Читать онлайн "Jews and Greeks in ancient Cyrene" - Эпплбаум Шимон - RuLit

The Greek world had known for centuries assembly halls in which the seats were ranged around three or four sides of the buildings, beginning with the third telesterion (τελεστήριον) built at Eleusis by Pisistratos. The Greeks also knew a circular assembly hall in at least one city, the Tholos (θόλος) in the Athenian Agora, where the prytaneis met.[941] This however was designed for only fifty people, whereas Berenice must have possessed some hundreds, if not thousands, of Jews. From the fact that Dionysius plastered the floor — if the restoration ἔ[δ]αφος is correct — scholars have deduced that the hall was roofed,[942] This is is not inevitable, as is demonstrated by the plaster floors found in the theatres of Caesarea and Lepcis Magna, yet it is altogether probable that the Berenice building was covered, since the Jews met in it throughout the year. There are two possibilities: either it was of limited area, as the roof was supported internally by columns or piers, or the building was open to the sky. The first possibility is unlikely, for though the Roman world possessed small roofed theatres, called odeia, which were used as council-houses in various cities (one at Ptolemais of Cyrenaica),[943] no instance of a circular roofed amphitheatre is known. We are therefore bound to conclude that the Jewish amphitheatre of Berenice was square or rectangular in plan, like the archaic bouleuterion at Athens (6th century B.C.), or various later assembly halls at Megalopolis, Priene and elsewhere.

New excavations have disclosed two buildings in Eretz Yisrael which are undoubtedly Jewish, and constitute a chronological link with the Greek assembly-halls and the Jewish amphitheatre of Berenice. These are the halls of assembly and prayer found in the excavations at Masada (1964) and Herodeion (1962-3). At the time of its occupation by the Zealots the Masada hall took the form of a chamber surrounded by seats ranged along the interior walls, the ceiling being supported by internal columns.[944] But when Masada was fortified by Herod in 37-31 B.C.,[945] the prayer hall then had the form of a basilica; only during the Sicarian occupation did it become a hypostyle hall with seats around the walls, and it may be supposed that this plan was more appropriate to the democratic notions of the insurgents. The same initial plan and a similar replanning by the Sicarii were revealed by the excavations of the Herodian stronghold of Herodeion.[946] The plan of the two halls thus shows that this system of constructing an assembly hall was known to the Jews in the same period and was copied from the Greek and hellenistic hypostyle halls, such as those built at Delos and Notion (Asia Minor) in the 3rd and 2nd centuries before the common era.[947]

If the assembly hall of the Berenice Jews was a square or oblong structure, with a roof supported by internal columns, and the seats ranged along the walls, why was it called an amphitheatre? This will be understood if we imagine the building’s plan as similar to that of the Ekklesterion (ἐκκληστήριον) of Priene (Asia Minor), built about 200.B.C.[948] to hold some 700 people. The seats are ranged to a depth of nine rows on the east and west, and of fifteen on the north, being absent only on the south. If we assume that at Berenice there were also a few rows on the fourth side a plan is obtained to which the term “amphitheatre” may fitly be applied.

5. Ptolemais

Although Ptolemais was larger and more important than Eues-peritae-Berenice, its prosperity belonged only to the hellenistic and the early Roman periods. Ancient Jewish remains in and round the city are not numerous; most of them are tomb-inscriptions, among which four are known to be Jewish and one is doubtfully so,[949] We also know of one Jewess born at Ptolemais, who was buried in the Valley of Qidron near Jerusalem in the 1st century B.C.[950] Two other inscriptions are important for determining the status of Cyrenean Jews vis-a-vis the Greek cities: the first is a stele of the ephebes, or senior pupils of the gymnasium, found at Ptolemais, and recording a list of pupils,[951] which includes the name Itthalammon son of Apellas (Ἰτθάλαμμον τοῦ Ἀπέλλα). The same man’s name is also recorded on another dedication at

Lanuvium in Italy;[952] this is a bilingual inscription in honour of Aulus Terentius Varro Murena, their patron, by Itthalammon son of Apellas and Simon son of Simon on behalf of the Ptolemaei Cyrenens(es). The letter-style indicates that the inscription is not a “local product”, but was cut by a Cyrenean mason, while the presence of the name Itthalammon among the ephebes of Ptolemais shows that the deputation had come to Terentius from a Cyrenean city. The stele of the ephebes, of whom Itthalammon was one, opens with the date Γκη’, and its style belongs to the first century B.C. According to the Era of Actium, this would be 3/2 B.C., and as Itthalammon was a pupil of eighteen in that year, the Lanuvium dedication must have been set up several decades later, when he had attained an age at which he could participate in the public affairs of his city.

Who were these two emissaries who went to Italy to represent the affairs of their city to a Roman patron and were successful in their mission? Itthalammon looks at first sight like a Libyan name:[953] it appears also at Cyrene, in one case in an ephebe list which includes some Jewish names,[954] and the name of the father of Itthalammon of Ptolemais, — Apellas, — like that of his colleague, Simon son of Simon, arouses suspicion of a Jewish derivation; moreover a small plaque found at Naples bore the name “Yitshalom” in Hebrew.[955] The name of Itthalammon’s father, indeed, was regarded by the poet Horace as sufficiently characteristic of Jews to be a synonym for any Jew.[956]

The question therefore arises, why did the Greek city of Ptolemais send two Jews to represent its interests to people of influence in Rome in one of the years of the first half-century of the common era?

The Lanuvium inscription does not refer to the city of Ptolemais specifically, either in Latin or in Greek. It refers neither to the polis nor to the civitas Ptolemensium; all that appears is Ptolemaei Cyrenens(es). Now the form of the first of these two words is unusual as the title of the citizens of Ptolemais; it actually means “the people of Ptolemy”.[957] Frank,[958] indeed, accepts this interpretation, and understands the term as referring to the settlers of the past lands of the Ptolemaic kings, the Roman agri publici, the ούσιάι or βασιλικὴ γῆ of the former hellenistic rulers. Several features support this assumption. Firstly the letter-style of the inscription honoring Terentius is characteristic of the rural inscriptions of Cyrenaica; secondly, Itthalammon’s name, which reflects assimilation to a Libyan environment. There can of course be no doubt that Itthalammon was a citizen of Ptolemais, for which reason he was selected as a representative of the public, whether this was the urban public or the rural tenants of the state domain.