It is further possible that the memory survives of a Jewish community in Cyprus which met its end in the revolt. A Greek inscription cut on a column at Golgoi (Athenaiou) in the centre of the island, reads: “Jose son of Synesius, elder (of the community) renewed the worship of the Jewish congregation.”[1595] It belongs, according to Reifenberg,[1596] to the 4th century, and attests the renewal of a Jewish population in Cyprus after the decree prohibiting Jewish settlement had been forgotten;[1597] its language makes it clear that there had been Jews at Golgoi before the rising in Trajan’s time.
In order to gauge the topographical extent of the rebellion in Cyprus, it were well to consider whether evidence exists pointing to Jewish settlement in the Cypriot ecountryside in the Second Temple period. Josephus relates[1598] how Helena of Adiabene imported pressed dates from Cyprus to Jerusalem in time of famine, and it is to be assumed that these came from Jewish plantations.[1599] Important in this respect is the discovery of a military inscription at the village of Knodara between Salamis and Leucosia.[1600] It is dedicated by the men of Cohors VII Breucorum, which had arrived with other forces to suppress the revolt, and established a fort (praesidium) in the vicinity, as the inscription records. The establishment of a permanent garrison in this area shows that fighting had taken place over a considerable area of the island before the insurgents were annihilated, and that it had become necessary to control the road-system for a certain period.
iv. Mesopotamia
Very few archaeological or epigraphical traces of the Jewish revolt remain in Mesopotamia, if the movement there can be regarded as part of the contemporary rising within the Empire. Only two known inscriptions there are connected both with the Roman campaigns in the area in the years 115-117 and with the Jewish revolt. The first is a stele at Dura Europos on the Euphrates found near the north-west corner of the city wall; it bears an inscription of the years 115-117, and records the restoration, after the Roman retreat (μετὰ δε τὴν αὐτῶν ἔνθεν ἀποχώρησιν)[1601] of the doors of a temple which “had been removed by the Romans”. The second belongs to a triumphal arch erected by the men of the III Cyrenaican legion near the city in the year 115.[1602] It shows that a considerable engagement took place here during the southward advance of Trajan’s army in the same year. Both these records furnish evidence that the Romans behaved to Dura Europos as to a captured place, meaning that the inhabitants of the hellenistic cities of Mesopotamia and Babylonia were opposed to the Roman invasion. The fact is important for a reconstruction of the background of the clash between Rome and the Jews during the revolt. This evidence is supplemented by archaeological information at Seleucia-on-Tigris, where evidence was discovered of the burning of buildings in the years 116-120, and was connected by the excavators with the capture of the city by the Roman forces in 116/ 117.[1603]
v. Eretz Yisrael
The question how far hostilities broke out in Judaea during the revolt of the Diaspora under Trajan has long been a subject of controversy among scholars. The evidence bearing on the problem is mainly literary and epigraphical, and both types of evidence overlap to a considerable extent. They are now supplemented by several fragments of archeaological evidence which require consideration. The problem has been discussed chiefly by Schlatter, Schürer, Groag, Alon and Smallwood.
The outstanding fact is that Jewish tradition knows of a “Pulmus Qitos” or “War of Quietus”[1604] which took place between the war of the destruction (66-73) and the Ben-Kosba rebellion; the calculations of Seder ’Olam Rabba date it in the years 116-117.[1605] Smallwood’s argument that the phrase refers to events outside Judaea is to be rejected on the grounds that such expressions invariably refer, in talmudic literature, to occurrences in Eretz Yisrael, which alone interested the Jewish scholars.[1606] The appointment by Trajan of Lusius Quietus as governor of Judaea with consular rank, which indicated the existence of an emergency, as the normal grade of the Judaean governors was praetorian,[1607] is known to us from Cassius Dio and other historians.[1608] The Historia Augusta also writes that Judaea was in a state of rebellion at the beginning of Hadrian’s reign. (117).[1609] Alon has summarized a number of later sources[1610] (Moses of Chorene, Malalas, Michael Syriacus, Ibn Batrik) and shown that all refer to Judaea when they are listing the centres of the rebellion in Trajan’s reign.
The movements of the Roman forces also lend support to the view that Judaea was in a state of ferment at the time; the inscription at Jerusalem attesting the contemporary presence of a detachment (vexillatio) of the III Cyrenaica in the city is well known;[1611] the vexillation had come to reinforce the garrison in the absence of the X legion Fretensis in Parthia.[1612] Alon has added two epigraphical documents to the above evidence.[1613] The first is a dedication to the “African God” in Jerusalem.[1614] Its exact date is unknown, but Alon thought that it was the work of one of Quietus’ Moorish cavalry which composed an important part of his force.[1615] It may indeed be noted that the spelling geniu instead of genio in the inscription is characteristic of speakers of Libyan.[1616] The other document which Alon thought to be connected with Trajan’s reign — albeit with some reservation — is the epitaph, found in Jerusalem, of a soldier who had fought in Armenia, Parthia and Judaea.[1617] Although the accepted view is that the Jewish war here referred to was the one under Hadrian, Alon observed that if this was so, the soldier would have served over twenty-five years, the normal term of auxiliary troops, hence it is credible that the “Pulmus Qitos” was meant. A third document, not perhaps noticed in this context, is an inscription[1618] found at Nablus, commemorating a cavalryman of a numerus Maurorum with a patently Libyan name (Auginda) who died at the age of thirty, i.e. probably in action. He may have belonged to one of Lusius Quietus’ Moorish troopers, although most attested uses of the term “numerus” on inscriptions in relation to military units belong to the later 2nd century or even later.
1599
For Cypriotic produce eaten in Judaea see M.
1601
1602
1603
M. McDowell,
1607