The Augustan Empire 43 BC

The early Principate, especially the reign of Augustus, saw extensive urbanization in Syria, though little of it in the province itself. There were only three 'new' foundations, all of them veteran colonies, and all on the sites of existing urban settlements. Antony may have established a colony at Berytus,⁶⁰ but if so Augustus, through the agency of Agrippa in 15/14 B.C. re-established and expanded it.⁶¹ Then, or soon after,⁶² colonists were established at Heliopolis-Baalbek in the Beqaa valley. A major route opened eastwards over the mountains and this solid block of veterans of V Macedonica and VIII Augusta would have exerted a pacifying influence over the central region of the difficult Ituraean territory. More to the point, as a major 'Roman' city, strategically and attractively sited, Berytus rapidly became a mustering point for troops,

Malalas, 225.7-11; cf. Humphrey 1986 (f 427) 4s6f.

The Antonian origin may be inferred from a Berytan coin, undated but issued under Commodus (BMCPboeaicia 68f nos. 115-18), bearing the legend sec(undo) Saec(ulo) col(oniac) Ber(ytensis). An Augustan saeculum of 110 years points to a date between 41 and 29 B.C. However, Commodus' 'grandfather' Antoninus Pius had celebrated the Roman ludisaecutareson the traditional calculation of a saeculum of 100 years which, if adopted by Commodus, would point rather to 21-9 b.c., i.e. perhaps to the induction of Agrippa. Lauffray 1978 (e 1035) 147 notes even Caesar as a possible original founder. ⁶¹ Strabo xvi (756c).

⁶² The date of foundation of Heliopolis remains unresolved. Extreme views see it as the work either of Augustus contemporary with Berytus or as dependent on the latter until given independent status by Septimius Severus (preferred most recently by Millar 1990 (e 1040) i8f). The recently proposed case (Rey-Coquais 1978 (e 1054) 5 2f) for independence coming rather under Claudius is attractive.

an assize-centre, and a resort for visitors and client princes. Ptolemais, the former Akko, probably founded between a.d. 51 and 54, but developed under Nero was also a veteran settlement,[862] located so as to stabilize the increasingly restless areas of northern Judaea in the late Julio-Claudian period.

The peaceful conditions which allowed the recovery of the cides, were augmented by active imperial interest in urban development. Antioch had attention lavished on it from the outset. After the palace and circus attributed to Q. Marcius Rex in 67 в.с. (above, p. 717), Caesar, twenty years later, donated a Caesareum and amphitheatre, built or rebuilt a Pantheon and a theatre, and constructed an aqueduct. Augustus, Agrippa, Herod and Tiberius were the great benefactors, adding a new quarter, baths, temples, a theatre and a great colonnaded street, and Gaius and Claudius were active in restoration after earthquakes. Between them these men transformed much of the city, making it a worthy metropolis of the province. In doing so, all of them were conforming to an established tradidon of aristocradc benefaction to cides; with Andoch, however, one sees,par excellence, the convergence of the more lavish expectadons of the capital city of the Asiatic East and the enormous resources for such gifts available to the Roman emperors.[863]

Outside Antioch we have no explicit evidence of direct imperial civic building even if one may suppose such involvement in the new colonies at least. From literature, however, we do know of major public works elsewhere in Syria. Exedras, porticoes, temples, an agora, theatre, amphitheatre and baths were constructed at Berytus, all of this the work of Herod and his descendants, Agrippa I and II. The same Herodian rulers embellished several other Syrian cides: Laodicea, Tripolis, Byb- lus, Tyre, Sidon, Ptolemais, Ascalon, Damascus and, of course, Antioch (cf. below p. 72 5).[864] The appearance of these structures is largely unknown - only at Antioch and Berytus is there some physical evidence[865] - but we may turn for information to those of Herod's new works within his own kingdom, which have been investigated. The most interesting feature of Herod's work is his rapid employment of new Roman techniques and materials, here appearing rapidly and with more impact than in Greece or Asia Minor. Thus we find the extensive use of concrete and vaulting to permit elaborate engineering and landscaping works.⁶⁷

The most extensive urbanization of the early Principate did not in fact take place in the province at all. The monarchs of the Herodian dynasty were all great founders of cities, several of which became major centres In due course, all of these were to become part of the provinces of Syria, Judaea or Arabia. Their importance for their founders, as for the Romans in turn, was in the creation of largely hellenized communities with a cultural, administrative and military role to play. Thus, Herod's highly hellenized city of Caesarea was not only firmly pro-Roman in the time of Jewish revolts (and rewarded with colonial status by Vespasian) but became the provincial capital of Judaea, a role which, together with the substantial military forces there, would have given it a more distinctly Greco-Roman character. Herod's cities thus began the process of replacing the old toparchies into which the four major regions of his kingdom had been divided for administrative purposes.⁶⁸ The urbaniza­tion of the Ituraean lands, involved a mixture of procedures. In the north, much of the territory was allocated to the veteran colonies of Berytus and Heliopolis, the rest attributed to Arca/Caesarea ad Liba- num. In the south, territories were transferred to Herod and his descendants who introduced military colonies and cities in the western region,⁶⁹ and were probably behind the process elsewhere which was to lead to the appearance in the second century of large villages with extensive administrative functions.

One of the most interesting developments of the period concerns Palmyra and is clearly associated with Germanicus' visit to Syria — perhaps even to the remote town itself. There is a complete silence in the literary and epigraphic sources about Palmyra between Antony's abor­tive raid in 41 в.с. and the beginning of Tiberius' reign, when suddenly we get a spate of information.⁷⁰ Prior to this, the town - probably

⁶⁷ Thus, at Caesarea in the construction of the great artificial harbour and of the temple of Roma and Augustus on the neighbouring high ground; in the palace of Herodium; and of course the great 'landscaped villa in the contemporary Italian manner' at Jericho (Ward-Perkins 1981 (f 613) 312). Other client states too may have been active in promoting urban development in the cities of the province; without the testimony of Josephus our impression of Herod the Great's work would be very different. Recent fieldwork at Samosata has revealed that the kings of Commagene employed opus nticulatum extensively both in buildings on the citadel (the palace?) and in the facing for the lengthy town walls (Tirpan 1989 (e 1067)). ⁶⁸ Jones 1931 (e 1018) 81-5.

Discussion by Jones 1931 (e 1019) has not been superseded.

c. a.d. 11-17 we find the governor Silanus active defining the western border of its territory with either Apameia or Emesa (Schlumberger 1939 (e 1038)); the earliest Latin inscriptions — statue dedications to Tiberius, Drusus and Germanicus by the commander of one of the Syrian legions — appear in i~j(AE 1933, 204), the earliest bilingual Palmyrene—Latin texts, soon after; the first usage in Greek of the name Palmyra appears л 17 19; bronze coins ofTiberius were countermarked with a Palmyrene "Г and Greek */7'(Howgego 1983 (в 325) nos. 683,694); Germanicus is cited in the city's Tax Law as active in regulating internal tariffs; and he is named too on an inscription as instrumental in sending a Palmyrene, Alexandras, as an envoy to the Mesene at the head of the Persian Gulf (Cantineau 1931 (E993) 139-41)- originally located mainly south of the wadi and just to its north[866] - began to develop on the north bank. The temple of Allat seems to have been taking shape at the end of the first century B.C., and that of Baalshamin was dedicated a.d. 11—23. The major development, however, was the dedicadon in 32 of the immense temple of Bel which dominated the city. It has so much influence in its decoration which is classical and was completed so rapidly that it is probable that it was financed by the Roman emperor and worked on by many craftsmen imported from the cities to the west.[867] As was probably the case with the temples of Allat and Baalshamin, most construction work would have been locally financed; this can be seen explicitly in the case of the temple of Zeus at Gerasa, paid for by private pledges.[868]

The commonest structures in the cities at all times were the houses of their inhabitants. Very little is known of town houses at any time; they are almost entirely unknown for this period, though the evidence from Hama would suggest that the forms of earlier periods continued to be influential for years to come.[869] Josephus provides us with an illuminat­ing observation which sheds light on the appearance of the cities and towns of southern Syria. In the course of Cestius Gallus' invasion of Galilee in a.d. 66, he destroyed the large village of Chabulon but reluctantly because of the beauty of its houses, 'built in the style of those of Tyre, Sidon and Berytus'.⁷⁵ Earlier, Strabo had observed that the houses of Tyre (many of them on the 'island') were many stories high, higher even than those of Rome. On the other hand, the dye works at Tyre and some of its neighbours produced a distinctive and unpleasant smell.⁷⁶

The governments of the cities were predominantly hellenistic in character, with a boule, archons, agoranomoi, argyrotamiai, dekaprotoi and gymnasiarchs. Colonies of course adopted Roman practice and we have references to the decurions and to duoviri, aediles and quaestors. At Palmyra, many of the magistrates bear traditional titles but, as noted earlier (above, p. 712), it has been suggested that the functions of these men were different and that Palmyra was in fact very closely supervised by Rome, the activities of its magistrates largely directed by the Syrian governor.⁷⁷

The century of Roman peace which followed Actium saw, if not extensive urbanization in Syria, at least major urban development. The new colonies and the major Herodian foundations would have made a significant impact locally at least, Berytus, Ptolemais and Caesarea all rapidly developing as major cides. Elsewhere, by the end of the Julio- Claudian dynasty, many of the major cities of the province displayed the physical benefits of Roman benefactions whether direcdy from the emperor or through surrogates.

4. Economic development

The basis of the Syrian economy was farming. Not just agriculture to produce the fundamental corn harvest, but the culdvation of olives, vines, dates and figs, and the rearing of animals for food, wool and hides (as well as the tools and ornaments which were made from bones). Within the largely unchanging limitations imposed by rainfall and soils (above, p. 705—8), altered circumstances could provide scope for increased activity in marginal areas and for a changed balance between different crops as well as between tillage and stock raising. Little of such change can be demonstrated, though much may be inferred.

Security and stable conditions provided a suitable environment for the development of farming. Moreover, 'new' cides and urban growth opened up new or extended markets for agricultural surplus, to which had to be added the tens of thousands of unproductive soldiers who had to be fed. The probable extension of agriculture which resulted would in itself, by encouraging the settlement of potentially productive land, have further stimulated the economy and enhanced stability.⁷⁸

There were, of course, some traditional agricultural regions which continued to produce surpluses. The inhabitants of Sidon and Tyre, for example, were dependent on Galilee, and it may have been from this same region that much of the non-'Grecian' oil required by the Jewish communities of all of Syria, was exported.⁷⁹ The movement of corn by land would at all times have been expensive except in very local terms. Herod, however, had imported huge amounts of corn from Egypt at the time of the famine in the 20s, supplying too, some of neighbouring Syria.⁸⁰

New lands were opened up to agriculture. Thus Herod obliged the bandits of Trachonitis to turn to farming,⁸¹ and the growth of the Nabataean towns of the Negev must be associated with the development of the water-harvesting structures and 'farms' still visible in the region.⁸²

⁷⁸ The process can be documented for the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Well-armed soldiers in the towns and along roads, and at selected points in the semi-desert and desert, encouraged resettlement of abandoned land, turned semi-nomads into farmers, encouraged the growth of investment by the urban merchants and the Sultan, and provided not only new markets in towns and garrisons for food and hides, but even, during the Crimean War and the loss of Black Sea sources, a vigorous export market to Europe for Syrian grain (Lewis 1987 (e 1034)).

⁷⁵ Joseph. Vit. lxx; BJn.^if; AJxu. 120. Cf. above, p. 720. ⁸⁰ Joseph. A J xv.299-302.

⁸¹ Joseph. A] xvi. 271-92; cf. Archelaus' irrigation of new land near Jericho: B/xvn.340; cf.BJ xvni.31; Pliny, HN xiii.44. ⁸² Evenari et at. 1982 (e 1008) chs. VII-IX; cf. below, p. 732f.

In the late Republic, the great caravan trade up the Euphrates had been virtually halted by the predatory activities of Arab phylarchs. Peace and the probable settlement of semi-nomads of the region along the river and towards Beroea re-opened the routes,⁸³ and not only the growing populations in Syria itself, but access to a huge Mediterranean market stimulated activity. Aelius Gallus' expedition into south Arabia in 26/5 B.C. was certainly motivated by cupidity. Likewise, imperial interest in trade is probably behind the sudden concern for Palmyra (above, p. 714). On the other hand, the southern routes through Arabia Petraea, already in decline (below, p. 734), suffered a further blow as trade routes were polarized between those direct to Egypt and those from the head of the Persian Gulf.

Evidence from the Julio-Claudian period reveals a network of trading links within and beyond the province; more can be inferred. Thus timber from Lebanon for the sanctuary at Jerusalem,⁸⁴ metals for both work­shops and mints,⁸⁵ Italian pottery appears on Syrian sites, following presumably the same routes as Italian wine and oil; Syrian glass is found as distant as south Russia,⁸⁶ South Arabia and India, and Syrian wine was exported to India.⁸⁷ The needs of the army too would have stimulated trade within and between provinces: metals, hides, clothing, building materials and, of course, huge quantities of food. Further stimulus would have come from the market created in Antioch by a bureaucracy, those around the army camps with their bodies of regularly paid soldiers and, of course, from the demands of the labour forces on the new building projects. The most striking economic activity in the period — the one, certainly, for which we have some useful evidence - is in public construction. Whatever the source of the finance, this provided long- term employment opportunities: in the case of a massive structure like the temple of Jupiter at Damascus, such construction work was still highly labour intensive; 18,000 were threatened by unemployment when the Temple was completed in Jerusalem.⁸⁸

None of this should be exaggerated. There is little doubt that trade in food and other commodities increased and created a greater interdepen­dence between communities in Syria and beyond. The underlying reality, however, is that most economic activity remained local and of a subsistence character, and the overwhelming majority of the population

Strab. xvi.i.г-;((748cq; 2.10 (752-3c); cf. Lewis 1987 (e 1034).

Joseph. BJ v.36. These huge timbers for a specialist purpose would have been only one amongst many such items imported for the great building programmes of the client kings and the cities.

Copper from the mines of Cyprus and, perhaps, the Wadi Araba; cf. in general Muhly 1973 (e 1044). ⁸⁶ Rostovtzeff 1957 (a 83) 69f.

⁸⁷ Raschke 1978 (c 298) 90 jf, n. 999; Sidebotham 1986 (c 310) 13-47. Some at least of the silk appearing in Rome in the period may have come through Syria (but cf. Miller 1969 (e 1042) 1 i9f; '35^-6)- ⁸⁸ Joseph. AJ xx.219.

continued to live and work on the land.⁸⁹ Nor need we doubt that for most small farmers, 'pre-harvest famine' remained a continuing feature of life unchanged - and unchangeable - by Roman rule.⁹⁰

An important basis for this revived and developing economic life after 30 b.c., was the Augustan stabilization of the imperial coinage and the regularization of minting at Antioch. There were, however problems and setbacks. The population of the region would plainly not have suffered uniformly under a non-progressive tax regime. Indeed, in a.d. 17 Tacitus⁹¹ reports the financial exhaustion of the province from over­taxation; one of the reasons for the dispatch of Germanicus in that year. Just who was complaining - and how it was articulated - we are not told.

Natural disasters took their toll, though the extraordinary could expect imperial relief. A great famine and plague struck Judaea in the mid-2os b.c. and afflicted neighbouring regions. Another famine, portrayed by Luke as universal, is reported in c. a.d. 47/8.⁹² An earthquake had struck Judaea in 30 b.c., a second in a.d. 37, and others in north and south respectively, in the period a.d. 41-54 and 48.

/. Society and culture

As part of the Mediterranean-wide Roman empire, the urban population of the great cities of northern Syria and the Levant became still more cosmopolitan both in racial mix and outlook than in the Seleucid period. Despite the considerable body of evidence for the very active involve­ment of Syrians in overseas trade, there is virtually none showing any interest by the aristocracy to enter imperial service. In contrast to Asia Minor, there is no certain senator before the Flavian period,⁹³ and the two, possibly three, 'Syrians' who appear as equestrian officers in the Julio-Claudian period are all probably from the veteran colonies of Berytus and Heliopolis.⁹⁴ Only a handful of the aristocracies of the cities appear prominently. Malalas reports on the wealthy Antiochene council­lor, Sosibius, who accompanied Augustus to Rome in either 30 or 20 b.c., and left his wealth to the city for entertainments;⁹⁵ and now we have the inscription reporting on the quondam tetrarch Dexandros, who remained at Apamea as the founder of one of the leading families, and served as first High Priest of the Imperial Cult for the province (below,

P- 7²7)-

An obstacle to assimilation of the city aristocracies of Syria outside the veteran colonies — as elsewhere in the Greek East - was of course the slowness with which Roman citizenship was extended in the province. The aristocracies of ancient and great cities such as Antioch, Apamea and Damascus would see little advantage in it for them. Significantly, it was from the descendants of now deposed allied rulers — who had often been granted Roman citizenship and had more direct contact with Rome and Romans — that many of the earliest Syrian senatorial families were drawn.

Roman citizenship was spreading. Many time-expired legionaries as well as enfranchised former auxiliaries stayed on as settlers, some in the new colonies. One might expect those cities closely associated with the military — especially the legions — to have had larger numbers of Roman citizens. That would be particularly true of Antioch, both as a military centre and seat of the provincial bureaucracy. Presumably too the Apostle Paul was not the only Roman citizen amongst the petty officials of Syria. Instructive of the process in the Syrian cities is an inscription of 60 from Tyre of C. Iulius Iucundus, agoranomos in charge of nominations for Roman citizenship, suggesting that at Tyre at least, such an office was necessary. Whatever the ethnic origin of Iucundus, his colleague, the agoranomos Nicolaus, son of Baledo, clearly a native, a Phoenician who has adopted a Greek name,[870] exemplifies an older and probably more widespread process at work in varying degrees across the province. An interesting exception is Dexandros (above, p. 727), whose rare Greek name may reflect a genuine 'Greek' background.[871]

With native Semites appearing amongst the aristocracy of the cities, it seems certain that most of the remainder of the population, whatever their names, were likewise part or wholly Semitic. The Jewish commun­ity in most cities was especially noticeable; some such communities were substantial — that at Antioch had its own politeuma and was allowed its own archon.[872] Conversely, Gentile 'Syrians' in large numbers had been implanted by the Herods in their new cities.

The influx of people from outside Syria would have been principally through the army. While the numbers are potentially large, in practice many soldiers, even in the legions, will have been recruited locally (above, p. 716). Outside recruitment to the legions seems to have drawn on the neighbouring provinces rather than the West, and outsiders were rapidly assimilated, through contact and intermarriage, to the local communities. An unexpected element is the Parthian, Arsacid refugees and their retainers who were settled in Syria; and the Babylonian Jew Zamaris with his family and 500 archers who arrived с 9—6 в.с. to be initially settled at Daphne, is unlikely to have been unique if one may judge from the evidence of 'Parthian' regiments and mercenaries in the Roman army."

Evidence for romanization — as opposed to the greater scope for hellenization - is limited and largely superficial: Italian names (not least 'Agrippa'), some citizenship, mainly in pockets, the local cultural influence of the three veteran colonies and the influence of the imperial cult in cities and around the camps. The army was indeed the principal source of Romanization through the imposition of an influential Roman institution with established and thoroughly Roman practices in admi­nistration, language and religion. But the 40-50,000 soldiers were scattered and increasingly locally recruited even in the Julio-Claudian period. Those in cities, like the Thracians of the ala I Augusta Thracum at Gerasa in the first century,¹⁰⁰ were more likely to be influenced by Syrian culture than the reverse. Conversely, Roman military practices made an impact on the armies of the allied rulers. Not surprisingly they sought to emulate the most efficient and effective army of the time (cf. below, p. 732).¹⁰¹

Opportunities for refined entertainment and relaxation were extended beyond that handful of cities in the north which had theatres in the hellenistic period. Theatres remained less common than in Asia Minor, but Herod and his family were responsible for their construction and for the provision of baths and gymnasia in several cities in their own realms and in the Syrian province. The notion that the Greek East had no taste for the barbarism of the Roman wild beast and gladiatorial fights must now be jettisoned. Although the positive evidence is slight and amphi­theatres are uncommon, literature attests to both practices — at the time of Herod's dedication of his new city of Caesarea in 10 B.C. and by Titus after the destruction of Jerusalem 80 years later. It is clear that theatres were used instead of purpose-built amphitheatres.¹⁰² Athletic and dramatic contests, often associated with religious festivals, were revived

" Applebaum 1989 (e 1075) ch. 4; Kennedy 1977 (e 1021).

Kraeling 1938 (e ioji) 4$6f nos. 199-201.

Cf. Braund 1984(0 254); Gracey 1981 (e ioio). When Josephus set about organizing an army in 67, he adopted Roman practices and ranks (BJ 11.J77-82).

Robert 1940 (f 57) 259-66. At Antioch, gladiatorial games went back to Antiochus IV Epiphanes who had developed his taste for them while at Rome: Livy, xli.20. The amphitheatre discovered by aerial reconnaissance at Caesarea has received only a little attention but is presumably that of Herod (Holum et al. 1989 (e i 140) 85-6).

or established in various cities providing periodic attracdons and entertainment: the councillor Sosibius (above, p. 723) established a quinquennial festival at Antioch extending over thirty days,¹⁰³ and Herod introduced them too into the cities of his realm, including Jerusalem.¹⁰⁴

Religion played a large part in both politics and everyday life. Most detailed evidence belongs to a later period but the principal features for the current century are clear. Semitic religions had much in common with one another as indeed with those of their Mesopotamian neigh­bours with whom they had a shared cultural and political unity extending back to Persian times. A common feature was a Supreme God. By the Persian period the host of minor gods which had obscured the prominence of the supreme deity had moved into a more subordinate role. The 'Assemblies of Gods' which had characterized this earlier phase gave way to Angels, messengers of the Supreme God, who might have their own devotees. A consequence was a trend towards monoth­eism which facilitated the spread of Judaism and was to do so again for Christianity.

The character no less than the name of the Supreme God varied considerably between settled peoples and nomads, townsmen and farmers. The preoccupations of the citizens of Phoenician Tyre were far removed from those of the merchants of Palmyra or the nomads of Nabataea. Naturally, for most people, the fertility of the soil and the needs of agriculture were dominant; industry, trade, commerce or a nomadic life involved different priorities. Thus, Baalshamin, identified as a deity concerned with agriculture was popular around the Palmyrene oasis, and the Nabataean Supreme God, Dushara, perhaps equated with Mercury by the nomadic Nabataeans of the south, was assimilated to Dionysus amongst the farmers of the Hauran.

There is also a distinction to be made between the public religion of the towns and the popular religion of the masses. For the latter, their religion was probably very simple and their relationship with their god close: inscriptions often characterize traditional pagan gods as epekoos 'the One Who Listens', symbolizing the expectation amongst devotees that they would be listened to and taken care of. For the more sophisticated townsman, Semitic cults such as those of Azizos, Hadad, Melkart, Atargatis and Baalshamin, had come to be equated with Greek gods during the hellenistic period. The trend continued in the Roman period with shrines and dedications flourishing in the cities to gods from Apollo and Athene to Pan and Zeus, either in their own right or in a dual form with the local Supreme God. The Roman equivalents made litde

Malalas, Cbron. ix.z*4; x.248; xii.284.

Joseph. A] xvi. 137; BJ 1.415 (Caesarea); A] xv.268 (Jerusalem).

impact outside the army camps and colonies. For the latter, the cult of Jupiter Optimus Maximus Heliopolitanus at Heliopolis-Baalbek, repre­sents the most striking example. For the former, the official Roman cults which formed part of formal military festivals and worship were still vibrant in the early third century as the Feriale Duranum, the Dura Military Calendar, makes clear.[873]

The most significant Roman import was the introduction of the imperial cult in the time of Augustus (above, p. 724). Temples and priesthoods for Augustus, or Rome and Augustus, were established during his lifetime, as they were for his successors and for the divi. Significantly, the first High Priest of the imperial cult for the province as a whole was the Apamaean tetrarch Dexandros, a man who would have understood better than most the importance of the cult, and provided a striking model for others to emulate. Once again, Herod was at the forefront of this development with known temples built at Samaria and Panias and, in particular, at Caesarea Maritima.[874] Indeed, it has been plausibly suggested that wherever else temples of the imperial cult were established, they were an inevitable feature of those cities named for and dedicated to Caesar or Augustus/Sebastos. Of interest too in the realm of politics, was the establishment under imperial patronage, of the great temple of Jupiter at Baalbek, which became a focus of political loyalty for central Syria at least, as that at Seeia may have been for the Nabataean population of the Hauran.

The prominence of religion in everyday life is clear enough from the numerous temples and shrines, the altars and baetyls (rectangular stone pillars), theophoric elements in personal names and the inscriptions attesting to the gratitude of the common man for divine protection and aid. For many it would have provided a vital reassurance.[875] Influence is harder to gauge. At one extreme, the political role of the imperial cult, the newest cult in the region, is clear enough. At the other, Judaism, one of the oldest, through the Jewish diaspora of Syria and new converts, exerted a humanitarian influence on its neighbours, since it, uniquely, had a tradition of compassion for the destitute.[876]

A handful of Syrians are prominent in the field of scholarship. The numbers of philosophers, rhetoricians and orators is small by compari­son with, for example, Alexandrians. Nicolaus of Damascus, the minister and historian of Herod the Great, is to be ranked alongside Strabo, Timagenes and Dionysius amongst the outstanding Greek writers of the Augustan period. Other notable figures are Tiberius' tutor, the rhetorician Theodorus of Gadara, and his fellow-townsman, the epicurean philosopher Philodemus, teacher of Calpurnius Piso and Virgil; from Tarsus and Cilician Seleucia, respecdvely, came Nestor and Athenaeus, tutors of Marcellus.¹⁰⁹ However, while these Syrians appeared in the imperial household, no Antiochene — in the absence of a precise role for Sosibius (above, p. 723) - is known to have held a position of prominence there in the way Alexandrians did, and neither the city nor the province held the attraction for eminent Roman hellenophiles which Greece, Asia Minor and Egypt did.[877]

III. CLIENT STATES

/. Character, role and development

Pompey's settlement of Syria had involved the recognition of a number of men as rulers over much of the region. Although they subsequently appeared prominently in support of the vanquished in three successive rounds of Roman civil war, they were still numerous in 30 в.с. Indeed, numbers may have increased: Antony had swept away the many tyrants set up by Cassius[878] to rule over newly created principalities, but then established other such states himself.[879] However, it is only in the 20s в.с. that we get an indication of just how numerous these states were. Alongside the kingdoms - Commagene, Judaea and Arabia Petraea, there were numerous minor dynasts and tetrarchs: more than a score in Syria Coele, and several more in the south.[880]

The usefulness of a network of allied rulers in and around the periphery of a province was not in doubt.¹¹⁴ Rather, the task confrondng the new princeps was to re-assess the balance between directly adminis­tered province and the area under the control of allied rulers, and to determine which to retain. The solution was to have fewer but larger states. The three major kingdoms were retained and two were resusci­tated: the kings of eastern Cilicia and Emesa had been vicdms of the Acdan campaign, but their families were now restored in 20 в.с. The year, of course, was that of Augustus' visit to Syria and it seems likely that the rest of the major re-organization attributable to his reign was also the outcome of this visit and/or of those of Agrippa in 23/1 and 16­13 B.C. during his period of authority in the East (23-13 B.C.). The arrangements cannot be followed in detail but they involved the removal of the plethora of tetrarchs. The case of Zenodorus indicates that their lands could simply be re-allocated: in 24/3 he had lost part of his Ituraean tetrarchy to Herod the Great, then in 20, after his death, Herod received the rest too.[881] On the other hand, the ending of the Apamaean tetrarchy[882] seems to have been purely administrative: the territory was annexed to the province, and the family of Dexandros with their 'royal honours' remained dominant in the local aristocracy for at least a century more. Other tetrarchies may have been subsumed in the restored kingdoms of Cilicia and Emesa (from which indeed they may have sprung). Important lacunae concern the nomad tribes and Palmyra: in particular, the Arab phylarchs in the north in the late Republic are heard of no more, and after Antony's raid in 41 B.C., Palmyra does not reappear in our evidence until c. a.d. 11—17 (above, p. 7i9f and n. 70).

The terms of Roman friendship, alliance and recognition for kings and princes — whether officially stated or not — varied considerably. There had always been limitations on the freedom of action of such rulers, but the defining of parameters was one of the achievements of Augustus' reign. The character of a ruler and the location and size of his kingdom all went to determine the extent of his freedom of action and behaviour. Inevitably it is from Josephus' account of Herod and his descendants that we learn most about the rulers of Syria, but from what may be gleaned both from the same author and other writers, it is clear that the same parameters of rights, obligations and behaviour applied. Equally inevitably, some rulers either did not recognize these or sought to break them.

Location of course was important. Commagene's capital, 260km from Antioch as the crow flies, would have given its ruler a measure of remoteness until the annexation of Cappadocia in a.d. 17 brought another province into existence in the north. The nearest Roman troops would have been about four days distant. Its dynasty felt akin to Parthia and just beyond their Euphrates border lay a dangerous example: Osrhoene, a powerful Parthian vassal, whose kings had been able to shake off Roman overlordship after the Battle of Carrhae. Rome was often uneasy about Commagene's reliability. It had colluded with the Parthian invasion of 40-38 в.с. which had led to Antony's abortive siege; strategic considerations almost certainly lay behind the decision in a.d. 17 to take direct control of the major crossings of the upper Euphrates by annexing Cappadocia and Commagene; and its final elimination in 72 was precisely on the grounds of alleged conspiracy with Parthia.[883]

Tarcondimotus' Cilician kingdom, though divided from the rest of Syria by the Amanus Mountains was hemmed in by the Taurus and the province of Cilicia and easily open to Roman influence and intervention. Emesa was close to the heart of the province.[884] Under Claudius, when the governor Vibius Marsus appeared at Tiberias and ordered the dispersal of Herod Agrippa I's guests including the kings of Comma- gene and Emesa, both complied rapidly, recognizing the nature of their position even if their host had believed Claudius' friendship and indebtedness had accorded him greater ladtude.

Arabia Petraea is rather different. Unlike Commagene, there was no powerful neighbour beyond; on the other hand, the remoteness of Petra — some 700km from Antioch, hedged in by mountain and desert — with consequent difficulties either of controlling or bringing the region under direct administration, conferred a certain amount of immunity from day- to-day interference. But there were limits and warnings. Aretas IV had acceded without prior approval in 9 b.C., and in a.d. 37 made war on his neighbour Herod Antipas. Augustus had considered deposing the dynasty but was too preoccupied to pursue a radical solution; Tiberius actually despatched an army into Nabataean territory but Vitellius seized the pretext of Tiberius' death to withdraw his forces from Nabataea. Luck had saved Aretas on both occasions but the lessons would not have been lost: in 4 в.с. Nabataean troops were sent to aid Varus in his Judaean expedition[885] and in a.d. i 8 Germanicus was feted by Aretas.[886]Moreover, with the growth of Nabataean possessions in the Hauran, the kingdom was now rather more vulnerable.

The funcdon of these client kings is largely a matter for conjecture from the totality of evidence for client rulers everywhere and in particular from the well-attested Herodian examples. The advantages to Rome of leaving the less urbanized and poorer parts of Syria under their traditional rulers, was obvious. Except in the cases of the Herods and the Nabataeans (below, p. 73 2) we are largely ignorant of the character of the individual royal armies. Both Commagene and Emesa contributed significant forces to Roman expeditionary armies: in 66 that was 5,000 and 4,000 troops respectively;¹²¹ in 67 it amounted to 3,000 men from each, both offering especially useful archers and cavalry.¹²² Moreover, the annexation of Commagene between a.d. 17 and 3 8 had resulted in the absorption of some at least of the former royal army into the Roman auxi/ia.[887] Presumably, like the Herodian realms and Arabia Petraea, these substantial forces reflected not just the needs of personal security for the monarch, but troops to maintain order in the cities and to police the countryside as well as to secure the periphery of the directly administered province (cf. above, n. 114).

The king-lists provide a bare indication of politics and government. Interruptions at Commagene from 17 to 3 8 and again under Gaius, did not, however, prevent the family remaining deeply involved in Roman politics. Antiochus IV was one of the 'tyrant-masters' of Gaius and with him in Gaul in 39. A generation later, his son, Antiochus Epiphanes, fought with the Othonians at the First Battle of Bedriacum before joining Titus at Jerusalem. Interestingly, when Antiochus III died in a.d. 17 and the kingdom was annexed, it appears that the masses supported the continued monarchy and it was the aristocracy which petitioned for annexation.[888] Presumably the aristocracy saw political advantage to themselves if removed from the shadow of a monarch; indeed after final annexation, the ruling family was catapulted into senatorial politics. The 'masses' were largely Semitic and it is interesting to see their support for a ruling family which, as we know from its nomenclature and the character of the art preserved in the best-known monument, the great tumulus at Nemrud Dagh, was Iranian with a Greek influence. The kingdom itself was reputed to be wealthy - the wealthiest of them all; Strabo refers to rich valleys and upland pastures; Antiochus I had offered to buy off Ventidius Bassus with 1,000 talents (24 million sesterces); and later, Gaius reimbursed to Antiochus IV the 100 million sesterces said to be the accumulated revenue to Rome from twenty years.[889]

Less can be said of Emesa. Only four monarchs span the period from restoration in 20 b.c. to annexation probably not long after a.d. 72. The family lived on as hereditary priests of the local Syrian deity (Baal). Emesa, like the other allied kingdoms, had become enmeshed in a network of family alliances through royal marriages.[890] None, however, were to be as successful as the marriage, more than a century after the ending of the kingdom, of lulia Domna to the future emperor Septimius Severus. The result was to be three Emesan empresses and their children ruling in Rome.

2. The Nabataean kingdom

In contrast to Commagene and Emesa, we know a great deal about the government, character and development of the Nabataean kingdom. Arabia Petraea - the heart of the kingdom - is unpromising terrain for human settlement. Composed in large part of rock and desert, lacking any substantial perennial water course and dependent on seasonal rains, it is no surprise that in the late fourth century,[891] its Arab population was nomadic, albeit already engaged in a lucrative commerce. Three centur­ies later Strabo knew them as a settled people living in houses. By then too, their realm included the Hedjaz, the Negev Desert and the fertile Hauran. In the first centuries в.с. and a.d. they developed a politically powerful and culturally vigorous and innovative society.

Nabataean monarchs enjoyed long reigns: only five between c. 58/7 b.c. and a.d. 106. On the other hand, it appears from Strabo that effective power lay with an appointed minister (epitropos).^ns The only named minister, Syllaeus, evidently wielded considerable power and influence; he proposed marriage for himself to Herod's daughter and evidently sought the kingship at Petra. It was Syllaeus too whom we twice find visiting Rome;[892] indeed, no Nabataean king is ever known to have visited Rome nor apparently did any ever receive either Roman citizenship or the marks of honour accorded their neighbours: toga picta, praetorian or consular ornaments.[893] Like Herod's kingdom, Arabia Petraea may have been divided into toparchies; certainly, regional administration was in the hands of strategoi (strg), who were probably local tribal chiefs recognized as royal governors.[894]

Security was provided by a standing army which was modelled to some extent on that of Rome. Thus, alongside the hellenistic chiliarch and hipparch one finds the centurion (qntrjn').ⁿ² Despite explicit statements as to their unwarlike character,[895] over two centuries the military record of Nabataean soldiers is good.[896] Moreover, they were called upon to assist Roman campaigns on at least four occasions[897] and ultimately the royal army was absorbed into the Roman auxilia as six cohortes Petraeaorum, some 4,500 men.

The sudden Nabataean appearance at Hegra, deep in the Hedjaz 500km south east of Petra, may have been inspired by Rome.¹³⁶ The new territory may in fact have been that ruled by a kinsman of the Nabataean king at the time of Aelius Gallus' campaign. There, in a region of Lihyanite and later Thamudic settlement, appeared a series of some seventy-nine monumental rock-cut tombs similar in design and quality to those at Petra. Unlike the latter, many bear dated inscriptions, often naming civil and military officers, a few citing distant origins, and ranging in date from a.d. i to 75. All of this points to a major development there, perhaps a military colony, but so far nothing more of the town has been unearthed than an apparent 'residential area'.¹³⁷ Now too we have evidence of settlement elsewhere in the region: ten similar tombs have come to light at al-Bad (Ptolemy's Madian) and another at al- Disa.¹³⁸ More exciting still are the numerous other small Nabataean sites in the Hedjaz identified especially in the coastal region around Aynunah (probably Leuke Kome - see below, p. 734).¹³⁹

There is similar evidence from the other two major acquisitions. The Negev underwent a phase of development in the early Principate. The evidence suggests growing settlements at Mampsis and along the line of the Petra-Gaza road which continued through into the Roman period. In the north, Zenodorus had sold Auranitis to the Nabataeans in 30 B.C. for a modest 50 talents. The scanty physical evidence so far suggests intensification of occupation about the middle of the first century a.d. At Bostra there is growing evidence to suggest a substantial Nabataean settlement there. The 'Nabataean' arch is now confirmed as first century a.d., probably second half, and it would seem that the main thorough­fare leading to it may have been a contemporary via sacra joining the settlement at its west end to a religious enclave at the east.¹⁴⁰

Of existing settlements, Petra was also being developed: some of the tombs date to this period, the theatre is early first century, and the temenos at least of the Qasr el-Bint temple is of the reign of Aretas IV (9 b.c.-a.d. 40). With the benefit of precisely dated examples at Hegra, many of the very striking monumental tombs of the city may be placed in the same period, and it is arguable that the Khazneh, the 'Treasury', too is of this same period.¹⁴¹

What appears to be a foundation coin naming Hegra dates to between 9 в.с. and a.d. 18 (Meshorer 1975 (в 343) ;jf)and the earliest of the dated inscriptions there is for a.d. i, the same year in which the expeditio Arabica of Gaius Caesar brought him to the head of the Gulf of Aqaba.

Winnett and Reed 1970 (e 1070) i78ff.

Parr et at. 1971 (e 1048) 30-5 (al-Bad); Ingraham et al. 1981 (e 1014) 76 (al-Disa).

Ingraham et at. 1981 (e 1014); cf. Dayton 1972 (e 997)46; Bawden 1978 (e 986) 11; Parr et el. 1968/9 (e 1048); 1971 (E 1048).

"o Peters 1983 (e iojo) 273-7;cf. Miller 1983 (e 1041); Dentzer 1984(e998); 1986(£999)1.2,406; Sartre 1985 (e 1057) 57-62. See now the evidence for Umm el-Jemal: De Vries 1986 (e 1003) 229?.

¹⁴¹ Schmidt-Colinet 1980 (e 1059) 217-33; ^cf- Wright 1962 (e 1071); McKenzie 1990 (e 1038).

All of these developments suggest expanding economic activity and a more cosmopolitan outlook. Certainly, so much construction at Petra - over 5 oo monumental tombs - and in other centres will not only have provided employment for the architects, masons, plasterers and other artisans attested in inscriptions, but have stimulated urbanization. The construction techniques and design show evidence of Alexandrian influence and some at least of the many foreigners at Petra,¹⁴² may have been imported artisans and artists. The finished product, however, is both impressive and unique to the Nabataeans. Some of these foreigners will have been merchants selling as well as buying. The Nabataeans had already begun to produce their own highly distinctive fine painted pottery in the late Republic, but at several sites imported wares have turned up. The Nabataean potter's workshop at Avdat (first half of the first century a.d.), for example, seems to have sold alongside its own produce 'Herodian' lamps, Eastern and Italian sigillata.^m

Financial support for such endeavours no longer rested so firmly on trade. By the beginning of the Christian era, much of the south Arabian trade had long been moved direct by sea to Egypt¹⁴⁴ with serious consequences for Nabataean commercial well-being. Caravans did still operate through Arabia Petraea. Strabo¹⁴⁵ refers to traders with loads of south Arabian aromatics travelling between Leuke Kome and Petra thence to Rhinocolura 'in such numbers of men and camels that they differ in no respect from an army', and in the time of Malichus II (a.d. 40-70),there are reports¹⁴⁶ of many but modest sized ships coming loaded from Arabia to Leuke Kome which had a centurion supervising the collection of a 2 5 per cent tax, and from which a road led to Petra. Leuke Kome has now been identified with Aynunah.¹⁴⁷ Nearby one finds a major roadstead at Khuraybah and a series of Nabataean and Roman sites in and around the springs and gardens of Aynunah itself, which has produced over one hundred rock-cut tombs and a major building with over 130 rooms, corridors, towers and courtyards.¹⁴⁸ Such activity required protection and it is probably no coincidence that most of the attested Nabataean garrisons and camps are in the Hedjaz, Hisma and Negev.

Trade links in the north, possibly reflecting a development of the Wadi Sirhan route from Jauf to counter the decline in Arabian traffic and also to exploit the developing Palmyrene monopoly of trade from the Gulf, are suggested by the presence of a Nabataean ethnarch at

Strab. xvi.4.21 (779c).

Negev 1974 (e 1045) 25—42. There were Nabataean merchants at Puteoli c. 50 b.c. (CIS 11 1.2: >5 8).

Strab. xvi.4.24 (781-20). Dihle 1965 (e 1004) 25 suggests the transfer had begun in the late hellenistic period. ¹⁴⁵ xvi.4.25 (780-ic). ¹⁴⁶ Perifilus of the Erythraean Sea, 19.

¹⁴⁷ Kirwan 1981 (e 1028) 1984 (e 1029). ¹⁴⁸ Ingraham et al. 1981 (e 1014) 6ĵff.

Damascus in the last years of Tiberius.¹⁴⁹ To this may be added the significant physical evidence from Decapolis cities, notably Philadelphia and Gerasa, for Nabataean communities there too.¹⁵⁰

There was some industry in the kingdom apart from the ceramic. Copper was extracted from the mines in the Wadi Araba and in the Sinai¹⁵¹ and those south of Petra, and asphalt had been exploited around the Dead Sea since the fourth century. Although no silver source is known in Arabia Petraea, both bronze and silver coinage appear throughout the two centuries before annexation,¹⁵² and at least one Roman extorted an indemnity in silver from the Nabataeans in the late Republic.¹⁵³

The foundation of the Nabataean economy continued to be sheep-and camel-raising as it had been in the early fourth century.¹⁵⁴ Now, however, they were much more involved in arable farming. Part of their realm offered good farming land, especially in the new lands of the Hauran; in the low rainfall of the Negev and Hedjaz the key lay in their skill in hydraulic engineering. No longer just the collection and storage in cisterns of water for their flocks, now too there was the beginning of 'water-harvesting'.¹⁵⁵

The long reign of Aretas IV appears as a golden age of tranquillity and development in Arabia Petraea. Eighty per cent of known Nabataean coins belong to his reign.¹⁵⁶ Nor were they struck to pay extra troops. Quite the reverse; after assisting Varus in 4 B.C. there was no warfare again for forty years: in part the removal of a royal neighbour from Judaea itself and the marriage of Aretas' daughter to Herod Antipas, but largely the peace demanded by Rome between neighbours and an end of the raiding which was a feature of Nabataean life until the early Principate.¹⁵⁷

The population of Petra at least is characterized in Strabo as a harmonious one: formal litigation was exclusively between foreigners or by foreigners against Nabataeans.¹⁵⁸ They appear as very materialistic, but with few slaves. Drinking parties were popular but drunkenness said to be limited; singing girls performed at their communal feasts. These last were probably religious. Temples included triclinia, funerary ban­quets formed part of the ceremonies at the famous rock tombs and they are attested also in the cemetery at Mampsis.¹⁵⁹

2 Cor. 11.32; an official in charge of a Nabataean community is the more likely explanation rather than unlikely Nabataean rule.

Graf 1986 (e ioi i) 788-93; Gatier forthcoming (e 1009).

'Smith' is a common element in Sinaitic Nabataean names: Negev 1986 (e 1047) iof.

Meshorer 1975 (в 343) oo.

>53 Joseph. AJ xiv.8if; BJ 1.159 (Scaurus); cf. AJ xiv. 103; BJ 1.178 (Gabinius).

¹⁵⁴ Joseph AJ xix.94.4. '55 Evenari«/e/. 1982 (e ioo8)9J-i78;Ingrahamf/e/. 1981 (e 1014).

¹⁵⁶ Meshorer 1975 (в 343)41. '5' Strab. xvi.4.21 (779c). ¹⁵⁸ xvi.4.21 (779c).

¹⁵⁹ The meal included olives, dates, fowl and mutton (Negev 1986 (e 1047) 92).

The Nabataean religion involved worship both at sacred high places and in temples (above, p. 726f). Their Supreme God, Dushara, 'the One of Shara', the escarpment south of Petra, is widely commemorated.[898]However, one of the earliest and grandest 'Nabataean' temples is that of Baalshamin at Seeia in the Hauran.[899] There, a huge isolated sanctuary, dedicated (probably by Herod the Great) between 33/2 and 2/1 b.c., was constructed.

iv. conclusion

On a July day in 69, Antioch witnessed an event which would have astonished its inhabitants of a century before. The governor of the province, Mucianus, made a speech to the populace in the theatre in justification of Vespasian's proclamation as emperor and sought their support for the civil war. Equally remarkable, he was able to gain the sympathy of the populace by suggesting that the local garrisons were to be transferred to Germany, and that they were to lose the troops they were used to and with whom there had been a great deal of intermarriage.[900]

Attitudes had changed and the reasons are not hard to find. Stable and more efficient government had been introduced and the hand of Rome was relatively light in its effect on local culture. Peace and security had been firmly established. Even the recent wars of Corbulo had had little direct effect on the province and there was no sympathy for the Jewish rebels. A few cities had been founded and urban development given a significant impetus. Trade had recovered and shrewd Syrian merchants could fully exploit their safe access to Mediterranean markets. The contrast with the last generadon of Seleucid rule and of the last days of the Republic was only too clear.

The shape of the province was not yet complete - that was to be the work of the Flavians and, finally, Trajan, in removing the last of the petty rulers. But the transition from the bitter, resentful, ravaged province of the 40s в.с. to the stable rapidly integrating province of the second century a.d. was well advanced.[901]

JUDAEA

martin goodman

i. the herods

The political history of Judaea in the period covered by this volume is particularly well attested through the preservation of the work of the Jewish historian Josephus, who wrote after a.d. 70 first a detailed account of the Judaean revolt against Rome from a.d. 66 to a.d. 73 or 74 and then an apologetic version for non-Jewish readers of Jewish history to the outbreak of that war.¹

A priest from Jerusalem and a commander of the Jewish forces in Galilee during the war, Josephus was steeped in the traditions of his nation. He was an acute observer, but his evidence is tainted by the traumas of his own career. Captured by Roman forces in a.d. 67, he espoused the enemy cause with a wholeheartedness that won him the favour of the future emperor Vespasian and enabled him to spend the last part of his life, including his active years as a writer, in comfort, probably in Rome.

The bias in Josephus' narratives, particularly of the first century a.d., when Judaea fell under direct Roman rule, can be pardy checked from other sources. Inscriptions provide less useful evidence than elsewhere in the Roman East, for the Judaean ruling class never picked up the epigraphic habit except in the medium of coinage, but the contribution of archaeology is large and growing. The Gospels and Acts of the Apostles add further evidence although, since they are theological documents, their accuracy cannot be taken for granted. But Josephus' narrative is best checked through his own inconsistencies: his detailed account often reveals information that his more sweeping generaliza­tions and general tendentious approach tend to obfuscate.²

The main sources for the reign of Herod are the parallel accounts in Joseph. BJi.it i-n.i66and AJxiv.i-ji-xvu end. In both narratives Josephus used but corrected Nicolaus of Damascus. In A] he may have had additional material from Strabo, Historiae and possibly a biography of Herod by a certain Ptolemy. Cf., above all, Schalit 1969 (e 1206). For a basic introduction to the rabbinic sources used in this chapter, and the form of citation, see Stemberger 1992 (e 121 ;a).

On approaches to Josephus, cf. Rajak 1983 (в 147) and works cited in Feldman 1986 (в 50). For the coins of Herod and his successors, cf. Meshorer 1982 (в 344). For recent excavations, see Avi- Yonah and Stern 1975-8 (e 1078); Avigad 1984 (e 1080).

737

Map 20. Judaea.

Herod to some extent presented himself as a Jewish monarch, and for some Romans his family were seen as representative of Jewry.³ But his rule over Judaea was inaugurated in 40 b.c. and preserved until c. 4 B.C. almost entirely at the behest of Rome.

Herod's story begins with the career of his father Antipater, who had taken advantage since the sixties B.C. of internal dissensions within the Hasmonaean dynasty to promote himself, trading on the obscurity of his own Idumaean lineage, which made him appear no danger to his Hasmonaean patron, Hyrcanus II; the Idumaeans had only been forcibly converted to Judaism in the 120s b.c. and could still be insulted as only half-Jews by some Judaeans.⁴ At the same time he cultivated Roman officials in the East, for their influence had been decisive since 63 B.C. in the balance of power between the various Hasmonaean factions. In 44 b.c. Antipater's position thus relied on his friendship with Caesar, but by 43 b.c. he had rapidly won the confidence of Cassius and persuaded Hyrcanus to support the Liberators of Rome. His power was cut short only by his assassination in a court intrigue.

That it was Herod who inherited Antipater's position and not the latter's older son Phasael was due to Herod's demonstration of energy and competence in his father's lifetime. At the age of twenty-five in 48 b.c. he had already acted briefly as governor of Galilee on Caesar's behalf. When in 43 B.C. he proceeded to destroy his father's murderer and the latter's supporters with Cassius' approval, his role as Hyrcanus' chief adviser was certain.

Herod's further progression to the crown was brought about by the continuing chaos in the eastern Mediterranean before and after Philippi. The Liberators urgently needed funds and Herod dutifully raised considerable quantities, first in Galilee and later in Judaea and Syria. When some cities in Judaea refused to pay, he ruthlessly subjected them to slavery. Meanwhile his position in Hyrcanus' estimation was streng­thened when he routed the king's nephew Antigonus.

Cassius' defeat at Philippi did not check Herod's rise: Antony, concerned not to lose a powerful friend of Rome, accepted the fiction that Hyrcanus and his side had supported the Liberators unwillingly and advanced Herod and Phasael to the position of tetrarchs; the precise relationship between the brothers and Hyrcanus, who was entided ethnarch, is unclear.

This promotion of Antipater's sons was greeted with rioting by the Jews but enforced with bloodshed, only to be rendered nominal in 41/40 b.c. by the Parthian invasion of Palestine and the installation in Judaea of Antigonus; he was to be king over the Gentile population and High

³ Cf. 'Herodis dies' at Pers. v. 180, as a description of the sabbath in the middle of the first century a.d. ⁴ j0sqjh.v4yxrv.40}.

Priest of the Jews, who welcomed his accession and the legiumacy which he advertised on his coins. Phasael was killed or forced to commit suicide. Hyrcanus was sent to Parthia and, by mutiladon of his ears, rendered incapable of holding the high priesthood. Herod in early 40 в.с. fled to Rome.

That flight, which implied that only in Rome did he have a hope for the future, proved opportune. The triumvirs, especially Antony, to whom the eastern provinces had been allotted, saw in Herod the surest way to return Judaea to Roman control. No adult male Hasmonaean was readily available for promotion as a puppet ruler. The installation of a new family as monarchs of a client state was new in Roman foreign policy; but Herod was known in Roman society, he was a competent soldier, his father had been Caesar's friend, as an associate of Hyrcanus he was assumed to understand Jewish society. Less tangible but no less important a factor was his luck: he was in Rome just after the treaty of Brundisium, the right place at the right dme.

Herod was granted the throne of Judaea and Samaria by the triumvirs with the support of the Senate in autumn 40 в.с. He celebrated, incongruously, with a sacrifice to Jupiter Capitolinus and set sail for Syria to take possession of his kingdom.

For three years all his efforts were without avail since he lacked sufficient forces. Only in 38 did Antony send two legions under Sosius for an attack on Jerusalem. Despite an attempt to win popular support by celebrating his delayed marriage with the Hasmonaean Mariamme, Herod was faced by the implacable opposition of his putadve subjects. The reducdon of Jerusalem, probably in July 37 B.C. after a siege of more than seven months, was Sosius' victory, for which he was not slow to claim credit and a triumph; Herod prevented the sack of his new capital only with difficulty. Antony, once again breaking with precedent, had Antigonus, who begged for mercy, executed.

Herod's loyalty to Antony was as great as his enthusiasm for Cassius had once been, and he proved his worth to his new patron during the Parthian campaign.⁵ Antony in turn protected Herod even when Cleopatra demanded Judaea for herself or her children; the triumvir allowed her to take in 36 в.с. only the territory of Jericho and the rich balsam groves of Engedi near the Dead Sea, which Herod then cleverly leased back, thereby retaining political control over his domain despite the financial cost. That cost was augmented by his forced agreement to guarantee the rent of territory that Cleopatra had taken from the Nabataean king Malchus.

This friendship with Antony made Herod's position precarious after Acdum, but a campaign in Nabataea in 32-31 B.C., undertaken at the

⁵ Joseph. A] xiv.439-46.

instigation of Cleopatra, prevented his presence on Antony's side in the batde itself, and in spring jo в.с. Octavian not only confirmed his rule but presented him with an enlarged kingdom which included both the territory taken by Cleopatra and the fertile coastal plain of Judaea. Herod was to reign without further serious threat until his death in c. 4 B.C., becoming so firm a friend of Augustus that his territory was enlarged first by the addition of Trachonitis, Batanaea and Auranitis in 24/23 в.с. and then by Ulatha and Panias in the north in 20 в.с.

The apparent peace of these years was only achieved by continuing repression of opposition to Herod's rule by his subjects. In 26 в.с. Costobar, the governor of Idumaea, who was justifiably suspected of treason, was put to death. Disaffection in the Trachonitis caused endemic banditry in these border lands but no political threat. The refusal of more than 6,000 Pharisees to take the oath of loyalty demanded from them in c. 8 B.C. caused Herod annoyance but was not dangerous. Only as Herod approached death did an uprising in Jerusalem gather momentum in objection to the erection of a golden eagle above the Temple; even then it was only on his demise that widespread revolt broke out.

More dangerous to Herod was the disaffection within his family which was a constant feature of his reign from the beginning. His marriage to Mariamme in 37 B.C. was intended to boost his own prestige, but as a Hasmonaean princess she carried the hopes of all Jews who resented the Idumaean intruder. Herod needed either to eradicate or to harness the power she represented. That he was in two minds can be shown from his treatment of her younger brother Aristobulus III, whom he installed, aged sixteen, as High Priest in c. 35 B.C., only to panic when he was acclaimed with too much enthusiasm by the pilgrim crowd in Jerusalem. Herod staged an 'accidental' drowning for Aristobulus in the swimming bath in his palace in Jericho. Similar ambivalence was shown towards his old patron Hyrcanus, whose release Herod contrived from Parthia in 36 B.C. only to have him executed in 30 в.с. for alleged conspiracy with the king of Nabataea.

Such treatment of her father and brother was not calculated to endear Herod to Mariamme. He suspected her, probably with some justifica­tion, of rebellious designs, particularly during his own absences from the country; concern at the political threat she represented was augmented by fierce sexual jealousy of possible marital infidelity with those to whom she was entrusted while he was away. In 29 в.с. she was put on trial and executed. Herod's personal sorrow was perhaps compensated by the diminution of open opposition to his rule for the next twenty years, but it is at least possible that the subtle calculations of the power- seeker had in this case been upset by the savage passions of the infatuated lover.

The bitter harvest of Mariamme's execution was reaped when her mother Alexandra attempted rebellion in 28 B.C. and was killed; the poison lingered also in Herod's relationship with her two elder sons, Aristobulus and Alexander, when they reached manhood. Herod had sent the young princes to Rome in 24/23 B.C. for an education in the house of a Pollio,⁶ and when they returned to Jerusalem in c. 16 в.с. he made it clear that he wished them to succeed him. But such plans proved disingenuous. Herod's own sister Salome and his brother Pheroras, who had been since 20 в.с. tetrarch of Peraea, were unwilling to see their Idumaean family eclipsed by their half-Hasmonaean nephews. They persuaded Herod to recall his eldest son Antipater, whose mother was the Idumaean Doris; Antipater was accordingly also marked out for preferment by being sent to Rome in 13 в.с.

If Herod hoped in this way to control the ambitions of Mariamme's sons and the jealousy of his other relations, he was disappointed. Antipater began a concentrated intrigue to prove the treachery of the young princes to their father. The charges may even have been true, for Mariamme's sons had little reason to like Herod and by virtue of their Hasmonaean ancestry could expect some popular support. But the truth hardly mattered. Herod accused his sons before Augustus in c. 13 B.C. They were acquitted then and given a future share in the kingdom with Antipater, but Alexander at least was suspected of continued plots, perhaps with Herod's brother Pheroras. After further accusations, in c. 7 B.C. the young men were tried before a partially Roman court at Berytus and condemned. Herod had them rapidly executed before disaffection spread. Their main accuser Antipater, after brief glory as heir apparent in Rome in 5 B.C., was in turn accused of conniving with Pheroras against Herod; Pheroras died of natural causes before execution, but Antipater was put to death a few days before his father expired in c. 4 B.C., as much for contriving his brothers' downfall as for his" own ambitions.

Such turmoil within the dynasty left the line of succession hardly clear when Herod died. Herod had in a final will left his kingdom to Archelaus, the offspring of a Samaritan wife Malthace. Archelaus' younger full brother Antipas was left Galilee and Peraea, while Philip, son of a woman from Jerusalem called Cleopatra, was to rule the north­eastern wild country of Gaulanitis, Trachonitis, Batanaea and Panias. These provisions overrode an earlier will which, for reasons now unclear, had left everything to Antipas, and in disappointment he went to Rome to persuade Augustus to uphold his father's earlier intention.

The fraternal struggle took place before Augustus' consilium in Rome rather than in Judaea. The choice would be made by the princeps alone. None of the three men had been groomed as successor by Herod, since ⁶ Probably Asinius Pollio, but Vedius Pollio is also possible, cf. Syme 1961 (d 69).

the three dead sons had been preferred for that role, though all of them had received part of their educadon in Rome.

In Judaea, immediate unrest, reviving the cause of the religious enthusiasts put to death for taking down the eagle from the Temple (see above, p. 741), was partially defused first by Archelaus' promise to accede to demands for lower taxes and the removal of Herod's favourites from high positions and then by bloodshed, but more serious distur­bances erupted when Archelaus had set off for Rome accompanied by his rivals and by a delegation of Jews who had been encouraged by the legate of Syria to request that Judaea be incorporated within his province and the troublesome Herods deposed.

The causes of these more serious agitadons in the absence of the Herodian princes were probably varied.[902] In Galilee a certain Judas, son of a bandit named Ezekias who had opposed Herod in the forties B.C. (above, p. 739), sought power; he was perhaps a remnant of a powerful Hasmonaean family, in which case his aim will have been independence from both Herodian and Roman control.[903] In Peraea a certain Simon, a former slave of Herod, proclaimed himself king. In the Judaean countryside a former shepherd called Athronges, with his four brothers, also sought royal power.

It is not likely that these two latter rebellions were serious political attacks on the Herodian dynasty. The humble origins of the rebel leaders may perhaps be significant in assessing their motivation. It is possible that Athronges, with his four brothers, deliberately evoked the spirit of the Maccabees. Both he and Simon may have claimed religious sanction for national rebellion, but there is no direct evidence for this in the scanty report in Josephus.[904]

Meanwhile in Jerusalem itself riots were sparked off by the behaviour of the procurator Sabinus, who had been sent into Judaea from-Syria by Augustus to control the country while the will was being debated: a pilgrim crowd during the feast of Pentecost attacked him for reasons not known, and Sabinus retaliated by taking 400 talents from the Temple, thereby exacerbating the hostility. Quite different in intention and political significance was the revolt in Idumaea by some of Herod's veteran soldiers, for this mutiny was led by some of Herod's own relatives; their names are not known, but the weakness of Archelaus' position was emphasized by such disaffection even in the heartland of his family's traditional support.[905]

Suppression of all these disturbances was carried out with efficient ruthlessness by Varus, the legate of Syria, with two legions. Herod's final will was upheld by Augustus: Archelaus was confirmed as ruler in Judaea but with the dtle of ethnarch rather than king and the cities of Gaza, Gadara and Hippos removed from his territory; Andpas received Galilee, and Philip was granted his domain east of the Galilean lake. Both these latter had only the title of tetrarch, but they both enjoyed independence from their brother's sway.

On his return from Rome Archelaus found his land pacified but his subjects deeply hostile; a legion was left in Jerusalem to prevent further violent outbreaks. Josephus' account of Archelaus' rule is very skimpy; it seems that the history written by Nicolaus of Damascus, Herod's court historian, on which Josephus relied for the narrative of Herod's own rule, now came to an end. At any rate, in a.d. 6 Archelaus was deposed by Augustus and banished to Vienne in southern Gaul, and Judaea was taken under direct Roman control.¹¹

Archelaus' brothers fared somewhat better. Philip remained for most of his rule ensconced peacefully in his somewhat remote territory, administering it, according to Josephus, with conscientious moderadon until his undramatic death while still tetrarch in c. a.d. 33. Andpas ruled for some years in greater style in Galilee, but in c. a.d. 34 his marriage to his elder brother's wife Herodias brought him the enmity of the neighbouring Arab king, Aretas IV of Nabataea, whose daughter, Antipas' first wife, was slighted by the incestuous relationship. Enmity led to war in a.d. 36, and both kings suffered censure by Tiberius. When, at Herodias' insistence, Antipas in a.d. 39 requested the title of king from Gaius, he was deposed and sent into exile in Lugdunum; Herodias accompanied him.

The beneficiary of Andpas' misfortune was his nephew and Herodias' brother, Herod Agrippa I.¹² Agrippa's career, which had fluctuated from extreme misfortune to the heights of power, was nearing its peak when, probably in a.d. 40, he added Antipas' ethnarchy in Galilee to the territory which he had already inherited from Philip in a.d. 3 7. Agrippa's success exemplifies the Herodian technique in the pursuit of political power. The son of Aristobulus, who was executed by Herod in c. 7 B.C., he grew up close to the imperial court in Rome, but without official position or private income he ran up enormous debts and returned at some time after a.d. 23 in despair to Palestine. Rescued briefly by his brother-in-law Antipas, he made his way eventually in spring a.d. 36 to Italy, where his charm enabled him to join the emperor on Capri and to win the friendship of Gaius. Imprisoned by Tiberius for referring too

" Sources for Archelaus' rule are Joseph. Д/ xvii.j 39-5 j; BJ ii.in-17.

¹² For the career of Agrippa i, see Joseph. AJ xvm. 143-239, xtx. 274-3 5 9; BJ 11.178-82, 206-22; Acts 12; m.BiJkk.y. 4; m.Sot. 7: 8. See Schwartz 1987 (e 1209).

openly to his wish to see Gaius succeed to the Principate, he was released with honour when that event came about in spring a.d. 37 and was granted by the new emperor both the territory once governed by Philip and the tetrarchy of Abila in the Lebanon, with the dtle of king.

Skill at court intrigue and the friendship of a Roman prince had thus elevated Agrippa, and the same factors were to enlarge him still further. While Gaius was alive Agrippa preferred to rule his subjects through depudes, and frequently returned to Rome where real power lay. It was a wise decision: in a dramatic episode described in detail by Josephus (see above, p. 230), Agrippa played a central role in the elevation of Claudius to the Principate in a.d. 41 after the assassination of Gaius, and Claudius showed his gratitude by granting him the entire kingdom once ruled by Herod.

Agrippa now went to Jerusalem to enjoy the benefits of his intrigue. Popular with the people partly because of his Hasmonaean links through his grandmother, he ruled in a style sufficiently magnificent to arouse a suspicion in the mind of Marsus, the legate of Syria, that, by convoking in Tiberias a meeting of five other petty kings allied to Rome, he might be plotting rebellion. The charge was implausible, for Agrippa would have gained nothing and lost much by independence, but his painful death 'eaten up by worms' put an end to speculation.[906]

No other member of the dynasty of Herod was to achieve such power in Judaea. Some of Herod's less prominent descendants were granted territories, but these were in obscure parts of the eastern empire and little connected with Judaea:[907] Agrippa's own children were still young on his death in a.d. 44.[908] Their later considerable influence on Judaean society was achieved more through their presdge among Jews derived from their father than from the grant of power by Rome. Thus Agrippa II, who was in Rome in a.d. 44, was given in a.d. 49 the kingdom of Chalcis in the Lebanon that his uncle Herod had enjoyed from a.d. 41 to 48, and then in a.d. 5 3, in exchange for Chalcis, a larger territory including both the tetrarchy once ruled by Philip and other land east of the Sea of Galilee. Furthermore, some time after a.d. 54, Nero added to this kingdom parts of Galilee itself near the lake and a small area in the northern Peraea. But his political importance rested less on these territories, which merely brought him revenue, than on his role in Jerusalem, where he was granted the right, previously held by his father and uncle, to control the administration of the Temple. Not that even this control was entirely secure, for despite strenuous efforts he was unable to prevent the priests building a wall in the late fifties a.d. to block the view from his palace into the interior of the Temple.¹⁶

Agrippa IPs sisters, who had no formal powers at all, wielded hardly less influence. Drusilla married the Roman governor of Judaea, Anto­nius (or Claudius) Felix. Berenice achieved notoriety as paramour of the future emperor Titus.

Throughout this long and complex history over more than a hundred years, Roman favour to Herod and his descendants was remarkably constant and public. Their power depended upon Rome, which guaran­teed their fidelity, while on the whole they showed fair competence in the administration of areas which, though not of major consequence in the immediate context of the empire's defence, were not themselves easy to hold in subjection. Each Herodian ruler was judged by his efficiency; at any rate, when they were grossly incompetent at keeping the peace, they were easily enough deposed, as Archelaus and Andpas discovered.

Jewish support for the Herods was, not surprisingly, much less enthusiastic, particularly when their regime was contrasted unfavour­ably to the Hasmonaeans they had supplanted. The myth of the Hasmonaeans as national liberators remained potent even in the first century a.d.¹⁷ Herod and his successors could only survive through a complete break with this past. All the male members of the Hasmonaean dynasty were dead by 30 B.C.; the women were married to Herod's own close relatives. It is probable that the supporters and friends who had formed the courts of the last Hasmonaeans were ruthlessly eliminated: forty-five of Andgonus' associates were killed. It is unlikely to be chance that no family whose original prominence can be traced to before Herod can be discerned in the detailed prosopography of Judaea in the first century a.d.¹⁸

In their place Herod promoted his own men. His court was largely composed of Gentiles who could be guaranteed not to seek influence except through his patronage; thus, most of his closest advisers, his generals and the tutors of his children were not Jewish. Exempted from this rule were only two categories of Jews. His own family was trusted by Herod to a remarkable extent, as in the nomination of his brother Pheroras as tetrarch of Peraea in 20 b.c.; in his case, such trust proved misplaced (see above, p. 742). The second category comprised the occupants of those positions in Judaean society which by their nature could only be filled by Jews.

Most important of these was the high priesthood, which had since the Persian period marked out its holder as a secular as well as religious leader. When the attempt to install Aristobulus III foundered (see above,

¹⁶ Joseph. A] xx.189-94. ¹⁷ Cf. Fanner 1956 (e 1112).

¹⁸ Cf. the discussion in Stern 1976 (e 1218) 11.561-6)0.

p. 741), Herod filled the post with Jews from Babylonia and Alexandria whose unsullied priestly birth could not be disputed but whose influence in Judaea was probably negligible. Only the family of Boethus, an Alexandrian who held the office from c. 25—4 b.c. was permitted some secular advancement. The clothes of the High Priest, which had once enshrined oracular powers and still apparendy bestowed excepdonal presdge on the wearer, were kept in Herod's possession further to limit the pontiffs' power. Most dramatically of all, Herod inaugurated a custom derived from pagan cults of shortening the tenure of the office.

Thus was opposition effectively silenced. Herod's sister's husbands proved some danger: both Joseph, executed in 34 B.C., and Costobar, executed in c. 26 B.C., had been married to Salome, and their ambition was suspect because of this proximity to the royal house. Few other Idumaean friends were allowed to join the circle of power; of these, only Salome's third husband Alexas is known to have retained his family's influence. The power of the ancient theocracy was broken. Any change in institutions of government was probably less significant than this removal of key personnel and their replacement with Herod's own supporters.¹⁹

Such measures did not still the abiding hatred of Herod within the wider Judaean population. Many Jews had been killed or enslaved in 37 B.C. when Sosius seized Jerusalem on his behalf. Herod's origins, not just as an Idumaean but as the son of a non-Jewish mother who is not known to have converted, were held against him, especially since it is possible that for some Jews, in this period as later, Jewish citizenship was held to be passed down through the female line.²⁰ His interference in the prestige of the high priesthood was resented, as was his insistence that his unwilling subjects should forswear themselves by taking an oath to him in 17 B.C. and probably again in c. 8 B.C.

It is also probable but not certain that the populace was heavily taxed to pay for Herod's grandiose expenditure and the huge reserves which he accumulated.²¹ Herod may have enjoyed a considerable income from hereditary estates in Idumaea, from confiscated land in Judaea, both royal and private, and from letting out grazing land to the Nabataeans. The right to collect taxes for Rome and to farm half the revenue of the Cyprus copper-mines will have added considerably to his revenues. His expenses will have been less if, as is probable but not certain, he did not pay tribute to Rome after Actium. It is thus possible that the tax burden

" Oil the administration under Herod, see Schalit 1969 (e 1206) 185-223.

There is much debate over the date when the inheritance of citizenship through the female rather than male line was generally accepted by Jews. See Cohen 1985 (e i 101).

On the weight of Herod's taxes, and the continuing debate about the imposition of Roman taxes on the client kingdom, see Schalit 1969 (e 1206) 262—98; Gabba 1990 (e i i 17).

on Judaea was not excessive: emergency measures in famine conditions in 25, 20 and 14 B.C. have no implications for the weight of normal exactions. Perhaps his Jewish subjects objected to paying taxes of any kind to a king whose legitimacy they questioned. Later Jewish literature in antiquity depicted Herod as a monster.²²

Herod had few weapons with which to ward off such hostility. Apart from attempting to smother disaffection at an early stage by the use of a secret police, his most blatant reaction was the building of fortresses within the country for his own protection. The massive construction of surviving parts of his palaces in Jerusalem, Masada and Herodium bears witness to the importance of such defences.²³ It is probable that these fortresses, like the military colonies planted mostly on the eastern edges of his territory, were intended as much to control the subject population as to fend off external foes. In Jerusalem a highly trained mercenary force composed mainly of Gentiles and largely recruited from the Greek cities in and near Palestine kept the peace; the Jews included in their number were mostly Idumaeans and Babylonians, though it is not known whether the omission of Judaeans was through their reluctance or Herod's insistence.²⁴

But Herod also took steps to woo his Jewish subjects. At least while in Jerusalem he adhered to the main tenets of Judaism. His decision not to advertise his own portrait on his coins was in deference to the biblical prohibition on graven images. His avoidance of pork was the subject of a famous joke ascribed to Augustus: 'I would rather be Herod's pig than his son.'²⁵ Above all he spent lavishly on the embellishment of Jerusalem and its Temple, creating a monument to the glory of his people as well as himself. The building was tactfully left under the supervision of the priests — except for the eagle, whose erection over the Temple door at Herod's command provoked violent opposition (see above, p. 741).

The extent of Herod's commitment to such 'double book-keeping' — presenting himself as Jewish to Jews, Greek to Gentiles - should not be exaggerated; such an attitude was in fact more characteristic of his grandson Agrippa I than of Herod himself.²⁶ Herod did not hesitate to use hellenistic titles on his coins or to welcome many Greek-educated Gentiles to his Judaean court. Nevertheless he undoubtedly tried hard to promote his Jewish credentials, even claiming rather ludicrously that he was really descended from a line of Babylonian Jews.²⁷ He prevented the marriage of the Nabataean Syllaeus to his sister Salome when the former

b. Baba Batbra sb-4a; b. Taanitb 23a; Lev. Rab. 35:8; Num. Rab. 14:20.

See especially Yadin 1966 (e 1233) 40-156.

On Jewish levies in Herod's army, see Schalit 1969 (e 1206) 167-83.

Macrob. Sat. 11.4.11, based on the play of the Greek words utos and t5s.

For analysis of Herod's rule in these terms, see Baumann 1983 (e 1091) 264.

Joseph. AJ xiv.9 (= Jacoby, FGrH 90 a F96).

refused to convert to Judaism, and he liked to present himself as the protector of all Jews under Roman rule, wherever they might live.

Such bids for popularity seem to have failed to change Herod's image at least in Judaea. Much of the credit for rebuilding the Temple was destroyed by the riots against the erecdon of the eagle above it. Josephus writes that at Herod's death the 'notables of the kingdom' had been shut up in the hippodrome in Jericho under threat of execudon; Herod is said to have planned their demise to coincide with his to prevent unseemly joy when he died.

Neither Archelaus nor Andpas achieved any more popularity than their father. Philip, who did not rule over many Jews and, unlike his brothers, did not use 'Herod' as a dynastic name, avoided evoking such resentment, but the first Herodian to be accepted by at least part of the Judaean populace as more or less a genuinely Jewish king was Agrippa I. It is significant that Agrippa managed this not least by avoiding in Judaea any public connexion with his grandfather, preferring to be known as Agrippa rather than Herod; in his favour was his Hasmonaean grandmother Mariamme. Both he and his son won some further support by their championing of the Jewish cause at Rome when disturbances broke out in Alexandria and Judaea under Roman governors,²⁸ but neither ever won a really enthusiastic following in Jerusalem.

The Herods compensated for this uneasy relationship with their Jewish subjects by seeking support elsewhere. They preserved excellent relations with the gentile population of the Greek cities in and around Palestine, increasing their number by various foundations, of which the most important was the great port of Caesarea. Herod and his descen­dants gave huge gifts to numerous Syrian cities, partly just to emphasize the Hellenic culture of the Jewish dynasty. Herod made grand donations also to cities and shrines in mainland Greece and Asia Minor. In Judaea itself, however, the Greeks were kept under firm control as part of the Herodian realm.

More important for the Herods themselves was their self-conception as the most glorious of the petty dynasties which ruled the Near East in the early Empire in friendly alliance with Rome and under her watchful eye. Influence on this plane was encouraged by intermarriage between Herod's relatives and the families of other client kings from areas as far afield as Nabataea, Emesa, Cilicia, Cappadocia and Africa.²⁹ Relations with these dynasties were only strained when proximity encouraged Herodian dreams of expansion; such dreams help to explain the

^a For Agrippa I and II in Rome, cf. Joseph. A J xvni.289-501; xix.279, 288; xx.135. For Agrippa II'» patronage of Josephus see Joseph. Vit. 562,3 64-7; Ap. 1.51. For the rabbinic view, see m.Bikk, 3: 4; m. Sotab 7: 8.

²⁹ For these relations, sec Sullivan 1978 (e 1064).

occasional hostility shown towards the Nabataeans, particularly in the wars of 9 b.c. and a.d. 36.[909]

Good relations with the emperor were of overriding importance to all the Herods. Cities were named in the emperor's honour; Herod entitled himself on official inscriptions 'Friend of the Emperor' and 'Friend of the Romans'; in about 8 B.C. he added to the oath of allegiance the name of the emperor; in the non-Jewish cities he established the imperial cult with great enthusiasm soon after Actium; in Jerusalem he began the practice of a daily sacrifice in the Temple for the well-being of the emperor and, less in accordance with Jewish custom, quadrennial games in the emperor's honour. Both Herod and his successors paid frequent visits to the imperial court in Rome.

The Herods thus functioned as much on the international as on the purely Judaean stage, intriguing for power in Rome as in Jerusalem. In neither city were they entirely accepted. Their Judaism, strikingly superficial though it seemed to Jews, distinguished them from the Roman senators and emperors in whose company they were found: the prospect that Berenice might marry the future emperor Titus caused outrage among the latter's associates.[910] Not until the second century a.d., when all their territorial rights had disappeared along with the vestiges of their Judaism, did the descendants of Herod win full acceptance in Roman society.[911]

ii. roman administration[912]

Direct Roman rule over Judaea began in a.d. 6 on the deposition of Archelaus. There was probably no deeper cause than that announced in public: Augustus' personal dissatisfaction with the ethnarch's immoder­ate and brutal behaviour towards his subjects.[913] Other explanations, however, have been proposed and may be correct: Rome benefited financially by the transfer of royal property such as the Engedi balsam groves to the imperial fiscus; the tribute raised by Rome despite provincial hostility was not small; the Judaean hill country had been held by the Parthians Јrom 40 to 37 в.с. and was of some, albeit slight, strategic importance for the defence of the eastern Roman frontier; in general, Augustus seems to have assumed that the imposition of direct rule in the place of client kings was desirable when appropriate.

Whatever the cause, direct rule proved to be Rome's more or less permanent solution to the squabbles of Herod's descendants over Judaea. Apart from the brief period (a.d. 41-4) when Agrippa I reigned (see above, p. 745), the same kind of Roman administration remained in force until a.d. 66, when a great rebellion led first to the establishment of an independent Jewish state and then to the fall of that state in an orgy of violence.

The decline towards catastrophe was gradual and probably intermit­tent but the signs were evident from the beginning. Despite the unpopularity of the deposed Archelaus, the first months under a Roman governor already witnessed considerable unrest. The immediate cause of discontent was the imposition of a provincial census under the super­vision of the governor of Syria, P. Sulpicius Quirinius. It is not clear whether the complaint was aimed at higher taxation or the notion of being registered or the unpalatability of so blatant a sign of foreign domination. The trouble was soon stilled, for the moment.

Despite this early evidence that the administration of Judaea would not be easy, neither Augustus nor his successors seem to have taken great pains in the selection of suitable governors. All those chosen were of equestrian or lesser ranks; the province was too small to insult a senator with its rule, especially since no legions were stationed there. The tide praefectus on an inscription set up by Pilate, governor c. a.d. 26 to 36, shows the earliest governors to have exercised military authority;³⁵ the term procurator used after Claudius, and by Josephus in discussing also the earlier governors, reflects a change in terminology rather than function. All governors owed their position to the direct patronage of the emperor, to whom they also reported. All retained the military ius gladii.

Nothing is recorded of the origins of the governors before a.d. 41, and none is known to have progressed further in his career; a salutary reminder of the insignificance of Judaea in Roman terms and also, perhaps, of Josephus' ignorance of events which preceded his own recollection. Of the later procurators, the historian records more detail of only three, whose appointment he evidently considered exceptional. The emperor Claudius appointed in c. a.d. 46 the apostate Jew Tiberius Iulius Alexander, who came from a leading Jewish family from Alexan­dria; Claudius evidendy hoped to assuage the Jews' disappointment at their loss of autonomy on the death of Agrippa I in a.d. 44, but, though the success of this policy can no longer be judged since Iulius Alexander

⁵⁵ Frova 1961 (в 132); cf. Weber 1971 (в 296).

was probably still a powerful figure in Rome when Josephus wrote, it is unlikely that the Jews were very enthusiastic at the prospect of rule by a public apostate.[914] Less well intentioned and probably more disastrous was the appointment in c. a.d. 52 of the freedman Felix, brother of the influential Pallas; both Tacitus and Josephus express disgust at his elevation.[915] Worst of all was the last procurator Gessius Florus (a.d. 64­6) whose origins from Clazomenae inclined him fatally to sympathize with the Greeks of the province against the Jews; he owed his position to his wife's friendship with Poppaea. Of the other procurators, ten or eleven in number, little more than the name is known.

The extent to which the unrest engendered by the census in a.d. 6 was continued in the years immediately following has been much debated. Tacitus records a complaint in a.d. 17 against the weight of Roman taxation but not the principle of its imposition; for the rest he asserts that 'under Tiberius all was quiet'.³⁸ The disturbances surrounding the crucifixion of Jesus are thus passed over by the Roman senator without mention. Other disorders in the time of Pilate were also treated by the Roman authorities as of less significance than with hindsight they deserve: Josephus records how Pilate provoked a mass demonstration against his introduction of legionary standards into Jerusalem and later caused a storm of protest, quelled only with bloodshed, by sacrilegiously using money taken from the Temple to build an aqueduct for the city;[916]another incident, mentioned by Philo alone, when Pilate was compelled to withdraw from Jerusalem shields bearing the emperor's name, perhaps because the reference therein to the divine Augustus was seen as idolatrous, may be identical with the episode involving the standards.⁴⁰ Tiberius, ensconced on Capri, ignored such trivialities. Pilate lost his office only after an even more appalling crime in which a crowd of Samaritans was slaughtered in an eager search for the treasure said to be hidden on their holy mountain of Gerizim.

These symptoms of unrest were entirely overshadowed for later historians by the sudden, unexpected and climactic events of a.d. 40.⁴¹ A complaint sent through the procurator of the city to the new emperor Gaius in late a.d. 39 by the Gentile inhabitants of Jamnia, to the effect that their Jewish neighbours had refused to allow them to set up altars for his worship, elicited the response that a statue with the emperor's effigy must be set up in the Temple in Jerusalem. The effect was pandemonium: of the two detailed surviving accounts, that of the contemporary Philo is preferable to Josephus', but the very fact that the story of these events was treated almost as a dramatic myth by those, like Josephus, who were children at the time is highly significant. Agrippa I in Rome tried to dissuade his old friend, in Judaea the populace refused to harvest (or, depending on the precise chronology, perhaps to sow) their crops; Publius Petronius, the governor of Syria, to whom the task of installing the statue had fallen, baulked at the consequences of so grave an assault on the Jewish cult and prevaricated. Josephus and Philo state that the people were prepared to die to prevent Gaius' sacrilege, and Tacitus adds that they were close to rebellion. According to Josephus, Gaius repented his intention, at least temporarily, after Agrippa's intervention; but Philo states more plausibly that only the emperor's death in a.d. 41 forestalled calamity — and brought a remarkable change in fortune with the advent of a glamorous Jewish king, Agrippa I, only for this renaissance to be in turn abruptly terminated by his demise (see above, p. 745).

The unhappy events of a.d. 44-66 need to be seen against this background of the arbitrary imposition and removal of persecution, the raising and dashing of hopes. A border conflict in a.d. 44 between the Jewish inhabitants of Peraea and the citizens of Philadelphia was easily crushed and agitation against the new procurator Cuspius Fadus (a.d. 44—c. 46) for failing to return the high priestly garments to the Jews was mostly confined to the ruling class, but the band urged by a messianic prophet named Theudas to retire into the desert was apparently reckoned more dangerous and suppressed by the execution of Theudas himself. A period of comparative peace under Tiberius Iulius Alexander (с. a.d. 46-8) was followed by riots in Jerusalem under Ventidius Cumanus (a.d. 48-c. 5 2) when one soldier displayed himself indecently near the Temple and another burnt a copy of the Jewish Law during retaliatory action against a Judaean village whose authorities had failed to apprehend some brigands who had stolen goods from an imperial slave. More serious intercommunal fighting was to lead to Cumanus' exile: when a Galilean pilgrim was attacked by Samaritans while he was on the way to Jerusalem, a mob which rushed north from the festival celebrations caused such bloodshed before the procurator could control the combatants that the legate of Syria sent all parties, including Cumanus, to Rome, where they were duly punished.

Felix (c. a.d.. 5 z-c. 60), who had probably already been sent to Samaria to control the populace and help with the trial of Cumanus, proved no better as the new governor. Brigandage in the countryside was matched by urban terrorism in Jerusalem. Members of the ruling class began to use gangs on the streets of the city. An Egyptian Jew led a large group fired with eschatological hopes to Jerusalem from the Jordan, and they were only dispersed by the attack of Roman cohorts.

The followers of other visionaries suffered a similar fate under Porcius Festus (c. a.d. 60-2), and both banditry in the Judaean hills and violence in Jerusalem were further stimulated by the venality or incompetence of his successor Albinus (a.d. 62—4). But 'the patience of the Jews lasted until the procurator Gessius Florus' (a.d. 64-6),⁴² when their willing­ness to accept Roman rule was finally put into question not by any of the preceding unrest but the quite separate issue of the rights of the Jews of Caesarea.

The Jews claimed Caesarea as their city because it had been founded by Herod; the Greeks, more plausibly given the prominence of pagan temples in the city from the start, claimed it as theirs. The intermittent dispute was decided by Nero in c. a.d. 60 in favour of the Greeks, but the Jews did not drop the issue, and in spring a.d. 66 intercommunal rioting broke out more seriously than ever before. Florus, bribed by the Jews to intervene, accepted the money but did nothing despite the increasingly unhappy effects of the disorders on the Caesarean Jews. Such venality aroused even more resentment when Florus compounded the Jews' hostility by taking 17 talents from the Temple treasury; in this case the action probably had more justification since the province had fallen behind in tribute payments, but this did not diminish horror at the sacrilege.

The antagonism thus aroused towards the procurator led quite rapidly to the outbreak of rebellion in the early summer of a.d. 66. Some youths lampooned Florus' meanness; the governor marched to Jerusalem to demand their surrender; the authorities refused to surrender the guilty; Florus let his troops loose on the city as punishment, arraigning before his tribunal even the richest Jerusalemites — Josephus claims that some were equites — and crucifying some of them.⁴³

Despite the efforts of some of the Jerusalem ruling class it proved impossible to restore order under the procurator's aegis. Florus attempted a public demonstration of the Jews' submission by ordering them to greet two cohorts sent to Jerusalem as reinforcements, but the soldiers' arrogance caused so much offence that rioting and further bloodshed were the only outcome. The governor's withdrawal to Caesarea eased tension slighdy and both Agrippa II and Berenice tried hard to prevent further escalation of disaffection, but in vain: in May/ June a.d. 66 some young priests, led by the captain of the Temple Eleazar son of Ananias, proclaimed defiance of Rome by halting the sacrifices regularly offered up on behalf of the Roman emperor.

The theological justification for this action, that it was not right to accept offerings from a Gentile, was exceptionally tenuous since this had

Tac. Hist. v.i o.i.

Joseph. BJ 11.301-8; for analysis of this episode, cf. Goodman 1985 (e i 129).

been the custom for centuries, and the ruling class of Jerusalem split on the issue, the caudous advocating the restoradon of the sacrifices perhaps more on prudendal than theological grounds. Fighting between the different facdons reached an intensity not known in the gang warfare of previous years, and within a few days the viciousness increased still further when brigands under a certain Menahem son of Judas attached themselves to Eleazar's faction: Eleazar's father and uncle, the leaders of the main faction trying to avoid war with Rome, were killed, and the troops which had been sent by Agrippa to help quell the disturbances were either brought onto the rebels' side or expelled from the city; a small contingent of Roman auxiliaries hoped similarly to escape with their lives but were treacherously murdered by Eleazar's followers.[917]

Now that rebellion was irrevocable Jews in many of the cities around Judaea rose against their Gentile neighbours, who in turn took advan­tage of Rome's blessing to plunder and kill the Jews. As in 4 b.c., a.d. 6 and a.d. 40 the task of restoring Roman control was entrusted to the legate of Syria, and in Antioch Cestius Gallus gradually collected a large force which included the Twelfth Legion (Fulminata), other legionaries, and troops provided by allied kings including Agrippa.

It took until September for this force to reach Ptolemais. Cestius with little opposition secured Galilee, presumably to protect his rear, and ravaged some villages and small towns in the Judaean coastal plain, perhaps in the hope that exemplary massacres would terrify the Jerusa­lem rebels into submission. Josephus gives no details about events in Jerusalem over the summer months, perhaps out of embarrassment at the participation in rebellion of his own class, whom he later wished to exculpate from responsibility for the revolt, but the Jews were clearly not unprepared by October, when they confronted Cestius as his forces emerged from the Bethhoron Pass and despoiled him of much baggage even before he reached Jerusalem.

Cestius was impressed and daunted by the strength of this opposition. He rapidly captured the northern suburbs but after a few days decided that the city could not be taken that year; his main concern was perhaps his lack of supplies and the problems of transporting reinforcements through hostile hill territory. At any rate, he retreated to the coast in incompetent disorder, losing many men and much equipment in the Bethoron defile.

Whether or not the Jewish rebels had organized themselves coher­ently before Cestius' attack, they did so now. Josephus himself was chosen as general of the rebel forces in Galilee, and Ananus son of Ananus, who had briefly held the high priesthood in a.d. 62, was appointed joint commander-in-chief. On the Roman side Nero entrusted the war in February a.d. 67 to Titus Flavius Vespasianus, with the rank of legatus, three legions (two from Syrian Antioch, one from Egypt), auxiliary cohorts, cavalry and contingents from the client kingdoms.

By June a.d. 67 Vespasian was in Galilee where Josephus, lacking proper troops and weapons, was reduced to defending hill-top for­tresses. According to Josephus' detailed report the Galileans seem to have been less enthusiastic for revolt than their reputation as the most warlike of men would suggest;⁴⁵ Vespasian's aim may have been less to secure his flank than to instil terror in Jerusalem by the ruthless treatment of the rebels, but if so the determined defence of Gamala after mass executions in Tarichaeae proved that such tacucs might backfire.⁴⁶

Josephus himself had been captured in Jotapata before the fall of Galilee after a siege of forty-seven days and, at any rate according to the story as told later, had rapidly won Vespasian's attention and leniency by prophesying his elevation to the Principate.⁴⁷ The historian's place in command of Galilee was taken by his arch-rival John son of Levi of Gischala; but John too proved ineffective against siege and escaped to Jerusalem, where he joined Ananus and his associates in late summer a.d. 67.

Meanwhile in the capital city the populace was not happy at the incompetence of the leadership which had permitted the loss of Galilee, and dissatisfaction spread further when Vespasian began in spring a.d. 68 systematically to encircle the capital. Opposition to Ananus was fuelled particularly by the peasants who, deprived of their homes, flooded into the city, finding leaders among a group of well-born priests who described themselves as Zealots, by which name they seem to have claimed a special zeal for the Temple cult.⁴⁸ These priests accused Ananus' faction of a lack of enthusiasm for the war. The charge of treachery was probably not justified since Cestius' failure had shown that the rebels' strength lay in the strong walls of Jerusalem, but it was rendered plausible by the fact that many of Ananus' associates, including by now Josephus, had joined the Roman side. At any rate the Zealots established themselves in opposition to Ananus' government, barricad­ing themselves inside the Temple. When they were joined in spring a.d. 68 first by the opportunist John of Gischala and then by a force of Idumaeans, they proved sufficiently powerful to wrest control of the whole city from Ananus, who was soon put to death.

⁴⁵ Joseph. BJ 111.41-2.

⁴⁴ The siege of Gamala is described at Joseph. BJ rv. i i-j 3, 62—83. For the harsh treatment of prisoners at Tarichaeae, see BJ 111.336-41.

Suet. Vesp. j; Dio Lxvi.1.4; Joseph. BJ 111.399-407.

Cf. Joseph. BJ iv. 160-1, where these rebels are said to have claimed that they were 'zealous in the cause of virtue'.

Josephus claims in his account of the war that from this moment the Judaean state declined rapidly into savage civil war.[918] His assertion has often been believed but perhaps unwisely, for he himself had by now joined the Roman side, and at the time of writing he wished to distance himself and his friends from the defenders of Jerusalem whose intransi­gence had caused the destruction of the Temple. Against this picture of social and political disintegration is the evidence from Josephus' own narrative both of the continued presence in Jerusalem of some of the ruling class and of the continuation of the public courts and the municipal burial of paupers;[919] furthermore, the issue of a fine silver coinage and some bronze change by the Jerusalem authorities still in the fourth year of the war, i.e. until the last months of the siege in a.d. 70, suggests a quite stable state.[920]

The efflorescence of this independent Jewish state from spring a.d. 68 to a.d. 70 was facilitated very largely by factors external to Judaea. In June a.d. 68 Vespasian suddenly halted the subjugation of the country­side because Nero's death had ended his mandate as imperial legate for the war. The renewed campaign in May/June a.d. 69 had just recovered the territory subdued the previous year and completed the encirclement of Jerusalem when in July Vespasian was proclaimed emperor and Roman operations against the Jews again ceased.

With the enemy thus distracted the Judaean leaders indulged in internecine struggle for control of the state. During a.d. 68 some of those ousted from power by John and the Zealots left Jerusalem to join an increasingly powerful figure in the countryside, Simon son of Gioras. This Simon had led troops against the rearguard of Cestius Gallus in autumn a.d. 66 but had been ousted from all influence by the deep hostility of Ananus son of Ananus; only after Ananus' death in early a.d. 68 did he take further part in the war. By spring a.d. 69 he had occupied Hebron and was powerful enough to take Jerusalem with the help of the Idumaean forces who had become disenchanted with John and the Zealots. His regime retained control of all the city except the Temple until Roman forces finally arrived outside the walls.

Vespasian, now princeps, appointed his son Titus to prosecute the war, and the new commander reached Jerusalem in March a.d. 70 with the aid of an extra legion. Within the city the Zealots held the inner Temple, John of Gischala its outer precincts and Simon the rest of the city, but within a few days of Titus' arrival they united against him. Titus' circumvallation, intended to cut off supplies to the defenders, was completed in a few weeks, but the city was captured not by famine but by a direct assault in which Titus demonstrated unusual disregard for casualties among his own soldiers.

The reasons for Titus' zeal in the prosecudon of the siege again lay outside Judaea: he and his father needed a rapid victory to serve as a propaganda base for the new Flavian dynasty. By May the outer (third) wall was in Roman hands. In June the Antonia fortress fell and siege was laid to the Temple; the daily sacrifices ceased and famine began. On 10 Ab (August) a.d. 70 the Temple was destroyed, probably, despite Josephus' denial, on Titus' express order.[921]

Pockets of resistance in the upper city were slowly mopped up during September. The Herodian fortresses held out longer; Masada, the last stronghold, fell only in a.d. 73 or 74 with the suicide of the defenders: the surviving ramp confirms Josephus' account of the efforts of the Romans to secure complete pacification.⁵³ Judaea was put under a praetorian legate with a legion permanently stationed at Jerusalem. A veteran colony was established at Emmaus.

The Temple was not rebuilt and its treasures were carried in triumph to Rome, as the reliefs on the Arch of Titus record. Of the rebel leaders Simon was executed on the Capitol, and the others were either impri­soned or enslaved. No attempt was made to reconstitute Judaean society: the province's desoladon was deliberately stressed by Flavianic propaganda, especially on imperial coins.[922] Only the religion of the Jews survived, and that too underwent great adaptation as the significance of the Temple's destruction was gradually interpreted during the late first and second centuries a.d. and a new understanding forged of the relation of God to his people. (See САН xi²).

Such disasters and so much bloodshed must be accounted evidence of a failure in Roman provincial administration. The causes of such failure were undoubtedly complex; nor can Josephus, the main guide to the facts, be accounted of much use in the ascriptions of blame in which his prejudices are blatant. Nonetheless some causes specific to Judaea can profitably be pointed out.

Both Josephus and Tacitus accused the procurators of Judaea of incompetence and deliberate wickedness,⁵⁵ and a charge of at least tactlessness in the handling of Jewish religious susceptibilities is hard to refute. On the other hand failure to comprehend the intricate regulations of Judaism was particularly venial in the light of the variety of religious attitudes and authorities in Judaea in this period (see below, p. 762).

On the Jewish side Josephus attempted to shift all blame onto rebels from the poorer classes, attempting to portray the rich as loyal subjects of Rome despite the involvement of many of them in the war. According to his account the nation was destabilized by bandits in the countryside and urban terrorists in Jerusalem, and the war was a direct result of their wicked acts.⁵⁶

These terrorists, described as sicarii or dagger-men because they used short daggers hidden beneath their cloaks before escaping in the pilgrim crowds, first appeared in Jerusalem in the early fifties a.d. when they murdered the ex-High Priest Jonathan son of Ananus. At whose instigation they operated was unclear to Josephus, who makes two different suggestions in his two accounts of this assassination;⁵⁷ such uncertainty was a natural corollary of their underhand methods. It is often assumed that all their terrorism was dedicated to the overthrow of Roman rule and of the rich whose power derived from Rome: not only did Josephus explicitly blame the sicarii in one passage for the outbreak of the war,⁵⁸ but two of their leaders in a.d. 66 and in a.d. 73 were descendants of the founder of the anarchist Fourth Philosophy, Judas the Galilean (see below, p. 761). Against such a view, however, is Josephus' claim that the sicarii fought on behalf of Roman governors when paid sufficiently well.⁵⁹ These thugs were perhaps available to all for hire: hence their use in a.d. 62 to kidnap the secretary of the future instigator of the revolt, Eleazar son of Ananias, in order to blackmail Eleazar's father.⁶⁰ In the war itself the sicarii were strikingly quiescent: Menahem son of Judas seized Masada from its Roman garrison at the very start, but, arriving in Jerusalem possibly only after revolt was already in train,⁶¹ he was killed with the dispersal of his followers within days; for the rest of the war, the sicarii seem to have lived in isolation on Masada, profiting from the opportunities for brigandage in the disorder of the countryside, refusing even to help Simon son of Gioras in his successful bid for supreme power in the capital.

Other factors are less stressed by Josephus. The riots and massacres in cities of mixed Jewish and gentile occupation near Palestine in a.d. 66 were symptomatic of an intermittent hatred whose origins probably went back to the Hasmonaean period. Most of the auxiliary forces used against the Jews were volunteers from these cities. Their antagonism was fuelled and reinforced by the cultural divide which hindered intermarriage and all except the most superficial social contact. Within Judaea the widening of class divisions, for which there is much evidence

⁵⁶ Cf. Bilde 1979 (e 1094). ⁵⁷ Joseph. BJ n.254-7; Д/ xx. 162-6.

⁵⁸ Joseph. BJ vii.253-8, 262. ⁵⁹ Joseph. Д/хх.165, 255. ⁶⁰ Joseph. A] xx.208-10.

⁶¹ Some take i-navtioiv at Joseph. BJ 11.434 to indicate that Menahem had been present in Jerusalem earlier in the revolt. This passage contains a doublet of BJ 11.408 about the seizure of Masada, which suggests that Josephus, who was hidden in the Temple throughout those exciting times ( Vit. 21), was confused about their chronology.

(see below, p. 769), embittered the poor, especially since biblical law through the (now disregarded) institution of the Jubilee prohibited the accumulation of landed wealth over generations;⁶² but although the rich in normal times sided with Rome and class hostility could thus be expressed by rebellion, in a.d. 66-70 many of the wealthy also joined in the revolt.

This transfer of allegiance by the ruling class was itself a cause as well as a consequence of the outbreak of war. The ruling class was expected to help the governor in the suppression of disorder in the province, and when they proved incapable of doing so, the procurators tended to treat them as if they were themselves implicated: in c. a.d. 5 2 the High Priest and some of his predecessors were held responsible by Cumanus for the attack on Samaritans by a Jewish crowd which, according to Josephus, they tried in vain to check (see above, p. 75 3).⁶³ This suspicion reached a peak with the crucifixion of upper-class Jews by Florus in Jerusalem in a.d. 66.⁶⁴ It was fuelled by the resort to violence by some of the ruling class in the pursuit of power on their own behalf: by a.d. 63-4 there were constant clashes on the streets of Jerusalem between rival gangs hurling stones and insults, led by incumbent and past High Priests as well as by other members of the ruling class, including relatives of Herod named Saul and Costobar.⁶⁵ These rivalries, which resorted on occasion also to kidnap, were not directly aimed against Rome, but they fatally weakened the ability of Judaean leaders to stand up to unsympathedc procurators.

The struggle within Jewish society continued inside the independent Jewish state of a.d. 66 to 70. With the raising of the stakes, the methods used by the factions became closer to outright warfare; their rivalries struck even the outside observer Tacitus.⁶⁶ It is possible that these factions represented different ideologies, sects, classes or areas of origin, but since both John of Gischala and Simon son of Gioras included Jews of all classes and origin among their followers and Josephus' vitupera­tive rhetoric about the disreputable origins of his opponents is hardly to be trusted, reconstructions of such parties by modern historians are necessarily speculative. It should be noted that the slogans on the coins issued by the different factions when in control of Jerusalem do not differ materially. It is possible that the struggle of the faction leaders was solely for power, while their supporters were mercenaries, often former bandits, culled from the dispossessed peasantry; in the opposition to Rome all the factions united in an appeal to the nationalist sentiments of the general population.

There is only little evidence for the common assertion that the prime causes both of the rebellion and of this civil strife were explicit religious

⁶² Lev. 25:9-10. " Joseph. BJ u.i4y, AJxx.i)i. ⁶⁴ Joseph. BJ 11.508.

⁶⁵ Joseph. AJ хх.щ-14. ⁶⁶ Tac. Hist. v. 12.3-4.

beliefs. Josephus, Tacitus and Suetonius all mendon widespread belief in an oracle that a man from Judaea would become ruler of the world. Josephus states that the inidation by the rebel leader Judas the Galilean in a.d. 6 of the new ('Fourth') philosophy, according to which Jews should obey no ruler except God, was responsible for the war;⁶⁷ but this may refer to divine displeasure at alleged unauthorized religious inno­vation as much as to the arousal of anti-Roman sentiment by this anarchist doctrine, and the explicit connexion made by Josephus between the Fourth Philosophy and the sicarii may be based on little more than the familial descent of their leaders from Judas.⁶⁸ Most Jews probably saw no religious impediment to living in peace under Roman rule as they had under Persians and Greeks: despite the desecration of the Temple by Pompey and in 4 b.c. by the procurator Sabinus, and despite Gaius' crazy schemes in a.d. 40, there was no reason in a.d. 66 for Jews to believe that their religion was under threat by a suzerain which had long tolerated their cult.

Nonetheless it is striking that most disturbances which required forcible suppression were sparked off by religious issues and that many occurred at the pilgrim fesdvals where the religious atmosphere was highly charged. One reason may be the lack of a clear all-embracing orthodoxy in first-century Judaism (see below, p. 762): behaviour which to some Jews, including perhaps the governor's advisers, seemed permissible, was anathema to others. More pervasive was the general hostility to the Romans simply because they were Gentile: in a society where holiness was achieved through separadon from impurity and non- Jews were believed to be in a vague sense a source of pollution (see below, p. 765), the liberation of the land from foreign rule might well seem desirable. But it must be stressed that the legends on the coins issued by the rebels to put forward their public message bear no such overt religious meaning, although the objects illustrated were evidently designed to emphasize the centrality of the Temple worship; they proclaim the freedom of Jerusalem and Israel.⁶⁹

iii. jewish religion and society i. Judaea ⁷⁰

Much of the evidence for Judaean society derives from sources which are only dubiously reliable since they were written for theological rather

⁶⁷ Joseph. BJ 11.118-19; д/ xviii.24-4. ⁶⁸ Joseph. by vii.25 3-9.

^M Kadman i960 (в 528).

⁷⁰ The main sources, apart from the gospels, the Acts of the Apostles and the rabbinic texts, are Joseph. Apr, the Dead Sea scrolls written and preserved by the sectarian community in Qumran (translation in Vermes 1987 (e 1231)); and the apocrypha and pseudepigrapha preserved by the than historical purposes and were composed either much later than the first century a.d. (the rabbinic texts, i.e. Mishnah, Tosefta, Talmuds and midrashim) or outside Palestine (most, and possibly all, of the New Testament material). The apocrypha and pseudepigrapha, which survive entirely through the Christian tradition and mostly in Greek or transla­tions from the Greek, can rarely be demonstrated with certainty to be Jewish or to originate from Judaea. The contemporary writings of Josephus, particularly contra Apionem, are correspondingly important, but even here the author may have provided a distorted picture in order to please his intended Greek audience. Much light has been shed by excavation of settlements at Qumran and the parallel site at En el- Ghuweir and by the Dead Sea scrolls found in the caves above the former site; lest the sectarian and therefore non-typical nature of this contem­porary evidence be overplayed, recent discoveries in the Upper City of Jerusalem close to the Temple area and elsewhere in Judaea have confirmed that some at least of the religious and cultural preoccupations of the people at Qumran were widely shared.⁷¹

(a) Religion No single all-embracing set of systematic religious dogmas enjoyed universal assent in first-century Judaea any more than elsewhere in the Roman world in this period. A great variety of belief and practice was tolerated within the accepted confines of Judaism. Apostasy was possible only by deliberate denial of all ancestral customs. The diversity of acceptable doctrine is most clearly observed in the development in the hellenistic period of distinct sects: the Pharisees, Sadducees and Essenes, whose origins and tenets have been discussed in САН ix², 299-309, were all also full members of the wider Jewish religious community.

Most Jews did not belong to any sect or (in Josephus' terminology) philosophy, for worship was a matter not of belief but of practice. None the less a central core of dogmas most of which were common to all Jews can be defined. Prime among these is devotion to monotheism and to the Jewish law enshrined in the Pentateuch, the Torah. The exact require­ments of the Torah were much discussed, to the extent that interpre­tation of the text became in itself an important mode of worship,

Christian Church along with but outside the canonical books of the Old Testament (translations in Charles 1913 (в 25); a much larger but not fully reliable collection in Charlesworth 1983-5 (в 26); a smaller selection in Sparks 1984 (e 1214)). Of the rabbinic texts, the Mishnah and Tosefta, both edited in the early to middle third century a.d., deserve more respect as evidence for Judaism in the first century a.d. than the Palestinian Talmud (compiled c. a.d. 400) or the Babylonian Talmud (compiled c. a.d. 500). The compilations of biblical commentaries (midrashim) are hard to date, but some of the material at least in Mccbilta, Sifra and Sifre is likely to have originated in the second century a.d. or before. For the rabbinic sources, see Stemberger 1992 (e 1215 A); more briefly, Schiirer 1973 (e 1207) 1 68—118.

⁷¹ On the excavations at Qumran, see de Vaux 1973 (e 1229); on En el-Ghuweir, see Bar-Adon 1977 (e 1085); on discoveries in Jerusalem, Avigad 1984 (e 1080).

divergence on the correct exegedc method constituting one of the defining characterisdcs of the various sects. The whole adult male community was required to meet at least once a week in synagogues to hear and learn about the Torah; this was the main and perhaps the sole function of synagogues in Palestine in this period, for the scarcity of clearly identified buildings from the first century a.d. or before suggests that, unlike in the diaspora (see below, p. 777), Judaean synagogues in this period were not yet treated as sacred places.[923] Understanding of the Torah was expedited by translation into the vernacular and by detailed interpretation of the implications as well as the plain meaning of the text.

Most Jews also acknowledged the paramount importance of the Temple in Jerusalem, where a highly professional hereditary priesthood administered the minutely organized sacrificial service with scrupulous ceremonial. Twenty-four groups of priests served in turn. Public and private offerings were made in a state of exceptional purity; the ordinary people meanwhile stood outside in the courtyard, while the Levites, a clearly defined caste of less prestigious Temple servants, sang psalms. The architecture of the sanctuary enhanced its function as the centre of purity: the grand colonnade built by Herod surrounded a great court­yard into which all were permitted to enter; that courtyard enclosed entirely a smaller court (the Court of the Women), through which it was necessary to pass to reach the Court of the Israelites; enclosed by the latter court lay the Court of the Priests, who alone could enter the sanctuary itself; beyond the reach of all except the High Priest on the Day of Atonement lay the Holy of Holies, the purest place of all. While the sacrifices continued divine approval would ensure rain, harvests and prosperity; their cessation in a.d. 70 was seen at the time as calamitous[924]and led to the development in coming centuries of more than one novel and distinctive Jewish theology (see САН xi²).

Of those few Jews known to have dissented from the high value placed by their fellows on worship in the Jerusalem Temple, the adherents of the Dead Sea sect are striking. Whatever the original reason for their treatment of the priests in Jerusalem as sinners whose sacrifices were invalid (see CAHix², 301—4), it was reinforced by their adoption of a lunisolar calendar different from the lunar calendar used by most Jews, which ensured that, in their eyes, the priests celebrated the festivals on the wrong days. Any such calendaric infringement was seriously regarded by all Jews: pagans regarded Jews as fanatical in the devotion to their Sabbath rest which even occasionally (though probably never normally) led them to die rather than fight on the sacred day, and festivals, on which no travel or work was allowed, were treated with only slightly less rigour. Indeed the observance of one festival, the Day of Atonement, on which Jews fasted in repentance for sins, was considered as even more important than the Sabbath.

The significance attributed to the Torah and the Temple and the strict observance of personal restrictions on the Sabbath and festivals were characteristics of Judaism inherited from Persian and early-hellenisdc times when the last books of the Hebrew bible were still being composed. Less pervasive but, perhaps because of their novelty, well attested in the sources are the new elements introduced in the last centuries в.с. and in the Roman period.

One such new development was the evolution of distinct theologies by the three major sects, the Pharisees, Sadducees and Essenes; all three have been discussed in detail in САН ix². So far as is known, neither of the two latter groups underwent any great shift in ideology, membership or political significance during the period covered by the present volume; the identity of the Essenes with the sectarians who produced the Dead Sea scrolls, and of the latter with the inhabitants of the settlement at Qumran, is likely but not certain.

Much more evidence survives about the Pharisees in the first century a.d. The authors of the gospels, particularly that of Matthew, depicted the Pharisees as opponents of Jesus and subjected them to a fierce polemic. Josephus showed a particular interest in them, claiming to be of their number, as did St Paul.[925] The rabbis of the second century a.d. saw some of the Pharisees as their spiritual forbears: thus the family of Hillel, a Babylonian Jew who came to Jerusalem under Herod and founded a dynasty of teachers including Paul's instructor Gamaliel, are described by Josephus and the New Testament as Pharisees but by Judah the Patriarch, Hillel's long-distant descendant who compiled the Mishnah in c. a.d. zoo, as rabbinic sages.

The different pictures of the Pharisees in these sources cannot be satisfactorily reconciled. The teachings specifically attributed by later rabbis to named authorities who taught before a.d. 70 concern to a large extent the intricate laws governing physical purity and the tithing of foodstuffs, and it has been argued that such matters constituted the prime or sole interests of first-century Pharisees; but it is also possible that such concerns were confined to a small group within the Pharisaic movement — the later rabbis described those individuals particularly zealous about such matters as haverim ('fellows'). As to the other characteristic teachings of the Pharisees, of which the existence can reasonably be postulated, it is impossible to be certain how many of the ethical and religious ideas presupposed by the rabbis after a.d. 70 should be attributed to the Pharisees before that date.

Most of the leading Torah scholars of this period mendoned in later rabbinic wridngs were probably Pharisees. According to the rabbis, two distinct schools ('Houses') emerged in the first century a.d., one constituted of the followers of Hillel, the other of Shammai; both these teachers lived in the time of Herod. Later tradition depicted the controversies between the Houses as fierce, but the issues mentioned as under dispute are mostly quite trivial and presuppose wide areas of agreement.

The extent of the wider influence of the Pharisees in the first century is also uncertain. The rabbis assumed that their forbears, like themselves, were the natural leaders of the nation, and Josephus, in describing the Pharisees of the Hasmonaean period, attributed to them great authority over the masses. But the Pharisees are not ascribed a prominent role as a group in Josephus' detailed narrative of the politics of Judaea in the first century a.d.; if they had acted as a political faction in the Hasmonaean state, it would appear that they had lost this role in the Herodian period or soon after. In any case, the number of Pharisees was probably never great - the only figure mentioned by an ancient writer is the 'more than 6,000' who, according to Josephus, refused to take an oath in support of Herod. Their influence in religious matters spread beyond their imme­diate circle, partly because in their interpretation of the Torah they often took account of popular customs.[926]

A more widespread development than the emergence of distinct philosophies was a concern by Jews for physical purity in a general sense. Both purity as a metaphor for holiness and pollution standing for sin are frequently found in the language of the Hebrew bible, but such usage gained added significance in the post-biblical period as a symbol of the separation of Jews from Gentiles. This tendency was expressed in an interest in what entered the body as sustenance and in bodily excretions, going well beyond the biblical definitions of the limited sources of uncleanness which debarred priests from the sanctuary. Not only were Jews renowned among outsiders for scrupulous observance of the dietary prohibitions listed in Leviticus but,[927] probably in late hellenistic times, they also adopted further taboos which lacked any obvious biblical base, including the avoidance of Gentile milk, bread, wine and olive oil. Later rabbinic tradition, aware of the anti-Gentile tendency in these customs, ascribed them, probably wrongly, to the eighteen anti- Roman decrees said to have been agreed by the Houses of Hillel and Shammai at the start of the Great Revolt.⁷⁷ Finds of ritual baths in a number of early-Roman Palestinian sites suggest that total immersion was a widespread practice, at least among those believed most suscept­ible to pollution such as menstruating women.

The symbolism of purity was elaborated in the idiosyncratic theolo­gies of the Dead Sea sect, for whom the consumption of meals in purity was a central rite, and of the haverim. John the Baptist proclaimed forgiveness of sins through the waters of the Jordan. The importance of seeking to preserve physical purity may have been strengthened, psychologically if not theologically, by the notion, according to the gospels deeply embedded in Jewish society, that sickness often derived from contamination by external demons whose expulsion from the body could bring a return to health.

The avoidance of pollution occasionally led to asceticism which had its roots in the conduct of some of the biblical prophets. The austere surroundings of the Qumran sect were probably believed to be intrinsi­cally desirable. The ascetic Bannus whom Josephus claims to have joined in the Judaean desert was admired for his avoidance of everything beyond necessities.⁷⁸ John the Baptist won fame by refusing to use manufactured food or clothes; it is not clear whether his denial of comfort or achievement of purity was perceived as more praiseworthy. Nonetheless asceticism was not widespread in contrast to the early Christian church. For most Jews fasts were restricted to times of such emergencies as drought.⁷⁹

There were at least three other significant theological innovations in the religion of first-century a.d. Judaean Jews, but neither the extent nor the depth of their influence can be determined with certainty. Some Jews began to believe in a life after death; some lived in confident expectation of the Messiah; some tried to adopt Greek philosophical explanations of the world while retaining loyalty to the Torah.

Belief in a life after death was certainly a novelty in the hellenistic period, for no Jewish text before the Book of Daniel (12:2), which was redacted to its final form in the second century B.C., unambiguously refers to such a notion. Since in the first century a.d. the issue was still fiercely debated by the Pharisees and Sadducees and extant texts are unclear when, how and with what accoutrements this after-life would take place, this hope was perhaps not an important element in religious consciousness. Mourning practices continued to assume the unalloyed grief of the deceased's relatives. The introduction of secondary burial in

m.A.Z. 2: 3, 6; cf. on the ban on use of gentile oil, Joseph. BJ 11.391-2; AJ xn.120.

Joseph. Vit. 11. ⁷⁹ Cf. the tractate Taanitb ('Fasts') in the Mishnah.

stone ossuaries after the flesh had rotted is more likely to reflect a desire for purity than the after-life; the practice was confined in the Jerusalem area and parts of the Judaean countryside to the late first century B.C. and the first century a.d.⁸⁰

The importance of messianic beliefs in first century a.d. Judaea may have been exaggerated by the Christian tradition through which most of the literary texts of the period survive but some Jews at least expected that a Messiah (however defined) would eventually appear, accompanied by a radical reorganization and judgment of the world.⁸¹ There was no agreement about the nature of the new world: the messianic age depicted in the Dead Sea scrolls differs markedly from that in other texts and no group developed any precise doctrine on the subject. It is impossible to know how many Jews would accept all of this composite picture which can be created only by amalgamation of a number of texts but it is likely that many would subscribe to at least part of it: a final ordeal and confusion would lead to Elijah, who would come as precursor to the Messiah; this latter would be assaulted by Gentile powers but, proving victorious, would renew Jerusalem, gathering the dispersed to enjoy the kingdom of glory in the holy land; in a new heaven and earth the dead would be resurrected to face the last judgment and assignation either to bliss or to damnation for eternity. The role of Israel was always seen as central but the new age was frequently taken to have universal application.

The precise nature of the Messiah himself was also a matter for speculation. The concept as expressed in the Hebrew bible involved a king of the line of David, but at Qumran a second Messiah of priestly stock was envisaged; the notion of a suffering Messiah was in this period uncommon and perhaps unknown outside the early Christian commun­ity. The practical consequence of such messianic beliefs was often political quietism since it might be felt impious to force the divine timetable; it is thus debated whether such doctrines were a major element in any of the disturbances preceding the revolt of a.d. 66.

The extent to which further changes in the theology of Judaean Jews were occasioned by adaptation of hellenistic religious ideas cannot be clearly determined since many intertestamental texts which now survive only in Greek cannot be certainly assigned either to Judaea or to the diaspora (see above, p. 762). Folk memories of the events preceding the Maccabean revolt (see САН viii², 346—50) may have made conscious

^ю On ossuary burial see Hachlili and Killebrew 1983 (e 1132); Rahmani 1986 (e i 192). On the debate over life after death, cf. Acts 23:6-8.

" Discussions of messianism in Klausner 1956 (e i i j 8); Schiirer 1979 (e 1207) h 488-5)4; Neusner, Green and Frerichs 1987 (e 1185).

borrowing rare, but such Greek notions as the immortality of the soul divorced from the body were held for instance even by the Essenes.⁸²

(b) Society No rigid division can readily be drawn between Judaean religion and Judaean society, for religion invaded all aspects of life. Thus the most important factor in the development of, and growth of tensions within, Judaean society in the first centuries в.с. and a.d. was the economic role of the Jerusalem Temple. The hills of Judaea, as of Samaria and Galilee, were only moderately ferdle: vines and olives flourished but the grain grown in the valleys sufficed only for a moderate population. The much greater productivity of the coastal plain was enjoyed by the inhabitants, mostly non-Jewish, of the coastal cities, while the luxuriant fruit crops of the Jordan rift valley, especially by the Lake of Tiberias, rarely benefited the Jews in Judaea. The balsam groves of En Gedi, the richest natural resource of all, were first a royal and then an imperial monopoly.

The agrarian economy of Judaea thus could not by itself support a city of the size and magnificence of Jerusalem, which Pliny the Elder described as 'by far the most illustrious of the cities of the Orient'.⁸³ Nor could agricultural wealth alone have paid for the multifarious imports and impressive expenditure of the rich inhabitants of Jerusalem whose houses have been revealed by recent excavations. The Judaean economy was fuelled by a constant influx of wealth brought to the Temple both by Jews and by others from all over the Mediterranean and the Near East. This wealth percolated into society through the spending power of the priests, the provision of employment in the beautification of the sanctuary, and the influx of pilgrims who required service industries for their comfort. The splendour thus acquired by Jerusalem was all the more remarkable in contrast to the rustic poverty of its hinterland.

The evidence for such poverty is extensive. The prevalence of the debt burden which afflicted the poor is clear from the attempt by the rebels in a.d. 66 to persuade debtors to join them by burning the debt archives in Jerusalem;⁸⁴ apart from the natural effect on small farmers of bad harvests, an important cause was probably investment by the rich of surplus wealth in loans when there was insufficient land to purchase: a legal innovation, theprosbul, enabled the poor anxious for loans to waive the right to the cancellation of debts every seven years which was enshrined in Deuteronomy,⁸⁵ while the offer of land as security made such loans attractive to the prosperous. Problems were further exacer-

Joseph. AJ xviii. 18; BJ ii.i 54. The extent of hellenization in religious ideas is emphasized by Hengel 1974 (e 113 5) and 1989 (e 113 7); contrast Millar 1978 (e i i 77).

Pliny, HN v. 14. For the excavations, see A vigad 1984 (e 1080). See the discussion in Goodman 1987 (e i 130) 51-75. ⁸⁴ Joseph. В/11.427.

⁸⁵ Deut. 15:1-2. On the prosbul, see яг. Shtbi. 10: 6,9. On the whole debt problem, see Goodman 1982 (e I I 27).

bated by overpopulation, of which a main cause must have been the common unwillingness of Jews on religious grounds to practise contra­ception, abortion or infanticide. Surplus children were more likely to survive in Jewish society than other rural economies because Jewish concepts of charity required the rich to provide food and shelter up to a (very low) minimum standard to all who seemed to be in need.

Conflict between rich and poor took different forms in the town and in the countryside; since before a.d. 66 the rich were often identified with the Roman suzerain, class and political motives were sometimes mingled in the struggle. According to Josephus rural violence became endemic in the late fifties a.d.⁸⁶ Bandits found refuge on the hill-tops and in artificial caves; many such caves have been discovered, though some may have been dug out of the limestone only during the Bar Kochba revolt in a.d. 132-5.⁸⁷ Such places of concealment sufficed for the brigands to escape the attention of the small forces of the Roman governor; the awareness of their presence by the local peasant population may have been of less concern since their attitude seems sometimes to have been sympathetic or at least not hostile.⁸⁸

In Jerusalem the poor formed an urban proletariat of a size rarely found in this period outside the city of Rome. They were attracted by hopes of charity or of employment either on such public works as the building of the Temple or on private projects for the richer families of the city. Their numbers and volatility are evident from the account by Josephus of the consternation of the city's leaders when, on the completion of the Temple in c. a.d. 64, 18,000 were left unemployed without the support of a regular wage.⁸⁹

Resentment at economic disparities was not apparently channelled into direct class warfare partly because social identification of individuals in terms of their property ownership, which was natural in Greek and Roman society, was less obvious among Jews, for whom the possession of wealth, though considered only in a few marginal religious groups such as the Essenes as positively undesirable, was rarely seen as in itself a criterion for status: the rich in Judaea, apart from the Herods, did not practise evergetism.⁹⁰

Jewish society in fact lacked the clear social hierarchy which marked contemporary Rome; it is probably a mistake to treat the religious sects as important social groupings or to identify their interests with those of particular economic classes. There was probably general agreement

^M Joseph. BJ 11.264; Д/ xx.172.

Kloner 198 j (e 1159); Kloner and Tepper 1987 (e 1160).

On complicity of locals with brigands, see Joseph. BJ 11.2 j 3; AJ xx. 121; cf. Horsley 1979 (e 1141). ⁸⁹ Joseph. AJ xx.219.

⁹⁰ Class warfare is emphasized by Kreissig 1970 (e i 166). On the different criteria for status in Jewish compared to Greek or Roman society, see Goodman 1987 (e i 150) 109-33.

about the low social and religious status of Gentiles and slaves. There was consensus too among men about the posidon of women, who were generally excluded from positions of influence, although royal prin­cesses were excepted from this rule and the introduction of the ketubah (marriage contract), which guaranteed rights and money to wives on divorce or widowhood, gave richer women some freedom in the control of property. The extensive financial dealings of a rich widow called Babatha have been revealed by the chance survival of her private documents in the cave in the Judaean desert where she perished during the revolt of a.d. 132—5.[928] But for the adult male Jewish population the variety of overlapping and competing statuses and the lack of a definitive authority able to mediate between them contributed not a little to the dissolution of the social order.

High priority was given to genealogy, even though most Jews, apart from priests, were probably unable to trace their ancestry more than five generations. Men used their patronymics after their own name. Dynas­ties preserving family pre-eminence can be found among the Pharisees and the sicarii as well as the royal houses. Lack of longstanding Jewish origins was held against the Idumaeans (see above, p. 739) despite the religious injunction to treat proselytes as full members of the community in all matters except marriage into priestly families. Josephus boasted of his Hasmonaean ancestors,[929] Saul and Costobar of their link to Herod (see above, p. 760).

Such claims were made only for the sake of prestige and not as a statement of social ties. Extended families based on shared ancestry do not seem to have played an important social role in Judaea in this period. Endogamy, which was still highly praised in the Book of Tobit, which was written probably in the third century B.C., is almost unknown in the first century a.d. outside the Herodian family. The characteristic tombs of the rich in this period, comprising central chambers surrounded by loculi for individual coffins or ossuaries, were designed to house nuclear rather than extended families.⁹³

Among the most highly regarded origins was that of priests. Only those whose fathers were priests could serve in the Temple and receive tithes from other Jews. Intermarriage with proselytes or divorcees was forbidden for fear of throwing doubt on the paternity of the offspring. In their zeal to protect the purity of their lineage the priests kept their own archives which stretched back far into the Hasmonaean period and perhaps beyond. Of exceptionally high status were those whose ances­tors had as High Priests acted as the religious and (except under the

Hetods) secular leaders of the nadon; in the first century a.d. these families were known collecdvely as the High Priests.⁹⁴

But even such status from birth could in this period be undercut or nullified by an alternative route to status through learning.The centrality of the Torah in Judaism led direcdy to the prestige and popular influence of the scholars who interpreted it. Such scholars, the 'scribes' of the gospels, might come from a range of social backgrounds and were never a hereditary caste like the priests. Nor were they a unified professional group, for methods of interpretation differed drastically from one scholar to another: for instance a scholar in the Pharisee tradition would take account of popular custom but a Sadducaic scholar would not (see САН ix², 304-8).

Some Torah interpreters gained further authority from the accident of birth since some at least were priests, though not all priests were scholars; others perhaps increased their influence by ostentatious personal piety in the synagogue and streets.⁹⁵ Less common were charismatic teachers who did not aim to interpret Torah. Their rarity gave particular power to such figures as Honi the Circle-Drawer, whose prayers could end droughts, and Hanina son of Dosa, whose cures were famed. Stories about both men survive much embroidered in late rabbinic texts; the picture painted there of Honi is confirmed by Josephus' stories of the same man, whom he names Onias.⁹⁶

The career of Hanina son of Dosa seems to have been confined to Galilee, and the regionalism of many of these religious leaders, and indeed of local loyalties in general, militated further against national acceptance of any single man or group. In constitutional terms (in the eyes of both Jews and Romans) the national leader should have been the High Priest of the day, but his authority was weakened in this period first by the policy initiated by Herod of usually permitting each incumbent only a short term (see above, p. 747) and second by the selection of what was probably a quite new priestly family, that of Ananus, by the procurators after a.d. 6: Ananus and his five sons, who all held the post, dominated the high priesthood until a.d. 66.⁹⁷

Lack of confidence in the High Priest prejudiced also the prestige of the council over which he presided, the Sanhedrin. Later rabbinic stories that the Sanhedrin was an appeal court composed entirely of Torah

^M Ibis interpretation is doubted by Jeremias 1969 (e 1151) 175-81, but remains the most plausible explanation of the evidence, cf. Schŭrer 1979 (e 1207) 11 232-6.

⁹⁵ Cf. Matt. 6:2, 5, 16; 23:5-7. For the claim that the priests as a group regulated religious behaviour, see Joseph. Ap. 11.187, '94­* Joseph. A] xrv.22-j. On the rabbinic traditions, see Vermes 1973 (f 231).

" On the family of Ananus, cf. Stern 1976 (e 1218). The identification, proposed by Stern, of ZcBl at Joseph. AJxvni.26 with £«' at AJ xvn.341 would link Ananus to a High Priest appointed briefly by Archelaus.

scholars are probably not trustworthy: inventions of the late second century a.d. and after may have been retrojected to the period before a.d. 70; the evidence of Josephus and the New Testament, although itself not perfect, is to be preferred.⁹⁸ The precise composition of the council is not certain, except that some members of the high-priestly families and both Pharisees and Sadducees could be included. It seems probable that the Sanhedrin sometimes acted also as the boule for tribute collection since a few references to bouleutai are found;⁹⁹ in such cases all members will at Rome's insistence have been rich. It is possible that the High Priest had the power to convene whichever advisers he thought most appropriate for a particular case to act as his consilium. According to some opponents of Herod quoted by Josephus, it was forbidden to put anyone to death unless he had first been condemned by a Sanhedrin of some sort.¹⁰⁰

The lack of clearly accepted authority in first-century Palestine, and the resulting social confusion, were exacerbated by Roman failure to recognize any of the competing local criteria for status. Roman insist­ence on wealth as the prime requisite for the governing class promoted to power men who sometimes lacked the local respect which might have enabled them to control popular disaffection.

(c) Culture Except in the religious sphere in the Maccabean period, Judaean Jews did not deliberately reject the hellenistic culture dominant in much of the Near East, but nor did they in general unconsciously assimilate to surrounding peoples. Instead they tended to adapt Greek and Roman customs to serve a Jewish purpose.

This process is clearly seen in the art and architecture of first-century Judaea. The decoradon of houses excavated in Jerusalem uses Greek modfs even to the extent of plaster painted in imitation of marble columns, but both mosaics and murals are with few exceptions aniconic. Many tomb markers in the city's vicinity have Greco-Roman facades although the tomb layout is derived from near-eastern custom. Herod's stoa around the Temple did not interfere with the Semitic plan of the inner sanctuary. Theatres, amphitheatres and hippodromes were built by the Herods at Jerusalem and Jericho; there was (probably) a theatre alone at Sepphoris; Tiberias had a stadium and Tarichaeae a hippo­drome; but the cultural activities in these places brought prestige to the dynasty only outside Judaea, for such activities were, according to Josephus, alien to Jewish custom.¹⁰¹

For a conservative approach towards the rabbinic evidence, postulating the existence of two Sanhedrins, see Mantel 1961 (e H7j);cf. the more sceptical remarks in Sanders 1985 (f 212) 312-17.

Joseph. BJ 11.40J.

Joseph. AJ xrv.167; cf. Joseph. AJ xx.200, 202. For the term owtbpiov used to mean consilium, see Joseph. BJ n.25.

Joseph. A] xv.268. On buildings in Jerusalem, see Avigad 1984 (e 1080).

Less certain is the extent to which the Greek language was adopted by Judaean Jews; it was the normal tongue of at least the upper-class Gentiles of the cides in the vicinity of Palestine. Some Greek religious texts were found at Qumran, though the great majority are in Semidc tongues. The letters and legal documents of the early second century a.d. discovered in the Judaean Desert are apparently trilingual in Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic.¹⁰² It is probable that the rural poor knew less Greek than the urban rich and that no Judaean spoke good Greek — hence, perhaps, the tribune's surprise that St Paul spoke ^lEXXr]vi^m