The defeat of III Cyrenaica, moreover, may be confirmed by papyrology. Pap. Vindobonensis L2 is a list of soldiers of that legion drawn up not later than A.D. 127. It is certainly not earlier than the reign of Nerva (96-98). It contains a record of nine men deceased out of the 28 recorded, while two or even three of the nine centuries named are without centurions.[1697] There can be little hesitation, therefore, in ascribing this high casualty list to the Jewish revolt, thus confirming the tradition preserved in the Jewish source. In this list the letter “theta” is used, moreover, to distinguish the names of deceased soldiers.
It may therefore be concluded: a) that at the outbreak of the rising in 115, two legions were in Egypt, but part of one had left the province to take part in Trajan’s Parthian War; b) that a detachment from one of the two, or both, set out for Cyrene by sea at the outbreak of the fighting, and was either defeated or retreated, having lost its commanding officer; c) that in the course of the rebellion in Egypt itself, the III Cyrenaica, or that part that had remained there, was severely handled. Evidence further exists that at least one auxiliary unit in Egypt, the Cohors I Lusitanorum, also suffered heavy casualties in the fighting of 115-117. This is in the form of a papyrus, PSI, 1063[1698] dated to September, 117. This record indicates that the cohort then received an exceptionally high percentage of recruits, amounting to a third or more of its strength. The first and third centuries now received 20 men each, the fourth, 22, the sixth, 23, and the fifth, 24. As there is only restricted evidence of the participation of Egyptian auxilia in Trajan’s Parthian campaign,[1699] this heavy scale of replacements can safely be ascribed to casualties inflicted in the Jewish revolt. The cohort did not know of Trajan’s death (Aug. 117), and was therefore probably deep in Upper Egypt in that year,[1700] showing that the fighting in that region must have been exceptionally severe. Additionally one auxiliary unit is known which was moved from Europe to reinforce the Egyptian garrison; this was the Cohors I Hispana, diverted to Egypt, on papyrological evidence,[1701] from its march through Macedonia.
Eusebius[1702] in his account of the rising mentions Libya first among the centres of the movement, then Cyrenaica. He may have been influenced by the administrative division prevalent in his own time, in the 4th century, when Cyrenaica was divided into Libya Superior (the Pentapolis) and Libya Inferior (Libya Sicca, Marmarica).[1703] Even if this was the case, he seems to have preserved a distinct tradition of disorders in the eastern region. This impression is strengthened by his mention of the Thebais at the end of the same list, whereby he designates that Egyptian nome as a particular centre of disorder at the time. We already know that Marmarica had a Jewish population and that signs of destruction dating to the time of the revolt have been found there. The province of Inferior extended to the frontier of the Nile Delta, and took its origin in the “Libyan Nome” of the Ptolemaic period.[1704] Accordingly it is possible to see in Eusebius’ report confirmation of the location of Cyrenean Jews on the fringes of the province, and groups of activists may have occupied the desert borders in the frontier regions between Egypt and Marmarica.
The appearance of the Thebais as a special centre of fighting in Upper Egypt may further be interpreted to mean that groups of Jewish insurgents reached the area by crossing the desert from Libya, using the chain of oases known as Hargijeh, Dahliyeh, Farafa, Siwa and Jarabub, which together constitute a well known caravan route.[1705]
According to Pap. Giessen 19,[1706] there was trouble and even fighting in the Egyptian countryside as early as August-September, 115; at the beginning of 116, on Eusebius’ testimony,[1707] the Cyrenean Jews broke into Egypt, and the trouble assumed the scale of a full war. The correspondence of Apollonius, strategos of the Apollinopolite nome, indeed witnesses to sharp fighting at a time placed by Tcherikover and Fuks at the end of June of the year 116.[1708] Between June and January of the following year, belongs, in their view, the letter in Apollonius’ archives which speaks of a severe defeat suffered by the Egyptian villagers at the hands of the Jews, apparently in the vicinity of Memphis, and of the approach of “Rutilius (Lupus’) other legion which has come to Memphis” (above) — Rutilius Lupus being the Roman prefect then governing Egypt. The defeat referred to was possibly identical, or contemporary with, the defeat of the legion III Cyrenaica referred to by the Sibylline Oracles.
This was the high point of Jewish success. Now, if not previously, the Greeks who had fled from the rural areas attacked the Jews of Alexandria, according to Eusebius, and there flared up in the city the long and fierce conflict in which a considerable part of its buildings was laid in ruins and the Great Synagogue, the Temple of Nemesis and the Sanctuary of Serapis were damaged or destroyed. Appian writes of the Temple of Nemesis that “it was destroyed by necessity of war”,[1709] which seems to mean that it was destroyed by the Greeks, to prevent the Jews using it as a position, as it lies close to the Jewish quarter in the east of the city. A similar picture is revealed by the discoveries in the Serapeium: the excavations of 1943 showed that the building had been utterly destroyed in the rebellion and rebuilt under Hadrian.[1710] The building’s later history perhaps throws some light on the events under Trajan. The Serapeium continued to be the stronghold of the pagans in Alexandria, and although it was closed in 325, evidently by order of the Emperor Constantine, continued to discharge this function till it was taken by storm by the Christians in 391, in the time of the Patriarch Theophilos.[1711] It is therefore more than possible that the building was used as a citadel in Trajan’s reign, and one archaeological detail would suggest that it may have been seized by the Jews. The excavations of 1943 found here amphora-handles stamped with Hebrew letters,[1712] and Tertullian writes that the manuscripts of the Septuagintal rendering of the Bible were kept in the Serapeium.[1713] This fact, though not positive proof, may be taken as an indication and measure of the place’s importance in the eyes of the Jews of Alexandria, hence its defenders at this time may have been the Jews and not the Greeks. The Serapeium is situated at the opposite end of the city to the Temple of Nemesis, in its south-west corner, and if it was not seized by the Jews, it was attacked by them. Whether we accept the first version or the second, it emerges that the fighting raged at both ends of the city, and that the Jews must have attacked with considerable violence.
1699
J. F. Gilliam,
1701
W. Wagner,
1703
1710
A. Rowe,
1713
Tertullianus,