The Italian colonizing institutions normally allotted 30-70 hectares of unirrigated land per family, and 31 hectares of land where six could be irrigated.[1534] The Romans generally allotted 25 hectares to their settlers, hence at least 75,000 hectares would have been needed to settle Trajan’s 3,000 veterans. This is very nearly the area of the coastal plain between Teucheira and Bengazi as defined by the line Bengazi-Benina on the south; Hadrianopolis occupies the centre of this tract. Even if this fact had no connection with the supposed settlement of the three-thousand at Teucheira, the latter does suggest that not less than 75,000 hectares of land had been ravaged in some given district by the Jewish insurgents.
We have no precise information on the fate of Berenice in the rebellion. Excavations in the city in the late ’sixties established that the city had been replanned, at least in part, in the late ist or early 2nd century of the present era, when a regular street-grid and a new drainage system were laid out.[1535] It seems very likely that this replanning took place after the Jewish revolt, the more so in the light of the discovery in the town in 1941 of a coin-hoard whose issues terminated in the reign of Trajan, when the hoard had been hidden.[1536] But the precise date of the town’s reconstruction awaits authentication.
Nor is there yet clear evidence for the fate of Ptolemais in the years 115-117. There is no lack of epigraphical testimony for the presence of Jews in the city before Trajan’s time,[1537] but archaeological excavations have not generally reached strata belonging to the earlier Roman period. Two fragmentary inscriptions, however, do reflect Hadrian’s activities in connection with the academy and gymnasia of Ptolemais;[1538] if it is recalled that an important fragment of a stele from Cyrene,[1539] dated to 135, contains a letter from the Emperor concerning gymnasium organization, which constituted part of his activity on behalf of the city, then wrestling with problems of revival after the rebellion, — then it is very likely that the fragmentary texts from Ptolemais possess a similar significance.
The oldest known building of importance at Ptolemais excavated to date (if we except the west gate of the city walls), is a large and splendid hellenistic edifice, known to the Italians as il Palazzo dei colonne, which occupies a complete insula in the north of the city.[1540] It stands on the foundations of an earlier hellenistic structure. It has two principal parts, namely, a great columned hall built on a terrace, and to its south a fine peristyle. Additional rooms abut on the hall on the east, while to its north-east is a residential wing in the form of a two-storeyed peristyle house. A small bath-range was added onto this in the Roman period, when shops were also annexed to the north of the bath-range. A series of reception rooms and storerooms were built at the south end of the peristyle in Byzantine times.
Both the original blocks and the peristyle house were built, in the view of Pesce, in the second third of the 1st century B.C.[1541] The bath-range was dated by him in the 1st or 2nd century A.D. It contained three rooms, a frigidarium on the south and two heated rooms to its north. The jambs of the praefurnium of the easterly heated room were new when abandoned, and had not been used; the same applied to the jambs of the aperture communicating between the hypocausts of the east and west rooms. The floor of the easterly was supported on suspensurae composed of circular tiles of the type also used in the baths at Cyrene in the last decades of the 2nd century, i.e. after the Jewish revolt.[1542] The pottery from the Palace ran to the end of the 2nd century A.D., and the bath appears to have been repaired in that century but not reused. This evidence is not sufficient to establish damage in the Jewish revolt, but a find of coins in the westernmost shop north of the bath is more indicative. These consisted of bronze pieces of Cyrene of the 5th and 4th centuries B.C., a gold coin of Domitian, two of Nerva, a third of Trajan dated to 103-112, and a gold piece of Plotina dated 112 or 113. The swimming-pool in the great peristyle contained a number of Roman bronze coins which could not be dated, and two of Trajan.[1543] Hence even if it cannot be proved that the building was damaged in the rebellion, the coins point to the alarm and flight of the inhabitants at this time, nor can it be doubted that the coins found in the western shop were lost then.
Repairs or modifications were also made to the ludus (an amphitheatre used for the training of gladiators) in the north-west of Ptolemais in the reign of Commodus, according to an incomplete inscription found cut into a cornice of the arena-wall south of the western entrance.[1544]
Finally evidence can be indicated for damage in the eastern part of the territory (Marmarica). In this region, 35 kilometres south of al-Dab’ah, a small temple of the Roman period has been excavated. A dedication of the 2nd century showed that it had been erected for Isis and Ammon, while the finds, though preserved by the fall of the roof, had been smashed deliberately. They included fragments of statues mutilated and broken by human action. This damage was attributed by the excavator to the Jewish rebels in the reign of Trajan.[1545]
The extent of the damage wrought by the rebellion in Cyrenaica can therefore be assessed as of considerable scope. Signs of devastation in Cyrene itself have been detected in every area where excavations have been conducted, and it is probable that the city was destroyed completely. The evidence for damage in the residential quarters of the city, however, is not sufficiently established, but the excavations have so far concentrated chiefly on the sacred areas and the public buildings, hence the matter has not been investigated to the extent it should. Generally it is hard to believe that so thorough a work of destruction of sacred buildings was carried out leaving the dwellings of the gentile population unscathed. Evidence of damage is also found at Apollonia, Balagrae, Teucheira and perhaps Messa, although further enquiry is desirable in all these centres in order to authenticate the indirect evidence. It is at any rate clear that the coastal plain between Teucheira and Berenice was thoroughly devastated, while the appearance of the town of Kainopolis between Cyrene and Barka points to destruction also in the western Jebel. The fate of Barka and Berenice is less clear, and the evidence at Ptolemais is not decisive. On the other hand the evidence for the spread of the revolt in the east of the country, in Marmarica, and the successive transfer of two regions of eastern Cyrenaica to the administration of the province of Egypt in the second half of the 2nd century, hint at the difficulties of reconstruction encountered by the authorities in that period. The evidence for the devastation of the country extends from Berenice to al-Dab’ah, emphasizing the absolute accuracy of Orosius when he writes of the Jews that “per totam Libyam... atrocissima bella gesserunt.”
Two testimonies drawn from epigraphic sources round off the picture and confirm Orosius’ already quoted statement on the ravaging of the country. The first testimony is the language of an inscription from the Caesareum already discussed (p. 281), and more especially its conclusion, which terms Hadrian “founder, nurse and lawgiver.” The meaning of “nurse” (τροφέα) appears to allude to the supplying of food to the remnants of the Greek population of Cyrenaica, or to its new colonists, after the end of the rebellion. Another interpretation is proposed by Robert,[1546] who believes that the reference is to Hadrian’s support of an alimenta scheme, i.e., a project for the adoption of orphans.[1547]
1537
1541
Pesce,
1542
Since the above was written
1547
Henderson,