After his capture of Jerusalem in B.C. 63, Pompey carried many Jewisli prisoners to Romeag slaves. (See Libertines). The great majority of them ■would seem to have been \ oluntarilv manu- mitted by their masters or ransomed oy theit fellow-countrymen, for we find but a few yean later that a strong Jewish community was iu
existence dwelling on the other side of the Tiber in I lie quarter corresponding to the Trastevere of today. I'Vom its proximity to the wharves it was a suitable place for the trades which were carried on by the Jews, and the Jewish community rapidly increased in numbers and influence. In his deience of Valerius Flaccus — who was accused of appropri- ating the gold which had been sent by the Jews in Asia Minor towards the maintenance of the temple worship at Jerus. — in the rear B.C. 69, Cicero tiiakes many allusions which sliow that the Jews in Koine were a party wortli conciliating. He speaks 9f their numbers, their unity, their influence in public gatherings. He pretends that he must speak in a whisper so that only the judges may hear, on the ground that there was no lack of persons ready to stir up the Jews against him and all the best men in the State (pro Flacco, c. 28). The verj' exaggeration of the scorn which he pours on their claim to be specially favoured of heaven (ib. c. 69) is a testimony to their grow- ing strength, as well as an index of the alarm which the success of their proselrtizing efibrts had created. Julius Csesar, perhaps from the idea that the Jews were specially htted to be inter- mediaries between the East and theAVest (Rosenthal in Berliner, p. 17), treated the Jews throughout the empire with great generosity; and we read without s-stonishment that conspicuous among the foreign races in Rome in their sorrow over the death of Caesar were the Jews, who, for nights in succession, visited his tomb (Suet. Dimis Julius, c. 84). By the time of Augustus the Jewisli population in Koine must have numbered many thousands. Accord- ing to Jos. {Ant. XVII. ii. 1 ; BJ 11. vi. 1) more than 8000 Jews supported the embassy that came to Augustus with complaints against Archelaus. For a time no repressive measures were adopted ; on the contrary, the Jews in Rome received special privileges in the form of a limited jurisdiction over their own adherents. The rulers of Palestine were often brought into close relations by friendship and alliance with members of the imperial house- hold. Herod Agrippa I., e.g., was brought up at Rome along with Dmsus the son of Tiberius (Jos. Ant. xvni. vi. 1). From allusions in the Roman Satirists (Juv. iii. 10-15), as well as from the evidence of the cemeteries (see Schiirer), it is plain that the limitation to the Trastevere was not rigidlj enforced, and soon disappeared. From a story in Jos. {Ant. XVIII. iii. 5) it may be gathered that the success of their proselytism, especially among women in the higlier classes, was the main ground for the coercive measures that were subsequently adopted. In A.D. 19, perhaps at the instigation of bejanns, who accord- mg to Philo {Le(/. ad Gaiu7n, c. 24) was bitterly hostile to the Jews, 4000 Jews were banished to Sardinia under the pretext of being sent to put down brigandage there, but not without a hope that they might be cut off by the notoriously nnhcalthy climate (Tac. Ann. li. 85; Suet. Ti/>. 66). In the account of the embassy to Caligula in A.D. 40, we have a curious light thrown on tlie character of the emperor as well as on the attit\ide of the court to Jewish customs and beliefs (Philo, Leg. ad Gaium, 44-46). In A.D. 49 (or 52 according to some authorities), probahly on account of the tumults created by the preaching of the gospel in the Je>vish quarter (Suet. Claud. 25), Claudius issued an edict for the banishment of all the .lews from Rome.* Among those banished were Aquila and Priscilla, who went to Corinth, where they
• The Identiflcatlon of the Chrietlam with the Jews wan not Ihe reffult of a mlBtake. They wwre Jews, and the ChriHtiane were rppinied tiniply aa a (cct, certaialy by ouUtidens, and In all probability they lo regarded thenualTe*. The time of elaavtge waa not yet.
came into contact with St. Paul (Ac IS'). But the decree of banishment was futile, for the Jews had now obtained a social and political influence that made repression difficult or impossible. ' The customs of that most accursed race,' says Seneca, — perhaps with an indirect reference to the influence of Poppffia on Nero (Jos. Vita, 3, Ant. XX. viii. 11), — ' have spread to such an extent that they are kept in every land ; the conquered have given laws to the conqueror' (Aug. de Civ. Dei, vi. 11). And yet ' we may be sure that the proud patricians, who, in their walks on the Aventine cast a glance on the other side of the river, never suspected that the future was being made ready in that mass of hovels which lay at the foot of the Janiculum ' (Renan, Hibbert Lecture, p. 53).* The destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 is commemorated in the well-known Arch of Titus on the Via Sacra. The seven-branched candk-stick, the golden table, and the silver trumpets, delineated on the Arch, were themselves placed in the Temple of Peace in A. D. 75, but fell a prey to Genseric, and were landed safely at Carthage in 455. In 535 Belisarius re- captured them, took them to Constantinople, and since then they have completely disappeared. But it is fairly certain that they cannot be, as is popularly imagined, in the bed of the Tiber.