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It is not easy to find an answer to the question, how Cyrene paid for her imports and what she produced at home. There has been little study of the local finds of coins derived from other Greek centres, hence we cannot utilize them to assess the scale of the country’s exports to them.

At the end of the 7th century nevertheless, Cyrenean potters were copying proto-Corinthian wares and also Attic blackware.[763] By the 5th century she was using her own pottery which was somewhat coarser than the imported wares. On the other hand the famous kylix of Arkesilaos II, manifesting a close acquaintance with Cyrene, was made in Laconia.[764] Finds of amber in the archaic Temple of Apollo hint at trade-contacts with Northern Europe and of exports in that direction; Cyrene sent grain to IIIyria in the reign of Alexander the Great,[765] and Flavius Josephus saw a Cyrenean ship in the Adriatic in the 1st century A.D.[766] Numerous 4th-century Cathaginian coins found in Cyrene point to trade in the Syrtic region. The quantity of local coinage struck from imported metals proves that the country’s exports were considerable, and it may be noted that Cyrene enjoyed an advantage over Attica and many other Greek mainland cities, in that she needed no corn from overseas, and disposed of sufficient timber.[767] For this reason, she could devote her exports to paying for Greek goods such as metals and other craft-products. If this was the case, a certain slowness in the development of her own local industries would be probable, and might explain why no Cyrenean school of exportable painted pottery or other craft product is known. Much glazed table-pottery reached the country both from the eastern and the western Mediterranean in the hellenistic and Roman periods; the imported terra sigillata found in the “Palace of Columns” at Ptolemais lasts to the end of the 2nd century at least.[768] On the other hand owners of pottery kilns are mentioned in the Ptolemaic constitution,[769] and Vatican Papyrus no. 11, of the late 2nd century A.D., informs us of brick kilns in two localities of the Martuba district in the east of the country.[770] At least one type of lamp manufactured locally is known.[771] and its probable centre of manufacture was found by Wright at Teucheira.[772]

In view of all this, it would appear that most of Cyrene’s exports consisted of agricultural produce: wheat, silphium, wool, hides,[773] perfumes,[774] the wood of the thuon,[775] olives, dates, honey, vegetables,[776] horses, donkeys and mules. How far these were supplemented by luxury goods arriving from Central Africa along the Saharah caravan routes, depends on a solution of the general problem which these routes present. Yet in the absence of information concerning the export of craft products (excepting, probably, sealstones),[777] we are bound to ask whether Cyrene could have attained the level of wealth attributed to her by Plato and others,[778] unless she had possessed a share of the export trade in such goods from Central Africa.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE JEWS OF ANCIENT CYRENAICA

1. The Circumstances of Settlement

The earliest known find of Jewish significance in Cyrenaica is the seal bearing the archaic Hebrew inscription:

לעבדיו

בן ישב

(of ‘Avadyu son of Yashav).

It was found, apparently, at Cyrene itself.[779] As Diringer could not date the seal more closely, it can only be placed within the broad period to which seals of this type belong, namely, between the 10th and 4th centuries B.C.

Isolated Jews may have found their way to Cyrene before the hellenistic period. One apparently Semitic name, at any rate, is known to us from a Cyrenean inscription of the end of the 4th century; this is a list of soldiers, set up in the Temple of Zeus,[780] among its names being Baraibis son of Moiristheneus (Βάραφις Μαρισθενεύς). Baraibis seems to be a transliteration of Bar-Hibbas.[781] Furthermore, it will be noted (p. 131) that the Jewish population of the Syrtic region was very ancient, and it is hard to know whether it reached the Gulf from Africa or from Cyrene. An archaic Hebrew inscription has been found at Zliten,[782] also a seal with the name of the owner, Elyashiv.[783] A number of 3rd-century B.C. amphorae discovered at Busetta bore inscriptions, one of which was in Hebrew.[784] As previously stated, the Cyrenean frontier reached Purgos Euphrantas (Gasr Zifrin), under Ptolemy Lagos, and only subsequently resumed its former position further eastward, hence it is possible that Jewish settlement on the Gulf began in the same period, since the arrival of Jews in Cyrenaica itself is connected by Josephus with the first Ptolemy. The question, however, must remain without a definite answer for the time being, as the seal from Zliten may well indicate an earlier arrival. In this connection may be mentioned the Jewish settlement at Boreion (Bu-Grada)[785] on the south-western Cyrenaican coast, i.e. on the east shore of the Syrtic Gulf. In the Byzantine period the Jews of this place claimed that their ancestors had reached the place in the days of Solomon,[786] and even if the tradition is far-fetched, it is doubtless evidence that the settlement was very old. In short, the chief value of the remains of early Jewish settlement on the Gulf lies in this, that if there were Jews there as early as the 3rd century B.C., they can hardly have been absent from Cyrenaica in the same century.

Flavius Josephus attributes Jewish settlement in Cyrene to the time of Ptolemy Lagos, and in the light of historical reality we must connect the establishment of a Jewish population in the country with the growth of the hellenistic Jewish community of Egypt. Josephus writes that Ptolemy entrusted fortresses to Jews in Egypt, and desiring to strengthen his hold over Cyrene and the other cities of Libya, sent part (μέρος) of the Jews to inhabit them.[787] Elsewhere[788] he says that since Cyrene and Egypt had been placed under united rule, Cyrene had supported numerous organized groups (συντάγματα) of Jews, which flourished and continued to practise their Jewish laws. This information follows immediately after Josephus’ reference to a Jewish political disturbance (στάσις) at Cyrene in the time of Sulla, hence it is to be assumed that it relates to the period after the unification of Cyrene and Egypt under the rule of Euergetes II, in 145 B.C. Josephus further relates that Ptolemy Lagos settled Jewish prisoners from Judaea in Egypt and distributed them among his garrisons, while other Jews emigrated to the country voluntarily.[789] In the same book he writes that Ptolemy II freed 120,000 Jewish prisoners in Egypt.[790] This report, and that on the formation of Jewich garrisons, are repeated shortly afterwards in the same work.[791] The liberation of Jewish prisoners is confirmed by the Aristeas Letter,[792] which says that Ptolemy brought a number of Jews from Syria, some of them prisoners of war, to settle in Egypt, placing 30,000 of them in his fortresses.