(e.) Another principal section of the Dispersion we find in Syria, whither they had been brought chiefly by Seleucus Nicator or Nicanor (Joseph. Ant,vii, 8,1), when the battle of Ipsus, B.C. 801, had put him in pos- session of the countries of JSyria Proper, Babylonia, Mesopotamia, Persia, Phoenicia, Palestine, etc. Under his and his successors* fostering rule they reached the highest degree of prosperity (/. c), principally at Anti- och on the Orontes, and Seleucia on the Tigris, and other great cities founded by Seleucus ; and Uie priv- ileges which this king had bestowed upon them were constantly confirmed up to the time of Josephus {AnL xii, 8, 1). Antiochus Epiphanes, or Epimanes, as he was called, seems to have been the only Syrian poten- tate by whom the Syrian dispersion was persecuted ; and it was no doubt under his reign that they, in order to escape from his cruelty, began to emigrate in all di- rections— to Armenia, Cappadoda (Helena, the Jewish queen of Adiabene, Joseph. AnL xx, 2), Cyprus, and over the whole of Asia Minor; Phrygia and Lydia alone possessed Jewish colonies of a previous date, planted there by Antiochus the Greek (Joseph. Ant. xii, 8, 4). Hence they dispersed themselves through- out the blands of the ^gean, to Macedonia, to Greece, where they inhabited chiefly the seaports and the marts of trade and commerce. See Stria.
(d,) Although, to use the words of Josephus (AnL xiv, 7, 2), the habitable globe was so full of Jews that there was scarcely a comer of the Roman empire where they might not be foond — a statement fully confirmed by the number of Roman decrees issued to various parts of the empire for their protection (Joseph. AnL xiv, 10 sq.>— there is yet no absolute proof of their having acquired any fixed settlements in the metrop- olis itoelf anterior to the time of Pompey, who, after the taking of Jerusalem, carried back with him many Jewish captives and prisoners to Rome, B.C. 88. These, being generally either allowed to retire firom the service, or ransomed, remained there as lAbertinif and in time formed, by the addition to their number of fresh immigrants from Asia and Greece, a large and highly infiuential community, which occupied chiefly the TVanstiberine portion of the city, together with an island in the Tiber. Their prosperity grew with their numbers, and suffered but short interruptions under Tiberius (Suet. Tib. c 86). The expulsion under Clau- dius (Suet. CL 26) and Caligula (Joseph. AnL xviii, 6)
CAPTIVITY
114
CAPUCHINS
is contradicted (Dio Cus. Ix, 6 ; Orosiiu, vii, 6). Thejr built nomeronB synagogues, founded schools (even a short-lived academy), made proselytes, and epjoyed the full advantages of Roman citizens (in the decrees they are styled iroXirat *Pa>/iat«uv, troXirai rffurtpoi 'loviaioij Joseph. AfU. xW, 10). The connection be- tween the Roman Dispersion and Palestine was very dose, especially so long as the young princes of the Herodian house were, in a manner, obliged to live in Rome. There is no doubt that to the influence of this powerful body, whose number, origin, strange rites and customs, attracted no small shara of public notice (Tacitus, Suetonius, Cicero, Juvenal, Horace, Martial, Justinian, etc, pauim)^ and to their access to the im- perial court was due the amelioration of the condition of the Jewish people throughout every country to which the sway of Rome extended. It was also through Rome chiefly, both before, and still more after the final destruction of Jerusalem, that the stream of Jewish emigration was poured over the greater part of Europe. Of the world-wide influence of the Jewish Dispersion on Christianity, whicb addressed itself first of all to the former as a body (Acts xiii, 46 ; ii, 9, 11), farther mention will be found under the article Jxws. The most important original authorities on the Dis- persion are Joseph. Ani, xiv, 10 ; xiv, 7 ; Apion, ii, 6 ; PhUo, Leg, ad Camm; id. Flaccum. Frankel has col- lected the various points together in an exhaustive es- say in his MonattMckrift, Nov. Dec. 1863, p. 409-11, 449- 61. Comp. Jost, Gesch. <L Jvdenik. p. 836, 844 ; Ewald, Gesch. d, Volket Itr. iv. See Dispebsed Jews.
III. 8ulmqHentStaie$ofCapUvUy,^l, The extermi- nation sufi^BKd by the Jewish inhabitants of Palestine under the Romans far better deserves the name of captivity ; for, after the massacre of countless thou- sands, the captives were reduced to a real bondage. According to Josephus, in his detailed account {War^ especially vi, 9, 8), 1,100,000 men fell in the siege of Jerusalem by Titus, and 97,000 were captured in the whole war. Of the latter number, the greatest part were distributed among the provinces, to be butchered in the amphitheatres, or cast there to wild beasts; others were doomed to work as public sUves in Egypt. Only those under the age of seventeen were sold into private bondage. See Jerusalem. 2. An equally dreadful destruction fell upon the remains of the na- tion, which had once more assembled in Judiea, under the reign of Hadrian (A.D. 183), which Dion Cassius concisely relates ; ahd by these two savage wars the Jewish population must have been efi^ctually extirpa- ted from the Holy Land itself, a result which did not follow from the Babylonian captivity. 8. Afterward, a dreary period of fifteen hundred years* oppression crushed in Europe all who bore the name of Israel, and Christian nations have visited on their head a crime perpetrated by a few thousand inhabitants of Jerusalem, who were not the real forefathers of the European Jews. 4. Nor in the East has their lot been much more cheerii\g. With few and partial- excep- tions, they liAve ever since been a despised, an op- pressed, and naturally a degraded people, though fivm them have spread light and truth to the distant nations of the earth. See Jews.