One event that belongs to this period, between the years 60 and 70, might have thrown some light on the Jewish position in Cyrenaica had we possessed details: this is the fate of the High Priest Ishmael ben Phiabi, who was put to death at Cyrene between the above dates.[1171] Ishmael was apparently appointed High Priest by the Roman procurator Porcius Festus between the years 61-64;[1172] he appears to have been of Egyptian origin. Something is known of his personality from Josephus[1173] and from rabbinical literature.[1174] He conducted an aggressive policy against Agrippa II and the Roman procurator, expressed by the erection of a wall between the Temple and the royal palace, and headed a delegation to Rome to state his case in the dispute before the Emperor himself. In respect of internal Jewish problems he was both masterful and unscrupulous, gathering about himself a gang of roughs to manhandle his opponents in Jerusalem, and depriving the lesser priests of their dues by sending his slaves to the threshing floors to seize their tithes. After his collision with Agrippa and the procurator Festus over the high wall he had built to screen the Temple service, (61-64), Ishmael arrived in Rome at the head of eleven Jerusalem notables, and with the aid of the Empress Poppaea Sabina successfully gained Nero’s support for his case, but was detained by Poppaea in Rome when his colleagues left to return to Judaea.[1175]
This is the end of Josephus’ account, and we do not know how or why Ishmael found his way to Cyrene. One thing however is clear: he died by the sword of the Roman administration, for decapitation was a pronouncedly Roman form of execution.[1176] His general outlook, indeed, bore no resemblance to that of the Zealots, yet obviously the appearance of so stormy a personality among the Jews of Cyrene not long before the outbreak of the great rebellion in Judaea, could not but evoke strong reactions and a sharpening of antagonisms within the Jewish community. A rapprochement between the leaders of the community and the Cyrenean aristocracy precisely in the ’sixties, was expressed by the appointment of Eleazar son of Jason to the post of nomophylax in 61 (pp. 178 sqq). Eleazar does not, indeed, appear to have hidden his Jewish identity, but the members of his hellenizing group had been educated in the Greek gymnasia and did not hesitate to permit their names to be engraved on ephebe steles dedicated to the gods Hermes and Heracles, and the same applied to a parallel Jewish group at Ptolemais. Eleazar’s name, moreover, was listed on an inscription which opened with the names of the high priests of Apollo. Probably the years of the ’sixties saw the creation of a deep rift between this group and the broader sections of the Jewish population, both in the town and the country. It is hard to imagine the High Priest Ishmael as an ally of the Sicarian Jonathan the Weaver on the one hand, or of the communal leaders who informed the Roman government of Jonathan on the other; or yet that he would have given aid to the Jewish peasants. He must then have been isolated in the politics of the Jewish society at Cyrene, yet his presence could have created strong reactions, deepening conflicts and widening cleavages. Probably he met his end in the events of the year 73 yet to be described, falling victim to Roman suspicion.
Meanwhile the Roman activity designed to settle the problem of the ager publicus went forward. Paconius Agrippinus is known to have been still active in this sphere in 75,[1177] and Hyginus was in Cyrenaica under Trajan (i.e. after 98) measuring the same lands. Probably not a few Jews were interested in profiting from the reform to return to the plots from which their fathers had been evicted years before, and if the settlement was carried out at the expense of Cyrenean squatters by Vespasian’s decision, this would have exacerbated relations between Greeks and Jews. But here a new factor intervened — the prolonged and growing tension in Judaea, which ended in A.D. 66 with the great explosion in Jerusalem and a bloody clash between Jews and Greeks first at Caesarea, then in the Greek cities of Judaea and Syria, and in Alexandria, which finally brought about the outbreak of trouble in Cyrene.
The year 73 beheld a further event whose direct influence is hard to assess, but which certainly did not improve the attitude of most of the Jews to the Roman power: This was the imposition of the penal Ἰουδαικὸν τέλεσμα (Jewish tax), first exacted in Judaea the same year;[1178] in Egypt it was paid in the year 72-73.[1179]
We may distinguish, hypothetically, between three groups among Cyrenean Jewry at this moment: those involved in the affairs of the cities and who stood close to their authorities; a broader group, for the most part now nationally aroused by the events in Judaea, and the broad populace, not a few of whom were a landless proletariat concentrated in the towns or scattered in the lesser settlements and on the fringes of the agricultural areas; the plight of this group may well be reflected in the tombs of Teucheira. This third group, the ἄποροι, or indigent, made its contribution to the events of 73, when the Sicarian Jonathan the Weaver fled to Cyrene.[1180]
If Josephus’ account can be trusted, two outstanding points are to be discussed in the episode connected with him. First, that the movement which he led was not restricted to the city of Cyrene, as according to Josephus’ words “the Sicarian madness infected the cities like a plague;”[1181] second, that his initial acts did not assume the form of an armed rising, but were an attempt to lead two thousand of the poorer Jews towards the desert, where he promised to show them signs and wonders. The Jewish wealthy did not hesitate to inform the Roman administration, which appears not to have noticed what was happening, of the movement, and the proconsul Catullus[1182] despatched cavalry and infantry to disperse the participants. Most of the unarmed mob was cut down; the remnant was captured. Jonathan was caught after a prolonged chase. Whereupon, whether in despair or inspired by the class-hatred which was so prominent a feature of the several contemporary Jewish activist currents, he accused various Jews among the wealthier of the country of supporting the movement. The first objects of his charges were one Alexander, with whom he (or the governor) appears to have clashed previously, and his wife Berenice, and they were put to death by Catullus. Their execution was followed by the infliction of the death penalty on several thousand of the richer Jews of Cyrenaica — or three thousand according to one of Josephus’ versions. “And this,” concludes the historian, “he (Catullus) thought could be done without danger, because he had confiscated their property to the credit of the imperial exchequer.”[1183] He then proceeded to impel Jonathan to extend his charges to the leaders of the Jewish communities in Alexandria and Rome, among those accused being Flavius Josephus himself, whom Jonathan charged with furnishing weapons and money to the alleged conspirators.[1184] These people, however, were cleared by Vespasian after a personal investigation, and Jonathan was sentenced to death by burning.
1181
Ἥψατο δὲ καὶ τῶν περὶ Κυρήνην ἡ τῶν σικαρίων ἀπόνοια καθάπερ νόσος. Cf. P. Lon. (
1182
For the identity of this governor see Ritterling,
1183
καὶ ταῦτα πρἀττειν ἐνόμιζεν ἀσφάλως, ὁτὶ τὰς οὖσίας αὐτῶν εἰς τὰς τοῦ Καισάρος προσόδους ἀνελάμβανεν.