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Foreign Groups in Rome during the First Centuries of the Empire*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 October 2011
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Among the many religions of oriental origin Christianity was the only one which really became a Roman religion, and any attempt to explain the complex history of the institutional development of the Church of Rome during the early centuries of the empire must start from the analysis of this distinguishing fact, the ‘romanization’ of the Christian Church. A survey of the Roman environment in which Christianity made its first conquests and secured its success is the indispensable preliminary to the study of the process that gradually transformed Christianity in Rome from a religion of foreign groups into the legally established religion of the Roman Empire.
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page 184 note 1 General surveys of the religious life in the Graeco-Roman world, from the point of view of spiritual tendencies and beliefs, of the interpenetration of traditions coming from all races and civilizations, of the peculiar conceptions concerning astral influences or the future life, and also of the religious rites and ceremonies of the various official cults and popular religions, have been made in recent times by eminent and well-known scholars. The present study deals only with the Roman environment, and primarily with the institutions, of the foreign populations in Rome, and therefore with their religious and social organization rather than with their beliefs or spiritual tendencies.
page 184 note 2 ‘The Roman Church at the End of the Second Century,’ Harvard Theological Review, July 1925, pp. 201–277.
page 185 note 3 Il Problems della Chiesa Latina in Roma, Rome, 1922, p. 20.
page 185 note 4 L. Friedländer, Darstellungen aus der Sittengeschichte Roms in der Zeit von August bis zum Ausgang der Antonine, 9th ed. by G. Wissowa, 1919–21; Fowler, W. Warde, Social Life at Rome in the Age of Cicero, New York, 1909Google Scholar; Dill, S., Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius, London, 1904Google Scholar. These works, as well as the older well known studies of Mommsen and Marquardt on Roman antiquities, have been largely used in the present study. I have also made extensive use of various articles in Pauly-Wissowa, Encyclopadie der klassichen Altertumswissenschaft; De Ruggero, Dizionario Epigrafico; Daremberg et Saglio, Dictionnaire des antiquités, and of other books which will be mentioned in the foot-notes; but above all I have gone back directly to the original sources, literary, historical, and epigraphic, submitting them to a new investigation from my special point of view.
page 186 note 5 See especially the recent brilliant work of Rostovtzeff, M., The Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire (SEHRE), Oxford, 1926Google Scholar, and the new edition of Frank, Tenney, An Economic History of Rome (EHR), 2nd ed., Baltimore, 1927Google Scholar.
page 186 note 6 The word ‘immigration’ is here taken in a general sense to include not only those who settled in Rome by free choice but also those who were compelled to do so, such as members of the senatorial class obliged by the emperors to take up their domicile in Rome and slaves, either prisoners of war or persons brought to Rome by slave-traders. For the purpose of this survey it is convenient to include persons of servile origin in the general classification of immigrants, for through manumission large numbers of slaves, either themselves or in the persons of their sons, contributed an important element to the free population of foreign birth or descent.
page 188 note 7 The conjectural statistics proposed by G. Beloch, Die Bevölkerung der griechischrömischen Welt, pp. 392–413, are considered to be too low, and his assumption that the population of Rome remained stationary and less than one million until the time of Diocletian is not warranted by archaeological evidence. See U. Kahrstedt, ‘Ueber die Bevölkerung Roms,’ in Friedländer, IV, pp. 11–21. On the figures of the census see besides Beloch (pp. 819 ff.) the article of Kubitschek in Pauly-Wissowa and Marion E. Park, The Plebs in Cicero's Day; A Study of their Provenance and of their Employment (dissertation), 1918, pp. 6 ff., a useful study which was preceded by the investigation of Tenney Frank, ‘Race Mixture in the Roman Empire,’ American Historical Review, July 1916, pp. 689–708, based mainly on the study of about 14000 sepulchral inscriptions of urban plebeians of Rome (Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum VI, 2, 3). The results of this study are summarized again by the author in the valuable chapter, ‘The Plebs Urbana,’ in Economic History of Rome, pp. 202–218.
page 189 note 8 The reasons why “the native stock did not better hold its own” are enumerated by T. Frank, Race Mixture, pp. 708 ff., and studied in detail by Miss Park, pp. 9–28. The economic causes and social consequences of “race suicide” in Some are well illustrated by Rostovtzeff, SEHRE, pp. 97, 107, 175 and passim. The disappearance of the old aristocracy explains “the low standards of intellectual culture [end of the second century after Christ] among even the richest families of the city bourgeoisie and the superficiality of Romanization and Hellenization which seems to characterize all sections of it, including the higher. The state of culture need not surprise us, since the process of Romanization and Hellenization had to begin over and over again with the new families of natives and with the freedmen who replaced the members of the old families” (p. 177).
page 190 note 9 Wallon, Histoire de l’esclavage, 2nd ed., 1879, II, pp. 16 ff. E. Koester, De Captivis Romanorum, 1904, has collected all the historical references to the sale and disposal of the prisoners of war made by the Romans (also Park, pp. 32 ff.).
page 190 note 10 Bang, M., Die Herkunft der römischen Sklaven (Mitteilungen des deutschen archaeologischen Instituts, röm. Abt., XXV, 1910, pp. 223–251Google Scholar) has collected all historical and epigraphical references concerning the nationality of Roman slaves (‘Allgemeine Uebersicht über die Nationalitätsangaben der Sklaven’), and in another article (ibid., XXVII, 1912, pp. 189–221) has made a survey of the progressive legislation concerning slaves (‘Die Rechtsgründe der Unfreiheit’). Bang's list records very few slaves from the Alpine and Danubian provinces, while Germans appear almost exclusively in the imperial body-guard; “Europeans were of greater service to the empire as soldiers than as servants.” Strack (Historische Zeitschrift, CXII, p. 9) remarks that those slaves left no record of their presence because in the gruelling work in the mines and in industry they had no chance for breeding. Frank (Racial Mixture, p. 701) comments: “Such slaves were probably the least productive of the class and this in turn helps to explain the strikingly oriental aspect of the new population.” Frank's survey of the servile names in Rome leads him to this conclusion: “When the urban inscriptions show that seventy per cent of the city slaves and freedmen bear Greek names and that a large proportion of their children who have Latin names have parents of Greek names, this at once implies that the East was the source of most of them” (p. 700; also EHR, p. 216). He is, however, careful to state that the classification, that is, by the mere Greek or Latin form of the names, depends on very doubtful signs, and therefore that the conclusion is merely in a general way indicative of the predominant element, and has no pretension to be statistically correct. The question of servile nomenclature was subjected to a new and detailed analysis by Gordon, M. L., ‘The Nationality of Slaves under the early Roman Empire’ (Journal of Roman Studies, XIV, 1924, pp. 93–111)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. This acute study of the origin of servile names and the probable reasons for the prevalence of Greek and oriental forms shows that the names do not provide a safe criterion for a general classification according to race (such as Frank's classification), and that the western slaves must have played a more important rôle than is commonly thought.
page 191 note 11 “The assumption has prevailed that in the city at least, work in aristocratic households was so exacting that slaves could seldom have been allowed the privilege of family life. This assumption proves to be erroneous. The sixth volume of the Corpus Inscriptionum fortunately records names taken from the extensive burial-grounds and urn-depositories of several aristocratic households, and these prove that the slaves usually married and were well-nigh as prolific in offspring as the average Roman of free station,” Frank, EHR, pp. 213–214. List of inscriptions in Racial Mixture, pp. 696 ff., and historical references in Park, pp. 40–41. For the manumission of slaves, see Buckland, The Roman Law of Slavery, pp. 436 ff., and pp. 513–646 for the imperial period. Also art. ‘Affranchissement’ in DACL. I, pp. 554 ff.; Rostovtzeff, SEHRE, pp. 70,587, n. 4. Historical references in Park, pp. 41 ff. On the freedmen in Rome, Friedländer, I, pp. 233–237; Rostovtzeff, ibid., pp. 99 ff. and pp. 502–504; and H. Lemonnier, Étude historique sur la condition privée des affranchis aux trois premiers siècles de l’empire romain, 1887, passim. Frank's above-mentioned study of 13900 sepulchral inscriptions (CIL. VI, 2, 3) of plebeians in Rome reaches the conclusion that “nearly ninety per cent of the Roman-born folk represented in them were of foreign extraction.” It must be said, however, that these inscriptions, which belong to the various centuries of the empire and in very few cases either are dated or give beside the names any indication of nationality, can hardly be considered as representing the true situation at any given time.
page 192 note 12 Frank, EHR, p. 208: also pp. 334 ff.
page 192 note 13 While it is true that Rome never was an industrial centre of importance, evidence is not lacking that “the amount of free labor gradually increased in the West during the second century as compared with the first century” (Rostovtzeff, SEHRE, p. 539, n. 41; also article ‘Industrie und Handel’ by H. Gummerus in Pauly-Wissowa). There is also interesting evidence of a large use of free-work labor in public works Rostovtzeff, p. 498, n. 33; T. Frank, Roman Imperialism, pp. 289 ff. on Polybius's passage concerning the works for the public treasury of Rome. Also Park, pp. 79 ff., on the labor in Aretine potteries, and Frank, EHR, chapter on Pompeii, especially p. 269, give valuable data on this point. This evidence can be fully applied also to Rome. The study of G. Kuehn, De Opificum Romanorum Conditione Privata, 1910, from the analysis of 1854 names found in inscriptions both from Rome and from outside, concludes that about twenty per cent of those workmen were free born and that the others were either slaves or former slaves.
page 193 note 14 See in Rostovtzeff, SEHRE, the chapter ‘Augustus and the Policy of Restoration and Reconstruction,’ pp. 38–74, in which the importance of Italy in the economic life of the first century of the empire is duly emphasized. In that period “Italy remained the richest land of the Empire and had as yet no rival. She was the greatest centre of agriculture, of commerce, and of industry in the West” (p. 74).
page 193 note 15 De Consolatione ad Helviam 6. Commenting on this passage and on the well known passages of the third satire of Juvenal, which clearly suggest that foreigners of their own free will drifted to Rome in great numbers to make it their own place of livelihood, T. Frank (Racial Mixture, p. 694) thinks that “the generalities in those passages are too sweeping.” Of the merchants and tradesmen I shall speak later. But it seems to me that there is no serious reason to doubt that Seneca's and Juvenal's descriptions were not mere rhetorical exaggerations. The impossibility of a large immigration of free labor in Rome is rightly suggested by well known facts in the matter of Roman industrial life, but there is no satisfactory reason to exclude the other kind of immigration, that of professional men and of adventurers of all sorts, who must have flocked to Rome, as they do nowadays to the great cities of the nations. It is true that even in the professions, like medicine and teaching, slaves and freedmen were numerous, but very often their services were mainly limited to the rich families which possessed or employed them. Not all the rich owners of well trained slaves followed the example of Cato, who kept grammarian slaves for hire. In such a large city as Rome in the imperial times there must have been plenty of opportunities for professional men and ‘peregrini,’ from the provinces. The very fact that even in republican times there is mention of expulsion, or proposals of expulsion, from Rome of precisely such men, and that at other times, as under Julius Caesar, they were protected and encouraged to come in, shows that their numbers were considerable and their services needed. The scanty evidence found in the few and casual inscriptions has, in my opinion, less weight than the explicit statements of eyewitnesses.
page 194 note 16 Juvenal, 3, 69–118. A study of known Greek men of letters who lived in Rome was made by Hillscher, A., ‘Hominum Litteratorum Graecorum ante Tiberii mortem in Urbe Roma Commoratorum historia critica,’ in Jahrbücher f. klass. Philologie, 1892, pp. 355–444Google Scholar; see also Friedländer, I, pp. 175 ff.: Jullien, Les Professeurs de Littérature dans l’ancienne Rome, 1885; C. Barbagallo, Lo Stato e l’lstruzione pubblica nell’ Impero Romano, 1911; Hahn, L., ‘Ueber das Verhältniss von Staat und Schule in der römischen Kaiserzeit,’ in Philologus, 1920, pp. 170 ffGoogle Scholar.
page 194 note 17 Deipnosophistes, i. 36 (ed. Kaibel, 1888–89). Athenaeus wrote his dialogue in the first years of the third century; what we possess is only an abridgment, with many gaps.
page 195 note 18 Juvenal, 3, 62–65.
page 195 note 19 Julius Capitolinus, Verus, 8, 2. On the Scriptores Historiae Augustae see the brief discussion of the controverted points in Rostovtzeff, SEHRE, pp. 381 ff. and bibliographical notes, pp. 604 and 613. The recent study of Norman Baynes, The Historia Augusta, Its Date and Purpose, 1926, which concludes that it was “a disguised propaganda to further the policies of Julian the Apostate (361–363),” does not seem to have solved the problem. It is still safe to hold that the earlier lives (with few secondary exceptions) are based on an excellent Latin historical work of the early third century. Rostovtzeff thinks that large parts of the lives of Caracalla, Elagabal, and Alexander were also based on the narrative of this historian.
page 196 note 20 Aelius Spartianus, Severus, 24, 3. Of the African colony of Rome and its importance in the political and religious life of the city about the end of the second century after Christ, I wrote at length in my essay ‘The Roman Church at the End of the Second Century,’ Harvard Theological Review, 1925, pp. 223 ff.
page 196 note 21 The political, economic, and social causes of the decline of the old aristocracy and the consequences of the substitution for it of the new senatorial and equestrian classes are analyzed in detail by Rostovtzeff, SEHRE (see Index under ‘Equestrian’ and ‘Senatorial Aristocracy’). For historical and epigraphic references to the old and the new senatorial families, and lists of them, see among others B. Stech, ‘Senatores Romani qui fuerint inde a Vespasiano usque ad Traiani exitum,’ in Klio, 1912, who, however, relies too much on the unsafe criterion of the names in identifying the nationality of non-roman senators. More complete lists and references concerning each province in G. Lully, De Senatorum Romanorum Patria sive de Romani cultus in provinciis incremento, 1918.
page 196 note 22 Friedländer, I, pp. 106–158, especially pp. 106–113; Lully, pp. 216 ff.
page 197 note 23 Rostovtzeff, SEHRE, p. 175.
page 197 note 24 Ibid., p. 185.
page 197 note 25 Ibid., p. 286. The chapter from which this quotation is taken deals with ‘City and Country in Italy under the Flavians and the Antonines,’ primarily from the point of view of the economic development and situation. This explains why the statement is more emphatic concerning Rome in relation to Italy than in relation to the whole empire. But from the social and political point of view the statement may be made as absolute for the empire as for Italy.
page 198 note 26 It is obvious that in such a comprehensive work as Rostovtzeff's SEHRE, covering all the regions and the whole history of the empire, Rome's peculiar problems are viewed chiefly from the point of view of the general situation and in the large setting of the whole social and economic history of the Roman world; but the wealth of information as well as the incidental statements to be found in this book supply highly suggestive material and a directive line for the reconstruction of the social and economic life of the city. The limits set by the purpose of my investigation allow me only occasional references to the economic factor. The chapter on the Plebs Urbana in Frank's EHR, pp. 202 ff., is illuminating.
page 198 note 27 Ibid., pp. 79–80.
page 199 note 28 The free distribution of corn was introduced under the tribunate of Clodius (58 B.C.). The free population of Rome was registered; and the lists contained 350,000 names of beneficiaries, and involved an annual expense of 40 million sesterces. Caesar had the census taken again and cut down the lists to 150,000 beneficiaries. Under Augustus the figure was raised to 200,000 and remained at that point to the end. Septimius Severus added distributions of oil to those of grain. Aurelian introduced the distribution of bread instead of grain, and also made periodical distributions of pork and salt. All these distributions were abolished in 306 and superseded by the sale of grain to the population of the city at a much reduced price. Free bread was reëstablished by Valentinian I in 369, but Honorius went back to the system of grain at low prices. Moreover, frequent gifts of money to the Roman plebs were made by the emperors on various occasions, such as their accession to the throne, the celebration of triumphs, or the proclamation of their heirs. Add to these bounties the free games and spectacles, the free or almost free baths, and other pleasures provided by the state or rich private citizens, and it will not be difficult to realize how the Roman plebeians who enjoyed all these privileges could live a semi-idle life in the slums of the capital. A vivid description of the system of free distributions in Rome is found in the excellent book of L. Homo, Problèmes sociaux de jadis et d’à présent, Paris, 1922, chap. III, ‘La lutte contre la vie chère à Rome,’ pp. 115–131. The distribution of grain took place at the porticus Minuciae, called also porticus frumentaria, in the western part of the Campus Martius. On stated days in each month each beneficiary stood in line before the appropriate one of the forty-five sections, and when his turn came presented his tessera and received his portion of corn. “L’opération ne se passe pas toujours sans difficultés. Parfois il faut attendre, parfois même le blé manque. Conciliabules et réclamations, bousculades et horions. Mais la police veille; la distribution s’achève tant bien que mal dans un ordre relatif et les heureux privilégiés se dispersent en se dormant rendez-vous pour le mois suivant” (Homo, p. 127). When Aurelian substituted bread for grain, the distribution became a daily affair and was carried on through authorized bread-shops. In the fourth century there were in Rome two hundred and fifty-four of such shops, scattered in the various regions. The distribution of oil was made in the same way through the mensae oleariae, of which there were 2300 to take care of all the beneficiaries.
page 200 note 29 The name of one of the oldest vici, the vicus Tuscus, was probably a survival of the period of Etruscan domination in Rome. De Ruggero (Il Foro Romano, 1915, p. 510) thinks that the vicus Tuscus marked the place where according to tradition a group of Etruscan masons, called to Rome to build public edifices, had their residence.
page 201 note 30 “Rome was to be no longer an Italian community, but the denationalized capital of many nations. Although this motley mixture of parasite populations, especially the Hellenic and Oriental, was not very desirable in Rome, yet Caesar did not oppose its progress; it is significant that in the celebration of popular festivals in the capital he gave the order that plays should be given not only in Latin and Greek, but also in other languages, probably in Phoenician, Jewish,, and Syriac” (Mommsen, Römische Geschichte, 8th ed., IV, p. 599).
page 202 note 31 In a few Roman epitaphs we find the peculiar phrase ‘natione verna’ (CIL. VI, 10049, 14208, etc.). Miss Gordon (p. 110) finds in it a “pathetic” hint of a supposed consciousness of denationalization among these members of the servile class. In reality this phrase is probably a mere abbreviation of the formula ‘natione verna Romanus,’ describing slaves born in the familia urbana of a Roman household. Such, or equivalent, formulae are not rare; thus, “Olympus domini Domitiani Aug. ser. verna Romae natus” (CIL. VI, 23454); “Iulia Auta natione verna Nucherina (born at Nuceria, CIL. X, 1981); or, more briefly, “Isidorus verna Putiolanus” (CIL. IV, 4699; Bang, p. 244). But apart from this rather sentimental interpretation of a common formula, Miss Gordon's following statement depicts a true situation: “Intermarriage produced a complete intermixture of races, and environment quickly obliterated almost all traces of ‘barbarous’ nationality. The typical slave of the early empire belonged to neither east nor west: he was a product of Graeco-Roman civilization, an example of Rome's strange power of absorbing and assimilating aliens. … His characteristics were not oriental, but servile, resulting from the abnormal conditions of slavery” (p. 110).
page 203 note 32 SEHRE, p. 178.
page 204 note 33 Ibid., p. 100.
page 205 note 34 The history of immigrant groups in America is very similar. The German or Italian immigrant of the second or third generation is more or less completely americanized, and shows little or no difference in his social and religious life from native Americans of the same class. The fundamental identity of the Christian religious conception, in either the Protestant or the Catholic form, favors adoption of common standards of life to such a point that the separate history of each group, so far as concerns the individual, ceases after the second generation. On the contrary the Jewish immigrant groups in America have a continuous and distinct history, which may be followed from the beginning through the development of the special institutions of American Judaism. The Jews who emigrated to America from Germany during the revolutionary movements of 1848–49 and settled mostly in the central and northwestern states (then at the beginning of their development) illustrate this tendency. Although their descendants have become americanized to a great extent, especially because they belonged to the Jews of the liberal Reform, yet even to-day they form a separate group from the rest of the population, having not only their own synagogues, but their own schools, charitable institutions, and clubs, just as do the Jews who have come more recently from Russia, Poland, and the Balkan States, many of whom are strictly conservative.
page 206 note 35 Deipnosophistes, i. 36. See also the corrections on this passage in Meyer, Emendationes et observationes in Athenaei novissimam editionem, 1897, p. 7. No less emphatic is the description of Aelius Aristides in his Panegyric of Rome: “The empire, being so vast, and having no other boundaries than those of the world, cannot be known except by visiting all its regions one after another, or by simply residing in the city, which summarizes them all. Rome is indeed the beginning and end of all things, the universal market of the world. There you see all products of all industries and arts of all countries, and it is safe to say that what cannot be found in Rome does not exist anywhere” (Aelii Aristidis quae supersunt, ed. Keil, II, Oratio 26). See A. Boulanger, Aelius Aristides et la sophistique, 1913, pp. 347 ff. The cosmopolitan character of the population of Rome is often mentioned by writers belonging to the various centuries, from the time of Cicero (“Roma est civitas ex nationum conventu constituta,” De petitione cons. 54) to Olympiodorus in the fifth century: Eἷς δόμoς ἅστη πόλει· πόλις ἅστεα μυρία κεὺθει (quoted by Photius, Bibliotheca, ed. Bekker, p. 63).
page 207 note 36 Before the period of the Gracchi, Rome had already established twenty-seven colonies in Italy, sending to them numbers of citizens from the rural and urban city tribes. The enrollment of the plebeians in the army by Marius (B.C. 107?) thinned the ranks of the plebs urbana, the more so that at the end of the wars they did not return to Rome but settled in military colonies. This system was followed on a large scale by Sulla, and later by Caesar and Augustus (Homo, pp. 75 ff; Rostovtzeff, passim, see Index under ‘Colonies’); Suetonius says that Caesar “distributed eighty thousand Roman citizens among the colonies beyond the sea,” but at the same time took several measures to increase again the population of the city decimated by their exodus: “ut exhaustae urbis frequentia suppeteret, sanxit, ne quis civis maior anni viginti minorve quadraginta, qui Sacramento non teneretur, plus triennio continuo Italia abesset, neve qui senatoris films nisi contubernalis aut comes magistratus peregre proficisceretur” (Divus Iulius, 42). How far these measures contributed to the new and rapid increase of the Roman population is difficult to say, but there is reason to believe that the population would have grown even without those provisions. E. M. East in his book, Mankind at the Crossroad (1923), speaking of the overpopulated countries of modern Europe, remarks that emigration even in large numbers from an overpopulated region is only a temporary and short-lived relief, for the improvement in the situation which is followed by better living-conditions is in its turn followed by higher birth-rates, which in a short time not only fill the gaps left by the emigrants but bring a further increase to the population. It is a vicious circle (p. 345). Caesar more than any other Roman statesman seems to have realized the seriousness of the problem of the population of Rome and of Italy, and to have tried to increase the native free stock and reduce the foreign element of the servile classes. Besides the measures mentioned above, Caesar sent colonies of urban freedmen to Corinth, to Sinope and Heraclea on the Black Sea, and to Spain, removing from Borne a large foreign element. Furthermore, he decreed that at least a third of the laborers employed on the ranches of Italy must be free citizens (Suet. ib.). “He understood that Italy's free stock must be saved if the heart of the Empire was to be sound. This is the first effort at Rome to check the spread of slavery, and taken in conjunction with the extra-Italian colonization of many thousands of freedmen, it reveals a readiness to undertake the social reconstruction of Italy” (Frank, EHR, 2d ed., p. 351). But Augustus and his successors did not follow Caesar's policy on this point.
page 208 note 37 For this question of the house-shortage and the measures taken at various times to overcome the difficulty, see the admirable description of L. Homo, pp. 5–79.
page 209 note 38 To make the situation worse the streets of the plebeian districts were invaded by crowds of small vendors and peddlers, who carried on their business in the open air and with their improvised tabernae obstructed the passage and even the entrance-doors of the houses. Martial (vii. 61) praises Domitian for having banished such a nuisance from the streets of Rome: “Now it is Rome; formerly it was a great tavern.” Carriages within Rome in day-time could be used only by privileged persons and on special occasions, but at night wagons carrying supplies could circulate freely, with the result that the most difficult thing for those who lived in tenement houses was to go to sleep (Friedländer, IV, ‘Ueber den Gebrauch der Wagen in Rom,’ pp. 22–25). The satirical poets are full of complaints of the noise of Rome both at night and in the day-time. “Many people in Rome die for want of sleep,” says Juvenal, “for what sleep is possible in a lodging? Only the rich get sleep in Rome. The crossing of wagons in the narrow winding streets and the curses of their drivers when brought to a stand would make sleep impossible even for a sea-calf” (3, 232 ff.). “If I want to sleep I must go to my country house,” says Martial (xii. 57). Things were not much better in the daytime according to the description by Horace (Ep. ii. 2, 65 ff.) of what usually was to be seen and heard in the streets of Rome.
page note 39 The exact meaning of the terms ‘domus’ and ‘insula’ in the technical language of ancient Rome has been the subject of controversy among historians and archaeologists. It seems certain, however, that by the term ‘domus’ were meant residential houses which could be either modest or palatial dwelling-places of single families. ‘Insulae’ on the contrary meant blocks of buildings, some larger and some smaller, in which many families lived as tenants in separate apartments or rooms. Some of the insulae were substantial buildings well arranged and well decorated, good apartment houses we should say for people of some means. Imposing ruins of houses of this kind have lately been discovered at Ostia (see plans and graphic restorations in G. Calza, ‘Le origini latine dell'abitazione moderna,’ in Architettura ed Arti Decorative, III, 1923; and Rostovtzeff, SEHRE, pp. 136 ff., and 507). Such was also, as it seems, the insula of Felicles in Rome on the Campus Martius, a large building with many floors and staircases which was considered by the Romans as a sky-scraper. Tertullian (Adversus Valentinianos 7, ed. Oehler, II, p. 389) says that the innumerable series and degrees of Aeons and Emanations piled up in stages by the Gnostics reminded him of the “insula of Felicles.” But most of the insulae were poor tenement-houses with dark staircases and many dark rooms. “We pay rent for darkness,” said Juvenal. An official statistical record of the fourth century after Christ gives for the fourteen regions of Rome 1783 domus and 42, 502 insulae. The regions which had the largest number of insulae were Regio VIII, that is to say the central region of the fora, and Regio XIV in the Trastevere. See G. Calza, ‘La statistica delle abitazioni,’ in Rendiconti dei Lineei, 1917, pp. 3 ff.; Cuq, E., ‘Une statistique des locaux affectés à l’habitation,’ in Mém. Acad. Inscr., 1915, pp. 270 ff.Google Scholar; the reports of Calza in Notizie degli Scavi, and his other publications.
page 210 note 40 “You can buy a house at Sora or Frusino for the same price at which you now rent a dark hole for a single year in Rome,” Juvenal, 3, 223 ff. “D’autres malheureux, moins favorisés encore, se casent la où ils peuvent; les uns habitent sous les escaliers (subscalaria, repositiones subscalares), les autres dans des sous-sols obscurs et fumeux (fornices). Partout un entassement extraordinaire, partout un grouillement de population inoui” (L. Homo, pp. 41 and 46).
page 210 note 41 “I should prefer Prochyta [a savage place] to the Subura! For where has one ever seen a place so dismal and so lonely that one would not deem it worse to live in perpetual dread of fires and falling houses and the thousand perils of this terrible city?” Juv. 3, 5 ff.
page 210 note 42 Pliny remarked that the cause of the collapse of so many houses in Rome was the poor cement used by unscrupulous contractors: “Ruinarum urbis ea maxima causa quod furto calcis sine ferumino suo caementa componuntur” (N. H. xxxvi. 55).
page 210 note 43 Tacitus'; descriptions of the two great fires of A.D. 27 and 64 are well known. But destructive fires due to the large use of wood in buildings and to the crowded space were a frequent occurrence and a scourge of the plebeian sections. They were very much dreaded, and to be indicted for incendiarism was sure death. There was a large organization of ‘vigiles,’ firemen, kept by the state, but the primitive means which they possessed for extinguishing fires reduced their efforts to isolation by accumulating ruins around the burning buildings. See P. Werner, De Incendiis Urbis Romae Aetate Imperatorum (Diss.), Lipsiae, 1906, and L. Homo, pp. 15 ff.
page 211 note 44 Diodorus, Bibliotheca historica, xxxi. 18, ed. Dindorf, V, p. 21.
page 212 note 45 Pliny, N. H. iii. 66. See list of the known names in Richter, Topographie der Stadt Rom, pp. 410–411, and for sources and bibliography, Huelsen-Kiepert, Nomenclator Topographicus Urbis Romae, 3rd ed., 1914, pp. 145 ff.
page 213 note 46 Liebenam, Zur Geschichte vud Organisation des römischen Vereinswesens, 1890, pp. 8–11; Friedländer, I, pp. 161 ff.
page 213 note 47 Beside the results of the surveys already mentioned of Frank, Park, and Kuehn, see the lists made mostly from epigraphic sources by V. Parvan, Die Nationalität der Kaufleute im römischen Kaiserreiche (Diss.), Breslau, 1909, pp. 39 ff. Also Frank, EHR, p. 209.
page 213 note 48 We should know much more on this point if we possessed the lost writings of Varro and especially “De Vita Populi Romani libri IV ad Atticum,” in which, according to Servius the scholiast of Virgil, Varro told “quid Romani a quoque traxerint gente per imitationem” (Schanz, Geschichte der römischen Litteratur, 3rd ed., I, p. 185; I, 2, p. 446; Fraccaro, Studi Varroniani, 1907, pp. 229–245).
page 213 note 49 The selection of the Aventine hill as a residence-place for foreigners probably goes back to the date of the Lex Icilia de Aventino publicando (Dionysius of Halicar nassus, Antiq. Roman, x. 31–32), which is usually assigned to the year 456 B.C., but which according to Pais (in Crivellueci,, Studi Storici. II, 1893, p. 348) must be brought down to about the middle of the fourth century B.C. The law undoubtedly aimed at providing new building-space for the overcrowded plebeians of the city, who, led by the tribun Icilius, claimed the public lands of the Aventine, which were partly already usurped by rich politicians (L.Homo, pp. 63 ff.). Merlin, , L’Aventin dans l’antiquite, Paris, 1906, pp. 69–87Google Scholar, holds, and it seems with good reason, that the law not only granted lands to the plebs and provided more suitable quarters for the Italians of the conquered cities (who were compelled to settle in Borne and up to that time had camped on the low marshy ground where later the Circus Maximus stood), but also assigned land on the same hill to the foreign merchants who settled in Rome for their business. There is no doubt that very early there were in the Aventine district many people engaged in commercial enterprises and trades. The presence on the Aventine of a very old collegium mercatorum, which according to Mommsen (Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, I, p. 536) was identical with the Pagus Aventinensis, would confirm this interpretation of the Lex Icilia. See Waltzing, Étude historique sur les Corporations professionnelles chez les Romains, I, 1895, p. 41.
page 214 note 50 The establishment on the Aventine of foreign groups with their national gods and cults is of great importance in the history of Roman religion, since the process which in the long run brought about the identification of so many deities with the gods of Rome and the adoption of so many foreign cults by the Romans, received its first impulse and its first practical application on that spot.
page 214 note 51 Merlin, p. 287. Large numbers of laborers, transporters of wares on the river, stevedores, and sailors began to settle near the emporia or on the opposite side of the river.
page 215 note 52 A list of vici of the Aventine is found in CIL. VI, 975, an inscription in honor of the emperor Hadrian dedicated in the year 136. Unfortunately in the reconstruction of the Forma Urbis the Aventine is represented by only a few fragments, which have added very little to what was already known about its topography. Among the names of the vici which suggest the ancient foreign groups settled there are the vicus Fortunae Mammosae, the vicus Isis Athenodorae, the aedes Parthorum, and others. See Merlin, pp. 295 ff.
page 215 note 53 Martial, xii. 18.
page 215 note 54 This Christian tradition about the Aventine is not supported by any conclusive historical or archaeological evidence. On the contrary the evidence, such as that concerning the title of St. Prisca (Priscilla), shows that the identification of the two names was made only in the ninth century. See Duchesne, , ‘Les légendes chrétiennes de l'Aventin,’ Mélanges de l’école française de Rome, X, 1890Google Scholar.
page 216 note 55 Lafaye, G., Histoire du Culte des Divinités d’Alexandrie hors de l'Égypte, Paris, 1884, pp. 156 ffGoogle Scholar.
page 216 note 56 Ibid., p. 225. On the relations between Rome and Egypt in the imperial times and the place of Egypt in the general economic and politico-social history of the empire see Rostovtzeff, SEHRE, pp. 255–274, and the valuable new chapter in the second edition of Frank, EHR, pp. 374–408.
page 217 note 57 Lafaye, p. 225.
page 217 note 58 Archaeological evidence shows that besides the Iseum et Serapeum of the Campus Martius in Regio IX there were Isiac temples or shrines in Begio II (Coelimontana), Regio III, which was known for a long time as Regio Isidis et Serapidis, Regio V (Esquilinum), which had the Iseum of the vicus Patricius not far from the Subura, Regio VI (Alta Semita), Regio VIII near the Forum, and Regio XII (Aventinum, or piscina publica), in which was the shrine or altar of Isis Athenodora. Of many other shrines and mansiones which undoubtedly existed at times, no traces have been found. The archaeological and historical evidence concerning the shrines mentioned above has been collected and discussed by Lafaye, pp. 200–228.
page 217 note 59 Lafaye, pp. 229 ff.
page 217 note 60 Merlin, pp. 317 ff.
page 218 note 61 The ruins of the temple were found in the excavations carried on by P. Gaukler from 1908 to his death in 1911. His reports and studies on the subject were collected in a volume, Le Sanctuaire Syrien du Janicule, Paris, 1912. See chapter III, ‘Les fouilles du Lucus Furrinae,’ pp. 69–92.
page 218 note 62 Visconti, Bullettino Comunale di Archeologia, 1875, pp. 223 ff.
page 218 note 63 Gaukler, pp. 8 ff.
page 218 note 64 Ibid., pp. 24 ff. and 139–171.
page 219 note 65 Gaukler, ch. VIII, ‘Les trois temples superposés du Lucus Furrinae,’ pp. 221–256.
page 219 note 66 CIL. VI, 422; Gaukler, p. 10.
page 219 note 67 See the bilingual inscription in Greek and Palmyrene languages, CIL. VI, 710.
page 220 note 68 Graillot, H., Le Culte de Cybèle Mère des Dieux à Rome et dans l’Empire Romain, Paris, 1912, chap. IXGoogle Scholar, ‘Sanctuaires de Magna Mater à Rome et à Ostie,’ pp. 320–345.
page 220 note 69 The topography of the vicus Capitis Africae (which does not coincide with the modern street of the same name) was established by Lanciani, Bull. Com. arch., 1884, pp. 315 ff. On the Paedagogium Caesaris see Gatti, ‘Del Caput Africae nella seconda regione di Roma,' Annali dell'Istituto di Corr. Arch., Rome, 1882, pp. 191–220. The names of the other vici are found in the document known as the Appendix Probi, which has been often reprinted (by W. Heraeus, Teubner, 1899, and more recently by W. Förster and E. Koschwitz in Altfranzösisches Übungsbuch, 1907, pp. 226–234). The opinion of G. Paris and others that the names of these vici belonged to Carthage and not to Rome has not found many followers, and the Roman origin of the document is commonly accepted (Schanz, Gesch. der röm. Litt., III, 2, p. 145). Varro (De lingua lat. v. 159) mentions also a vicus Africus, so named because “ibi obsides ex Africa bello Punico dicuntur custoditi.” But it was in Regio III (Esquiliae).
page 221 note 70 Evidence for the location of these Jewish groups in Rome is found not only in the Latin authors of the first three centuries, but also in the large number of inscriptions which have been found in the rediscovered ancient Jewish cemeteries. See below, chapters VI and VII.
page 221 note 71 See the corresponding articles in Pauly-Wissowa. The institution, organization, and history of the Roman vigiles is thoroughly studied by P. K. Baillie Reynolds, The Vigiles of Imperial Rome, 1926 (see especially ch. III, ‘Stations and Excubitoria,’ pp. 43–63). The frumentarii were organized by Hadrian as a police force, but were mostly used as spies. Under Septimius Severus they were stationed at the cnstra peregrina. CIL. VI, 230, 231, 354. See Platnauer, The Life and Reign of Septimius Severus, Oxford, 1918, p. 160.
page 222 note 72 The successive changes in the formation of the Roman army are described and analyzed by Rostovtzeff, SEHRE, pp. 43 ff. (under Augustus); pp. 104 ff. (under the Flavians and the Antonines); pp. 353 ff. and 378 ff. (under the Severians); pp. 457 ff. (under the despotism). Bibliography and references, pp. 499, 518, 585, 616.
page 222 note 73 The praetorian guard was originally formed by nine or ten cohorts (Dio Cassius, Iv. 24), each of a thousand men. Only three cohorts were stationed in Rome during Augustus's time. Tiberius assembled them in the capital. Vitellius increased the cohorts to sixteen. They were chosen from Etruria, Umbria, the ancient Latium, and from the Roman colonies of Italy (Tacitus, Hist. v. 84; and lists in the “Latercula” CIL. VI, 2375–2383, from 119 to 187 A.D.). Gradually a few from the Roman colonies of Macedonia, Noricum, and Spain were admitted. Severus disbanded the old guard and formed a new one four times larger, drawing the soldiers from his Dlyrian troops and from various elements of the legions. The guard was thus entirely made up of foreign races (Platnauer, p. 158).
page 222 note 74 Severus built new barracks for the increased troops. The castra Severiana on the Coelian were due to him. It is probable also that the castra peregrina were built in his time, for there is no reference to this camp earlier than the third century (CIL. VI, 354). That these castra were used for foreign troops is certain, at least from the time of Severus Alexander.
page 223 note 75 CIL. VI, 3092–3162.
page 223 note 76 CIL. VI, 3173–3323.
page 223 note 77 The history of the artistic development of Rome, especially in architecture and the plastic arts, might also throw light on this subject of the influence of foreign groups in Roman life, but it is too extensive and too technical a subject to be dealt with in the present study. To form an idea of the importance of such a research it is sufficient to read the suggestive chapters on Roman architécture in Cagnat-Chapot, Manuel d’archéologie romaine, I, especially chap. VII, ‘Temples de tradition étrangère,’ pp. 160 ff. and II, chap. V, ‘Développement historique’ (the art of painting), pp. 22 ff. An instance of the interesting results for our subject which could be attained is afforded by Strzygowski's conclusion (Origin of Christian Art, 1925, p. 65) as to the temple of Minerva Medica in Rome, which appears to him to have been built “by Armenian workmen who at that time were to be found in large numbers in Rome.”
page 227 note 1 Epistle to Lucius Verus of 163 A.D. (Ed. Haines in Loeb Class. Library, 1920, II, p. 154).
page 227 note 2 Epistle to Domitia Lucilla: “I will compare myself with Anacharsis, not by Heaven, in wisdom, but as being like him a barbarian. For he was a Scythian of the nomad Scythians, and I am a Lybian of the Lybian nomads” (I, p. 186). And writing to Marcus Aurelius, Fronto again calls himself a barbarian: “This letter is by the hand of this foreigner [τοῦ ξέυου ἀυδρός, namely himself], in speech little short of a barbarian, but as regards judgment, as I think, not wholly wanting in sagacity” (I, p. 20). The letters of Marcus Aurelius abound in even extravagant praise of his teacher. In one of them his admiration is thus expressed: “Ne valeam nisi aliqua die virga in manus tibi tradenda erit, diadema circumponendum, tribunal ponendum: turn praeco omnes nos citaret, quid nos dico? omnes, inquam, philologos et disertos istos, eos tu singula virga perduceres, verbis moneres.” The letter ends with these salutations: “Vale, decus eloquentiae Romanae, amicorum gloria, μἐγα πρᾶγμα, homo iucundissime, consul amplissime, magister dulcissime” (I, p. 128).
page 228 note 3 Addressing the Roman people against the agrarian laws proposed by the tribune Rullus, Cicero thanks them for having elected him consul and mentions the fact that he was the first “homo novus” to reach the highest Roman magistrature. According to the “mores et instituta maiorum” for such an occasion a eulogy of the family ancestors by the speaker was expected, but Cicero, not being of old Roman stock but from the little town of Arpinum, had nothing to say about them and confessed his inability to comply with the custom: “Mihi, Quirites, apud vos de meis maioribus dicendi facultas non datur, quod laude populari atque honoris vestri luce caruerunt” (De lege agraria, ii. 1).
page 228 note 4 “Sentina,” Cic. ad Atticum i. 19(ed.Winstedt, Loeb Class. Library, 1912, 1, p.86): “Romam, mundi faece repletam,” Lucan, Phars. vii. 340.
page 228 note 5 “Nonne ad servos videtis rem venturam?”
page 228 note 6 Park, The Plebs in Cicero's Day, pp. 41 ff.
page 229 note 7 “Alienis pedibus ambulamus, alienis oculis agnoscimus, aliena memoria salutamus, aliena vivimus opera,” N. H. xxix. 1, 8; “Vincendo victi sumus; paremus externis,” N. H. xxiv. 1, 1.
page 229 note 8 An interesting study on the various judgments passed by Latin writers on the character of the nationalities of the Roman world was made by Wölfflin, E., ‘Zur Psychologie der Völker des Alterthums,’ in Archiv für lateinische Lexikographie und Grammatik, Leipzig, 1892, pp. 133–146, 333–342Google Scholar. Also Friedländer, I, pp. 104 ff.
page 229 note 9 The least that the Romans of the cultured class could say about the Greeks was that they did not restrain their ‘levitas’ even before sacred things and that they never respected their promises and oaths. “Hoc dico de toto genere Graecorum: tribuo illis literas, do multarum artium disciplinam, non adimo sermonis leporem, ingeniorum acumen, dicendi copias: testimoniorum religionem et fidem numquam ista natio coluit,” Cicero, Pro Flacco 4, 9.
page 229 note 10 The ‘otium Graecum’ was proverbial, and Cicero did not hesitate to affirm that “omnes Graeci negligentiores sunt” (Ep. xvi. 4, 2), that they were cowards (non satis animosi hostem aspicere non possunt, Tusc. ii. 65), their loquacity (quotidiana loquacitas, De orat. i. 105), their ineptitude (hoc vitio — ineptum esse — cumulata est eruditissima Graecorum natio, De orat. ii. 17), and above all their shameless readiness to flatter the rich (Graeca adulatio, Tac. Ann. vi. 18) in the hope of getting money, or at least a supper, were common characteristics of many immigrants from the hellenized provinces, and caused the invention of a new verb ‘pergraecari,’ which according to the grammarian Festus meant “epulis et potationibus inservire,” ed. Lindsay, Leipzig, 1913, xv. 235.
page 230 note 11 “Nequissimum et indocile genus illorum,” quoted by Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxix. 7.
page 230 note 12 “Graeci vitiorum omnium genitores,” Nat. Hist. xv. 5. Cato, in Pliny's quotation, ends a long indictment of the Greeks by saying: “Satis esse ingenia Graecorum inspicere, non perdiscere,” xxix. 9.
page 230 note 13 Ep. 123, 8 (Loeb Class. Library, III, p. 428). The many passages of the Latin satirical poets are well known.
page 230 note 14 “Vilissima genera hominum et servituti nata” (Livy, xxxvi. 17, 5); “nationes natae servituti” (Cic, De prov. cons. 5, 10); “Suri genus quod patientissimum est hominum” (Plautus, Trin. 542).
page 230 note 15 On the common denunciation of the Phrygians see a collection of texts in Labriolle, La Crise Montaniste (Paris, 1913, pp. 4–5); on the “vaniloqui Persae,” Ausonius (Epigr. 42, 4); on the Alexandrians and Egyptians, Seneca, Dial. x. 3, 7, and Lumbroso, G., ‘Osservazioni antiche e moderne sul carattere degli Alessandrini,’ in Atti dei Lincei, Ser. II, Tom. III, 1879, pp. 354 ffGoogle Scholar. Such phrases as “imbellis Asia” and “perfidia Punica” were common; but especially the Africans were despised by the Romans: “in Venerem precipites” (Livy, xxx. 12, 18); “insidiosa natio”; “genus hominum infidum” (Sallust, De bello Num. 91, 7); “docilis fallendi et nectere tectos numquam tarda dolos” (Silius Ital. ii. 231); and even Lactantius, himself an African, calls his people “vani qui monstruosa et ridicula mirantur” (Inst. xx. 36). Gauls, Spaniards, and Africans are for Cicero “wild barbaric peoples” (Ep. ad Quintum, i. 2, 27). Even the Italian provinces do not fare better; the “arrogantia, insolentia et superbia” of the Campanians (Cic, De lege agr. ii. 91, 95), the “levitas Sicana” (Silius Ital. xiv. 291), and similar phrases were commonplaces among the Romans.
page 231 note 16 Cicero in his defense of his client Flaccus, accused of extortion during his Asiatic governorship, could not find a better way of refuting the witnesses of the prosecution who had come from Phrygia to testify against Placcus than to assume that because they were Phrygians they were not trustworthy. “Quam ob rem quaeso a vobis, Asiatici testes, ut, cum vere recordari voletis, quantum auctoritatis in iudiciuin adferatis, vosmet ipsi describatis Asiam nee quid alienigenae de vobis loqui soleant, sed quid vosmet ipsi de genere vestro statuatis, memineritis…. Utrum igitur nostrum est an vestrum hoc proverbium ‘Phrygem plagis fieri solere meliorem’? (Pro Flacco, 27, 65). In his defense of Fronteius (21 ff.) Cicero shows no less contempt for the witnesses from Gaul: “Potestis igitur,” he challenges the judges, “ignotos notis, iniquos aequis, alienigenas domesticis … anteferre?” (Pro Front. 10).
page 231 note 17 How far the conception of gravitas could carry a Roman of Cicero's type is made clear in that peculiar bit of casuistry found in De officiis, iii. 24. A rich man leaves to a ‘sapiens’ a legacy of one hundred million sesterces on condition that he dance in the Forum in broad daylight. The ‘sapiens,’ says Cicero, must not accept, “et id arbitror fuisse gravitatis”; it is better for him to lose the inheritance, unless he wishes to contribute the money to the state to meet some grave crisis.
page 232 note 18 Race Mixture, p. 705.
page 232 note 19 “The trimalchios of the empire were often shrewd and daring business men, but their first and obvious task apparently was to climb by the ladder of quick profits to a social position in which their children with Romanized names could comfortably proceed to forget their forebears. The possession of wealth did not, as in the republic, suggest certain duties toward the commonwealth. Narcissus and Pallas might be sagacious politicians, but they were not expected to be statesmen concerned with the continuity of the ‘mos majorum’” (ibid., p. 706).
page 233 note 20 L. Homo, Problèmes Sociaux, pp. 77 ff. Cicero, philosophizing on duty, condemned such expulsions: “Male, qui peregrinos urbibus uti prohibent eosque exterminant, ut Pennus apud patres nostros, Papius nuper. Nam esse pro cive, qui civis non sit, rectum est non licere: usu vero urbis prohibere peregrinos sane inhumanum est,” De officiis, iii. 11.
page 233 note 21 De lege agr. ii. 26, 70.
page 234 note 22 Ad Atticum, 1, 19. L. Homo, ibid.
page 235 note 23 De Marchi, Il Culto private di Roma antica, I, 1896, pp. 77 ff. The origin and history of the Roman collegia has been the subject of much controversy since the second half of the nineteenth century when the revival of interest in Roman law and institutions called the attention of scholars to this important feature of Roman life. Since the works of Mommsen and Marquardt, the monographs of Schiess and Liebenam, and the various contributions of G. B. De Rossi and the archaeologists of the Roman school, and especially since the thorough researches of Waltzing (Étude historique sur les corporations professionnelles chez les Romains, 4 vols., 1895–1900), very little has been added to our knowledge of the history of the Roman collegia. A good abridgment of his large work was made by Waltzing in the article ‘Collegium’ in De Ruggero's Dizionario Epigrafico di antichità romane, II, 1, pp. 340–406, to which must be added also E. Breccia's article ‘Cultores’ in the same volume. A thorough presentation of the topic is found also in Kornemann's article ‘Collegium’ in Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encyclopädie der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft. From the point of view of the economic history of the empire, the function and the successive changes in organization of professional associations has been recently studied by T. Frank, EHR, 2nd ed. (especially pp. 328 ff. and 495 ff.). Rostovtzeff, SEHRE (passim, see Index under ‘Associations’ and ‘Professional Corporations’), Paul-Louis, Ancient Rome at Work, 1927 (pp. 47 ff., 147 ff., 258 ff.). On the Greek corporations the most satisfactory work is F. Poland, Geschichte des griechischen Vereinswesens, 1909, which has superseded the older works of Schell and Caspari.
page 236 note 24 The eight guilds the foundation of which was attributed to Numa were those of the flute-players, gold-smelters, smiths, dyers, cordwainers, curriers, brass-workers, and potters. These collegia were originally composed of free artisans, but gradually freedmen also were admitted. “Constituted above all to ensure the celebration of religious rites, the guilds offered a framework for the defence of vocational interests and a weapon to the plebeians in their struggle for the levelling up of the political order,” Paul-Louis, p. 49.
page 236 note 25 On the content of the senatus consultum of the year 64, see the long discussion of Waltzing (I, pp. 90–113). In opposition to Mommsen, who interpreted the law as directed against the collegia compitalicia, Waltzing denies the existence of such collegia in the republican period. His thesis, however, has not found general acceptance, and Mommsen's opinion is still followed by some scholars, as for instance G. Wissowa, Religion und Kultus der Römer, 2nd ed., 1912, p. 171.
page 237 note 26 “Cuncta collegia, praeter antiquitus constituta, distraxit,” Suetonius, Divus Julius, 42. It is generally granted that Caesar enacted a law on this point (Lex Julia). The collegia which were excepted were those which did not come under the head of “coetus factiosorum hominum.” According to Josephus (Antiquitates Judaicae, xiv. 18, 8) the Jewish associations were left undisturbed. Waltzing, I, pp. 112–113.
page 237 note 27 “Plurimae factiones titulo collegii novi ad nullius non facinoris societatem coibant, igitur collegia praeter antiqua et legitima dissolvit,” Suetonius, Augustus, 32. On the scope of the application of this law there is also disagreement among scholars. It seems that it abolished all collegia without discrimination, but at the same time authorized the reorganization of the old associations already excepted by Caesar, provided they received the necessary permit from the Senate. Waltzing I, pp. 115–117.
page 237 note 28 The law of Augustus fixed the Roman custom on the right of association. As a matter of fact, the jurists of the second and third centuries, although they do not explicitly quote the law, adhere closely to its principles. The texts are assembled by Waltzing, I, Appendix, and pp. 155–156.
page 238 note 29 “Sans doute, à l'origine comme plus tard, le gouvernement, redoutait les groupes qui se formaient en dehors de la religion, et le culte des collèges paraissait une garantie sérieuse. Il est certain aussi que la religion fut souvent un prétexte mis en avant par des collèges pour cacher un autre dessein; cela prouve seulement, que la religion suffisait pour donner des apparences inoffensives, pourvu qu'il ne s'agit pas d'un culte interdit. Mais rien n'autorise à croire que le culte fut une condition de l'autorisation, ou seulement de la tolérance accordée par le gouvernement” (Waltzing, I, p. 255).
page 238 note 30 Such is the theory of Waltzing followed by Kornemann, Parvan, and others. Liebenam (p. 82) had already proposed some exceptions to the general rule, for example that of the boatmen of the Rhone, who seem to have had the exclusive right of transportation on that river.
page 238 note 31 SEHRE, p. 532. Rostovtzeff's assumption seems to me well taken, even if the historical and archaeological evidence is not fully convincing. On this point see the following chapter on the ‘stationes.’
page 239 note 32 A distinction between these two classes of associations remained even after the guilds became official institutions in the fourth century, when such guilds as those of the shipbuilders, bakers, and butchers were subjected to more strict regulation and enjoyed more privileges than others like the guilds of tignarii, lapidarii, centonarii, and many others whose services did not have a public character or an essential importance. Paul-Louis, p. 263.
page 239 note 33 Rostovtzeff, SEHRE, pp. 297 ff., and the chapter on the economic and social policy of the Flavians and Antonines, pp. 306 ff.
page 239 note 34 “The fact that the emperors from the time of Hadrian repeatedly granted important privileges to some associations shows that such privileges were intended as a compensation for the compulsory work which they were forced to perform for the state,” Rostovtzeff, SEHRE, p. 337.
page 239 note 35 In the first century of the empire the right to form a professional organization was a privilege obtained with some difficulty; now it has become a duty. Septimius Severus had colleges organized for all professions, even the humblest, and thus a great step was taken toward their transformation into public institutions. Waltzing, I, p. 154; Rostovtzeff, p. 361.
page 239 note 36 Paul-Louis, p. 260. The whole second volume of Waltzing deals with this topic in a detailed study of the associations as official institutions.
page 240 note 37 On the origin of the scholae, especially those of the collegia funeraticia see G. B. De Rossi, Bullettino di Archeologia cristiana, 1864, pp. 26—69. They often stood on the burial-ground owned by the college. The scholae of the professional collegia were generally near one of the fora. In Rome the coriarii had their schola in the Trastevere between the temple of Fors Fortuna and the Porta Septimia, not far from the tanneries (De Rossi, Bull., 1871, p. 163); the citrarii et eborarii had theirs near the same temple, while the tabernarii possessed one in the centre of the city near the Pantheon and the scribae librarii et praecones aedilium curulium had each their headquarters on the Via Sacra (CIL. VI, 103). ‘Schola’ and ‘templum’ sometimes appear in the inscriptions as synonymous (CIL. X, 1578). Other names for the headquarters of a collegium were domus (CIL. XI, 5749), or in Greek οῖκος (Liebenam, p. 275), and statio (CIL. VI, 7458, 8750). Waltzing I, p. 223 and III, p. 924.
page 241 note 38 See the article ‘Cultores’ by Breccia in De Ruggero, Dizionario epigr.
page 241 note 39 More than four thousand inscriptions or fragments of inscriptions from Roman columbaria have been collected (CIL. VI, 3926–8397). Most of them belong to collegia domestica of aristocratic families. Several columbaria of the first and second centuries after Christ are still in existence in Rome. Some of them, as it seems, were not built on the coöperative plan, but were the private property of a contractor who sold the burial urns (ollae) to individuals or families. Such appears to have been the columbarium of Pomponius Hylas near the hypogeum of the Scipios. The inscriptions of this columbarium mention the names of freedmen and slaves of the households of Tiberius and Nero (CIL. VI, 5540, 5539) and also a freedman of Antoninus Pius (5554; for the remarkable decorations of this columbarium see Ashby-Newton, Papers of the British School of Archaeology at Rome, 1910, V, pp. 468–471 and Tab. XXXVII-XLVII). The three columbaria of Vigna Codini appear to have been on the coöperative plan. Among the hundreds of inscriptions known to have come from these columbaria, several mention the fact that the ollae had been bought from former owners (“Cornelius Salvus emit ollam de Lucceio Aucto,” 4931). The names are chiefly those of freedmen, slaves, and servants of Augustus, Tiberius, and Claudius. The pavement of the second columbarium is dated as of the year 10 A.D. Afterwards part of this columbarium was acquired by the Collegium Symphoniacorum (4416), and another part by an association sociorum coronariorum (4414). The third columbarium, which is the largest and richest, was in use for a longer time. The names in the inscriptions are of freedmen and servants of Augustus, Tiberius, and Claudius, and then of Trajan and Hadrian, and one also of Marcus Aurelius. Another inscription mentions the fact that one Tiberius Julius Donatus, acceptor (tax-collector), bought from their owners thirty-six ollae, which became his exclusive property (propriae juris ejus), evidently for the purpose of selling them at a higher price. (Lugli, Zona archeologica, 1924, pp. 299 ff.). Another columbarium worthy of notice is that discovered in 1838 in the Villa Pamphili, which has now been removed to the National Museum and accurately reconstructed by Professor Paribeni. (Description made at the time of discovery by E. Braun, Bullettino Istituto Archeologico, Rome, 1838, pp. 4 ff.; Otto Jahn, Abhandl. bayer. Akad. d. Wiss., philos.-philol. Klasse, VIII, pp. 231 ff., Tab. I-VII). The decorations of these columbaria belong to various periods; some of them, especially those of the columbarium of Pomponius Hylas, represent religious myths, or scenes connected with funeral beliefs and rites; others may refer to the occupations of the deceased or have a symbolic or apotropaic character, but the greater part are merely decorative motives such as genii, satyrs, rustic scenes and landscapes, trees and flowers, birds and animals, and even grotesque and humorous episodes to which it seems difficult to assign any symbolic meaning.
page 242 note 40 The word salutaris, ‘saving,’ added to the name of a collegium (collegium salutare Silvani) or to the name of the patron god of the collegium (collegium Silvani salutaris), is always a sign of a funerary collegium (De Rossi, Bull. Com., 1882, pp. 141–148). This epithet was adopted ‘boni ominis causa.’ A collection of the inscriptions mentioning funerary collegia is to be found in Schiess, T., Die römischen collegia funeraticia, Munich, 1888, pp. 111–140Google Scholar, and a complete list of these collegia in Waltzing, IV, pp. 202–208.
page 242 note 41 In the inscriptions it is called also area collegii and area reipublicae collegii, or area publica. In the Digest the term used is ratio communis or pecunia communis (Liebenam, p. 244, n. 1). Only the collegia which were in charge of a public and official cult received an appropriation from the state for their expenses; the private collegia, even those which worshipped national deities, had to meet all their expenses by the contributions of their members, as did the cultores of foreign gods. In the funerary collegia, the stips menstrua was reserved exclusively for funerals. In the collegium cultorum Dianae et Antinoi of Lanuvium, of which we possess a good part of the statute, the monthly fee of the members was five asses, about thirty cents (Liebenam, p. 81).
page 243 note 42 It was not an absolute necessity for a funerary collegium to possess a burial or incineration ground in common. Many collegia of poor people did not have one unless some rich benefactor made them the gift of a piece of land or of the money to buy it. When the collegium did not possess a ground of its own, it paid the funeraticium, the allowance for the funeral of a deceased member, to those who had taken care of him and provided for his funeral and burial. The loca sepulturae of the collegia were in general small areas surrounded by walls or delimited by cippi (Schiess, pp. 87 ff., ‘Collegien mit gemeinsamem Begräbnisplatze’). The columbaria were common in Rome, but elsewhere they are more rarely found. Even in Rome the system of inhumation was practised in the collegia as well as incineration (Breccia, in De Ruggero, Diz. Epigr., II, 2, p. 1305). The opinion of Schiess that all the Roman collegia which possessed loca sepulturae used to bury their dead and did not incinerate them, has no foundation, since in the areae side by side with the loculi of those who were inhumated, the ollae or urnae with the ashes of those who were incinerated have again and again been found. Some associations bought part of a columbarium belonging either to a contractor or to a coöperative. See above, note 39.
page 243 note 43 “… dum tamen semel in mense coeant…. Sed religionis causa coire non prohibentur, dum tamen per hoc non fiat contra senatus consultum, quo illicita collegia arcentur,” Marcian, lib. III Institutionum, in Digest 47, 22. On the meaning of this passage see Waltzing, I, pp. 149 ff.
page 243 note 44 See the list of these collegia in Waltzing, IV, pp. 485–488.
page 244 note 45 Waltzing, II, pp. 439–141.
page 245 note 46 “Sed permittitur eis, cum dissolvuntur, pecunias communes, si quas habent, dividere, pecuniamque inter se partiri,” Dig. i. XLVII, tit. XXII, leg. 3.
page 245 note 47 Waltzing, II, pp. 455 ff.
page 245 note 48 By the “senatus consultum quo illicita collegia arcentur.” Tertullian alludes to this senatus consultum: “Nisiforte in senatus consulta et in principum mandata coitionibus apposita delinquimus,” De ieiunio ad psychicos 13. In the Digest the death penalty is imposed upon members of collegia illicita: “Quisquis collegium illicitum usurpaverit, ea poena tenetur, qua tenentur qui hominibus armatis loca publica vel templa occupasse iudicati sunt,” that is to say, death (i. XLVII, tit. XXII, leg. 2). Waltzing remarks, however, that in this case under the term of collegia illicita come not only members of unauthorized colleges, but also of authorized colleges which by entering into forbidden activities had become a danger for the public order and therefore acquired the character of factiones illicitae; I, pp. 132 ff. and art. ‘Collegium’ in Dictionnaire d'Archéologie chrétienne et de Liturgie, III, p. 2111. For the various passages of Tertullian alluding to the Roman legislation on colleges see Waltzing, Étude hist., 1, pp. 314 ff.
page 245 note 49 Evidence collected by Waltzing, I, pp. 136 ff.
page 246 note 50 Rostovtzeff has rightly observed that the Roman law, such as we possess in the great Byzantine codices, the codex Theodosianus, the codex Justinianus, and the Digest, “must be used with care in attempting to reconstruct the social and economic history of any period or any one portion of the Roman Empire.” For in this system of laws are amalgamated various elements derived “from many local systems and especially from the Hellenistic systems which were not eliminated by the Roman civil Law or replaced by the so-called Jus Gentium” (pp. 173–174).
page 246 note 51 All the inscriptions concerning Roman associations known in 1898 were collected from the CIL and CIG and other sources by Waltzing in the third volume of his Études (pp. 167–350). Those which have since been found are scattered in the periodical issues of Notizie degli Scavi and will be mentioned in due place.
page 247 note 52 The discovery in recent times in Egypt of the original text of the Constitutio has given rise to many doubts as to its intended application. It excludes the dediticii, and it is known that many peregrini at that time were also styled dediticii. It is not clear whether it included the rural population of the city territories, and whether in the cities themselves it included only the honestiores or the humiliores as well. Furthermore, it did not affect the legal standing of the cities as such, so that a ‘peregrine’ city remained what it had been, although its citizens were now cives Romani, Rostovtzeff, SEHRE, pp. 369–370.
page 249 note 1 On the restrictions imposed on the senatorial class before the Punic War and the similar laws enacted by Julius Caesar, see T. Frank, EHR, pp. 114 ff. But it was this class that profited most by the wars and the government of the conquered provinces. “The lion's share fell to the leaders of the Roman army, members of the senatorial class. They returned to Italy with large amounts of money and large numbers of slaves; and herds of cattle fell also into their hands. The government of the provinces became a new source of wealth for the senatorial class.” Besides this class large numbers of Romans and Italian citizens shared in the profits of the conquest. “Its members started their economic career by helping the state to exploit lands, mines, forests, fisheries, houses, and ships which had become property of the state. They supplied the armies with food, clothing, and arms: they bought up war-booty from the state and from the generals, the officers, and the common soldiers: they sold various goods to the soldiers during campaigns, and so forth. When the wars were over, they used the money to lend to the allies and vassals of Rome, whether kings or cities: they farmed the collecting of taxes and other revenues in the provinces, and took an active part in the business life as money-lenders, merchants, owners of land and herds, and proprietors of houses and shops. The richest members of this new body of capitalists, the equestrian class, lived mostly in Rome and aspired to the honor of admission into the senatorial order by being elected to one of the magistracies” (ib. p. 17). The results of this development were great concentration of lands in large estates, the formation of the city bourgeoisie, and a great commercial expansion of Rome and Italy.
page 250 note 2 But the senatorial class also “by force of circumstances, by the fact of their growing wealth, was led to take part both in the credit operations which were the natural consequence of the eastern conquests and, despite the strict prohibition, in the commercial activities which followed the concentration of capital in the hands of Roman and Italian citizens” (Rostovtzeff, p. 18). Such operations, however, were made through intermediaries and seldom directly. In spite of this the Roman government never did anything to secure special privileges for Roman merchants and for Italian industries. See on this point the interesting considerations and reasons assigned by T. Frank in his valuable chapter on ‘Industry and Commerce,’ pp. 108–126. On Roman capitalism the book of G. Salvioli, Il Capitalismo nel mondo antico, is still the best general treatment of the subject.
page 250 note 3 Hatzfeld, J., Les trafiquants Italiens dans l'Orient hellénique, Paris, 1919Google Scholar, a thorough study of these groups which utilizes all previous researches and all the historical and archaeological material.
page 251 note 4 On the foreign groups in Delos there is a considerable bibliography. The most recent complete work is Roussel, P., Delos Colonie Athénienne, Paris, 1916Google Scholar. Some of its conclusions are revised by Hatzfeld.
page 251 note 5 Rostovtzeff, SEHRE, chapter I and pp. 65 ff.; Frank, EHR, pp. 90 ff., 309 ff. The so-called Arretine pottery and the metal ware of Capua were the main industrial products exported from Italy to the Mediterranean countries.
page 251 note 6 The agora was built about the end of the second century B.C. It was the centre of the community life of the Italians in Delos. The arcades adorned with statues of Roman magistrates, the baths, the games and celebrations, made of the agora an Italian enclave on Greek soil; Roussel, p. 80.
page 252 note 7 The Hermaistae were the oldest group. Probably it was a collegium Mercurialium, like the one established by merchants in ancient Rome on the Palatine. The Poseidoniasts were probably ship-owners and persons engaged in maritime transportation. The cult of Apollo was very popular among the Italian immigrants in the East.
page 252 note 8 Roussel, p. 319, n. 2: pp. 12, 82.
page 252 note 9 Ib., p. 82.
page 252 note 10 The theory of Kornemann (De civibus Romanis in provinciis imperii consistentibus, Berlin, 1891; art. ‘Conventus’ in Pauly-Wissowa) and of Schulten (De conventibus civium Romanorum, Göttingen, 1892), according to which all the negotiatores Italici in foreign countries were from the beginning organized in the form of conventus, first under magistri elected by the community and later under a curator supremus, does not appear well founded when judged by the evidence of the inscriptions, for instance in the case of the negotiatores in Delos. The excellent analysis of W. S. Ferguson (Hellenistic Athens, 1911) indicated the weak points of the theory but admitted that the whole colony of Delos formed a sort of “loose group” (p. 355), and that their associations had a “semi-political character” (p. 401). Hatzfeld denies altogether that the conventus existed from the beginning (pp. 257 ff.). Roussel agrees mainly with Ferguson.
page 253 note 11 The imperial policy was greatly in favor of such arrangement, since the general tendency of the Roman government was not only to extend its control over all associations but to transform into agencies of the state all these private groups (Hatzfeld, p. 285). It is significant that in many places the establishment and maintenance of the cult of Rome and the emperors was in the hands of the conventus of ‛Pωμαῖοι. For instance Augustus entrusted it to the conventus of Ephesus (29 B.C.; Dio Cassius li. 20).
page 253 note 12 The community of Italian mercatores of Delos was one of the first to disappear. It lost all importance about the middle of the last century B.C. and rapidly declined. The slave-trade, of which it had been the greatest emporium, moved westward, especially to the Italian ports like Puteoli and later Ostia, that is, to Rome itself.
page 253 note 13 Of the four conventus known to have existed in the first century after Christ only one was still alive about the end of the second century, and that one disappeared at the beginning of the third.
page 254 note 14 As a consequence, the process of latinization of various eastern centres, due to the presence of large groups of Italian negotiatores, came to an end with the transformation and disappearance of the conventus. From that moment, the slight progress made in the use of the Latin language was due mainly to the conservative traditions of the imperial chancery, but it must not deceive us, the more so that the ‛Pωμαῖοι who for many generations lived in the Orient were thoroughly hellenized. Hatzfeld, pp. 380 ff.
page 254 note 15 Hatzfeld, p. 368.
page 255 note 16 Rostovtzeff, SEHRE, pp. 158 ff. The most complete survey of the evidence concerning the nationality of merchants in all provinces of the empire is still the already quoted study of V. Parvan, Die Nationalität der Kaufleute im römischen Kaiserreiche.
page 255 note 17 N.H. xvi. 40. See also De Ruggero, Il Foro romano, p. 52. The most important contributions to the subject of the stationes are still those of L. Cantarelli, ‘Le Stationes Municipiorum’ in Bull. Com. d'Archeologia, 1900, pp. 124–134 and of G. Calza, ‘Il piazzale delle corporazioni e la funzione commerciale di Ostia,’ ibid., 1916, pp. 175–206.
page 255 note 18 The word statio, aside from its general meaning, was used as a technical term for offices of public administration, as for instance ‘statio annonae,’ ‘statio operum publicorum,’ ‘statio aquarum,’ ‘statio marmorum,’ ‘statio alvei Tiberis,’ and others; also for military garrisons or permanent detachments of troops in strategic places, and for the establishments of foreign merchants. Moreover the places where the Roman lawyers taught law and gave consultations in juridical matters (Aul. Gellius, xiii. 13, 1; Martial, vii. 51) were called stationes. Stationes, or mansiones, was also the name given to certain places where in civil or religious celebrations processions or parades would stop for the performance of special ceremonies (Orelli 2244; Bull, istit. arch., 1842, p. 134; also ‘Pulvinaria’ in Wissowa, Religion und Kultus, pp. 357 ff.). Finally the word statio was often appropriated by associations of all kinds to denote their scholae, or headquarters, and sometimes used for the association itself as a synonym of collegium. Cantarelli, p. 131; Waltzing, I, pp. 223, 521; III, no. 924. The word statio also assumed different meanings in Christian terminology, but of this I shall speak in another study concerning the organization of the Christian community.
page 256 note 19 The theory of Mommsen that the stationes municipiorum were identical with the ‘graecostasis’ mentioned by Varro: “locus obstructus ubi nationum subsisterent legati qui ad senatum essent missi” (De lingua latina, v. 155) was disproved by Cantarelli. The Italian scholar N. Ignarra, who first published the inscription of Puteoli, had surmised that the stationes were in general commercial institutions, and Mommsen himself had called them ‘Faktoreien’; but that the stationes of Rome are to be included in the same class was fully demonstrated by Cantarelli. See also Jordan, Topogr. Stadt Rom, I, 2, p. 342.
page 256 note 20 Kaibel, Inscr. graec. 830. CIG. 5853; Waltzing, III, pp. 441 ff. Dittenberger, Inscrip. selectae, vi. 595 with a commentary; Mommsen's commentary in Ber. d. Verh. d. Sächs. Ges. d. Wiss. II, 1850, p. 57.
page 258 note 21 Dubois, Pouzzoles antique (pp. 83–96), has analyzed and discussed this document at great length. One of the points in the letter which raises some difficulty is the large amount of the yearly rent of the statio (one hundred thousand denarii). Corrections of the text have been suggested to reduce the amount to a smaller figure, but it is well to consider that it is the extraordinarily large sum to be paid that explains the appeal of the Tyrians of Puteoli to the senate and people of their native city. Had it been a small matter, they would probably have been able to meet the obligation and would not have sent one of their number to Tyre to solicit aid. The sum, though large, is not impossible, since we know from the letter itself that the statio was the largest in Puteoli, richly decorated and, like the agora at Delos, embracing in its circle the warehouses and probably baths and the shrines of the national gods.
page 259 note 22 The statio of the Tyrians was not the only one at Puteoli: the words of the letter, “There are other stations at Puteoli but ours is superior in beauty and size,” are explicit. On the other stations, see Dubois, pp. 90 ff.; Waltzing, III, pp. 432–433; Parvan, pp. 115 ff. Cantarelli (p. 131) has rightly likened these stationes to the ‘fondachi’ of foreign merchants in the Middle Ages in Venice and in the most important commercial centres of Europe, and to those which the Italian commercial cities maintained in the sea-ports and emporia of the East.
page 259 note 23 The decision at the senate of Tyre, which is fragmentary, ends with these words: “The Tyrian stationarii have two stations, one in the illustrious colony of Puteoli, the other in the royal city of Rome.” This suggests that the statio of Rome was founded by the same merchants who formerly belonged to Puteoli, and who had moved to Rome when most boats began to land their merchandise at Ostia. Thus originally the statio of Rome was a branch of that of Puteoli, but by refusing to contribute further to the expenses of the latter the Tyrian merchants of Rome probably broke the union. Up to that time the administration of the two stationes together had remained in the hands of the merchants of Rome. Those of Puteoli offered to assume the combined administration themselves, if those of Rome refused to contribute the usual amount of money to them. The fact that the statio of Rome was originally a mere branch of that of Puteoli itself suggests some difference in the general organization of the two institutions, at least in the beginning.
page 260 note 24 Suetonius (Nero, 37) says that Nero condemned a man because he rented some shops belonging to him for the use of stationes: “Salvidieno Orfito obiectum est quod tabernas tres de domo sua circa forum civitatibus ad stationem locasset.” Notice that the shops were rented ‘civitatibus,’ ‘to the cities,’ that is, to the groups representing the cities. This suggests the official character of the stationes in relation to the cities of origin of the merchants.
page 260 note 25 Tarsus, Kaibel, 1G. 1066a and 1066b. According to Waddington (Bull. Com. Arch., 1880, p. 80) these two fragments were part of the same inscription, dedicated by the citizens of Tarsus in honor of Gordian III. But whether it was dedicated by the stationarii of Tarsus is not mentioned. But that Tarsus, “the great and splendid metropolis of Cilicia and Isauria,” as it is styled in the inscription, possessed a statio in Rome is very likely. Tiberias, G. Gatti, Bull. Com. Arch., 1899, pp. 241–242. The first inscription is a short dedication of a small statue by a certain Ismenos, who describes himself as from Tiberias and belonging to the statio (τῆ στστίωνι). The second is a fragment in which the words στατίωυ … ριωυ καὶ Kλαυδιοπολιτῶυ are still extant. Gatti read [τῶυ Tυ]ρίωυ, ‘of the Tyrians,’ but Kubitschek (Jahreshefte d. österr. arch. Inst., VI, 1903, p. 80) suggested [τῶυ Tιβε]ρίωυ, for Tiberias assumed the name of Claudiopolis in honor of the emperor Claudius, who gave to the city the title of Roman colony. For Tyre, see the letter above. Sardis, Kaibel, IG. 1008. Palmyra, CIL. VI, 710; 50–51; Parvan, p. 116.
page 260 note 26 “Genio Noricorum/L. Iulius Bassus/stationarius/eorum/d.d.” CIL. VI, 250.
page 261 note 27 Kaibel, IG. 1052 and 1064 (Cantarelli pp. 125–127; Parvan, p. 117).
page 261 note 28 In a letter addressed ‘Sosio Senecioni,’ Pliny the younger (i. 13) speaking of public readings by authors of new works says that many did not enter the lecture room but remained outside (“in stationibus sedent”), wasting in telling stories the time when they were supposed to be listening to the lecture. Now and then they would inquire whether the author had come, whether he had read the preface, or had finished most of his piece. Then they would drop in “lente et cunctanter,” and leave again before the piece was finished. Cantarelli suggested that these stationes were those of the cities (stationes municipiorum), which were used for public lectures. But it seems more probable that the stationes of which Pliny speaks were either the halls used by lawyers for lectures and consultations or, better, that the word statio is used here in the general sense of ‘waiting-room’ or ‘ante-chamber.’ Martial says also: “domos stationesque circumeo” (ii. 9).
page 262 note 29 G. Calza, op. cit.; and for the excavations and discoveries since the date of Calza's article, Notizie degli Scavi, 1916, pp. 326 ff.; 1920, pp. 166 ff.
page 262 note 30 That the temple was dedicated to Ceres is a mere supposition of Lanciani, Notizie d. Scavi, 1881, p. 114. Calza, p. 183.
page 262 note 31 See the list of inscriptions and the description of the accompanying emblems in Calza, pp. 187—188. For the navicularii Narbonnenses and the navicularii Curbitani (Curubis: in Africa proconsularis) see Notizie d. Scavi, 1916, p. 336; and for the navicularii Alexandrini, ibid., 1920, p. 166.
page 262 note 32 The mosaic, no. 27 (Calza, p. 188), without inscription, shows a bridge of barges on a river. Rostovtzeff, SEHRE, p. 535, suggests that the statio probably belonged to one of the commercial cities of Gaul on the banks of a large river, for this mosaic is near to the statio of Narbonne.
page 263 note 33 This seems to have been the general rule. The ground and buildings of the stationes belonged to the cities where they were established, and were rented by foreign merchants. This was true not only of the stationes which were simple offices as in Ostia and Rome, but also of the larger ones. As we have seen, the Tyrians of Puteoli paid a large rent to the city for the use of their station.
page 263 note 34 This explanation is generally accepted (objections by Baron de Villefosse in Bull, arch., 1918, pp. 270 ff.). Rostovtzeff remarks: “The building at Ostia did not contain offices for foreign corporations only: it is clear to me that the east side was given to the corporations of Ostia which were employed by the annona. The order of the corporations is mainly geographical. It is very likely that the North side was given to the Northerners. In the West side no legible inscription was found. There was space enough to accomodate the offices of other provinces which sent grain and other species annonariae to Rome” (SEHRE, p. 533). The assumption, however, that “only the Western and the Northern provinces were represented in the building” (ibid.) is contradicted by the presence of a “statio naviculariorum Alexandrinorum.”
page 263 note 35 CIG. III, 5892. That foreign merchants, besides these offices connected with the annona, had stationes in the larger sense of the word is probable, but nothing is known about their location. “Ostia,” Calza remarks, “did not lack space, and these corporations had means enough to secure from the city more comfortable headquarters for their social and religious activities” (p. 192). But that was not the case in Rome, where even the ancient local corporations were crowded for space. The only corporation which is known to have obtained the use of a locus publicus is that of ‘fullones’ (cloth-fullers), which appears also under the name of collegium fontanorum. From republican times these did not pay anything to the city for the use of the place. On it they built a chapel to Minerva. This privilege was confirmed by Augustus, but was contested about 226 A.D. by the Fiscus. This special privilege is explained by the exceptional importance of the services of the fullones. CIL. VI, 266–268; Waltzing, I, p. 190; II, p. 472.
page 264 note 36 CIL. VI, 1625, 1626 of the time of Marcus Aurelius; also VI, 1935 (Waltzing, II, pp. 87–89 and IV, p. 35); CIL. VI, 9677 (Waltzing, II, p. 108 and IV, pp. 33–34); CIL. VI, 1620, of the second century (Waltzing, II, p. 106). Waltzing seems to suggest that these mercatores might have been Romans who imported oil from Spain and oil and wheat from Africa. It is more likely, however, that they were foreigners from those provinces who had settled in Rome for such commercial purposes. The importation of oil and wheat on a large scale was made by the annona publica; but those merchants who ordinarily supplied only private families were often called upon to help the annona (qui annonam urbis adiuvant). That most of them came to Rome from the provinces is proved by the fact that the emperors often solicited their settlement in Rome by granting privileges; Alexander Severus, for instance, “negotiatoribus ut Romam volentes concurrerent, maximam immunitatem dedit” (Lampridius, Alex. Sev. 22).
page 264 note 37 That they had their headquarters in the stationes mercatorum is possible; at any rate that was the case at Delos. The suggestion was made by De Ruggero: “Since it was a general custom for foreign merchants living in Rome to form associations,, probably the stationes were also the headquarters of their associations” (Il Foro Romano, p. 52).
page 265 note 38 Waltzing, II, pp. 480 ff. See also conclusions in Calza, pp. 204 ff.
page 266 note 39 F. Poland, De collegiis artificum Dionysiacorum, Dresden, 1895, pp. 18–19, and Geschichte des griechischen Vereinswesens, Berlin, 1909, pp. 132 ff. During the empire these collegia were reorganized as a unit: “Post quam Caesares primi post Christum saeculi ludos ad morem certaminum Graecorum instituerunt, saeculo secundo quantum perspicimus collegia ita mutata et aucta sunt ut unum ex omnibus confiaretur (De colleg., p. 19). For the use of the name σύνοδος in Greek associations, see Poland, Geschichte, pp. 158–163. In a few cases some collegia of dramatic artists in Southern Italy and Sicily took the designation κοινόν; Poland, De colleg., p. 8.
page 266 note 40 “Sacram quidem appellatam esse synodus, cum alia quoque sodalicia imperatorum temporibus hoc epitheto ornentur, non tam ob Bacchi quam ob Caesarum cultum opinor. θυμελική vero synodus dicitur ut athletarum (ξυστική) distinguatur” (ib., p. 19). These collegia show in their organization a more distinctly religious form (Poland, Gesch., p. 147). Their president bears the title of ‘high priest,’ ἀρχιερεὐς (Bull. Corr. Hell., VII, p. 470). From a number of inscriptions, mostly on sepulchral slabs, we learn the names of many actors who were members of the Roman synod, as for instance L. Aurelius Apolaustus from Memphis, freedman of Commodus (Lampridius, Commodus, 7, 2), victor in many competitions and finally executed by order of his master (CIL. VI, 10117 and XIV, 4254, of the year 199 A.D.). The actors of the Latin theatre hati their separate associations: corpus scenicorum Latinorum (CIL. XIV, 2299), the commune mimorum, and a kind of general federation, omnia corpora ad scaenam (CIL. XIV, 2408, of the year 169 A.D.). An inscription in Vienna mentions also a collegium scaenicorum Asiaticianorum as having a common burial-place (CIL. XII, 1922), but probably that meant only that a man by the name of Asiaticus was their patron (Dessau, Inscriptiones Latinae, Berlin, 1902, II, 1, p. 323, n. 5205). On actors in general see F. Drexel, ‘Ueber den häufigen Gebrauch berühmter Künstlemamen,’ in Friedländer, IV, pp. 197–202. It must be noticed, however, that the names of actors, artists, and athletes do not always give a sure indication of their nationality, for they often assumed the names of famous predecessors in the profession.
page 266 note 41 CIL. VI, 4416. In the time of Augustus this collegium came into possession of a part of the columbarium usually called ‘of the Marcelli’ (Vigna Codini) because it belonged chiefly to freedmen and servants of Livia, wife of Augustus, of Marcella senior, wife of Agrippa, of Marcella junior, wife of Valerius Messala Corvinus, and of Sextus Pompeius (see above, p. 241, n. 39, and Lugli, Zona archeologica, p. 308). The inscription of the Symphoniaci states that the college was organized according to the Lex Julia de collegiis, and sanctioned by the Senate, which granted it a license to play at public spectacles. Side by side with the symphoniaci Graeci there were in Rome associations ‘tibicinum Romanorum,’ whose existence is traced back to long before the imperial period; CIL. VI, 3877a, 2191, 1054; Waltzing, III, p. 334.
page 267 note 42 Bullettino com. d’archeologia, Rome, 1888, p. 409.
page 267 note 43 “Sociae mimae” (CIL. VI, 10109). The inscriptions of mimae whose funerals were taken care of by the collegium are very rare; but we often find inscriptions mentioning actresses and mimae to whom relatives or friends dedicated memorials. Such is the inscription to “Eucharia liberta Liciniae,” an actress “docta, erudita omnes artes, virgo,” who claims the honor, “Graeca in scaena prima populo apparui” (CIL. VI, 10096). In the first century after Christ there is mention also of companies of ‛Pωμαῖoι in the East (Hatzfeld, p. 231).
page 267 note 44 See the article ‘Athletae’ by S. Ricci in De Ruggero, Dizionario Epigrafico, I, pp. 744–757, and Poland, Gesch., pp. 147 ff.; Friedländer, IV, ‘Zur Geschichte des Kapitolinischen Agons,’ pp. 276 ff.
page 267 note 45 Ricci (La Ξυστικὴ Σύνοδος e la Curia athletarum presso S. Pietro in Vincoli, Rome, 1891) succeeded in locating the area occupied by the synodus, and has thrown much light on the importance of this organization. Of the character of this great Roman synodus of Greek athletes he says: “The ludi introduced into the capital and established for special reasons were later admitted to the ordinary list of periodical Roman festivals. They spread to the small centres, municipia, and vici, influenced by the same motives which had prompted their admission into the capital, such as the installation of new magistrates, thanksgiving to some deity, funerals of eminent persons, or even for use as an instrument of electoral propaganda (ambitus). Their art, however, even if it spread in Rome and outside, was never entirely assimilated by Roman custom” (I, p. 745). Instead, the Romans developed an athletic art of their own. It is true, however, that for a long period the Greek athletes appear to have been more numerous and more famous than the Roman, but the fact that Roman athletes are more rarely mentioned in the inscriptions which have survived cannot be construed as evidence against the popularity of athletics among the Romans. Alexandria under the empire was the cradle of several athletic associations formed for the purpose of touring the western provinces. One of those companies left traces of its passage in Naples (CIG. XIV, 5804, of the year 103 or 116 A.D.). It was under the direction of T. Flavius Archibius from Alexandria, high priest for life of the ‘xystus.’ The Alexandrians are also conspicuous in the Roman synodus of the Thermae of Titus. M. Aurelius Demetrius and his son Asclepiades, both from Alexandria, appear to have been in succession high priests of the synod. Asclepiades was also νεωκόρος of Serapis (CIG. 5906–5913; Lafaye, p. 159). It is interesting to notice that in several inscriptions the synods τῶυ περι τὸυ Διόνυσον τεχνιτῶν assumed the title ἀπὸ τῆς οἰκουμἐνης. Friedländer (II, p. 155) thought that this title meant that these synodoi recruited their members from all parts. Poland, noticing that these synodoi always appear in the inscriptions under the special protection of an emperor whose name is assumed in the official title of the corporation, concluded that the words ἀπὸ τῆς oἰκoυμἐυης “eo consilio addita sint, ut auspiciis imperatorum unam illam synodum ex omnibus orbis Romani artificibus effectam esse praedicetur” (De coll., p. 21).
page 268 note 46 CIL. VI, 10234. Waltzing, I, pp. 210 ff., 305, 386; II, pp. 268 ff.
page 268 note 47 N. H. xxix. 8: “Solam hanc artium Graecarum nondum exercet Romana gravitas.”
page 268 note 48 Friedländer, I, pp. 180 ff.
page 268 note 49 “Quiritium paucissimi attigere [hanc artem] et ipsi statim ad Graecos transfugae.”
page 269 note 50 Ibid. The wrath of Pliny is roused especially by the part taken by these doctors in plots for poisoning emperors and wealthy men: “Quid enim venenorum feracius aut unde plures testamentorum insidiae?”
page 269 note 51 Those doctors speak Greek, remarks Pliny, and the people who do not understand their language realize their ignorance the less, the higher the opinion they have of them (ibid.).
page 269 note 52 This privilege of holding a general meeting (in conventu pleno) in an imperial shrine is easily understood since two officers of the association, and probably several members of it, were freedmen of the imperial house.
page 269 note 53 “Locum aediculae cum pergula et signum marmoreum Aesculapii et solarium tectum junctum, in quo populus collegi epuletur.”
page 270 note 54 CIL. VI, part 2, passim.
page 270 note 55 A few instances taken at random in these lists: Philetus (4450), Sterops (8904), Stachys (4452), Eros (8901) medici; Hylarus (3986) medicus chirurgus; Thyrius (8909) medicus ocularius; Amintas (8908) medicus auricularius; Minucia Asste (9615) medica; Hygia (4458) obstetrix; Apollodorus (9610) medicus equarius. Famous ‘medici,’ like Galenus who went to Rome to practise, were numerous.
page 270 note 56 Aulularia iii. 5.
page 270 note 57 CIL. VI, 9253. Another collegium citrariorum (fine cabinet-makers) was united to a collegium of merchants and carvers in ivory; Waltzing, IV, p. 12.
page 271 note 58 This collegium is mentioned in several inscriptions: CIL. VI, 8802, 8803, 8809, 8811. These northerners assumed Roman names: Bassus natione Frisus (4342), Nereus natione Pecennus (4334) (probably Peucinus, Tac. Ger. 46), Hylarus natione Frisiaeo (4343), and others.
page 271 note 59 Waltzing, IV, n. 1368, p. 321. According to Varro the first barbers came to Rome from Sicily (“omnino tonsores in Italia primum venisse ex Sicilia dicuntur post Romam conditam anno CCCCLIV,” Rerum rustic, ii. 11). Many Sicilians follow the same trade successfully in America today.
page 271 note 60 CIL. VI, 9952 “… decuriarum vasculario / P. Durdenus Eros / fratrioptumo.” Waltzing, IV, p. 264. See also the names of unctores in the columbaria.
page 271 note 61 CIL. VI, 9262, “Aelius Epaphroditus / scriba cocorum.” See also the collegium cocorum Augusti, CIL. VI, 8750.
page 271 note 62 CIL. VI, 384.
page 271 note 63 CIL. VI, 9433–6, 9545–9, 33872. T. Frank, EHR, pp. 242 ff. For the argentarii see CIL. VI, 9156, in which we find such names as Eunus, Icarus, Apollonios, Nicomedes, and Dionysius. How large the number of foreigners by birth or descent among the shopkeepers must have been can be easily inferred from the classification of them made by Frank, who divides them into three types: (1) Handicraftsmen who were free citizens, rented the shops, and conducted the business on their own capital, themselves working at the bench with one or more slaves. (2) Slaves who borrowed some capital at interest or went on share with the man who provided the capital. (3) Men of means who owned the shops but conducted them through slaves or freedmen acting as their agents. The foreigners were numerous even in the free class; they formed almost all the second class and the whole of the class of agents. EHR, p. 270. Of the membership of the collegia fabrorum the statistics compiled by Kuehn, De opificum romanorum conditione privata, show how large was the class of freedmen and foreigners among them. All this leaves no doubt that this element was predominant in the collegia of this type.
page 272 note 64 “The literary evidence is explicit on this point, and has been confirmed by modern excavations on the Esquiline, where we know from Varro and Horace that the poor and the slaves were thrown en masse into the puticuli, holes where it was impossible that any memorial ceremonies could be kept up” (Fowler, Religious Experience of the Roman People, p. 395). Even when the puticuli on the Esquilinum ceased to be used and the region began to be occupied by dwellings, public buildings, and gardens, Horace mentioned its name with a sense of disgust (“atras Esquilias,” Sat. ii. 6, 32), and though “the fields formerly white with dead men's bones” were now a healthy place to live in, yet at night witches and sorcerers still went there to gather herbs and bones (Sat. i. 8, 14–22).
page 272 note 65 A complete list of the associations of cultores of the various deities found in inscriptions is given in De Ruggero, Diz. Epigr., II, article ‘Cultores’ by E. Breccia, pp. 1296 ff. See Waltzing, I, pp. 42 ff.
page 272 note 66 “Il est probable que les premiers cultores n'eurent qu'un but religieux. Leur cotisations (stips) ne servirent d'abord qu'aux frais du culte. Mais comme tous les collèges ils songèrent en même temps aux funérailles et, plus tard, ce qui était l'accessoire devint le principal; le culte céda le pas aux funérailles sans jamais disparaître. C'est ainsi que s'explique ce caractère religieux des collèges funéraires; c'est peut-être ainsi qu'ils adoptèrent l’usage des cotisations mensuelles, qui a une origine religieuse. Naturellement les nombreux collèges qui naquirent quand cette transformation fut accomplie, eurent des leur naissance un caractère plutôt funéraire que religieux.” Waltzing, I, p. 263. This hypothesis of a gradual transformation of the collegia cultorum into collegia funeraticia is based on too many hypothetical assumptions. Granted that the ‘cultores deorum’ originally were foreigners, the duty of the association to provide funerals and burial for the dead members must have been more than an accessory to the cult of the patron deity. In the inscriptions concerning cultores of foreign deities the funerary character of the associations is always conspicuous. Among the cultores of Roman deities there may have been some which in an early period did not have the character of funerary associations and were concerned only with the cult of the patron deity. Such was always the case with the cultores of the emperors. But with this single exception all the cultores of Roman deities appear later as collegia funeraticia. And when we reflect that the law concerning the collegia tenuiorum did not allow any individual to belong to more than one collegium, it is evident that at least from that time on all associations of cultores must have had the double character of a religious and a funerary collegium.
page 273 note 67 On the African funerary associations, see Waltzing, in Musée Beige, II, 1898, p. 281, and III, 1899, p. 139.
page 274 note 68 These modern associations among the immigrant groups in America have moreover the purpose of mutual assistance in case of sickness or other disability of their members. In this they differ from the collegia tenuiorum of ancient Rome. The opinion of Mommsen (De Collegiis, pp. 91 ff.) and of many others after him, that mutual assistance was also practised by the Roman collegia is now abandoned (Boissier, La Religion romaine, II, pp. 296–304, and, more completely, Waltzing, I, pp. 300–308).
page 275 note 69 We have an example of this extinction of a collegium by exhaustion in a curious document of the year 167 A.D. concerning a funerary college of freedmen and slaves who worked in the gold mines of Dacia. Artemidorus, magister of the collegium Jovis Cermeni, notifies all concerned that the collegium is dissolved. When organized it had fifty-four members, but they were now reduced to only seventeen, and of these the majority had not appeared at the regular meetings nor paid their fees for many months. The few who were still faithful to the collegium decided therefore to put an end to it, and to give back to the contributors the little money still in the treasury. CIL. III, 924–927; Waltzing, II, p. 338; III, pp. 86–87.
page 275 note 70 Waltzing, I, pp. 148, 215. List of collegia domestica: III, pp. 342 ft. Also articles in De Ruggero, Dizionario, and Pauly-Wissowa.
page 275 note 71 For instance, “collegium quod est in domu Sergiae L. f. Paulinae” (CIL. VI, 10264); and for the imperial household: “collegium cocorum Augusti quod est in Palatio” (CIL. VI, 7458), and “collegium numinis dominorum quod est sub templo divi Claudii” (VI, 10251a). This was a college of cultores of imperial divi, but being within the imperial household participated in the character of collegium domesticum.
page 276 note 72 Friedländer, I, pp. 210–212.
page 276 note 73 F. Cumont, ‘Astrologues Romains et Byzantins,’ in Mélanges de l'École française de Rome, XVIII, 1918–19, pp. 33 ff. The importance of astrology in the Roman world and its religious connections have been thoroughly illustrated by Cumont, Astrology and Religion among the Greeks and the Romans, 1912; and ‘Fatalisme astral et religions antiques,’ Rev. d'hist. et de litt. relig., 1912, pp. 513 ff.; by Fr. Boll, Sternglaube und Sterndeutung, 2nd ed., 1918, and Die Astrologie bei den Romem; and by Turchi, Storia delle Religioni, 2nd ed., 1922, pp. 567–568.
page 277 note 74 See above p. 193 note 15, p. 194 note 16.
page 277 note 75 See the study of Cicero's familia urbana in Park, The Plebs, pp. 58 ff.
page 277 note 76 Friedländer, I, pp. 173 ff. In the list of prices and salaries fixed by Diocletian a teacher, according to the calculation in modern money made by L. Homo, p. 139, received five francs a month from each pupil, while a shoemaker received three francs for a pair of shoes and the customer had to supply the leather and all the material needed.
page 277 note 77 See my article, ‘The Church of Rome at the End of the Second Century,’ pp. 227 ff.
page 278 note 78 Friedländer, I, p. 178; Juvenal 3, 69 ff.; Lucian, De mere. cond. 38.
page 278 note 79 Friedländer, I, pp. 179 ff.
page 278 note 80 Dio Chrys., Oratio xxxii. 10; Rostovtzeff, SEHRE, pp. 109 ff.
page 279 note 81 Ibid., p. 110.
page 279 note 82 Ibid., p. 113.
page 282 note 1 See on this point the suggestive presentation of W. Warde Fowler, The Religious Experience of the Roman People, pp. 223 ff. As Fowler puts it, “the State religion had mainly a disciplinary influence but it hypnotized the religious instinct.”
page 283 note 2 On the origin and character of the imperial cult there is a large bibliography. See the list given by Dom Leclercq in his article ‘Empereurs’ in the Dictionnaire d'archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie, IV, 2,1921, col. 2765. Toutain in his suggestive study (Les Cultes païens dans l'Empire romain, I. Les Cultes officiels, Paris, 1907) draws the following conclusion from the epigraphic sources on the cult of the emperors in the capital: “À Rome même il ne semble pas que le culte des empereurs ait été jamais populaire. L'empereur, au moins pendant les premiers siècles de l'empire, était trop proche pour qu'on le traita comme un dieu. Les devotions et les hommages vraiment religieux s'addressaient de préférence au maltre du Capitole, au chef de la Triade dont le sanctuaire dominait d'un côté le Forum et le Palatin, de l'autre le Champ de Mars” (p. 210).
page 283 note 3 We summarize here the result reached by Toutain. F. Cumont (Revue de l'histoire des religions, 1912, pp. 125–129), reviewing Toutain's book, remarked that the latter's conclusions, based on the analysis of the epigraphic material, cannot be considered as having the value of conclusive historical evidence, because epigraphic evidence is by its very nature limited and casual, and therefore does not justify conclusions of a general character. Arguments based on the silence of the inscriptions, of which only a small proportion have reached us, would be very weak evidence if not supported by other, more positive arguments. Cumont's remark is undoubtedly well founded. But in Toutain's case it is fair to observe that the epigraphic material on which he has based his conclusions is not limited to few and doubtful inscriptions; on the contrary it is very large and covers a long period of time as well as a great part of the Roman provinces. The numerical importance and the wide range of time and space give it high value as a documentary source. Moreover, and this point seems to me very important, the analysis of the inscriptions shows that certain significant facts, as for instance the more intensive expansion of certain cults in certain regions and in certain periods rather than in other regions or periods, and their large diffusion among certain classes of the population rather than among others, are observed in an almost uniform way in the various groups of inscriptions. This uniformity and identity of character in the development, as shown by inscriptions which cover such a large ground, gives them a more than casual significance and confers upon the whoje epigraphic documentation an historical value which it would be unfair to discard. Finally it may be remarked that the results of Toutain's epigraphical survey are in a general way in accord with the conclusions derived from other sources, and offer an altogether satisfactory explanation of the process of expansion of the oriental cults in the west as well as of their decay and final extinction. It seems to me that they may be regarded in general as well founded.
page 284 note 4 The official cult of Rome and the emperors was maintained by the provincial and municipal administrations. In the provinces it was under the jurisdiction of the σὐνοδος, or provincial council, by which the ἀρχιερεὐς or sacerdos or flamen provincialis was elected; in the municipia and coloniae it was controlled by the senate or council of the city, which elected the flamen municipalis. In the eastern provinces, where the cult received its first impulse, it had not only an official but also a popular character, since it was rooted in the ancient tradition of those nations (L. Bréhier, La conception du pouvoir impérial en Orient pendant Ies trois premiers siècles de l'Ére chrétienne, Revue Historique, 1907, pp. 75–80). But in the western provinces it remained a strictly official cult. On the provincial assemblies and their religious functions, see the old but still very valuable book of Giraud, Les Assemblées provinciales dans l'empire Romain, 1887, based on the studies of Marquardt, ‘De Conciliis et sacerdotibus provincialibus,’ Ephem. Epigr., I, pp. 200–214, and Mommsen, Röm. Gesch., V. For additions see W. T. Arnold, Roman Provincial Administration, 3rd ed., 1914, and E. G. Hardy, Studies in Roman History, London, 1906, especially ch. XIII, pp. 236–238; E. Beurlier, Essai sur le culte rendu aux Empereurs romains, 1891; and the brief but suggestive presentation of the nature and value of the cult of the emperors in G. F. Moore, History of Religions, I, pp. 569–576.
page 284 note 5 Toutain summarizes as follows his conclusions about the cult of the Capitoline Triad in the western provinces: “Ce qui resulte pour nous des documents que nous avons cités, c'est que le culte de la Triade capitoline recruta peu d'adeptes dans la société provinciate proprement dite; les fidèles de ces divinités étaient peut-être nés dans telle ou telle province, mais lew carrière officielle ou leur vie militaire les en avait éloignés; dans les provinces où nous trouvons des traces de leur dévotion, ils étaient presque toujours des étrangers, des immigrés” (I, p. 193).
page 285 note 6 The inscriptions relative to the cult of the emperors in the western provinces are of different origins. Some belong to provinces or municipia, others to associations, and a few to individuals. From those of the first class it appears that the sacerdotes or flamines of the provinces were members of the provincial aristocracy, generally Roman citizens, often knights and men who had gone through the cursus honorum of provincial administration (omnibus honoribus in republica sua functi). They were men altogether romanized in habits and mental attitude, and the priesthood of the imperial cult was the highest goal of their ambition, since it gave them the right to preside over the provincial assembly and many other privileges (Toutain, I, pp. 128–152). The sacerdotes or flamines municipales appear also to have been members of the municipal bourgeoisie: “En grande majorité ils étaient nés et avaient toujours vécu dans la ville où ils exercèrent le sacerdoce du culte impérial, et ce sacerdoce fut pour eux l’honneur suprème comme le couronnement de leur carrière publique” (Toutain, 1, p. 160). Many of them were veteran soldiers and petty officers who at the end of their military career had settled in their native town or in a provincial city (p. 163).
The inscriptions dedicated by associations are mostly from the Augustales, whose special duty was the care of the imperial cult. These associations appear to consist of freedmen and plebeians who were almost entirely immigrants from the eastern provinces. Among the Seviri and Augustales mentioned in inscriptions, the proportion of Greek and oriental names is very high. Toutain has gathered a list containing one hundred and thirty-six Greek names and many others with the significant surnames of Asiaticus, Syrus, Bithynitis, Lemnaeus, and the like (I, pp. 170–174). It is known that merchants and freedmen of Greek and oriental origin were very numerous in Tarragonensis, Gallia Narbonensis, Dalmatia, and Dacia, and it is from those provinces that most of the inscriptions of Augustales come. While the priests of the provincial and municipal cults belonged to the local aristocracy dignified by Roman citizenship, the Augustales were foreigners. The native plebeian population is entirely absent.
The inscriptions dedicated by private individuals show great variation in the different provinces. In Africa they contain only names of municipal magistrates and officers of the imperial administration or the army. In Spain they are few, and contain mostly names of Greek freedmen. In Britain, where the Augustales left no trace at all, the imperial cult found devotees only among the soldiers of the permanent camps or of the military posts scattered along the frontiers. They were not even Roman citizens, since they belonged to the auxiliary troops recruited in various countries. It is only in Gaul that numbers of natives are found mentioned in these inscriptions, but it must be noticed that in these cases the imperial divinity is never invoked alone but is always accompanied either by Jupiter O. M. or, more often, by a Gallic deity. This shows that the cult of the emperor among the natives of Gaul was accepted only in part and as a complement of the cult of local deities (Toutain, I, pp. 175–179). As a whole it appears that the cult of the emperor in the western provinces had played very little if any part in the religious life of the native population.
page 286 note 7 Cumont's generalization (Or. Rel., p. 21) that the aboriginal religions of Gaul, Spain, and part of Africa perished and disappeared, is probably too sweeping. The conclusions of Toutain (I, pp. 464–469), even if we attach but a limited value to the epigraphic evidence, show the persistence of the local deities, though often under Roman names. The inscription found in Rome in the ruins of the praetorian camp on the Esquiline is very significant. In it the Gauls of the body-guard call Jupiter, Apollo, Mercurius, Mars, Diana, and Hercules “dii sacri patrienses ex provincia Belgica” (Année épigr., 1894, no. 18).
page 286 note 8 On this point also the generalizations of Cumont seem not to be warranted by the epigraphic evidence (Toutain, II, Les Cultes Orientaux, 1911).
page 286 note 9 If we mark on a map of the western provinces the places where the oriental cults have left unmistakable traces, we find that they are widely scattered and often at great distances apart. These cults appear stronger in the centres at which there were groups of foreigners of eastern origin, or military garrisons, or which were the seat of sectional administration with the residence of the imperial agents and procurators (Toutain, II, p. 34, also Clifford H. Moore, ‘Oriental Cults in Britain,’ Harvard Classical Studies, XI, pp. 47–60; and ‘Oriental Cults in the Gauls and in Germany,’ Transactions American Philological Assoc, XXXVIII, 1908, pp. 109–150). The Syrian cults were practised almost exclusively by soldiers of legions which had formerly been stationed in Syria or were recruited there; such was the case with the cult of Jupiter Dolichenus in Magnae by the Vallum Hadriani in Britain, which was due to the presence of the Cohors I Hamianorum (CIL. VII, 758 and 753). This cult left traces in Pannonia, Moesia, and Dacia, and in the camp of Lambesis in Africa, all of these being places where cohorts recruited in Syria or nearby regions were to be found in the garrisons (Domaszewski, Die Religion des römischen Heeres, 1895, pp. 57–66). The Phrygian cult of Attis was more common in the seaports and the cities along the great roads of communication. In the inscriptions concerning this cult very few imperial officers or soldiers are mentioned, and still fewer Roman citizens. The municipia or colonies often take part in this cult officially, as well as some native individuals; but most of the devotees are foreigners of eastern origin. In Africa more than elsewhere the bourgeoisie of the municipia took a lively Interest in this cult. That was due primarily to the great similarity between the Phrygian Magna Mater and the Phoenician Tanit, who under the empire had become the Virgo Coelestis of Carthage (Graillot, ‘Les dieux tout-puissants Cybèle et Attis et leur culte dans l'Afrique du Nord,’ Revue Archéologique, I, 1904, pp. 334 ff.). In Gaul, according to Toutain (II, pp. 118–119), the popularity of this cult was due mainly to the fact that it assumed there the character of an agricultural religion. Finally, the cult of Mithras, as is well known since the exhaustive studies of Cumont, owed its diffusion in the western provinces mainly to the army. Freedmen and slaves had also an important part in the propaganda, but from the inscriptions it appears that most of them were employees of the procurators in the imperial administration and often they were of Greek or oriental origin.
page 287 note 10 The government officials in the provinces followed the example of their master. The greater part of the inscriptions found in the provinces relating to the cult of the Egyptian gods belong to the period of the Antonines (Toutain, II, pp. 31–32); those relating to the Syrian cults begin to appear in the period of the Flavii, and become numerous under the Severi (Toutain, II, pp. 68–70), only to disappear completely about the end of the third century; those relating to Mithras make their first appearance under Commodus but belong mostly to the later period of the tetrarchia (ib., p. 159).
page 287 note 11 The same is true of the propaganda of the religious syncretism which took form especially under Alexander Severus. The influence of the imperial court in the diffusion of syncretism among the western provincials is undeniable; but it was represented there only by imperial functionaries. “L'absence à peu près complète de noms indigènes puniques ou libiques en Afrique, ibères ou celtibères en Espagne, celtiques en Gaule, sur les dédicaces et les ex-voto, démontre par une preuve sans doute négative, mais cependant opérante, que les anciennes populations n'ont pas compris ou n'ont pas adopts cette forme nouvelle, plus philosophique peut-être que vraiment religieuse, da vieux paganisme gréco-romain” (Toutain, II, p. 257).
page 288 note 12 The chapter, ‘Les religions étrangères,’ in G. Boissier, La religion Romaine d'Auguste aux Antonins, 6th ed., 1906, I, pp. 324–403, is still very valuable and full of suggestion.
page 289 note 13 Cicero, Pro Balbo, 24, 55. H. Graillot, Le Culte de Cybèle mère des dieux à Borne et dans l’Empire Romain, Paris, 1912, pp. 25–69; and the suggestive discussion of W. W. Fowler, Religious Experience, pp. 314 ff. Also Wissowa, Religion u. Kultus der Römer, 1912, pp. 63, 317 ff.
page 289 note 14 The introduction of the cult was the climax of a series of measures taken by the Senate to calm the agitation and fear of the people during Hannibal's invasion of Italy. It seems that the city had fallen prey to a religious hysteria, especially affecting women, among whom the war and the battle of Cannae had made many widows. Men's minds were ‘moti in religionem’ (Livy xxi. 62), and they reported many prodigia which increased the fear and panic of the terrified city. It was at that time that the lectisternia, that old Roman ceremonial practice, took new Greek forms, and that couples of Greek and Gallic slaves were sacrificed and the people turned more and more to strange new religious practices. This period, as Wissowa says, marks a turning-point in the history of Roman religion (Religion and Kultus, p. 356). How and why the goddess of Pessinus was chosen is difficult to say (Fowler, pp. 318 ff.). Probably the cult was already known, having been introduced by Asiatic slaves or merchants, and in this emergency was resorted to by the people. If the passage of Livy (xxv. 1) on the exotic religion which had invaded the city to the point that sacrifices with foreign rites were offered even in the Forum and on the Capitol refers to the cult of the Magna Mater, then it can not be denied that the adoption by the Senate was not only the result of the political calculations of the aristocracy (Pettazzoni, I Misteri, Bologna, 1924, p. 121), but also a concession made to the claims of the populace. Perhaps it is right to conclude with Graillot that “en cette affaire la religion secondait admirablement la politique,” and that the adoption of the Magna Mater, while satisfying the people, was at the same time a byproduct of the political alliance between Rome and Pergamum (p. 50).
page 290 note 15 What was thought of all the Phrygian servants of the Magna Mater in Rome even by the populace is clearly suggested by Plautus (Truculentus, ii. 7, 48), by the anecdote of the priest from Pessinus who came to Rome wearing a diadem and was mobbed by the populace in the Forum (Diod. xxxvi. 6; Cumont, Oriental Religions, p. 52), and by what is related by Valerius Maximus (vii. 7, 6). A fragment of Varro's Saturae Menippeae (Petronii saturae, etc. rec. F. Buecheler, ed. 6, cur. G. Heraeus, Berlin, 1922, n. 33–35, p. 198) tells as a joke of passing near the temple and surprising the Galli in the performance of their rites.
page 290 note 16 xxix. 8.
page 291 note 17 Ibid., p. 347. Fowler comments thus on the action of the Senate: “The question was treated as a matter of policy both in Rome and Italy; the guilty were sought out and punished as conspirators against the State, and a precedent of tremendous force was hereby established for all future dealings with externa superstitio, which held good even to the last struggle with Christianity” (p. 348).
page 291 note 18 “An tu populum Romanum esse putas ilium qui constat ex iis qui mercede conducuntur…? Multitudinem hominum ex servis, ex conductis, ex facinorosis, ex egentibus congregatam” (De domo sua, 33, 89). “Greeks and Jews,” says Mommsen, “freedmen and slaves, were in public meetings the most assiduous attendants and the most disturbing agitators. When a vote was taken, those who according to Roman law had the right to vote were a small minority.” On the political activities of the collegia see Waltzing, Etudes sur les corporations prof., I, p. 171.
page 292 note 19 De har. resp. 11 ff.
page 292 note 20 It seems that the members of the collegia Isiaca even under the empire, when the legislation against every kind of political activity on the part of the associations was very severely enforced, could not refrain from using their religious affiliation for political and especially electoral purposes. In Pompeii, among the inscriptions of electoral recommendations scratched on the walls, we find the following: “Cn. Helvium Sabinum aed <ilem> Isiaci universi rog <ant>,” CIL. IV, 787; “Cuspium Pausara aed <ilem> Popidius Natalis cliens cum Isiacis rog <at>, CIL. IV, 1011. They probably belong to Nero's time.
page 292 note 21 CIL. VI, 2247. This inscription, which is certainly prior to the demolition of the altar of Isis on the Capitol, mentions many freedmen of aristocratic Roman families, especially of the Caecilii, and among them one ‘sacerdos Isidis Capitolinae.’ A survey of the Roman inscriptions relating to the cult of Isis and Serapis was made by A. Parisotti, Ricerche sulT introduzione e sullo sviluppo del culto d'Iside e di Serapide in Roma e nelle provincie dell’ impero in relazione all’ epigrafia (Studi e Documenti di Storia e Diritto), Rome, 1888, pp. 43–55. CIL. VI, 2246, mentions one Usia Prima, daughter of Rabirius Postumus Hermodorus and priestess of Isis. The father was undoubtedly a freedman of Rabirius Postumus, the Roman knight who for a long period was procurator for the king of Egypt and later in Rome was indicted for embezzlement and defended by Cicero. In Rome he had surrounded himself by servants and freedmen brought from Egypt, who were, as it seems, fervent devotees of Isis. See also Lumbroso, Aneddoti di archeologia alessandrina, p. 14, and Lafaye, p. 48. Another priest of Isis Capitolina is mentioned in CIL. VI, 2248.
page 293 note 22 Lafaye remarks in regard to them: “Elles poursuivaient l'originalité en matière de religion comme leurs amants en matière de poésie” (p. 189).
page 293 note 23 Dio Cassius, liii.
page 293 note 24 Suetonius, Augustus 93.
page 293 note 25 The well-known anecdote of the Roman lady told by Josephus (Bello Jud. xviii. 3) is rather difficult to believe. See Lafaye, pp. 53–55. The statement of Tacitus (Annales, ii. 85) and the archaeological discoveries in Sardinia leave no doubt that among the exiles were Isiacs and not merely Jews, as suggested by Suetonius (Tiberius 36).
page 293 note 26 CIL. VI, 2279 and Kaibel, Epigr. Gr., n. 547. That these two inscriptions belong to the first century after Christ seems certain to Lafaye (p. 57), but is doubted by others.
page 294 note 27 Notizie degli Scavi, 1879, pp. 162 ff.
page 294 note 28 CIL. I, p. 406. On Caligula see Suetonius, Caius 57.
page 295 note 29 Ant. Rom. ii. 19.
page 295 note 30 Hirschfeld, Die kaiserlichen Verwaltungsbeamten bis auf Diocletian, 2nd ed. 1905, pp. 471 ff. H. I. Bell, Jews and Christians in Egypt, 1924, Introduction to the newly discovered letter of Claudius to the Alexandrines, pp. 21 ff. Rostovtzeff, SEHRE, pp. 78 ff.
page 295 note 31 The concession of citizenship en masse to entire populations began with Claudius (Tac. Ann. xi. 24, and the text of Claudius’ speech to the Senate for the citizenship to the Aedui in the bronze tablet of Lyons, A. Allmer, Musée de Lyon, n. 12, pp. 58–108). On the grant of the Jewish privileges see below. The return of Claudius to Caesar's policy and hellenistic monarchy affirmed by Kornemann (‘Zur Geschichte der antiken Herrscherculte,’ in Klio, 1, pp. 50–146) is denied by Bell (p. 22). The truth is, as Rostovtzeff remarks, that under Caius and Claudius, ‘the structure of the Roman empire came more and more to resemble that of the Hellenistic monarchies” (p. 83), but at the same time there were many fundamental differences which still remained.
page 295 note 32 Hirschfeld, pp. 472 ff.; Rostovtzeff, pp. 78ff.
page 296 note 33 For instance, CIL. VI, 496, “Onesimus Olympias Livia Briseis Aug(usti) Lib(erti) Sac(erdotes) M(atris) D(eum) M(agnae) I(daeae).”
page 296 note 34 This change of title is commonly attributed to the reform of Claudius, but it seems more probable that it took place under Augustus, when freedmen of his own house were put at the head of the cult. Graillot, p. 114. It seems also that Augustus increased the number of the priests of the Magna Mater. The texts concerning the mysteries are collected by N. Turchi, Fontes Historiae Mysteriorum Aevi Hellenistici, Rome, 1923, pp. 217 ff.
page 296 note 35 Ramsay, Historical Geography of Asia Minor, 1890, pp. 172 ff.; Chapot, Province romaine d'Asie, 1904, pp. 373–381; Graillot, pp. 115 ff.
page 297 note 36 As for instance Halotus, ‘praegustator’ of the imperial table, mentioned by Suetonius, and Posides, whom Claudius trusted above all others (Suet., Claudius, 28; Tacitus, Ann. xi. 15).
page 297 note 37 The large group of Phrygians in the capital, especially slaves, found their cult already in existence there, and among them were recruited the “Galli fanatici” of whom Livy speaks (xxxvii. 9, 9). Toward the year 100 B.C. we find it mentioned that a “servus Servilii Caepionis Matri Idaeae se praecidit et trans mare exportatus est.” In the year 77 B.C. a freedman of the house of the Genucii was gallus of the cult (Val. Max. vii. 7, 6). Thus the ascent of the Phrygian cult was from the lowest social strata. Pettazzoni, I Misteri, p. 124.
page 298 note 38 No trace of prohibition is found after Claudius. The sacerdos Phrygius maximus (CIL. VI, 502, 2257) officially assumes even the ancient title of Attis (“Attis populi Romani,” CIL. VI, 2183).
page 298 note 39 The appointment of the ordinary priests of the cult in the municipia was made by the municipal senate, but needed the confirmation of the quindecemviri (CIL. X, 3698, concerning the priest of Cuma; see Turchi, Le Religioni misteriosofiche, 1923, p. 137). “Rome remplaçait Pessinonte comme capital de la religion phrygienne. À vrai dire, le rôle historique de Pessinonte est terminé. La dignité des Attis n’est plus qu’un bénéfice ecclésiastique, réparti entre les membres d’un sacré collège. Les XVvirs, par une conséquence imprévues, mais logique, de leurs attributions, se sont substitués aux Attis comme chefs suprêmes de cette religion. Mais, à Pessinonte, ces chefs étaient prêtres encore plus que rois et siégeaient dans un temple. À Rome, ils sont fonctionnaires encore plus que prêtres et siègent dans les bureaux d’une administration impériale” (Graillot.p. 144).
page 299 note 40 Oriental Religions, p. 60. The influence of Rome in the spread of the Phrygian religion is attested by the fact that in various western cities the place of the temple of the cult used for the initiation rites was called Vaticanus in imitation of the famous temple on the mons Vaticanus in Rome, in the same way that the ‘capitolia’ of the provinces derived their name from the Roman Capitolium. Inscription of Lyons of 160 A.D., CIL. XIII, 1751: for Moguntia, see Turchi, Fontes, p. 152. Frazer, Attis and Osiris, chap. I, 7.
page 299 note 41 There has been much discussion of this double character of the dendrophori, but the opinion formerly accepted that two different collegia existed under that name, one of which was a religious fraternity for the cult of the Magna Mater and the other a professional collegium, has been discarded as a result of the conclusions reached by Waltzing, who has demonstrated (I, pp. 240–255) the existence of dendrophoriae in sixty-five cities scattered in various provinces of the empire, all of them appearing with the double character of religious and professional associations. The oldest document in which the dendrophori are mentioned belongs to the year 79 A.D. (CIL. X, 7, inscription of Regium Julium); but in Rome the earliest mention is found for the year 97 A.D. (CIL. VI, 642) if the reconstruction of the fragmentary inscription proposed by Mommsen is to be accepted (Visconti, Ann. lstit. Corr. Archeologica, 1860, p. 449). Wissowa, in accordance with his general theory, rejects the proposed interpretations of both inscriptions, and assigns the organization of the dendrophoriae to the end of the second century (Religion und Kultus, p. 322), but he has not found many followers. See Aurigemma, art. ‘Dendrophori’ in De Ruggero, Dizion. Epigr., II, 2, 1671–1704. Among the Metroac collegia, that of the ‘sodales ballatores Cybelae’ (CIL. VI, 2265) is to be noticed. It seems that they were attached to the temple of the Magna Mater, and were ‘galli’ forming a special college. A schola of dendrophori was on the Coelian next to the Basilica Hilariana; Graillot, p. 388.
page 300 note 42 On the origin of the taurobolium and the criobolium of the religion of Cybele, see the long discussion of Graillot, pp. 150 ff., and Cumont, pp. 66 ff. The only emperor who submitted to this rite was Elagabalus, who “Matris deum sacra accepit et tauroboliatus est” (Lampridius, Elag. 7, 1), and the first inscription referring to it is as late as 295 A.D. (CIL. VI, 509). It seems that originally the rite was celebrated as a propitiatory offering for the benefit of individuals or of a community, but in late documents it appears as a rite of a strictly personal character and having a deep mystic value. Which was the original form is doubtful. Pettazzoni's opinion (p. 134) that the taurobolium was first a mystical rite celebrated in the secret worship of the temple, and only later, when the worship became public, assumed its civic character, is plausible, but, as Graillot remarks (p. 164), it is more probable that in the Phrygian groups of Rome whose cult was controlled by imperial freedmen ‘taurobolia pro salute principis’ were offered even before the official institution of this rite. During the last period of the reign of Antoninus Pius taurobolia for the emperor were common in the provinces and the Vaticanus was already considered as the sacred hill of the Metroac cult.
page 300 note 43 The genuine Roman tradition had only scorn for the barbaric features of the cult. The language of Juvenal (9, 23 ff.) and of such representatives of the hellenistic spirit as Lucian and Plutarch shows that Attis and his mysteries had no attraction for people of culture and refinement. Even in the second century the dendrophoriae were called festivals of slaves by Artemidoros (Oneirocritica ii. 37). The priesthood continued to be recruited from the liberti of the imperial house under Claudius and long afterwards (CIL. VI, 2260; Waltzing, III, n. 1377; Graillot, pp. 142 ff.).
page 301 note 44 Graillot, pp. 151 ff.
page 301 note 45 Cumont, p. 59. For the part played by women in this cult see also Graillot, pp. 146 ff.
page 301 note 46 The interchange of influence between the various foreign cults and that of the Phrygian goddess is discussed in detail by Cumont, pp. 60 ff.
page 301 note 47 There is a whole group of inscriptions (CIL. VI, 497–513), all belonging to the fourth century, in which ‘clarissimi viri’ and ‘clarissimae feminae’ appear as holders of the highest places in the cult and among the ‘tauroboliati.’ Pettazzoni remarks: “The highest and most conservative class became the representatives of pagan culture and tradition, and as such the stronghold which opposed the most obstinate resistance to the triumph of Christianity and kept alive the pagan spirit, which was to be found only in the mysteries” (p. 137).
page 301 note 48 Cumont, p. 70.
page 302 note 49 For the hellenization of the cult see Cumont, pp. 77 ff., and bibliography in notes, pp. 228 ff.; also G. Wissowa, Beligion und Kultus, 2nd ed., 1912, pp. 351 ff. In general the temple of the Campus Martius is attributed to Caligula, but it seems that an Isiae shrine was in existence there in Caesar's time (Parisotti, p. 46). The texts concerning the cults of Isis and Serapis, in N. Turchi, Fontes Historiae Mysteriorum Aevi Hellenistici, Rome, 1923, pp. 137 ff.
page 302 note 50 Domitian, who during the civil war saved his life by disguising himself as a priest of Isis, when he became emperor rebuilt with new splendor the Iseum of the Campus Martius after it had been destroyed by fire. Suet., Domitian 1; Lafaye, pp. 200–204.
page 302 note 51 CIL. XIV, 960. Lafaye, p. 225. Lampridius (Hist. Aug., Comm. 9) says that Commodus “practised the worship of Isis and even went so far as to shave his head and carry a statue of Anubis…. He forced the devotees of Isis to beat their breasts with pine-cones to the point of death. While he was carrying about the statue of Anubis he used to smite the heads of the devotees of Isis with the face of the statue.” The truth of this statement is subject to caution, but if it can be accepted, then the Isiac fervor of Commodus was a mere affectation and a joke. His large tolerance toward religions, Christianity not excepted, may have been the result not of mere personal indifference but also of political calculation.
page 303 note 52 CIL. VI, 354. Spartianus, Caracalla 9–10; Lafaye, p. 62, n. 3.
page 303 note 53 Toutain, II, pp. 17 ff. Drexler, Der Kultus der aegyptischen Gottheiten in den Donauländern (Mythologische Beiträge, I), Leipzig, 1890.
page 303 note 54 Cumont, p. 85, and p. 232 n. 31.
page 303 note 55 Ibid., pp. 87 ff.; “The religion of Isis did not gain a hold on the soul by its dogmatism. Owing to its extreme flexibility this religion was easily adapted to the various centres to which it was transferred, and it enjoyed the valuable advantage of being always in perfect harmony with the prevailing philosophy” (p. 88).
page 304 note 56 Porphyry, De abst. 4, 6, in Eusebius, Praeparatio Evang. iii. 4; v. 10; Bull, de corr. hell. 1877, pp. 123–127; Turchi, Fontes, pp. 168 ff. n. 223; Lafaye, pp. 158 ff.
page 304 note 57 M. Bang, ‘Die Beamten A Libellis,’ in Friedländer, IV, p. 38.
page 304 note 58 Juv. 1, 26–27, “pars Niliacae plebis … verna Canopi”; also 4, 1–33, 106–109. Martial, vii. 99; viii. 40.
page 304 note 59 In the list of imperial officers ‘A Rationibus,’ ‘A Libellis,’ ‘Ab Epistulis’ drawn up by Bang (Friedländer, IV, pp. 26 ff.), mostly freedmen of the imperial house, names with Egyptian flavor are not lacking, but the names alone, especially in the case of freedmen, are not sufficient evidence of nationality.
page 305 note 60 The same thing is found at Ostia and Portus, where the Isiacs were numerous. See, for instance, the inscription of Flavius Moschilus (CIL. XIV, 352), that of Aurelius Eron (CIG. 5973), and that of the ἐπιμελετὴς παντὸς τοῦ Ἀλεξανδρίνου στόλου (CIG. XIV, 917). Parisotti, p. 50.
page 305 note 61 In the narrative of Apuleius the priest gives his instructions to Lucius from a book written in hieroglyphics, Met. xi. 22.
page 305 note 62 CIG. 5898, of the year 146 A.D.
page 305 note 63 Waltzing, I, p. 205. Among the small number of inscriptions of cultores we find a “sodalicium vernarum Isidis.”
page 306 note 64 Cumont, pp. 86 ff. For the part played by women in the priesthood and worship not only of Isis but of all other foreign deities and cults, see Boissier, I, pp. 359 ff.
page 306 note 65 That the Octavius belongs to the end of the second century is now the prevalent opinion, although the Tertullian-Minucius question is periodically revived. F. Ramorino, L’Apologetico di Tertulliano e l'Ottavio di Minucio, Atti d. Cong. scienze stor. Roma, 1903, pp. 143–178; Waltzing, Studia Minuciana, pp. 53–70 and his edition of the Octavius (Bruges, 1909, pp. xxii–xxxv); Schanz, III, 2, pp. 274 ff.
page 306 note 66 c. 6.
page 306 note 67 c. 21.
page 307 note 68 c. 3.
page 307 note 69 “Aut incerta nobis veritas occultatur et premitur aut, quod magis credendum est, variis et lubricis casibus soluta legibus fortuna dominatur” (c. 5).
page 307 note 70 Lafaye, p. 166.
page 308 note 71 Ibid., pp. 86 ff.: “Domitian transferred from the valley of the Nile sphinxes, cynocephali, and obelisks of black or pink granite bearing borders of hieroglyphics of Amasis, Nectanebos, or even Rameses II. Hadrian caused the luxuries of Canopus to be reproduced in his villa at Tibur to enable him to celebrate his voluptuous feasts under the friendly eyes of Serapis. He extolled the merits of the deified Antinous in inscriptions couched in the ancient language of the Pharaohs, and set the fashion of statues hewn out of black basalt in the Egyptian style. Those esthetic manifestations probably corresponded to religious prejudices.”
page 308 note 72 Metamorph. xi. 26.
page 309 note 73 CIG. XIV, 1085; and IGRR. I, 136.
page 309 note 74 ἐπιστάτῃ τoῦ μoυσείoυ καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν ἐν Ῥώμῃ βιβλιoθηκῶν Ῥωμαικῶν τε καὶ Ἑλληνικῶν καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς παιδείας Ἁδριανoῦ τoῦ αὐτοκράτορος καὶ ἐπιστoλεῖ τoῦ αὐτoῦ αὐτoκράτoρoς … ἀρχιερεῖ Ἀλεξανδρείας καὶ Aἰγύπτoυ πάσης. M. Bang in Friedländer, IV, p. 40. There is little doubt that L. J. Vestinus belonged to the Roman aristocracy. An ancestor of his of the same name born in Vienne (Gaul) and member of the equestrian order, appears among the “friends” of the Emperor Claudius (CIL. XIII, 1668). Later, under Nero (IGRR. I, 1374, 1379), he was prefect of Egypt after T. C. Balbillus (the astrologer? see above, p. 276 and note 73). This connection of the family with Egypt from the middle of the first century is significant (M. Bang, ‘Die Freunde und Begleiter der Kaiser,’ in Friedländer, IV, p. 65).
page 310 note 75 Or. Rel., p. 103. In this treatment of the Syrian religions I have largely drawn from the chapter on Syria of this book.
page 310 note 76 Lucian, Lucius 53 ff.; Apuleius, Metam. viii. 24 ff. See Cumont, p. 241, note 1. Turchi, Fontes, pp. 261 ff., and texts concerning the Dea Suria, pp. 265 ff.
page 311 note 77 The Maiuma festival was celebrated with great pomp at Ostia (Lydus, De mensibus, ed. Wünsch, pp. 133 ff., and Clermont-Ganneau, Rec. d’archéologie orientale, IV, pp. 339 ff.), where also it seems that there was a temple of Marnas, or Marneum (CIG. 5892).
page 311 note 78 The cult of Adonis was never officially practised in Rome and is scarcely represented by inscriptions of the western provinces. The “ambubaiarum collegia” mentioned by Horace (Sat. i. 2, 1) may have been connected with this cult if the etymology of the word from the Syriac ‘ambub,’ or ‘abub,’ ‘flute,’ or from Ἀβώβας (another name of Adonis) is sound (Petazzoni, I Misteri, p. 218).
page 312 note 79 CIL. X, 1576.
page 312 note 80 CIL. X, 1634, of 116 A.D. Also CIL. X, 1578, in which the “sacerdotes et lucophori” of the “tempuli Geremellensium” (dubious reading) dedicated to Jupiter Heliopolitanus mention that A. Tileodorus, son of the curator of the temple, offered some gifts to the shrine. The tablet is made “curante Acilio Secundo Trotomias.” Evidently this was a Syrian group having a statio and a shrine of the god. Dubois, Pouzzoles antique, p. 98.
page 313 note 81 CIL. X, 1579 mentions that a field with a ‘cisterna’ and ‘tabernis’ was the property of “qui in cultu corporis Heliopolitanorum sunt eruntque.” Whether it refers to the Berytenses of no. 1634, or to another group of Heliopolitans is doubtful. This and the inscription of the Geremellenses show that the Syrian spirit of sectionalism persisted even when they adopted the cult of the same god.
page 313 note 82 CIL. VI, 405. The inscription was engraved on red Phrygian marble.
page 313 note 83 Cumont, ibid., p. 113. On Jupiter Dolichenus see the articles of Cumont in Pauly-Wissowa, and of L. Cesano in De Ruggero, Diz. Epigr., which have utilized in part the monograph of Kan, De Iovis Dolicheni cultu, Groningen, 1901.
page 313 note 84 See above, p. 286 note 9.
page 313 note 85 CIL. VI, 406, found in the ruins of the temple of the god on the Aventine. Notice that the dedications are usually made ‘ex iussu IOMD’ (407), or ‘ex praecepto’ (405 and 408), or ‘iussu numinis’ (413). Leclercq (DACL. VII, cols. 1923 ff.) has called attention to a few Christian inscriptions (4th or 5th century?) in which the formula “iubente Christo” appears. Two of them concern dedications. Leclercq remarks that the formula is not to be taken in the literal sense ‘sous peine de croire que ces inscriptions ont été tracées sous l’ordre directement manifesté par le Sauveur. Nous sommes ici tout simplement en présence d’une formule qu’on rencontre, rarement d’ailleurs, à Rome et en Afrique, à une date déjà tardive.” Evidently the formula as used in dedications was not of Christian origin. In some cases it may have had no specific meaning other than an emphatic profession of confidence in the protection of the god and of adherence to the established traditions of his worship. But in other cases it refers to oracles or visions (Mommsen, Inscript. Neapol. 2602, “imperio deae” [Magna Mater]; Orelli, Inser. lat. sel. coll. 6033, “iussu ipsius”; Boissier, Rel. rom. I, p. 369), or to priestly predictions (Boissieu, Inscript. de Lyon, pp. 24 ff.). In an inscription of Africa a devotee dedicates an altar to Mercury by order of the Dea Coelestis of Carthage (Inscr. de l’Algérie, 3301), and in an inscription of Dacia a dedication is made to Jupiter Dolichenus by order of Esculapius. See also Apuleius, Metam. xi. 21, “iubente domina,” and the famous “instinctu divinitatis” of Constantine. Notice also the analogy between the concept of the phrase “quos elexit sibi servire” and the concept of the Christian clerus in the classical definition of Jerome “in sortem domini vocatus.”
page 314 note 86 CIL. VI, 405, 408, 409. The inscription 410 of the time of Commodus shows devotees of the god among the ‘tabellarii stationis marmorum,’ the deposits of imported marble along the Tiber under the Aventine, still called the ‘marmorata.’
page 314 note 87 Merlin, L’Aventin, pp. 374–375. Another Syrian college was attached to the temple on the Esquiline (CIL. VI, 414, 3698, 3699).
page 314 note 88 For instance, in 406 we find “L. Tettius Hermes kandidatus et patronus pro salute sua et coniugis et filiae et Aureli Lampadi fratris carissimi,” and among those ‘quos elexit IOMD sibi servire,’ “M. Aurelium Oenopionem Onesimum signum Acaci notarium, et Septimium Antonium signum Olympi patrem, kandidatos, patronos, fratres carissimos et collegas honestissimos Aurelium Magnesium, Aurelium Serapiacum, Antonium Marianum, M. Iulium Florentinum principes huius loci et Aurelium Severum veteranum curatorem templi et Aurelium Antiochum sacerdotem, Gemius Felix et Vibius Euthychianus lecticarii dei.” In no. 408 we find Fonteius Eutychius scriba, and among the names of simple devotees we notice T. Aelius Hilarus and T. Aelius Hermogenis (3698), T. Fl. Cosmus (411), M. Aur. Andronicus (413), Paezon Aquiliaes Basillaes actor cum Paezusa filia sua (366), P. Ael. Myron negotiator (367), and so forth. In Ostia the dedications are mostly by soldiers, and in Campania by mariners of the fleet at Misenum (e. g. CIL. XIV, 22, 210; X, 1577).
page 315 note 89 See above pp. 218–219.
page 315 note 90 Gaukler, pp. 11 ff. The name of Jupiter Maleciabrudis was on an altar found in the excavations. He was one of the long series of ‘malek’ or god-kings of Syria, being the malek of Jabruda in the same way that Jupiter Heliopolitanus was the malek of Heliopolis, and Malecbelos the malek par excellence of the Palmyrenians.
page 315 note 91 Such as Trebonius Sosianus (CIL. VI, 423), Terentia Nice cum Terentio Damarione filio sacerdote et Fonteio Onesimo filio (422), M. Oppius Acroecus et Sestius Agathangelos (Gaukler, p. 13). An analysis of the many inscriptions mentioning the Dea Suria and other deities under whose names Syrian gods at times disguised themselves, like Fortuna Primigenia (Gaukler, p. 252), Jupiter Hammon, whose head adorns one of the altars found in the excavations (ibid., pp. 15 ff.), Zeus Keraunios, to whom the same altar is dedicated by a woman, Artemis Ekaisidonia Cypria (ibid., p. 18), and even Silvanus, whose equivalence to Jupiter Hammon was established by Gaukler (Bull. arch. du Comité afric., 1899, pp. CLIX ff.), and also Jupiter Sabazios (Gaukler, p. 64; Cumont, pp. 22, 59, 64 ff.), leads also to the same results. The Syrian and oriental names constitute by far the majority of their devotees.
page 315 note 92 The office of ‘cistiber’ attributed to Gaionas on his funeral epitaph (CIL. VI, 32316) is not known from other sources. Probably it was a synonym of ‘cistifer,’ or bearer of the mystic ‘cista.’ See De Ruggero, Diz. Ep. under ‘Cistiber,’ and Gaukler, pp. 42 ff. The same Gaionas dedicated a granite column to Jupiter Heliopolitanus at Ostia (CIL. XIV, 24). See Cumont, ‘Gaionas le ‘δειπνοκρίτης,’ in Comptes-rendus, Acad. Inscr. et Belles-Lettres, 1917, pp. 275 ff.
page 316 note 93 Cumont, Or. Rel., pp. 128 ff.
page 316 note 94 The rather obscure epigram engraved on the slab around the faucet of the piscina is at least clear about the sacrificial use of the construction:
δεσμὸς ὅπως κρατερὸς θῦμα θεοῖς παρέχοι,
ὂν δὴ Γαιωνᾶς δειπνοκρίτης ἔθετο.
Gaukler (p. 40) interprets: ‘By the capture of the water in this receptacle Gaionas the deipnocrites has provided for the sacrifices to the gods.” Moreover beyond the entrance of the temenos there was a delubrum, a small square room with a little fountain for the ritual ablutions which every worshipper performed before entering the shrine. It was evidently the need of having at their disposal clean spring-water for their ablutions according to tradition that the worshippers of Jupiter selected and obtained the lucus Furrinae for their shrine (Gaukler, p. 249). On the chapel of the mysteries which was rebuilt when in the times of Julian the Apostate the third temple superseded the temple of Gaionas, see Gaukler, pp. 178 ff. The bronze image was found intact and the shells of the symbolic eggs were still lying around it. Gaukler thought it was an image for Atargatis (pp. 209 ff.), but closer inspection has shown that it is a juvenile figure resembling rather the Mithraic Kronos, an astral symbol such as Macrobius describes and as were to be seen in the temple of Hierapolis (Turchi, Le Religioni mist., pp. 168 ff.). It be longed to the third temple and to the solar religion revived by Julian the Apostate. Among the numerous fragments of pottery found in the ‘favissa’ of the temple of Gaionas, Gaukler collected many samples of glazed vases used in the ritual, and assigns to these an oriental origin, for they are glazed in dark blue with a metallic glare, a shade of color that the western potters could never reproduce and the secret of which was jealously kept by the eastern potteries of Syria, Egypt, and Cyprus. It would seem that the Syrian priests imported from the East even the sacred vases used in their liturgical performances.
page 317 note 95 Gaukler, pp. 86 ff.; 274 ff. Also Cumont, art. ‘Dea Syria,’ in Daremberg-Saglio-Pottier, Dict. d’Antiq., 1911. Undoubtedly this skull was put there in the consecration of the third temple, but there is no doubt that, following the ancient tradition, a similar sacrifice was offered at the consecration of the temple of Gaionas.
page 317 note 96 Inhumation within a temple was a thing unheard of in pagan Rome. The lack of inscriptions excludes the suggestion that these were tombs of prominent devotees of the god who wished to be buried near their protector deity. The third temple of the fourth century lasted only a few months, and so large a number of sacrifices can not be attributed to so short a space of time. In spite of the fact that the Romans of the imperial period objected to human sacrifices, there is no doubt that ritual murders took place nowand then even by order of emperors, especially in connection with magical practices. But the laws, the Senate, and many emperors took a firm stand against such atrocities. The penalty for those who indulged in such practice was to be thrown ‘ad bestias,’ or, if ‘honestiores,’ to be beheaded (Mommsen, Strafrecht, pp. 639 ff., and R. Wünsch, art. ‘Human sacrifices,’ in Hastings, Encyc. of Religion and Ethics, VI, p. 861).
page 318 note 97 The god Elagabalus is mentioned in only three Roman inscriptions (CIL. VI, 708. 2269, 2270), all concerning a certain Iulius Balbillus “sacerdos Solis Elagabali,” to whom Eutyches lib. Aug. “officinator a statuis” dedicated a memorial. On the cult of Elagabalus and the Roman feeling about it, see Réville, La religion à Rome sous les Sévères, 1886, pp. 254 ff. The revolting debaucheries of the cult are vividly described by the Roman historians. However, as Cumont remarks (p. 214), there is some doubt whether they, “being hostile to that foreigner who haughtily favored the customs of his own country, did not misrepresent or partly misunderstand the facts. Elagabalus's attempt to have his god recognized as supreme and to establish a kind of monotheism in heaven as there was monarchy on earth, was undoubtedly too violent, awkward and premature, but it was in keeping with the aspirations of the time and it must be remembered that the imperial policy could find the support of powerful Syrian colonies not only at Rome but all over the empire.”
page 318 note 98 The rapid decay of the temple of Gaionas illustrates the loss of interest in the Syrian cults after they lost imperial favor. The temple was even cut off by the new wall of Aurelian from direct communication with the Trastevere. After Constantine it was pillaged and burnt, and it had to be entirely rebuilt in the short-lived revival under Julian.
page 319 note 99 Cumont, p. 124.
page 320 note 100 Cumont, ‘Jupiter summus exsuperantissimus,’ in Archiv f. Religionsw., 1906, pp.326 ff.
page 322 note 1 This early development of the mystery-cults is well outlined by Pettazzoni, I Misteri, pp. 287 ff.
page 322 note 2 Rostovtzeff, SEHRE, pp. 51, 249.
page 325 note 3 This notion, however, was not peculiar to the Eleusinian mysteries. Probably all those cults implicitly or explicitly adopted it at a certain stage, and the names assumed by certain groups of initiates (as for instance that of ‘Persae’ among the Mithraists) may be a survival of the practice of religio-national adoption. On Jewish adoption see the following chapter.
page 328 note 4 That in Rome there never was open war among the various cults in competition for the public favor was not due to the similarity of their content and ritual (a reason which would probably have made the conflict more inevitable), but rather to the strict control under which all of them were kept by the state and to the severe imperial legislation relating to men or institutions responsible for disturbances of public order. But the competition among the cults was undoubtedly keen and often unscrupulous. Interesting traces of it may be found in the aretalogies, several of which have been discovered and published in recent times. See on this point the valuable study of G. Weinreich, Neue Urkunden zur Sarapis-religion, Tübingen, 1919, and the papyrus fragment (Hunt, Oxyrhynchus Papyri, X, no. 1242) containing a debate before the emperor Trajan between the Jews and the Serapists of Alexandria.
page 329 note 5 “Sic dum universarum gentium sacra suscipiunt regnare meruerunt,” Oct. 63.
page 330 note 6 On this point see Costa, G., Religione e Politica nell’Impero romano, Rome, 1923Google Scholar (especially pp. 32–87, ‘La latinità religiosa dell'impero,’ with an interesting study on the imperial titles). Costa's conclusion that the so-called oriental solar symbolism and terminology must not be considered as necessarily a foreign importation into Rome (p. 86) may appear exaggerated, but his contention that the force of assimilation exercised by Rome and Latin civilization was not altogether overcome by orientalism, and that Roman institutions were not entirely submerged by the waves of oriental religious and political traditions and customs, seems to me well founded. A. Grenier in his recent very suggestive book, Le Génie romain dans la religion, la pensée et l’art (Paris, 1925. L’Évolution de l’Humanité, XVII) has duly emphasized, as his conclusion from an extensive analysis of all the elements of Roman civilization, the fact that “le génie romain n’est pas, il s’est fait peu à peu,” that it developed not only under the force of circumstances but by the exercise of a “wonderful capacity of assimilation” which characterized the intellectual life of the Romans. The originality of the Roman genius consists chiefly in its power to combine elements of various origin into a unity; this originality is to be found “non dans les composants, mais dans le composé” (p. 482). Roman religion was the result of a fusion of the various gods which prehistoric times and the migrations of peoples had established in Italy, of Etruscan and Greek gods, and finally of oriental gods and cults which joined the procession; but “c’est la cité qui lui imprime une forme quasi juridique, administrative et enfin foncièrement politique.” In the same way the city-state became a state of hellenistic type and even a monarchy of oriental aspect, but “l’âme de la cité n’en demeure pas moins ce que l’ont faite des siècles de lutte obscure et âpre.” In conclusion, “le génie romain a recueilli peu à peu la substance de tout le monde antique et lui a donné une forme nouvelle. C’est sous cette forme imposée par Rome que l’héritage de l’antiquité est parvenu au monde moderne, au moins à celui d’Occident et aux nations latines en particulier” (p. 483).
page 333 note 7 G. F. Moore, Birth and Growth of Religion, 1923, p. 145.
page 334 note 8 Ibid., pp. 171–172.
page 334 note 9 Cumont, Or. Rel., p. 92. G. F. Moore, History of Religions, I, pp. 449, 454.
page 335 note 10 Detailed surveys of the various classes of priests and assistants and of the classes of initiates in each cult may be found in the above quoted works of Graillot, Lafaye, Cumont, Toutain, and others, and in Waltzing for the religious associations. Lists of offices and associations in Turchi, I Misteri: Isis, pp. 117–118; Magna Mater, pp. 134 ff.; Mithra, pp. 196 ff. On the ‘prophets’ in the hierarchy of the Egyptian cults see the recent study of E. Fascher, ΠPOΦHTHΣ, Eine sprach- und religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung, Giessen, 1927, pp. 76–101.
page 336 note 11 Cic., Pro Balbo, 24.
page 336 note 12 Even the term ‘fratres,’ which was characteristic of the early Christians (A. von Harnack, Die Mission und Ausbreitung des Christentums, 4th ed., I, B. 3, Ch. 3), was not unusual in some cults, as for instance among the devotees of Jupiter Dolichenus (“fratres carissimos,” CIL. VI, 406).
page 336 note 13 Inscription of Rosetta (Fragmenta historicorum graecorum, Didot, I, Append. by Letronne, line 17, p. 2).
page 337 note 14 The Isiacs called themselves στρατιῶται, ‘soldiers,’ and were bound by a ‘sacramentum’ to the cause of their religion. This character, however, was more prominent among the Mithraists, among whom “the fraternal spirit of the initiates calling themselves soldiers was doubtless more akin to the spirit of comradeship in a regiment that has esprit de corps than to the love of one's neighbor that inspires works of mercy towards all” (Cumont, Or. Rel., p. 156).
page 337 note 15 But at the same time the autonomous character of each Isiac congregation is manifest from the fact that in order to be aggregated to the Roman Isiac group Lucius had to receive a double and higher initiation, though he had already been initiated in the province. “Caeterum futura tibi sacrorum traditio pernecessaria est, si tecum nunc saltem reputaveris exuvias deae quae in provincia sumpsisti, in eodem fano depositas perseverare nec te Romae diebus solemnibus vel supplicare iis vel, cum praeceptum fuerit, felici illo amictu illustrari posse. Quod felix itaque ac faustum salutareque tibi sit, animo gaudiali rursum sacris initiare diis magnis auctoribus” (Met. xi. 29).
page 341 note 1 On the Jewish community of Rome, besides the comprehensive chapters in the well known general histories of the Jews by Schürer, Ewald, and Grätz, there are several special works and monographs which trace its history from the origins to modern times: A. Berliner, Geschichte der Juden in Rom, 2 vols., 1893; H. Vogelstein und P. Rieger, Geschichte der Juden in Rom, 2 vols., 1896; F. Huidekoper, Judaism at Rome, 2nd ed., 1877; E. H. Hudson, A History of the Jews in Rome, 1882; G. Blustein, Storia degli Ebrei in Roma, 1921. Others deal only with the early period or treat in general of Judaism in the Greek and Roman world: A. Bludau, Die Judeu Roms im ersten christlichen Jahrhundert, 1903; M. Radin, The Jews among the Greeks and Romans, 1915; and the chaotic but still useful work of Manfrin, Gli Ebrei sotto la dominazione romana, 3 vols., 1888–1892. Special monographs and articles on various historical and archaeological questions will be mentioned later. But the two main sources for the knowledge of Judaism in the Roman period are J. Juster, Les Juifs dans l’Empire Romain, 2 vols., 1914, an exhaustive work on the juridical, economic, and social condition of the Jews, and the recent great work of George F. Moore, Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era: the Age of the Tannaim, 2 vols., 1927, the most comprehensive and authoritative first-hand study of the content and value of the religious teaching and traditions of Judaism, its doctrines, its morals, and its piety, and their social implications. The historical introduction is a model of scientific treatment of religious history, and the analysis of the sources a masterpiece of historical criticism. From this book, which supersedes all that has been written on the topic, and presents Judaism in its true light, rectifying many opinions and traditions universally accepted by scholars and historians, I have largely drawn, as well as from Juster's book, in my endeavor to present the Jewish community of Rome against the background of Roman cosmopolitan life and with reference to its character as a community of immigrants.
page 342 note 2 Moore, I, pp. 219 ff., ‘Nationality and Universality,’ traces the origins and development of these two mutually exclusive characteristics in the religion of Israel and shows how they affected Jewish proselytism. For this point see the next chapter.
page 342 note 3 Moore, I, p. 222. The political catastrophes of Israel and Judah and the tribulations which visited the people at the hands of foreigners were interpreted by the prophets as Jehovah's vengeance for their own and their rulers’ sins. The triumph of the enemies of Israel was not due to the power of their gods but to Jehovah, who executed his judgment on religious treason. “This interpretation had momentous consequences. … Henceforth for all time the principle was established that for a Jew to worship any other god is apostasy.” This moral and non-speculative origin of Jewish monotheism explains how it was possible for Judaism to formulate a universal program of expansion without giving up the privileges of the national religion. On the character of Jewish monotheism see also Moore, I, pp. 115 ff.
page 342 note 4 Moore, I, p. 228.
page 343 note 5 Moore, I, p. 230: “The forms in which the religion of the golden age to come were imagined were naturally those of the national religion internationalized. The temple in Jerusalem should be the religious centre of the world, to which worshippers from all lands should stream bringing their sacrifices and precious gifts.” “The way in which the triumph is to come about is also conceived in national forms; it is by a stupendous historical catastrophe in which the heathen will be constrained to recognize the hand of the sovereign of the world vindicating his own honor in the overthrow of those who would not acknowledge him and in the deliverance and exaltation of his people.”
page 343 note 6 “The Jews under Persian rule had no political existence; they had only a national religion, and in its preservation lay their self-preservation. That the religious leaders had the insight to perceive this and the loyalty to contend with all their might against the dissolution of both nationality and religion, whether in the age of the restoration or in the crisis of Hellenism, or after the destruction of the temple and the war under Hadrian, is certainly not to their discredit. The separateness of the Jews, their ἀμιξία, was one of the prime causes of the animosity toward them, especially in the miscellaneous fusion of peoples and syncretism of religions in the Hellenistic kingdoms and the Roman world; but it accomplished its end in the survival of Judaism and therein history has vindicated it,” Moore, I, p. 21.
page 344 note 7 It does not seem probable that any considerable group of Jews was to be found in Rome before the end of the second century B.C. The tradition that in the year 139 B.C. there was an expulsion of Jews from Rome on account of their proselytism (“sacra sua tradere conati erant,” Jan. Nepotianus, abbreviator of Valerius Maximus, Epit., iii. 3, 3) does not seem reliable. Friedländer, Sittengeschichte, III, p. 177, thinks that they were merely Jewish ambassadors sent from the Maccabees. Juster, II, pp. 169–170.
page 345 note 8 On the Jewish privileges see the following chapter.
page 345 note 9 Philo, Leg. ad Caium, ed. Mangey, II, p. 568. On the manumission of Jewish slaves see Juster, II, pp. 80 ff., and bibliography, no. 1.
page 345 note 10 Cicero, Pro Flacco, passim.
page 346 note 11 The Jewish district was on the side of the Janiculum. A memorial slab mentioning “Jason twice archon” (De Rossi, Diss. Acad. Arch., ser. II, vol. II, p. 26), found in that region, seems an indication of the place that was occupied by the Jews of the Trastevere. Marucchi, Di un nuovo cimitero giudaico, Rome, 1884, p. 7.
page 346 note 12 The district of the Subura must have been rather in the upper than in the lower section, reaching probably the “agger Servi Tulli,” where according to an inscription there was a synagogue. The inscription mentions a fruit vendor P. Corfidius Signinus, a pagan who had his little store near the synagogue (“pomarius de aggere a proseucha”; CIL. VI, 9821). It seems, however, rather improbable that this Jewish district could extend from the Subura to the Porta Collina. It is possible either that the group of the agger formed a small Jewish section topographically distinct from the Syburienses, or that there was only a synagogue but not a Jewish group living around it. On this point see later.
page 346 note 13 Only in periods of repressive measures do we hear of such impositions upon the Jews as in the case of Flaccus, who under Caligula obliged the Jews of Alexandria to evacuate one of two large districts in which they lived and shut themselves up in the other (Philo, In Flaccum, 8). In Sardis the Jews themselves asked the privilege of having districts of their own (Josephus, Antiq. xxiv. 7, 2). Juster, I, p. 190; II, pp. 180–209.
page 347 note 14 Moore, I, pp. 281 ff., ‘The Synagogue.’ The remote origin of the synagogue may probably be traced to the “spontaneous gatherings of Jews in Babylonia and other lands of their exile on the sabbaths and at the times of the old seasonal feasts or on fast days, to confirm one another in fidelity to their religion in the midst of heathenism, and encourage themselves in the hope of restoration” (p. 283). But before the beginning of the Christian era the synagogue had become a public institution, commonly possessing an edifice, and had attained an independent position as a seat of worship of distinctive character and of regular instruction in religion as an organic part of worship, and even as its most prominent feature (p. 284). See Samuel Krauss, Synagogale Altertümer, 1922, esp. pp. 103 ff., ‘Gemeinden und Synagogen,’ and ‘Das Leben in der Gemeinde’ and ‘Das Leben in der Synagoge,’ pp. 159 ff.
page 348 note 15 Juster is right in his contention that the various terms used to indicate the Jewish organizations, πολίτευμα, πολιτεία, κατοικία, θίασος, προσευχή, σύνοδος, συναγωγή, στέματος, ἔθνος, λαóς, universitas, corpus, or simply Judaei or οἱ Ἑβραῖοι, were equivalent in so far as they expressed the specific national character of the Jewish groups. He remarks also that there was a difference among the various terms: “parmi celles-ci une partie montrent, peut-être, les rapports politiques entre la ville et la communauté; à cette disparité de noms répond, peut-être, une variété dans les détails de l'organisation intérieure” (I, pp. 416 ff.). It seems to me, however, that the distinction between small communities forming a single group and large communities having several Jewish groups is fundamental in the interpretation of those terms when they are applied to concrete cases. Unfortunately we know little or nothing of the internal organization of the large communities like those of Antioch and Alexandria. The Jewish community of Alexandria with its centralized personal government seems to have been unique. But the organization in Rome, of which we know more, was on a different plan.
page 348 note 16 Juster has refuted with reasonable arguments Mommsen's contention that it was the synagogues as religious associations which enjoyed the privileges granted to the Jews, and not the Jewish nation; but this does not imply that the synagogues did not have the character of associations, even if they were based on a general grant to the Jewish nationality and not on individual grants made to each of them. Juster prefers to call the Roman synagogues ‘paroisses’ by analogy with the ‘parishes’ of the later Christian organization. The term seems to me misleading. It suggests that the synagogues were also territorial units, that is, that the Jews of a synagogal district all belonged to that synagogue and that over that district the synagogue had full religious jurisdiction. That such was the case in Rome is far from certain; on the contrary, the inference from the names of some of the Roman synagogues suggests that they were formed by people of the same profession, or having the same origin, or of the same social condition, or immigrant from the same place. That the synagogue of the Vernaculi or of the Calcarienses or of the Tripolitans was a territorial unit is difficult to believe. In Jerusalem itself there were many synagogues under the very shadow of the temple and even one within its precincts, but they were voluntary associations with no parochial character. The prevalence of the Palestinian element in Roman Jewry suggests a similar organization, although in the diaspora the synagogue necessarily had a higher importance than in Jerusalem, where the temple was the seat of the cult. Undoubtedly every faithful Jew in Rome attended a synagogue and often this would be the one nearest to his residence; but that the members of at least some of the synagogues came from different districts is more than probable. This fact accentuated their character as associations, with the result that they assumed the external form of a corpus, or collegium.
page 349 note 17 The question of whether the synagogues were collegia in the juridical sense has been the subject of much controversy. Mommsen, starting from the false premise that after the year 70 the Jewish nation as such was juridically extinct, held that after that year the Jewish communities had no legal standing, and that only the Jewish associations, or synagogues, were recognized, on the basis of the general laws regulating the collegia. Renan had already maintained that the organization of the Jewish communities was modelled after the Greek and Roman associations, and this theory, accepted by many theologians, prevailed also among the historians. W. M. Ramsay concluded that after the destruction of the temple ‘synagogue’ was a mere synonym for ‘collegium’ applied to the Jewish associations. Schürer, on the contrary, held that the term synagogue was adopted by the Jewish associations when their members became citizens of the πóλις in which they lived. Juster (I, pp. 418 ff.) refutes the premises as well as the conclusions of all these theories, and holds that the synagogues never became collegia in the juridical sense, but were and remained ethno-religious associations based on the privileges granted to the Jewish nationality, privileges which were not revoked after the fall of the Jewish state. This is correct; but the difference in their juridical status, and also in their function, did not prevent the synagogues, or some of them, from assuming in the eyes of the public and perhaps of the Jews themselves all the external forms and appearance of collegia.
page 349 note 18 That it was an institution for the religious education of the people is the “most prominent feature” of the synagogue (Moore, I, p. 284); and this, it seems to me, is the fundamental difference that makes the synagogue an association of a wholly unique nature. This point is duly emphasized by Moore: to the Jews, “the synagogue was a place for instruction in the truths and duties of revealed religion; and in imparting and receiving this divine instruction no less than in praise or prayer they were doing honor to God — it was an act of worship.” “To the observation of the Greeks it suggested a school of philosophy. The preliminary purifications and the prayers which preceded the reading and exposition of its books were not without analogies in certain Greek religious and philosophical circles, such as the Pythagoreans” (Moore, I, pp. 285, 284).
page 350 note 19 Juster, II, pp. 93 ff.; S. Krauss, pp. 159 ff.
page 350 note 20 See above, p. 245. Even after Marcus Aurelius the right of receiving legacies by the synagogues was sometimes restricted. An edict of Caracalla (213 A.D.) forbade the Jewish “universitas” of Antioch to accept a legacy from a certain woman named Cornelia Salvia. But such measures were exceptional in character, and affected only specific cases. Juster, I, p. 432.
page 351 note 21 The Jewish inscriptions of Rome now form a considerable corpus of several hundred. In CIG. IV, 9894–9926, and CIL. VI, 29756–29763, are collected most of those known up to the publication of those volumes. A new collection, including those discovered up to 1895, was compiled by Vogelstein and Rieger (VR) in the appendix to the first volume of their history (pp. 459–482). A few were overlooked (Juster, I, p. 181, note). Those discovered later are scattered in various Roman archaeological periodicals: Nuovo Bullettino di Archeologia cristiana (NBAC), 1899, p. 252; 1900, p. 311; Bullettino della Commissione archeologica Comunale (BAC), 1900, pp. 223–225; Notizie degli Scavi (NS), 1900, p. 88. The inscriptions found in the catacombs of Monteverde from 1904 on were in part published by N. Müller. The originals are now to be found in the Nuova Sala Giudaica of the Lateran Museum of Rome. A collection of them was first published by Schneider-Graziosi in NBAC, 1915, pp. 13–56. A new and more complete edition with photographic reproductions was prepared from the papers of N. Müller (1912) and published with an historical and philological commentary (Die Inschriften der jüdischen Katakombe am Monteverde zu Rom, entdeckt und erklärt von N. Müller, hrsg. v. N. A. Bees, Leipzig, 1919). A few more, found in the same catacomb, were published by G. Paribeni in NS, 1919, pp. 60–70; 1921, p. 358. The inscriptions found in the newly discovered catacomb on the Via Nomentana were also published by G. Paribeni in NS, 1920, pp. 143–155.
page 352 note 22 The list of the Jewish synagogues of Rome given by Juster (I, p. 515) contains only nine titles and that of Krauss ten (pp. 250 ff.). The references to all known inscriptions, including those published by Paribeni and omitted by Krauss, are as follows:
(1) Synagogue of the Augusteans: VR, 35, 85, 176; Müller, 25, 174, 175. This synagogue was in the Trastevere near the Porta Settimiana or on the site of the church of S. Salvatore della Corte.
(2) Synagogue of the Agrippians: VR, 120; Müller, 2; Paribeni, NS (1919), 10, p. 65. This synagogue also was located in the Trastevere.
(3) Synagogue of the Volumnians: VR, 152; Müller, 106; Paribeni, NS (1919), 5, p. 61.
(4) Synagogue of the Herodians: VR, 124.
(5) Synagogue of the Campesians: VR, 11, 46, 152; Müller, 3 (?), 37 (?).
(6) Synagogue of the Syburesians: VR, 68, 72; Paribeni, NS (1920), 8, 26, 36.
(7) Synagogue of the Vernaculi: Müller, 109, 110, 111.
(8) Synagogue of the Calcarensians: VR, 20, 52; Müller, 107, 108, 3 (?), 37 (?); Paribeni, NS (1919), 4, p. 63.
(9) Synagogue of the Tripolitans: Müller, 116; Paribeni, NS (1919), 5, p. 63. (10) Synagogue of the Elaians: VR, 78, 123.
(11) Synagogue of the Hebrews: VR, 38, 98; Müller, 14, 50, and probably 117, 118, 122.
(12) Synagogue of the Sekeni: Paribeni, NS (1920), 19.
(13) Synagogue of the Calabrians (?); based on the reading of an inscription in Hebrew or Aramaic proposed by A. Vaccaro, NBAC, 1917, pp. 36 ff.: ‘Annia mother-in-law [or, son-in-law] of the head [of the synagogue] of Calabria.’ But U. Cassuto, NBAC, 1916, pp. 193 ff., reads: ‘Annia husband of Bartholomaea.’ And in Müller, pp. 129–130 (No. 142), Littmann and Gressmann read: “Totenklage, Hochzeit (ist) die Sache aller Schöpfung,” while Lidzbarski renders: “Trauer, Hochzeit ist jedermanns Los.” Vaccaro, NBAC, 1922, pp. 47 ff., raises objections to such an interpretation and insists on his own.
My colleague, Professor Harry A. Wolfson of Harvard University, makes the following suggestion: “On the basis of Vaccaro's reading of the inscription a third interpretation is possible by taking the second line as the preposition ┐ with the surname or proper name of an individual, Bar-Calabria, i.e., ‘Son of Calabria’ or ‘Calabrian.’ Such surnames or proper names formed by the combination of ‘bar’ with the name of a place are not uncommon in Aramaic, e.g., Bar-Daroma (Gittin 57a). Accordingly the inscription could be rendered: ‘Annia son-in-law of Bar-Calabria.’ In that case Calabria could not be taken as the name of a Roman synagogue. If Müller's reading is accepted, the contrast between and in the first line may be made more pointed by taking the word not in its biblical sense of ‘mourning’ or ‘moaning’ in general but rather as the equivalent of its cognate (post-biblical), which is used specifically as a technical designation for the mourning during the interval between death and burial. Accordingly the first line may be rendered: ‘Funerals — Nuptials.’ Similarly in the second line in the sense of ‘human being’ is common in post-biblical Hebrew.” Professor G. F. Moore writes me: “Cassuto's reading and rendering seems impossible; Vaccaro's reading of the inscription seems also extremely improbable and his interpretation even more so. Judging from the photographic reproduction of the inscription the reading of Müller's editors and Lidzbarski's rendering seem preferable.” Professor W. R. Arnold suggests that the inscription was intended to inculcate attendance at funerals and weddings as everyone's duty, an altogether appropriate inscription for a cemetery (see Moore, Judaism, II, pp. 172 f.). The existence of this synagogue is thus very doubtful. A Roman synagogue called by the name of Severus Alexander is referred to by writers on Jewish history (VR, I, pp. 34–35, 39; Krauss, p. 254), but no inscription mentions it, and the assumption of its existence is not warranted by any sound evidence.
page 354 note 22a Unfortunately these traces have now disappeared, but Garrucci's description (Cimitero degli antichi Ebrei, Rome, 1862; see below, note 27 [a]), shows that there was a large hall or vestibule with apses and a small contiguous chamber provided with a fountain for ablutions (Leclercq, Archéologie Chrétienne, I, p. 498). Leclercq remarks (p. 342), that probably, if the identification of the church of St. Aschmunit in Antioch with the synagogue of the Cerateum called τò ἱερóν is accepted, that was a similar case, since there was also a funerary crypt under the edifice. This identification, however, based on an Arabic description of the sixth century, is very doubtful. On the general plans of ancient synagogues and their architectural details see the exhaustive treatment of Krauss, pp. 267–365.
page 354 note 23 The synagogue of the Augusteans was so named in honor of the emperor Augustus; that of the Agrippians has been thought to have assumed its name in honor of Marcus Agrippa, Augustus's nephew, who favored the Jews of Greece and Egypt against the persecutions of the local populations. It has even been supposed that this synagogue was perhaps formed by Jews of Alexandrian origin (VR, p. 12). But in Müller (p. 6) this common opinion is rejected, and it is held that the Agrippians took their title from the name of one of the two Agrippas, Jewish kings. The synagogue of the Volumnians took its name from a Volumnius, probably the Roman procurator of Syria, Volumnius, who according to Josephus (Ant. xvi. 9, 1; 10, 9; B. J. i. 27, 2) was involved in the tragic conflict of King Herod and his son. E. Bormann (‘Zu den neuentdeckten Grabschriften jüdischer Katakomben von Rom,’ in Wiener Studien, XXIV, 1912, pp. 362 ff.) has made it probable that the members of these three synagogues, of Augustus, Agrippa, and Volumnius, were freedmen of these great Roman families, and therefore that these associations were really Jewish collegia domestica.
page 355 note 24 The existence of the synagogue of the Tripolitans was first suggested by the inscription found in Monteverde by Müller (116: Σύμμαχος ἱεροσάρχης Tριπολίτης), which, however, left room for doubt, since it could be interpreted as mentioning merely the city of origin of Symmachus, a Tripolitan ἱεροσάρχης who may have died in Rome on a visit. But all doubts were dispelled by the discovery by Paribeni in the same cemetery of another epitaph mentioning the synagogue of the Tripolitans (NS, 1919, no. 5: Πρóκλος ἄρχων συναγωγῆς Tριπολειτῶν). Müller proposed Tripolis in Syria as the city mentioned in the inscription of Symmachus, who supposedly belonged to that Jewish community, for which he gives the reference to Schürer's history. But, as A. Vaccaro (NBAC, 1922, p. 49) remarks, the passages in Schürer do not deal with the Jewish community of the Syrian Tripolis; and he proposes Tripolis in Africa as the city of origin of the Jews who formed in Rome the synagogue of the Tripolitans of which Symmachus was ἱεροσάρχης and Proklos ἄρχων. The importance of the Jewish community of the African Tripolis and the connections between that city and Rome make this interpretation more probable than that of Müller. The synagogue of the Elaians is mentioned in an epitaph (VR, 78) from the Jewish catacombs of the Via Appia (Πανχάριος πατὴρ συναγωγῆς Ἐλαίας), and in one found in the catacomb of Vigna Cimarra (VR, 123: … συναγωγῆς Ἐλέας). Schürer (II, p. 524) interpreted this title as meaning ‘the synagogue of the olive-garden’ by analogy with the ‘synagogue of the vineyard’ of Sepphoris mentioned in the Talmud. Garrucci suggested that the synagogue was named from the prophet Elijah; Berliner, p. 64, proposed to take Elaia as a mere phonetic corruption of Velia, the Roman district beyond the Palatine. According to S. Reinach (Rev. Études Juives, XII, 1886, p. 239) the Jews of this Roman synagogue originated in the Jewish colony of Elaea in Mysia, which even today is called “Castle of the Jews” (in Turkish, Tschifout-Kalessi). Juster, I, p. 415. To these could be added the synagogue of Calabria, if Vaccaro's reading of Müller, 142 be accepted. The synagogue of the Vernaculi also, besides its social aspect, had the character of an ethnical subdivision, being formed by Jewish slaves born in Rome in the houses of their owners (Krauss, p. 253).
page 356 note 25 The synagogue of the Herodians is mentioned in only one inscription (VR, 124: … γωγῆς Ἱροδίων), and at first the reading Ῥοδίων proposed by Garrucci (Dissertazioni arch., II, p. 85) was accepted, and was interpreted as meaning ‘the synagogue of the Rodians.’ The reading Ἱροδίων is now commonly accepted. It was thus a synagogue which took its name from that of Herod.
page 356 note 26 The synagogue of the Hebrews is mentioned in various inscriptions: VR, 98 (Γάδια πατρòς συναγωγῆς Aἱβρέων); VR, 38 (refers to the same person, called simply πατρòς τῶν Ἑβρέων); Müller, 14 (Γελάσις ἐξάρχων τῶν Ἑβρέων); Müller, 50 (Ἰσιδώρα θυγάτηρ ἀρχ. Ἑβρέων). According to Schürer (III, p. 83) it was a synagogue of Aramaic-speaking Jews, and Deissmann (Licht vom Osten, p. 9) remarks that a synagogue of the same name was to be found in Corinth. Derenbourg (Mélanges Rénier, pp. 439 ff.) thought it was a synagogue of Samaritans mentioned later by Cassiodorus (Variae, iii. 45). Müller and Cassuto agreed with Schürer. Juster suggests that the name Hebraeus was used in a general ethnical sense, after the name Judaeus had begun to acquire a disparaging connotation in Rome. But, as Vaccaro remarks, “this happened, by confession of Juster himself, not before the sixth century, and the inscriptions of Monteverde are in any case not later than the fourth century” (NBAC, 1917, p. 44). Vaccaro, however, admits that “perhaps the term Hebrew has an ethnical connotation, in contrast to Ἰουδαῖος,” but “based, at least remotely, on the ancient separation of the ten tribes from the kingdom of Judah. This distinction appears still in the New Testament.” Midler's editors accept the explanation of the Aramaic-speaking group, but add that it had the character of a “landsmannschaftliche Organisation” (p. 24).
It will do no harm to add to these various hypotheses one more, which seems to me the simplest. If, as seems probable, the Jewish colony of Rome existed before Pompey's conquest, it, like all others, must have been at the beginning very small, a few individuals and families, either Palestinians or of various origin. The first synagogue which they organized was also, for some time, the only one in Rome. That it assumed the name of Synagogue ‘of the Hebrews,’ and was known as such by the people, can be easily understood. When the Jewish community grew in size and other groups and other synagogues were established, the old synagogue retained its earlier name, and was probably the object of special consideration, and to belong to it a title of honor. It is, moreover, possible that this synagogue had conservative traditions even in language. The inscription of Isidora daughter of the archon of the synagogue of the Hebrews is one of the very few bilingual (Greek-Aramaic) epitaphs found in Monteverde. A. Vaccaro has called attention also to the interesting detail that in the inscription of Macedonios (Müller, 118; 2nd or 3rd cent, after Christ), who is called Aἱβρέον and came from Caesarea in Palestine, the phrase μνία [μνεία] δικαίου εἰς εὐλογίαν, is a quotation from Proverbs 10, 7, according to the version of Aquila (also VR, 7); while in other inscriptions found in the Jewish catacombs (as for instance Cimarra: VR, 132) the same quotation is given according to the LXX μνήμη δικαίου σὺν ἐνκωμίῳ (with slight variations in other inscriptions). Evidently both versions were used in Roman Jewry, but Aquila's version, not because it was “more literal and less favorable to the Christians,” as Vaccaro says (p. 43), but because it was based on the accepted traditional interpretation of the text as developed in the schools of the Tannaim, was preferred by the conservative Jews who were more under the influence of the rabbinical schools of Palestine.
page 357 note 27 The synagogue of the Sekeni appears in the inscription (Paribeni, NS, 1920, 19): Aἰούτωρ [Adiutor] γραμματεὺς Σεκήνων, for which no satisfactory explanation has as yet been offered. It has been suggested that the word may be, like Tριπολειτῶν, the name of a place, but no identification of it as such has been made. Professor H. A. Wolfson remarks: “Two possible explanations of Σεκήνων may be suggested:
(a) It may be identified with a place in Galilee north of Jotapata called in the Talmud by a name variously written as Sikenaya or Sekaneya, Siknin or Suknin, Signa. Although in Josephus the name is given as Σωγάνη (Vita 51; cf. A. Neubauer, La Géographie du Talmud, p. 204), it is not impossible that there were as many ways of writing it in Greek as in Aramaic.
(b) It may be a Greek transliteration of the Hebrew , ‘Zekenim,’ ‘Elders.’ It is not impossible that among the Palestinian Jews in Rome the γερουσία was called by its Hebrew name Zekenim. Accordingly, the words in the inscription are to be translated either ‘secretary of the elders’ or ‘secretary of the synagogue of the elders.’”
If this latter interpretation be accepted, was the γραμματεὺς Σεκήνων in the Jewish community something analogous to the ‘Secretarium Senatus’ mentioned in CIL. VI, 1718? But Professor G. F. Moore informs me that there is no mention elsewhere of such an office in the Jewish community (yet see Krauss, pp. 150 f.) and that according to L. Baeck (Die Pharisäer, Berlin, 1927, n. 89) the word γραμματείς as found in the Jewish Roman inscriptions means only ‘a teacher of the Bible.’ As to the former of the two interpretations Professor Moore observes that “as the name of a place Siknin in Galilee would perhaps be everybody's first guess. It seems to have been, if not a Nazarene village, a village in which there were disciples of Jesus the Nazarene. It is inferable from the Talmud (Gittin 57a) that the place was destroyed under circumstances that left a memory, perhaps in the war under Hadrian, certainly after the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus. But one may doubt whether people from this place were numerous enough in Rome to constitute a group (or a synagogue) of their own.”
page 358 note 28 Juster, I, p. 486: H, p. 264.
page 358 note 29 Juster suggests that “beaucoup d’artisans juifs ne se groupaient pas séparément, mais avec leurs confrères non-juifs, en évitant seulement les cérémonies religieuses de la corporation” (I, p. 487). It is rather difficult to understand what could have been the activities of collegia in which Jews could participate when the ceremonies having a religious character or connections were eliminated. Until they became organs of the state, the corporations had merely a social religious character and a funerary purpose, and since the Jews could not take part in their celebrations or their banquets (see Moore, II, p. 75), and since the Jewish community secured funerals and burial for the poor, it does not seem that a Jew had anything to gain by becoming a member of a pagan trade-association or college. When the corporations came under the full control of the state, the situation changed, but by that time the Jews under the Christian emperors began to be subjected in many things to special regulations.
page 359 note 30 On the various tendencies in Judaism and their development see Moore, I, pp. 48 ff., Historical Introduction, chapters iv–vi. Furthermore, from the first century after Christ, “of the old social cleavage between the rich and powerful and the poor and oppressed much less is heard,” but “the new division is between the class who are instructed in their religion and scrupulous in the performance of its obligations, and the ignorant and negligent masses” (Moore, II, p. 157). One of the consequences of this division was that the punctilious Jews formed associations of their own with special regulations. As Moore remarks (II, pp. 156–161, ‘Relations of Social Classes’), “in all sects, and in every ecclesiola in ecclesia, it is the peculiarities in doctrine, observance, or piety, that are uppermost in the minds of the members; what they have in common with the great body is no doubt taken for granted, but, so to speak, lies in the sectarian subconseiousness” (p. 161). That in Rome, the meeting-place of Jews from many lands, these characteristics could not be absent is obvious, and thus the explanation given above for the names of some Roman synagogues is not unwarranted by facts in view of the general conditions of Judaism in that period.
page 360 note 31 For the organization of t he synagogues in general see Moore, I, pp. 289 ff.
page 360 note 32 The following list may be incomplete and does not attempt to rank the offices in their hierarchical order: ἐξἀρχων, γερουιάρχης, εἱεροσάρχης, προστάτης, archon alti ordinis, ἅρχων πάσης τῆς τιμῆς (archon pases tessimen), ἀρχισυνάγωγος, ἅρχων, προάρχων, μελλάρχων, πρεσβύτης, ἱερεύς, διδάσκαλος, νομομαθής, γραμματεύς, μελλογραμματεύς, ὑπερέτης, πατὴρ συναγωγής, patronus, and even ἱέρισα, and mater synagogae. This complicated terminology has given rise to endless discussion, for which see Juster, I, pp. 403, 404, and 440 ff., and the literature there quoted.
page 360 note 33 Müller, 106; VR, 5, 176, and ἄρχων νήπιος, 11 (a child eight years old).
page 360 note 34 Müller, 108, 175; VR, 35 (in these last two inscriptions the peculiar spelling Zάβιος instead of διὰ βίου is used); VR, 120, 110, and 183, in which the formula is latinized as ‘iabius.’ (VR, p. 45). The question of the archons in Roman Judaism is typical of the variety of traditions in the offices of the synagogues and the Jewish community. In the inscriptions names occur of (a) archons who do not appear to have been connected with any synagogue (were they archons at large, representing the whole community?);, (b) archons of special synagogues; (c) archons elected every year, archons elected twice (δὶς ἄρχων), and archons for life (διὰ βίου); (d) child-archons or aspirant archons (the inscription VR, 5, in which the father is a supreme archon, ἄρχων πάσης τῆς τειμῆς, and the child is a “mellarchon” suggests the possibility that there was an hereditary archonate in certain families; (e) archons who are at the same time ‘patres’ of synagogues, and even an archon who is also archisynagogus (VR, 181, “Stafulo arconti et archisynagogo honoribus omnibus functus [sic]”); (f) archons of the high order (“alti ordinis,” Müller, 1), and archons of the whole community (“pases tessimen”).
page 361 note 35 VR, 152. What the office was of the ‘pater synagogae’ is a controverted point. In the late fourth century it was the title of regular officers who as such enjoyed the immunities (Cod. Theod. xvi. 8, 4; Juster, I, p. 406, n. 3, and p. 448). At that date they were probably identical with the presbyteri. But in some inscriptions it seems rather to be an honorary title given to old men who had retired from other offices in the community: VR, 29, Pancharius formerly a gerusiarcha; 52, Julianus formerly archisynagogus. VR (p. 43) think that the patres synagogae took charge of the poorrelief. That ‘mater synagogae’ was an honorary title seems to be certain, as is obvious also for the title of ‘patronus’ (Juster, I, pp. 436 ff.).
page 362 note 36 Such may have been Lucius Mecius archon alti ordinis (Müller, 1); Ermogenes (Müller, 132), and Alexandras (VR, 5), both archons πάσης τῆς τειμῆς, and Ionata (VR, 146) ‘archon pases tessimen.’ Whether such were also the officers styled ‘exarchon’ (Caius Furfanius Iulianus exarchon [Müller, 11] and Gelasis egapxw ἐξάρχων τῶν Aἱβρέων) is not clear. In late times we know that the provincial head of a Jewry was called ἔξαρχος (Cod. Theod., xvi. 8, 2), which according to Juster was the Greek form for ‘primates.’ But the fact that in these Roman inscriptions the word used is and ἐξάρχων and ‘exarchon,’ makes their identification with the ἔξαρχος very doubtful.
page 363 note 37 The ancient Jewish Roman cemeteries known at present are the following six:
(1) On the Appian Way (vigna Randanini), discovered and illustrated by R. Garrucci, Cimitero degli antichi Ebrei, Rome, 1862: Dissertazioni archeologiche, Rome, 1865, II, pp. 159–192; various articles in the Civiltà Cattolica, ser. III, vols. III, VI; see O. Marucchi, Breve guida del cimitero giudaico in Vigna Randanini, 1884, and Le Catacombe Romane, pp. 227 ff.
(2) On the Appian Way (vigna Cimarra), described by De Rossi in Bull. Arch. Cristiana, 1867, pp. 16 ff.
(3) On the Appian Way (Pignatelli road), illustrated by N. Müller, Le Catacombe degli Ebrei, in Röm. Mitteil., 1886, pp. 49–56.
(4) On the Via Labicana, discovered and illustrated by O. Marucchi, Di un nuovo Cimitero giudaico, Rome, 1884.
(5) On the Via Portuensis (Monteverde), first discovered by A. Bosio in 1602, found again (and then forgotten) in 1740, and finally rediscovered by Müller in 1904; Die jüdische Katakombe am Monteverde, Leipzig,. 1912; Il Cimitero degli antichi Ebrei sulla Via Portuense, in Atti Pont. Acad. Rom. Arch., XII, 1916.
(6) On the Via Nomentana (Villa Torlonia), found in 1920 and described by R. Paribeni, NS, 1920, pp. 143–155.
For the inscriptions see the bibliography given above, p. 351, Note 21. Unfortunately all these catacombs were found already broken into and plundered by robbers who had opened cubiculi and loculi in search of precious objects or antiquities. Most of the slabs were found in pieces and many inscriptions reduced to fragments. Extensive explorations were made only in the catacomb of the Appian Way (Randanini) and of the Via Portuensis (Monteverde). Only a few corridors were excavated in the cemetery of the Via Labicana. A large part of the catacombs of Monteverde are now inaccessible and practically destroyed by land-slides. The excavations on the Via Nomentana also have not been continued. Most of the material which we possess has come from the catacomb of the Appian Way (Randanini), which is still accessible, though inscriptions and sarcophagi were taken away, and from Monteverde.
page 364 note 38 In Monteverde there are tombs of members of the following synagogues: Augusteans, Agrippians, Hebrews, Volumnians, Vernaculi, Calcarienses, Tripolitans. In the Appian Way (Randanini): Campesians, Syburesians, Herodians, and Augusteans. In the Appian Way (Cimarra): Volumnians, Elaeans. In the Appian Way (Pallavicini): Syburesians. In the Via Nomentana (Torlonia): Syburesians, Sekeni. It is interesting to notice that a good many inscriptions of high dignitaries of the community come from the catacomb of Vigna Cimarra, such as VR, 5, 113, 152, 181. That in general the various Jewish districts each used the nearest cemetery is a reasonable supposition, but evidently it was not always the case.
page 364 note 39 Garrucci (Cimitero degli antichi Ebrei, pp. 14 ff.), starting from the remark (which is not altogether exact)that the Jews in Palestine did not have community cemeteries but only family tombs, often dug in the rock, denies that the Jews in Rome could have had catacombs for the community before the Christians set the example. Even Grossi-Gondi follows the same opinion (I Monumenti cristiani iconografici ed architettonici dei sei primi secoli, Rome, 1923, pp. 339 ff.), or at least denies any Jewish influence in the establishment of Christian cemeteries. It does not seem that such a theory is well grounded, and Leclercq's learned discussion (Archéologie Chrétienne, I, pp. 103 ff., 495 ff.) leaves no doubt on this point. The Jews had been in Rome for more than two centuries before Christianity began its propaganda in the capital; they had organized their community and their synagogues under the protection of the law which granted them religious freedom and the privileges thereon consequent. Inasmuch as among the Jews from ancient times “the unwritten law about the burial of the neglected dead was regarded as a duty of the highest obligation, as it is in rabbinical law” (Moore, I, p. 71), it is impossible to conceive that the Jewish community of Rome left its dead poor to be thrown into the puticuli, and did not from the beginning and as part of its regular organization provide community cemeteries. That Jewish catacombs began before Christian ones is beyond doubt. Like many other institutions of the immigrants they were the result of local circumstances which obliged foreign groups who wished to keep customs and traditions of their own in a new environment to have recourse to new devices and create new institutions in order to maintain the traditional ones (see above, p. 278). That the origin of the Christian catacombs is different from that of the Jewish is true, for the Christians began by using the hypogaea of old families, but, as Leclercq remarks (p. 120), we must distinguish between the early Christian cemeteries, which may be called ‘apostolic,’ and the later cemeteries. In gradually transforming the former into the latter the church followed the model of the Jewish cemeteries. After all, did not the church inherit from Judaism the doctrine of resurrection, and with it the respect and care of the dead? Moore, II, pp. 393 f.
page 365 note 40 A similar system of closing the cubicles with tiles and cement and writing the inscription in red on the cement is not infrequent in the Christian catacombs and is found extensively used in coemeterium Jordanorum on the Via Salaria, discovered in 1922 and described by E. Josi in Rivista di Archeologia Cristiana. For the peculiar features of Jewish cemeteries in general, see articles in the Jewish Encyclopedia (‘Tombs’ by S. Krauss), Protestantische Real-encyclopädie, (‘Kömeterien’ by Müller), and H. Leclercq, Manuel d’archéologie chrétienne, I, pp. 495–528.
page 366 note 41 On these decorations, paintings, and sculptures in the Jewish catacombs, besides the descriptions in the monographs quoted above, see Garrucci, Arte Cristiana, VI, pp. 156 ff.
page 366 note 42 It seems, however, that traces of community cemeteries, though rare, are not entirely lacking in Palestine and are mentioned in rabbinic sources (S. Klein, Tod und Begräbnis in Palästina zur Zeit der Tannaiten, 1908), but the establishment of them was probably due to the influence of the custom prevailing in the diaspora. Thus the custom of sending the bones of rich Jews who had died abroad to Palestine to be buried there led to the formation of a central cemetery at Jaffa, discovered by Clermont-Ganneau (Archaeological Researches in Palestine during the Years 1873–1874, transl. by J. McFarlane, 1899, II, pp. 131 ff.; Juster, I, p. 478). Juster remarks emphatically: “On a dit à tort, que l’usage des cimetières fut introduit, dans le monde antique, par les Juifs,” and he may be right, but it is not possible to deny that it was in the Jewish communities of the diaspora that this institution assumed its typical and distinctive forms. It may be true that not all the Jewish groups of the diaspora necessarily had cemeteries of their own, and that where there were such cemeteries it was only the burial of the poor and neglected dead which was at the charge of the community; but it cannot be denied that there is a substantial difference between the origin and character of the Jewish cemeteries and those of the pagan associations and funerary societies. The very facts that the Jewish cemeteries were open to all the members of the community, irrespective of their membership in this or that synagogue, and that the funeral expenses were at the charge of the families who could afford to pay, while for the poor there was a special fund to draw from, differentiate them from the burial-grounds or columbaria of the collegia, where only the members were admitted and the expenses were regularly charged to the common fund. The Jewish cemeteries developed with the growth of the Jewish community into extensive catacombs whose care was entrusted to the government of the community; the latter remained small private burial-places and disappeared when the associations — as often happened after a short period of existence — were dissolved. But, as is stated above, the importance of the burialgrounds of the synagogues lies rather in the fact that from them the church derived, in part at least, its cemeterial policy.
page 367 note 43 VR, 30. On the decorations and artistic representations found in great quantity in other Jewish cemeteries and tombs outside Rome (as well as, for instance, in Africa and Palmyra) see Leclercq, Arch. Chrét., I, pp. 122 ff., also Appendix II, ‘L’Axt et les cimitières Juifs,’ pp. 495–528, and articles in DACL,’ Gamart,’ etc.
page 368 note 44 See Moore's exhaustive treatment of the subject in the chapter on Private and Public Charity, II, pp. 162–179. According to the system which was well established at the end of the second century “in each municipality two collectors were appointed, men of unimpeachable probity…. They made their rounds together every Friday to the market and the shops and to private houses, taking up the weekly collection for charity in money or in kind.” “The distribution … was made also on Fridays by a commission of three members” (pp. 174 f.). “Upon the community fell also the support of orphan children.” “For the burial of the poor provision was made from the public funds, and also for ransom of captives, an obligation to which every other was postponed. For these extraordinary expenses special collections were made” (pp. 175 f.). “To the collections for public charities all were required to contribute in the measure of their ability and of the current or.occasional need” (p. 178).
page 369 note 45 In many places, such as Ascalon, Alexandria, Mantinea, Syracuse, rich Jews are mentioned who at their own private expense built or adorned synagogues or made large gifts to them; but nothing is said about Rome, where the synagogues were built and supported by the groups or by the Jewish community.
page 369 note 46 This may be an exaggeration, but undoubtedly in a city like Rome, where there were no large industries and servile labor was predominant, the large crowds of Jews who through their own efforts or the charity of their brethren passed from slavery to freedom must have found it difficult to make a living. Furthermore, the traditional teaching of the Jews that “men should make every effort not to become a public charge” (Moore, II, p. 177), and that the most repugnant employment is honorable if it earns a living (according to the saying of Rab: “Skin the carcass of a dead beast in the market place for hire, and do not say, I am a great man, it is beneath my dignity”), made the Jews of Rome ready to enter the humblest occupations which to the Romans would have seemed mere beggary. The passage of Martial about the Jewish peddling of matches in exchange for broken glass is well known (Epigr. xii. 57; S. Reinach protests against the usual interpretation, Textes, p. 289). Sham beggars, however, were not lacking among the Jews (“a matre doctus rogare Judaeus,” Martial, ibid.), and the severe denunciation of such practices uttered by Jewish teachers (Moore, II, p. 177) shows the existence of the evil.
page 369 note 47 Against the common opinion that in the early centuries of the empire the Jews were already prominent as traders, and that they were included in the general denomination of “mercatores Syri,” Juster holds that “dans le commerce le nombre de Juifs n’avait d’abord rien d’exagéré. Jamais un auteur païen ne les caractérisa comme marchands, jamais à l’époque païenne ces deux notions — Juif et marchand — ne vont ensemble comme de soi-même.” The trouble is that “on a transporté à l’antiquité des idées qu’on avait acquises par l’étude du Moyen-Âge” (II, p. 313).
page 370 note 48 For instance, VR, 143: Alexander bucularius de macello.
page 370 note 49 Juster, II, p. 309.
page 370 note 50 Moore, I, pp. 308–322, ‘The Schools.’
page 371 note 51 Ibid., p. 322.
page 371 note 52 VR, I, pp. 92–112, have gathered all the fragmentary information available on the Jewish schools and cultural life at Rome. When hypothetical assumptions are eliminated, very little remains to enable the reader to pass a judgment upon the intellectual life of the Jewish community in the period in question.
page 372 note 1 The contributions to the temple were sent to Jerusalem under the official protection of the Roman government. After the fall of the temple Vespasian obliged the Jews to pay the tribute into the imperial treasury, but private contributions to Jerusalem continued to be sent by Jews. With the establishment of the Jewish patriarchate the contributions again assumed a legal character, since the right was granted to the patriarchs to collect the ‘aurum coronarium’ and tithes and first-fruits from all the Jews. Mention of this law is first found in the fourth century, but there is no doubt that the institution was much older. It was, however, a personal privilege of the patriarch, and when with the extinction of Hillel's family the patriarchate was suppressed, the contribution also ceased. The ‘archiferecita’ whom the Jews set up as their head had no legal standing, although probably he too received private offerings from the Jewish communities; but from that time on most of the Jews began to consider the exilarch of Babylon as the supreme leader of Judaism. On the patriarchate and its jurisdiction see Juster, I, pp. 391–400. It is interesting to notice that the Jewish patriarchate, established probably under Antoninus Pius and already fully organized at the end of the second century, was not a territorial monarch or the ruler of Palestine but the spiritual head of all the Jews of the empire. It was about the same time that the bishops of Home began to assume the attitude of high spiritual leaders in the Christian church. This coincidence is remarkable. Of this I shall treat in another study and in connection with the problem of the mutual relations between the Jewish and Christian communities in Borne in the second century.
page 373 note 2 The representatives and emissaries of the patriarch, called ‘apostles,’ had the duty of bringing to the communities the message of their leader and of collecting the tribute. They visited the Jewish groups periodically, thus keeping up the contact between the rulers of the various synagogues and communities as well as with the religious centre of Judaism. Whether the Jewish apostles existed before the institution of the patriarchate or were established by the new government is a much debated question. They appear with this name only under the patriarchate. No doubt in the former period, even under the sanhedrin, the central religious authority of Jerusalem always kept in contact with the Jewish communities of the diaspora and more or less regularly sent them emissaries and messages. Whether these called were ‘apostles,’ so that this title passed from them to the Christian missionaries, or whether the title was adopted by the representatives of the patriarchal administration on the model of the Christian custom, is after all of little importance. It is probable, however, that the title of apostle was adopted first by the non-christian Jews, although between the Jewish apostles of the first century and those of the patriarchal régime there was a considerable difference, at least in importance, if not in function. See art. ‘Apostles’ in JE. H. Monnier (Notion de l’Apostolat, Paris, 1903) held to the priority in time of the Christian apostles, but with no success. See A. von Harnack, Ausbreitung des Christentums, 2nd ed., I, p. 274.
page 374 note 3 Moore, I, p. 106.
page 374 note 4 Ibid., p. 107.
page 375 note 5 On the policy of Augustus and the emperors of the Julian house see especially Manfrin, I, pp. 215 ff. Philo in his Legatio ad Caium made an energetic appeal to the precedent established by the policy of Augustus towards the Jews: Otherwise he would not have allowed the Jews to inhabit a large ward of the capital in the Trastevere; and the greater part of them consisted of freedmen, prisoners of war later manumitted and free to live according to the national tradition. He was not ignorant that they had their own schools, in which they gathered especially on the Sabbath. He knew also that they used to send periodically to the temple of Jerusalem their tribute of money, the so called first-fruits, by special messengers who offered the victims. Yet he did not expel the Jews from the capital, did not deprive them of Roman citizenship, and took no steps against the religion and the communities of Palestine (ed. Mangey, II, 568 f.).
page 375 note 6 The decree of Tiberius which is mentioned not only by Josephus (Ant. xviii. 3, 5) but also by Suetonius (Tib. 36) and Tacitus (Ann. ii. 85), no matter under what provocation it was issued, reënters upon the general policy of Tiberius, so hostile to all foreign cults. Juster, II, p. 170, suggests that those expelled from Rome were peregrini, while those exiled to Sardinia were Jews who were Roman citizens. But either the law was not enforced or else the Jews obeyed (according to Tacitus the Jews were to be expelled “nisi certain ante diem profanos ritus exuissent”), for a few years afterward, in the short reign of Caligula, there was again a large Jewish community in Rome. The case of Jews who under constraint took part in heathen ceremonies was not rare, as Philo himself states (De spec. leg. i. 8); the apostasy was only temporary, and readmission was not difficult to obtain (Juster, I, pp. 272–273).
page 376 note 7 On the circumstances which led Claudius to confirm the Jewish privileges, first as it seems to the Jews of Alexandria and then to all the Jews of the empire, see his letter to the Alexandrians recently discovered and the introduction of H. I. Bell (Jews and Christians in Egypt, pp. 10 ff.), and the literature on the whole question of Claudius's edicts there referred to (note 1). Much ink has been wasted on the supposed general expulsion of Jews from Rome under Claudius mentioned in the famous passage of Suetonius (Claud. 25), and seemingly confirmed by Acts 18, 2. The prevailing opinion is that probably a few leaders in the tumults between Jews and Christians (?) were exiled (Clemen, Paulus, I, pp. 373 ff.), and that Claudius merely forbade Jewish meetings (Dio Cass. lx. 6, 6; Juster, I, p. 171), but there are still recent writers who insist on supposing a general expulsion of Jews under Claudius (A. Omodeo, Paolo di Tarso, 1922, p. 252).
page 376 note 8 Roman authority protected the Jews against those cities which tried to impose upon them the local official cult. Thus Caesar obliged the magistrates of Paros to revoke the measures taken on this account against the Jews of Delos (Jos., Ant. xiv. 10, 8). The intruders who provoked disturbances in the synagogues during the meetings were guilty of ‘atrox iniuria,’ and condemned to the mines, as happened to the slave Callistus, later bishop of Rome (Hippolytus, Philosophumena, ix. 12).
page 377 note 9 Josephus states clearly the character of these sacrifices: “Our legislator has not forbidden us to do honor to worthy men, provided it be of a different kind from that done to God. By these honors we willingly show our respect for our emperors and for the Roman people. We offer also perpetual sacrifices for them, and not only do we offer these daily at the common expense of all the Jews, and although such sacrifices at common expense are not offered by us even for our own children, yet we do this to honor the emperors and them alone, because to no other person at all do we accord such honors” (C. Apionem, ii. 6). It was thus a special liturgy used exclusively for the emperor. In this form the imperial cult was an obligation imposed on the Jewish nation as a whole, and was observed as long as the temple stood.
page 379 note 10 Bell, pp. 27 f.
page 379 note 11 “The present papyrus does show very clearly what steady pressure was maintained from the side of the provinces upon the emperors to sanction extensions of the cult. The most striking example of this is seen in the prefect's edict. Ordering the publication of this letter in which Claudius definitely refuses divine honours, the emperor's own representative calls on the people of Alexandria to admire τὴν μεγαλειότητα τοῦ θεοῦ ἡμῶν Kαίσαρος.” This seems to be the earliest example of the title θεός used in an official document for the living emperor. “If the intentions of the emperor,” Bell concludes, “were thus defeated by his own officials, we can see how inevitable, sooner or later, was the development of the cult into a real worship of the living ruler” (pp. 7, 8).
page 379 note 12 Juster, I, pp. 342–344.
page 380 note 13 But there were fanatics who refused to conform to the general custom because “they said that God is their only ruler and lord” (Josephus, Ant. xviii. 1, 5).
page 380 note 14 See the formula of the oath in C. G. Bruns, Fontes Juris antiqui, ed. 7, 1909, p. 277. Cumont, Studia Pontica, p. 3, n. 66. On the Jewish opposition, Juster, I, p. 344, n. 7.
page 380 note 15 Collected by Vogelstein and Riegel, I, pp. 80 ff. The utterances abound also in denunciations of Rome's moral corruption and vices. Titus, who to the Romans was “deliciae generis humani,” for the Jews is “the wicked,” and dies of a terrible death caused by a fly which lodges in his brain, devours it, and becomes as big as a pigeon. After his death the surgeons opened his skull and Rabbi Eleazar ben Jose saw with his own eyes the fly-pigeon flying in the sky above Rome (p. 91). Nero on the contrary, according to a Talmudic tale, was not murdered, but disappeared and became a Jew, and the famous R. Meir of the Mishnah (Moore, I, p. 95) was said to be one of his descendants (VR, p. 91).
page 381 note 16 The Jewish repugnance to the theatres was conspicuous among Jews of conservative tendencies. Among the hellenized Jews, even before Caligula, there was little abhorrence of spectacles. Juster, II, pp. 239–241, and literature, ibid., n. 2.
page 382 note 17 Tacitus, Hist. i. 2.
page 382 note 18 Origen, Contra Celsum, i. 2; iii. 5; iv. 31. It seems to me that a distinction is to be made between the attacks upon the great antiquity and originality of the Jewish traditions and race and the attempts to connect Jewish origins with Hellenic history. The former were made with a disparaging purpose, as by Celsus (Origen, C. Cels. i. 31), to show that the teaching of the Jewish books and traditions was but a shameful plagiarism of the doctrines and customs of other and more ancient peoples, appropriated and partly falsified by the Jews. But on the contrary the ascription of a Greek origin to the Jewish race, offensive as it may have been to the conservative Jews, was a compliment in the eyes of Greeks and Romans, and obviously could not displease those Jews who were altogether hellenized in thought and customs. For other similar etymologies of ‘Judaeus’ see Théodore Reinach, Textes, p. 215.
page 383 note 19 The influence of Judaism on the worship of Sabazius and on the mysteries is analyzed by F. Cumont, ‘Les mystères de Sabazius et le Judaisme,’ in Comptes-rendus, Acad. Inscr., 1906, pp. 63 ff., and The Oriental Religions, pp. 63 ff.
page 383 note 20 Oriental Religions, p. 65.
page 384 note 22 Ibid., pp. 324 f.
page 385 note 23 Contra Celsum, iv, passim and v. 50.
page 386 note 24 Celsus has no objection to the Jews’ living according to their own traditions, on the contrary he praises them for doing so; but for the same reason he condemns them for inviting people of other races to abandon their own original religion and adopt Judaism (especially Origen, C. Cels. v. 25 ff.); see L. Rougier, Celse ou le conflit de la civilisation antique et du Christianisme primitive, 1925, p. 176.
page 386 note 25 Thus they were not eligible to public offices the duties of which involved religious oaths and practices. Augustus even granted them the privilege of receiving the public distribution of corn on a different day when the stated day happened to be a Sabbath.
page 387 note 26 On this point the rigorous measures adopted by Domitian, as well as by Hadrian, Antoninus, and Severus, though different in character and in the use of means of coercion, were prompted by the same motive and directed to the same purpose.
page 389 note 27 Moore, I, p. 225.
page 390 note 28 On the Jewish proselytes in general see the exhaustive chapter, ‘Conversion of Gentiles,’ in Moore, I, pp. 323–353.
page 390 note 29 VR, 152 (CIL. VI, 29756); VR, 155, 168; Müller, 77; Paribeni NS (1920), 44, 47; Armellini, Cronichette mensili, 1883, p. 188.
page 390 note 30 “Equality in law and religion does not necessarily carry with it complete social equality, and the Jews would have been singularly unlike the rest of mankind if they had felt no superiority to their heathen converts. To the old classification, Priests, Levites, (lay) Israelites, a fourth category was added, Proselytes; and sometimes a subdivision puts them far down in the table of precedence, after (Israelite) bastards and Nethinim (descendants of old temple-slaves), and only above (heathen) slaves who had been circumcised and emancipated by their masters,” Moore, I, p. 335.
page 391 note 31 Moore, I, p. 325.
page 391 note 32 CIL. VI, 29759, 29763, 29760; Kaibel 1325; CIL. V, 88 (VR, 149) is supposed to belong to Rome. Also VR, 4, 141, 20, and 258 are interpreted as inscriptions of metuentes. If such is the case, then the metuentes were not always excluded from the Jewish cemeteries, for VR, 158 comes with certainty from the catacomb of Vigna Cimarra.
page 391 note 33 Moore, I, p. 326.
page 391 note 34 Moore, I, pp. 350 f. Also F. Huidekoper, Judaism at Rome, pp. 7–11, and pp. 467–469 on the use and meaning of ἀσέβεια in the pagan and Christian writers of the first and second centuries after Christ.
page 392 note 35 VR, 141: “Aemilio Valenti eq. Romano metuenti.” Found in Vigna del Pino, Ephem. Epigr. IV, 291, n. 838.
page 392 note 36 In several Jewish inscriptions of the Roman cemeteries we find in praise of the deceased such phrases as πᾶσι øειλητός (VR, 72); or øιλόλαος (VR, 97); or (VR, 131). These sound like humble protests against the current accusation that the Jews were guilty of hatred against the whole of mankind. The Jewish butcher of VR, 143, is called “omniorum [sic] amicus.”
page 392 note 37 Tac. Hist. v. 5.
page 392 note 38 “In the latter part of the second century there set in among the Jews a reaction against everything foreign. The age of missionary activity came to an end; even the conversion of proselytes was looked upon askance. Judaism, thrown on the defensive, retreated into the stronghold of the Law, and converted it into an impregnable fortress,” G. F. Moore, History of Religions, II, p. 68. But the teaching of the various schools about the fair treatment of the proselytes remained the same as before; Moore, Judasm, I, pp. 342 ff.
page 395 note 1 Dibelius, M., ‘The Structure and Literary Character of the Gospels,’ Harvard Theological Review, July, 1927, p. 164Google Scholar.
page 396 note 2 I have tried to show the importance of this point in my essay, ‘La primitive comunità cristiana di Roma e l'EpistoIa ai Romani,’ in Ricerche Religiose, Rome, May–July, 1925, pp. 224 ff.
page 398 note 3 SEHRE, pp. 478 ff.
page 401 note 4 By Miss M. L. Gordon in her remarkable paper on the Nationality of Slaves under the early Roman Empire, Journal of Roman Studies, 1924, p. 110.
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