Chapter XVI: Jews in Rome During the Early Empire

Footnote 252:

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

Footnote 253:

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

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

Footnote 254:

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

Footnote 255:

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

Footnote 256:

Cf. ch. III., n. 9.

Footnote 257:

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

Footnote 258:

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

Footnote 259:

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

Footnote 260:

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

Footnote 261:

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

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

Footnote 262:

Valerius Max. I. iii. 3.

Footnote 263:

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

Footnote 264:

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

Footnote 265:

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

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

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

Now, ἡ τῆς νηστείας ἡμέρα, the great fast of the Jews,
must have been as marked a feature in their life two thousand years
ago as to-day. While all the other feasts have individual names, it
does not appear that this one did. יום הכפורים (Lev.
xxiii. 27; LXX, ἡμέρα ἐξιλασμοῦ) seems rather a
descriptive term than a proper name. Josephus (Ant. IV. x.) has no
name for it, although he has for the others. In the Talmud, it is
ימא “the Day,” יומא רבא “the Great Day,”
צומא רבא, “the Great Fast.” In Acts xxvii. 9 we meet the
phrase ἡ νηστεία, “the fast κατ’ ἐξοχήν.”
Similarly in Philo, _De Septenario_, all the festivals have names
except this, which is referred to simply as “the Fast.” It must be,
however, evident that with the institution of other fasts, ἡ
νηστεία would hardly be adequate. As a distinctive appellation,
some other name had to be chosen.

In the Pentateuch the term (שבת שבתון) is used of
ordinary Sabbaths (Ex. xxxi. 15, xxxv. 2, Lev. xxiii. 3) as well as of
the Atonement (Lev. xvi. 31, xxiii. 32). But the LXX expressly
distinguishes the application of it to ordinary Sabbaths from its
application to the Atonement. The former, it renders σάββατα
ἀναπαύσεως, the latter σάββατα σαββάτων. This
latter term may therefore be considered the specific designation of
the Atonement Day, and it is so used by Philo, De Septen. 23,
σάββατον σαββάτων, τῶν ἁγίων ἁγιώτεραι (ἑβδόμαδες).

We may, therefore, assume that in the Greek-speaking Jewish community
of Rome, σάββατα σαββάτων, “the Great Sabbath,” was the
common designation—or at least a familiar designation—of the Day of
Atonement. In that case it could scarcely be otherwise than familiar
to those who had any dealings whatever with the Jews.

Fuscus pretends to share a very general observance, and on the
strength of it to be disinclined to discuss any personal matters with
his friend. Can that day have been a simple Sabbath? The tone
indicates a rarer and more solemn occasion. Besides, we are definitely
told that it is a special Sabbath, the “thirtieth.”

The Jews at that time seem to have reckoned their festivals by strict
lunar months (Josephus, Ant. IV. x.) and their civil year by the
Macedonian calendar. The thirtieth Sabbath, if we reckon by the Roman
calendar, might conceivably have fallen on the Atonement. By the
Macedonian or Athenian it could not have done so. However, as the
Roman calendar was a solar one, the correspondence of the thirtieth
Sabbath with the Atonement can only have been a fortuitous one in a
single year. _Tricesima sabbata_ can hardly apply to that.

It is just possible that the reason for the word “thirtieth” is to be
found in the widely and devoutly pursued astrology of that time. The
number thirty had a certain significance in astrology, Firmicus
Maternus, IV. xvii. 5; xxii. 3. If for one reason or another the
_mansio_ of the moon, which coincided with the second week of the
seventh lunar month (cf. Firm. Mat. IV. i. seq. for the importance of
the moon in astrology), bore the number thirty, then _tricesima
sabbata_, to initiated and uninitiated, might bear the portentous
meaning required for the Horatian passage.

Whether that is so or not, the only Sabbath which we know to have been
specially singled out from the rest of the year, was this
σάββατα σαββάτων, the Day of Atonement. Whatever reason
there was for calling it the thirtieth, the mere fact of its being
particularly designated makes it likely that Horace referred to that
day.

Nearly every one of the festivals in Tishri has already been suggested
for the phrase, but these results have been reached by elaborate and
intricate calculations, which bring the thirtieth Sabbath on the
festival required. The main difficulty with all such calculations has
been noted. The coincidence can only have been exceptional, and an
exceptional coincidence will not help us here. Some especially
rigorous Jews undoubtedly fasted every week like the Pharisee in Luke
xviii. 11-20, but that was intended as a form of asceticism. The
custom survived in some Christian communities, notably in Rome, which
elevated it almost to a dogma, so that Augustine had to combat the
point with especial vigor. (Ep. xxxvi., and Casulanum, Corp. Scr.
Eccl. xxxiv. pp. 33 seq.) It may be interesting to remember that from
a passage of this epistle referring to this Sabbath fast (xiv. 32) is
derived the famous proverb, “When you are in Rome, do as the Romans
do.”

Footnote 266:

Sat. I. iv. 18.

Footnote 267:

Sat. I. v. 97.

Footnote 268:

Apellas is a common name for a slave or freedman. Cic. ad Fam. vii.
25; C. I. L. x. 6114. That a Jew should bear a name derived from that
of Apollo, is not at all strange. Cf. ch. IX., n. 6.

Footnote 269:

Cf. Ep. I. vi. 1 seq. The _nil admirari_ of the first line is Horace’s
equivalent for the ἀταραξία of Epicurus.

Footnote 270:

As is stated in the text, the _peregrina Sabbata_ and the _septima
festa_, which is merely a metrical paraphrase for _Sabbata_, are
treated here as of annual occurrence. The word _redeunt_ itself points
to that. It has been suggested in Note 264, that the great annual
Sabbath was the Day of Atonement. If that is referred to here, the
application is very natural. The season of the Tishri festivals
coincided in the Mediterranean with rather severe storms. These
generally began after the Day of Atonement, so that among Jews sailing
was rarely undertaken after that day. This is strikingly shown by Acts
xxvii. 9. But the equinoctial storms, while sufficient to make a
sea-voyage dangerous, do not seem to have caused serious discomfort on
land. The reference, accordingly, must in each case be understood from
its context. In the first the courtship is to be begun, _tu licet
incipias_, at the great Sabbath, to take advantage of the exquisite
autumn of Italy. In the second, the voyage is not to be deferred even
for this same Sabbath, which ordinarily marked the danger line of
navigation.

Footnote 271:

Vogelstein u. Rieger, Gesch. der Jud. in der Stadt Rom., p. 39 seq.

Footnote 272:

Reinach, Textes, p. 259.

Footnote 273:

Pliny, Hist. Nat. XXIX. i. 6. Plaut. Amphitruo, 1013.

Footnote 274:

Cf. Garrucci, Cimitero ... in Signa Randanini; F. X. Kraus, Roma Sott.
p. 286 ff.; Garucci, Storia del arte Cristiana, VI. tav. 489-491.