We have little information on the behaviour of the Ptolemies towards the landed property of the older free Greek states which they controlled, but an instance from Thera, Cyrene’s own mother-city, throws some light on what may have occurred in Cyrene. Thera became a Ptolemaic naval base between 296 and 146 B.C., and in 164-160 B.C. Ptolemy III is known to have awarded the income of four local farms, which had been confiscated for reasons unknown, to support the gymnasium used by his garrison there.[809] These troops, it is true, were not cleruchs, but the action shows that the Ptolemaic kings regarded it as within their power to exploit the land of a free Greek city in the interests of their own military forces. Another instance may be cited. Some hellenistic king whose name has not come down to us appropriated the lands ot the Temple of Zeus at Aezani (Phrygia) for distribution among cleruchs, as is proved by an inscription.[810] Here, however, part of the rent paid by the military settlers was returned to the city concerned.
Evidence of cleruchic settlement is absent in Egypt until 275 B.C.[811] although it is generally thought to have begun earlier.[812] From 259 B.C. we hear of Jews settled on the land, always as individuals among non-Jews, among them cleruchs, men of the epigone, and simple peasants (λαοί)[813]. We further learn of “prisoners from Asia” settled on the soil in 224,[814] partly on crown land, but it is not clear if they included Jews. On the other hand we know from Hecataeus of a group of Jews who came from Judaea to settle in Egypt at this time, and appear to have obtained a distinct charter from Ptolemy Lagos;[815] the conclusion is therefore natural that this was organized colonization in defined conditions. Egyptian epigraphy and papyrology show the existence of Jewish villages as early as the 3rd century B.C.; such were Athribis,[816] Psenyris,[817] Schedia,[818] Alexandrounesos,[819] and an unidentified place in Lower Egypt.[820] All these had synagogues, hence probably also organized corporations with their own internal regulations (πολιτεύματα).
An analysis of the status of all these Jewish settlers during the 3rd century and later shows, that whether or not they included prisoners settled as λαοί, or leasing land from cleruchs, others were simple peasants on crown land (βασιλικοί λαοί), cleruchs, or their second generation (τῆς ἐπιγονής). In sum, the evidence in Egypt for the period under discussion shows plainly that the Jews settled as peasants, or cleruchs, and that by the middle of the 3rd century were already living in concentrated villages or were organized in village communities. But none of this material confirms the literary testimony concerning Jewish garrisons in the same early period. Yet the Egyptian evidence, if it does not strengthen the literary evidence concerning Cyrene, does not contradict it. And it is proper to note an important difference between the position in Egypt and that in Cyrenaica in this period. No rebellions broke out in Egypt against the Ptolemies in the 4th and 3rd centuries, whereas in Cyrenaica the Lagid conquest was marked by civil war at home and resistance to the conqueror from without for a period of twenty years. It is with this difference in mind that we must gauge the degree of truth in Josephus’ report on the character of the first Jewish colonization in the Libyan cities.
Can the date of the Jewish settlement in Cyrene by Ptolemy Lagos be dated more closely? Ptolemy captured Cyrene in 322; in 313 a rebellion of the city was suppressed, but this was carried out by his general Agis, and Ptolemy himself did not visit the country. In 308 he reestablished his control of the city after the death of Ophelias and seems to have been there personally. If there was a fourth reconquest in 301, this was led by Magas, his son. An appreciable Jewish settlement is unlikely to have taken place before a considerable number of Jews had reached Egypt, and this could only have been the result of a campaign of conquest in Judaea itself, which had led to the transfer of numerous inhabitants as prisoners or refugees. Ptolemy invaded Judaea in the years 320, 312, 302 and 301. In one of these campaigns, according to Agatharchides,[821] he captured Jerusalem, and Appian[822] also mentions this event, adding that Ptolemy then took many prisoners to Egypt and sold them into slavery. Hecataeus relates that after much fighting in 312, Ptolemy was accompanied back to Egypt by many of the inhabitants, including the high priest Hezeqiah and his followers.[823] As Tcherikover has shown,[824] there is no evidence that Ptolemy took Jerusalem in 320 or 312, but the conditions for the taking of the city by storm and the transporting of prisoners-of-war to Egypt existed in 302.[825] It is however evident that Ptolemy would hardly have settled a hostile group just uprooted from its own homeland for sedition, in a country that had recently risen against him, with the object of using them to strengthen his domination. The year 302, then, is unlikely to have been the year of the Cyrenaican colonization; and a better choice would be 312,[826] when Hezeqiah and his people went down to Egypt voluntarily out of friendship for Ptolemy and perhaps because they were hostile to Antigonus. In that year, indeed, according to Diodorus[827] Ptolemy settled 8000 prisoners of war in Egypt. We possess moreover, as stated, evidence that Hezeqiah’s group were settled by a written agreement, and this could have been part of a general movement which enabled the settlement of a larger Jewish group as far afield as Cyrenaica.
The Ptolemaic colonization of Jews in Cyrene may therefore be regarded as finding confirmation in contemporary circumstances, and Josephus’ account of it may be accepted in a broad sense. We may further believe that the newcomers were settled chiefly as cleruchs, i.e. as soldiers and cultivators who received their plots in return for their readiness to serve when required. It may on the whole be assumed, that the Jewish population of Cyrene at this period did not differ in its composition from that of contemporary Egypt, i.e. that it included cultivators, soldiers, military settlers, craftsmen and, in course of time, traders and perhaps even government officials.[828]
812
817
L. Mitteis, U. W. Wilcken,