THE ROMANS
We have been concerned so far almost wholly with Greeks and the Greek
attitude toward the Jews. It will be necessary at this point to turn our
attention to a very different people, the Romans.
If we desire to trace the development of this all-overwhelming factor in
our reckoning, it will not be possible to go back very far. During the
fifth century B.C.E., in which Greek genius is believed to have reached
its apogee, it is doubtful whether even the faintest whisper had reached
Greeks that told of the race of Italic barbarians destined so soon to
dominate the world. Little as was known of the Jews by Greeks of this
period, the Romans were still less known. The eyes of men were
persistently turned east.
Rome, however, even then was not wholly insignificant. Many centuries
before, there had grown up, on the south bank of the Tiber, a town of
composite racial origin. It is possible to consider it an outpost of the
Etruscans against Sabine and Latin, or a Latin outpost against the
Etruscans. Whatever its origin, at an indeterminate time, when the
Etruscan hegemony over central Italy was already weakened, this town of
Rome became a member of the Latin Confederation, a group of cities of
which the common bond was the shrine of Jupiter Latiaris on the Alban
Mount.
There may have been rude hamlets upon this site from times very ancient
indeed. But from the beginning of its existence as a real city Rome must
have been a considerable community. Her strategic position upon seven
hills, the commercial advantages of her location upon a navigable
stream, conspired to this end.
The Latin Confederation had long been under the real or titular
presidency of the city of Alba. At some time before our records become
reliable, Rome had obtained a decidedly real leadership in the league,
and unscrupulously used the latter’s resources for the furtherance of
her own power and wealth. Without a definite programme of conquest, and
with military skill and personal hardihood very little, if at all,
superior to that of their neighbors, the Romans had, by steadfastness
and native shrewdness, developed a policy which it is difficult to put
in precise terms, because it was never even approximately formulated,
but which may be said to consist of unremitting vigilance and long
memory, combined with special alertness to profit by the mistakes or
division of the foe. It may be that the indubitably mixed character of
Rome’s population produced that result. Certainly in these respects no
other ancient community was its equal.
The legendary history of Rome is as generally familiar as the commonest
household stories of the race. Modern investigators have abandoned the
attempt to find out even partially the line at which its history ceases
to be legendary. Fairly correct accounts of Rome begin with the
permanent contact of the city with a literate community of which the
records have survived, namely, the Greeks.[230]
The Greeks had founded cities along the southern coast of Italy and the
eastern half of Sicily as early as the ninth century B.C.E. With some of
these cities it was inevitable that Rome should be in frequent
communication, but the communication did not impress itself for many
years upon that class of Greeks which, in the extant books, speaks for
the whole people. Not till the time of Alexander (330 B.C.E.) do our
Greek records begin to deal with Romans. At that time Rome was already
the dominant power in central and in the interior of southern Italy,
succeeding roughly to the empire of that great Tuscan League of which
she was once the subject. And yet, Alexander’s teacher, the
encyclopedically learned Aristotle, had only vaguely heard of Rome as an
Italian city overrun by marauding Gauls.[231]
The position occupied then by Rome would of itself have made active
participation in Mediterranean affairs a necessity. The embroilment of
Romans in the conflicts in which international politics is expressed was
precipitated by the ambition of the restless Diadochi and their
successors. It was a kinsman of the lurid Demetrius the Besieger, the
Epirote prince Pyrrhus, who undertook to save the Greek civilization of
the coast cities from the Italian barbarians. Pyrrhus ultimately retired
with his tail between his legs, after having dragged the Romans into
Sicily and brought them face to face with the Carthaginians. The
succeeding three generations were occupied in the mortal grapple between
these two. It ended with the triumph of Rome.
So far Rome had dealt only with the West, but with the permanent
eastward bent of men’s minds the lord of the Western Mediterranean was,
as such, a power in the East as well. Scarcely a single generation
passed before it became the sole power in the East, so that future
political history becomes the act of officially recording successive
realizations of that fact. And yet, this extraordinary people, which had
in an astoundingly short time secured the primacy over a considerable
fraction of the earth, was apparently possessed of slighter intellectual
endowments than many of its subjects. It had not succeeded in giving
such culture as it had developed any artistic form. And before it had
taken any steps in that direction, it came into immediate contact with
nations of much older culture, which had done so; in one case, a nation
which had carried artistry of form to a degree never subsequently
attained by any single people. First, the Etruscans had given in bulk a
mass of finished cultural elements, especially in religion and
constructive crafts, and had otherwise exercised an influence now wholly
undeterminable. Secondly, by Etruscan mediation and afterwards directly,
the Romans became the intellectual vassals of the Greeks, a fact that
lends some justification to the modern tendency to treat classical
antiquity as a single term.
The Romans obtained their very earliest knowledge of the Jews when the
political and social development just outlined was practically complete.
The treaty cited in I Macc. viii. 22 seq. is perhaps apocryphal, but the
substantial accuracy of the chapter is scarcely doubtful. “And Judas had
heard the name of the Romans,” we read, and this statement is followed
by a lengthy recital of the recent conquests of Rome. After the first
Hasmonean successes the little knowledge that Roman and Jew had of each
other may be so summed up. On the Roman side, the responsible senatorial
oligarchy learned with undisguised satisfaction that a previously
unknown tribe of Syrian mountaineers, grouped about a famous temple-rock
not far from the Egyptian frontier, had successfully maintained
themselves against a troublesome and unaccountable tributary king. On
the Jewish side, the leaders of the victorious rebels, conscious of the
precarious nature of their success, turned at once to that mighty
people—known as yet scarcely by report—which from far off directed men’s
destinies. Even at that time the Roman policy of _divide et impera_,
“divide and rule,” was well understood and consciously exploited by all
who could do so. The embassy sent by Judas—there is no real reason for
questioning its authenticity—presented to curious Romans in 162 B.C.E.
an aspect in no way different from that of other Syrian embassies long
familiar to the capital. And if it is true that some of that train or of
a later embassy of Simon took up permanent residence in Rome, that fact
was probably scarcely noticed from sheer lack of novelty.
Generally speaking, the Roman attitude to the Jews, as to all other
peoples, was that of a master: the attitude of the Goth in Spain, the
Manchu in China, the English in India. No one of these analogues is
exact, but all have this common feature, that individuals of the
dominant race can scarcely fail to exhibit in their personal relations
with the conquered an arrogance that will vary inversely with the man’s
cultivation. It is so very easy to assume for oneself the whole glory of
national achievements. No doubt every Italian peasant and artisan
believed that it was qualities existing in himself that commanded the
obedience of the magnificent potentates of the East. The earliest
attitude of Roman to Jew could not have been different from that toward
Syrians or foreigners in general. If in 150 B.C.E. the term _Iudaei_ had
reached the ears of the man in the street, it denoted a Syrian
principality existing like all other principalities at sufferance and
upon the condition of good behavior.
For nearly a hundred years this state of things remained unchanged. Then
the inevitable happened. Syria became Roman, and the motives that had
won Roman support for the Jews no longer existed. Roman sufferance was
withdrawn, and Judea’s good behavior ceased. That Gnaeus Pompey
encountered serious resistance on his march from Antioch to Jerusalem is
doubtful. The later highly-colored versions of his storming of the
temple are probably rhetorical inventions. The Psalms of Solomon, which
are very plausibly referred to this period, are outbursts of passionate
grief at the loss of the national independence; for no recognition of
Hyrcanus’ rank could disguise the fact of the latter’s impotent
dependence upon the senate, and the limitations openly placed upon the
vassal-king’s authority show that the Romans were at no pains to
disguise the fact.[232]
When the Romans added Asia to their dominions, as they had in the
generation preceding the occupation of Jerusalem, they annexed with Asia
many hundreds of Jewish synagogues in the numerous cities of Asia. Jews
lived also in Greece, in Italy and Rome itself, and in Carthage. Egypt,
which contained many hundreds of thousands, was still nominally
independent. Roman officials had long known how to distinguish the
_Iudaei_ from others of those ubiquitous Syrians who, as slaves,
artisans, physicians, filled every market-place of the empire. More than
one provincial governor must have collected a few honest commissions
from a people indiscreet enough to collect sums of considerable
magnitude, as the Jews did for the support of the temple.
[Illustration: RUINS OF AN ANCIENT SYNAGOGUE AT MEROM, GALILEE,
PALESTINE
(Roman Period)
(_c. Underwood and Underwood_)]
That they were classed as Syrians did not raise the Jews in general, and
particularly in Roman, esteem. The Syrians, to be sure, were one of the
most energetic, perhaps mentally the quickest, of the races then living,
but they were the slave race _par excellence_; _i.e._ the largest number
of slaves were and had long been derived from among them. The vices of
slavery, low cunning, physical cowardice, lack of self-respect, were
apparent enough in those Syrians who were actually slaves, and were
transferred to all men of that nation. “Syri” is nothing less than a
term of contempt applied to any people of unwarlike habits.[233]
Unwarlike the Jews of that day were not. All that had commended them to
Roman notice was their military successes over the troops of Antiochus
and Demetrius. Pompey may not have found Aristobulus and his Nabatean
allies really formidable, but he did have to fight, and did not meet
that docile crawling at his feet which he had encountered elsewhere.
That made considerable difference in Roman eyes, and may have caused the
unusual tenderness they manifested as a rule for what they loftily
termed the Jewish superstition.
As has been said, we have reason to believe that a Jewish community
already existed at Rome, and we shall see that it must have been fairly
numerous. As a city, Rome was probably the least homogeneous in the
world. It may have contained at this time something less than a million
people, perhaps much less; but this population was of the most diverse
origin. Not only had the capital of the world attracted to it all manner
of adventurers; not only was it teeming with slaves of every imaginable
blood and speech; but the thronging of the city with the refuse of the
world had been a conscious policy of the democratic and senatorial
rings, to whom modern “colonization” was a familiar and simple process.
When we recall that the accepted governmental theory was still that of
the city-state, we shall see that mere residence made to a certain
extent a Roman of everyone who lived within the walls. Various measures
of expulsion, such as the Lex Junia Penni and the Lex Papia of 65
B.C.E., were wholly ineffective.
As a matter of fact, the governmental apparatus of the city-state was
quite unable to cope with the situation that presented itself. Until 200
B.C.E., the turning-point in Roman history, the city was small and mean;
the population, though composite, was still almost wholly Italian in
character. A rapid increase in wealth and a consequent increase in
glaring inequalities of fortune began at this point. The governing
council of ex-magistrates, whose office had in practice become almost
hereditary, found itself confronted by a needy and exigent proletariat,
which it could neither overawe nor purchase.
The urban tendency of the population of Italy was due largely to the
failure of the small farms to support their man. Free labor was
subjected to the constant drain of military levies, and temporary
suspension of cultivation was ruinous. The obvious remedy was a forced
and unprofitable sale to the agrarian capitalists, whose leasehold
interest in the great public lands had long been so nearly vested that
it was almost sacrilege to attack it. To migrate to the city was then
the only course open to the peasant, but in the city the demand for free
labor was never great. The new arrivals joined the great mass of
landless rabble, sinking soon into an idle and pauperized mob.
But at the same time infusions of foreign blood came into the city. The
rapid rise in wealth and power had poured into Rome a constant stream of
the commonest of wares, viz. human chattels. These slaves, Greek,
Thracian, but above all Syrian, were directly consequent upon the
imperative demand for skilled labor, which they alone could satisfy. But
the very number of these slaves, and the changes in personal fortunes,
which were then even more frequent than now, made them often a liability
rather than an asset to their master.
Enfranchisement was encouraged by another consideration. The Roman law,
determined by a very ancient patriarchal system, was apparently very
rigid as to the extent of the master’s _dominium_. The slave was, in law
and logic, a sentient chattel indistinguishable from ox and ass. But in
other respects the Roman law was extraordinarily liberal. For practical
purposes the slave could and did acquire property, the so-called
_peculium_, and could and did use it to purchase his freedom.
Further, the newly-made freeman became a full citizen, a _civis
Romanus_. His name was enrolled in the census books; he possessed full
suffrage, and lacked only the _ius honorum_, the right of holding
office. Even this, however, his children acquired. Sons of slaves who
held magistracies are frequent enough to furnish some notable examples;
_e.g._ Cn. Flavius, the secretary to Appius Claudius; P. Gabinius, the
proposer of the Lex Tabellaria of 139 B.C.E.[234] It is for this reason
that indications of servile origin have been found in names nothing less
than illustrious in Roman history.[235]
With this steady influx of dispossessed peasants and enfranchised Greek
and Asiatic slaves, the urban population was a sufficiently
unaccountable quantity; and in this motley horde, constantly stirred to
riot by the political upheavals, which quickly followed each other from
the Gracchan period onward, all manner of strange and picturesque
foreigners lived and worked. To the Roman of cultivation they were
sometimes interesting, more often repellent, especially if he found
himself compelled to reckon with them seriously on the basis of a common
citizenship. Even for foreigners Roman citizenship was not very
difficult to acquire, and was, as we have seen, obtained with especial
facility through slavery. The emancipated slave was as such a _civis
Romanus_. His son had even the _ius honorum_; he might be a candidate
for the magistracy. This process had been accelerated after the Social
War, which admitted an enormous and quite unmanageable number into
citizenship. The popular leaders were especially lavish, and no doubt
many ward politicians took it upon themselves to dispense with the
formalities when a few votes were needed.
We are very fortunate in possessing for this period records of quite
unusual fulness and variety. The last century of the Roman republic was
rich in notable men, with some of whom we are especially familiar. In
literary importance and in permanent charm of personality, no one of
them can compare with the country squire’s son, Marcus Tullius Cicero,
who achieved the impossible in his lifetime, and attained posthumous
fame far beyond his wildest dreams. He was consul of Rome in the very
year in which Jerusalem was captured, and was in the throes of the same
political uncertainty that marked his whole later career. The most
brilliant pleader in the city or the world, he was feared, loved, and
hated for his mordant wit, his torrential fluency of speech, and his
remarkable power and skill in invective. Although his personal instincts
had always inclined him to the gentlemanly aristocracy that made up the
majority of the senate, he had won his first successes in politics on
the other side, and reached the summit of his ambition, the consulship,
as a popular candidate, receiving the support of the senate only because
he was deemed the least dangerous of three.
In the year 59 B.C.E. Cicero, concededly the leader of the Roman bar and
still more concededly the social lion of the day, undertook the defense
of Lucius Valerius Flaccus, former governor of Asia, who was charged
with maladministration and oppression. The counts in the indictment were
numerous. Among them was the following allegation: That Flaccus as
praetor had seized certain sacred funds; to wit, the moneys which
Asiatic provincials, Jews in origin, had, in accordance with ancient
custom, collected and were about to transfer to the temple at Jerusalem.
By so doing Flaccus had doubled embezzlement upon sacrilege, for the
sanctity of the temple was established by its antiquity, and confirmed
by the conduct of Pompey, who had ostentatiously spared it and its
appurtenances.
It will be necessary to examine in some detail the circumstances of the
entire case. Flaccus was a member of the reactionary wing of the
senatorial party, which until recently had held Cicero aloof as an
upstart provincial. His birth and training were those of an aristocrat.
A certain portion of Cicero’s defense is occupied in descanting on the
glories of the Valerian house, to which Flaccus belonged. The
prosecution of Flaccus, again, was a political move of the popular
opposition, now at last, after the futile essays of Lepidus and
Catiline, finding voice and hand in the consummate skill of Gaius Julius
Caesar.
Shortly before this date a powerful combination had been made, which
enlisted in the same scheme the glamour of unprecedented military
success in the person of Gnaeus Pompey, the unlimited resources of the
tax-farmers and land-capitalists represented by Marcus Crassus, and the
personal popularity of the demagogue Caesar. Each no doubt had his own
axe to grind in this coalition, and the bond that held them was of an
uncertain nature, opposition to the senatorial oligarchy. Further, only
in the case of Caesar was the opposition a matter of policy. In the case
of the other two, it was the outcome of nothing loftier than pique. None
the less, when the strings were pulled by Caesar, this variously
assembled machine moved readily enough.
In 59 B.C.E. this cabal had been successful in winning one place in the
consulship, that of Caesar himself. Lucius Flaccus had earned Caesar’s
enmity by his vigorous action against the Catilinarians in 63 B.C.E. E.,
so that when an influential financier, C. Appuleius Decianus, complained
of Flaccus’ treatment of him, the democratic leader found an opportunity
of gratifying his allies, of posing as the protector of oppressed
provincials, and wreaking political spite at the same time. A certain
Decimus Laelius appeared to prosecute the ex-governor of Asia.
Of Flaccus’ guilt there seems to be no reasonable question. He was
plainly one of the customary type of avaricious nobles to whom a
provincial governorship was purely a business proposition. No doubt he
was no worse than his neighbors. His guilt seems to have been especially
patent. “Cicero,” says Macrobius, “secured the acquittal of Flaccus by
an apposite jest, although the defendant’s guilt of the charges made was
perfectly apparent.”[236] And indeed on the principal counts Cicero has
no evidence except exaltation of Flaccus’ personal character, and abuse
of the witnesses against him, whom he characterizes as lying and
irresponsible Greeks. His peroration is a flaming denunciation of the
prosecution and an appeal to the jury not to permit the supporters of
the dead traitor Catiline to win a signal triumph.
The speech was successful. Flaccus was acquitted, and the acquittal may
have hastened Cicero’s own banishment. But for us the particularly
interesting part of this brilliant effort is contained in §§ 66-69.
After he has disposed of the various charges of peculation and
extortion, he turns to the charges made by the Jews:
Next comes the malicious accusation about the gold of the Jews. No
doubt that is the reason why this case is being tried so near the
Aurelian terrace. It is this count in the indictment, Laelius, that
has made you pick out this place, and that is responsible for the
crowd about us. You know very well how numerous that class is, with
what unanimity they act, and what strength they exhibit in the
political meetings. But I shall frustrate their purpose. I shall
speak in a low tone, just loud enough for the jury to hear. There is
no lack of men, as you very well know, to stir these fellows up
against me and every patriotic citizen; and I have no intention of
making the task of such mischief-makers lighter by any act of mine.
The facts are these: Every year it has been customary for men
representing the Jews to collect sums in gold from Italy and all our
provinces for exportation to Jerusalem. Flaccus in his provincial
edict forbade this to be done in Asia.
Now, gentlemen, is there a man who can honestly refuse commendation
to this act? That gold should not be exported is a matter which the
senate had frequently voted, and which it did as recently as my own
consulship. Why, it is a proof of Flaccus’ vigorous administration
that he took active steps against a foreign superstition, as it is
an indication of a lofty sense of duty that he dared defy, where the
public weal was concerned, the furious mass of Jews that frequently
crowd our meetings.
But, we are told, when Jerusalem was captured, the conqueror Gn.
Pompey touched nothing in that shrine. And that was very wisely done
on Pompey’s part, as in so many other acts of that commander. In so
suspicious and slanderous a city as ours, he would leave nothing for
his detractors to take hold of. But I do not believe, and I cannot
suppose you do, that it was the religion of such a nation as the
Jews, recently in arms against Rome, that deterred our illustrious
general. It was rather his own self-respect.
In view of these considerations, just wherein does the accusation
lie? You do not anywhere charge theft; you do not attack the edict;
you admit due process of law; you do not deny that the moneys were
openly confiscated upon official investigation. The testimony itself
discloses that the whole matter was carried on by men of rank and
position. At Apamea, Sextus Caesius, a Roman knight and a gentleman
of whose honor and integrity there can be no question, openly seized
and weighed out in the forum at the feet of the praetor a little
less than a hundred pounds of gold. At Laodicea an amount somewhat
more than twenty was seized by Lucius Peducaeus, a member of this
very jury; at Adramytus, ... by the governor’s representative, L.
Domitius. A small quantity was also seized at Pergamon. The accounts
of the gold so seized have been audited. The gold is in the
treasury. There is no charge of theft. The purpose of the charge is
to excite odium against my client. It is not the jury that the
prosecution is addressing, but the audience, the crowd about us.
Religious scruples, my dear Laelius, are primarily national
concerns. We have our own, and other states have theirs. And as a
matter of fact, even while Jerusalem was standing, and the Jews were
at peace with us, there was very little in common between the
religious customs of which their rites are examples and those which
befit an empire as splendid as ours, or a people of our character
and dignity. Our ancestral institutions are as different from theirs
as they well can be. Now, however, there surely can be all the less
obligation upon us to respect Jewish religious observances when the
nation has demonstrated in arms what its feelings are toward Rome,
and has made clear how far it enjoyed divine protection by the fact
that it has been conquered, scattered, enslaved.
There are a number of difficulties with the passage. The text of the
final sentence is doubtful—but the discussion of that point will be
reserved for the Notes.[237]
We cannot suppose that Cicero was guilty of deliberate misstatement on
matters about which he could be immediately confuted. We must therefore
accept his assertion that this count in the indictment did not charge
theft or malversation, but merely public confiscation of the funds in
question. It is undoubtedly a fact that the exportation of the precious
metals had been frequently forbidden, although the senatorial resolution
to this effect was far from being a law, but with this precedent and
even without it no one could very well deny that it was within the
imperium of a proconsul to make such a regulation if he saw fit.[238]
One may well ask with Cicero, _Ubi ergo crimen est?_ The point seems to
be that previous officials had interpreted the rule to refer to
exportation for commercial purposes, and had exempted from its operation
contributions for religious purposes. Doubtless the self-imposed temple
tax of the Jews was not the only one of its kind. If custom had
sanctioned that exemption, Flaccus’ act would be felt as an act of
oppression, since the strict or lenient enforcing of the edict on this
point was purely a matter of discretion.[239] Flaccus’ successor,
Quintus Cicero, a brother of the orator, seems to have reverted to the
former practice.
In one other respect the seizure of these sums may have seemed an act of
arbitrary tyranny. The sum seized at Apamea was said to be one hundred
pounds of gold—about 72 English pounds—and must have equaled about
75,000 Roman denarii or Athenian drachms. As the temple tax was a
didrachm, that would imply over 35,000 heads of families, or a total
Jewish population for Apamea of 170,000. That number is quite
impossible. It is, however, very likely that the Jews of the various
synagogae paid their didrachm with their other dues to the corporation
_arca_, or treasury, and that it was the whole treasury that was seized.
That would give the Jews of these cities a very real grievance, and make
their animus against Flaccus easy to explain.
The importance of the passage, however, is in no way concerned with the
justice or injustice of the accusation against Flaccus. It lies first in
its picture of the Jewish community at Rome, and secondly in its
indication of Cicero’s personal views.
The very insertion of the charge proves that a considerable Jewish
element existed, whose aid the prosecution was anxious to enlist.
Cicero’s own statements show this directly. Here and here only in his
speech he refers to the popular odium sought to be incited against his
client, and speaks of the number and power of the Jews _in
contionibus_,[240] “in the political meetings,” and in the crowd about
him. Part of this, the _summissa voce_, “low tone,” for example, is the
veriest acting. Cicero was really not afraid to say loudly what he
wished to say, and if the jury could hear him, part of the crowd could
hear as well. But although the Roman Jews were probably not so
redoubtable as Cicero would have his jury believe, they must have formed
a large contingent. Where did they come from?
We have the statement of Philo that it was not until the capture of
Jerusalem by Pompey in 63 B.C.E. that Jews were brought to Rome in large
numbers.[241] These, it is supposed, were enfranchised shortly after,
and are the people here referred to. That may be said to be the general
view.
There are, however, serious difficulties in it that escape those who
hold it, simply because they fail to follow in detail the implications
of their view. Pompey did not arrive in Rome till January, 61 B.C.E. His
army had been previously dismissed, but was to assemble for the great
triumph that took place in September, 61. The trial of Flaccus was held
in August, 59 B.C.E. Some months must have been spent in preparing the
case against him. Accordingly we are to suppose that thousands of Jewish
captives were brought to Rome, sold there, enfranchised, learned Latin,
became politically organized, and developed formidable voting strength,
all within less than two years! The mere question of language makes the
hypothesis impossible. Pompey’s captives were Palestinian Jews, of most
of whom the native language was Aramaic, not Greek.[242] Without command
of Greek or Latin the ready acquisition of either was nothing short of
miraculous, and the immediate political activity is only less so.
But the chief difficulty lies in another matter. The phrase “taken
prisoners” immediately suggests the conditions of modern warfare, in
which whole armies are surrendered and transferred in bulk great
distances for safe-keeping. It is to be feared that some such idea was
suggested to modern writers by the words of Philo. But that is not at
all what occurred in ancient times. Prisoners taken on the field of
battle were sold immediately at the nearest market. Slave-dealers
followed the army. Caesar’s account of his campaign in Gaul affords
numerous instances of this immediate disposal of captured foes; _e.g._
the case of the Atuatuci and Veneti.[243] If they were assigned as loot
to individual soldiers, they were disposed of in the same way. Here and
there a soldier would, for one reason or another, retain his prisoner as
a personal slave, but in general he had almost no facilities for
providing or caring for a number of them. A few of the distinguished
captives were reserved by the commander for a triumph.
Now Pompey’s army had just finished a five years’ campaign. It had
marched through Asia and Syria, winning battles that were not very
bloody, but must have been immensely lucrative. The Jews formed only a
small portion of the total prisoners taken. If all those prisoners
actually accompanied their captors to Rome, the question of
transportation and provision for such a horde must have been tremendous.
What could have induced a general or private to assume this enormous
expense and care, when the greatest slave-market in the world, viz. that
at Alexandria, was relatively near by, is inconceivable. If they got to
Rome, the city’s population must have swelled visibly under the process.
There is no record that it did, and it could scarcely have escaped
notice, had such a thing taken place.
And finally, even if we assume that such a wholly unprecedented and
inexplicable incident occurred, how are we to explain the immediate and
wholesale enfranchisement of so large a number? Ransom by wealthy
coreligionists at Rome is excluded by the hypothesis. Similar action by
Jews outside the city would demand a much longer time. The reasons
generally assigned are based upon the assumed uselessness of Jewish
slaves for ordinary purposes because of their dietary laws and religious
intransigeance. But that is a purely dogmatic assertion. Papyri and
inscriptions have shown that in spite of a bitter racial opposition and
perhaps economic strife as well, Jew and non-Jew could live quite
peaceably together. The dietary laws would not render his master’s meals
obnoxious to a Jewish slave, because he did not eat at his master’s
table, and might consume his scanty vegetable food where and how he
pleased. If a master actually chose to force attendance at the
sacrifice, the compulsion of necessity would have been a valid excuse
for all but those of martyr stuff, and we cannot suppose that every
Jewish soldier had in him the zeal of a martyr. Besides, for such
compulsion the slave would in no sense be responsible, and it is with
disadvantages moving from him that we are concerned.
It is simply impossible to imagine what could have induced Pompey’s
soldiers or those who purchased from them to enfranchise immediately
slaves transported from such a distance and at such expense.
Philo’s statement is at best a conjecture, made without any better
acquaintance with the facts than we ourselves possess, and contradicted
by the necessary inference from Cicero’s words.
We must therefore assign the settlement of Jews in Rome to a much
earlier date. The tradition that some of the train of Simon’s embassy
had remained in Rome is, as we have seen, probable enough. To that
nucleus there was added, by a perfectly natural and even inevitable
infiltration, a group of Jewish freedmen, artisans, and merchants who
were establishing themselves all over the Mediterranean. Jews are met
with at Delphi a hundred years before the delivery of this speech.[244]
We have therefore, in 59 B.C.E., an established Jewish community,
necessarily organized in synagogues and chiefly of servile origin. The
use of foreigners at the polls by the political leaders had led to the
Lex Junia Penni of 80 B.C.E. and the Lex Papia of 65 B.C.E., which
ordered foreigners to leave the city. But these measures were wholly
ineffective, and in any case could have only partly served those who
proposed them, since the mass of the democratic strength lay in the
proletariat, and the proletariat was largely composed of undoubted
citizens, although freedmen. The Jews formed, as we see, an active and
troublesome element in the turbulent city populace. Their attachment to
the democratic leader, Caesar, is well attested, and Caesar’s marked
favor toward them has all the appearance of the payment of a political
debt, as in the case of the Cisalpine Gauls.[245]
As far as Cicero was concerned personally, we may assume that his
attitude was the contempt which he no doubt honestly felt for the
_infima plebs_ and for Syrian barbarians in particular. He probably
voices the sentiments of the optimates,[246] with whom, though still
hesitant, he had already cast his fortunes. The abuse arises from the
necessities of the case. As previously pointed out, it is in this very
speech that we have fine examples of the device of abusing your
opponent’s witnesses when arguments give out. These phrases show no
special animus. Just as Greeks are liars if they are on the other side,
and men of honor on his own, as exhibited almost in successive
paragraphs of this speech,[247] so we may be sure if Cicero were
prosecuting Flaccus, a few eloquent periods would extol the character of
those ancient allies and firm friends of Rome, the Jews.
How much Cicero really knew of the Jews is not certain. He is aware that
in point of religious observance the Jews are strikingly different from
other tribes. The contrast he emphasizes in his speech may be an
allusion to the imageless cult of the Jews and the inference of meanness
and poverty of ceremonial which Romans would draw from it. And the taunt
_quam dis cara_, “how dear to the gods,” seems an unmistakable fling at
the claim of the Jews, loudly voiced in their propaganda, to possess in
a high degree the favor of the Divinity, or even a special communion
with the Deity in their mysteries.
All this Cicero might have learned from his surroundings. It is doubtful
that he learned it from Posidonius and Molo, both of whom he knew well.
In these two appear stories which Cicero could hardly have overlooked if
he knew them. When we remember what he says of Sardinians in the
Scauriana, of Gauls in the Fonteiana,[248] he surely would not have
omitted to catalogue the tales treasured up by these two Greek teachers
of his; to wit, the ass-god, the scrofulous prophet, the savage
inhospitality and absurd fanaticism Molo and Posidonius ascribe to the
Jews.
One other phrase which Cicero applies to Jews would deserve little
attention if it were not for the extraordinary general inferences some
have drawn from it. In May, 56 B.C.E., Cicero has an opportunity to vent
his venom on his enemy Gabinius, consul in 59 B.C.E., whom he held
personally responsible for the humiliation of his exile. Gabinius, in
56, was governor of Syria, and seems to have been rather short with the
tax-farmers, whom, to the delight of the provincials, he treated with
contumely and no doubt with gross injustice. The persistent favor he
showed to all provincial claims against these men, many of them Cicero’s
personal friends and at all times his supporters, caused the orator to
exclaim:
As far as the unfortunate tax-farmers are concerned—and I count
myself equally unfortunate to be compelled to relate their
misfortunes and sufferings—Gabinius made them the chattel-slaves of
Jews and Syrians, races themselves born to be slaves.
The concluding phrase is simply the application of the rhetorical
commonplace of Greeks that barbarians as such were slaves by nature. It
was applied to Syrians with a certain justice, as the slave name Syrus
testifies. From that standpoint, however, it was obviously absurd to
assert that it was true of Jews. Cicero’s inclusion of them is due to
the fact that, as governor of Syria, Gabinius would have had many
occasions to favor Jewish litigants against the publicans, probably in
pursuance of his party’s policy. Gabinius, we may recall, was a very
obedient servant of his masters, the triumvirs, and the interest of the
leading spirit of the coalition in the provinces has been previously
pointed out.[249]
Allusions of this type made in the course of vehement advocacy or
invective are really of little meaning even as an indication of personal
feeling. It is true, however, that Cicero shows very little sympathy in
general with the Roman masses or with the provincials, despite the
Verrine prosecution. That he could have felt any interest or liking for
Syrian barbarians in or out of the city is very improbable.
None the less, within Cicero’s own circle, the same elements in Jewish
customs which had impressed Greeks, such as Theophrastus and Clearchus,
could not fail to strike such Romans as made philosophic pretensions.
The fame of the shrine at Jerusalem had reached Rome a century earlier,
as we have seen from Polybius. Pompey’s capture of the city formed no
inconsiderable item in his exploits. Cicero refers to him jestingly as
_noster Hierosolymarius_, “Our Hero of Jerusalem.”[250] We can tell from
Cicero’s own words the emphasis that Laelius had laid on the fame of the
temple and its sanctity when he denounced Flaccus. As a matter of fact
it was a constant practice of Romans to find, in those institutions of
barbarians which could be called severe or simple, the image of their
own golden age of simplicity, before the advent of Greek luxury. So
Cicero’s learned friend and correspondent Varro is quoted by
Augustine[251] as referring to the Jews among others as a people whose
imageless cult still maintains what the Romans had abandoned. There may
be very little sincerity in this regret of a simple-living past, but it
is an indication that the exceptional character of Jewish religious
customs might in Cicero’s own _entourage_ be characterized in terms
somewhat different from those of the Flacciana.
We shall have reason to distinguish very sharply between the attitude of
Romans of rank and cultivation and that of the great mass. However, that
is true not only in this relatively minor detail but in thousands of
other matters as well. The Roman gentleman was distinct from the mass,
not merely in political principles, but in his very speech. In the
following generations social readjustments of all sorts frequently
modified the position of the Jews in Rome, but until the increasing
absolutism of the monarchy practically effaced distinctions, the
cleavage just indicated largely determined the point of view and even
the terms used.
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