10. THE REST OF ITALY, AND SPAIN, GAUL, GERMANY.—The presence of Jews in these locali- ties is not for the most part demonstrable before the period of the later empire. Relative antiquity belongs to the Jewish community at Puteoli (Dikee- archia), the principal port for the trade between Italy and the East. In addition to Phcenicians and other Orientals we meet here with Jews as well, at the latest about the beginning of the Christian era (Jos. Ant. XVI. xii. 1; BJ 11. vii. 1). But even in a, petty town like Pompeii their presence is demon- strable at the date of the destruction of the place, A.D. 79. The names ‘Sodoma’ and ‘Gomora,’ are scratched on the wall of a house; and not only ‘Maria,’ which might be the feminine of Marius, but ‘Martha,’ occurs. The following also are found on earthen vessels: ‘ murfia] cast[a],’ and ‘gar[um] cast{um] o7 cast[imoniale],’ with which ef. Pliny, HIN xxxi. 95 (Mau, Pompeji in Leben und Kunst, 1900, p. 15 £.).
In the period of the later empire the Jews were specially numerous in Southern Italy (see Neu- bauer, ‘The Early Settlement of the Jews in Southern Italy’ in JQR iv. [1892] 606-625). In Apulia and Calabria during the 4th cent. there were many places where the communal offices could not be properly filled, because the Jewish inhabit- ants declined to accept them (see the decree of the emperors Arcadius and Honorius [A.D, 398] in Codex Theodosianus, XII. i. 158). At Venosa (Venusia in Apulia, the birthplace of Horace) a Jewish catacomb has been discovered, with numer- ous inscriptions in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, be- longing to somewhere about the 6th cent. A.D.
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(Ascoli, Iscrizioni inedite o mal note greche latine ebraiche di antichi sepoleri giudaici del Napoli- tano, Torino, 1880; CIL ix. Nos, 6195-6241), During this later period we meet with Jews also at Tarentum, Capua, and Naples, as well as in all the principal towns (Syracuse, Palermo, Messina, Agrigentum) of Sicily.—They do not appear to have been quite so thickly settled in Northern Italy. Yet we find them here too in most of the larger towns (Ravenna, Aquileia, Bologna, Brescia, Milan, Genoa).
For the other provinces of the West, Spain, Gaul, Germany, the testimonies likewise com. mence about the 4th cent. A.D. As it does not fall within the scope of the present article to examine all these in detail, we would refer the reader to Friedlander, Darstellungen aus der Sittengeschichte Roms, iii. [1871] 511f.; the same author’s de Judeorum Coloniis, Konigsberg, 1876 ; and, above all, Th. Reinach, art. ‘Judi? in Daremberg -Saglio’s Dictionnaire des Antiquités grecques et romaines.
ii, ORGANIZATION OF THE COMMUNITIES. — Everywhere where Jews lived together in any number, they organized themselves into societies, with a view to maintaining their uniqueness, safe- guarding their interests, and practising their wor- ship. It is certain that this organization was not everywhere the same. Differences in regard to the possession of political rights, differences in the degree of authority they were allowed to exercise, differences in the stage of culture in the various places where Jews lived, brought with them differences also in the internal organization. Where they formed an imposing political power, the constitution was different from what it was in instances where they formed only petty, modest, private societies. Nevertheless, there are certain common features that run through almost the whole body of the immense Jewish Diaspora. We can prove both these points from a variety of ex- roles, although in many instances we are unable to pursue the details.
We know practically nothing about the con- stitution of the Jewish communities in the Euph- rates districts in pre-Talmudic times. Our survey must thus confine itself to the communities within the sphere of the Roman sway.
At Alexandria the Jews, owing to their large numbers and their political influence, found them- selves in a peculiarly favourable situation. Al- though they possessed the rights of citizens (see below, § iv.), they constituted a State within a State. Not only had they their own residential quarters, as mentioned above, but they formed an almost independent community, with a kind of monarchical head. ‘Their constitution is thus de- scribed by Strabo (ap. Jos. Ant. XIV. vii. 2): ‘But there is also an ethnarch at their head, who rules the people and dispenses justice, and sees that obligations are fulfilled and statutes observed, like the archon of an independent State’ (xa@lorarac dé kal é€Ovdpxns atr&v, ds duocce? re Td €Ovos Kal diara Kploes Kal ocuuBoralwy émipmedeirac Kal Tpoorayudrwy, ws dy mohirelas dpxwy atroredois). ‘The maintaining of this independence was materially facilitated during the Imperial period by the circumstance that, from the last of the Ptolemies down to Septimius Severus, Alexandria, unlike nearly all Hellenistic towns, had no city Senate (Spartian, Severus, 17; Dio Cassius, li. 17). In the time of Augustus a certain modification of the condition of things appears to have taken place. It is, indeed, noted in the decree of the emperor Claudius (ap. Jos. Ant. XIX. v. 2) that even Augustus, after the death of the ethnarch who held office during the administration of Aquila [10-11 A.D., see Ephemeris Epigraphica, vii. 448.
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(=CIL iii. Suppl. No. 12046)}, «did not prevent the appointment of ethnarchs’ (xa ad’ dy katpov vAkdAas iy ev "Areavdpela, redevricavros rod TOY Toudatoy €Ovdpxov, tov LeBaordv wh Kexwduxévar cOvdpxas yiyvecbu). But the whole object of Claudius in this decree is to insist that even under Augustus the political rights and the re- ligious freedom of the Jews in Alexandria had not been diminished. This is not at all irreconcilable with a certain modification of the internal con- stitution. But we are expressly told by Philo that such a modification was introduced by Augustus. His statement is to the effect that, when the Jewish genarch died, Magius Maximus, who was on the point of undertaking for the second time the office of administrator of Egypt, received in- structions from Augustus that a gerusia was to be appointed to manage the affairs of the Jews (in Hlaccum, § 10 [ed. Mangey, ii. 527f.]: ris querépas ‘yepovolas, iy 6 cwrip Kal evepyérns ZeBaords éripednoo- Mévnv trav "Tovdatkév etdero, Mera Thy ToD “yevdpyou TeAeuTHy, Oud Tw@Y pds Mdyvov Mdémov évrodwv, MENNovTA, mad ém’ Aivyérrou kat rhs Xwpas émvrpomeverv [the traditional Mdyvov of the MSS is incorrect, the name was Magius Maximus, see CIL ix. No. 1125)). Accordingly, we may probably maybe that the difference between this later and the earlier organization consisted in the substitution of a gerusia for the monarchical authority of the ethnarch, or in the setting up of a gerusia side by side with him. In favour of the latter supposition it can be urged that the decree of Claudius ap- pears to presuppose the continued existence of ethnarchs even aiter the interposition of Augustus. At the same time, it is also possible that Claudius only means to say in general that the Jews still continued to have their own superiors (€Ovdpya). The yepovsta and the dpyovres at its head are further mentioned by Philo several times in the same context (§ 10 [ed. Mangey, ii. 528]: rév ard THs yepovolas rpeis dvdpes ; tb. werameupapery a porepov Tovs HueTépous dpyovras; ib. p. 528f. rods dpxovras, Ti yepovotay ; 1b. § 14 [p. 534] rav per apxovTwr). Josephus mentions the mpwrevovres rijs yepouvotas (BJ vil. x. 1). According to the principal passage of Philo (§ 10 [ed. Mangey, ii. 527f.]), Flaccus caused thirty-eight members of the gerusia to be dragged into the theatre and scourged there. The whole number was, accordingly, greater than this ; it may have been seventy, after the model of the Sanhedrin at Jerusalem. In any case the d&pxovres were not the whole body of the yepovcia, but only its committee of management. This is clear not only from the statements of Philo, but from the standing usage of the Greek word.*—A widely diffused error is the identification of the Egyptian alabarch with the Jewish ethnarch. The first named office was a purely civil one, although, of course, it was repeatedly held by Jews of note (see below, § iv.).