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

His father M. Ulpius Traianus had served under Vespasian as commander of the Tenth Legion in the Jewish War, and had subjugated the areas across the Jordan.[1369] In 73 or 74, after discharging the consulate, he had been appointed governor of Syria,[1370] and had silenced Parthian threats of war by a concentration of forces on the frontier.[1371] According to one view, he “may have been Vespasian’s principal agent in the ordering of the whole frontier and its defences from the Armenian mountains to the desert of Arabia”.[1372] Trajan, then, was in a position to learn about the Jewish problem, the nature of the Parthian question and the provinces connected with both.[1373] He himself had served as tribunus militum in the Syrian army, and was thus acquainted with the region of the Euphrates[1374] For this reason he would have regarded the Jews essentially with the eyes of a soldier;[1375] it is doubtful if he was an anti-Semite in the accepted sense, but it is likely that he gauged them as potential, if not actual, enemies, and participated in the attitude of contempt for Judaism which was hereditary among the majority of the Roman aristocracy. But as a military man he may have estimated (and even overestimated) the military strength of the Jews of Eretz Yisrael, and underestimated the military potentialities of the Jews of the Diaspora.

There are contradictory traditions concerning the attitude of Trajan’s family to the Jews. The so-called Acts of the Pagan Martyrs,[1376] which present a satirical account both anti-Roman and anti-Semitic, make Trajan’s wife Plotina a supporter of the Jews, and one of the participants in the episode, an Alexandrian, alleges that Trajan’s council of state is full of “sacrilegious Jews” (τὸ συν ἐδριόν σου ἐπλήσθη τῶν ἀνοσίοιν Ἰουδαίων). Scholars differ on the truth of this allegation, but Musurillo has remarked[1377] that several “court Jews” and prominent renegades, such as the descendants of Tiberius Alexander and Herod, perhaps Josephus himself, and some aristocratic Roman proselytes, may have served on Trajan’s council or have been invited to its sessions to advise on the Jewish problem. On the other hand, the relevant papyrus, P. Oxy. 1242, in its present version is regarded as of late 2nd century date, and the allegation of Jewish participation in the imperial council may really be directed, not to Trajan but to one of the Severan emperors, among whom Caracalla and Severus Alexander were well known for their favourable attitude to the Jews.[1378]

A contrary tradition is to be found in the Jerusalem Talmud, which says:[1379] “In the days of Troginus the wicked, a son was born to him on the ninth of Av, and (the Jews) fasted; his daughter died on Hannuqah and they lit candles. His wife sent to him and said: Before you conquer the barbarians, come and conquer the Jews who have rebelled against you.” This tradition follows the account of the famous synagogue of Alexandria, and is succeeded by the description of the extermination of Egyptian Jewry in Trajan’s reign. As Plotina never bore either sons or daughters, the story cannot be seen as historical in its details, but if it contains a grain of truth, it possibly reflects a popular view, that some change of attitude to the Jews had taken place in imperial circles immediately before the outbreak of the revolt. If Trajan was careful to check petticoat influence among his immediate entourage,[1380] Plotina nevertheless exercized considerable influence,[1381] nor must her role in the elevation of Hadrian to the imperial throne after her husband’s death be forgotten. It may therefore be said in conclusion, that Trajan saw the Jews chiefly from a military point of view, as the problem of a people situated on the border of the Empire, and in the light of the experiences of his father and his own experiences in Syria and Judaea. If any change occurred in his attitude to the Jews which hastened the outbreak of the rebellion, it must have come as the result of a decision to their disadvantage taken after the beginning of his Parthian war in 114.

2. Chronology

The chain of events in Egypt has been fully investigated by a number of scholars,[1382] nor is there need within the limits of the present work to do other than repeat their conclusions, sum up briefly the course of events against the background of the rising as a whole, and discuss several special questions. The information on the rising in Cyprus is slight, but a few archaeological scraps have accumulated in recent years to enlarge our knowledge. The archaeological evidence on the revolt is plentiful in Cyrene, in Egypt it is chiefly papyrological, while most of it in Eretz Yisrael and Mesopotamia is literary and involves difficult problems.

First let us survey briefly the order of events according to Eusebius and Dio Cassius. The Jews in Egypt and Cyrene attacked their Greek neighbours with sudden fury and slew many of them. These events were repeated in Cyprus, where the rebels were led by one Artemion. In the following year the Jews of Cyrenaica invaded Egypt under the leadership of their “king” Lucuas, and at first defeated the Greeks, who fleeing to Alexandria wreaked their vengeance on the Jews of the city. The Jews under Lucuas meanwhile ravaged and destroyed the country districts, until Trajan’s marshal Marcius Turbo arrived with strong forces, and exterminated the insurgents after numerous and prolonged combats. The Jews of Cyprus were also wiped out, and a decree was passed that no Jew should in future set foot on the island on pain of death. In Mesopotamia, anticipating a Jewish rising, Trajan ordered Lusius Quietus to slay many of the Jews resident there, then appointed him governor of Judaea. This is the sum of the account to be derived from Greek literature; it can be supplemented here and there by details from other and parallel sources.

Two questions arise at the outset: 1) the date of the outbreak of the revolt; 2) did the rising in any one province precede the outbreaks in the rest?

The views of scholars on the year of the outbreak differed till comparatively recently.[1383] Schurer assumed it took place in 115 on the authority of Eusebius;[1384] Fuks accepts that year as the date of the outbreak in Egypt,[1385] also dating its beginning in the first months of 115 on the evidence of the papyrus containing the edict of Rutilius Lupus, then governor of Egypt,[1386] dated on the 13th October 115. This document mentions a hand-to-hand combat (μάχη) which had taken place previously between Romans and Jews in Alexandria, also acts of violence perpetrated by Greeks and their slaves subsequent to the episode but in continuation of it. A special judge has arrived from Rome to investigate the offences, and in the meantime the Prefect warns the Jews not to disturb the peace of the capital. The conclusion to be drawn from this information is, that the rebellion broke out in early 115, more especially (Fuks’ view)[1387] because the rising in Cyrene had preceded that in Alexandria. But the principal sources on which this opinion depends[1388] do not state with any clarity that the Jews of Cyrene initiated the revolt. Eusebius says: “The Jews were exterminated in Libya and Cyrene, in Egypt, Alexandria and the Thebais when they were fighting with the Hellenes dwelling with them.” The distinction made here between Libya and Cyrene is very interesting, and shows that the two were not identical. In the Latin version Libya is mentioned first, then come Egypt, Alexandria, Cyrene and Thebais in that order.[1389] Dio Cassius, having described the rising in Cyrene and the Jewish atrocities there, continues: “and in Egypt they did many similar things.” Hence the order of events is far from clear, and the other passages cited in this context, namely, the Armenian version of Eusebius,[1390] Jerome and Syncellus, depend on Eusebius’ Chronicon. It is indeed possible that the movement first broke out in Cyrenaica, but the authority for such a view is not to be found in the historians but in the interpretation of the papyrological document associated with Rutilius Lupus. The entire atmosphere reflected in this papyrus, and in those connected with the same events[1391] is not that of the rebellion itself. The battle between the Jews and Romans in the city seems to have been an isolated occurrence, and the acts of retaliation of the Greeks through slaves or in order to free them, did not affect many people. Their character is rather than of intercommunal street-rioting of the type long known in Alexandria; it was not in this sort of conflict that the Great Synagogue of Alexandria, the Temple of Nemesis and the Serapeium were destroyed. Even if the “battle” which formed the subject of Lupus’ proclamation was the result of an attack planned by the Jews, and hence, very probably, of organized activists, it was not part of the actual war, since the Prefect’s words are appropriate to a time before the rebellion had begun or had spread from Cyrene to the rural districts of Egypt and had broken out in Cyprus. The attitude to the Jews is still moderate and judicial, and the verdict of a judge sent by Trajan to investigate the incidents is awaited. It is clear that no “war psychosis” had yet developed and that control of events had not yet been lost by the authorities. A rising had broken out against the Roman government, and had been immediately suppressed.