IFor such revision of the census-lists cf. Wessely, C., Studien z. Paliographie, etc., vol. iv, p. 58 et seq. 'OFor the rule that a full-fledged citizen (astos) had to be the son of parents possessing the same status, see the present writer's "Note sull' editto de Caracalla" in Rend. Pont. Ac., vol. xvi (1940), 184.

21He had previously been connected somehow with the gymnasium. For the connection of the latter with Greek citizenship in all of the Greek cities of Egypt see the inscription (probably from Ptolemis) published by Kornbeuttel in Archiv fur Papyrusforschung, vol. xii (1936), 44-53.

382

JEWISH

SOCIAL STUDIES

of laographoumenoi;22while a Berlin papyrus which records the trial of Isidoros, the gymnasiarch and Lampon, the ex-gymnasiarch23shows, as do also the ostraca of the Apollonites,24 that the Jews of Alexandria were subjected to the special tax of the "natives" (laographia) and were therefore regarded as endenizened residents rather than as full citizens. Lastly, there is evidence to show that no Jew was ever regarded as a Greek citizen of the metropolis, unless he had first acquired Roman citizenship.25 The latter is indicated clearly in a letter of the Emperor Claudius, contained in a London papyrus26and dated 41 C.E. The document contains the Emperor's reply to representations made by the Alexandrians against his two edicts confirming the privileges of the Jews in that city and extending 22Cf. Wilcken, U., "Zum Alexandrinischen Antisemitismus," in Abhandlungen der Sachsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaft, phil.-hist. KI., vol. xxvii (1919), 800 et seq.; Premerstein, A. von, "Zu der sogennanten alexandrinischen Martyrer" in Philologus, supplementary volume xvi (1923); id. "Das Datum des Prozesses des Isidoros in den sogennanten heidnischen Martyrer-Akten," in Hermes, vol. lxvii (1932), 174 ff. A bibliography of the Acts is given by C. Welles in Transactions of the American Philological Association, vol. lvii (1936), 7 et seq. In the record of the trial of Isidoros and Lampon (Pap. Berl. 8877), Agrippa, asked whether the Jews do not pay the special tax, like the Egyptians, replies: "the archons impose the tax on the Egyptians, but on these (i.e. the Jews) nobody." This has been taken by Uxkull Gylleband (Gnomon, vol. viii, 1932, 329 et seq.), followed by A. Neppi Modona (Aegyptus, vol. xii, 1932, 333 et seq.) to imply that the Jews did not pay the tax and enjoyed the same rights as the Alexandrians. Such an interpretation, however, is absolutely false, if for no other reason because Agrippa could obviously not have afforded to make such a statement. What is meant is, it may be suggested, that whereas the Egyptians pay the tax by virtue of imposition by the archons, the system in the case of the Jews is different. They do not pay it under any such authority ("nobody imposes it on them"), but simply on the basis of an agreement with their politeuma. 23Pap. Berlin 8877. Cf. Uxkull-Gylleband, in Sitzungsberichte der Akademie d. Wiss. Berlin, phil.-hist. KI., vol. xxvii (1930), 664-79; Premerstein, A. von, in Hermes, vol. lxvii (1932), 174-96. The trial of Isidoros and Lampon which took place in 53 C.E. (von Premerstein, loc. cit.), is recorded in the following sources: BGU, No. 511, cols i-ii; Pap. Cairo 10448, col. iii-Wilcken Chrestomathie, p. 24-27; B.G.U. 8877; Pap. London 2785. New fragments have been published by H. I. Bell in this article in Archiv fur Papyrusforschung, vol. x (1931), 5-13, and by A. Neppi Modona in Aegyptus, vol. xii (1932), 17-24; 233-38. 24This source was not considered in the present writer's paper in Bulletin de la Societc Royale d'Alexandrie, vol. xxix (1934), but is well discussed in Juster, vol. ii, p. 330. 25There were, of course, certain exceptions to this general rule. Thus, Jews could attain Greek citizenship by first becoming Roman citizens. N Pap. London 1912, edited by H. I. Bell in his Jews and Christians (London, 1924). The letter was probably drafted in Latin, and may have been amplified later by the emperor himself (Bell, op. cit., p. 22). But the final redaction seems to have been left to the special "office of decrees"; cf. Hirschfeld, Otto, Kaiserliche Verwaltungsbeamten (Berlin 1905), p. 323, n. 1; Laqueur, R., in Klio, vol. xx (1926), 102. Our extract occurs in col. iv. I, 73.

JEWS IN PTOLEMAIC AND ROMAN EGYPT

383

them to their brethren throughout the empire. The Jews, it would appear, were not satisfied with being allowed merely to retain their communal organization (politeuma). They were agitating for a division of the Alexandrian politeuma into two sections of equal status-one, centered in the gymnasium, for the Greeks, and the other, centered in the synagogue, for the Jews. The proposal, however, was strenuously resisted by the Alexandrians, who saw in it a threat to the entire civic structure. Accordingly, they petitioned Claudius to restrict the privileges of the Jews and to relegate them, once for all, to the status of aliens and unacceptable foreigners. The Emperor's reply was as follows: I conjure you yet once again that, on the one side, the Alexandriansshow themselves forbearing and kindly towards the Jews who for many years have dwelt in the same city, and offer not outrage to them in the exercise of their traditional worship, but permit them to observe their customs,ag in the time of divus Augustuswhich customsI also, after hearing both sides, have confirmed;and on the other side, I bid the Jews not to busy themselves about anything beyond what they held hitherto and not to act henceforth as if you and they lived in two cities sending two delegations-such a thing has never occurredbefore-but to profit by what they possessand enjoy in a city not their own-an abundanceof all good things; and not to introduce or invite Jews who sail down to Alexandria from Syria or Egypt, thus compelling me to conceive the greater suspicion, otherwise I will by all means take vengeanceon them as fomenting a general plague on the whole world. If, desisting on both sides from these proceedings,you are willing to live with mutual forbearanceand kindliness,I on my side will continue to display the time-honored solicitude for the interest of the city, with which my family has traditionalfriendship. In castigating the Jews for sending a separate delegation to him, Claudius was obviously repudiating their claim to represent part of the Alexandrian citizenry.27 In his eyes, they spoke only for the local Jewish community, and-doubtless in order to placate the Alexandrians-he took pains to make it plain to them that they should stick to their own group, -7The assumption that the Jews sent two separate delegations is scarcely plausible. Such, however, is the view of De Sanctis (Rivista Filologica, vol. ii, 1924, 491 et seq.), who believes that the Jews formed a distinct community of Alexandrian citizens and were attempting to upset the status quo by constituting themselves into something they had not been before. The latter part of this theory is approximately our own. See also Willrich, U., in Hermes, vol. lx (1925), 482-89; id., in Wiener Blaettner fuer die Freunde der Antike,

384

JEWISH

SOCIAL STUDIES

live as unobtrusively as possible, and not try to inject themselves into Greek life.28 All of this obviously implies that they were not regarded as full citizens. It also implies-and this is equally important-that during the age of Claudius the Jews of Alexandria sought citizenship not as individuals, who might perhaps acquire it after conversion, but as a group seeking recognition and incorporation within the official structure of the body politic. Civically, then, the members of Alexandrian Jewry were simply "Jews from Alexandria" tout court.29 Only in one respect was there any deviation from this rule. When arraigned for debt, they were regarded as "latter-dayPersians" ("Persians of the epigone") -an ad hoc qualification likewise adopted in such circumstances by the Romans, the full-fledged citizens (astoi), the metropolitans and the Egyptians. But this was simply a legal fiction whereby process was expedited and the defaulter rendered liable to more summary treatment on the part of the creditor. It went back to the days of Ptolemy III Euergetes (247-222 B.C.E.) in whose time-and until as late as about 150 C.E.-Persians of this kind had constituted the great bulk of debtors liable to such treatment.30 vol. iv (1927), 31-35; and Momigliano, A., Claudius the Emperor (Oxford 1934), p. 97 et seq., who likewise suppose that two delegations were sent. Both before and after 53 C.E., whenever the Jews of Alexandria wished to make representations to the Roman emperors they dispatched distinctive Jewish delegations. Pap. Oxyrynchus 1242 (part of the Acts of the Martyrs) shows, in fact, that once, under Trajan, the Jewish delegation was more cordially received than that of the non-Jews. 28According to Philo, In Flaccum, 91, the Jews led a quiet life and kept to themselves. The Alexandrians were therefore laying emphasis on a few ostentatious exceptions. 29Cf. Segre, op. cit., p. 163. The Jews improperly styled themselves Alexandrians, Antiochians and the like; cf. Josephus, Cont-a Apionem, II, 4; Wilcken, U., in Archit' fur Papyrusforschung, vol. vii (1924), 310; Segre, op. cit., p. 144, 167. Some of them were "established residents" (incolae) , others mere "alien newcomers" (advenae) ; cp. the case of the Jews of Delos, cited (from Josephus, Anitiquities, xiv 2, 13) by Bell, op. cit., p. 13. '1'hose who came to Alexandria from Syria and the rural areas (chora) certainly fell into the latter category, whereas the descendants of the older Jewish families of the city were classed in the former. In time of persecution, however, the title of incolae was questioned in respect of all Jews. 30On these latter-day Persians see Zucker in Pauly-Wissowva,Realenzyklopddie d. Klassischeni Altertum)swissenischaft, vol. xix, p. 910-26. For the title as applied to Alexandrians and Greeks, cf. the present writer in Aegyptus, vol. iii (1921), 1 et seq. and Tait, S. G., in Archi7' fur Papyrusforschung, vol. vii (1924), p. 177 et seq. This pseudo-ethnic title is scarcely related to the asylia; while a genuine Persian ethnic group certainly did not exist in the second century B.C.E.

JEWS

IN PTOLEMAIC

AND ROMAN

EGYPT

385

In order to appraise the civic position of Alexandrian Jewry at this period it is of importance to determine the proportion of Jews to full-fledged citizens. New light is shed on this point by a papyrus of 37 C.E. which deals with an Alexandrian delegation to Gaius, then but recently appointed.3' We are told that the Alexandrians had appointed an assembly (gerousia) of 173 members to represent an electorate of 180,000 citizens.32Unfortunately, however, this evidence is open to question. The figure cited is in flat disagreement with everything we know about the civic community of Alexandria at this period, and the document probably expresses some pipe-dream of contemporary Alexandrian politicians rather than a sober matter of fact.33 If it were to be taken at its face value (following the reading and interpretation of von Premerstein), it would imply that citizenship was enjoyed by far more than a small minority of Greeks, so that the exclusion of the Jews from this privilege would stand revealed as an act of particularly harsh and serious discrimination.

The comparatively few Jews who possessed Greek citizenship were mostly Roman veterans who had previously acquired Roman citizenship. The latter was granted to all new Romans-peregrini-and not only to Jews, after hdnorable discharge from the army, and did not require a severance of ancestral ties. The Jews, for instance, who became Aurelii after the passing of the Antonine Constitution of 212 C.E. enjoyed, along ""Pap. Giessen 46. The text has been brilliantly reconstructed by von Premerstein, but it is still so mutilated that it must be used with caution. 32The gerousia had long since ceased to exist, having been abolished, in all probability, in the Ptolemaic age; cf. von Premerstein, op. cit., p. 59; Turner, E. G., in Archiv fur Papyrusforschung, vol. xii (1937), 179 et seq. The ad hoc reconstruction of it would therefore have been designed to confront Gaius with a fait accompli. 33According to Diodorus xvii, 52, 6 writing about 60 B.C.E., the total population of Alexandria in his day was no higher than 300,000. Von Premerstein (op. cit., p. 50, 55) supposes that it may have doubled by the first century C.E., and that Ptolemy II Euergetes may have extended citizenship to all resident Greeks. Even so, however, the figure of 180,000 full citizens would be excessive. B.G.U. IV makes it clear that the full citizens formed only a small minority, so that von Premerstein's calculation that they numbered 120,000 out of a total 600,000 is likewise open to question. Moreover, it should be observed that in 37 C.E. Alexandria was seemingly divided into five phylae, 60 demoi and 720 phratriae (von Premerstein, p. 46). Accordingly if the figure of 180,000 were taken seriously, eaclh demos would have had to embrace no less than 3,000 and each phratria no less than 250 citizens! Lastly if we assume that the appointment of gerontes proceeded in each case on the same proportional basis, the statement in our text that there were 71 Jewish and 173 Greek gerontes would imply that the ratio of Jews to Greeks in Alexandria was as high as 2 to 5.

386

JEWISH

SOCIAL STUDIES

with the other peregrini-such privileges of their original politeuma as did not conflict with their newly acquired citizenship.34 At certain periods these privileges included exemption from military service. It is recorded, for example, that Hyrcanus, the ethnarch of the Jews, was successful, on one occasion, in obtaining such exemption, together with freedom of worship, from Dolabella, the pro-consul of Asia.35 Similarly at a later date, Lucius Lentulus is said to have issued a decree exempting naturalized Jews of Ephesus from military service and permitting them to follow the rites of their religion unmolested.36 It would appear, however, that this privilege was often more nominal than real;37and, indeed, it is somewhat difficult to believe that it could have been respected after the time of the Severi when, on the one hand, the need for recruits had increased and, on the other, the Jews had been reduced to the level of proletarians, following the sack of Jerusalem and the subsequent persecutions.38 It was, in fact, easier for the Jews to become Roman citizens than to become Greek citizens. In the first place, the Romans had no gymnasia, so that they could not demand affiliation with one as a condition of 34Cf. Segre, A., in Rend. Pont. Acc., vol. xv (1940), 194 et seq. Once a Jew had become a

Roman citizen, it was easy for him also to acquire the civic status of a Greek. In Antinoupolis, for example, Jews who were Roman citizens were classed as Antinoupolitans, i.e. Greeks. Similarly, it is possible that the apostle Paui, who was a citizen of Tarsus and at the same time a Roman citizen, acquired the former status via the latter. 5Josephus, Antiquities, xiv, 223 et seq. M ib. xiv, 228. For the different versions of the edict, cf. Juster, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 141 et seq. 37Thus Josephus relates (Antiquities, xvii, 83-84) that when Tiberius ordered a mass expulsion of the Jews from Rome, the consuls listed four thousand males and sent them to Sardinia, but subjected a large number of them to punishment because they refused, on religious grounds, to serve in the army. Cf. Segre, A., Rend. Pont. Acc., vol. xvii (1941), 171. 38We know, as a matter of fact, that at a later date the Jews lost several of their exemptions from the munera, just at a time when the burden of them had become peculiarly heavy for everyone. Under the imperial constitutiones, they were exempted only from those munera which were incompatible with their religion. But they were obliged to shoulder many new

burdens.Thus, accordingto Modestinus,Digest, xxvii, I, 15, 6 (written after the passing of the Antonine Constitution) they had to accept guardianship even of non-Jews-an obligation which had existed in Egypt even before this date (cf. Taubenschlag, R., in Studi Bonfante I (Rome 1930) , p. 109 et seq.) . Similarly, according to Ulpian, Digest I, 2, 33, they were obliged, under a provision of Severus and Caracalla, to accept calls to honores, i.e. to magistracies-an obligation which was extended to everyone in the third century C.E., which such honores became particularly heavy burdens.

JEWS IN PTOLEMAIC AND ROMAN EGYPT

387

naturalization. And in the second place the Roman system of conferring citizenship automatically on discharged veterans, and of according them religious and communal autonomy, was in marked contrast with the Greek system whereby the privilege was usually conferred by special decree of the Emperor and entailed that one's offspring come to terms with paganism.

The civic distinction between Jews and Alexandrians under thie Roman dispensation found its counterpart in social life. By and large, the two kept apart. They were separated by mutual .prejudices, the Jews by their intense religious feeling, the Alexandrians by the feeling that as Greek aristocrats-latter-day scions of ancient Athens-they should not be contaminated by the barbarians,39least of all by the Jews, whom they regarded as on a par with the despised Egyptians.40 The Jews, of course, resented this comparison, to which they were the more sensitive in view of the fact that, from the civic point of view, they were indeed like the Egyptians, mere endenizened "natives."141Nor were they able to find complete satisfaction within their own community; for while it might possibly satisfy the orthodox Jew content to live unto himself, it could never answer the needs of the common man who had to deal daily with the gentiles. It was, after all, primarily a religious body; politically it did not mean very much. Moreover, its basis was precarious, since its continuance depended very largely on the political circumstances of the day. The community functioned under the terms of an old privilege which had been duly confirmed by Octavian; and this confirmation was `*This is well illustrated by a passage in Pap. Oxyrynchus2177, i, 12-18, where a certain Athenodorus, appearing before Caesar, contends that the laws of the Alexandrians and the Athenians are the same, for "they are stronger than all other laws and have the same happy blend of strength and humanity." Cf. also Josephus, Contra Apionem, ii, 28 et seq. 40For the special case of the Jewish citizens of Antinoupolis see S.B. 7393 (of. 147 C.E. or later). The Antinoupolitans probably intermarried wvithJews, as they did with Egyptians;cf. Segre,op. cit., p. 162. 41Even though they had their own official community (politeuma), they still ranked as Egyptians, because that community was, for all practical purposes, a purely religious organization. It is noteworthy in this connection that in the Gnomon of the Idios Logos the Jews are not mentioned as a distinctive ethnic group, whereas the Syrians,Nesiotides and Paraetoniansare.

388

JEWISH

SOCIAL STUDIES

recognized by Jews of the early Imperial age as their Magna Carta. Says Josephus,42not without a touch of pride, Many people might be inclined to discredit statementsmade about us by the Persiansand Macedonianssince their writingsare not generallyaccessible. However, the barbariansas well as ourselves cannot gainsay what is contained in the various decreesof the Romans, since these are not only available in the public archives but have been deposited in the Capitol and engraved,moreover,on a brazen pillar. What is more, Julius Caesarmade a pillar of brass and publicly announced (thereon) that the Jews were citizens of Alexandria.43 Under this privilege, periodically confirmed by Octavian's successors, Jews were often exempted from military service lest the rigors of army life conflict with the prescriptions of their faith.44 In some cities, such as Tyre, it also entitled them to own real estate, just as did members of the Greek community;45 while by an edict issued by Augustus (renewing previous grants by Julius Caesar in 2 B.C.E. and 2 C.E.) freedom of worship was assured.46 In the age of Augustus, the civic community (pioliteuma) of the Jews in Alexandria was patterned upon that of Jerusalem.4 It was headed by a President (genarches), possibly to be identified with the ethnarchwho enjoyed limited jurisdiction, mostly in matters of religion, and who was empowered to levy the characteristic communal tax-the annual "tithe" (aparche) of two drachmas paid to the Temple in Jerusalem. 42Antiquities, xiv, 187-89. 4 Possibly, Josephus here confuses Caesar with Octavian, as again in Contra Apionem 2, 37 and 2, 61; cf. Scramuzza, Vincent, The Emperor Claudius (Cambridge 1940), p. 253. 44Juster, vol. ii, p. 135 et seq. 45ib., p. 149. 46ib., P. 151. However, the various passages which state that the Jews were granted the same privileges as the Macedonians mean only that they were likewise regarded as "established residents" (katoikoi, incolae). (The statements of Josephus in Contra Apionem LI, 4, 35 et seq. and Bellum Judaicum, II, 18, 7 (487) et seq., are misinterpreted by Juster.) In B.G.U. IV certain Jews are qualified as "Macedonians"; but the title is purely honorific and has no formal meaning. Not improbably, Jews descended from the older colonial families styled themselves "Macedonians" to emphasize that they were not newcomers. 47

Schuerer, p. 234 et seq.

4"The genarches of the Jews is mentioned by Philo, In Flaccum, x, 74 (527) et seq. and by Strabo, apud Josephum, Ant. xiv, 117.

JEWS IN PTOLEMAIC AND ROMAN EGYPT

389

The Senate, or governing body (gerousia), consisted of seventy-one members, and this system continued throughout the early Imperial age.49 The community was subject to ordinary Graeco-Egyptian law;50and when, in early Imperial days, the last traces of the original distinction between Greek and Egyptian legislation were being swept away, there was no difference betwen the law applied to the Jews and that applied to all the other inhabitants of the country. That law was embodied in royal edicts, decrees of emperors and prefects, bills passed by the Roman Senate (senatusconsulta), and the like.51 The Jewish communal authorities had, in all probability, very little (if anything) to say in questions of civil government, their function being restricted to such matters as involved religious life and practice, e.g. marriage.52 At the same time, the very fact that they were recognized as an official community (politeuma) itself afforded the Jews a certain measure of protection, for it entailed a number of specific privileges. The nature of these can best be gauged from two fairly familiar sources. The first is Philo's account of the persecutions in the time of Gaius.53 Flaccus, we are told, in seeking to abolish the civic status (politeia) of the Jews, withdrew their traditional right to plead at law, herded them into one of the five administrative districts of the city, dissolved their representative assembly (gerousia) and ousted some thirty-eight senators appointed by Augustus to supervise Jewish affairs after the death of the ethnarch. 49Juster, vol. i, p. 422, no. 4; vol. ii, p. 153 et seq.; Premerstein, op. cit., p. 59.

Philo's reference (In Flaccum, xii, 97 (531) et seq.) to a psephisma or "decree by vote" implies nothing concerning the constitution of the politeuma because, as is well known, decrees could be issued by the collegia just as much as by the cities; cf. Juster, vol. ii, p. 419; Segre, op. cit., p. 165. r Segre, op. cit., p. 165. 51 Cf. Gylleband, Gnomon des Idios Logos (Berlin 1919-34), p. 28 et seq. 52Flaccus, therefore, was not very far from the truth when, in his proclamation (Philo, In Flaccum, viii, 53 (525) ), he characterized the Jews of Alexandria as "strangers" (xenoi) and "visitors" (epelythes), and regarded the grant of a politeuma to them as, to all intents and purposes, valueless. Actually, it was something of a problem how exactly the Jews should be classified, since Greek colonial cities recognized only "established colonists" (katoikoi), but not "resident aliens" (metoikoi). In Alexandria their status depended entirely on the discretion of the emperor, though from the analogous case of the Egyptian navicularii, suarii, etc., recorded in Papyrus Giessen 40 iii (215 C.E.), it would appear possible that, even if regarded as "strangers," they could not be banished from the city. 63 In Flaccum, viii, 53 et seq.

390

JEWISH

SOCIAL STUDIES

Following his seizure of our synagogues (saysthe record), he proceededto the further scheme of destroyingour civic status his idea being that once our life-line of traditional usages and political rights had been cut away, we would be left to drift without anchoragein the angrysea of hardship.... To this end, he characterizedus as parvenus and aliens, and withdrew our right of pleading at law, thus leaving us to be condemned unheard. He also permitted our property to be pillaged.

. .

. Moreover, having thus

rendered us defenseless,he herded us into a tiny-area in one of the five administrativedistrictsof the city, whereaspreviouslywe had been concentrated in two of them and fairly liberally distributedover the rest. The last statement demands a word of comment. If it may be assumed that recognition as an official community (politeuma) entitled the Jews to the status of "permanent residents" (incolae), then eo ipso they could not be expelled from the city. Moreover, the fact that they lived mainly in two out of the five administrative precincts does not necessarily imply ghettoization. We know that the native Egyptians were permitted to own real estate anywhere in the city, and it is therefore reasonable to suppose that Jews could also do so.54 The second source of information concerning the privileges of the Jews is the decree of Claudius, issued in 41 C.E. by which those originally granted by Octavian were again restored. The text of this decree, addressed to the prefect of Egypt, is given as follows by Josephus:55 Tiberius AlexanderCaesarAugustusGermanicus,high priest and tribune of the plebs thus ordains: Whereas I am assuredthat the Jews of Alexandria who are called Alexandrians have from the earliest times been joint residents of the city along with the Alexandriansthemselves,and have obtained from the kings equal privilegeswith the latter, as is attestedby public recordsin their possession, as well as by the actual text of the decrees; And whereas,after the annexation of Alexandriaby Augustus, these rights and privileges have been continued by successiveprefects sent thither, and s Real estate was usually acquired in Alexandria by letters of transfer (synchoreseis) between buyer and seller. It was customary, however, subsequently to embody these in formal deeds of conveyance (katagraphia) drawn up after the legal status and capacity of the parties had been checked by the municipal authorities. Extant examples of
JEWS

IN PTOLEMAIC

AND ROMAN

EGYPT

391

no question was raised about them even under the governorshipof Aquila; And whereas,when the original Jewish ethnarch died, Augustus permitted the appointment of successorsto the end that all men under Roman sway might continue to observe their own customs and not be obliged to transgress the traditional preceptsof their native faiths; And whereas, in the time of Gaius the Alexandriansbehaved infamously against the local Jews, and that same Gaius in his insensatefrenzy,reduced the Jewish nation to a very low status because they would not transgress the rules of their religion and acknowledgehim as a god; Now therefore, I declare by these presents that the Jewish nation be not deprivedof the rights and privilegesformerlyenjoyed by them, but that the same be maintainedand they be permittedto continue in their own customs. And I chargefurther that both parties (i.e. the Jews and the Alexandrians) exercise particularcare that no troublesarise after the promulgationof this decree. The decree, it may be added, was sent not only to Alexandria but to all other parts of the Roman empire, to which it likewise applied. In point of fact, of course, the civic status of the Jews in the various cities of the Roman empire depended, to no small degree, on the actualities of the political situation. Every Jewish war brought its train of pogroms or "retributive" excesses in the Greek cities. This was especially true of Alexandria, where the position was aggravated by the fact that the emperors never took a decisive line in favor of either the Jews or the Alexandrians, preferring to use each, as the occasion might demand, as a pawn in the game of Roman policy. Some idea of the internal struggle in the city during the second century C.E. is afforded by a papyrus discovered by Vogliano and recently published by I. Cazzaniga.56 Although most of the text is fragmentary, the end of this document is almost perfectly preserved and contains a vigorous denunciation of antisemitic excesses committed by the local Greeks. It may be claimed, runs the argument, that these are the work of a minority. That is perfectly true, but the material backing is supplied by the masses and the moral backing by the upper classes. The whole of the population is therefore responsible. There must be an end to lynch law. If anyone has a legal charge to level, there is an accredited 6 "Torbidi giudaici nell' Egitto romano nel secondo secolo di Cristo" in Ann. Inst. Phil.-hist. or., 1937, p. 159-67.

392

JEWISH

SOCIAL STUDIES

judge to whom he may resort; but even this official has no authority to pronounce the death sentence without trial. Furthermore, there must be an end to the constant complaints of assault, even if they have some foundation in fact. People who get involved in brawls have only themselves to blame. Whatever justification might have existed before the Roman-Jewish war no longer exists. The document is dated cryptically "in the nineteenth year," the name of the author being illegible. T. C. Skeat, however, has made an interesting suggestion.57 He points out that the nineteenth year of Trajan (115/6 C.E.) coincides with the date of the Jewish rebellion in Egypt and Cyrenaica under the prefect M. Rutilius Lupus; while in the nineteenth year of Hadrian occurred the revolt of Bar Cochba. Either of these two datings would therefore lend peculiar significance to the document. II Special Taxes We know nothing concerning the system of assessing the special taxes imposed on the Jews during the Hellenistic age. For the Roman period, however, we have a certain amount of information. In addition to the taxes which they paid to the Roman provincial administration as Egyptians, Syrians, Romans and the rest, the Jews throughout the diaspora were also liable to special dues exacted by their own community.58 These consisted, in all probability, of the annual half-shekel (two drachmas) the aparche or "firstfruits" and various supplementary levies for local worship. Payment of these sums was obligatory on all Jews between the ages of three and sixty.59 A taxgatherer's list drawn up in 72/73 C.E. in the Egyptian center of Arsinoe60reveals that after the sack of Jerusalem, two years earlier, the half-shekel and aparche, previously earmarked for the Temple, were 57Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, vol. xxv (1939), 79. 5 In Palestine, too, after the conquest by Pompey, the Jews had to pay a land tax and a poll tax to the Romans (Josephus, Bellum Judaicum, 1, 7, 6 [154]; Antiquities, xiv, 74, 78). Nor did Caesar change this system (id. Antiquities, xiv, 202 et seq.; Juster, vol. ii, p. 280). 69 The same age limits applied to the payment of taxes due to the Roman administration. 60Pap. Rein, edited by C. Wessely in his Studien z. Palaographie und Papyruskunde, vol. i, p. 71; vol. iv, p. 59 et seq. The text will also be found in Wilcken, Chrestomathie, No. 61.

JEWS

IN PTOLEMAIC

AND ROMAN

EGYPT

393

declared payable to the shrine of Jupiter Capitolinus in Rome.61 Another document indicates that, exclusive of the aparche, which had the value of one drachma) each Jew paid a total sum of eight drachmas and two obols of Egyptian silver annually. This corresponds to two denarii in Roman coinage, which is, in turn, the equivalent of two silver Attic drachmas and of one Jewish half-shekel.62 There is a point connected with the aparche which deserves notice. As used of the annual Jewish tax, this must not be confused with the aparche paid by the Greeks. The latter was a sum paid on writing a birthcertificate. Connected originally with an offering to Berenice Euergetis, the deified wife of Ptolemy Philadelphus,63it appears to have survived as a traditional institution right down into the Roman period, probably until the dissolution of the politeumata in 297 C.E.64 The Jewish aparche, on the other hand, derived from the priestly "tithes" prescribed in the Mosaic Law.65 When paid as a fixed annual due by Jews living outside of I"Josephus, Antiquities, iv, 69 et seq.; Philo, De Premiis Sacerdotum i = Mangey, ii, 33. This temple of Jupiter Capitolinus had been burnt in 69 C.E. during the fight between Vespasian and Vitellius; cf. Wallace, Taxation, p. 172 et seq. According to Jerome, the reconstruction of it began four years later, possibly after sufficient funds had been accumulated through the diversion of the Jewish "firstfruits" tax, this diversion being ordered immediately after the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. The rival temple of Onias in Egypt was closed, it would seem, in 72-73 C.E. See the account in Josephus, Bellum Judaicum, vii, 410. 0 Cf. Juster, vol. ii, p. 377. According to the Elephantine papyri, of the fifth century B.C.E., women also were obliged to pay the half-shekel; cf. Sachau, E., Aramaische Papyrus und Ostraka (Leipzig 1911), No. 18. For reference to the double-drachma and aparchi in the Roman age, cf. Schuerer, vol. ii, p. 314 et seq., where reference is made to Josephus, Antiquities, xviii, 131 et seq.; id., Bellum Judaicum, vii, 6.6; Matthew 17:24 and the Mishnaic tractate Shekalim. According to Wilcken, Chrestomathie, p. 61, and Schuerer, vol. ii, p. 249 et seq., Vespasian's imposition of the double-drachma tax upon all the Jews was a new hardship, but the Elephantine papyri show that this had been paid by Jews outside Palestine for several centuries previously. 3 Cf. Pap. Soc. Ital., 690 (second century C.E.) . 64 For this type of aparche in the Ptolemaic period, cf. UPZ ii, 162 and Pap. Grenfell, vol. i, No. 17 (147 or 136 B.C.E.). (Both texts have been hitherto misinterpreted, e.g. by Pr6aux, op. cit., p. 337.) For its survival in the Roman period, cf. B.G.U., 1150, i, 11 (19 B.C.E.); Pap. Tebtunis 316 (99 C.E.) ; Pap. Soc. Ital. 690 (second century C. E ); Pap. Oxyrynchus 2199 (age of Hadrian) . The aparche was also paid by the citizens of Antinoupolis; cf. Pap. London, Ant. inv. 1896 (133 C.E.)zib. 514-28. The term aparche itself means properly a due paid to the temple; cf. Dittenberger, Syllogel, No. 179 (95-94 B.C.E.) and B.G.U., 693. For the aparche as a quota of the harvest, cf. Blumenthal F., in Archiv fur Papyrusforschung, vol. v (1909), 321. f The Septuagint uses the term to render the Hebrew reshith bikkurim (EV. "first of the firstfruits"); cf. Exodus 23:19, "The aparchai of the firstfruits of thy ground shalt thou

394

JEWISH

SOCIAL STUDIES

Palestine, it was probably of the same amount as that later paid to the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus. The annual dispatch of these sums to Palestine occasioned some degree of resentment on the part of both of the Hellenistic and the later Roman rulers of Egypt. Their attitude is well illustrated by a passage in Cicero's Oration Against Flaccus.66 "Everyyear," says that orator, "gold used to be sent to Jerusalem in the name of the Jews in Italy and in all of our provinces. Flaccus issued a decree forbidding its export from Asia. Is there anyone who would not commend him for this action, seeing that on many previous occasions, as also during my own consulship, the senate had ruled as emphatically as possible that no gold was to be shipped out of the country." Under Augustus, attempts were actually made in Asia and Cyrenaica to halt this export of sacred dues. The Jews, however, filed a complaint with the Emperor and their traditional privilege was reaffirmed.67Thereafter Agrippa wrote to the civic authorities and people of Ephesus that the care and custody of the cash was to be left for the Jews of Asia to arrange in accordance with their ancient custom. A similar order was also dispatched to Cyrene, to prevent any expropriation of the funds on the pretext that the local Jews were in arrears with their ordinary civic taxes;68 and we know further that analogous measures were taken by the proconsuls Caius Norbanus Flaccus in respect of Sardis69and Julius Antoninus in respect of Ephesus.70 This tolerant attitude is, to be sure, somewhat unexpected, particularly insofar as it was manifested during the Hellenistic period. The bring into the house of the Lord thy God." In Philo, De Mutatione Nominum, 192 and Josephus, Antiquities, xvi, 6, 7, 172, aparche is a tithe; while in Philo, Legatio ad Gaium, 312 et seq., the "sacred aparchai" are said to be collected annually and sent to Jerusalem by the hieropompoi. mxviii, 66 et seq. 67Josephus, Antiquities, xvi, 162-66. I' ib., xvi, 166 et seq. ff9ib., xvi, 171. 7' The Jews of Babylonia likewise sent their annual half-shekels to Jerusalem, depositing their contributions in the strong cities of Nehardea and Nisibis (Josephus, Antiquities, xviii, 311 et seq.). Their brethren in Rome continued to remit their dues until the time of Tiberitus (ib., xviii, 82).

JEWS IN PTOLEMAIC AND ROMAN EGYPT

395

Greeks,we know, were no metallocrats,and the only reason why Greek cities and rulersever accumulatedwealthwas to have cashin hand in case of emergency.7'But just becauseof that necessitythey would not, without good reason, have remained indifferent to this constant export of money without correspondingimport. The reason probably lies, especiallyin the case of the Ptolemies,in a desire to avoid trouble with the Jews.72They wanted to have the Jews as friends and possibleallies against the rival Seleucids;they wanted to keep Jewish soldiersin their army, and were anxious also not to impair those important business connections of the Jews which they could use so well to their own advantage. Nevertheless,they were not averse to initiating subtle schemes to keep the cash in the country. Under Philometor,for instance,a Jewish temple was foundedat Leontopolis-a kind of rival to that in Jerusalem; while, accordingto Josephus,the real reasonfor the establishmentof the temple of Onias was to foster a sense of brotherly unity among the worshippersso that they might "be enabled to pay for the welfareof the king."73 Such schemes,however,were scarcelysuccessful. The temple of Onias, which served at the same time as a major fortress,74never enjoyed much popularity.75 The same benevolent attitude as obtained in the case of the sacred dues appearsto have extended also to all other financial mattersconnected with the Jewish politeuma. The Hellenistic rulers seem to have left it more freedom in this respect than they permitted to the Greek' cities. Sometimes, however, a measure of supervision was exercised. Strabotells us, for example,76that when, in 88 B.C.E., Mithridatessent to the island of Cos to confiscatethe monies which Cleopatrahad cached 71 Cf. Andreades, Andreas M., Geschichte der Staatswirtschaft (Munich 1931), pp. 153, 323. The system of public loans was then unknown. 72 They showed a similar tolerance towards the Egyptian priesthood, but were not averse to confiscating priestly revenues in order to fill the royal coffers; cf. Wilcken, Grundziige, p. 92 et seq. 73 It is possible that Onias sought to establish a Jewish theocracy in Egypt, cf. Tscherikower, E., Ha-Yehudim ve-Ha-Yevanim (Jerusalem 1931). 74 75

ibid., p. 291. ibid., p. 284.

76Quoted by Josephus, Antiquities, xivi,

119

et seq.; cf. Juster, vol. ii, p. 379.

396

JEWISH

SOCIAL STUDIES

there, he also impounded "eight hundred talents belonging to the Jews." This sum, we may assume, represented an accumulation of annual temple dues paid by the Jews of Asia. With the conquest of Jerusalem in 70 C.E., however, the entire situation changed. Their religious and spiritual center being destroyed, the Jews lost what little remained of their power and influence, so that the way was now paved for Vespasian to introduce his fiscus judaicus whereby the revenue from their religious taxes was finally taken out of their hands and diverted to the Roman temple of Jupiter Capitolinus.77 III Juridical Status Under the Ptolemies the Jews were, as stated, nominally Greeks. They were therefore subject to Greek law. It may be asked, however, whether that law was not supplemened in their case by peculiar provisions. An answer to this question is afforded by a papyrus from Gurob78 which permits an interesting glimpse of how the law in fact operated in the case of suits brought by Jews or involving Jews. Dated 225 B.C.E., this document deals with an action brought by a certain Dositheus, scion of a long-established Jewish family ("a Jew of the epigone") against a Jewess named Heracleia, and it states expressly that the case was tried before the Court of Ten, which we know to have been one of the standard tribunals of Greek law. Moreover, it is clearly indicated in the text that the law dispensed in that court was determined by (a) royal edicts,79 77The fiscus judaicus still existed in the third century C.E. (Juster, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 283 et seq.). According to Suetonius (Domitian, xii, 2), Domitian exploited it to such an extent as to inflict it on all circumcised persons, regardless of whether they were really Jews by birth or faith. However, beyond the fact that a procurator ad capitularia Judaeorum is mentioned in Suetonius, Domitian, xii, 2, and in CIL vi, 8603, we know very little about the administration of it; cf. Hirschfeld, Kaiserlichen Verwaltungsbeamten (Berlin 1905), p. 73, and Juster, vol. ii, p. 282 et seq. Rostovtzeff suggests (in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopddie, vol. vii, col. 2403 et seq.) that, like the fiscus Alexandrinus and the fiscus Asiaticus, it was part of a system introduced by Vespasian for the taxation of provincials living outside of their country. (On the fiscus Alexandrinus see Steiner, A., Der Fiskus der Ptolemaer, Leipzig 1924, p. 5 et seq., and Gyllenband, on ??l, 2 and 4 of the Gnomon des Idios Logos.) 78Pap. Gorub, 2. 79As to these, cf. Bikerman, Revue de Philologie, vol. xii (1938), 295-312; Wenger, L., in Archiv fur Papyrusforschung, vol. xiii (1939), 294 et seq.; Ruiz, V. A., Studia et Documenta,

JEWS

IN PTOLEMAIC

AND ROMAN

EGYPT

397

(b) local civic legislation, and (c) -when these measures failed-by the principle of aequitas.80 It was therefore typically Greek law which, as we know, derived from just these sources, supplemented by the provisions of the various proclamations and decrees (prostagmataand diagrammata). That law, regarded as "the law of Athens," applied equally to all Greeks; and although Cretans, Mysians and the like might be permitted their own communal organizations (politeumata), they were nevertheless subject to it, and not to the distinctive codes of their several homelands.81 Fundamentally the "law of Alexandria," it was extended throughout the country by incorporation into royal edicts. Apart from this positive evidence in the document from Gurob, there is the equally important negative fact that nowhere in all of the published papyri from Egypt is there any certain reference to distinctive Jewish laws for the Jewish colonies.82 Jews were always judged by the same courts as the Greeks and Egyptians. vol. v (1939), 568 et seq.; Heuss, Alfred, Staat und herrscher des Hellenismus (Leipzig 1937), p. 79 et seq. II Cf. the oath of the Athenian judges recorded in Pollux viii, 452 et seq. 455. Wilcken, Archiv fur Papyrusforschung, vol. vii (1926), 70 n. 3, shows that in this respect the Greek law of Egypt followed Attic law. "IR. Taubenschlag, in Actes du Veme Congres internationale de papyrologie (1938), p. 489 et seq. considers the Greek law of Egypt a patchwork of the laws which obtained in some thirty-four original hometowns of the Greek immigrants. In cases where a Graeco-Egyptian institution finds no parallel in the law of Athens, he concludes it derived from the laws of other city-states. But this is largely an argumentum ex silentio, for in point of fact we know very little about Athenian law at this period, and there is thus no telling that the assumed local institution may not itself have been influenced by the practise of Athens. Moreover, there are a number of legal institutions, e.g. the katagraphe or officially verified deed of conveyance, which cannot properly be assigned to any one particular city, but were common to the whole of the Greek world during the Hellenistic period. Accordingly, there is as little justification for regarding Graeco-Egyptian law as a composite mixum-gatherum as there is for regarding the popular Greek language (koine) of the time as a fusion of all Greek dialects. That the Greek law of Alexandria was, on the contrary, the law of Athens is shown conclusively by Papyrus Halensis, Dikaiomata, p. 33; 50 et seq.; 57, 62, 66, 79 et seq.; 82, 115 et seq.; 126, 129 et seq.; 173 et seq., as wvell as by Pap. Oxyrinchus 2177 i 13 et seq. Indirectly it is implied also by II Maccabees 9:15. What was true of Alexandria was also true of the other Greek colonial cities, e.g. Ptolemais. During the Hellenistic period their laws were as similar to one another as those of the Roman municipia in the later days of the Republic. 82The texts published in Gueraud's Eutyxeis (Cairo 1931) point to the same conclusion. Most of these documents date from the reign of Ptolemy IV Philopator (221-204 B.C.E.). Jews are recognizable in most cases, though not always, by their names. Cases which seem to refer to them are: Nos. 10, 23, 24, 29, 30, 32, 41, 47, 59, 63, 66.

398

JEWISH

SOCIAL STUDIES

In the third century B.C.E. there were four principal courts of justice in Egypt, viz.: 83 1) The Laokritai ("judgesof the laoi") -for cases in which both plaintiff and defendant were Egyptians; - originally, it would seem, for finan2) The Chrematistai ("referees") cial matters,but later for civil disputes between Greeks;84 3) The Koinodikion ("commoncourt")- probably only for private cases between Greeksand Egyptians;85 4) The Court of Ten-for cases between Greeks,mostly colonists. To the last of these courts Jews also had resort, and they could even serve as members of it. Two papyri of the years 226-225 B.C.E. indicate that when they appeared before it they were regarded as Greeks.86 Otherwise, the civic status of a Jewish plaintiff or defendant-whether regarded as Egyptian or Greek-may be determined by the nature of the court before which a given case was heard. A document from Tebtunis, dated 118 B.C.E., shows that this system continued without material change throughout the following century. The Laokritai still exercised authority in cases between Egyptians and the Chrematistai in cases between Greeks; while where both were involved competence was determined by the fact whether the contract in dispute was written in Egyptian or Greek. By and large, with the exception of certain privileges (mainly fiscal and religious) vested in their politeuma, the juridical status of the Jews in the Ptolemaic age approximated that of the Alexandrians in general; and the law under which the Alexandrians were governed was virtually the same as that which operated among the Greeks who lived outside the metropolis ("Greeks of the chora") .87 In practise, it differed but 83Wilcken, Grundziige, p. 2 et seq.; Meyer, P., Juristische Papyri (Berlin 1920), p. 258 et seq., Segr6, A., in Aegyptus, vol. viii (1927), 298 et seq. 84 Segre, A., Aegyptus, vol. viii (1927), 302 et seq. f5Cf. Pap. Magd. 23 (221 B.C.E.); 21 (221 B.C.E.); Pap. Petrie iii 21 g (p. 47) (226-5 B.C.E.). Pap. Petrie iii 21b and f (226-5 B.C.E.); cf. Segre, A., Aegyptus, vol. viii (1927), 288, 301 et seq. This court, as well as the Court of Ten, seems to have been abolished by the second century B.C.E. 87Pace Uxkull Gyllenband, op. cit., p. 54, it is improbable that there were two classes of Alexandrian citizens in Roman times. Nevertheless, the evidence of Pap. Giessen 46 reopens the

question.

JEWS

IN PTOLEMAIC

AND ROMAN

EGYPT

399

little from the law of the native Egyptians, since the application of the latter was confined mainly to family matters. In course of time, however, a significant change took place. By means of royal edicts and decrees, promulgated throughout the country, the individual laws of the several cities (the politikoi nomoi) became modified and accommodated more and more to a single central and "universal" legislation.88 As a result of this process, the distinctiveness of the native law tended to disappear,89and with it there ensued a marked curtailment of the privileges formerly enjoyed by the Jews. The latter were now restricted, to all intents and purposes, to questions of religion and worship, as when Jews were exempted from certain public duties deemed incompatible with their faith or were granted certain concessions in penal law. To be sure, their family law was still regulated in part by the law of their politeuma, but in all other respects their former prerogatives were progressively abolished.90 Under the Roman dispensation conditions were, of course, quite different. The Jews were then definitely reduced to the status of endenized residents (laographoumenoi). As we have seen, this reduction provoked a bitter struggle for reinstatement as full citizens of Alexandria. It is important to realize, however, that this struggle involved far more than a mere matter of prestige. Citizenship carried with it certain specific privileges of a material character. The most important of these were: mIn all probability, the provisions of the royal diagrammata were incorporated by the cities into their local codes and thus transformed into politikoi nomoi. Alexandria, however, was not autonomous, and in that city, the diagrammata were automatically an integral part of the local law; cf. Segre, A., in Aegyptus, vol. viii (1927), 325 et seq. Actually, even in cities which were autonomous, the diagrammata had binding character, but the procedure whereby they were enacted may have been different; cf. Heuss, op. cit., p. 79 et seq. A recently-published inscription from Cyrene, dating from the reign of Ptolemy X, shows that the king issued direct orders to the royal officers in respect of procedure to be followed in fiscal processes, whereas when suggesting changes in local laws regarding private suits he merely addressed a recommendation to the municipal authorities; cf. Ruiz, Arangio, "Una nova iscrizione sul protettorato dei Tolemei in Cirenaica" in Rivista Filologica Classica, N.S., vol. xv (1937), 266-67. E As stated above, during the Ptolemaic age, the native Egyptian law was in practise, applied only in the case of family law. Under the Roman dispensation, it was abrogated in all instances where it was deemed inconsistent with conceptions of aequitas. 'I Some of the Jews, of course, were full-fledged incolae of Alexandria, and it is possible that in this capacity they participated in the Alexandrian frumentationes.

400

JEWISH

SOCIAL STUDIES

1. Freedom from the laographia and from poll-taxes91 imposed on noncitizens;

2. Freedom, in non-metropolitan areas, from burdensome public offices (leitourgiai)

;92

3. Concessionsin penal law; 4. Greaterpossibilityof acquiring Roman citizenship. Unless we bear this fact in mind, we fail to understand the full implications of the struggle and the reason for the opposition which the claims of the Jews invariably encountered. 91 Not improbably, exemption from the laographia implied also exemption from other poll-taxes; cf. Wallace, Taxation, p. 116 et seq.; 135 et seq.; 140; 420, n. 27. 92 For this exemption as granted to the Antinoeis, and for the analogy between the law of Antinoupolis and that of Ptolemais, cf. Pap. Wuerzburg No. 9. It would be interesting to know more about the tax exemptions of the privileged classes in Egypt. Unfortunately, our information is very incomplete.