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

Orosius writes:[1402] “(the Jews) waged war on the inhabitants throughout Libya in the most savage fashion, and to such an extent was the country wasted that its cultivators having been slain, its land would have remained utterly depopulated, had not the Emperor Hadrian gathered settlers from other places and sent them thither, for the inhabitants had been wiped out.”

This information is especially useful because it suggests that not only urban centres but also villages were destroyed by the insurgents. The report is supplemented by an important inscription from Attaleia in Asia Minor, which informs us of a camp prefect entrusted by Trajan with the settlement of 3,000 discharged legionaries in Cyrenaica.[1403] Part of the maritime plain between Teucheira and Bengazi was resettled by the establishment of a new town at Hadrianopolis[1404] known to have been located at Sidi Ibrahim al-Ghamari to north-east of Driana.[1405] Teucheira and Cyrene each received, some time in the 4th century or earlier, the title of colonia.[1406] Two other Greek names in Cyrenaica, which appear in post-Trajanic sources — Neapolis[1407] and Kainopolis,[1408] may relate, according to their meaning (“new town”) to the work of rehabilitation after the rebellion. Kainopolis lay between Cyrene and Ptolemais, and Neapolis was apparently the settlement mentioned and described in Vatican Papyrus no. 11,[1409] which dates from the late 2nd century (A.D. 191), being the record of a census of property and land carried out at that time. Neapolis was in the east of the country, in the Martuba region. The papyrus records a considerable number of “vacant plots” (ψιλοὶ τόποι) in the vicinity of the town itself, which was clearly still being built at the time of the survey. Oh the other hand the papyrus does not record many signs of devastation in the rest of the region, nor are such to be expected seventy-four years after the end of the rebellion. We know, however, that Jews had lived in eastern Cyrenaica, as indicated by the name Magdalis, by the Jewish name Beischa, connected with the region (sup. p. 150), and by the local names appearing on a Jewish-Gnostic amulet found at Regensburg.[1410] Accordingly the evidence for the destruction of a small Roman temple 35 kilometres from ed-Dab’aa in the 2nd century, ascribed by its excavators to the Jews in Trajan’s time,[1411] need not surprise us.

The Geography of Claudius Ptolemy, completed in the middle of the 2nd century, contains a list of the administrative districts (νομοί) of Egypt which is accurate and agrees with the evidence of coins struck at the end of the same century.[1412] The Geography places the eastern frontier of Cyrenaica at Derna,[1413] an arrangement unknown to Strabo[1414] and Pliny[1415] in the 1st century, and while recording the district of Marmarica east of Derna, lists it separately from the other Egyptian nomes. This would show that the moving of the frontier and the transfer of Marmarica to Egypt were new changes when Ptolemy edited the last version of his work. It follows that Marmarica was separated from Cyrenaica round about 150, to which time would also belong Ptolemy’s information on Cyrenaica as a whole. But before the end of the century the eastern frontier had again been moved westward to a point between Limniades (Lamludah) and Cyrene.[1416]

In accordance with the mid-2nd century date of Ptolemy’s information, the building of Neapolis and Kainopolis had begun before that time, and excavation showed that similar work at Balagrae (called by Ptolemy Φαλάκραι), now Zawia Beida, belongs to the Antonine period.[1417] Restoration work in the rural area, therefore, appears to have encountered such difficulties that the area of the province east of Derna was transferred to the Mar-marican district of Egypt in the middle of the 2nd century, in order to relieve Cyrenaica financially. Even this alleviation apparently failed to solve the problem, so an additional region of eastern Cyrenaica was handed over to Egypt in the second half of the century.

The milestones found along the road between Cyrene and Apollonia also reflect the destructive work of the Jews in the rural areas. One of them, belonging to the time of Claudius, was found to have been deliberately damaged, the injury being attributed by Ghislanzoni to the rebels.[1418] To the evidence of the devastation of the Cyrenean countryside should perhaps be added one other detail, in relation to Messa, a rural settlement 25 kilometres west of Cyrene. A new bathhouse was built among a group of houses within this village area at Siret el-Jenein at the end of the 2nd century.

The evidence in the city of Cyrene itself must now be surveyed.[1419] We may begin with a summary of the inscriptions which refer to the rebellion (tumultus)[1420] explicitly. These are (i): the rebuilding tablet in the baths of the Sanctuary of Apollo,[1421] which records the restoration by Hadrian of “the baths with the porticoes, ball-courts and other neighbouring buildings, which were destroyed and burnt down in the Jewish revolt” (balnea cum porticibus et sphaeristeriis ceterisque adiacentibus quae tumultu Iudaico diruta et exusta erant); (ii) a Hadrianic milestone found on the road going down from Cyrene to its port of Apollonia; it dated to 118-119, and commemorated the repair of the road “which had been overturned and smashed up in the Jewish revolt” (quae tumultu Iudaico eversa et corrupta est);[1422] (iii) similar expressions are found on a milestone of Hadrian’s reign within the city, east of the baths;[1423] (iv) a similar formula to that of the baths inscription probably appeared on the tablet commemorating the rebuilding of the Temple of Hecate in the Sanctuary under Hadrian: “(Hadrian) ordered the restoration on behalf of the city of Cyrene of the temple destroyed] and [burnt down in] the Jewish revolt”[1424] (quod tumultu Iudaico di[rutum] et [exustum erat). A parallel formula can be inferred from the remains of the Greek text, itself incomplete, reading: ἐν τῶι ταράχῶι Ἰ]ουδαικῶι κ[εκαυμένου κὰι πεπορθημένου τὴ]ν ἀποκατάστασ [ιν προσέταξε]; (ν) the tumultus Iudaicus is also the subject of the fragments of an inscription found near the Caesareum of Cyrene in the south-east of the city,[1425] and a like formula can be restored (vi) from fragments of another inscription of Hadrian’s reign from the same building.[1426] The Greek version of the expression tumultus Iudaicus apparently is to be sought in what remains of the rebuilding inscription in the Temple of Zeus in the north-east of the city.[1427] The proposed restoration is “(The) city and metropolis of Cyrene (erected) the temple of Zeus... which had been overthrown in the Jew[ish revolt] ([ἁ] πόλις [ἁ Κυ]ρανάων ἁ μητρόπολις τὸν[ναὸν] τῶ [Διὸς... [κα]τ [αβλ]ηθέντα τοῖ Ἰουδ[αικοῖ ταράχοι...].