The college of nomophylakes at Cyrene varied from six to nine members, and they were aided if necessary by three scribes (γραμματεῖς), whom Ghislanzoni[1040] considered as belonging to the college. These magistrates are first heard of in the constitution of Ptolemy Lagos, at the end of the 4th century B.C., when their number was fixed at nine.[1041] They were then appointed from the electorate of ten thousand, and signed the constitution together with the priest of Apollo, six strategoi, the five ephors and the four nomothetae; one of the last officials was also a nomophylax. This fact and the dedication to Apollo Nomios make it clear that the functions of the nomophylakes included the recording of the city’s laws, and probably their drafting. Their post may indeed have been created earlier, if Pernier was right in identifying ten names incised on the lintel of the Temple of Artemis in the mid-4th century B.C., as belonging to the same magistrates.[1042]
Everything then known of these magistrates was assembled in 1925 by Ghislanzoni.[1043] In the classical and hellenistic periods their duties varied: in late 4th-century Athens, in the period of antidemocratic reaction, they wielded a right of vetoing the acts of the magistrates and popular assembly; at Sparta they were responsible for the state records; at Elis, where they were called “Thes-mothetae”, they administered to the bearers of office the oath of loyalty to the alliance with Athens; at Corcyra in the 2nd century B.C. they were in charge of sacred and public funds, as they appear to have been at Thespiae in about 200 B.C.; at Chios they assigned new citizens to their tribes and trittyes. They recorded the decisions of the government at Abdera, also appointing ambassadors and reimbursing them for their expenses. At Pergamum in the hellenistic period they supervised the magistrates and were authorized to fine them for neglect of duty or abuse of powers; they also recorded legislation. In these functions they correspond to the accounts of Xenophon[1044] and Cicero,[1045] who define their duties as supervision of the proper implementation of the laws. Aristotle[1046] characterizes the nomophylakes as typical of oligarchies, in which they exercized a “pro-bouleutic” function, and elsewhere[1047] states that they are appropriate to aristocratic regimes. The post continued to exist in the Roman period, especially in the cities of Asia Minor, where it retained a measure of importance and much the same character.[1048]
To sum up, the duties of the nomphylakes were connected with registration and recording, with finance and with supervision over the proper administration of the laws. Their connection with the records and registration is proved at Cyrene equally by archaeological and epigraphical evidence. Accordingly a man elected to this post must be imagined to have been a capable administrator, knowledgeable in the law and of sufficient moral courage to impose observance of the law when it was abused by the magistrates. The members of this college discharged in some measure the modern tasks of town clerk and state comptroller.
We know little of the constitution of Cyrene in the Roman period; whether or not changes were introduced into the Ptolemaic constitution in the time of Demophanes and Ecdalus,[1049] it may be supposed that no radical democratization took place, while after the counter-revolution of Aretaphila the regime was pronouncedly aristocratic, headed, apparently, by the High Priest of Apollo. It is difficult to imagine that Lucullus altered these fundamentals, or that the rights of the common people were enlarged with the inauguration of Roman rule; Rome generally confirmed the political status quo, and if she intervened in the class-struggle which raged in the Greek cities, threw her weight onto the scales on the side of the well-to-do.[1050] In view of this, when Agrippa addressed his letter (according to Josephus) to “the magistrates, council and people of Cyrene” (Κυρηναίων ἄρχουσιν βουλῇ δήμῳ),[1051] the greeting can be regarded as no more than a convention; more decisive is the complete silence of Cyrenean inscriptions of the imperial period as to any democratic institution in the city. Nor can the formula used in the dedication to Germanicus at Ptolemais in the year A.D. 19, δῆμος Πτολεμαιέων,[1052] furnish a different conclusion. It may safely be assumed that the power in the Cyrenean cities in the ist centuries B.C. and A.D. remained in the hands of the wealthy, even if the skeletons of the ancient institutions were preserved. It follows, that in general lines the timocratic basis of government continued to hold good, hence it is improbable that more than a minority of well-to-do Jews was admitted to citizenship at the end of the 1st century before the common era.
Of the Jews in this period, then, we know three things; they took an active part in political life, since round about 88 B.C. they were involved in some internal conflict (στάσις), of whose nature we are ignorant;[1053] about the same time they held a position intermediate between metics and citizens in the city;[1054] and they were forced to defend this status in the last decades of the century.[1055] At this time, when the importance of the nomophylakes had increased in the city, evidently as a result of the aristocratic trend in government and the special association of these magistrates with such regimes, as noted by Aristotle, the Jews were in conflict with the polis. But in the course of several decades the position had changed somewhat; the Greek and Jewish aristocracies had reached an accommodation, expressed in the admission to citizenship of the latter, and in the subsequent appointment of Eleazar son of Jason to a highly responsible government board, for whose work men of knowledge commanding the public confidence were required.
Josephus, in his account of the events of the year A.D. 73, states that there were then 3,000 well-to do Jews in the city (εὔποροι).[1056] Even among the Cyrenean civic body, which was of considerable size as fixed by Ptolemy Lagos, and numbered 10,000 members, — but was probably smaller in the Roman period — the Jewish element may have carried considerable weight. Josephus’ figures are seldom reliable, and in this case his 3,000 Jews may have included the Jewish upper class of the entire Pentapolis, yet even this supposition would do little to alter the position, for one can hardly attribute to Cyrene less than a third of Josephus’ 3,000 well-to-do members. If we add the Jews of lesser status, who were certainly numerous — for they survived to create the revolt of 115 — we shall begin to understand the reason for the tension prevailing at Cyrene in the 1st century A.D., which ultimately produced the great explosion under Trajan.
8. The Organization of the Communities
Having learned something of the civic status of the Jews of Cyrenaica, we must sketch what is known of their internal organization. The right to an internal organization which enabled the Jews to maintain their ancestral customs and commandments, was recognized throughout the diaspora of the hellenistic and Roman periods. In the Greek cities of the hellenistic monarchies the Jews received such recognition because the variegated and cosmopolitan composition of these towns influenced both their rulers and the city authorities to accept voluntary organizations of aliens, soldiers, craftsmen, followers of various cults and other types of association within their general frameworks. The Roman Empire permitted the existence of such bodies, but took care that they should not possess any political content. The Jewish bodies, indeed, went beyond the functional terms of reference of most of the other politeumata of the hellenistic monarchies and the Greek cities, since besides the functions of welfare, cult or simple social enjoyment performed by the other societies, the Jewish bodies performed two more: they administered a system of justice based on Jewish law, and exercized the right of sending the contributions of their members to the Temple of Jerusalem. These functions also involved the recognition on the part of the government of certain tacit privileges, namely, the right not to worship the deities of the city or the monarchy (or, under Rome, the Capitoline triad and the Genius of the Emperor), and the right not to appear in court on Sabbaths or festivals.[1057] These privileges gave rise to broader practical corollaries beyond the religious and social spheres, such as the ineligibility of observant Jews to serve in the municipalities of their cities. The internal autonomy of the Jews of the Diaspora in the period concerned found practical expression in the erection of buildings (prayer-houses, assembly places, hostels and the like), in the maintenance of of burial places, in the exercise of internal jurisdiction, the collection of money, in welfare work, and in the maintenance of registries and the administrative machinery required by all the above functions. The evidence of such activities in Cyrenaica is not abundant, nor does it illustrate them all.
1049
Stucchi (
1057
Despite the statements of some scholars, I do not think that there is specific evidence that the Jews of the Roman Empire enjoyed a general exemption in military service. Such exemption was given on several occasions in Asia Minor to Jews possessing Roman citizenship, and then in the special circumstances of civil war in the late republican period. The fewness of Jews from the Roman army in the ist and 2nd centuries AD was caused principally by political factors, and in the 3rd and 4th centuries they are found serving in the imperial forces. For some cases in the ist and 2nd centuries, see the author,