Title: The Provinces of the Roman Empire, v. 2. - From Caesar to Diocletian
Author: Mommsen, Theodor
Language: English
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THE PROVINCES OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

FROM CAESAR TO DIOCLETIAN

[Illustration: Printer's Mark]

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED

LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA · MELBOURNE

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO · ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.

TORONTO



THE PROVINCES

OF THE

ROMAN EMPIRE

FROM CAESAR TO DIOCLETIAN

BY

THEODOR MOMMSEN

TRANSLATED

WITH THE AUTHOR’S SANCTION AND ADDITIONS

BY

WILLIAM P. DICKSON, D.D., LL.D.

PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW

VOL. II

_WITH TWO MAPS BY PROFESSOR KIEPERT_

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED

ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON

1909


_First Edition 1886_

_Reprinted with corrections 1909_



CONTENTS


BOOK EIGHTH

_THE PROVINCES AND PEOPLE, FROM CAESAR TO DIOCLETIAN_

                                                            PAGE
CHAPTER IX.

  THE EUPHRATES FRONTIER AND THE PARTHIANS                    1

CHAPTER X.

  SYRIA AND THE LAND OF THE NABATAEANS                      116

CHAPTER XI.

  JUDAEA AND THE JEWS                                       160

CHAPTER XII.

  EGYPT                                                     232

CHAPTER XIII.

  THE AFRICAN PROVINCES                                     303

  APPENDIX                                                  347

  MAPS                                                I. to II.

  INDEX                                                     355



CHAPTER IX.

THE EUPHRATES FRONTIER AND THE PARTHIANS.


[Sidenote: The empire of Iran.]

The only great state with which the Roman empire bordered was the
empire of Iran,[1] based upon that nationality which was best known
in antiquity, as it is in the present day, under the name of the
Persians, consolidated politically by the old Persian royal family of
the Achaemenids and its first great-king Cyrus, united religiously by
the faith of Ahura Mazda and of Mithra. No one of the ancient peoples
of culture solved the problem of national union equally early and with
equal completeness. The Iranian tribes reached on the south as far
as the Indian Ocean, on the north as far as the Caspian Sea; on the
north-east the steppes of inland Asia formed the constant battle-ground
between the settled Persians and the nomadic tribes of Turan. On the
east mighty mountains formed a boundary separating them from the
Indians. In western Asia three great nations early encountered one
another, each pushing forward on its own account: the Hellenes, who
from Europe grasped at the coast of Asia Minor, the Aramaic peoples,
who from Arabia and Syria advanced in a northern and north-eastern
direction and substantially filled the valley of the Euphrates, and
lastly, the races of Iran, not merely inhabiting the country as far
as the Tigris, but even penetrating to Armenia and Cappadocia, while
primitive inhabitants of other types in these far-extending regions
succumbed under these leading powers and disappeared. In the epoch
of the Achaemenids, the culminating point of the glory of Iran, the
Iranian rule went far beyond this wide domain proper to the stock on
all sides, but especially towards the west. Apart from the times, when
Turan gained the upper hand over Iran and the Seljuks and Mongols ruled
over the Persians, foreign rule, strictly so called, has only been
established over the flower of the Iranian stocks twice, by Alexander
the Great and his immediate successors and by the Arabian Abbasids,
and on both occasions only for a comparatively short time; the
eastern regions--in the former case the Parthians, in the latter the
inhabitants of the ancient Bactria--not merely threw off again the yoke
of the foreigner, but dislodged him also from the cognate west.

[Sidenote: The rule of the Parthians.]

When the Romans in the last age of the republic came into immediate
contact with Iran as a consequence of the occupation of Syria, they
found in existence the Persian empire regenerated by the Parthians. We
have formerly had to make mention of this state on several occasions;
this is the place to gather together the little that can be ascertained
regarding the peculiar character of the empire, which so often
exercised a decisive influence on the destinies of the neighbouring
state. Certainly to most questions, which the historical inquirer
has here to put, tradition has no answer. The Occidentals give but
occasional notices, which may in their isolation easily mislead us,
concerning the internal condition of their Parthian neighbours and
foes; and, if the Orientals in general have hardly understood how to
fix and to preserve historical tradition, this holds doubly true of
the period of the Arsacids, seeing that it was by the later Iranians
regarded, together with the preceding foreign rule of the Seleucids, as
an unwarranted usurpation between the periods of the old and the new
Persian rule--the Achaemenids and the Sassanids; this period of five
hundred years is, so to speak, eliminated by way of correction[2] from
the history of Iran, and is as if nonexistent.

[Sidenote: The Parthians Scythian.]

The standpoint, thus occupied by the court-historiographers of the
Sassanid dynasty, is more the legitimist-dynastic one of the Persian
nobility than that of Iranian nationality. No doubt the authors of the
first imperial epoch describe the language of the Parthians, whose home
corresponds nearly to the modern Chorasan, as intermediate between
the Median and the Scythian, that is, as an impure Iranian dialect;
accordingly they were regarded as immigrants from the land of the
Scythians, and in this sense their name is interpreted as “fugitive
people,” while the founder of the dynasty, Arsaces, is declared by
some indeed to have been a Bactrian, but by others a Scythian from the
Maeotis. The fact that their princes did not take up their residence
in Seleucia on the Tigris, but pitched their winter quarters in the
immediate neighbourhood at Ctesiphon, is traced to their wish not
to quarter Scythian troops in the rich mercantile city. Much in the
manners and arrangements of the Parthians is alien from Iranian habits,
and reminds us of the customs of nomadic life; they transact business
and eat on horseback, and the free man never goes on foot. It cannot
well be doubted that the Parthians, whose name alone of all the tribes
of this region is not named in the sacred books of the Persians, stand
aloof from Iran proper, in which the Achaemenids and the Magians are at
home. The antagonism of this Iran to the ruling family springing from
an uncivilised and half foreign district, and to its immediate
followers--this antagonism, which the Roman authors not unwillingly
took over from their Persian neighbours--certainly subsisted and
fermented throughout the whole rule of the Arsacids, till it at length
brought about their fall. But the rule of the Arsacids may not on that
account be conceived as a foreign rule. No privileges were conceded
to the Parthian stock and to the Parthian province. It is true that
the Parthian town Hecatompylos is named as residence of the Arsacids;
but they chiefly sojourned in summer at Ecbatana (Hamadan), or else
at Rhagae like the Achaemenids, in winter, as already stated, in the
camp-town of Ctesiphon, or else in Babylon on the extreme western
border of the empire. The hereditary burial-place continued in the
Parthian town Nisaea; but subsequently Arbela in Assyria served for
that purpose more frequently. The poor and remote native province of
the Parthians was in no way suited for the luxurious court-life, and
the important relations to the West, especially of the later Arsacids.
The chief country continued even now to be Media, just as under the
Achaemenids. Although the Arsacids might be of Scythian descent, not so
much depended on what they were as on what they desired to be; and they
regarded and professed themselves throughout as the successors of Cyrus
and of Darius. As the seven Persian family-princes had set aside the
false Achaemenid, and had restored the legitimate rule by the elevation
of Darius, so needs must other seven have overthrown the Macedonian
foreign yoke and placed king Arsaces on the throne. With this patriotic
fiction must further be connected the circumstance that a Bactrian
nativity instead of a Scythian was assigned to the first Arsaces. The
dress and the etiquette at the court of the Arsacids were those of the
Persian court; after king Mithradates I. had extended his rule to the
Indus and Tigris, the dynasty exchanged the simple title of king for
that of king of kings which the Achaemenids had borne, and the pointed
Scythian cap for the high tiara adorned with pearls; on the coins the
king carries the bow like Darius. The aristocracy, too, that came into
the land with the Arsacids and doubtless became in many ways mixed with
the old indigenous one, adopted Persian manners and dress, mostly also
Persian names; of the Parthian army which fought with Crassus it is
said that the soldiers still wore their hair rough after the Scythian
fashion, but the general appeared after the Median manner with the hair
parted in the middle and with painted face.

[Sidenote: The regal office.]

The political organisation, as it was established by the first
Mithradates, was accordingly in substance that of the Achaemenids. The
family of the founder of the dynasty is invested with all the lustre
and with all the consecration of ancestral and divinely-ordained rule;
his name is transferred _de jure_ to each of his successors and divine
honour is assigned to him; his successors are therefore called sons of
God,[3] and besides brothers of the sun-god and the moon-goddess, like
the Shah of Persia still at the present day; to shed the blood of a
member of the royal family even by mere accident is a sacrilege--all
of them regulations, which with few abatements recur among the Roman
Caesars, and are perhaps borrowed in part from those of the older
great-monarchy.

[Sidenote: Megistanes.]

Although the royal dignity was thus firmly attached to the family,
there yet subsisted a certain choice as to the king. As the new ruler
had to belong as well to the college of the “kinsmen of the royal
house” as to the council of priests, in order to be able to ascend the
throne, an act must have taken place, whereby, it may be presumed,
these same colleges themselves acknowledged the new ruler.[4] By the
“kinsmen” are doubtless to be understood not merely the Arsacids
themselves, but the “seven houses” of the Achaemenid organisation,
princely families, to which according to that arrangement equality
of rank and free access to the great-king belonged, and which must
have had similar privileges under the Arsacids.[5] These families
were at the same time holders of hereditary crown offices,[6] _e.g._
the Surên--the name is like the name Arsaces, a designation at once
of person and of office--the second family after the royal house, as
crown-masters, placed on each occasion the tiara on the head of the
new Arsaces. But as the Arsacids themselves belonged to the Parthian
province, so the Surên were at home in Sacastane (Seistân) and perhaps
Sacae, thus Scythians; the Carên likewise descended from western Media,
while the highest aristocracy under the Achaemenids was purely Persian.

[Sidenote: Satraps.]

The administration lay in the hands of the under-kings or satraps;
according to the Roman geographers of Vespasian’s time the state of the
Parthians consisted of eighteen “kingdoms.” Some of these satrapies
were appanages of a second son of the ruling house; in particular the
two north-western provinces, the Atropatenian Media (Aderbijan) and
Armenia, so far as it was in the power of the Parthians, appear to
have been entrusted for administration to the prince standing next
to the ruler for the time.[7] We may add that prominent among the
satraps were the king of the province of Elymais or of Susa, to whom
was conceded a specially powerful and exceptional position, and next
to him the king of Persis, the ancestral land of the Achaemenids.
The form of administration, if not exclusive, yet preponderant and
conditioning the title, was in the Parthian empire--otherwise than in
the case of the Caesars--that of vassal-kingdom, so that the satraps
entered by hereditary right, but were subject to confirmation by the
great-king.[8] To all appearance this continued downwards, so that
smaller dynasts and family chiefs stood in the same relation to the
under-kings as the latter occupied to the great-king.[9] Thus the
office of great-king among the Parthians was limited to the utmost
in favour of the high aristocracy by the accompanying subdivision of
the hereditary administration of the land. With this it is quite in
keeping, that the mass of the population consisted of persons half or
wholly non-free,[10] and emancipation was not allowable. In the army
which fought against Antonius there are said to have been only 400 free
among 50,000. The chief among the vassals of Orodes, who as his general
defeated Crassus, marched to the field with a harem of 200 wives and
a baggage train of 1000 sumpter-camels; he himself furnished to the
army 10,000 horsemen from his clients and slaves. The Parthians never
had a standing army, but at all times the waging of war here was left
to depend on the general levy of the vassal-princes and of the vassals
subordinate to these, as well as of the great mass of the non-free over
whom these bore sway.

[Sidenote: The Greek towns of the Parthian empire.]

Certainly the urban element was not quite wanting in the political
organisation of the Parthian empire. It is true that the larger
townships, which arose out of the distinctive development of the
East, were not urban commonwealths, as indeed even the Parthian royal
residence, Ctesiphon, is named in contrast to the neighbouring Greek
foundation of Seleucia a village; they had no presidents of their
own and no common council, and the administration lay here, as in
the country districts, exclusively with the royal officials. But
a portion--comparatively small, it is true--of the foundations of
the Greek rulers had come under Parthian rule. In the provinces of
Mesopotamia and Babylonia by nationality Aramaean the Greek town-system
had gained a firm footing under Alexander and his successors.
Mesopotamia was covered with Greek commonwealths; and in Babylonia,
the successor of the ancient Babylon, the precursor of Bagdad, and
for a time the residence of the Greek kings of Asia--Seleucia on the
Tigris--had by its favourable commercial position and its manufactures
risen to be the first mercantile city beyond the Roman bounds, with
more, it is alleged, than half a million of inhabitants. Its free
Hellenic organisation, on which beyond doubt its prosperity above all
depended, was not touched even by the Parthian rulers in their own
interest, and the city preserved not merely its town council of 300
elected members, but also the Greek language and Greek habits amidst
the non-Greek East. It is true that the Hellenes in these towns formed
only the dominant element; alongside of them lived numerous Syrians,
and, as a third constituent, there were associated with these the not
much less numerous Jews, so that the population of these Greek towns
of the Parthian empire, just like that of Alexandria, was composed of
three separate nationalities standing side by side. Between these, just
as in Alexandria, conflicts not seldom occurred, as _e.g._ at the time
of the reign of Gaius under the eyes of the Parthian government the
three nations came to blows, and ultimately the Jews were driven out of
the larger towns.

In so far the Parthian empire was the genuine counterpart to the Roman.
As in the one the Oriental viceroyship is an exceptional occurrence,
so in the other is the Greek city; the general Oriental aristocratic
character of the Parthian government is as little injuriously affected
by the Greek mercantile towns on the west coast as is the civic
organisation of the Roman state by the vassal kingdoms of Cappadocia
and Armenia. While in the state of the Caesars the Romano-Greek urban
commonwealth spreads more and more, and gradually becomes the general
form of administration, the foundation of towns--the true mark of
Helleno-Roman civilisation, which embraces the Greek mercantile cities
and the military colonies of Rome as well as the grand settlements
of Alexander and the Alexandrids--suddenly breaks off with the
emergence of the Parthian government in the East, and even the existing
Greek cities of the Parthian empire wane in the further course of
development. There, as here, the rule more and more prevails over the
exceptions.

[Sidenote: Religion.]

The religion of Iran with its worship--approximating to monotheism--of
the “highest of the gods, who has made heaven and earth and men
and for these everything good,” with its absence of images and its
spirituality, with its stern morality and truthfulness, with its
influence upon practical activity and energetic conduct of life,
laid hold of the minds of its confessors in quite another and deeper
way than the religions of the West ever could; and, while neither
Zeus nor Jupiter maintained their ground in presence of a developed
civilisation, the faith among the Parsees remained ever young till it
succumbed to another gospel--that of the confessors of Mohammed--or
at any rate retreated before it to India. It is not our task to set
forth how the old Mazda-faith, which the Achaemenids professed, and
the origin of which falls in prehistoric time, was related to that
which the sacred books of the Persians having their origin probably
under the later Achaemenids--the Avestâ--announce as the doctrine
of the wise Zarathustra; for the epoch, when the West is placed in
contact with the East, only the later form of religion comes under
consideration. Perhaps the Avestâ took first shape in the east of Iran,
in Bactria, but it spread thence to Media and from there it exercised
its influence on the West. But the national religion and the national
state were bound up with one another in Iran more closely than even
among the Celts. It has already been noticed that the legitimate
kingship in Iran was at the same time a religious institution, that
the supreme ruler of the land was conceived as specially called to the
government by the supreme deity of the land, and even in some measure
divine. On the coins of a national type there appears regularly the
great fire-altar, and hovering over it the winged god Ahura Mazda,
alongside of him in lesser size, and in an attitude of prayer, the
king, and over-against the king the imperial banner. In keeping with
this, the ascendency of the nobility in the Parthian empire goes hand
in hand with the privileged position of the clergy. The priests of
this religion, the Magians, appear already in the documents of the
Achaemenids and in the narratives of Herodotus, and have, probably
with right, always been regarded by the Occidentals as a national
Persian institution. The priesthood was hereditary, and at least in
Media, presumably also in other provinces, the collective body of the
priests was accounted, somewhat like the Levites in the later Israel,
as a separate portion of the people. Even under the rule of the Greeks
the old religion of the state and the national priesthood maintained
their place. When the first Seleucus wished to found the new capital
of his empire, the already mentioned Seleucia, he caused the Magians
to fix day and hour for it, and it was only after those Persians, not
very willingly, had cast the desired horoscope, that the king and his
army, in accordance with their indication, accomplished the solemn
laying of the foundation-stone of the new Greek city. Thus by his side
stood the priests of Ahura Mazda as counsellors, and they, not those
of the Hellenic Olympus, were interrogated in public affairs, so far
as these concerned divine things. As a matter of course this was all
the more the case with the Arsacids. We have already observed that in
the election of king, along with the council of the nobility, that of
the priests took part. King Tiridates of Armenia, of the house of the
Arsacids, came to Rome attended by a train of Magians, and travelled
and took food according to their directions, even in company with
the emperor Nero, who gladly allowed the foreign wise men to preach
their doctrine and to conjure spirits for him. From this certainly
it does not follow that the priestly order as such exercised an
essentially determining influence on the management of the state; but
the Mazda-faith was by no means re-established only by the Sassanids;
on the contrary, amidst all change of dynasties, and amidst all its own
development, the religion of the land of Iran remained in its outline
the same.

[Sidenote: Language.]

The language of the land in the Parthian empire was the native language
of Iran. There is no trace pointing to any foreign language having
ever been in public use under the Arsacids. On the contrary, it is the
Iranian land-dialect of Babylonia and the writing peculiar to this--as
both were developed before, and in, the Arsacid period under the
influence of the language and writing of the Aramaean neighbours--which
are covered by the appellation Pahlavi, _i.e._ Parthava, and thereby
designated as those of the empire of the Parthians. Even Greek did not
become an official language there. None of the rulers bear even as
a second name a Greek one; and, had the Arsacids made this language
their own, we should not have failed to find Greek inscriptions in
their empire. Certainly their coins show down to the time of Claudius
exclusively,[11] and predominantly even later, Greek legends, as they
show also no trace of the religion of the land, and in standard attach
themselves to the local coinage of the Roman east provinces, while
they retain the division of the year as well as the reckoning by years
just as these had been regulated under the Seleucids. But this must
rather be taken as meaning that the great-kings themselves did not
coin at all,[12] and these coins, which in fact served essentially for
intercourse with the western neighbours, were struck by the Greek towns
of the empire in the name of the sovereign. The designation of the king
on these coins as “friend of Greeks” (φιλέλλην), which already meets us
early,[13] and is constant from the time of Mithradates I., _i.e._ from
the extension of the state as far as the Tigris, has a meaning only if
it is the Parthian Greek city that is speaking on these coins. It may
be conjectured that a secondary position was conceded in public use to
the Greek language in the Parthian empire alongside of the Persian,
similar to that which it possessed in the Roman state by the side of
Latin. The gradual disappearance of Hellenism under the Parthian rule
may be clearly followed on these urban coins, as well in the emergence
of the native language alongside and instead of the Greek, as in the
debasement of language which becomes more and more prominent.[14]

[Sidenote: Extent of the Parthian empire.]

As to extent the kingdom of the Arsacids was far inferior, not merely
to the great state of the Achaemenids, but also to that of their
immediate predecessors, the state of the Seleucids. Of its original
territory they possessed only the larger eastern half; after the battle
with the Parthians, in which king Antiochus Sidetes, a contemporary of
the Gracchi, fell, the Syrian kings did not again seriously attempt to
assert their rule beyond the Euphrates; but the country on this side of
the Euphrates remained with the Occidentals.

[Sidenote: Arabia.]

Both coasts of the Persian Gulf, even the Arabian, were in possession
of the Parthians, and the navigation was thus completely in their
power; the rest of the Arabian peninsula did not obey either the
Parthians or the Romans ruling over Egypt.

[Sidenote: The region of the Indus.]

To describe the struggle of the nations for the possession of the Indus
valley, and of the regions bordering on it, to the west and east, so
far as the wholly fragmentary tradition allows of a description at all,
is not the task of our survey; but the main lines of this struggle,
which constantly goes by the side of that waged for the Euphrates
valley, may the less be omitted in this connection, as our tradition
does not allow us to follow out in detail the circumstances of Iran to
the east in their influence on western relations, and it hence appears
necessary at least to realise for ourselves its outlines. Soon after
the death of Alexander the Great, the boundary between Iran and India
was drawn by the agreement of his marshal and coheir Seleucus with
Chandragupta, or in Greek Sandracottos, the founder of the empire of
the Indians. According to this the latter ruled not merely over the
Ganges-valley in all its extent and the whole north-west of India, but
in the region of the Indus, at least over a part of the upland valley
of what is now Cabul, further over Arachosia or Afghanistan, presumably
also over the waste and arid Gedrosia, the modern Beloochistan, as well
as over the delta and mouths of the Indus; the documents hewn in stone,
by which Chandragupta’s grandson, the orthodox Buddha-worshipper Asoka,
inculcated the general moral law on his subjects, have been found, as
in all this widely extended domain, so particularly in the region of
Peshawur.[15] The Hindoo Koosh, the Parapanisus of the ancients, and
its continuation to the east and west, thus separated with their mighty
chain--pierced only by few passes--Iran and India. But this agreement
did not long subsist.

[Sidenote: Bactro-Indian empire.]

In the earlier period of the Diadochi the Greek rulers of the kingdom
of Bactra, which took a mighty impulse on its breaking off from the
Seleucid state, crossed the frontier-mountains, brought a considerable
part of the Indus valley into their power, and perhaps established
themselves still farther inland in Hindostan, so that the centre of
gravity of this empire was shifted from western Iran to eastern India,
and Hellenism gave way to an Indian type. The kings of this empire were
called Indian, and bore subsequently non-Greek names; on the coins the
native Indian language and writing appear by the side, and instead, of
the Greek, just as in the Partho-Persian coinage the Pahlavi comes up
alongside of the Greek.

[Sidenote: Indo-Scythians.]

Then one nation more entered into the arena; the Scythians, or, as
they were called in Iran and India, the Sacae, broke off from their
ancestral settlements on the Jaxartes and crossed the mountains
southward. The Bactrian province came at least in great part into their
power, and at some time in the last century of the Roman republic
they must have established themselves in the modern Afghanistan and
Beloochistan. On that account in the early imperial period the coast
on both sides of the mouth of the Indus about Minnagara is called
Scythian, and in the interior the district of the Drangae lying to
the west of Candahar bears subsequently the name “land of the Sacae,”
Sacastane, the modern Seistân. This immigration of the Scythians into
the provinces of the Bactro-Indian empire doubtless restricted and
injured it, somewhat as the Roman empire was affected by the first
migrations of the Germans, but did not destroy it; under Vespasian
there still subsisted a probably independent Bactrian state.[16]

[Sidenote: Partho-Indian empire.]

Under the Julian and Claudian emperors the Parthians seem to have
been the leading power at the mouth of the Indus. A trustworthy
reporter from the Augustan age specifies that same Sacastane among
the Parthian provinces, and calls the king of the Saco-Scythians an
under-king of the Arsacids; as the last Parthian province towards
the east he designates Arachosia with the capital Alexandropolis,
probably Candahar. Soon afterwards, indeed, in Vespasian’s time,
Parthian princes rule in Minnagara. This, however, was for the empire
on the river Indus more a change of dynasty than an annexation proper
to the state of Ctesiphon. The Parthian prince Gondopharus, whom the
Christian legend connects with St. Thomas, the apostle of the Parthians
and Indians,[17] certainly ruled from Minnagara as far up as Peshawur
and Cabul; but these rulers use, like their superiors in the Indian
empire, the Indian language alongside of the Greek, and name themselves
great-kings like those of Ctesiphon; they appear to have been not the
less rivals to the Arsacids, on account of their belonging to the same
princely house.[18]

[Sidenote: Empire of the Sacae on the Indus.]

This Parthian dynasty was then followed in the Indian empire after a
short interval by what is designated in Indian tradition as that of the
Sacae or that of king Kanerku or Kanishka, which begins with A.D. 78
and subsisted at least down to the third century.[19] They belong to
the Scythians, whose immigration was formerly mentioned, and on their
coins the Scythian language takes the place of the Indian.[20] Thus in
the region of the Indus, after the Indians and the Hellenes, Parthians
and Scythians bore sway in the first three centuries of our era. But
even under the foreign dynasties a national Indian type of state was
established and held its ground, and opposed a not less permanent
barrier to the development of the Partho-Persian power in the East than
did the Roman state in the West.

[Sidenote: Asiatic Scythians.]

Towards the north and north-east Iran bordered with Turan. As the
western and southern shores of the Caspian Sea and the upper valleys
of the Oxus and Jaxartes offered an appropriate seat for civilisation,
so the steppe round the Sea of Aral and the extensive plain stretching
behind it belonged by right to the roving peoples. There were among
those nomads probably individual tribes kindred to the Iranians;
but these have no part in the Iranian civilisation, and it is this
element which determines the historical position of Iran, that it forms
the bulwark of the peoples of culture against those hordes, who, as
Scythians, Sacae, Huns, Mongols, Turks, appear to have no other destiny
in the world’s history than that of annihilating culture. Bactria, the
great bulwark of Iran against Turan, sufficed for this defence during a
considerable time under its Greek rulers in the epoch after Alexander;
but we have already mentioned that subsequently, although it did not
perish, it no longer availed to prevent the Scythians from pressing
onward towards the south. With the decay of the Bactrian power the same
task was transferred to the Arsacids. How far they responded to it it
is difficult to say. In the first period of the empire the great-kings
of Ctesiphon seem to have driven back the Scythians or to have brought
them into subjection in the northern provinces as well as to the south
of the Hindoo Koosh; they wrested from them again a portion of the
Bactrian territory. But it is doubtful what limits were here fixed, and
whether they were at all lasting. There is frequent mention of wars
between the Parthians and Scythians. The latter, here in the first
instance dwellers around the Sea of Aral, the forefathers of the modern
Turkomans, are regularly the aggressors, inasmuch as they partly by
crossing over the Caspian Sea invade the valleys of the Cyrus and the
Araxes, partly issuing from their steppes pillage the rich plains of
Hyrcania and the fertile oasis of Margiana (Merv). The border-regions
agreed to buy off the levy of arbitrary contributions by tributes,
which were regularly called up at fixed terms, just as at present the
Bedouins of Syria levy the _kubba_ from the farmers there. The Parthian
government thus, at least in the earlier imperial period, was as little
able as the Turkish government of the present day to secure here to the
peaceful subject the fruits of his toil, and to establish a durable
state of peace on the frontier. Even for the imperial power itself
these border-troubles remained an open sore; often they exercised an
influence on the wars of succession of the Arsacids as well as on their
disputes with Rome.

[Sidenote: The Romano-Parthian frontier regions.]

We have set forth in its due place how the attitude of the Parthians
to the Romans came to be shaped and the boundaries of the two great
powers to be established. While the Armenians had been rivals of
the Parthians, and the kingdom on the Araxes set itself to play the
part of great-king in anterior Asia, the Parthians had in general
maintained friendly relations with the Romans as the foes of their
foes. But, after the overthrow of Mithradates and Tigranes, the
Romans had, particularly through the arrangements made by Pompeius,
taken up a position which was hardly compatible with serious and
lasting peace between the two states. In the south Syria was now under
direct Roman rule, and the Roman legions kept guard on the margin
of the great desert which separates the lands of the coast from the
valley of the Euphrates. In the north Cappadocia and Armenia were
vassal-principalities of Rome. The tribes bordering on Armenia to the
northward, the Colchians, Iberians, Albanians, were thereby necessarily
withdrawn from Parthian influence, and were, at least according to the
Roman way of apprehending the matter, likewise Roman dependencies.
The lesser Media or Atropatene (Aderbijân), adjoining Armenia to the
south-east, and separated from it by the Araxes, had maintained,
despite the Seleucidae, its ancient native dynasty reaching back to
the time of the Achaemenids, and had even asserted its independence;
under the Arsacids the king of this region appears, according to
circumstances, as a vassal of the Parthians or as independent of
these by leaning on the Romans. The determining influence of Rome
consequently reached as far as the Caucasus and the western shore of
the Caspian Sea. This involved an overlapping of the limits indicated
by the national relations. The Hellenic nationality had doubtless so
far gained a footing on the south coast of the Black Sea and in the
interior of Cappadocia and Commagene, that here the Roman ascendency
found in it a base of support; but Armenia, even under the long years
of Roman rule, remained always a non-Greek land, knit to the Parthian
state with indestructible ties, by community of language and of faith,
the numerous intermarriages of people of rank, and similarity of dress
and of armour.[21] The Roman levy and the Roman taxation were never
extended to Armenia; at most the land defrayed the raising and the
maintenance of its own troops, and the provisioning of the Roman troops
stationed there. The Armenian merchants formed the channel for the
exchange of goods over the Caucasus with Scythia, over the Caspian Sea
with east Asia and China, down the Tigris with Babylonia and India,
towards the west with Cappadocia; nothing would have been more natural
than to include the politically dependent land in the domain of Roman
tribute and customs; yet this step was never taken.

The incongruity between the national and the political connections of
Armenia forms an essential element in the conflict--prolonged through
the whole imperial period--with its eastern neighbour. It was discerned
doubtless on the Roman side that annexation beyond the Euphrates was an
encroachment on the family-domain of Oriental nationality, and was not
any increase proper of power for Rome. But the ground or, if the phrase
be preferred, the excuse for the continuance of such encroachment lay
in the fact that the subsistence side by side of great states with
equal rights was incompatible with the system of Roman policy, we may
even say with the policy of antiquity in general. The Roman empire knew
as limit, in the strict sense, only the sea or a land-district unarmed.
To the weaker but yet warlike commonwealth of the Parthians the Romans
always grudged a position of power, and took away from it what these
in their turn could not forego; and therefore the relation between
Rome and Iran through the whole imperial period was one of perpetual
feud, interrupted only by armistices, concerning the left bank of the
Euphrates.

[Sidenote: The Parthians during the civil wars.]

In the treaties concluded with the Parthians by Lucullus (iv. 71) {iv.
67.} and Pompeius (iv. 127) {iv. 122.} the Euphrates was recognised
as the boundary, and so Mesopotamia was ceded to them. But this did
not prevent the Romans from receiving the rulers of Edessa among their
clients, and from laying claim to a great part of northern Mesopotamia
at least for their indirect rule, apparently by extending the limits
of Armenia towards the south (iv. 146) {iv. 140.}. On that account,
after some delay, the Parthian government began the war against the
Romans, in the form of declaring it against the Armenians. The answer
to this was the campaign of Crassus, and, after the defeat at Carrhae
(iv. 351 f.) {iv. 335 f.}, the bringing back of Armenia under Parthian
power; we may add, the resumption of their claims on the western half
of the Seleucid state, the carrying out of which, it is true, proved
at that time unsuccessful (iv. 356) {iv. 339.}. During the whole
twenty years of civil war, in which the Roman republic perished and
ultimately the principate was established, the state of war between
the Romans and Parthians continued, and not seldom the two struggles
became intermixed. Pompeius had, before the decisive battle, attempted
to gain king Orodes as ally; but, when the latter demanded the cession
of Syria, Pompeius could not prevail on himself to deliver up the
province which he had personally made Roman. After the catastrophe he
had nevertheless resolved to do so; but accidents directed his flight
not to Syria, but to Egypt, where he met his end (iv. 446) {iv. 424.}.
The Parthians appeared on the point of once more breaking into Syria;
and the later leaders of the republicans did not disdain the aid of the
public foe. Even in Caesar’s lifetime Caecilius Bassus, when he raised
the banner of revolt in Syria, had at once called in the Parthians.
They had followed this call; Pacorus, the son of Orodes, had defeated
Caesar’s lieutenant and liberated the troops of Bassus besieged by
him in Apamea (709) {44 B.C.}. For this reason, as well as in order to
take revenge for Carrhae, Caesar had resolved to go in the next spring
personally to Syria and to cross the Euphrates; but his death prevented
the execution of this plan. When Cassius thereupon took arms in Syria,
he entered into relations with the Parthian king; and in the decisive
battle at Philippi (712) {42 B.C.} Parthian mounted archers joined
in fighting for the freedom of Rome. When the republicans succumbed,
the great-king, in the first instance, maintained a quiet attitude;
and Antonius, while designing probably to execute the plans of the
dictator, had at first enough to do with the settlement of the East.
The collision could not fail to take place; the assailant this time was
the Parthian king.

[Sidenote: The Parthians in Syria and Asia Minor.]

In 713 {41 B.C.} when Caesar the son fought in Italy with the generals
and the wife of Antonius, and the latter tarried inactive in Egypt
beside queen Cleopatra, Orodes responded to the pressure of a Roman
living with him in exile, Quintus Labienus, and sent the latter, a son
of the dictator’s embittered opponent Titus Labienus, and formerly
an officer in the army of Brutus, as well as (713) {44 B.C.} his
son Pacorus with a strong army over the frontier. The governor of
Syria, Decidius Saxa, succumbed to the unexpected attack; the Roman
garrisons, formed in great part of old soldiers of the republican
army, placed themselves under the command of their former officer;
Apamea and Antioch, and generally all the towns of Syria, except
the island-town of Tyre which could not be subdued without a fleet,
submitted; on the flight to Cilicia Saxa, in order not to be taken
prisoner, put himself to death. After the occupation of Syria Pacorus
turned against Palestine, Labienus towards the province of Asia; here
too the cities far and wide submitted or were forcibly vanquished, with
the exception of the Carian Stratonicea. Antonius, whose attention
was claimed by the Italian complications, sent no succour to his
governors, and for almost two years (from the end of 713 {41 B.C.} to
the spring of 715 {39 B.C.}) Syria and a great part of Asia Minor were
commanded by the Parthian generals and by the republican imperator
Labienus--_Parthicus_, as he called himself with shameless irony, not
the Roman who vanquished the Parthians, but the Roman who with Parthian
aid vanquished his countrymen.

[Sidenote: Driven out by Ventidius Bassus.]

Only after the threatened rupture between the two holders of power
was averted, Antonius sent a new army under the conduct of Publius
Ventidius Bassus, to whom he entrusted the command in the provinces of
Asia and Syria. The able general encountered in Asia Labienus alone
with his Roman troops, and rapidly drove him out of the province. At
the boundary between Asia and Cilicia, in the passes of the Taurus, a
division of Parthians wished to rally their fugitive allies; but they
too were beaten before they could unite with Labienus, and thereupon
the latter was caught on his flight in Cilicia and put to death. With
like good fortune Ventidius gained by fighting the passes of the Amanus
on the border of Cilicia and Syria; here Pharnapates, the best of the
Parthian generals, fell (715) {39 B.C.}. Thus was Syria delivered from
the enemy. Certainly in the following year Pacorus once more crossed
the Euphrates; but only to meet destruction with the greatest part of
his army in a decisive engagement at Gindarus, north-east of Antioch
(9th June 716) {38 B.C.}. It was a victory which counterbalanced in
some measure the day of Carrhae, and one of permanent effect; for long
the Parthians did not again show their troops on the Roman bank of the
Euphrates.

[Sidenote: Position of Antonius.]

If it was in the interest of Rome to extend her conquests towards the
East, and to enter on the inheritance of Alexander the Great there in
all its extent, the circumstances were never more favourable for doing
so than in the year 716 {38 B.C.}. The relations of the two rulers to
each other had become re-established seasonably for that purpose, and
even Caesar at that time had probably a sincere wish for an earnest
and successful conduct of the war by his co-ruler and brother-in-law.
The disaster of Gindarus had called forth a severe dynastic crisis
among the Parthians. King Orodes, deeply agitated by the death of
his eldest and ablest son, resigned the government in favour of his
second son Phraates. The latter, in order the better to secure for
himself the throne, exercised a reign of terror, to which his numerous
brothers and his old father himself, as well as a number of the high
nobles of the kingdom, fell victims; others of them left the country
and sought protection with the Romans, among them the powerful and
respected Monaeses. Never had Rome in the East an army of equal numbers
and excellence as at this time: Antonius was able to lead over the
Euphrates no fewer than 16 legions, about 70,000 Roman infantry, about
40,000 auxiliaries, 10,000 Spanish and Gallic, and 6000 Armenian
horsemen; at least half of them were veteran troops brought up from the
West, all ready to follow anywhere their beloved and honoured leader,
the victor of Philippi, and to crown the brilliant victories, which had
been already achieved not by but for him over the Parthians, with still
greater successes under his own leadership.

[Sidenote: His aims.]

In reality Antonius had in view the erection of an Asiatic
great-kingdom after the model of that of Alexander. As Crassus before
his invasion had announced that he would extend the Roman rule as
far as Bactria and India, so Antonius named the first son, whom the
Egyptian queen bore to him, by the name of Alexander. He appears to
have directly intended, on the one hand, to bring--excluding the
completely Hellenised provinces of Bithynia and Asia--the whole
imperial territory in the East, so far as it was not already under
dependent petty princes, into this form; and on the other hand, to
make all the regions of the East once occupied by Occidentals subject
to himself in the form of satrapies. Of eastern Asia Minor the largest
portion and the military primacy were assigned to the most warlike of
the princes there, the Galatian Amyntas (I. 335). Alongside of the
Galatian prince stood the princes of Paphlagonia, the descendants
of Deiotarus, dispossessed from Galatia; Polemon, the new prince in
Pontus, and the husband of Pythodoris the granddaughter of Antonius;
and moreover, as hitherto, the kings of Cappadocia and Commagene.
Antonius united a great part of Cilicia and Syria, as well as of Cyprus
and Cyrene, with the Egyptian state, to which he thus almost restored
its limits as they had been under the Ptolemies; and as he had made
queen Cleopatra, Caesar’s mistress, his own or rather his wife, so her
illegitimate child by Caesar, Caesarion, already earlier recognised as
joint ruler of Egypt,[22] obtained the reversion of the old kingdom
of the Ptolemies, and her illegitimate son by Antonius, Ptolemaeus
Philadelphus, obtained that of Syria. To another son, whom she had
borne to Antonius, the already mentioned Alexander, Armenia was for
the present assigned as a payment to account for the rule of the East
conceived as in reserve for him. With this great-kingdom organised
after the Oriental fashion[23] he thought to combine the principate
over the West. He himself did not assume the name of king, on the
contrary bore in presence of his countrymen and the soldiers only those
titles which also belonged to Caesar. But on imperial coins with a
Latin legend Cleopatra is called queen of kings, her sons by Antonius
at least kings; the coins show the head of his eldest son along with
that of his father, as if the hereditary character were a matter of
course; the marriage and the succession of the legitimate and the
illegitimate children are treated by him, as was the usage with the
great-kings of the East, or, as he himself said, with the divine
freedom of his ancestor Herakles:[24] the said Alexander and his twin
sister were named by him, the former Helios, the latter Selene, after
the model of those same great-kings, and, as once upon a time the
Persian king bestowed on the refugee Themistocles a number of Asiatic
cities, so he bestowed on the Parthian Monaeses, who went over to him,
three cities of Syria. In Alexander too the king of the Macedonians and
the king of kings of the East went in some measure side by side, and
to him too the bridal bed in Susa was the reward for the camp-tent of
Gaugamela; but the Roman copy shows in its exactness a strong element
of caricature.

[Sidenote: Preparations for the Parthian war.]

Whether Antonius apprehended his position in this way, immediately
on his taking up the government in the East, cannot be decided; it
may be conjectured that the creation of a new Oriental great-kingdom
in connection with the Occidental principate ripened in his mind
gradually, and that the idea was only thought out completely, after,
in the year 717 {37 B.C.}, on his return from Italy to Asia, he had
once more entered into relations with the last queen of the Lagid
house not to be again broken off. But his temperament was not equal
to such an enterprise. One of those men of military capacity, who
knew how, in presence of the enemy, and especially in a position of
difficulty, to strike prudently and boldly, he lacked the will of the
statesman, the sure grasp and resolute pursuit of a political aim.
Had the dictator Caesar assigned to him the problem of subduing the
East, he would probably have solved it: the marshal was not fitted
to be the ruler. After the expulsion of the Parthians from Syria,
almost two years (summer of 716 {38 B.C.} to summer of 718 {36 B.C.})
elapsed without any step being taken towards the object aimed
at. Antonius himself, inferior also in this respect that he grudged
to his generals important successes, had removed the conqueror of
Labienus and of Pacorus, the able Ventidius, immediately after this
last success, and taken the chief command in person in order to pursue
and to miss the pitiful honour of occupying Samosata, the capital
of the small Syrian dependent state, Commagene; annoyed at this, he
left the East, in order to negotiate in Italy with his father-in-law
as to the future arrangements, or to enjoy life with his young
spouse Octavia. His governors in the East were not inactive. Publius
Canidius Crassus advanced from Armenia towards the Caucasus, and
there subdued Pharnabazus king of the Iberians, and Zober king of the
Albanians. Gaius Sossius took in Syria the last town still adhering
to the Parthians, Aradus; he further re-established in Judaea the
rule of Herodes, and caused the pretender to the throne installed
by the Parthians, the Hasmonean Antigonus, to be put to death. The
consequences of the victory on Roman territory were thus duly drawn,
and the recognition of Roman rule was enforced as far as the Caspian
Sea and the Syrian desert. But Antonius had reserved for himself the
beginning of the warfare against the Parthians, and he came not.

[Sidenote: Parthian war of Antonius.]

When at length, in 718 {36 B.C.}, he escaped from the arms, not of
Octavia, but of Cleopatra, and set the columns of the army in motion, a
good part of the appropriate season of the year had already elapsed.
Still more surprising than this delay was the direction which Antonius
chose. All aggressive wars of the Romans against the Parthians, earlier
and later, took the route for Ctesiphon, the capital of the kingdom
and at the same time situated on its western frontier, and so the
natural and immediate aim of operations for armies marching downward
on the Euphrates or on the Tigris. Antonius too might, after he had
reached the Tigris through northern Mesopotamia, nearly along the
route which Alexander had traversed, have advanced down the river upon
Ctesiphon and Seleucia. But instead of this he preferred to go in a
northerly direction at first towards Armenia, and from that point,
where he united his whole military resources and reinforced himself
in particular by the Armenian cavalry, to the table-land of Media
Atropatene (Aderbijân). The allied king of Armenia may possibly have
recommended this plan of campaign, seeing that the Armenian rulers at
all times aspired to the possession of this neighbouring land, and
King Artavazdes of Armenia might hope now to subdue the satrap of
Atropatene of the same name, and to add the latter’s territory to his
own. But Antonius himself cannot possibly have been influenced by such
considerations. He may have rather thought that he should be able to
push forward from Atropatene into the heart of the enemy’s country, and
might regard the old Persian court-residences of Ecbatana and Rhagae
as the goal of his march. But, if this was his plan, he acted without
knowledge of the difficult ground, and altogether underrated his
opponents’ power of resistance, besides which the short time available
for operations in this mountainous country and the late beginning of
the campaign weighed heavily in the scale. As a skilled and experienced
officer, such as Antonius was, could hardly deceive himself on such
points, it is probable that special political considerations influenced
the matter. The rule of Phraates was tottering, as we have said;
Monaeses, of whose fidelity Antonius held himself assured, and whom he
hoped perhaps to put into Phraates’s place, had returned in accordance
with the wish of the Parthian king to his native country;[25] Antonius
appears to have reckoned on a rising on his part against Phraates,
and in expectation of this civil war to have led his army into the
interior of the Parthian provinces. It would doubtless have been
possible to await the result of this design in the friendly Armenia,
and, if operations thereafter were requisite, to have at least the full
summer-time at his disposal in the following year; but this waiting was
not agreeable to the hasty general. In Atropatene he encountered the
obstinate resistance of the powerful and half independent under-king,
who resolutely sustained a siege in his capital Praaspa or Phraarta
(southward from the lake of Urumia, presumably on the lower course
of the Jaghatu); and not only so, but the hostile attack brought, as
it would seem, to the Parthians internal peace. Phraates led on a
large army to the relief of the assailed city. Antonius had brought
with him a great siege-train, but impatiently hastening forward, he
had left this behind in the custody of two legions under the legate
Oppius Statianus. Thus he on his part made no progress with the siege;
but king Phraates sent his masses of cavalry under that same Monaeses
to the rear of the enemy, against the corps of Statianus laboriously
pursuing its march. The Parthians cut down the covering force,
including the general himself, took the rest prisoners, and destroyed
the whole train of 300 waggons. Thereby the campaign was lost.

[Sidenote: Progress of the struggle.]

The Armenian, despairing of the success of the campaign, collected his
men and went home. Antonius did not immediately abandon the siege,
and even defeated the royal army in the open field, but the alert
horsemen escaped without substantial loss, and it was a victory without
effect. An attempt to obtain from the king at least the restitution
of the old and the newly lost eagles, and thus to conclude peace, if
not with advantage, at least with honour, failed; the Parthian did
not give away his sure success so cheaply. He only assured the envoys
of Antonius that, if the Romans would give up the siege, he would
not molest them on their return home. This neither honourable nor
trustworthy promise of the enemy would hardly have induced Antonius
to break up. It was natural to take up quarters for the winter in the
enemy’s country, seeing that the Parthian troops were not acquainted
with continuous military service, and presumably most of their forces
would have gone home at the commencement of winter. But a strong basis
was lacking, and supplies in the exhausted land were not secured; above
all Antonius himself was not capable of such a tenacious conduct of
the war. Consequently he abandoned the machines, which the besieged
immediately burnt; and entered on the difficult retreat, either too
early or too late. Fifteen days’ march (300 Roman miles) through a
hostile country separated the army from the Araxes, the border river of
Armenia, whither in spite of the ambiguous attitude of the ruler the
retreat could alone be directed. A hostile army of 40,000 horsemen,
in spite of the given promise, accompanied the returning force, and,
with the marching off of the Armenians, the Romans had lost the best
part of their cavalry. Provisions and draught animals were scarce,
and the season of the year far advanced. But in the perilous position
Antonius recovered his energy and his martial skill, and in some
measure also his good fortune in war; he had made his choice, and the
general as well as the troops solved the task in a commendable way.
Had they not had with them a former soldier of Crassus, who, having
become a Parthian, knew most accurately every step of the way, and,
instead of conducting them back through the plain by which they had
come, guided them by mountain paths, which were less exposed to cavalry
attacks--apparently over the mountains about Tabreez--the army would
hardly have reached its goal; and had not Monaeses, paying off in his
way his debt of thanks to Antonius, informed him in right time of the
false assurances and the cunning designs of his countrymen, the Romans
would doubtless have fallen into one of the ambushes which on several
occasions were laid for them.

[Sidenote: Difficulties of the retreat.]

The soldierly nature of Antonius was often brilliantly conspicuous
during these troublesome days, in his dexterous use of any favourable
moment, in his sternness towards the cowardly, in his power over
the minds of the soldiers, in his faithful care for the wounded and
the sick. Yet the rescue was almost a miracle; already had Antonius
instructed a faithful attendant in case of extremity not to let him
fall alive into the hands of the enemy. Amidst constant attacks of
the artful enemy, in weather of wintry cold, without adequate food
and often without water, they reached the protecting frontier in
twenty-seven days, where the enemy desisted from following them. The
loss was enormous; there were reckoned up in those twenty-seven days
eighteen larger engagements, and in a single one of them the Romans
counted 3000 dead and 5000 wounded. It was the very best and bravest
that those constant assaults on the vanguard and on the flanks swept
away. The whole baggage, a third of the camp-followers, a fourth of
the army, 20,000 foot soldiers, and 4000 horsemen had perished in this
Median campaign, in great part not through the sword, but through
famine and disease. Even on the Araxes the sufferings of the unhappy
troops were not yet at an end. Artavazdes received them as a friend,
and had no other choice; it would doubtless have been possible to pass
the winter there. But the impatience of Antonius did not tolerate
this; the march went on, and from the ever increasing inclemency of
the season and the state of health of the soldiers, this last section
of the expedition from the Araxes to Antioch cost, although no enemy
hampered it, other 8000 men. No doubt this campaign was a last flash
of what was brave and capable in the character of Antonius; but it was
politically his overthrow all the more, as at the same time Caesar by
the successful termination of the Sicilian war gained the dominion in
the West and the confidence of Italy for the present and all the future.

[Sidenote: Last years of Antonius in the East.]

The responsibility for the miscarriage, which Antonius in vain
attempted to deny, was thrown by him on the dependent kings of
Cappadocia and Armenia, and on the latter so far with justice, as
his premature marching off from Praaspa had materially increased the
dangers and the losses of the retreat. For the plan of the campaign,
however, it was not he who was responsible, but Antonius;[26] and the
failure of the hopes placed on Monaeses, the disaster of Statianus, the
breaking down of the siege of Praaspa, were not brought about by the
Armenian. Antonius did not abandon the subjugation of the East, but set
out next year (719) {35 B.C.} once more from Egypt. The circumstances
were still even now comparatively favourable. A friendly alliance was
formed with the Median king Artavazdes; he had not merely fallen into
variance with his Parthian suzerain, but was indignant above all at
his Armenian neighbour, and, considering the well-known exasperation
of Antonius against the latter, he might reckon on finding a support
in the enemy of his enemy. Everything depended on the firm accord of
the two possessors of power--the victory-crowned master of the West and
the defeated ruler in the East; and, on the news that Antonius proposed
to continue the war, his legitimate wife, the sister of Caesar,
resorted from Italy to the East to bring up to him new forces, and to
strengthen anew his relations to her and to her brother. If Octavia was
magnanimous enough to offer the hand of reconciliation to her husband
in spite of his relations to the Egyptian queen, Caesar must--as was
further confirmed by the commencement, which just then took place, of
the war on the north-east frontier of Italy--have been still ready at
that time to maintain the subsisting relation.

The brother and sister subordinated their personal interests
magnanimously to those of the commonwealth. But loudly as interest and
honour called for the acceptance of the offered hand, Antonius could
not prevail on himself to break off the relation with the Egyptian
queen; he sent back his wife, and this was at the same time a rupture
with her brother, and, as we may add, an abandonment of the idea of
continuing the war against the Parthians. Now, ere that could be
thought of, the question of mastery between Antonius and Caesar had
to be settled. Antonius accordingly returned at once from Syria to
Egypt, and in the following year undertook nothing further towards the
execution of his plans of Oriental conquest; only he punished those to
whom he assigned the blame of the miscarriage. He caused Ariarathes
the king of Cappadocia to be executed,[27] and gave the kingdom to an
illegitimate kinsman of his, Archelaus. The like fate was intended for
the Armenian. If Antonius in 720 {34 B.C.} appeared in Armenia, as
he said, for the continuance of the war, this had simply the object
of getting into his power the person of the king, who had refused
to go to Egypt. This act of revenge was ignobly executed by way of
surprise, and was not less ignobly celebrated by a caricature of the
Capitoline triumph exhibited in Alexandria. At that time the son of
Antonius, destined for lord of the East, as was already stated, was
installed as king of Armenia, and married to the daughter of the new
ally, the king of Media; while the eldest son of the captive king of
Armenia executed some time afterwards by order of queen Cleopatra,
Artaxes, whom the Armenians had proclaimed king instead of his father,
took refuge with the Parthians. Armenia and Media Atropatene were
thus in the power of Antonius or allied with him; the continuance
of the Parthian war was announced doubtless, but remained postponed
till after the overcoming of the western rival. Phraates on his part
advanced against Media, at first without success, as the Roman troops
stationed in Armenia afforded help to the Medians; but when Antonius,
in the course of his armaments against Caesar, recalled his forces
from that quarter, the Parthians gained the upper hand, vanquished the
Medians, and installed in Media, as well as also in Armenia, the king
Artaxes, who, in requital for the execution of his father, caused all
the Romans scattered in the land to be seized and put to death. That
Phraates did not turn to fuller account the great feud between Antonius
and Caesar, while it was in preparation and was being fought out, was
probably due to his being once more hampered by the troubles breaking
out in his own land. These ended in his expulsion, and in his going
to the Scythians of the East. Tiridates was proclaimed as great-king
in his stead. When the decisive naval battle was fought on the coast
of Epirus, and thereupon the overthrow of Antonius was completed in
Egypt, this new great-king sat on his tottering throne in Ctesiphon,
and at the opposite frontier of the empire the hordes of Turan were
making arrangements to reinstate the earlier ruler, in which they soon
afterwards succeeded.

[Sidenote: First arrangements of Augustus in the East.]

The sagacious and clear-seeing man, to whom it fell to liquidate
the undertakings of Antonius and to settle the relations of the two
portions of the empire, needed moderation quite as much as energy.
It would have been the gravest of errors to enter into the ideas of
Antonius as to conquering the East, or even merely making further
conquests there. Augustus perceived this; his military arrangements
show clearly that, while he viewed the possession of the Syrian coast
as well as that of Egypt as an indispensable complement to the empire
of the Mediterranean, he attached no value to inland possessions there.
Armenia, however, had now been for a generation Roman, and could, in
the nature of the circumstances, only be Roman or Parthian; the country
was by its position, in a military point of view, a sally-port for each
of the great powers into the territory of the other. Augustus had no
thought of abandoning Armenia and leaving it to the Parthians; and, as
things stood, he could hardly think of doing so. But, if Armenia was
retained, the matter could not end there; the local relations compelled
the Romans further to bring under their controlling influence the basin
of the river Cyrus, the territories of the Iberians on its upper, and
of the Albanians on its lower course--that is, the inhabitants of the
modern Georgia and Shirvan, skilled in combat on horseback and on
foot--and not to allow the domain of the Parthian power to extend to
the north of the Araxes beyond Atropatene. The expedition of Pompeius
had already shown that the settlement in Armenia necessarily led
the Romans on the one hand as far as the Caucasus, on the other as
far as the western shore of the Caspian Sea. The initial steps were
everywhere taken. The legates of Antonius had fought with the Iberians
and Albanians; Polemon, confirmed in his position by Augustus, ruled
not merely over the coast from Pharnacea to Trapezus, but also over the
territory of the Colchians at the mouth of the Phasis. To this general
state of matters fell to be added the special circumstances of the
moment, which most urgently suggested to the new monarch of Rome not
merely to show his sword in presence of the Orientals, but also to draw
it. That king Artaxes, like Mithradates formerly, had given orders to
put to death all the Romans within his bounds, could not be allowed to
remain unrequited. The exiled king of Media also had now sought help
from Augustus, as he would otherwise have sought it from Antonius. Not
merely did the civil war and the conflict of pretenders in the Parthian
empire facilitate the attack, but the expelled ruler Tiridates likewise
sought protection with Augustus, and declared himself ready as a Roman
vassal to accept his kingdom in fief from the latter. The restitution
of the Romans who had fallen into the power of the Parthians at the
defeats of Crassus and of the Antonians, and of the lost eagles, might
not in themselves seem to the ruler worth the waging of war; the
restorer of the Roman state could not allow this question of military
and political honour to drop.

[Sidenote: Policy open to him.]

The Roman statesman had to reckon with these facts; considering the
position, which Antonius took in the East, the policy of action was
imperative generally, and doubly so from the preceding miscarriages.
Beyond doubt it was desirable soon to undertake the organisation of
matters in Rome, but for the undisputed monarch there subsisted no
stringent compulsion to do this at once. He found himself after the
decisive blows of Actium and Alexandria on the spot and at the head of
a strong and victorious army; what had to be done some day was best
done at once. A ruler of the stamp of Caesar would hardly have returned
to Rome without having restored the protectorate in Armenia, having
obtained recognition for the Roman supremacy as far as the Caucasus
and the Caspian Sea, and having settled accounts with the Parthians.
A ruler of caution and energy would have now at once organised the
defence of the frontier in the East, as the circumstances required;
it was from the outset clear that the four Syrian legions, together
about 40,000 men, were not sufficient to guard the interests of Rome
simultaneously on the Euphrates, on the Araxes, and on the Cyrus, and
that the militia of the dependent kingdoms only concealed, and did not
cover, the want of imperial troops. Armenia by political and national
sympathy held more to the Parthians than to the Romans; the kings of
Commagene, Cappadocia, Galatia, Pontus, were inclined doubtless on the
other hand more to the Roman side, but they were untrustworthy and
weak. Even a policy keeping within bounds needed for its foundation an
energetic stroke of the sword, and for its maintenance the near arm of
a superior Roman military power.

[Sidenote: Inadequate measures.]

Augustus neither struck nor protected; certainly not because he
deceived himself as to the state of the case, but because it was his
nature to execute tardily and feebly what he perceived to be necessary,
and to let considerations of internal policy exercise a more than due
influence on the relations abroad. The inadequacy of the protection of
the frontier by the client states of Asia Minor he well perceived; and
in connection therewith, already in the year 729 {25 B.C.}, after
the death of king Amyntas who ruled all the interior of Asia Minor,
he gave to him no successor, but placed the land under an imperial
legate. Presumably the neighbouring more important client-states,
and particularly Cappadocia, were intended to be in like manner
converted after the decease of the holders for the time into imperial
governorships. This was a step in advance, in so far as thereby the
militia of these countries was incorporated with the imperial army and
placed under Roman officers; these troops could not exercise a serious
pressure on the insecure border-lands or even on the neighbouring
great-state, although they now counted among those of the empire. But
all these considerations were outweighed by regard to the reduction
of the numbers of the standing army and of the expenditure for the
military system to the lowest possible measure.

Equally insufficient, in presence of the relations of the moment, were
the measures adopted by Augustus on his return home from Alexandria.
He gave to the dispossessed king of the Medes the rule of the Lesser
Armenia, and to the Parthian pretender Tiridates an asylum in Syria,
in order through the former to keep in check the king Artaxes who
persevered in open hostility against Rome, by the latter to press upon
king Phraates. The negotiations instituted with the latter regarding
the restitution of the Parthian trophies of victory were prolonged
without result, although Phraates in the year 731 {23 B.C.} had
promised their return in order to obtain the release of a son who had
accidentally fallen into the power of the Romans.

[Sidenote: Augustus in Syria.]

It was only when Augustus went in person to Syria in the year 734 {20
B.C.}, and showed himself in earnest, that the Orientals submitted. In
Armenia, where a powerful party had risen against king Artaxes, the
insurgents threw themselves into the arms of the Romans and sought
imperial investiture for Artaxes’s younger brother Tigranes, brought up
at the imperial court and living in Rome. When the emperor’s stepson
Tiberius Claudius Nero, then a youth of twenty-two years, advanced with
a military force into Armenia, king Artaxes was put to death by his
own relatives, and Tigranes received the imperial tiara from the hand
of the emperor’s representative, as fifty years earlier his grandfather
of the same name had received it from Pompeius (iv. 127). Atropatene
was again separated from Armenia and passed under the sway of a ruler
likewise brought up in Rome, Ariobarzanes, son of the already-mentioned
Artavazdes; yet the latter appears to have obtained the land not as
a Roman but as a Parthian dependency. Concerning the organisation
of matters in the principalities on the Caucasus we learn nothing;
but as they are subsequently reckoned among the Roman client-states,
probably at that time the Roman influence prevailed here also. Even
king Phraates, now put to the choice of redeeming his word or fighting,
resolved with a heavy heart on the surrender--keenly as it did violence
to the national feelings of his people--of the few Roman prisoners of
war still living and the standards won.

[Sidenote: Mission of Gaius Caesar to the East.]

Boundless joy saluted this bloodless victory achieved by this prince
of peace. After it there subsisted for a considerable time a friendly
relation with the king of the Parthians, as indeed the immediate
interests of the two great states came little into contact. In Armenia,
on the other hand, the Roman vassal-rule, which rested only on its own
basis, had a difficulty in confronting the national opposition. After
the early death of king Tigranes his children, or the leaders of the
state governing under their name, joined this opposition. Against them
another ruler Artavazdes was set up by the friends of the Romans; but
he was unable to prevail against the stronger opposing party. These
Armenian troubles disturbed also the relation to the Parthians; it was
natural that the Armenians antagonistic to Rome should seek to lean on
these, and the Arsacids could not forget that Armenia had been formerly
a Parthian appanage for the second son. Bloodless victories are often
feeble and dangerous. Matters went so far that the Roman government, in
the year 748 {6 B.C.}, commissioned the same Tiberius, who, fourteen
years before had installed Tigranes as vassal-king of Armenia, to
enter it once more with a military force and to regulate the state
of matters in case of need by arms. But the quarrels in the imperial
family, which had interrupted the subjugation of the Germans (I. 35),
interfered also here and had the same bad effect. Tiberius declined
his stepfather’s commission, and in the absence of a suitable princely
general the Roman government for some years looked on, inactive for
good or evil, at the doings of the anti-Roman party in Armenia under
Parthian protection. At length, in the year 753 {1 B.C.}, not merely
was the same commission given to the elder adopted son of the emperor,
Gaius Caesar, at the age of twenty, but the subjugation of Armenia
was to be, as the father hoped, the beginning of greater things; the
Oriental campaign of the crown-prince of twenty was, we might almost
say, to continue the expedition of Alexander. Literati commissioned
by the emperor or in close relations to the court, the geographer
Isidorus, himself at home at the mouth of the Euphrates, and king
Juba of Mauretania, the representative of Greek learning among the
princely personages of the Augustan circle, dedicated--the former his
information personally acquired in the East, the latter his literary
collections on Arabia--to the young prince, who appeared to burn with
the desire of achieving the conquest of that land--over which Alexander
had met his death--as a brilliant compensation for a miscarriage of the
Augustan government which a considerable time ago had there occurred.
In the first instance for Armenia this mission was just as successful
as that of Tiberius. The Roman crown-prince and the Parthian great-king
Phraataces met personally on an island of the Euphrates; the Parthians
once more gave up Armenia, the imminent danger of a Parthian war was
averted, and the understanding, which had been disturbed, was at least
outwardly re-established. Gaius appointed Ariobarzanes, a prince of the
Median princely house, as king over the Armenians, and the suzerainty
of Rome was once more confirmed. The Armenians, however, opposed to
Rome did not submit without resistance; matters came not merely to
the marching in of the legions, but even to fighting. Before the walls
of the Armenian stronghold Artageira the young crown-prince received
from a Parthian officer through treachery the wound (A.D. 2) of which
he died after months of sickness. The intermixture of imperial and
dynastic policy punished itself anew. The death of a young man changed
the course of great policy; the Arabian expedition so confidently
announced to the public fell into abeyance, after its success could no
longer smooth the way of the emperor’s son to the succession. Further
undertakings on the Euphrates were no longer thought of; the immediate
object--the occupation of Armenia and the re-establishment of the
relations with the Parthians--was attained, however sad the shadows
that fell on this success through the death of the crown-prince.

[Sidenote: Mission of Germanicus to the East.]

The success had no more endurance than that of the more brilliant
expedition of 734 {20 B.C.}. The rulers of Armenia installed by
Rome were soon hard pressed by those of the counter-party with the
secret or open participation of the Parthians, and supplanted. When
the Parthian prince Vonones, reared in Rome, was called to the vacant
Parthian throne, the Romans hoped to find in him a support; but on
that very account he had soon to vacate it, and in his stead came king
Artabanus of Media, an energetic man, sprung on the mother’s side from
the Arsacids, but belonging to the Scythian people of the Daci, and
brought up in native habits (about A.D. 10). Vonones was then received
by the Armenians as ruler, and thereby these were kept under Roman
influence. But the less could Artabanus tolerate his dispossessed rival
as a neighbour prince; the Roman government must, in order to sustain
a man in every respect unfitted for his position, have applied armed
force against the Parthians as against his own subjects. Tiberius, who
meanwhile had come to reign, did not order an immediate invasion, and
for the moment the anti-Roman party in Armenia was victorious; but it
was not his intention to abandon the important border-land. On the
contrary, the annexation, probably long resolved on, of the kingdom of
Cappadocia was carried out in the year 17; the old Archelaus, who had
occupied the throne there from the year 718 {36 B.C.}, was summoned to
Rome and was there informed that he had ceased to reign. Likewise the
petty, but on account of the fords of the Euphrates important, kingdom
of Commagene came at that time under immediate imperial administration.
Thereby the direct frontier of the empire was pushed forward as far as
the middle Euphrates. At the same time the crown-prince Germanicus,
who had just commanded with great distinction on the Rhine, went
with extended full powers to the East, in order to organise the new
province of Cappadocia and to restore the sunken repute of the imperial
authority.

[Sidenote: And its results.]

This mission also attained its end soon and easily. Germanicus,
although not supported by the governor of Syria, Gnaeus Piso, with
such a force of troops as he was entitled to ask and had asked, went
nevertheless to Armenia, and by the mere weight of his person and
of his position brought back the land to allegiance. He allowed the
incapable Vonones to fall, and, in accordance with the wishes of the
chief men favourable to Rome, appointed as ruler of the Armenians a
son of that Polemon whom Antonius had made king in Pontus, Zeno, or,
as he was called as king of Armenia, Artaxias; the latter was, on the
one hand, connected with the imperial house through his mother queen
Pythodoris, a granddaughter of the triumvir Antonius, on the other
hand, reared after the manner of the country, a vigorous huntsman and
a brave carouser at the festal board. The great-king Artabanus also
met the Roman prince in a friendly way, and asked only for the removal
of his predecessor Vonones from Syria, in order to check the intrigues
concocted between him and the discontented Parthians. As Germanicus
responded to this request and sent the inconvenient refugee to Cilicia,
where he soon afterwards perished in an attempt to escape, the best
relations were established between the two great states. Artabanus
wished even to meet personally with Germanicus at the Euphrates, as
Phraataces and Gaius had done; but this Germanicus declined, doubtless
with reference to the easily excited suspicion of Tiberius. In truth
the same shadow of gloom fell on this Oriental expedition as on the
last preceding one; from this too the crown-prince of the Roman empire
came not home alive.

[Sidenote: Artabanus and Tiberius.]

[Sidenote: Mission of Vitellius.]

For a time the arrangements made did their work. So long as Tiberius
bore sway with a firm hand, and so long as king Artaxias of Armenia
lived, tranquillity continued in the East; but in the last years of
the old emperor, when he from his solitary island allowed things to
take their course and shrank back from all interference, and especially
after the death of Artaxias (about 34), the old game once more began.
King Artabanus, exalted by his long and prosperous government and
by many successes achieved against the border peoples of Iran, and
convinced that the old emperor would have no inclination to begin a
heavy war in the East, induced the Armenians to proclaim his own eldest
son, Arsaces, as ruler; that is, to exchange the Roman suzerainty for
the Parthian. Indeed he seemed directly to aim at war with Rome; he
demanded the estate left by his predecessor and rival Vonones, who
had died in Cilicia, from the Roman government, and his letters to
it as undisguisedly expressed the view that the East belonged to the
Orientals, as they called by the right name the abominations at the
imperial court, of which people in Rome ventured only to whisper in
their most intimate circles. He is said even to have made an attempt
to possess himself of Cappadocia. But he had miscalculated on the
old lion. Tiberius was even at Capreae formidable not merely to his
courtiers, and was not the man to let himself, and in himself Rome,
be mocked with impunity. He sent Lucius Vitellius, the father of the
subsequent emperor, a resolute officer and skilful diplomatist, to
the East with plenary power similar to that which Gaius Caesar and
Germanicus had formerly had, and with the commission in case of need
to lead the Syrian legions over the Euphrates. At the same time
he applied the often tried means for giving trouble to the rulers
of the East by insurrections and pretenders in their own land. To
the Parthian prince, whom the Armenian nationalists had proclaimed
as ruler, he opposed a prince of the royal house of the Iberians,
Mithradates, brother of the Armenian king Pharasmanes, and directed
the latter, as well as the prince of the Albanians, to support the
Roman pretender to Armenia with military force. Large bands of the
Transcaucasian Sarmatae, warlike and easy of access to every wooer,
were hired with Roman money for the inroads into Armenia. The Roman
pretender succeeded in poisoning his rival through bribed courtiers,
and in possessing himself of the country and of the capital Artaxata.
Artabanus sent in place of the murdered prince another son Orodes to
Armenia, and attempted also on his part to procure Transcaucasian
auxiliaries; but only few made good their way to Armenia, and the
bands of Parthian horsemen were not a match for the good infantry
of the Caucasian peoples and the dreaded Sarmatian mounted archers.
Orodes was vanquished in a hard pitched battle, and himself severely
wounded in single combat with his rival. Then Artabanus in person
set out for Armenia. But now Vitellius also put in motion the Syrian
legions, in order to cross the Euphrates and to invade Mesopotamia,
and this brought the long fermenting insurrection in the Parthian
kingdom to an outbreak. The energetic and, with successes, more and
more rude demeanour of the Scythian ruler, had offended many persons
and interests, and had especially estranged from him the Mesopotamian
Greeks and the powerful urban community of Seleucia, from which he had
taken away its municipal constitution, democratic after a Greek type.
Roman gold fostered the movement which was in preparation. Discontented
nobles had already put themselves in communication with the Roman
government, and besought from it a genuine Arsacid. Tiberius had sent
the only surviving son of Phraates, of the same name with his father,
and--after the old man, accustomed to Roman habits, had succumbed
to his exertions while still in Syria--in his stead a grandson of
Phraates, likewise living in Rome, by name Tiridates. The Parthian
prince Sinnaces, the leader of these plots, now renounced allegiance
to the Scythian and set up the banner of the Arsacids. Vitellius with
his legions crossed the Euphrates, and in his train the new great-king
by grace of Rome. The Parthian governor of Mesopotamia, Ornospades,
who had once as an exile shared under Tiberius in the Pannonian wars,
placed himself and his troops at once at the disposal of the new
ruler; Abdagaeses, the father of Sinnaces, delivered over the imperial
treasure; very speedily Artabanus found himself abandoned by the whole
country, and compelled to take flight to his Scythian home, where he
wandered about in the forests without settled abode, and kept himself
alive with his bow, while the tiara was solemnly placed on the head
of Tiridates in Ctesiphon by the princes who were, according to the
Parthian constitution, called to crown the ruler.

[Sidenote: Tiridates superseded.]

But the rule of the new great-king sent by the national foe did
not last long. The government, conducted less by himself, young,
inexperienced, and incapable, than by those who had made him king, and
chiefly by Abdagaeses, soon provoked opposition. Some of the chief
satraps had remained absent even from the coronation festival, and
again brought forth the dispossessed ruler from his banishment; with
their assistance and the forces supplied by his Scythian countrymen
Artabanus returned, and already in the following year (36) the whole
kingdom, with the exception of Seleucia, was again in his power.
Tiridates was a fugitive, and was compelled to demand from his Roman
protectors the shelter which could not be refused to him. Vitellius
once more led the legions to the Euphrates; but, as the great-king
appeared in person and declared himself ready for all that was asked,
provided that the Roman government would stand aloof from Tiridates,
peace was soon concluded. Artabanus not merely recognised Mithradates
as king of Armenia, but presented also to the effigy of the Roman
emperor the homage which was wont to be required of vassals, and
furnished his son Darius as a hostage to the Romans. Thereupon the old
emperor died; but he had lived long enough to see this victory, as
bloodless as complete, of his policy over the revolt of the East.

[Sidenote: The East under Gaius.]

What the sagacity of the old man had attained was undone at once by the
indiscretion of his successor. Apart from the fact that he cancelled
judicious arrangements of Tiberius, re-establishing, _e.g._ the annexed
kingdom of Commagene, his foolish envy grudged the dead emperor the
success which he had gained; he summoned the able governor of Syria
as well as the new king of Armenia to Rome to answer for themselves,
deposed the latter, and, after keeping him for a time a prisoner, sent
him into exile. As a matter of course the Parthian government took
action for itself, and once more seized possession of Armenia which
was without a master.[28] Claudius, on coming to reign in the year
41, had to begin afresh the work that had been done. He dealt with
it after the example of Tiberius. Mithradates, recalled from exile,
was reinstated, and directed with the help of his brother to possess
himself of Armenia. The fraternal war then waged among the three sons
of king Artabanus III. in the Parthian kingdom smoothed the way for
the Romans. After the murder of the eldest son, Gotarzes and Vardanes
contended over the throne for years; Seleucia, which had already
renounced allegiance to the father, defied him and subsequently his
sons throughout seven years; the peoples of Turan also interfered, as
they always did, in this quarrel of princes of Iran. Mithradates was
able, with the help of the troops of his brother and of the garrisons
of the neighbouring Roman provinces, to overpower the Parthian
partisans in Armenia and to make himself again master there;[29] the
land obtained a Roman garrison. After Vardanes had come to terms with
his brother and had at length reoccupied Seleucia, he seemed as though
he would march into Armenia; but the threatening attitude of the Roman
legate of Syria withheld him, and very soon the brother broke the
agreement and the civil war began afresh. Not even the assassination of
the brave and, in combat with the peoples of Turan, victorious Vardanes
put an end to it; the opposition party now turned to Rome and besought
from the government there the son of Vonones, the prince Meherdates
then living in Rome, who thereupon was placed by the emperor Claudius
before the assembled senate at the disposal of his countrymen and sent
away to Syria with the exhortation to administer his new kingdom well
and justly, and to remain mindful of the friendly protectorate of
Rome (49). He did not reach the position in which these exhortations
might be applied. The Roman legions, which escorted him as far as the
Euphrates, there delivered him over to those who had called him--the
head of the powerful princely family of the Carên and the kings Abgarus
of Edessa and Izates of Adiabene. The inexperienced and unwarlike youth
was as little equal to the task as all the other Parthian rulers set up
by the Romans; a number of his most noted adherents left him so soon as
they learned to know him, and went to Gotarzes; in the decisive battle
the fall of the brave Carên turned the scale. Meherdates was taken
prisoner and not even executed, but only, after the Oriental fashion,
rendered incapable of government by mutilation of the ears.

[Sidenote: Armenia occupied by the Parthians.]

Notwithstanding this defeat of Roman policy in the Parthian kingdom,
Armenia remained with the Romans, so long as the weak Gotarzes ruled
over the Parthians. But so soon as a more vigorous hand grasped the
reins of sovereignty, and the internal conflicts ceased, the struggle
for that land was resumed. King Vologasus, who after the death of
Gotarzes and the short reign of Vonones II. succeeded this his father
in the year 51,[30] ascended the throne, exceptionally, in full
agreement with his two brothers Pacorus and Tiridates. He was an
able and prudent ruler--we find him even as a founder of towns, and
exerting himself with success to divert the trade of Palmyra towards
his new town Vologasias on the lower Euphrates--averse to quick and
extreme resolutions, and endeavouring, if possible, to keep peace with
his powerful neighbour. But the recovery of Armenia was the leading
political idea of the dynasty, and he too was ready to make use of any
opportunity for realising it.

[Sidenote: Rhadamistus.]

This opportunity seemed now to present itself. The Armenian court had
become the scene of one of the most revolting family tragedies which
history records. The old king of the Iberians, Pharasmanes, undertook
to eject his brother Mithradates, the king of Armenia, from the throne
and to put his own son Rhadamistus in his place. Under the pretext of
a quarrel with his father Rhadamistus appeared at the court of his
uncle and father-in-law, and entered into negotiations with Armenians
of repute in that sense. After he had secured a body of adherents,
Pharasmanes, in the year 52, under frivolous pretexts involved his
brother in war, and brought the country into his own or rather his
son’s power. Mithradates placed himself under the protection of the
Roman garrison of the fortress of Gorneae.[31] Rhadamistus did not
venture to attack this; but the commandant, Caelius Pollio, was well
known as worthless and venal. The centurion holding command under him
resorted to Pharasmanes to induce him to recall his troops, which the
latter promised, but did not keep his word. During the absence of the
second in command Pollio compelled the king--who doubtless guessed what
was before him--by the threat of leaving him in the lurch, to deliver
himself into the hands of Rhadamistus. By the latter he was put to
death, and with him his wife, the sister of Rhadamistus, and their
children, because they broke out in cries of lamentation at the sight
of the dead bodies of their parents. In this way Rhadamistus attained
to sovereignty over Armenia. The Roman government ought neither to have
looked on at such horrors, of which its officers shared the guilt, nor
to have tolerated that one of its vassals should make war on another.
Nevertheless the governor of Cappadocia, Julius Paelignus, acknowledged
the new king of Armenia. Even in the council of the governor of Syria,
Ummidius Quadratus, the opinion preponderated that it might be a matter
of indifference to the Romans whether the uncle or the nephew ruled
Armenia; the legate, sent to Armenia with a legion, received only
instructions to maintain the _status quo_ till further orders. Then the
Parthian king, on the assumption that the Roman government would not
be zealous to take part for king Rhadamistus, deemed the moment a fit
one for resuming his old claims upon Armenia. He invested his brother
Tiridates with Armenia, and the Parthian troops marching in possessed
themselves, almost without striking a blow, of the two capitals,
Tigranocerta and Artaxata, and of the whole land. When Rhadamistus made
an attempt to retain the price of his deeds of blood, the Armenians
themselves drove him out of the land. The Roman garrison appears to
have left Armenia after the giving over of Gorneae; the governor
recalled the legion put upon the march from Syria, in order not to fall
into conflict with the Parthians.

[Sidenote: Corbulo sent to Cappadocia.]

When this news came to Rome (at the end of 54) the emperor Claudius had
just died, and the ministers Burrus and Seneca practically governed for
his young successor, seventeen years old. The procedure of Vologasus
could only be answered by a declaration of war. In fact the Roman
government sent to Cappadocia, which otherwise was a governorship
of the second rank and was not furnished with legions, by way of
exception the consular legate Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo. He had come
rapidly into prominence as brother-in-law of the emperor Gaius, had
then under Claudius been legate of lower Germany in the year 47 (I.
125), and was thenceforth regarded as one of the able commanders, not
at that time numerous, who energetically maintained the stringency of
discipline--in person a Herculean figure, equal to any fatigue, and of
unshrinking courage in presence not of the enemy merely but also of
his own soldiers. It appeared to be a sign of things becoming better
that the government of Nero gave to him the first important command
which it had to fill. The incapable Syrian legate of Syria, Quadratus,
was not recalled, but was directed to put two of his four legions at
the disposal of the governor of the neighbouring province. All the
legions were brought up to the Euphrates, and orders were given for
the immediate throwing of bridges over the stream. The two regions
bordering immediately on Armenia to the westward, Lesser Armenia and
Sophene, were assigned to two trustworthy Syrian princes, Aristobulus,
of a lateral branch of the Herodian house, and Sohaemus, of the ruling
family of Hemesa, and both were placed under Corbulo’s command.
Agrippa, the king of the remnant of the Jewish state still left at that
time, and Antiochus, king of Commagene, likewise received orders to
march.

[Sidenote: Character of his troops.]

At first, however, no fighting took place. The reason lay partly in
the state of the Syrian legions; it was a bad testimonial of poverty
for the previous administration, that Corbulo was compelled to describe
the troops assigned to him as quite unserviceable. The legions levied
and doing garrison duty in the Greek provinces had always been inferior
to the Occidentals; now the enervating power of the East with the long
state of peace and the laxity of discipline completely demoralised
them. The soldiers abode more in the towns than in the camps; not
a few of them were unaccustomed to carry arms, and knew nothing of
pitching camps and of service on the watch; the regiments were far from
having their full complement and contained numerous old and useless
men; Corbulo had, in the first instance, to dismiss a great number of
soldiers, and to levy and train recruits in still larger numbers. The
exchange of the comfortable winter quarters on the Orontes for those
in the rugged mountains of Armenia, and the sudden introduction of
inexorably stern discipline in the camp, brought about various ailments
and occasioned numerous desertions. In spite of all this the general
found himself, when matters became serious, compelled to ask that one
of the better legions of the West might be sent to him. Under these
circumstances he was in no haste to bring his soldiers to face the
enemy; nevertheless it was political considerations that preponderantly
influenced him in this course.

[Sidenote: The aims of the war.]

If it had been the design of the Roman government to drive out the
Parthian ruler at once from Armenia, and to put in his place not
indeed Rhadamistus, with whose blood-guiltiness the Romans had no
occasion to stain themselves, but some other prince of their choice,
the military resources of Corbulo would probably have at once sufficed,
since king Vologasus, once more recalled by internal troubles, had led
away his troops from Armenia. But this was not embraced in the plan
of the Romans; they wished, on the contrary, rather to acquiesce in
the government of Tiridates there, and only to induce and, in case of
need, compel him to an acknowledgment of the Roman supremacy; only
for this object were the legions, in case of extremity, to march. This
in reality came very near to the cession of Armenia to the Parthians.
What told in favour of this course, and what prevented it, has formerly
been set forth (p. 34 f.). If Armenia were now arranged as a Parthian
appanage for a second son, the recognition of the Roman suzerainty was
little more than a formality, strictly taken, nothing but a screen
for military and political honour. Thus the government of the earlier
period of Nero, which, as is well known, was equalled by few in insight
and energy, intended to get rid of Armenia in a decorous way; and that
need not surprise us. In fact they were in this case pouring water into
a sieve. The possession of Armenia had doubtless been asserted and
brought to recognition within the land itself, as among the Parthians,
through Tiberius in the year 20 B.C., then by Gaius in the year 2, by
Germanicus in the year 18, and by Vitellius in the year 36. But it was
just these extraordinary expeditions regularly repeated and regularly
crowned with success, and yet never attaining to permanent effect,
that justified the Parthians, when in the negotiations with Nero
they maintained that the Roman suzerainty over Armenia was an empty
name--that the land was, and could be, none other than Parthian. For
the vindication of the Roman supreme authority there was always needed,
if not the waging of war, at least the threat of it; and the constant
irritation thereby produced made a lasting state of peace between the
two neighbouring great powers impossible. The Romans had, if they were
to act consistently, only the choice between either bringing Armenia
and the left bank of the Euphrates in general effectively under their
power by setting aside the mere mediate government, or leaving the
matter to the Parthians, so far as was compatible with the supreme
principle of the Roman government to acknowledge no frontier-power
with equal rights. Augustus and the rulers after him had so far
decidedly declined the former alternative, and they ought therefore
to have taken the second course. But this too they had at least
attempted to decline, and had wished to exclude the Parthian royal
house from the rule over Armenia, without being able to do so. This the
leading statesmen of the earlier Neronian period must have regarded
as an error, since they left Armenia to the Arsacids, and restricted
themselves to the smallest conceivable measure of rights thereto. When
the dangers and the disadvantages, which the retention of this region
only externally attached to the empire brought to the state, were
weighed against those which the Parthian rule over Armenia involved
for the Romans, the decision might, especially in view of the small
offensive power of the Parthian kingdom, well be found in the latter
sense. But under all the circumstances this policy was consistent, and
sought to attain in a clearer and more rational way the aim pursued by
Augustus.

[Sidenote: Negotiations with Vologasus.]

From this standpoint we understand why Corbulo and Quadratus, instead
of crossing the Euphrates, entered into negotiations with Vologasus;
and not less why the latter, informed doubtless of the real designs of
the Romans, agreed to submit to the Romans in a similar way with his
predecessor, and to deliver to them as a pledge of peace a number of
hostages closely connected with the royal house. The return tacitly
agreed on for this was that the rule of Tiridates over Armenia should
be tolerated, and that a Roman pretender should not be set up. So
some years passed in a _de facto_ state of peace. But when Vologasus
and Tiridates did not agree to apply to the Roman government for the
investing of the latter with Armenia,[32] Corbulo took the offensive
against Tiridates in the year 58. The very policy of withdrawal and
concession, if it was not to appear to friend and foe as weakness,
needed a foil, and so either a formal and solemn recognition of the
Roman supremacy or, better still, a victory won by arms.

[Sidenote: Corbulo in Armenia.]

In the summer of the year 58 Corbulo led an army, tolerably fit
for fighting, of at least 30,000 men, over the Euphrates. The
reorganisation and the hardening of the troops were completed by
the campaign itself, and the first winter-quarters were taken up on
Armenian soil. In the spring of 59[33] he began the advance in the
direction of Artaxata. At the same time Armenia was invaded from
the north by the Iberians, whose king Pharasmanes, to cover his own
crimes, had caused his son Rhadamistus to be executed, and now further
endeavoured by good services to make his guilt be forgotten; and not
less by their neighbours to the north-west, the brave Moschi, and on
the south by Antiochus, king of Commagene. King Vologasus was detained
by the revolt of the Hyrcanians on the opposite side of the kingdom,
and could or would not interfere directly in the struggle. Tiridates
offered a courageous resistance, but he could do nothing against the
crushing superiority of force. In vain he sought to throw himself on
the lines of communication of the Romans, who obtained their necessary
supplies by way of the Black Sea and the port of Trapezus. The
strongholds of Armenia fell under the attacks of the Roman assailants,
and the garrisons were cut down to the last man. Defeated in a pitched
battle under the walls of Artaxata, Tiridates gave up the unequal
struggle, and went to the Parthians. Artaxata surrendered, and here,
in the heart of Armenia, the Roman army passed the winter. In the
spring of 60 Corbulo broke up from thence, after having burnt down
the town, and marched right across the country to its second capital
Tigranocerta, above Nisibis, in the basin of the Tigris. The terrors
of the destruction of Artaxata preceded him; serious resistance was
nowhere offered; even Tigranocerta voluntarily opened its gates to the
victor, who here in a well-calculated way allowed mercy to prevail.
Tiridates still made an attempt to return and to resume the struggle,
but was repulsed without special exertion. At the close of the summer
of 60 all Armenia was subdued, and stood at the disposal of the Roman
government.

[Sidenote: Tigranes, king of Armenia.]

It is intelligible that people in Rome now put Tiridates out of
account. The prince Tigranes, a great-grandson on the father’s side
of Herod the Great, on the mother’s of king Archelaus of Cappadocia,
related also to the old Marenian royal house on the female side, and
a nephew of one of the ephemeral rulers of Armenia in the last years
of Augustus, brought up in Rome, and entirely a tool of the Roman
government, was now (60) invested by Nero with the kingdom of Armenia,
and at the emperor’s command installed by Corbulo in its rule. In
the country there was left a Roman garrison, 1000 legionaries, and
from 3000 to 4000 cavalry and infantry of auxiliaries. A portion of
the border land was separated from Armenia and distributed among the
neighbouring kings, Polemon of Pontus and Trapezus, Aristobulus of
Lesser Armenia, Pharasmanes of Iberia and Antiochus of Commagene. On
the other hand the new master of Armenia advanced, of course with
consent of the Romans, into the adjacent Parthian province of Adiabene,
defeated Monobazus the governor there, and appeared desirous of
wresting this region also from the Parthian state.

[Sidenote: Negotiations with the Parthians.]

This turn of affairs compelled the Parthian government to emerge from
its passiveness; the question now concerned no longer the recovery of
Armenia, but the integrity of the Parthian empire. The long-threatened
collision between the two great states seemed inevitable. Vologasus in
an assembly of the grandees of the empire confirmed Tiridates afresh
as king of Armenia, and sent with him the general Monaeses against
the Roman usurper of the land, who was besieged by the Parthians
in Tigranocerta, which the Roman troops kept in their possession.
Vologasus in person collected the Parthian main force in Mesopotamia,
and threatened (at the beginning of 61) Syria. Corbulo, who, after
Quadratus’s death, held the command for a time in Cappadocia as in
Syria, but had besought from the government the nomination of another
governor for Cappadocia and Armenia, sent provisionally two legions
to Armenia to lend help to Tigranes, while he in person moved to the
Euphrates in order to receive the Parthian king. Again, however, they
came not to blows, but to an agreement. Vologasus, well knowing how
dangerous was the game which he was beginning, declared himself now
ready to enter into the terms vainly offered by the Romans before the
outbreak of the Armenian war, and to allow the investiture of his
brother by the Roman emperor. Corbulo entered into the proposal. He let
Tigranes drop, withdrew the Roman troops from Armenia, and acquiesced
in Tiridates establishing himself there, while the Parthian auxiliary
troops likewise withdrew; on the other hand, Vologasus sent an embassy
to the Roman government, and declared the readiness of his brother to
take the land in fee from Rome.

[Sidenote: The Parthian war under Nero.]

These measures of Corbulo were of a hazardous kind,[34] and led to a
bad complication. The Roman general may possibly have been, still more
thoroughly than the statesmen in Rome, impressed by the uselessness
of retaining Armenia; but, after the Roman government had installed
Tigranes as king of Armenia, he could not of his own accord fall back
upon the conditions earlier laid down, least of all abandon his own
acquisitions and withdraw the Roman troops from Armenia. He was the
less entitled to do so, as he administered Cappadocia and Armenia
merely _ad interim_, and had himself declared to the government that
he was not in a position to exercise the command at once there and in
Syria; whereupon the consular Lucius Caesennius Paetus was nominated
as governor of Cappadocia and was already on the way thither. The
suspicion can hardly be avoided that Corbulo grudged the latter the
honour of the final subjugation of Armenia, and wished before his
arrival to establish a definitive solution by the actual conclusion of
peace with the Parthians. The Roman government accordingly declined
the proposals of Vologasus and insisted on the retention of Armenia,
which, as the new governor who arrived in Cappadocia in the course of
the summer of 61 declared, was even to be taken under direct Roman
administration. Whether the Roman government had really resolved to go
so far cannot be ascertained; but this was at all events implied in
the consistent following out of their policy. The installing of a king
dependent on Rome was only a prolongation of the previous untenable
state of things; whoever did not wish the cession of Armenia to the
Parthians had to contemplate the conversion of the kingdom into a Roman
province. The war therefore took its course; and on that account one of
the Moesian legions was sent to the Cappadocian army.

[Sidenote: Measures of Paetus.]

When Paetus arrived, the two legions assigned to him by Corbulo were
encamped on this side of the Euphrates in Cappadocia; Armenia was
evacuated, and had to be reconquered. Paetus set at once to work,
crossed the Euphrates at Melitene (Malatia), advanced into Armenia,
and reduced the nearest strongholds on the border. The advanced season
of the year, however, compelled him soon to suspend operations and
to abandon for this year the intended reoccupation of Tigranocerta;
nevertheless, in order to resume his march at once next spring, he,
after Corbulo’s example, took up his winter-quarters in the enemy’s
country at Rhandeia, on a tributary of the Euphrates, the Arsanias,
not far from the modern Charput, while the baggage and the women
and children had quarters not far from it in the strong fortress of
Arsamosata. But he had underrated the difficulty of the undertaking.
One, and that the best of his legions, the Moesian, was still on
the march, and spent the winter on this side of the Euphrates in
the territory of Pontus; the two others were not those whom Corbulo
had taught to fight and conquer, but the former Syrian legions of
Quadratus, not having their full complement, and hardly capable of
use without thorough reorganisation. He had withal to confront not,
like Corbulo, the Armenians alone, but the main body of the Parthians;
Vologasus had, when the war became in earnest, led the flower of his
troops from Mesopotamia to Armenia, and judiciously availed himself
of the strategical advantage that he commanded the inner and shorter
lines. Corbulo might, especially as he had bridged over the Euphrates
and constructed _têtes de pont_ on the other bank, have at least
hampered, or at any rate requited this marching off by a seasonable
incursion into Mesopotamia; but he did not stir from his positions and
he left it to Paetus to defend himself, as best he could, against the
whole force of his foes. The latter was neither himself military nor
ready to accept and follow military advice, not even a man of resolute
character; arrogant and boastful in onset, despairing and pusillanimous
in presence of misfortune.

[Sidenote: Capitulation of Rhandeia.]

Thus there came what could not but come. In the spring of 62 it was
not Paetus who assumed the aggressive, but Vologasus; the advanced
troops who were to bar the way of the Parthians were crushed by the
superior force; the attack was soon converted into a siege of the Roman
positions pitched far apart in the winter camp and the fortress. The
legions could neither advance nor retreat; the soldiers deserted in
masses; the only hope rested on Corbulo’s legions lying inactive far
off in northern Syria, beyond doubt at Zeugma. Both generals shared
in the blame of the disaster: Corbulo on account of the lateness of
his starting to render help,[35] although, when he did recognise
the whole extent of the danger, he hastened his march as much as
possible; Paetus, because he could not take the bold resolution to
perish rather than to surrender, and thereby lost the chance of rescue
that was near--in three days longer the 5000 men whom Corbulo was
leading up would have brought the longed-for help. The conditions
of the capitulation were free retreat for the Romans and evacuation
of Armenia, with the delivering up of all fortresses occupied by
them, and of all the stores that were in their hands, of which the
Parthians were urgently in need. On the other hand Vologasus declared
himself ready, in spite of this military success, to ask Armenia as a
Roman fief for his brother from the imperial government, and on that
account to send envoys to Nero.[36] The moderation of the victor may
have rested on the fact that he had better information of Corbulo’s
approach than the enclosed army; but more probably the sagacious man
was not concerned to renew the disaster of Crassus and bring Roman
eagles again to Ctesiphon. The defeat of a Roman army--he knew--was not
the overpowering of Rome; and the real concession, which was involved
in the recognition of Tiridates, was not too dearly purchased by the
compliance as to form.

[Sidenote: Conclusion of peace.]

[Sidenote: Tiridates in Rome.]

The Roman government once more declined the offer of the Parthian king
and ordered the continuance of the war. It could not well do otherwise;
if the recognition of Tiridates was hazardous before the recommencement
of war, and hardly capable of being accepted after the Parthian
declaration of war, it now, as a consequence of the capitulation
of Rhandeia, appeared directly as its ratification. From Rome the
resumption of the struggle against the Parthians was energetically
promoted. Paetus was recalled; Corbulo, in whom public opinion, aroused
by the disgraceful capitulation, saw only the conqueror of Armenia,
and whom even those who knew exactly and judged sharply the state
of the matter could not avoid characterising as the ablest general
and one uniquely fitted for this war, took up again the governorship
of Cappadocia, and at the same time the command over all the troops
available for this campaign, who were further reinforced by a seventh
legion brought up from Pannonia; accordingly all the governors and
princes of the East were directed to comply in military matters with
his orders, so that his official authority was nearly equivalent to
that which had been assigned to the crown-princes Gaius and Germanicus
for their missions to the East. If these measures were intended to
bring about a serious reparation of the honour of the Roman arms they
missed their aim. How Corbulo looked at the state of affairs, is
shown by the very agreement which he made with the Parthian king not
long after the disaster of Rhandeia; the latter withdrew the Parthian
garrisons from Armenia, the Romans evacuated the fortresses constructed
on Mesopotamian territory for the protection of the bridges. For
the Roman offensive the Parthian garrisons in Armenia were just as
indifferent as the bridges of the Euphrates were important; whereas,
if Tiridates was to be recognised as a Roman vassal-king in Armenia,
the latter certainly were superfluous and Parthian garrisons in
Armenia impossible. In the next spring (63) Corbulo certainly entered
upon the offensive enjoined upon him, and led the four best of his
legions at Melitene over the Euphrates against the Partho-Armenian
main force stationed in the region of Arsamosata. But not much came
of the fighting; only some castles of Armenian nobles opposed to
Rome were destroyed. On the other hand, this encounter led also to
agreement. Corbulo took up the Parthian proposals formerly rejected
by his government, and that, as the further course of things showed,
in the sense that Armenia became once for all a Parthian appanage for
the second son, and the Roman government, at least according to the
spirit of the agreement, consented to bestow this crown in future only
on an Arsacid. It was only added that Tiridates should oblige himself
to take from his head the royal diadem publicly before the eyes of the
two armies in Rhandeia, just where the capitulation had been concluded,
and to deposit it before the effigy of the emperor, promising not to
put it on again until he should have received it from his hand, and
that in Rome itself. This was done (63). By this humiliation there
was no change in the fact that the Roman general, instead of waging
the war intrusted to him, concluded peace on the terms rejected by
his government.[37] But the statesmen who formerly took the lead had
meanwhile died or retired, the personal government of the emperor
was installed in their stead, and the solemn act in Rhandeia and the
spectacle in prospect of the investiture of the Parthian prince with
the crown of Armenia in the capital of the empire failed not to produce
their effect on the public, and above all on the emperor in person.
The peace was ratified and fulfilled. In the year 66 the Parthian
prince appeared according to promise in Rome, escorted by 3000 Parthian
horsemen, bringing as hostages the children of his three brothers as
well as those of Monobazus of Adiabene. Falling on his knees he saluted
his liege lord seated on the imperial throne in the market-place of the
capital, and here the latter in presence of all the people bound the
royal chaplet round his brow.

[Sidenote: The East under the Flavians.]

The conduct on both sides, cautious, and we might almost say
peaceful, of the last nominally ten years’ war, and its corresponding
conclusion by the actual transfer of Armenia to the Parthians, while
the susceptibilities of the mightier western empire were spared, bore
good fruit. Armenia, under the national dynasty recognised by the
Romans, was more dependent on them than formerly under the rulers
forced upon the country. A Roman garrison was left at least in the
district of Sophene, which most closely bordered on the Euphrates.[38]
For the re-establishment of Artaxata the permission of the emperor was
sought and granted, and the building was helped on by the emperor Nero
with money and workmen. Between the two mighty states separated from
each other by the Euphrates at no time has an equally good relation
subsisted as after the conclusion of the treaty of Rhandeia in the last
years of Nero and onward under the three rulers of the Flavian house.
Other circumstances contributed to this. The masses of Transcaucasian
peoples, perhaps allured by their participation in the last wars,
during which they had found their way to Armenia as mercenaries, partly
of the Iberians, partly of the Parthians, began then to threaten
especially the western Parthian provinces, but at the same time the
eastern provinces of the Roman empire. Probably in order to check them,
immediately after the Armenian war in the year 63, the annexation was
ordained of the so-called kingdom of Pontus, _i.e._ the south-east
corner of the coast of the Black Sea, with the town of Trapezus and the
region of the Phasis. The great Oriental expedition, which this emperor
was just on the point of beginning when the catastrophe overtook him
(68), and for which he already had put the flower of the troops of the
West on the march, partly to Egypt, partly along the Danube, was meant
no doubt to push forward the imperial frontier in other directions;[39]
but its proper aim was the passes of the Caucasus above Tiflis,
and the Scythian tribes settled on the northern slope, in the first
instance the Alani.[40] These were just assailing Armenia on the one
side and Media on the other. So little was that expedition of Nero
directed against the Parthians that it might rather be conceived of as
undertaken to help them; overagainst the wild hordes of the north a
common defensive action was at any rate indicated for the two civilised
states of the West and East. Vologasus indeed declined with equal
friendliness the amicable summons of his Roman colleague to visit him,
just as his brother had done, at Rome, since he had no liking on his
part to appear in the Roman forum as a vassal of the Roman ruler; but
he declared himself ready to present himself before the emperor when
he should arrive in the East, and the Orientals doubtless, though not
the Romans, sincerely mourned for Nero. King Vologasus addressed to the
senate officially an entreaty to hold Nero’s memory in honour, and,
when a pseudo-Nero subsequently emerged, he met with sympathy above all
in the Parthian state.

[Sidenote: Arrangements of Vespasian.]

Nevertheless the Parthian was not so much concerned about the
friendship of Nero as about that of the Roman state. Not merely
did he refrain from any encroachment during the crises of the
four-emperor-year,[41] but correctly estimating the probable result of
the pending decisive struggle, he offered to Vespasian, when still in
Alexandria, 40,000 mounted archers for the conflict with Vitellius,
which, of course, was gratefully declined. But above all he submitted
without more ado to the arrangements which the new government made
for the protection of the east frontier. Vespasian had himself as
governor of Judaea become acquainted with the inadequacy of the
military resources statedly employed there; and, when he exchanged
this governorship for the imperial power, not only was Commagene again
converted, after the precedent of Tiberius, from a kingdom into a
province, but the number of the standing legions in Roman Asia was
raised from four to seven, to which number they had been temporarily
brought up for the Parthian and again for the Jewish war. While,
further, there had been hitherto in Asia only a single larger military
command, that of the governor of Syria, three such posts of high
command were now instituted there. Syria, to which Commagene was added,
retained as hitherto four legions; the two provinces hitherto occupied
only by troops of the second order, Palestine and Cappadocia, were
furnished, the first with one, the second with two legions.[42] Armenia
remained a Roman dependent principality in possession of the Arsacids,
but under Vespasian a Roman garrison was stationed beyond the Armenian
frontier in the Iberian fortress Harmozika near Tiflis,[43] and
accordingly at this time Armenia also must have been militarily in the
Roman power. All these measures, however little they contained even a
threat of war, were pointed against the eastern neighbour. Nevertheless
Vologasus was after the fall of Jerusalem the first to offer to
the Roman crown-prince his congratulations on the strengthening of
the Roman rule in Syria, and he accepted without remonstrance the
encampment of the legions in Commagene, Cappadocia, and Lesser Armenia.
Nay, he even once more incited Vespasian to that Transcaucasian
expedition, and besought the sending of a Roman army against the Alani
under the leadership of one of the imperial princes; although Vespasian
did not enter into this far-seeing plan, that Roman force can hardly
have been sent into the region of Tiflis for any other object than for
closing the pass of the Caucasus, and in so far it represented there
also the interests of the Parthians. In spite of the strengthening of
the military position of Rome on the Euphrates, or even perhaps in
consequence of it--for to instil respect into a neighbour is a means
of preserving the peace--the state of peace remained essentially
undisturbed during the whole rule of the Flavians. If--as cannot be
surprising, especially when we consider the constant change of the
Parthian dynasts--collisions now and then occurred, and war-clouds
even made their appearance, they disappeared again as quickly.[44] The
emergence of a pseudo-Nero in the last years of Vespasian--he it was
who gave the impulse to the Revelation of John--might almost have led
to such a collision. The pretender, in reality a certain Terentius
Maximus from Asia Minor, but strikingly resembling the poet-emperor
in face, voice, and address, found not merely a conflux of adherents
in the Roman region of the Euphrates, but also support among the
Parthians. Among these at that time, as so often, several rulers seem
to have been in conflict with each other, and one of them, Artabanus,
because the emperor Titus declared against him, seems to have adopted
the cause of the Roman pretender. This, however, had no consequences;
on the contrary, soon afterwards the Parthian government delivered up
the pretender to the emperor Domitian.[45] The commercial intercourse,
advantageous for both parties between Syria and the lower Euphrates,
where just then king Vologasus called into existence the new emporium
Vologasias or Vologasocerta, not far from Ctesiphon, must have
contributed its part towards promoting the state of peace.

[Sidenote: The Parthian war of Trajan.]

Things came to a conflict under Trajan. In the earlier years of his
government he had made no essential change in eastern affairs, apart
from the conversion of the two client-states hitherto subsisting
on the border of the Syrian desert--the Nabataean of Petra and the
Jewish of Caesarea Paneas--into administrative districts directly
Roman (A.D. 106). The relations with the ruler of the Parthian kingdom
at that time, king Pacorus, were not the most friendly,[46] but it
was only under his brother and successor Chosroes that a rupture
took place, and that again concerning Armenia. The Parthians were to
blame for it. When Trajan bestowed the vacated throne of the Armenian
king on Axidares the son of Pacorus, he kept within the limits of
his right; but king Chosroes described this personage as incapable
of governing, and arbitrarily installed in his stead another son of
Pacorus, Parthomasiris, as king.[47] The answer to this was the Roman
declaration of war. Trajan left the capital towards the end of the year
114,[48] to put himself at the head of the Roman troops of the East,
which were certainly once more found in the deepest degeneracy, but
were reorganised in all haste by the emperor, and reinforced besides by
better legions brought up from Pannonia.[49]

Envoys of the Parthian king met him at Athens; but they had nothing
to offer except the information that Parthomasiris was ready to accept
Armenia as a Roman fief, and were dismissed. The war began. In the
first conflicts on the Euphrates the Romans fared worst;[50] but when
the old emperor, ready to fight and accustomed to victory, placed
himself at the head of the troops in the spring of 115, the Orientals
submitted to him almost without resistance. Moreover, among the
Parthians civil war once more prevailed, and a pretender, Manisarus,
had appeared against Chosroes. From Antioch the emperor marched to
the Euphrates and farther northward as far as the most northerly
legion-camp Satala in Lesser Armenia, whence he advanced into Armenia
and took the direction of Artaxata. On the way Parthomasiris appeared
in Elegeia and took the diadem from his head, in the hope of procuring
investiture through this humiliation, as Tiridates had once done.
But Trajan was resolved to make this vassal-state a province, and to
shift the eastern frontier of the empire generally. This he declared
to the Parthian prince before the assembled army, and directed him
with his suite to quit at once the camp and the kingdom; thereupon
a tumult took place, in which the pretender lost his life. Armenia
yielded to its fate, and became a Roman governorship. The princes also
of the Caucasian tribes, the Albani, the Iberi, farther on toward the
Black Sea the Apsilae, the Colchi, the Heniochi, the Lazi, and various
others, even those of the trans-Caucasian Sarmatae, were confirmed in
the relation of vassalage, or now subjected to it. Trajan thereupon
advanced into the territory of the Parthians and occupied Mesopotamia.
Here, too, all submitted without a blow; Batnae, Nisibis, Singara came
into the power of the Romans; in Edessa the emperor received not merely
the subjection of Abgarus, the ruler of the land, but also that of the
other dynasts, and, like Armenia, Mesopotamia became a Roman province.
Trajan took up once more his winter quarters in Antioch, where a
violent earthquake demanded more victims than the campaign of the
summer. In the next spring (116) Trajan, the “victor of the Parthians,”
as the senate now saluted him, advanced from Nisibis over the Tigris,
and occupied, not without encountering resistance at the crossing and
subsequently, the district of Adiabene; this became the third new Roman
province, named Assyria. The march went onward down the Tigris to
Babylonia; Seleucia and Ctesiphon fell into the hands of the Romans,
and with them the golden throne of the king and his daughter; Trajan
reached even the Persian satrapy of Mesene, and the great mercantile
town at the mouth of the Tigris, Charax Spasinu. This region also seems
to have been incorporated with the empire in such a way that the new
province Mesopotamia embraced the whole region enclosed by the two
rivers.

[Sidenote: Revolt of Seleucia, and its siege.]

Full of longing, Trajan is said now to have wished for himself the
youth of Alexander, in order to carry from the margin of the Persian
Sea his arms into the Indian land of marvels. But he soon learned that
he needed them for nearer opponents. The great Parthian empire had
hitherto scarcely confronted in earnest his attack, and ofttimes sued
in vain for peace. But now on the way back at Babylon news reached the
emperor of the revolt of Babylonia and Mesopotamia; while he tarried at
the mouth of the Tigris the whole population of these new provinces
had risen against him;[51] the citizens of Seleucia on the Tigris, of
Nisibis, indeed of Edessa itself, put the Roman garrisons to death
or chased them away and closed their gates. The emperor saw himself
compelled to divide his troops, and to send separate corps against the
different seats of the insurrection; one of these legions under Maximus
was, with its general, surrounded and cut to pieces in Mesopotamia. Yet
the emperor mastered the insurgents, particularly through his general
Lusius Quietus, already experienced in the Dacian war, a native sheikh
of the Moors. Seleucia and Edessa were besieged and burnt down. Trajan
went so far as to declare Parthia a Roman vassal-state, and invested
with it at Ctesiphon a partisan of Rome, the Parthian Parthamaspates,
although the Roman soldiers had not set foot on more than the western
border of the great-kingdom.

[Sidenote: Death of Trajan.]

Then he began his return to Syria by the route along which he had
come, detained on the way by a vain attack on the Arabs in Hatra,
the residence of the king of the brave tribes of the Mesopotamian
desert, whose mighty works of fortification and magnificent buildings
are still at the present day imposing in their ruins. He intended
to continue the war next year, and so to make the subjection of the
Parthians a reality. But the combat in the desert of Hatra, in which
the sixty-year-old emperor had bravely fought with the Arab horsemen,
was to be his last. He sickened and died on the journey home (8th Aug.
117), without being able to complete his victory and to hold the
celebration of it in Rome; it was in keeping with his spirit that even
after death the honour of a triumph was accorded to him, and hence he
is the only one of the deified Roman emperors who even as god still
bears the title of victory.

[Sidenote: Trajan’s Oriental policy.]

Trajan had not sought war with the Parthians, but it had been forced
upon him; not he, but Chosroes had broken the agreement as to Armenia,
which during the last forty years had been the basis of the state of
peace in the region of the Euphrates. If it is intelligible that the
Parthians did not acquiesce in it, since the continuing suzerainty of
the Romans over Armenia carried in itself the stimulus to revolt, we
must on the other hand acknowledge that in the way hitherto followed
further steps could not be taken than were taken by Corbulo; the
unconditional renunciation of Armenia, and--which was the necessary
consequence of it--the recognition of the Parthian state on a footing
of full equality, lay indeed beyond the horizon of Roman policy as
much as the abolition of slavery and similar ideas that could not be
thought of at that time. But if permanent peace could not be attained
by this alternative, there was left in the great dilemma of Roman
Oriental policy only the other course--the extension of direct Roman
rule to the left bank of the Euphrates. Therefore Armenia now became
a Roman province, and no less Mesopotamia. This was only in keeping
with the nature of the case. The conversion of Armenia from a Roman
vassal-state with a Roman garrison into a Roman governorship made not
much change externally; the Parthians could only be effectively ejected
from Armenia when they lost possession of the neighbouring region; and
above all, the Roman rule as well as the Roman provincial constitution
found a far more favourable soil in the half-Greek Mesopotamia than in
the thoroughly Oriental Armenia. Other considerations fell to be added.
The Roman customs-frontier in Syria was badly constituted, and to get
the international traffic from the great commercial marts of Syria
towards the Euphrates and the Tigris entirely into its power was an
essential gain to the Roman state, as indeed Trajan immediately set to
work to institute the new customs-dues at the Euphrates and Tigris.[52]
Even in a military point of view the boundary of the Tigris was easier
of defence than the previous frontier-line which ran along the Syrian
desert and thence along the Euphrates. The conversion of the region
of Adiabene beyond the Tigris into a Roman province, whereby Armenia
became an inland one, and the transformation of the Parthian empire
itself into a Roman vassal-state were corollaries of the same idea.
It is not meant to be denied that in a policy of conquest consistency
is a dangerous praise, and that Trajan after his fashion yielded in
these enterprises more than was reasonable to the effort after external
success, and went beyond the rational goal;[53] but wrong is done
to him when his demeanour in the East is referred to blind lust of
conquest. He did what Caesar would have done had he lived. His policy
is but the other side of that of Nero’s statesmen, and the two are
as opposite, as they are equally consistent and equally warranted.
Posterity has justified more the policy of conquest than that of
concession.

[Sidenote: Reaction under Hadrian and Pius.]

For the moment no doubt it was otherwise. The Oriental conquests of
Trajan lit up the gloomy evening of the Roman empire like flashes of
lightning in the darkness of the night; but, like these, they brought
no new morning. His successor found himself compelled to choose between
completing the unfinished work of subduing the Parthians or allowing
it to drop. The extension of the frontier could not be carried out at
all without a considerable increase of the army and of the budget; and
the shifting of the centre of gravity to the East, thereby rendered
inevitable, was a dubious strengthening of the empire. Hadrian and
Pius therefore returned entirely into the paths of the earlier
imperial period. Hadrian allowed the Roman vassal-king of Parthia,
Parthamaspates, to drop, and portioned him off in another way. He
evacuated Assyria and Mesopotamia, and voluntarily gave back these
provinces to their earlier ruler. He sent to him as well his captive
daughter; the permanent token of the victory won, the golden throne
of Ctesiphon, even the pacific Pius refused to deliver up again to
the Parthians. Hadrian as well as Pius earnestly endeavoured to live
in peace and friendship with their neighbour, and at no time do the
commercial relations between the Roman entrepôts on the Syrian east
frontier and the mercantile towns on the Euphrates seem to have been
more lively than at this epoch.

[Sidenote: Armenia a vassal-state.]

Armenia ceased likewise to be a Roman province, and returned to its
former position as a Roman vassal-state and a Parthian appanage of the
second son.[54] The princes of the Albani, and the Iberians on the
Caucasus, and the numerous small dynasts in the south-eastern corner of
the Black Sea likewise remained dependent.[55] Roman garrisons were
stationed not merely on the coast in Apsarus[56] and on the Phasis,
but, as can be shown, under Commodus in Armenia itself, not far from
Artaxata; in a military point of view all these states belonged to the
district of the commandant of Cappadocia.[57] This supremacy, however,
very indefinite in its nature, seems to have been dealt with generally,
and in particular by Hadrian,[58] in such a way that it appeared more
as a right of protection than as subjection proper, and at least the
more powerful of these princes did, and left undone, in the main what
pleased them. The common interest--which we have formerly brought
out--in warding off the wild trans-Caucasian tribes became still more
definitely prominent in this epoch, and evidently served as a bond in
particular between Romans and Parthians. Towards the end of the reign
of Hadrian the Alani, in agreement apparently with the king of Iberia,
at that time Pharasmanes II., on whom it primarily devolved to bar
the pass of the Caucasus against them, invaded the southern regions,
and pillaged not only the territory of the Albanians and Armenians,
but also the Parthian province of Media and the Roman province of
Cappadocia, though matters did not come to a waging of war in common,
but the gold of the ruler then reigning in Parthia, Vologasus III., and
the mobilising of the Cappadocian army on the part of the Romans,[59]
induced the barbarians to return, yet their interests coincided, and
the complaint which the Parthians lodged in Rome as to Pharasmanes of
Iberia, shows the concert of the two great powers.[60]

[Sidenote: Parthian war under Marcus and Verus.]

The disturbances of the _status quo_ came again from the Parthian side.
The suzerainty of the Romans over Armenia played a part in history
similar to that of the German empire over Italy; unsubstantial as it
was, it was yet constantly felt as an encroachment, and carried within
it the danger of war. Already under Hadrian the conflict was imminent;
the emperor succeeded in keeping the peace by a personal interview
with the Parthian prince. Under Pius the Parthian invasion of Armenia
seemed once more impending; his earnest dissuasive was in the first
instance successful. But even this most pacific of all emperors, who
had it more at heart to save the life of a burgess than to kill a
thousand foes, was obliged in the last period of his reign to prepare
himself for the attack and to reinforce the armies of the East. Hardly
had he closed his eyes (161), when the long-threatening thunder-cloud
discharged itself. By command of Vologasus IV. the Persian general
Chosroes[61] advanced into Armenia, and placed the Arsacid prince
Pacorus on the throne. The governor of Cappadocia Severianus did what
was his duty, and led on his part the Roman troops over the Euphrates.
At Elegeia, just where a generation before the king Parthomasiris,
likewise placed by the Parthians on the Armenian throne, had humbled
himself in vain before Trajan, the armies encountered each other; the
Roman was not merely beaten but annihilated in a three days’ conflict;
the unfortunate general put himself to death, as Varus had formerly
done. The victorious Orientals were not content with the occupation
of Armenia, but crossed the Euphrates and invaded Syria; the army
stationed there was also defeated, and there were fears as to the
fidelity of the Syrians. The Roman government had no choice. As the
troops of the East showed on this occasion their small capacity for
fighting, and were besides weakened and demoralised by the defeat
which they had suffered, further legions were despatched to the East
from the West, even from the Rhine, and levies were ordered in Italy
itself. Lucius Verus, one of the two emperors who shortly before had
come to govern, went in person to the East (162) to take up the chief
command, and if he, neither warlike nor yet even faithful to his duty,
showed himself unequal to the task, and of his deeds in the East hardly
anything else is to be told than that he married his niece there and
was ridiculed for his theatrical enthusiasm even by the Antiochenes,
the governors of Cappadocia and Syria--in the former case first Statius
Priscus, then Martius Verus, in the latter Avidius Cassius,[62] the
best generals of this epoch--managed the cause of Rome better than
the wearer of the crown. Once more, before the armies met, the Romans
offered peace; willingly would Marcus have avoided the severe war. But
Vologasus abruptly rejected the reasonable proposals; and this time
the pacific neighbour was also the stronger. Armenia was immediately
recovered; already, in the year 163, Priscus took the capital Artaxata,
and destroyed it. Not far from it the new capital of the country,
Kainepolis, in Armenia Nôr-Khalakh or Valarshapat (Etshmiazin) was
built by the Romans and provided with a strong garrison.[63] In the
succeeding year instead of Pacorus Sohaemus, by descent also an
Arsacid, but a Roman subject and Roman senator, was nominated as king
of Great Armenia.[64] In a legal point of view nothing was changed in
Armenia; yet the bonds which joined it to Rome were drawn tighter.

[Sidenote: Conflicts in Syria and Mesopotamia.]

The conflicts in Syria and Mesopotamia were more serious. The line
of the Euphrates was obstinately defended by the Parthians; after a
keen combat on the right bank at Sura the fortress of Nicephorium
(Ragga) on the left was stormed by the Romans. Still more vehemently
was the passage at Zeugma contested; but here too victory remained
with the Romans in the decisive battle at Europus (Djerabis to the
south of Biredjik). They now advanced on their part into Mesopotamia.
Edessa was besieged, Dausara not far from it stormed; the Romans
appeared before Nisibis; the Parthian general saved himself by
swimming over the Tigris. The Romans might from Mesopotamia undertake
the march to Babylon. The satraps forsook in part the banners of the
defeated great-king; Seleucia, the great capital of the Hellenes on
the Euphrates, voluntarily opened its gates to the Romans, but was
afterwards burnt down by them, because the burgesses were rightly
or wrongly accused of an understanding with the enemy. The Parthian
capital, Ctesiphon, was also taken and destroyed; with good reason at
the beginning of the year 165 the senate could salute the two rulers
as the Parthian grand-victors. In the campaign of this year Cassius
even penetrated into Media; but the outbreak of a pestilence, more
especially in these regions, decimated the troops and compelled them to
return, accelerating perhaps even the conclusion of peace. The result
of the war was the cession of the western district of Mesopotamia; the
princes of Edessa and of Osrhoene became vassals of Rome, and the town
of Carrhae, which had for long Greek leanings, became a free town under
Roman protection.[65] As regards extent, especially in presence of the
complete success of the war, the increase of territory was moderate,
but yet of importance, inasmuch as thereby the Romans gained a footing
on the left bank of the Euphrates. We may add that the territories
occupied were given back to the Parthians and the _status quo_ was
restored. On the whole, therefore, the policy of reserve adopted by
Hadrian was now abandoned once more, and there was a return to the
course of Trajan. This is the more remarkable, as the government of
Marcus certainly cannot be reproached with ambition and longing after
aggrandisement; what it did it did under compulsion and in modest
limits.

[Sidenote: Parthian wars under Severus.]

The emperor Severus pursued the same course further and more decidedly.
The year of the three emperors, 193, had led to the war between the
legions of the West and those of the East, and with Pescennius Niger
the latter had succumbed. The Roman vassal-princes of the East, and
as well the ruler of the Parthians, Vologasus V., son of Sanatrucius,
had, as was natural, recognised Niger, and even put their troops at
his disposal; the latter had at first gratefully declined, and then,
when his cause took a turn to the worse, invoked their aid. The other
Roman vassals, above all the prince of Armenia, cautiously kept back;
only Abgarus, the prince of Edessa, sent the desired contingent.
The Parthians promised aid, and it came at least from the nearest
districts, from the prince Barsemias of Hatra in the Mesopotamian
desert, and from the satrap of the Adiabeni beyond the Tigris. Even
after Niger’s death (194) these strangers not merely remained in the
Roman Mesopotamia, but even demanded the withdrawal of the Roman
garrisons stationed there and the giving back of this territory.[66]

[Sidenote: Province of Mesopotamia.]

Thereupon Severus advanced into Mesopotamia and took possession of the
whole extensive and important region. From Nisibis an expedition was
conducted against the Arab prince of Hatra, which, however, did not
succeed in taking the fortified town; even beyond the Tigris against
the satrap of Adiabene the generals of Severus accomplished nothing
of importance.[67] But Mesopotamia, _i.e._ the whole region between
the Euphrates and Tigris as far as the Chaboras, became a Roman
province, and was occupied with two legions newly created on account
of this extension of territory. The principality of Edessa continued
to subsist as a Roman fief, but was now no longer border-territory
but surrounded by land directly imperial. The considerable and strong
city of Nisibis, thenceforth called after the name of the emperor and
organised as a Roman colony, became the capital of the new province
and seat of the governor. After an important portion of territory had
thus been torn from the Parthian kingdom, and armed force had been
used against two satraps dependent on it, the great-king made ready
with his troops to oppose the Romans. Severus offered peace, and ceded
for Mesopotamia a portion of Armenia. But the decision of arms was
thereby only postponed. As soon as Severus had started for the West,
whither the complication with his co-ruler in Gaul recalled him, the
Parthians broke the peace[68] and advanced into Mesopotamia; the prince
of Osrhoene was driven out, the land was occupied, and the governor,
Laetus, one of the most excellent warriors of the time, was besieged
in Nisibis. He was in great danger, when Severus once more arrived
in the East in the year 198, after Albinus had succumbed. Thereupon
the fortune of war turned. The Parthians retreated, and now Severus
took the offensive. He advanced into Babylonia, and won Seleucia
and Ctesiphon; the Parthian king saved himself with a few horsemen
by flight, the crown-treasure became the spoil of the victors, the
Parthian capital was abandoned to the pillage of the Roman soldiers,
and more than 100,000 captives were brought to the Roman slave market.
The Arabians indeed in Hatra defended themselves better than the
Parthian state itself; in vain Severus endeavoured in two severe sieges
to reduce the desert-stronghold. But in the main the success of the
two campaigns of 198 and 199 was complete. By the erection of the
province of Mesopotamia and of the great command there, Armenia lost
the intermediate position which it hitherto had; it might remain in
its previous relations and apart from formal incorporation. The land
retained thus its own troops, and the imperial government even paid for
these subsequently a contribution from the imperial chest.[69]

[Sidenote: The change of government in the West and in the East.]

The further development of these relations as neighbours was
essentially influenced by the changes which internal order underwent
in the two empires. If under the dynasty of Nerva, and not less
under Severus, the Parthian state, often torn asunder by civil war
and contention for the crown, had been confronted by the relatively
stable Roman monarchy as superior, this order of things broke down
after Severus’s death, and almost for a century there followed in the
western empire mostly wretched and thoroughly ephemeral regents, who
in presence of other countries were constantly hesitating between
arrogance and weakness. While the scale of the West thus sank that
of the East rose. A few years after the death of Severus (211)
a revolution took place in Iran, which not merely, like so many
earlier crises, overthrew the ruling regent, nor even merely called
to the government another dynasty instead of the decayed Arsacids,
but, unchaining the national and religious elements for a mightier
upward flight, substituted for the bastard civilisation--pervaded
by Hellenism--of the Parthian state the state-organisation, faith,
manners, and princes of that province which had created the old Persian
empire, and, since its transition to the Parthian dynasty, preserved
within it as well the tombs of Darius and Xerxes as the germs of the
regeneration of the people. The re-establishment of the great-kingdom
of the Persians overthrown by Alexander ensued through the emergence of
the dynasty of the Sassanids. Let us cast a glance at this new shape of
things before we pursue further the course of Romano-Parthian relations
in the East.

[Sidenote: The Sassanids.]

It has already been stated that the Parthian dynasty, although it had
wrested Iran from Hellenism, was yet regarded by the nation as, so to
speak, illegitimate. Artahshatr, or in new Persian Ardashir--so the
official biography of the Sassanids reports--came forward to revenge
the blood of Dara murdered by Alexander, and to bring back the rule to
the legitimate family and re-establish it, such as it had been at the
time of his forefathers before the divisional kings. Under this legend
lies a good deal of reality. The dynasty which bears the name of Sasan,
the grandfather of Ardashir, was no other than the royal dynasty of the
Persian province; Ardashir’s father, Papak or Pabek,[70] and a long
list of his ancestors had, under the supremacy of the Arsacids, swayed
the sceptre in this ancestral land of the Iranian nation,[71] had
resided in Istachr, not far from the old Persepolis, and marked their
coins with Iranian language and Iranian writing, and with the sacred
emblems of the Persian national faith, while the great-kings had their
abode in the half-Greek border-land, and had their coins stamped in the
Greek language and after the Greek style. The fundamental organisation
of the Iranian state-system--the great-kingdom holding superiority
over the divisional kings--was under the two dynasties as little
different as that of the empire of the German nation under the Saxon
and the Suabian emperors. Only for this reason in that official version
the time of the Arsacids is designated as that of the divisional-kings,
and Ardashir as the first common head of all Iran after the last
Darius, because in the old Persian empire the Persian province stood
related alike to the other provinces and to the Parthians, as in the
Roman state Italy stood related to the provinces, and the Persian
disputed with the Parthian the legitimate title to the great-kingdom
connected _de jure_ with his province.[72]

[Sidenote: Extent of the Sassanid kingdom.]

What was the relation of the Sassanid kingdom to that of the Arsacids
in point of extent, is a question to which tradition gives no
sufficient answer. The provinces of the west collectively remained
subject to the new dynasty after it sat firm in the saddle, and the
claims which it set up against the Romans went, as we shall see, far
beyond the pretensions of the Arsacids. But how far the rule of the
Sassanids reached towards the West, and when it advanced to the Oxus
which was subsequently regarded as the legitimate boundary between Iran
and Turan, are matters withdrawn from our field of vision.[73]

[Sidenote: The state of the Sassanids.]

The state-system of Iran did not undergo quite a fundamental
transformation in consequence of the coming in of the new dynasty. The
official title of the first Sassanid ruler, as it is given uniformly
in three languages under the rock-relief of Nakshi-Rustam, “The
Mazda-servant God Artaxares, king of kings of the Arians, of divine
descent,”[74] is substantially that of the Arsacids, except that the
Iranian nation, as already in the old native regal title, and the
indigenous god are now expressly named. That a dynasty having its
home in Persis came in lieu of one originally alien in race and only
nationalised, was a work and a victory of national reaction; but the
force of circumstances placed various insurmountable barriers in the
way of the consequences thence resulting. Persepolis, or, as it is now
called, Istachr, becomes again nominally the capital of the empire,
and there on the same rock-wall, alongside of the similar monuments of
Darius, the remarkable statues and still more remarkable inscriptions
just mentioned proclaim the fame of Ardashir and Shapur; but the
administration could not well be conducted from this remote locality,
and Ctesiphon continued still to be its centre. The new Persian
government did not resume the _de jure_ prerogative of the Persians,
as it had subsisted under the Achaemenids; while Darius named himself
“a Persian son of a Persian, an Arian from Arian stock,” Ardashir named
himself, as we saw, simply king of the Arians. We do not know whether
Persian elements were introduced afresh into the great houses apart
from the royal; in any case several of them remained, like the Surên
and the Carên; only under the Achaemenids, not under the Sassanids
these were exclusively Persian.

[Sidenote: Church and priesthood under the Sassanids.]

Even in a religious point of view no change, strictly so called, set
in; but the faith and the priests gained under the Persian great-kings
an influence and a power such as they had never possessed under
the Parthian. It may well be that the twofold diffusion of foreign
worships in the direction of Iran--of Buddhism from the East and
of the Jewish-Christian faith from the West--brought by their very
hostility a regeneration to the old religion of Mazda. The founder of
the new dynasty, Ardashir, was, as is credibly reported, a zealous
fire-worshipper, and himself took priestly orders; therefore, it is
further said, from that time the order of the Magi became influential
and arrogant, while it had hitherto by no means had such honour and
such freedom, but on the contrary had not been held in much account
by the rulers. “Thenceforth all the Persians honour and revere the
priests; public affairs are arranged according to their counsels and
oracles; each treaty and each law-dispute undergoes their inspection
and their judgment, and nothing appears to the Persian right and legal
which has not been confirmed by a priest.” Accordingly we encounter
an arrangement of spiritual administration which reminds us of the
position of the Pope and the bishops alongside of the Emperor and
the princes. Each circle is placed under a chief-Magian (Magupat,
lord of Magians, in new Persian Mobedh), and these all in turn under
the chiefest of the chief Magians (Mobedhan-Mobedh), the counterpart
of “the king of kings,” and now it is he who crowns the king. The
consequences of this priestly dominion did not fail to appear: the
rigid ritual, the restrictive precepts as to guilt and expiation,
science resolving itself into a wild system of oracles and of magic,
while belonging from the first to Parsism, in all probability only
attained to their full development at this epoch.

[Sidenote: The languages of the country under the Sassanids.]

Traces of the national reaction appear also in the use of the native
language and the native customs. The largest Greek city of the Parthian
empire, the ancient Seleucia, continued to subsist, but it was
thenceforth called not after the name of the Greek marshal, but after
that of its new master, Beh, or better, Ardashir. The Greek language
hitherto at any rate always in use, although debased and no longer
ruling alone, disappears on the emergence of the new dynasty at once
from the coins, and only on the inscriptions of the first Sassanids
is it still to be met with by the side of, and behind, the language
proper of the land. The “Parthian writing,” the Pahlavî, maintains its
ground, but alongside of it comes a second little different and indeed,
as the coins show, as properly official, probably that used hitherto in
the Persian province, so that the oldest monuments of the Sassanids,
like those of the Achaemenids, are trilingual, somewhat as in the
German middle ages Latin, Saxon, and Franconian were employed side by
side. After king Sapor I. († 272) the bilingual usage disappears, and
the second mode of writing alone retains its place, inheriting the
name Pahlavî. The year of the Seleucids, and the names of the months
belonging to it, disappear with the change of dynasty; in their stead
come, according to old Persian custom, the years of the rulers and the
native Persian names of months.[75] Even the old Persian legend is
transferred to the new Persia. The still extant “history of Ardashir,
son of Papak,” which makes this son of a Persian shepherd arrive at
the Median court, perform menial offices there, and then become the
deliverer of his people, is nothing but the old tale of Cyrus changed
to the new names. Another fable-book of the Indian Parsees is able to
tell how king Iskander Rumi, _i.e._ “Alexander the Roman,” had caused
the holy books of Zarathustra to be burnt, and how they were then
restored by the pious Ardaviraf when king Ardashir had mounted the
throne. Here the Romano-Hellene confronts the Persian; the legend has,
as might be expected, forgotten the illegitimate Arsacid.

[Sidenote: Government of the Sassanids.]

In other respects the state of things remained essentially the same.
In a military point of view in particular, the armies of the Sassanids
were certainly not regular and trained troops, but the levy of men
capable of arms, into which with the national movement a new spirit
may doubtless have passed, but which afterwards, as before, was based
in the main on the cavalry-service of the nobility. The administration
too remained as it was; the able ruler took steps with inexorable
sternness against the highway-robber as against the exacting official,
and, compared at least with the later Arabic and the Turkish rule, the
subjects of the Sassanid empire found themselves prosperous and the
state-chest full.

[Sidenote: The new Persians and the Romans.]

But the alteration in the position of the new kingdom with reference
to the Roman is significant. The Arsacids never felt themselves quite
on a level with the Caesars. Often as the two states encountered each
other in war and peace as powers equal in weight, and decidedly as
the view of two great-powers dominated the Roman East (p. 1), there
remained with the Roman power a precedence similar to that which the
holy Roman empire of the German nation possessed throughout centuries,
very much to its hurt. Acts of subjection, such as the Parthian kings
took upon themselves in presence of Tiberius (p. 44) and of Nero (52),
without being compelled to them by extreme necessity, cannot be at
all conceived of on the Roman side. It cannot be accident that a gold
coin was never struck under the government of the Arsacids, and the
very first Sassanid ruler practised coining in gold; this is the most
palpable sign of sovereignty unrestricted by any duties of a vassal.
To the claim of the empire of the Caesars alone to the power of
coining money for universal circulation the Arsacids without exception
yielded, at least in so far that they themselves refrained generally
from coining, and left coinage in silver and copper to the towns or the
satraps; the Sassanids again struck gold pieces, as did king Darius.
The great-kingdom of the East at length demanded its full right; the
world no longer belonged to the Romans alone. The submissiveness of
the Orientals and the supremacy of the Occidentals were of the past.
Accordingly, in place of the relations between Romans and Parthians,
as hitherto, always reverting afresh to peace, there now came for
generations embittered hostility.

[Sidenote: Parthian war of Severus Antoninus.]

After having set forth the new state organisation, with which the
sinking Rome was soon to contend, we resume the thread of our
narrative. Antoninus, son and successor of Severus, not a warrior and
statesman like his father, but a dissolute caricature of both, must
have had the design--so far as in the case of such personages we can
speak of design at all--to bring the East entirely into the Roman
power. It was not difficult to place the princes of Osrhoene and of
Armenia, after they had been summoned to the imperial court, under
arrest, and to declare their fiefs forfeited. But on the arrival of the
news a revolt broke out in Armenia. The Arsacid prince Tiridates was
proclaimed king, and invoked the protection of the Parthians. Thereupon
Antoninus put himself at the head of a large military force, and
appeared in the East in the year 216, to put down the Armenians, and
in case of need also the Parthians. Tiridates himself at once gave up
the cause as lost, although the division sent to Armenia subsequently
encountered vehement resistance there; and he fled to the Parthians.
The Romans demanded his surrender. The Parthians were not inclined on
his account to enter into a war, the more especially as just then the
two sons of king Vologasus V., Vologasus VI. and Artabanus, were in
bitter feud over the succession to the throne. The former yielded when
the Roman demand was imperiously repeated, and delivered up Tiridates.
Thereupon the emperor desired from Artabanus, who had meanwhile
obtained recognition, the hand of his daughter for the express object
of thus obtaining the kingdom by marriage, and of bringing East and
West under one rule. The rejection of this wild proposal[76] was the
signal for war; the Romans declared it, and crossed the Tigris. The
Parthians were unprepared; without encountering resistance the Romans
burnt down the towns and villages in Adiabene, and ruthlessly destroyed
even the old royal tombs at Arbela.[77] But Artabanus made the utmost
exertions for the next campaign, and put into the field a powerful
force in the spring of 217. Antoninus, who had spent the winter in
Edessa, was assassinated by his officers just as he was setting out
for this second campaign. His successor Macrinus, unconfirmed in the
government and held in little repute, at the head, moreover, of an
army defective in discipline and tone and shaken by the murder of the
emperor, would gladly have rid himself of a war wantonly instigated
and assuming very serious proportions. He sent the prisoners back to
the Parthian king, and threw the blame of the outrages committed on
his predecessor. But Artabanus was not content with this; he demanded
compensation for all the devastation committed, and the evacuation
of Mesopotamia. Thus matters came to a battle at Nisibis, in which
the Romans had the worst. Nevertheless the Parthians, partly because
their levy seemed as though it would break up, perhaps also under
the influence of Roman money, granted peace (218) on comparatively
favourable terms. Rome paid a considerable war compensation (50,000,000
denarii), but retained Mesopotamia. Armenia remained with Tiridates,
but the latter took it as in dependency on the Romans. In Osrhoene also
the old princely house was reinstated.

[Sidenote: King Ardashir.]

This was the last treaty of peace which the Arsacid dynasty concluded
with Rome. Almost immediately afterwards, and perhaps partly in
consequence of this bargain, which certainly, as things stood, might be
looked upon by the Orientals as an abandonment by their own government
of the victories achieved, the insurrection began, which converted the
state of the Parthians into a state of the Persians. Its leader, king
Ardashir or Artaxares (A.D. 224-241) strove for several years with
the adherents of the old dynasty before he attained full success;[78]
after three great battles, in the last of which king Artabanus fell,
he was master in the Parthian empire proper, and could march into the
Mesopotamian desert to subdue the Arabs of Hatra and thence to advance
against the Roman Mesopotamia. But the brave and independent Arabs
defended themselves now against the Persians as formerly against the
Roman invasion, in their huge walls with good success; and Artaxares
found himself led to operate in the first instance against Media and
Armenia, where the Arsacids still maintained themselves, and the sons
of Artabanus had found a refuge. It was not till about the year 230
that he turned against the Romans, and not merely declared war against
them, but demanded back all the provinces which had formerly belonged
to the kingdom of his predecessors, Darius and Xerxes--in other words,
the cession of all Asia. To emphasise his threatening words, he led a
mighty army over the Euphrates; Mesopotamia was occupied and Nisibis
besieged; the enemy’s cavalry appeared in Cappadocia and in Syria.

[Sidenote: Severus Alexander.]

The Roman throne was then occupied by Severus Alexander, a ruler in
whom nothing was warlike but the name, and for whom in reality his
mother Mamaea conducted the government. Urgent, almost humble proposals
of peace on the part of the Roman government remained without effect;
nothing was left but the employment of arms. The masses of the Roman
army gathered together from all the empire were divided; the left wing
took the direction of Armenia and Media, the right that of Mesene at
the mouth of the Euphrates and Tigris, perhaps in the calculation that
they might in the former as in the latter quarter have the support
of the adherents of the Arsacids; the main army went to Mesopotamia.
The troops were numerous enough, but without discipline and tone; a
Roman officer of high position at this time himself testifies that
they were pampered and insubordinate, refused to fight, killed their
officers, and deserted in crowds. The main force did not get beyond
the Euphrates,[79] for his mother represented to the emperor that it
was not his business to fight for his subjects, but theirs to fight
for him. The right wing, assailed in the level country by the Persian
main force and abandoned by the emperor, was cut up. Thereupon, when
the emperor issued orders to the wing which had pushed forward towards
Media to draw back, the latter also suffered severely in the winter
retreat through Armenia. If the matter went no further than this sorry
return of the great Oriental army to Antioch, if no complete disaster
occurred, and even Mesopotamia remained in Roman power, this appears
due, not to the merit of the Roman troops or their leaders but to the
fact that the Persian levy was weary of the conflict and went home.[80]
But they went not for long, the more especially as soon after, upon
the murder of the last offshoot of the dynasty of Severus, the several
army-commanders and the government in Rome began to fight about the
occupation of the Roman throne, and consequently were at one in their
concern for the affairs of external foes. Under Maximinus (235-238) the
Roman Mesopotamia fell into the power of Ardashir, and the Persians
once more prepared to cross the Euphrates.[81]

[Sidenote: The Persian war of Gordian.]

After the internal troubles were in some measure pacified, and Gordian
III., almost still a boy, under the protection of the commandant of
Rome and soon of his father-in-law Furius Timesitheus, bore undisputed
sway in the whole empire, war was solemnly declared against the
Persians, and in the year 242 a great Roman army advanced under the
personal conduct of the emperor, or rather of his father-in-law, into
Mesopotamia. It had complete success; Carrhae was recovered, at Resaina
between Carrhae and Nisibis the army of the Persian king Shahpuhr or
Sapor (reigning 241-272), who shortly before had followed his father
Ardashir, was routed, and in consequence of this victory Nisibis was
occupied. All Mesopotamia was reconquered; it was resolved to march
back to the Euphrates, and thence down the stream against the enemy’s
capital Ctesiphon. Unhappily Timesitheus died, and his successor,
Marcus Julius Philippus, a native of Arabia from the Trachonitis,
used the opportunity to set aside the young ruler. When the army had
accomplished the difficult march through the valley of the Chaboras
towards the Euphrates, the soldiers in Circesium, at the confluence of
the Chaboras with the Euphrates, did not find--in consequence, it is
alleged, of arrangements made by Philippus--the provisions and stores
which they had expected, and laid the blame of this on the emperor.
Nevertheless the march in the direction of Ctesiphon was begun, but at
the very first station, near Zaitha (somewhat below Mejadîn), a number
of insurgent guards killed the emperor (in the spring or summer of
244), and proclaimed their commandant, Philippus, as Augustus in his
stead. The new ruler did what the soldiers or at least the guardsmen
desired, and not merely gave up the intended expedition against
Ctesiphon, but led the troops at once back to Italy. He purchased
the permission to do so from the conquered enemy by the cession of
Mesopotamia and Armenia, and so of the Euphrates frontier. But this
conclusion of peace excited such indignation that the emperor did not
venture to put it in execution, and allowed the garrisons to remain
in the ceded provinces.[82] The fact that the Persians, at least
provisionally, acquiesced in this, gives the measure of what they
were then able to do. It was not the Orientals, but the Goths, the
pestilence that raged for fifteen years, and the dissensions of the
corps-leaders quarrelling with one another for the crown, that broke
the last strength of the empire.

[Sidenote: Palmyra.]

At this point, when the Roman East in its struggle with the Persian
is left to its own resources, it will be appropriate to make mention
of a remarkable state, which, created by and for the desert-traffic,
now for a short time takes up a leading part in political history.
The oasis of Palmyra, in the native language Tadmor, lies half-way
between Damascus and the Euphrates. It is of importance solely as
intermediate station between the Euphrates and the Mediterranean;
this significance it was late in acquiring, and early lost again, so
that the flourishing time of Palmyra coincides nearly with the period
which we are here describing. As to the rise of the town there is an
utter absence of tradition.[83] It is mentioned first on occasion
of the abode of Antonius in Syria in the year 713 {41 B.C.}, when he
made a vain attempt to possess himself of its riches; the documents
found there--the oldest dated Palmyrene inscription is of the year 745
{9 B.C.}--hardly reach much further back. It is not improbable that
its flourishing was connected with the establishment of the Romans
in the Syrian coast-region. So long as the Nabataeans and the towns
of Osrhoene were not directly Roman, the Romans had an interest in
providing another direct communication with the Euphrates, and this
thereupon led necessarily by way of Palmyra. Palmyra was not a Roman
foundation; Antonius took as the occasion for that predatory expedition
the neutrality of the merchants who were the medium of traffic between
the two great states, and the Roman horsemen turned back, without
having performed their work, before the chain of archers which the
Palmyrenes opposed to the attack. But already in the first imperial
period the city must have been reckoned as belonging to the empire,
because the tax-ordinances of Germanicus and of Corbulo issued for
Syria applied also for Palmyra; in an inscription of the year 80 we
meet with a Claudian _phyle_ there; from Hadrian’s time the city calls
itself Hadriana Palmyra, and in the third century it even designates
itself a colony.

[Sidenote: Military independence of Palmyra.]

The subjection of the Palmyrenes to the empire was, however, of a
different nature to the ordinary one, and similar in some measure to
the client-relation of the dependent kingdoms. Even in Vespasian’s time
Palmyra is called an intermediate region between the two great powers,
and in every collision between the Romans and Parthians the question
was asked, what policy the Palmyrenes would pursue. We must seek the
key to its distinctive position in the relations of the frontier and
the arrangements made for frontier-protection. The Syrian troops, so
far as they were stationed on the Euphrates itself, had their chief
position at Zeugma, opposite to Biredjik, at the great passage of the
Euphrates. Further down the stream, between the immediately Roman and
the Parthian territory was interposed that of Palmyra, which reached to
the Euphrates and included the next important place of crossing at Sura
opposite to the Mesopotamian town Nicephorium (later Callinicon, now
er-Ragga). It is more than probable that the guarding of this important
border-fortress as well as the securing of the desert-road between the
Euphrates and Palmyra, and also perhaps of a portion of the road from
Palmyra to Damascus, was committed to the community of Palmyra, and
that it was thus entitled and bound to make the military arrangements
necessary for this far from slight task.[84] Subsequently doubtless
the imperial troops were brought up closer to Palmyra, and one of the
Syrian legions was moved to Danava between Palmyra and Damascus, and
the Arabian legion to Bostra; after Severus united Mesopotamia with
the empire, even here both banks of the Euphrates were in the Roman
power, and the Roman territory on the Euphrates ended no longer at
Sura but at Circesium, at the confluence of the Chaboras with the
Euphrates above Mejadîn. Then Mesopotamia also was strongly occupied
with imperial troops. But the Mesopotamian legions lay on the great
road in the north near Resaina and Nisibis, and even the Syrian and
Arabian troops did not supersede the need for the co-operation of the
Palmyrenes. Even the protection of Circesium and of this part of the
bank of the Euphrates may have been entrusted to the Palmyrenes. It was
not till after the decline of Palmyra, and perhaps in compensation for
it, that Circesium[85] was made by Diocletian a strong fortress, which
thenceforth was here the basis of frontier-defence.

[Sidenote: Administrative independence of Palmyra.]

The traces of this distinctive position of Palmyra are demonstrable
also in its institutions. The absence of the emperor’s name on the
Palmyrene coins is probably to be explained not from it, but from the
fact that the community issued almost nothing but small money. But
the treatment of the language speaks clearly. From the rule elsewhere
followed almost without exception by the Romans--of allowing in their
immediate territory only the use of the two imperial languages--Palmyra
was excepted. Here that language, which in the rest of Syria and
not less after the exile in Judaea was the usual medium of private
intercourse, but was restricted to the latter, maintained its ground in
public use, so long as the city existed at all. Essential differences
cannot be shown between the Palmyrene Syriac and that of the other
regions just named; the proper names, having not seldom an Arabic or
Jewish, or even Persian form, show the striking mixture of peoples, and
numerous words borrowed from Greek or Latin show the influence of the
Occidentals. It becomes subsequently a rule to append to the Syrian
text a Greek one, which in a decree of the Palmyrene common-council
of the year 137 is placed after the Palmyrene, but afterwards usually
precedes it; but mere Greek inscriptions of native Palmyrenes are
rare exceptions. Even in votive inscriptions which Palmyrenes set up
to their native gods in Rome,[86] and in tombs of Palmyrene soldiers
that died in Africa or Britain, the Palmyrene rendering is added. So
too in Palmyra--while the Roman year was made the basis of dating
as in the rest of the empire--the names of the months were not the
Macedonian officially received in Roman Syria, but those which were
current in it in common intercourse at least among the Jews, and were
in use, moreover, among the Aramaean tribes living under Assyrian and
subsequently Persian rule.[87]

[Sidenote: Palmyrene magistrates.]

The municipal organisation was moulded in the main after the pattern
of the Greek municipality of the Roman empire; the designations for
magistrates and council[88] and even those of the colony are in
the Palmyrene texts retained for the most part from the imperial
languages. But in administration the district retained a greater
independence than is elsewhere assigned to urban communities. Alongside
of the civic officials we find, at least in the third century, the city
of Palmyra with its territory under a separate “headman” of senatorial
rank and Roman appointment, but chosen from the family of most repute
in the place; Septimius Hairanes, son of Odaenathus, is substantially a
prince of the Palmyrenes,[89] who was doubtless not otherwise dependent
on the legate of Syria than were the client-princes on the neighbouring
imperial governors generally. A few years later we meet with his
son,[90] Septimius Odaenathus, in the like position--indeed even
raised in rank--of hereditary prince.[91] Similarly, Palmyra formed a
customs-district apart, in which the customs were leased on account,
not of the state, but of the community.[92]

[Sidenote: Commercial position of Palmyra.]

The importance of Palmyra depended on the caravan-traffic. The heads
of the caravans (συνοδιάρχαι), which went from Palmyra to the great
entrepôts on the Euphrates, to Vologasias, the already mentioned
Parthian foundation not far from the site of the ancient Babylon,
and to Forath or Charax Spasinu, twin towns at its mouth, close on
the Persian Gulf, appear in the inscriptions as the most respected
city-burgesses,[93] and fill not merely the magistracies of their
home, but in part also imperial offices; the great traders (ἀρχέμποροι)
and the guild of workers in gold and silver testify to the importance
of the city for trade and manufactures, and not less is its prosperity
attested by the still standing temples of the city and the long
colonnades of the city halls, as well as the massy and richly decorated
tombs. The climate is little favourable to agriculture--the place lies
near to the northern limit of the date palm, and does not derive its
Greek name from it--but there are found in the environs the remains of
great subterranean aqueducts and huge water-reservoirs artificially
constructed of square blocks, with the help of which the ground, now
destitute of all vegetation, must once upon a time have artificially
developed a rich culture. This riches, this national idiosyncrasy
not quite set aside even under Roman rule, and this administrative
independence, explain in some measure the part of Palmyra about the
middle of the third century in the great crisis, to the presentation of
which we now return.

[Sidenote: Capture of the emperor Valerian.]

After the emperor Decius had fallen in the year 251 when fighting
against the Goths in Europe, the government of the empire, if at that
time there was still an empire and a government at all, left the East
entirely to its fate. While the pirates from the Black Sea ravaged
the coasts far and wide and even the interior, the Persian king Sapor
again assumed the aggressive. While his father had been content
with calling himself lord of Iran, he first designated himself--as
did the succeeding rulers after his example--the great-king of Iran
and non-Iran (p. 83, note), and thereby laid down, as it were, the
programme of his policy of conquest. In the year 252 or 253 he
occupied Armenia, or it submitted to him voluntarily, beyond doubt
carried likewise away by that resuscitation of the old Persian faith
and Persian habits; the legitimate king Tiridates sought shelter with
the Romans, the other members of the royal house placed themselves
under the banners of the Persian.[94] After Armenia thus had become
Persian, the hosts of the Orientals overran Mesopotamia, Syria, and
Cappadocia; they laid waste the level country far and wide, but the
inhabitants of the larger towns, first of all the brave Edessenes,
repelled the attack of enemies little equipped for besieging. In the
West, meanwhile at least, a recognised government had been set up. The
emperor Publius Licinius Valerianus, an honest and well-disposed ruler,
but not resolute in character or equal to dealing with difficulties,
appeared at length in the East and resorted to Antioch. Thence he went
to Cappadocia, which the Persian roving hordes evacuated. But the
plague decimated his army, and he delayed long to take up the decisive
struggle in Mesopotamia. At length he resolved to bring help to the
sorely pressed Edessa, and crossed the Euphrates with his forces.
There, not far from Edessa, occurred the disaster which had nearly the
same significance for the Roman East as the victory of the Goths at the
mouth of the Danube and the fall of Decius--the capture of the emperor
Valerianus by the Persians (end of 259 or beginning of 260).[95] As to
the more precise circumstances the accounts are conflicting. According
to one version, when he was attempting with a weak band to reach
Edessa, he was surrounded and captured by the far superior Persians.
According to another, he, although defeated, reached the beleaguered
town, but, as he brought no sufficient help and the provisions came to
an end only the more rapidly, he dreaded the outbreak of a military
insurrection, and therefore delivered himself voluntarily into the
hands of the enemy. According to a third, he, reduced to extremities,
entered into negotiations with Sapor; when the Persian king declined
to treat with envoys, he appeared personally in the enemy’s camp, and
was perfidiously made a prisoner.

[Sidenote: The East without an emperor.]

Whichever of these narratives may come nearest to the truth, the
emperor died in the captivity of the enemy,[96] and the consequence of
this disaster was the forfeiture of the East to the Persians. Above all
Antioch, the largest and richest city of the East, fell for the first
time since it was Roman into the power of the public foe, and in good
part through the fault of its own citizens. Mareades, an Antiochene
of rank, whom the council had expelled for the embezzlement of public
monies, brought the Persian army to his native town; whether it be a
fable that the citizens were surprised in the theatre itself by the
advancing foes, there is no doubt that they not merely offered no
resistance, but that a great part of the lower population, partly in
consideration of Mareades, partly in the hope of anarchy and pillage,
saw with pleasure the entrance of the Persians. Thus the city with all
its treasures became the prey of the enemy, and fearful ravages were
committed in it; Mareades indeed also was--we know not why--condemned
by king Sapor to perish by fire.[97] Besides numerous smaller places,
the capitals of Cilicia and Cappadocia--Tarsus and Caesarea, the
latter, it is stated, a town of 400,000 inhabitants--suffered the same
fate. Endless trains of captives, who were led like cattle once a day
to the watering, covered the desert-routes of the East. On the return
home the Persians, it is alleged, in order the more rapidly to cross
a ravine, filled it up with the bodies of the captives whom they
brought with them. It is more credible that the great “imperial dam”
(Bend-i-Kaiser) at Sostra (Shuster) in Susiana, by which still at the
present day the water of the Pasitigris is conveyed to the higher-lying
regions, was built by these captives; as indeed the emperor Nero’s
architects had helped to build the capital of Armenia, and generally in
this domain the Occidentals always maintained their superiority. The
Persians nowhere encountered resistance from the empire; but Edessa
still held out, and Caesarea had bravely defended itself, and had only
fallen by treachery. The local resistance gradually passed beyond
a mere defensive behind the walls of towns, and the breaking up of
the Persian hosts, brought about by the wide extent of the conquered
territory, was favourable to the bold partisan. A self-appointed Roman
leader, Callistus,[98] succeeded in a happy _coup de main_; with the
vessels which he had brought together in the ports of Cilicia he sailed
for Pompeiopolis--which the Persians were just besieging, while they
at the same time laid waste Lycaonia,--killed several thousand men,
and possessed himself of the royal harem. This induced the king, under
pretext of celebrating a festival that might not be put off, to go home
at once in such haste that, in order not to be detained, he purchased
from the Edessenes free passage through their territory in return for
all the Roman gold money which he had captured as booty. Odaenathus,
prince of Palmyra, inflicted considerable losses on the bands returning
home from Antioch before they crossed the Euphrates. But hardly was the
most urgent danger from the Persians obviated, when two of the most
noted among the army leaders of the East, left to themselves, Fulvius
Macrianus, the officer who administered the chest and the depot of the
army in Samosata,[99] and the Callistus just mentioned, renounced
allegiance to the son and co-regent and now sole ruler Gallienus--for
whom, it is true, the East and the Persians were non-existent--and,
themselves refusing to accept the purple, proclaimed the two sons of
the former, Fulvius Macrianus and Fulvius Quietus, emperors (261).
This step taken by the two distinguished generals had the effect of
obtaining recognition for the two young emperors in Egypt and in all
the East, with the exception of Palmyra, the prince of which took the
side of Gallienus. One of them, Macrianus, went off with his father to
the West, in order to install this new government also there. But soon
fortune turned; in Illyricum Macrianus lost a battle and his life, not
against Gallienus, but against another pretender. Odaenathus turned
against the brother who remained behind in Syria; at Hemesa, where the
armies met, the soldiers of Quietus replied to the summons to surrender
that they would rather submit to anything than deliver themselves
into the hands of a barbarian. Nevertheless Callistus, the general of
Quietus, betrayed his master to the Palmyrene,[100] and thus ended also
his short government.

[Sidenote: Government of Odaenathus in the East.]

Therewith Palmyra stepped into the first place in the East. Gallienus,
more than sufficiently occupied by the barbarians of the West and the
military insurrections everywhere breaking out there, gave to the
prince of Palmyra, who alone had preserved fidelity to him in the
crisis just mentioned, an exceptional position without a parallel,
but under the prevailing circumstances readily intelligible; he, as
hereditary prince, or, as he was now called, king of Palmyra, became,
not indeed joint ruler, but independent lieutenant of the emperor for
the East.[101] The local administration of Palmyra was conducted under
him by another Palmyrene, at the same time as imperial procurator
and as his deputy.[102] Therewith the whole imperial power, so far
as it still subsisted at all in the East, lay in the hand of the
“barbarian,” and the latter with his Palmyrenes, who were strengthened
by the remains of the Roman army corps and the levy of the land,
re-established the sway of Rome alike rapidly and brilliantly. Asia
and Syria were already evacuated by the enemy. Odaenathus crossed
the Euphrates, relieved at length the brave Edessenes, and retook
from the Persians the conquered towns Nisibis and Carrhae (264).
Probably Armenia also was at that time brought back under Roman
allegiance.[103] Then he took--for the first time since Gordianus--the
offensive against the Persians, and marched on Ctesiphon. In two
different campaigns the capital of the Persian kingdom was invested by
him, and the neighbouring region laid waste, and there was a successful
battle with the Persians under its walls.[104] Even the Goths, whose
predatory raids extended into the interior, retired when he set out for
Cappadocia. A development of power of this sort was a blessing for the
hard-pressed empire, and at the same time a serious danger. Odaenathus
no doubt observed all due formalities towards his Roman lord-paramount,
and sent the captured officers of the enemy and the articles of booty
to Rome for the emperor, who did not disdain to triumph over them; but
in fact the East under Odaenathus was not much less independent than
the West under Postumus, and we can easily understand how the officers
favourably disposed towards Rome made opposition to the Palmyrene
vice-emperor,[105] and on the one hand there was talk of attempts of
Odaenathus to attach himself to the Persians, which were alleged to
have broken down only through Sapor’s arrogance,[106] while on the
other hand the assassination of Odaenathus at Hemesa in 266-7 was
referred to instigation of the Roman government.[107] The real murderer
was a brother’s son of Odaenathus, and there are no proofs of the
participation of the government. At any rate the crime made no change
in the position of affairs.

[Sidenote: Government of Zenobia.]

The wife of the deceased, the queen Bat Zabbai, or in Greek, Zenobia,
a beautiful and sagacious woman of masculine energy,[108] in virtue of
the hereditary right to the principate claimed for the son of herself
and Odaenathus, still in boyhood, Vaballathus or Athenodorus[109]--the
elder, Herodes, had perished with his father--the position of the
deceased, and in fact carried her point as well in Rome as in the East:
the regnal years of the son are reckoned from the death of the father.
For the son, not capable of government, the mother took part in counsel
and action,[110] and she did not restrict herself to preserving the
state of possession, but on the contrary her courage or her arrogance
aspired to mastery over the whole imperial domain of the Greek tongue.
In the command over the East, which was committed to Odaenathus and
inherited from him by his son, the supreme authority over Asia Minor
and Egypt may doubtless have been included; but _de facto_ Odaenathus
had in his power only Syria and Arabia, and possibly Armenia, Cilicia,
and Cappadocia. Now an influential Egyptian, Timagenes, summoned the
queen to occupy Egypt; accordingly she despatched her chief general
Zabdas with an army of, it is alleged, 70,000 men to the Nile. The land
resisted with energy; but the Palmyrenes defeated the Egyptian levy
and possessed themselves of Egypt. A Roman admiral Probus attempted to
dislodge them again, and even vanquished them, so that they set out
for Syria; but, when he attempted to bar their way at the Egyptian
Babylon not far from Memphis, he was defeated by the better local
knowledge of the Palmyrene general Timagenes, and he put himself to
death.[111] When about the beginning of the year 270, after the death
of the emperor Claudius, Aurelian came in his stead, the Palmyrenes
bore sway over Alexandria. In Asia Minor too they made preparations to
establish themselves; their garrisons were pushed forward as far as
Ancyra in Galatia, and even in Chalcedon opposite Byzantium they had
attempted to assert the rule of their queen. All this happened without
the Palmyrenes renouncing the Roman government, nay probably on the
footing that the control of the East committed by the Roman government
to the prince of Palmyra was realised in this way, and they taxed the
Roman officers, who resisted the extension of the Palmyrene rule, with
rebellion against the imperial orders; the coins struck in Alexandria
name Aurelianus and Vaballathus side by side, and give the title of
Augustus only to the former. In substance, no doubt, the East here
detached itself from the empire, and the latter was divided into two
in the execution of an ordinance wrung from the wretched Gallienus by
necessity.

[Sidenote: Aurelian against the Palmyrenes.]

The vigorous and prudent emperor, to whom the dominion now had fallen,
broke at once with the Palmyrene co-ordinate government, which then
could not but have and had as its consequence, that Vaballathus himself
was proclaimed by his people as emperor. Egypt was already, at the
close of the year 270, brought back to the empire after hard struggles
by the brave general Probus, afterwards the successor of Aurelian.[112]
It is true that the second city of the empire, Alexandria, paid for
this victory almost with its existence, as will be set forth in the
following section. More difficult was the reduction of the remote
Syrian oasis. All other Oriental wars of the imperial period had
chiefly been waged by imperial troops having their home in the East;
here, where the West had once more to subdue the revolted East, there
fought once more, as in the time of the free republic, Occidentals
against Orientals,[113] the soldiers of the Rhine and of the Danube
with those of the Syrian desert. The mighty expedition began,
apparently towards the close of the year 271; without encountering
resistance the Roman army arrived at the frontier of Cappadocia; here
the town of Tyana, which barred the Cilician passes, gave serious
opposition. After it had fallen, and Aurelian, by gentle treatment of
the inhabitants, had smoothed his way to further successes, he crossed
the Taurus, and, passing through Cilicia, arrived in Syria. If Zenobia,
as is not to be doubted, had reckoned on active support from the side
of the Persian king, she found herself deceived. The aged king Shapur
did not interfere in this war, and the mistress of the Roman East
continued to be left to her own military resources, of which perhaps
even a portion took the side of the legitimate Augustus. At Antioch the
Palmyrene chief force under the general Zabdas stopped the emperor’s
way; Zenobia herself was present. A successful combat against the
superior Palmyrene cavalry on the Orontes delivered into the hands of
Aurelian the town, which not less than Tyana received full pardon--he
justly recognised that the subjects of the empire were hardly to be
blamed, when they had submitted to the Palmyrene prince appointed as
commander in chief by the Roman government itself. The Palmyrenes,
after having engaged in a conflict on their retreat at Daphne, the
suburb of Antioch, marched off, and struck into the great route which
leads from the capital of Syria to Hemesa and thence through the desert
to Palmyra.

[Sidenote: Battle at Hemesa.]

Aurelian summoned the queen to submit, pointing to the notable losses
endured in the conflicts on the Orontes. These were Romans only,
answered the queen; the Orientals did not yet admit that they were
conquered. At Hemesa[114] she took her stand for the decisive battle.
It was long and bloody; the Roman cavalry gave way and broke up in
flight; but the legions decided, and victory remained with the Romans.
The march was more difficult than the conflict. The distance from
Hemesa to Palmyra amounts in a direct line to seventy miles, and,
although at that epoch of highly developed Syrian civilisation the
region was not waste in the same degree as at present, the march of
Aurelian still remains a considerable feat, especially as the light
horsemen of the enemy swarmed round the Roman army on all sides.
Aurelian, however, reached his goal, and began the siege of the strong
and well-provisioned city; more difficult than the siege itself was
the bringing up of provisions for the besieging army. At length the
courage of the princess sank, and she escaped from the city to seek
aid from the Persians. Fortune still further helped the emperor. The
pursuing Roman cavalry took her captive with her son, just when she had
arrived at the Euphrates and was about to embark in the rescuing boat;
and the town, discouraged by her flight, capitulated (272). Aurelian
granted here too, as in all this campaign, full pardon to the subdued
burgesses. But a stern punishment was decreed over the queen and her
functionaries and officers. Zenobia, after she had for years borne
rule with masculine energy, did not now disdain to invoke a woman’s
privileges, and to throw the responsibility on her advisers, of whom
not a few, including the celebrated scholar, Cassius Longinus, perished
under the axe of the executioner. She herself might not be wanting
from the triumphal procession of the emperor, and she did not take
the course of Cleopatra, but marched in golden chains, as a spectacle
to the Roman multitude, before the chariot of the victor to the Roman
capitol. But before Aurelian could celebrate his victory he had to
repeat it.

[Sidenote: Destruction of Palmyra.]

A few months after the surrender the Palmyrenes once more rose,
killed the small Roman garrison serving there, and proclaimed one
Antiochus[115] as ruler, while they at the same time attempted to
induce the governor of Mesopotamia, Marcellinus, to revolt. The
news reached the emperor when he had just crossed the Hellespont.
He returned at once, and stood, earlier than friend or foe had
anticipated, once more before the walls of the insurgent city.
The rebels had not been prepared for this; there was this time no
resistance, but also no mercy. Palmyra was destroyed, the commonwealth
dissolved, the walls razed, the ornaments of the glorious temple of the
sun transferred to the temple which, in memory of this victory, the
emperor built to the sun-god of the East in Rome; only the forsaken
halls and walls remained, as they still stand in part at the present
day. This occurred in the year 273.[116] The flourishing of Palmyra
was artificial, produced by the routes assigned to traffic and the
great public buildings dependent on it. Now the government withdrew
its hand from the unhappy city. Traffic sought and found other paths;
as Mesopotamia was then viewed as a Roman province and soon came again
to the empire, and the territory of the Nabataeans as far as the
port of Aelana was in Roman hands, this intermediate station might be
dispensed with, and the traffic may have betaken itself instead to
Bostra or Beroea (Aleppo). The short meteor-like splendour of Palmyra
and its princes was immediately followed by the desolation and silence
which, from that time down to the present day, enwrap the miserable
desert-village and the ruins of its colonnades.

[Sidenote: Persian war of Carus.]

The ephemeral kingdom of Palmyra was in its origin as in its fall
closely bound up with the relations of the Romans to the non-Roman
East, but not less a part of the general history of the empire. For,
like the western empire of Postumus, the eastern empire of Zenobia
was one of those masses into which the mighty whole seemed then about
to resolve itself. If during its subsistence its leaders endeavoured
earnestly to set limits to the onset of the Persians, and indeed the
development of its power was dependent on that very fact, not merely
did it in its collapse seek deliverance from those same Persians,
but probably in consequence of the revolt of Zenobia Armenia and
Mesopotamia were lost to the Romans, and after the subjugation of
Palmyra the Euphrates again for a time formed the frontier. The queen,
when she arrived at it, hoped to find a reception among the Persians;
and Aurelian omitted to lead the legions over it, seeing that Gaul,
along with Spain and Britain, still at that time refused to recognise
the government. He and his successor Probus were not able to take
up this struggle. But when in the year 282, after the premature end
of the latter, the troops proclaimed the commander next in rank,
Marcus Aurelius Carus, as emperor, it was the first saying of the new
ruler that the Persians should remember this choice, and he kept it.
Immediately he advanced with the army into Armenia and re-established
the earlier order there. At the frontier of the land he was met by
Persian envoys, who declared themselves ready to grant all that was
reasonable;[117] but they were hardly listened to, and the march
went on incessantly. Mesopotamia too became once more Roman, and the
Parthian residential cities Seleucia and Ctesiphon were again occupied
by the Romans without encountering lengthened resistance--to which the
war between brothers then raging in the Persian empire contributed its
part.[118] The emperor had just crossed the Tigris, and was on the
point of penetrating into the heart of the enemy’s country, when he
met his death by violence, presumably by the hand of an assassin, and
thereby the campaign also met its end. But his successor obtained in
peace the cession of Armenia and Mesopotamia;[119] although Carus wore
the purple little more than a year, he re-established the imperial
frontier of Severus.

[Sidenote: Persian war under Diocletian.]

Some years afterwards (293) a new ruler, Narseh, son of king Shapur,
ascended the throne of Ctesiphon, and declared war on the Romans in
the year 296 for the possession of Mesopotamia and Armenia.[120]
Diocletian, who then had the supreme conduct of the empire generally,
and of the East in particular, entrusted the management of the war to
his imperial colleague Galerius Maximianus, a rough but brave general.
The beginning was unfavourable. The Persians invaded Mesopotamia and
reached as far as Carrhae; the Caesar led against them the Syrian
legions over the Euphrates at Nicephorium; between these two positions
the armies encountered each other, and the far weaker Roman force
gave way. It was a hard blow, and the young general had to submit
to severe reproaches, but he did not despair. For the next campaign
reinforcements were brought up from the whole empire, and both rulers
personally took the field; Diocletian took his position in Mesopotamia
with the chief force, while Galerius, reinforced by the flower of
the Illyrian troops that had in the meantime come up, met, with a
force of 25,000 men, the enemy in Armenia, and inflicted on him a
decisive defeat. The camp and the treasure, nay, even the harem, of the
great-king fell into the hands of the warriors, and with difficulty
Narseh himself escaped from capture. In order to recover the women and
the children the king declared himself ready to conclude peace on any
terms; his envoy Apharban conjured the Romans to spare the Persians,
saying that the two empires, the Roman and the Parthian, were, as it
were, the two eyes of the world, and neither could dispense with the
other. It would have lain in the power of the Romans to add one more
to their Oriental provinces; the prudent ruler contented himself with
regulating the state of possession in the north-east. Mesopotamia
remained, as a matter of course, in the Roman possession; the important
commercial intercourse with the neighbouring foreign land was placed
under strict state-control and essentially directed to the strong
city of Nisibis, the basis of the Roman frontier-guard in eastern
Mesopotamia. The Tigris was recognised as boundary of the direct Roman
rule, to such an extent, however, that the whole of southern Armenia as
far as the lake Thospitis (lake of Van) and the Euphrates, and so the
whole upper valley of the Tigris, should belong to the Roman empire.
This region lying in front of Mesopotamia did not become a province
proper, but was administered after the previous fashion as the Roman
satrapy of Sophene. Some decades later the strong fortress of Amida
(Diarbekir) was constructed here, thenceforth the chief stronghold
of the Romans in the region of the upper Tigris. At the same time
the frontier between Armenia and Media was regulated afresh, and
the supremacy of Rome over that land, as over Iberia, was once more
confirmed. The peace did not impose important cessions of territory on
the conquered, but it established a frontier favourable to the Romans,
which for a considerable time served in these much contested regions
as a demarcation of the two empires.[121] The policy of Trajan thereby
obtained its complete accomplishment; at all events the centre of
gravity of the Roman rule shifted itself just at this time from the
West to the East.



CHAPTER X.

SYRIA AND THE LAND OF THE NABATAEANS.


[Sidenote: Conquest of Syria.]

It was very gradually that the Romans, after acquiring the western
half of the coasts of the Mediterranean, resolved on possessing
themselves also of the eastern half. Not the resistance, which they
here encountered in comparatively slight measure, but a well-founded
fear of the denationalising consequences of such acquisitions, led to
as prolonged an effort as possible on their part merely to preserve
decisive political influence in those regions, and to the incorporation
proper at least of Syria and Egypt taking place only when the state was
already almost a monarchy. Doubtless the Roman empire became thereby
geographically compact; the Mediterranean Sea, the proper basis of Rome
after it was a great power, became on all sides a Roman inland lake;
the navigation and commerce on its waters and shores formed politically
an unity to the advantage of all that dwelt around. But by the side
of geographical compactness went national bipartition. Through Greece
and Macedonia the Roman state would never have become binational, any
more than the Greek cities of Neapolis and Massalia had Hellenised
Campania and Provence. But, while in Europe and Africa the Greek
domain vanishes in presence of the compact mass of the Latin, so much
of the third continent as was drawn, with the Nile-valley rightfully
pertaining to it, into this cycle of culture belonged exclusively to
the Greeks, and Antioch and Alexandria in particular were the true
pillars of the Hellenic development that attained its culmination in
Alexander--centres of Hellenic life and Hellenic culture, and great
cities, as was Rome. After having set forth in the preceding chapter
the conflict between the East and West in and around Armenia and
Mesopotamia, that filled the whole period of the empire, we turn to
describe the relations of the Syrian regions, as they took shape at
the same time. What we mean is the territory which is separated by
the mountain-chain of Pisidia, Isauria, and Western Cilicia from Asia
Minor; by the eastern continuation of these mountains and the Euphrates
from Armenia and Mesopotamia, by the Arabian desert from the Parthian
empire and from Egypt; only it seemed fitting to deal with the peculiar
fortunes of Judaea in a special section. In accordance with the
diversity of political development under the imperial government, we
shall speak in the first instance of Syria proper, the northern portion
of this territory, and of the Phoenician coast that stretches along
under the Libanus, and then of the country lying behind Palestine--the
territory of the Nabataeans. What was to be said about Palmyra has
already found its place in the preceding chapter.

[Sidenote: Provincial government.]

After the partition of the provinces between the emperor and the
senate, Syria was under imperial administration, and was in the East,
like Gaul in the West, the central seat of civil and military control.
This governorship was from the beginning the most esteemed of all, and
only became in course of time all the more thought of. Its holder,
like the governor of the two Germanies, wielded the command over four
legions, and while the administration of the inland Gallic districts
was taken away from the commanders of the Rhine-army and a certain
restriction was involved in the very fact of their co-ordination, the
governor of Syria retained the civil administration of the whole
large province undiminished, and held for long alone in all Asia a
command of the first rank. Under Vespasian, indeed, he obtained in
the governors of Palestine and Cappadocia two colleagues likewise
commanding legions; but, on the other hand, through the annexation of
the kingdom of Commagene, and soon afterwards of the principalities
in the Libanus, the field of his administration was increased. It was
only in the course of the second century that a diminution of his
prerogatives occurred, when Hadrian took one of the four legions from
the governor of Syria and handed it over to the governor of Palestine.
It was Severus who at length withdrew the first place in the Roman
military hierarchy from the Syrian governor. After having subdued the
province--which had wished at that time to make Niger emperor, as it
had formerly done with its governor Vespasian--amidst resistance from
the capital Antioch in particular, he ordained its partition into a
northern and a southern half, and gave to the governor of the former,
which was called Coele-Syria, two legions, to the governor of the
latter, the province of Syro-Phoenicia, one.

[Sidenote: Syrian troops.]

Syria may also be compared with Gaul, in so far as this district
of imperial administration was divided more sharply than most into
pacified regions and border-districts needing protection. While the
extensive coast of Syria and the western regions generally were not
exposed to hostile attacks, and the protection on the desert frontier
against the roving Bedouins devolved on the Arabian and Jewish princes,
and subsequently on the troops of the province of Arabia as also on the
Palmyrenes, more than on the Syrian legions, the Euphrates-frontier
required, particularly before Mesopotamia became Roman, a watch against
the Parthians similar to that on the Rhine against the Germans. But
if the Syrian legions came to be employed on the frontier, they could
not be dispensed with in western Syria as well.[122] The troops of
the Rhine were certainly there also on account of the Gauls; yet the
Romans might say with justifiable pride that for the great capital
of Gaul and the three Gallic provinces a direct garrison of 1200 men
sufficed. But for the Syrian population, and especially for the capital
of Roman Asia, it was not enough to station legions on the Euphrates.
Not merely on the edge of the desert, but also in the retreats of the
mountains there lodged daring bands of robbers, who roamed in the
neighbourhood of the rich fields and large towns--not to the same
extent as now, but constantly even then--and, often disguised as
merchants or soldiers, pillaged the country houses and the villages.
But even the towns themselves, above all Antioch, required like
Alexandria garrisons of their own. Beyond doubt this was the reason why
a division into civil and military districts, like that enacted for
Gaul by Augustus, was never even so much as attempted in Syria, and
why the large self-subsistent camp-settlements, out of which _e.g._
originated Mentz on the Rhine, Leon in Spain, Chester in England, were
altogether wanting in the Roman East. But beyond doubt this was also
the reason why the Syrian army was so much inferior in discipline and
spirit to that of the Western provinces; why the stern discipline,
which was exercised in the military standing camps of the West, never
could take root in the urban cantonments of the East. When stationary
troops have, in addition to their more immediate destination, the task
of police assigned to them, this of itself has a demoralising effect;
and only too often, where they are expected to keep in check turbulent
civic masses, their own discipline in fact is thereby undermined. The
Syrian wars formerly described furnish the far from pleasant commentary
on this; none of them found an army capable of warfare in existence,
and regularly there was need to bring up Occidental troops in order to
give the turn to the struggle.

[Sidenote: Hellenising of Syria.]

Syria in the narrower sense and its adjoining lands, the Plain Cilicia
and Phoenicia, never had under the Roman emperors a history properly
so called. The inhabitants of these regions belonged to the same
stock as the inhabitants of Judaea and Arabia, and the ancestors of
the Syrians and the Phoenicians were settled in a remote age at one
spot with those of the Jews and the Arabs, and spoke one language.
But while the latter clung to their peculiar character and to their
language, the Syrians and the Phoenicians became Hellenised even before
they came under Roman rule. This Hellenising took effect throughout
in the formation of Hellenic polities. The foundation for this had
indeed been laid by the native development, particularly by the old
and great mercantile cities on the Phoenician coast. But above all the
formation of states by Alexander and the Alexandrids, just like that
of the Roman republic, had as its basis not the tribe, but the urban
community; it was not the old Macedonian hereditary principality,
but the Greek polity that Alexander carried into the East; and it
was not from tribes, but from towns that he designed, and the Romans
designed, to constitute their empire. The idea of the autonomous
burgess-body is an elastic one, and the autonomy of Athens and Thebes
was a different thing from that of the Macedonian and Syrian city, just
as in the Roman circle the autonomy of free Capua had another import
than that of the Latin colonies of the republic or even of the urban
communities of the empire; but the fundamental idea is everywhere
that of self-administering citizenship sovereign within its own
ring-wall. After the fall of the Persian empire, Syria, along with the
neighbouring Mesopotamia, was, as the military bridge of connection
between the West and the East, covered more than any other land with
Macedonian settlements. The Macedonian names of places transferred
thither to the greatest extent, and nowhere else recurring in the
whole empire of Alexander, show that here the flower of the Hellenic
conquerors of the East was settled, and that Syria was to become for
this state the New-Macedonia; as indeed, so long as the empire of
Alexander retained a central government, this had there its seat. Then
the troubles of the last Seleucid period had helped the Syrian imperial
towns to greater independence.

These arrangements the Romans found existing. Of non-urban districts
administered directly by the empire there were probably none at all
in Syria according to the organisation planned by Pompeius, and, if
the dependent principalities in the first epoch of the Roman rule
embraced a great portion of the southern interior of the province,
these were withal mostly mountainous and poorly inhabited districts of
subordinate importance. Taken as a whole, for the Romans in Syria not
much was left to be done as to the increase of urban development--less
than in Asia Minor. Hence there is hardly anything to be told from the
imperial period of the founding of towns in the strict sense as regards
Syria. The few colonies which were laid out here, such as Berytus under
Augustus and probably also Heliopolis, had no other object than those
conducted to Macedonia, namely, the settlement of veterans.

[Sidenote: Continuance of the native language and habits under
Hellenism.]

How the Greeks and the older population in Syria stood to one
another, may be clearly traced by the very local names. The majority
of districts and towns here bear Greek names, in great part, as we
have observed, derived from the Macedonian home, such as Pieria,
Anthemusias, Arethusa, Beroea, Chalcis, Edessa, Europus, Cyrrhus,
Larisa, Pella, others named after Alexander or the members of the
Seleucid house, such as Alexandria, Antioch, Seleucis and Seleucia,
Apamea, Laodicea, Epiphaneia. The old native names maintain themselves
doubtless side by side, as Beroea, previously in Aramaean Chalep,
is also called Chalybon, Edessa or Hierapolis, previously Mabog, is
called also Bambyce, Epiphaneia, previously Hamat, is also called
Amathe. But for the most part the older appellations give way before
the foreign ones, and only a few districts and larger places, such as
Commagene, Samosata, Hemesa, Damascus, are without newly-formed Greek
names. Eastern Cilicia has few Macedonian foundations to show; but
the capital Tarsus became early and completely Hellenised, and was
long before the Roman time one of the centres of Hellenic culture.
It was somewhat otherwise in Phoenicia; the mercantile towns of old
renown, Aradus, Byblus, Berytus, Sidon, Tyrus, did not properly lay
aside the native names; but how here too the Greek gained the upper
hand, is shown by the Hellenising transformation of these same names,
and still more clearly by the fact that New-Aradus is known to us only
under the Greek name Antaradus, and likewise the new town founded
by the Tyrians, the Sidonians, and the Aradians in common on this
coast only under the name Tripolis, and both have developed their
modern designations Tartus and Tarabulus from the Greek. Already in
the Seleucid period the coins in Syria proper bear exclusively, and
those of the Phoenician towns most predominantly, Greek legends; and
from the beginning of the imperial period the sole rule of Greek is
here an established fact.[123] The oasis of Palmyra alone, not merely
separated by wide stretches of desert, but also preserving a certain
political independence, formed, as we saw (p. 95), an exception in
this respect. But in intercourse the native idioms were retained. In
the mountains of the Libanus and the Anti-Libanus, where in Hemesa
(Homs), Chalcis, Abila (both between Berytus and Damascus) small
princely houses of native origin ruled till towards the end of the
first century after Christ, the native language had probably the
sole sway in the imperial period, as indeed in the mountains of the
Druses so difficult of access the language of Aram has only in recent
times yielded to Arabic. But two thousand years ago it was in fact
the language of the people in all Syria.[124] That in the case of the
double-named towns the Syrian designation predominated in common life
just as did the Greek in literature, appears from the fact that at the
present day Beroea-Chalybon is named Haleb (Aleppo), Epiphaneia-Amathe
Hamat, Hierapolis-Bambyce-Mabog Membid, Tyre by its Aramaean name Sur;
that the Syrian town known to us from documents and authors only as
Heliopolis still bears at the present day its primitive native name
Baalbec, and, in general, the modern names of places have come, not
from the Greek, but from the Aramaean.

[Sidenote: Worship.]

In like manner the worship shows the continued life of Syrian
nationality. The Syrians of Beroea bring their votive gifts with Greek
legend to Zeus Malbachos, those of Apamea to Zeus Belos, those of
Berytus as Roman citizens to Jupiter Balmarcodes--all deities, in which
neither Zeus nor Jupiter had real part. This Zeus Belos is no other
than the Malach Belos adored at Palmyra in the Syriac language (p. 96,
note 1). How vivid was, and continued to be, the hold of the native
worship of the gods in Syria, is most clearly attested by the fact that
the lady of Hemesa, who by her marriage-relationship with the house of
Severus obtained for her grandson the imperial dignity at the beginning
of the third century, not content with the boy’s being called supreme
Pontifex of the Roman people, urged him also to entitle himself before
all Romans the chief priest of the native sun-god Elagabalus. The
Romans might conquer the Syrians; but the Roman gods had in their own
home yielded the field to those of Syria.

[Sidenote: Jamblichus.]

No less are the numerous Syrian proper names that have come to us
mainly non-Greek, and double names are not rare; the Messiah is
termed also Christus, the apostle Thomas also Didymus, the woman
of Joppa raised up by Peter “the gazelle,” Tabitha or Dorcas. But
for literature, and presumably also for business-intercourse and
the intercourse of the cultured, the Syrian idiom was as little
in existence as the Celtic in the West; in these circles Greek
exclusively prevailed, apart from the Latin required also in the East
for the soldiers. A man of letters of the second half of the second
century, whom Sohaemus the king of Armenia formerly mentioned (p.
76) brought to his court, has inserted in a romance, which has its
scene in Babylon, some points of the history of his own life that
illustrate this relation. He is, he says, a Syrian, not, however, one
of the immigrant Greeks, but of native lineage on the father’s and
mother’s side, Syrian by language and habits, acquainted also with
the Babylonian language and with Persian magic. But this same man,
who in a certain sense declines the Hellenic character, adds that he
had appropriated Hellenic culture; and he became an esteemed teacher
of youth in Syria, and a notable romance-writer of the later Greek
literature.[125]

[Sidenote: Later Syriac literature.]

If subsequently the Syrian idiom again became a written language
and developed a literature of its own, this is to be traced not to
an invigoration of national feeling, but to the immediate needs of
the propagation of Christianity. That Syriac literature, which began
with the translation of the writings of the Christian faith into
Syriac, remained confined to the sphere of the specific culture of
the Christian clergy, and hence took up only the small fragments of
general Hellenic culture which the theologians of that time found
conducive to, or compatible with, their ends;[126] this authorship did
not attain, and doubtless did not strive after, any higher aim than
the transference of the library of the Greek monastery to the Maronite
cloisters. It hardly reaches further back than to the second century
of our era, and had its centre, not in Syria, but in Mesopotamia,
particularly in Edessa,[127] where the native language had not become
so entirely a dialect as in the older Roman territory.

[Sidenote: Syro-Hellenic mixed culture.]

[Sidenote: Tomb of Antiochus of Commagene.]

Among the manifold bastard forms which Hellenism assumed in the course
of its diffusion at once civilising and degenerating, the Syro-Hellenic
is doubtless that in which the two elements are most equally balanced,
but perhaps at the same time that which has most decisively influenced
the collective development of the empire. The Syrians received, no
doubt, the Greek urban organisation and appropriated Hellenic language
and habits; nevertheless they did not cease to feel themselves as
Orientals, or rather as organs of a double civilisation. Nowhere is
this perhaps more sharply expressed than in the colossal tomb-temple,
which at the commencement of the imperial period Antiochus king of
Commagene erected for himself on a solitary mountain-summit not far
from the Euphrates. He names himself in the copious epitaph a Persian;
the priest of the sanctuary is to present to him the memorial-offering
in the Persian dress, as the custom of his family demands; but he calls
the Hellenes also, like the Persians, the blessed roots of his race,
and entreats the blessing of all the gods of Persis as of Macetis, that
is of the Persian as well as of the Macedonian land, to rest upon his
descendants. For he is the son of a native king of the family of the
Achaemenids and of a Greek prince’s daughter of the house of Seleucus;
and, in keeping with this, the images on the one hand of his paternal
ancestors back to the first Darius, on the other hand of his maternal
back to Alexander’s marshal, embellished the tomb in a long double
row. But the gods, whom he honours, are at the same time Persian and
Greek, Zeus Oromasdes, Apollon Mithras Helios Hermes, Artagnes Herakles
Ares, and the effigy of this latter, for example, bears the club of
the Greek hero and at the same time the Persian tiara. This Persian
prince, who calls himself at the same time a friend of the Hellenes,
and as loyal subject of the emperor a friend of the Romans, as not
less that Achaemenid called by Marcus and Lucius to the throne of
Armenia, Sohaemus, are true representatives of the native aristocracy
of imperial Syria, which bears in mind alike Persian memories and the
Romano-Hellenic present. From such circles the Persian worship of
Mithra reached the West. But the population, which was placed at the
same time under this great nobility Persian or calling itself Persian,
and under the government of Macedonian and later of Italian masters,
was in Syria, as in Mesopotamia and Babylonia, Aramaean; it reminds
us in various respects of the modern Roumans in presence of the upper
ranks of Saxons and Magyars. Certainly it was the most corrupt and most
corrupting element in the conglomerate of the Romano-Hellenic peoples.
Of the so-called Caracalla, who was born at Lyons as son of an African
father and a Syrian mother, it was said that he united in himself the
vices of three races, Gallic frivolity, African savageness, and Syrian
knavery.

[Sidenote: Christianity and Neoplatonism.]

This interpenetration of the East and Hellenism, which has nowhere
been carried out so completely as in Syria, meets us predominantly in
the form of the good and noble becoming ruined in the mixture. This,
however, is not everywhere the case; the later developments of religion
and of speculation, Christianity and Neoplatonism, have proceeded from
the same conjunction; if with the former the East penetrates into the
West, the latter is the transformation of the Occidental philosophy in
the sense and spirit of the East--a creation in the first instance of
the Egyptian Plotinus (204-270) and of his most considerable disciple
the Syrian Malchus or Porphyrius (233 till after 300), and thereafter
pre-eminently cultivated in the towns of Syria. For a discussion of
these two phenomena, so significant in the history of the world, this
is not the place; but they may not be forgotten in estimating the
position of matters in Syria.

[Sidenote: Antioch.]

The Syrian character finds its eminent expression in the capital of
the country and, before Constantinople was founded, of the Roman East
generally--inferior as respects population only to Rome and Alexandria,
and possibly also to the Babylonian Seleucia--Antioch, on which it
appears requisite to dwell for a moment. The town, one of the youngest
in Syria and now of small importance, did not become a great city by
the natural circumstances of commerce, but was a creation of monarchic
policy. The Macedonian conquerors called it into life, primarily from
military considerations, as a fitting central place for a rule which
embraced at once Asia Minor, the region of the Euphrates, and Egypt,
and sought also to be near to the Mediterranean.[128] The like aim
and the different methods of the Seleucids and the Lagids find their
true expression in the similarity and the contrast of Antioch and
Alexandria; as the latter was the centre for the naval power and the
maritime policy of the Egyptian rulers, so Antioch was the centre for
the continental Eastern monarchy of the rulers of Asia. The later
Seleucids at different times undertook large new foundations here, so
that the city, when it became Roman, consisted of four independent
and walled-in districts, all of which again were enclosed by a common
wall. Nor were immigrants from a distance wanting. When Greece proper
fell under the rule of the Romans, and Antiochus the Great had vainly
attempted to dislodge them thence, he granted at least to the emigrant
Euboeans and Aetolians an asylum in his capital. In the capital of
Syria, as in that of Egypt, a commonwealth in some measure independent
and a privileged position were conceded to the Jews, and the position
of the towns as centres of the Jewish Diaspora was not the weakest
element in their development. Once made a residency and the seat of
the supreme administration of a great empire, Antioch remained even
in Roman times the capital of the Asiatic provinces of Rome. Here
resided the emperors, when they sojourned in the East, and regularly
the governor of Syria; here was struck the imperial money for the East,
and here especially, as well as in Damascus and Edessa, were found
the imperial manufactories of arms. It is true that the town had lost
its military importance for the Roman empire; and under the changed
circumstances the bad communication with the sea was felt as a great
evil, not so much on account of the distance, as because the port--the
town of Seleucia, planned at the same time with Antioch--was little
fitted for large traffic. The Roman emperors from the Flavians down to
Constantius expended enormous sums to hew out of the masses of rocks
surrounding this locality the requisite docks with their tributary
canals, and to provide sufficient piers; but the art of the engineers,
which at the mouth of the Nile had succeeded in throwing up the highest
mounds, contended vainly in Syria with the insurmountable difficulties
of the ground. As a matter of course the largest town of Syria took an
active part in the manufactures and the commerce of this province, of
which we shall have to speak further on; nevertheless it was a seat of
consumers more than of producers.

[Sidenote: Daphne.]

In no city of antiquity was the enjoyment of life so much the main
thing, and its duties so incidental, as in “Antioch upon Daphne,”
as the city was significantly called, somewhat as if we should say
“Vienna upon the Prater.” For Daphne[129] was a pleasure-garden, about
five miles from the city, ten miles in circumference, famous for its
laurel-trees, after which it was named, for its old cypresses which
even the Christian emperors ordered to be spared, for its flowing and
gushing waters, for its shining temple of Apollo, and its magnificent
much-frequented festival of the 10th August. The whole environs of the
city, which lies between two wooded mountain-chains in the valley of
the Orontes abounding in water, fourteen miles upward from its mouth,
are even at the present day, in spite of all neglect, a blooming garden
and one of the most charming spots on earth. No city in all the empire
excelled it in the splendour and magnificence of its public structures.
The chief street, which to the length of thirty-six stadia, nearly four
and a half miles, with a covered colonnade on both sides, and a broad
carriage-way in the middle, traversed the city in a straight direction
along the river, was imitated in many ancient towns, but had not its
match even in imperial Rome. As the water ran into every good house
in Antioch,[130] so the people walked in those colonnades through the
whole city at all seasons protected from rain as from the heat of the
sun, and during the evening also in lighted streets, of which we have
no record as to any other city of antiquity.[131]

[Sidenote: Intellectual interests.]

But amidst all this luxury the Muses did not find themselves at
home; science in earnest and not less earnest art were never truly
cultivated in Syria and more especially in Antioch. However complete
was the analogy in other respects between Egypt and Syria as to
their development, their contrast in a literary point of view was
sharp; the Lagids alone entered on this portion of the inheritance
of Alexander the Great. While they fostered Hellenic literature and
promoted scientific research in an Aristotelian sense and spirit, the
better Seleucids doubtless by their political position opened up the
East to the Greeks--the mission of Megasthenes to king Chandragupta
in India on the part of Seleucus I., and the exploring of the Caspian
Sea by his contemporary the admiral Patrocles, were epoch-making in
this respect--but of immediate interposition in literary interests on
the part of the Seleucids the history of Greek literature has nothing
more to tell than that Antiochus the Great, as he was called, made the
poet Euphorion his librarian. Perhaps the history of Latin literature
may make a claim to serious scientific work on the part of Berytus,
the Latin island in the sea of Oriental Hellenism. It is perhaps
no accident that the reaction against the modernising tendency in
literature of the Julio-Claudian epoch, and the reintroduction of the
language and writings of the republican time into the school as into
literature, originated with a Berytian belonging to the middle class,
Marcus Valerius Probus, who in the schools that were left in his remote
home moulded himself still on the old classics, and then, in energetic
activity more as a critical author than as strictly a teacher, laid
the foundation for the classicism of the later imperial period. The
same Berytus became later, and remained through the whole period of
the empire, for all the East, the seat of the study of jurisprudence
requisite towards an official career. As to Hellenic literature no
doubt the poetry of the epigram and the wit of the _feuilleton_ were
at home in Syria; several of the most noted Greek minor poets, like
Meleager, Philodemus of Gadara, and Antipater of Sidon, were Syrians
and unsurpassed in sensuous charm as in refined versification; and
the father of the _feuilleton_ literature was Menippus of Gadara. But
these performances lie for the most part before, and some of them
considerably before, the imperial period.

[Sidenote: Minor literature.]

In the Greek literature of this epoch no province is so poorly
represented as Syria; and this is hardly an accident, although,
considering the universal position of Hellenism under the empire,
not much stress can be laid on the home of the individual writers.
On the other hand the subordinate authorship which prevailed in
this epoch--such as stories of love, robbers, pirates, procurers,
soothsayers, and dreams, destitute of thought or form, and fabulous
travels--had probably its chief seat here. Among the colleagues of
the already-mentioned Jamblichus, author of the Babylonian history,
his countrymen must have been numerous; the contact of this Greek
literature with the Oriental literature of a similar kind doubtless
took place through the medium of Syrians. The Greeks indeed had no
need to learn lying from the Orientals; yet the no longer plastic
but fanciful story-telling of their later period has sprung from
Scheherazade’s horn of plenty, not from the pleasantry of the Graces.
It is perhaps not accidentally that the satire of this period, when it
views Homer as the father of lying travels, makes him a Babylonian with
the proper name of Tigranes. Apart from this entertaining reading, of
which even those were somewhat ashamed who spent their time in writing
or reading it, there is hardly any other prominent name to be mentioned
from these regions than the contemporary of that Jamblichus, Lucian of
Commagene. He, too, wrote nothing except, in imitation of Menippus,
essays and fugitive pieces after a genuinely Syrian type, witty and
sprightly in personal banter, but where this is at an end, incapable
of saying amid his laughter the earnest truth or of even handling the
plastic power of comedy.

[Sidenote: Daily life and amusements.]

This people valued only the day. No Greek region has so few
memorial-stones to show as Syria; the great Antioch, the third city
in the empire, has--to say nothing of the land of hieroglyphics and
obelisks--left behind fewer inscriptions than many a small African
or Arabian village. With the exception of the rhetorician Libanius
from the time of Julian, who is more well-known than important, this
town has not given to literature a single author’s name. The Tyanitic
Messiah of heathenism, or his apostle speaking for him, was not wrong
in terming the Antiochenes an uncultivated and half-barbarous people,
and in thinking that Apollo would do well to transform them as well
as their Daphne; for “in Antioch, while the cypresses knew how to
whisper, men knew not how to speak.” In the artistic sphere Antioch
had a leading position only as respected the theatre and sports
generally. The exhibitions which captivated the public of Antioch were,
according to the fashion of this time, less strictly dramatic than
noisy musical performances, ballets, animal hunts, and gladiatorial
games. The applauding or hissing of this public decided the reputation
of the dancer throughout the empire. The jockeys and other heroes
of the circus and theatre came pre-eminently from Syria.[132] The
ballet-dancers and the musicians, as well as the jugglers and buffoons,
whom Lucius Verus brought back from his Oriental campaign--performed,
so far as his part went, in Antioch--to Rome, formed an epoch in the
history of Italian theatricals. The passion with which the public in
Antioch gave itself up to this pleasure is characteristically shown by
the fact, that according to tradition the gravest disaster which befell
Antioch in this period, its capture by the Persians in 260 (p. 101),
surprised the burgesses of the city in the theatre, and from the top of
the mount, on the slope of which it was constructed, the arrows flew
into the ranks of the spectators. In Gaza, the most southerly town of
Syria, where heathenism possessed a stronghold in the famous temple
of Marnas, at the end of the fourth century the horses of a zealous
heathen and of a zealous Christian ran at the races, and, when on that
occasion “Christ beat Marnas,” St. Jerome tells us, numerous heathens
had themselves baptised.

[Sidenote: Immorality.]

All the great cities of the Roman empire doubtless vied with each other
in dissoluteness of morals; but in this the palm probably belongs to
Antioch. The decorous Roman, whom the severe moral-portrait-painter
of Trajan’s time depicts, as he turns his back on his native place,
because it had become a city of Greeks, adds that the Achaeans
formed the least part of the filth; that the Syrian Orontes had long
discharged itself into the river Tiber, and flooded Rome with its
language and its habits, its street-musicians, female harp-players
and triangle-beaters, and the troops of its courtesans. The Romans of
Augustus spoke of the Syrian female flute-player, the _ambubaia_,[133]
as we speak of the Parisian _cocotte_. In the Syrian cities, it is
stated even in the last age of the republic by Posidonius, an author of
importance, who was himself a native of the Syrian Apamea, the citizens
have become disused to hard labour; the people there think only of
feasting and carousing, and all clubs and private parties serve for
this purpose; at the royal table a garland is put on every guest, and
the latter is then sprinkled with Babylonian perfume; flute-playing
and harp-playing sound through the streets; the gymnastic institutes
are converted into hot baths--by the latter is meant the institution
of the so-called Thermae, which probably first emerged in Syria and
subsequently became general; they were in substance a combination of
the gymnasium and the hot-bath. Four hundred years later matters went
on after quite a similar fashion in Antioch. The quarrel between Julian
and these townsmen arose not so much about the emperor’s beard, as
because in this city of taverns, which, as he expresses himself, has
nothing in view but dancing and drinking, he regulated the prices
for the hosts. The religious system of the Syrian land was also, and
especially, pervaded by these dissolute and sensuous doings. The cultus
of the Syrian gods was often an appanage of the Syrian brothel.[134]

[Sidenote: Antiochene ridicule.]

It would be unjust to make the Roman government responsible for this
state of affairs in Syria; it had been the same under the government
of the Diadochi, and was merely transmitted to the Romans. But in
the history of this age the Syro-Hellenic element was an essential
factor, and, although its indirect influence was of far more weight,
it still in many ways made itself perceptible directly in politics.
Of political partisanship proper there can be still less talk in the
case of the Antiochenes of this and every age, than in the case of the
burgesses of the other great cities of the empire; but in mocking and
disputation they apparently excelled all others, even the Alexandrians
that vied with them in this respect. They never made a revolution,
but readily and earnestly supported every pretender whom the Syrian
army set up, Vespasian against Vitellius, Cassius against Marcus,
Niger against Severus, always ready, where they thought that they had
support in reserve, to renounce allegiance to the existing government.
The only talent which indisputably belonged to them--their mastery
of ridicule--they exercised not merely against the actors of their
stage, but no less against the rulers sojourning in the capital of the
East, and the ridicule was quite the same against the actor as against
the emperor; it applied to personal appearance and to individual
peculiarities, just as if their sovereign appeared only to amuse them
with his part. Thus there existed between the public of Antioch and
their rulers--particularly those who spent a considerable time there,
Hadrian, Verus, Marcus, Severus, Julian--so to speak, a perpetual
warfare of sarcasm, one document of which, the reply of the last named
emperor to the “beard-mockers” of Antioch, is still preserved. While
this imperial man of letters met their sarcastic sayings with satirical
writings, the Antiochenes at other times had to pay more severely
for their evil speaking and their other sins. Thus Hadrian withdrew
from them the right of coining silver; Marcus withdrew the right of
assembly, and closed for some time the theatre. Severus took even from
the town the primacy of Syria, and transferred it to Laodicea, which
was in constant neighbourly warfare with the capital; and, if these two
ordinances were soon again withdrawn, the partition of the province,
which Hadrian had already threatened, was carried into execution, as we
have already said (p. 118), under Severus, and not least because the
government wished to humble the turbulent great city. This city even
made a mockery of its final overthrow. When in the year 540 the Persian
king Chosroes Nushirvan appeared before the walls of Antioch he was
received from its battlements not merely with showers of arrows but
with the usual obscene sarcasms; and, provoked by this, the king not
merely took the town by storm, but carried also its inhabitants away to
his New-Antioch in the province of Susa.

[Sidenote: Culture of the soil.]

The brilliant aspect of the condition of Syria was the economic one;
in manufactures and trade Syria takes, alongside of Egypt, the first
place among the provinces of the Roman empire, and even claims in a
certain respect precedence over Egypt. Agriculture throve under the
permanent state of peace, and under a sagacious administration which
directed its efforts particularly to the advancement of irrigation, to
an extent which puts to shame modern civilisation. No doubt various
parts of Syria are still at the present day of the utmost luxuriance;
the valley of the lower Orontes, the rich garden round Tripolis with
its groups of palms, groves of oranges, copses of pomegranates and
jasmine, the fertile coast-plain north and south of Gaza, neither the
Bedouins nor the Pashas have hitherto been able to make desolate. But
their work is nevertheless not to be estimated lightly. Apamea in the
middle of the Orontes valley, now a rocky wilderness without fields and
trees, where the poor flocks on the scanty pasturages are decimated
by the robbers of the mountains, is strewed far and wide with ruins,
and there is documentary attestation that under Quirinius the governor
of Syria, the same who is named in the Gospels, this town with its
territory included numbered 117,000 free inhabitants. Beyond question
the whole valley of the Orontes abounding in water--already at Hemesa
it is from 30 to 40 mètres broad and one and a half to three mètres
deep--was once a great seat of cultivation. But even of the districts,
which are now mere deserts, and where it seems to the traveller of
the present day impossible for man to live and thrive, a considerable
portion was formerly a field of labour for active hands. To the east
of Hemesa, where there is now not a green leaf nor a drop of water,
the heavy basalt-slabs of former oil-presses are found in quantities.
While at the present day olives scantily grow only in the valleys of
the Lebanon abounding in springs, the olive woods must formerly have
stretched far beyond the valley of the Orontes. The traveller now from
Hemesa to Palmyra carries water with him on the back of camels, and all
this part of the route is covered with the remains of former villas and
hamlets.[135] The march of Aurelian along this route (p. 110) no army
could now undertake. Of what is at present called desert a good portion
is rather the laying waste of the blessed labour of better times. “All
Syria,” says a description of the earth from the middle of the fourth
century, “overflows with corn, wine, and oil.” But Syria was not even
in antiquity an exporting land, in a strict sense, for the fruits of
the earth, like Egypt and Africa, although the noble wines were sent
away, _e.g._ that of Damascus to Persia, those of Laodicea, Ascalon,
Gaza, to Egypt and from thence as far as Ethiopia and India, and even
the Romans knew how to value the wine of Byblus, of Tyre, and of Gaza.

[Sidenote: Manufactures.]

Of far more importance for the general position of the province
were the Syrian manufactures. A series of industries, which came
into account for export, were here at home, especially of linen,
purple, silk, glass. The weaving of flax, practised from of old in
Babylonia, was early transplanted thence to Syria; as that description
of the earth says: “Scytopolis (in Palestine), Laodicea, Byblus,
Tyrus, Berytus, send out their linen into all the world,” and in the
tariff-law of Diocletian accordingly there are adduced as fine linen
goods those of the three first-named towns alongside of those of the
neighbouring Tarsus and of Egypt, and the Syrian have precedence over
all. That the purple of Tyre, however many competitors with it arose,
always retained the first place, is well known; and besides the Tyrian
there were in Syria numerous purple dyeworks likewise famous on the
coast above and below Tyre at Sarepta, Dora, Caesarea, even in the
interior, in the Palestinian Neapolis and in Lydda. The raw silk came
at this epoch from China and especially by way of the Caspian Sea, and
so to Syria; it was worked up chiefly in the looms of Berytus and of
Tyre, in which latter place especially was prepared the purple silk
that was much in use and brought a high price. The glass manufactures
of Sidon maintained their primitive fame in the imperial age, and
numerous glass-vases of our museums bear the stamp of a Sidonian
manufacturer.

[Sidenote: Commerce.]

To the sale of these wares, which from their nature belonged to the
market of the world, fell to be added the whole mass of goods which
came from the East by the Euphrates-routes to the West. It is true
that the Arabian and Indian imports at this time turned away from
this road, and took chiefly the route by way of Egypt; but not merely
did the Mesopotamian traffic remain necessarily with the Syrians;
the emporia also at the mouth of the Euphrates stood in regular
caravan-intercourse with Palmyra (p. 98), and thus made use of the
Syrian harbours. How considerable this intercourse was with the eastern
neighbours is shown by nothing so clearly as by the similarity of the
silver coinage in the Roman East and in the Parthian Babylonia; in the
provinces of Syria and Cappadocia the Roman government coined silver,
varying from the imperial currency, after the sorts and the standards
of the neighbouring empire. The Syrian manufactures themselves, _e.g._
of linen and silk, were stimulated by the very import of the similar
Babylonian articles of commerce, and, like these, the leather and skin
goods, the ointments, the spices, the slaves of the East, came during
the imperial period to a very considerable extent by way of Syria to
Italy and the West in general. But this always remained characteristic
of these primitive seats of commercial intercourse, that the men of
Sidon and their countrymen, in this matter very different from the
Egyptians, not merely sold their goods to those of other lands, but
themselves conveyed them thither, and, as the ship-captains in Syria
formed a prominent and respected class,[136] so Syrian merchants and
Syrian factories in the imperial period were to be found nearly as much
everywhere as in the remote times of which Homer tells. The Tyrians
had such factories in the two great import-harbours of Italy, Ostia
and Puteoli, and, as these themselves in their documents describe
their establishments as the greatest and most spacious of their kind,
so in the description of the earth which we have often quoted, Tyre
is named the first place of the East for commerce and traffic[137];
in like manner Strabo brings forward as a specialty at Tyre and at
Aradus the unusually high houses, consisting of many stories. Berytus
and Damascus, and certainly many other Syrian and Phoenician commercial
towns, had similar factories in the Italian ports.[138] Accordingly we
find, particularly in the later period of the empire, Syrian merchants,
chiefly Apamean, settled not merely in all Italy but likewise in all
the larger emporia of the West, at Salonae in Dalmatia, Apulum in
Dacia, Malaca in Spain, but above all in Gaul and Germany, _e.g._
at Bordeaux, Lyons, Paris, Orleans, Treves, so that these Syrian
Christians also, like the Jews, live according to their own customs and
make use of their Greek in their meetings.[139]

The state of things formerly described among the Antiochenes and the
Syrian cities generally becomes intelligible only on this basis. The
world of rank there consisted of rich manufacturers and merchants, the
bulk of the population of the labourers and the mariners;[140] and, as
later the riches acquired in the East flowed to Genoa and Venice, so
then the commercial gains of the West flowed back to Tyre and Apamea.
With the extensive field of traffic that lay open to these traders on
a great scale, and with the on the whole moderate frontier and inland
tolls, the Syrian export trade, embracing a great part of the most
lucrative and most transportable articles, already brought enormous
capital sums into their hands; and their business was not confined to
native goods.[141] What comfort of life once prevailed here we learn,
not from the scanty remains of the great cities that have perished, but
from the more forsaken than desolated region on the right bank of the
Orontes, from Apamea on to the point where the river turns towards the
sea. In this district of about a hundred miles in length there still
stand the ruins of nearly a hundred townships, with whole streets still
recognisable, the buildings with the exception of the roofs executed
in massive stone-work, the dwelling-houses surrounded by colonnades,
embellished with galleries and balconies, windows and portals richly
and often tastefully decorated with stone arabesques, with gardens
and baths laid out, with farm-offices in the ground-story, stables,
wine and oil presses hewn in the rocks,[142] as also large burial
chambers likewise hewn in the rock, filled with sarcophagi, and with
the entrances adorned with pillars. Traces of public life are nowhere
met with; it is the country-dwellings of the merchants and of the
manufacturers of Apamea and Antioch, whose assured prosperity and solid
enjoyment of life are attested by these ruins. These settlements, of
quite a uniform character, belong throughout to the late times of the
empire, the oldest to the beginning of the fourth century, the latest
to the middle of the sixth, immediately before the onslaught of Islam,
under which this prosperous and flourishing life succumbed. Christian
symbols and Biblical language are everywhere met with, and likewise
stately churches and ecclesiastical structures. The development of
culture, however, did not begin merely under Constantine, but simply
grew and became consolidated in those centuries. Certainly those
stone-buildings were preceded by similar villa and garden structures of
a less enduring kind. The regeneration of the imperial government after
the confused troubles of the third century has its expression in the
upward impulse which the Syrian mercantile world then received; but up
to a certain degree this picture of it left to us may be referred also
to the earlier imperial period.

      *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: Jewish traffic.]

The relations of the Jews in the time of the Roman empire were so
peculiar and, one might say, so little dependent on the province
which was named in the earlier period after them, in the later rather
by the revived name of the Philistaeans or Palaestinenses, that, as
we have already said, it appeared more suitable to treat of them in a
separate section. The little which is to be remarked as to the land
of Palestine, especially the not unimportant share of its maritime
and partly also of its inland towns in Syrian industry and Syrian
trade, has already been mentioned in the exposition given above of
these matters. The Jewish Diaspora had already, before the destruction
of the temple, extended in such a way that Jerusalem, even while it
still stood, was more a symbol than a home, very much as the city of
Rome was for the so-called Roman burgesses of later times. The Jews of
Antioch and Alexandria, and the numerous similar societies of lesser
rights and minor repute took part, as a matter of course, in the
commerce and intercourse of the places where they dwelt. Their Judaism
comes into account in the case only perhaps so far as the feelings
of mutual hatred and mutual contempt, which had become developed or
rather increased since the destruction of the temple, and the repeated
national-religious wars between Jews and non-Jews must have exercised
their effect also in these circles. As the Syrian merchants resident
abroad met together in the first instance for the worship of their
native deities, the Syrian Jew in Puteoli cannot well have belonged to
the Syrian merchant-guilds there; and, if the worship of the Syrian
gods found more and more an echo abroad, that which benefited the other
Syrians drew one barrier the more between the Syrians believing in
Moses and the Italians. If those Jews who had found a home outside of
Palestine, attached themselves beyond it not to those who shared their
dwelling-place but to those who shared their religion, as they could
not but do, they thereby renounced the esteem and the toleration which
the Alexandrians and the Antiochenes and the like met with abroad, and
were taken for what they professed to be--Jews. The Palestinian Jews of
the West, however, had for the most part not originated from mercantile
emigration, but were captives of war or descendants of such, and
in every respect homeless; the Pariah position which the children
of Abraham occupied, especially in the Roman capital--that of the
mendicant Jew, whose household furniture consisted in his bundle of hay
and his usurer’s basket, and for whom no service was too poor and too
menial--linked itself with the slave-market. Under these circumstances
we can understand why the Jews during the imperial period played in
the West a subordinate part alongside of the Syrians. The religious
fellowship of the mercantile and proletarian immigrants told heavily on
the collective body of the Jews, along with the general disparagement
connected with their position. But that Diaspora, as well as this, had
little to do with Palestine.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: Province of Arabia.]

There remains still a frontier territory to be looked at, which is not
often mentioned, and which yet well deserves consideration; it is the
Roman province of Arabia. It bears its name wrongly; the emperor who
erected it, Trajan, was a man of big deeds but still bigger words. The
Arabian peninsula, which separates the region of the Euphrates from
the valley of the Nile, lacking in rain, without rivers, on all sides
surrounded by a rocky coast poor in harbours, was little fitted for
agriculture or for commerce, and in old times by far the greater part
of it remained the undisputed heritage of the unsettled inhabitants of
the desert. In particular the Romans, who understood how to restrict
their possession in Asia as in Egypt better than any other of the
changing powers in the ascendant, never even attempted to subdue the
Arabian peninsula. Their few enterprises against its south-eastern
portion, the most rich in products, and from its relation to India the
most important also for commerce, will be set forth when we discuss the
business-relations of Egypt. Roman Arabia, even as a Roman client-state
and especially as a Roman province, embraced only a moderate portion of
the north of the peninsula, but, in addition, the land to the south
and east of Palestine between this and the great desert till beyond
Bostra. At the same time with this let us take into account the country
belonging to Syria between Bostra and Damascus, which is now usually
named after the Haurân mountains, according to its old designation
Trachonitis and Batanaea.

[Sidenote: Conditions of culture in eastern Syria.]

These extensive regions were only to be gained for civilisation under
special conditions. The steppe-country proper (Hamâd) to the eastward
from the region with which we are now occupied as far as the Euphrates,
was never taken possession of by the Romans, and was incapable of
cultivation; only the roving tribes of the desert, such as at the
present day the Haneze, traverse it, to pasture their horses and camels
in winter along the Euphrates, in summer on the mountains south of
Bostra, and often to change the pasture-ground several times in the
year. The pastoral tribes settled westward of the steppe, who pursue in
particular the breeding of sheep to a great extent, stand already at a
higher degree of culture. But there is manifold room for agriculture
also in these districts. The red earth of the Haurân, decomposed lava,
yields in its primitive state much wild rye, wild barley, and wild
oats, and furnishes the finest wheat. Individual deep valleys in the
midst of the stone-deserts, such as the “seed-field,” the Ruhbe in
the Trachonitis, are the most fertile tracts in all Syria; without
ploughing, to say nothing of manuring, wheat yields on the average
eighty and barley a hundredfold, and twenty-six stalks from one grain
of wheat are not uncommon. Nevertheless no fixed dwelling-place was
formed here, because in the summer months the great heat and the want
of water and pasture compel the inhabitants to migrate to the mountain
pastures of the Haurân. But there was not wanting opportunity even
for fixed settlement. The garden-quarter around the town of Damascus,
watered by the river Baradâ in its many arms, and the fertile even now
populous districts which enclose it on the east, north, and south,
were in ancient as in modern times the pearl of Syria. The plain round
Bostra, particularly the so-called Nukra to the west of it, is at the
present day the granary for Syria, although from the want of rain on
an average every fourth harvest is lost, and the locusts often invading
it from the neighbouring desert remain a scourge of the land which
cannot be exterminated. Wherever the water-courses of the mountains are
led into the plain, fresh life flourishes amidst them. “The fertility
of this region,” says one who knows it well, “is inexhaustible; and
even at the present day, where the Nomads have left neither tree nor
shrub, the land, so far as the eye reaches, is like a garden.” Even on
the lava-surfaces of the mountainous districts the lava-streams have
left not a few places (termed Kâ’ in the Haurân), free for cultivation.

This natural condition has, as a rule, handed over the country to
shepherds and robbers. The necessarily nomadic character of a great
part of the population leads to endless feuds, particularly about
places of pasture, and to constant seizures of those regions which
are suited for fixed settlement; here, still more than elsewhere,
there is need for the formation of such political powers as are in a
position to procure quiet and peace on a wider scale, and for these
there is no right basis in the population. There is hardly a region
in the wide world in which, so much as in this case, civilisation has
not grown up spontaneously, but could only be called into existence by
the ascendency of conquest from without. When military stations hem in
the roving tribes of the desert and force those within the limit of
cultivation to a peaceful pastoral life, when colonists are conducted
to the regions capable of culture, and the waters of the mountains are
led by human hands into the plains, then, but only then, a cheerful and
plentiful life thrives in this region.

[Sidenote: Greek influence in eastern Syria.]

The pre-Roman period had not brought such blessings to these lands.
The inhabitants of the whole territory as far as Damascus belong to
the Arabian branch of the great Semitic stock; the names of persons
at least are throughout Arabic. In it, as in northern Syria, Oriental
and Occidental civilisation met; yet up to the time of the empire the
two had made but little progress. The language and the writing, which
the Nabataeans used, were those of Syria and of the Euphrates-lands,
and could only have come from thence to the natives. On the other hand
the Greek settlement in Syria extended itself, in part at least, also
to these regions. The great commercial town of Damascus had become
Greek with the rest of Syria. The Seleucids had carried the founding
of Greek towns even into the region beyond the Jordan, especially into
the northern Decapolis; further to the south at least the old Rabbath
Ammon had been converted by the Lagids into the city of Philadelphia.
But further away and in the eastern districts bordering on the desert
the Nabataean kings were not much more than nominally obedient to
the Syrian or Egyptian Alexandrids, and coins or inscriptions and
buildings, which might be attributed to pre-Roman Hellenism, have
nowhere come to light.

[Sidenote: Arrangements of Pompeius.]

When Syria became Roman, Pompeius exerted himself to strengthen the
Hellenic urban system, which he found in existence; as indeed the towns
of the Decapolis subsequently reckoned their years from the year 690-91
{64-63. B.C.}, in which Palestine had been added to the empire.[143]
But in this region the government as well as the civilisation continued
to be left to the two vassal-states, the Jewish and the Arabian.

[Sidenote: The territory of Herod beyond the Jordan.]

Of the king of the Jews, Herod and his house, we shall have to speak
elsewhere; here we have to mention his activity in the extending of
civilisation toward the east. His field of dominion stretched over
both banks of the Jordan in all its extent, northwards as far at
least as Chelbon north-west from Damascus, southward as far as the
Dead Sea, while the region farther to the east between his kingdom
and the desert was assigned to the king of the Arabians. He and his
descendants, who still bore sway here after the annexation of the
lordship of Jerusalem down to Trajan, and subsequently resided in
Caesarea Paneas in the southern Lebanon, had endeavoured energetically
to tame the natives. The oldest evidences of a certain culture in these
regions are doubtless the cave-towns, of which there is mention in
the Book of Judges, large subterranean collective hiding-places made
habitable by air-shafts, with streets and wells, fitted to shelter men
and flocks, difficult to be found and, even when found, difficult to
be reduced. Their mere existence shows the oppression of the peaceful
inhabitants by the unsettled sons of the steppe. “These districts,”
says Josephus, when he describes the state of things in the Haurân
under Augustus, “were inhabited by wild tribes, without towns and
without fixed fields, who harboured with their flocks under the earth
in caves with narrow entrance and wide intricate paths, but copiously
supplied with water and provisions were difficult to be subdued.”
Several of these cave-towns contained as many as 400 head. A remarkable
edict of the first or second Agrippa, fragments of which have been
found at Canatha (Kanawât), summons the inhabitants to leave off their
“animal-conditions” and to exchange their cavern-life for civilised
existence. The non-settled Arabs live chiefly by the plundering partly
of the neighbouring peasants, partly of caravans on the march; the
uncertainty was increased by the fact that the petty prince Zenodorus
of Abila to the north of Damascus, in the Anti-Libanus, to whom
Augustus had committed the superintendence over the Trachon, preferred
to make common cause with the robbers and secretly shared in their
gains. Just in consequence of this the emperor assigned this region
to Herod, and his remorseless energy succeeded, in some measure,
in repressing this brigandage. The king appears to have instituted
on the east frontier a line of military posts, fortified and put
under royal commanders (ἔπαρχοι). He would have achieved still more
if the Nabataean territory had not afforded the robbers an asylum;
this was one of the causes of variance between him and his Arabian
colleague.[144] His Hellenising tendency comes into prominence in this
domain as strongly and less unpleasantly than in his government at
home. As all the coins of Herod and the Herodians are Greek, so in the
land beyond the Jordan, while the oldest monument with an inscription
that we know--the Temple of Baalsamin at Canatha--bears an Aramaean
dedication, the honorary bases erected there, including one for Herod
the Great,[145] are bilingual or merely Greek; under his successors
Greek rules alone.

[Sidenote: The kingdom of Nabat.]

By the side of the Jewish kings stood the formerly-mentioned (iv. 140)
{iv. 134.} “king of Nabat,” as he called himself. The residence of
this Arabian prince was the city, known to us only by its Greek name
Petra, a rock-fastness situated midway between the Dead Sea and the
north-east extremity of the Arabian Gulf, from of old an emporium for
the traffic of India and Arabia with the region of the Mediterranean.
These rulers possessed the northern half of the Arabian peninsula;
their power extended on the Arabian Gulf as far as Leuce Come opposite
to the Egyptian town of Berenice, in the interior at least as far
as the region of the old Thaema.[146] To the north of the peninsula
their territory reached as far as Damascus, which was under their
protection,[147] and even beyond Damascus[148], and enclosed as with
a girdle the whole of Palestinian Syria. The Romans, after taking
possession of Judaea, came into hostile contact with them, and Marcus
Scaurus led an expedition against them. At that time their subjugation
was not accomplished; but it must have ensued soon afterwards.[149]
Under Augustus their king Obodas was just as subject to the empire[150]
as Herod the king of the Jews, and rendered, like the latter, military
service in the Roman expedition against southern Arabia. Since that
time the protection of the imperial frontier in the south as in the
east of Syria, as far up as to Damascus, must have lain mainly in
the hands of this Arabian king. With his Jewish neighbour he was at
constant feud. Augustus, indignant that the Arabian instead of seeking
justice at the hand of his suzerain against Herod, had encountered the
latter with arms, and that Obodas’s son, Harethath, or in Greek Aretas,
after the death of his father, instead of waiting for investiture, had
at once entered upon the dominion, was on the point of deposing the
latter and of joining his territory to the Jewish; but the misrule of
Herod in his later years withheld him from this step, and so Aretas was
confirmed (about 747 U.C.) {7 B.C.}. Some decades later he began again
warfare at his own hand against his son-in-law, the prince of Galilee,
Herod Antipas, on account of the divorce of his daughter in favour of
the beautiful Herodias. He retained the upper hand, but the indignant
suzerain Tiberius ordered the governor of Syria to proceed against
him. The troops were already on the march, when Tiberius died (37);
and his successor, Gaius, who did not wish well to Antipas, pardoned
the Arabian. King Maliku or Malchus, the successor of Aretas, fought
under Nero and Vespasian in the Jewish war as a Roman vassal, and
transmitted his dominion to his son Dabel, the contemporary of Trajan,
and the last of these rulers. More especially after the annexation of
the state of Jerusalem and the reducing of the respectable dominion of
Herod to the far from martial kingdom of Caesarea Paneas, the Arabian
was the most considerable of the Syrian client-states, as indeed it
furnished the strongest among the royal contingents to the Roman army
besieging Jerusalem. This state even under Roman supremacy refrained
from the use of the Greek language; the coins struck under the rule
of its kings bear, apart from Damascus, an Aramaic legend. But there
appear the germs of an organised condition and of civilised government.
The coinage itself probably only began after the state had come under
Roman clientship. The Arabian-Indian traffic with the region of the
Mediterranean moved in great part along the caravan-route watched over
by the Romans, running from Leuce Come by way of Petra to Gaza.[151]
The princes of the Nabataean kingdom made use, just like the community
of Palmyra, of Greek official designations for their magistrates,
_e.g._ of the titles of Eparch and of Strategos. If under Tiberius the
good order of Syria brought about by the Romans and the security of the
harvests occasioned by their military occupation are made prominent
as matters of boasting, this is primarily to be referred to the
arrangements made in the client-states of Jerusalem or subsequently of
Caesarea Paneas and of Petra.

[Sidenote: Institution of the province of Arabia.]

Under Trajan the direct rule of Rome took the place of these two
client-states. In the beginning of his reign king Agrippa II. died,
and his territory was united with the province of Syria. Not long
after, in the year 106, the governor Aulus Cornelius Palma broke up
the previous dominion of the kings of Nabat, and made the greater
part of it into the Roman province of Arabia, while Damascus went
to Syria, and what the Nabataean king had possessed in the interior
of Arabia was abandoned by the Romans. The erection of Arabia is
designated as subjugation, and the coins also which celebrate the
taking possession of it attest that the Nabataeans offered resistance,
as indeed generally the nature of their territory as well as their
previous attitude lead us to assume a relative independence on the part
of these princes. But the historical significance of these events may
not be sought in warlike success; the two annexations, which doubtless
went together, were no more than acts of administration carried out
perhaps by military power, and the tendency to acquire these domains
for civilisation and specially for Hellenism was only heightened
by the fact that the Roman government took upon itself the work.
The Hellenism of the East, as summed up in Alexander, was a church
militant, a thoroughly conquering power pushing its way in a political,
religious, economic, and literary point of view. Here, on the edge of
the desert, under the pressure of anti-Hellenic Judaism and in the
hands of the spiritless and vacillating government of the Seleucids,
it had hitherto achieved little. But now, pervading the Roman system,
it develops a motive power, which stands related to the earlier, as
the power of the Jewish and the Arabian vassal-princes to that of the
Roman empire. In this country, where everything depended and depends
on protecting the state of peace by the setting up of a superior and
standing military force, the institution of a legionary camp in Bostra
under a commander of senatorial rank was an epoch-making event. From
this centre the requisite posts were established at suitable places
and provided with garrisons. For example, the stronghold of Namara
(Nemâra) deserves mention, a long day’s march beyond the boundaries of
the properly habitable mountain-land, in the midst of the stony desert,
but commanding the only spring to be found within it and the forts
attached to it in the already mentioned oasis of Ruhbe and further on
at Jebel Sês; these garrisons together control the whole projection of
the Haurân. Another series of forts, placed under the Syrian command
and primarily under that of the legion posted at Danava (p. 95), and
laid out at uniform distances of three leagues apart, secured the route
from Damascus to Palmyra; the best known of them, the second in the
series, was that of Dmêr (p. 149, n. 1), a rectangle of 300 and 350
paces respectively, provided on every side with six towers and a portal
fifteen paces in breadth, and surrounded by a ring-wall of sixteen feet
thick, once faced outwardly with beautiful blocks of hewn stone.

[Sidenote: The civilisation of east Syria under Roman rule.]

Never had such an aegis been extended over this land. It was not,
properly speaking, denationalised. The Arabic names remained down to
the latest time, although not unfrequently, just as in Syria (p. 121),
a Romano-Hellenic name is appended to the local one; thus a sheikh
names himself “Adrianos or Soaidos, son of Malechos.”[152] The native
worship also remains unaffected; the chief deity of the Nabataeans,
Dusaris, is doubtless compared with Dionysus, but regularly continues
to be worshipped under his local name, and down to a late period the
Bostrenes celebrate the Dusaria in honour of him.[153] In like manner
in the province of Arabia temples continue to be consecrated, and
offerings presented to Aumu or Helios, to Vasaeathu, to Theandritos,
to Ethaos. The tribes and the tribal organisation no less continue:
the inscriptions mention lists of “Phylae” by the native name, and
frequently Phylarchs or Ethnarchs. But alongside of traditional customs
civilisation and Hellenising make progress. If from the time before
Trajan no Greek monument can be shown in the sphere of the Nabataean
state, on the other hand no monument subsequent to Trajan’s time in
the Arabic language has been found there;[154] to all appearance the
imperial government suppressed at once upon the annexation the written
use of Arabic, although it certainly remained the language proper of
the country, as is attested not only by the proper names but by the
“interpreter of the tax-receivers.”

[Sidenote: Agriculture and commerce.]

As to the advance of agriculture we have no witnesses to speak; but
if, on the whole eastern and southern slope of the Haurân, from
the summits of the mountains down to the desert, the stones, with
which this volcanic plain was once strewed, are thrown into heaps or
arranged in long rows, and thus the most glorious fields are obtained,
we may recognise therein the hand of the only government which has
governed this land as it might and should be governed. In the Ledjâ,
a lava-plateau thirteen leagues long and eight to nine broad, which
is now almost uninhabited, there grew once vines and figs between the
streams of lava; the Roman road connecting Bostra with Damascus ran
across it; in the Ledjâ and around it are counted the ruins of twelve
larger and thirty-nine smaller townships. It can be shown that, at
the bidding of the same governor who erected the province of Arabia,
the mighty aqueduct was constructed which led the water from the
mountains of the Haurân to Canatha (Kerak) in the plain, and not far
from it a similar one in Arrha (Rahâ)--buildings of Trajan, which may
be named by the side of the port of Ostia and the Forum of Rome. The
flourishing of commercial intercourse is attested by the very choice
of the capital of the new province. Bostra existed under the Nabataean
government, and an inscription of king Malichu has been found there;
but its military and commercial importance begins with the introduction
of direct Roman government. “Bostra,” says Wetzstein, “has the most
favourable situation of all the towns in eastern Syria; even Damascus,
which owes its size to the abundance of its water and to its situation
protected by the eastern Trachon, will excel Bostra only under a weak
government, while the latter under a strong and wise government must
elevate itself in a few decades to a fabulous prosperity. It is the
great market for the Syrian desert: the high mountains of Arabia and
Peraea, and its long rows of booths of stone still in their desolation,
furnish evidence of the reality of an earlier, and the possibility of
a future, greatness.” The remains of the Roman road, leading thence by
way of Salchat and Ezrak to the Persian Gulf, show that Bostra was,
along with Petra and Palmyra, a medium of traffic from the East to the
Mediterranean. This town was probably constituted on a Hellenic basis
already by Trajan; at least it is called thenceforth the “new Trajanic
Bostra,” and the Greek coins begin with Pius, while later the legend
becomes Latin in consequence of the bestowal of colonial rights by
Alexander.

Petra too had a Greek municipal constitution already under Hadrian, and
several other places subsequently received municipal rights; but in
this territory of the Arabians down to the latest period the tribe and
the tribal village preponderated.

[Sidenote: Stone buildings of eastern Syria.]

A peculiar civilisation was developed from the mixture of national and
Greek elements in these regions during the five hundred years between
Trajan and Mohammed. A fuller picture of it has been preserved to us
than of other forms of the ancient world, inasmuch as the structures
of Petra, in great part worked out of the rock, and the buildings in
the Haurân, executed entirely of stone owing to the want of wood,
comparatively little injured by the sway of the Bedouins which was
here again installed with Islam in its old misrule, are still to a
considerable degree extant to the present day, and throw a clear light
on the artistic skill and the manner of life of those centuries. The
above-mentioned temple of Baalsamin at Canatha, certainly built under
Herod, shows in its original portions a complete diversity from Greek
architecture and in the structural plan remarkable analogies with the
temple-building of the same king in Jerusalem, while the pictorial
representations shunned in the latter are by no means wanting here. A
similar state of things has been observed in the monuments found at
Petra. Afterwards further steps were taken. If under the Jewish and the
Nabataean rulers culture freed itself but slowly from the influences
of the East, a new time seems to have begun here with the transfer of
the legion to Bostra. “Building,” says an excellent French observer,
Melchior de Vogué, “obtained thereby an impetus which was not again
arrested. Everywhere rose houses, palaces, baths, temples, theatres,
aqueducts, triumphal arches; towns sprang from the ground within a few
years with the regular construction and the symmetrically disposed
colonnades which mark towns without a past, and which are as it were
the inevitable uniform for this part of Syria during the imperial
period.” The eastern and southern slope of the Haurân shows nearly
three hundred such desolated towns and villages, while there only five
new townships now exist; several of the former, _e.g._ Bûsân, number as
many as 800 houses of one to two stories, built throughout of basalt,
with well-jointed walls of square blocks without cement, with doors
mostly ornamented and often provided with inscriptions, the flat roof
formed of stone-rafters, which are supported by stone arches and made
rain-proof above by a layer of cement. The town-wall is usually formed
only by the backs of the houses joined together, and is protected by
numerous towers. The poor attempts at re-colonising of recent times
find the houses habitable; there is wanting only the diligent hand of
man, or rather the strong arm that protects it. In front of the gates
lie the cisterns, often subterranean, or provided with an artificial
stone roof, many of which are still at the present day, when this
deserted seat of towns has become pasturage, kept up by the Bedouins in
order to water their flocks from them in summer. The style of building
and the practice of art have doubtless preserved some remains of the
older Oriental type, _e.g._ the frequent form, for a tomb, of the cube
crowned with a pyramid, perhaps also the pigeon-towers often added to
the tomb, still frequent in the present day throughout Syria; but,
taken on the whole, the style is the usual Greek one of the imperial
period. Only the absence of wood has here called forth a development of
the stone arch and the cupola, which technically and artistically lends
to these buildings an original character. In contrast to the customary
repetition elsewhere usual of traditional forms there prevails here an
architecture independently suiting the exigencies and the conditions,
moderate in ornamentation, thoroughly sound and rational, and not
destitute even of elegance. The burial-places, which are cut out in
the rock-walls rising to the east and west of Petra and in their
lateral valleys, with their façades of Doric or Corinthian pillars
often placed in several tiers one above another, and their pyramids and
propylaea reminding us of the Egyptian Thebes, are not artistically
pleasing, but imposing by their size and richness. Only a stirring
life and a high prosperity could display such care for its dead. In
presence of these architectural monuments it is not surprising that the
inscriptions make mention of a theatre in the “village” (κώμη) Sakkaea
and a “theatre-shaped Odeon” in Canatha, and a local poet of Namara in
Batanaea celebrates himself as a “master of the glorious art of proud
Ausonian song.”[155] Thus at this eastern limit of the empire there
was gained for Hellenic civilisation a frontier-domain which may be
compared with the Romanised region of the Rhine; the arched and domed
buildings of eastern Syria well stand comparison with the castles and
tombs of the nobles and of the great merchants of Belgica.

[Sidenote: The south-Arabian immigration before Mohammed.]

But the end came. As to the Arabian tribes who immigrated to this
region from the south, the historical tradition of the Romans is
silent, and what the late records of the Arabs report as to that of
the Ghassanids and their precursors, can hardly be fixed, at least as
to chronology.[156] But the Sabaeans, after whom the place Borechath
(Brêka to the north of Kanawât) is named, appear in fact to be
south-Arabian emigrants; and these were already settled here in the
third century. They and their associates may have come in peace and
become settled under Roman protection, perhaps even may have carried
to Syria the highly-developed and luxuriant culture of south-western
Arabia. So long as the empire kept firmly together and each of these
tribes was under its own sheikh, all obeyed the Roman lord-paramount.
But in order the better to meet the Arabians or--as they were now
called--Saracens of the Persian empire united under one king,
Justinian, during the Persian war in the year 531, placed all the
phylarchs of the Saracens subject to the Romans under Aretas son of
Gabalus--Harith Abu son of Chaminos among the Arabs--and bestowed on
this latter the title of king, which hitherto, it is added, had never
been done. This king of all the Arabian tribes settled in Syria was
still a vassal of the empire; but, while he warded off his countrymen,
he at the same time prepared the place for them. A century later, in
the year 637, Arabia and Syria succumbed to Islam.



CHAPTER XI.

JUDAEA AND THE JEWS.


The history of the Jewish land is as little the history of the Jewish
people as the history of the States of the Church is that of the
Catholics; it is just as requisite to separate the two as to consider
them together.

[Sidenote: Judaea and the priestly rule under the Seleucids.]

The Jews in the land of the Jordan, with whom the Romans had to do,
were not the people who under their judges and kings fought with Moab
and Edom, and listened to the discourses of Amos and Hosea. The small
community of pious exiles, driven out by foreign rule, and brought
back again by a change in the hands wielding that rule, who began
their new establishment by abruptly repelling the remnants of their
kinsmen left behind in the old abodes and laying the foundation for the
irreconcilable feud between Jews and Samaritans--the ideal of national
exclusiveness and priestly control holding the mind in chains--had
long before the Roman period developed under the government of the
Seleucids the so-called Mosaic theocracy, a clerical corporation with
the high-priest at its head, which, acquiescing in foreign rule and
renouncing the formation of a state, guarded the distinctiveness of its
adherents, and dominated them under the aegis of the protecting power.
This retention of the national character in religious forms, while
ignoring the state, was the distinctive mark of the later Judaism.
Probably every idea of God is in its formation national; but no other
God has been so from the outset the God only of his people as Jahve,
and no one has so remained such without distinction of time and place.
Those men returning to the Holy Land, who professed to live according
to the statutes of Moses and in fact lived according to the statutes
of Ezra and Nehemiah,[157] had remained just as dependent on the
great-kings of the East, and subsequently on the Seleucids, as they had
been by the waters of Babylon. A political element no more attached
to this organisation than to the Armenian or the Greek Church under
its patriarchs in the Turkish empire; no free current of political
development pervades this clerical restoration; none of the grave
and serious obligations of a commonwealth standing on its own basis
hampered the priests of the temple of Jerusalem in the setting up of
the kingdom of Jahve upon earth.

[Sidenote: Kingdom of the Hasmonaeans.]

The reaction did not fail to come. That church-without-a-state could
only last so long as a secular great power served it as lord-protector
or as bailiff. When the kingdom of the Seleucids fell into decay, a
Jewish commonwealth was created afresh by the revolt against foreign
rule, which drew its best energies precisely from the enthusiastic
national faith. The high priest of Salem was called from the temple
to the battlefield. The family of the Hasmonaeans restored the empire
of Saul and David nearly in its old limits, and not only so, but
these warlike high priests renewed also in some measure the former
truly political monarchy controlling the priests. But that monarchy,
at once the product of, and the contrast to, that priestly rule,
was not according to the heart of the pious. The Pharisees and the
Sadducees separated and began to make war on one another. It was not
so much doctrines and ritual differences that here confronted each
other, as, on the one hand, the persistence in a priestly government
which simply clung to religious ordinances and interests, and
otherwise was indifferent to the independence and the self-control of
the community; on the other hand, the monarchy aiming at political
development and endeavouring to procure for the Jewish people, by
fighting and by treaty, its place once more in the political conflict,
of which the Syrian kingdom was at that time the arena. The former
tendency dominated the multitude, the latter had the preponderance in
intelligence and in the upper classes; its most considerable champion
was king Iannaeus Alexander, who during his whole reign was at enmity
not less with the Syrian rulers than with his own Pharisees (iv. 139)
{iv. 133}. Although it was properly but the other, and in fact the more
natural and more potent, expression of the national revival, it yet by
its greater freedom of thinking and acting came into contact with the
Hellenic character, and was regarded especially by its pious opponents
as foreign and unbelieving.

[Sidenote: The Jewish Diaspora.]

But the inhabitants of Palestine were only a portion, and not the most
important portion, of the Jews; the Jewish communities of Babylonia,
Syria, Asia Minor, Egypt, were far superior to those of Palestine even
after their regeneration by the Maccabees. The Jewish Diaspora in the
imperial period was of more significance than the latter; and it was an
altogether peculiar phenomenon.

The settlements of the Jews beyond Palestine grew only in a subordinate
degree out of the same impulse as those of the Phoenicians and the
Hellenes. From the outset an agricultural people and dwelling far from
the coast, their settlements abroad were a non-free and comparatively
late formation, a creation of Alexander or of his marshals.[158] In
those immense efforts at founding Greek towns continued throughout
generations, such as never before and never afterwards occurred to a
like extent, the Jews had a conspicuous share, however singular it
was to invoke their aid in particular towards the Hellenising of the
East. This was the case above all with Egypt. The most considerable of
all the towns created by Alexander, Alexandria on the Nile, was since
the times of the first Ptolemy, who after the occupation of Palestine
transferred thither a mass of its inhabitants, almost as much a city
of the Jews as of the Greeks, and the Jews there were to be esteemed
at least equal to those of Jerusalem in number, wealth, intelligence,
and organisation. In the first times of the empire there was reckoned a
million of Jews to eight millions of Egyptians, and their influence, it
may be presumed, transcended this numerical proportion. We have already
observed that, on no smaller a scale, the Jews in the Syrian capital
of the empire had been similarly organised and developed (p. 127). The
diffusion and the importance of the Jews of Asia Minor are attested
among other things by the attempt which was made under Augustus by the
Ionian Greek cities, apparently after joint concert, to compel their
Jewish fellow townsmen either to withdrawal from their faith or to full
assumption of civic burdens. Beyond doubt there were independently
organised bodies of Jews in all the new Hellenic foundations,[159] and
withal in numerous old Hellenic towns, even in Hellas proper, _e.g._ in
Corinth. The organisation was placed throughout on the footing that the
nationality of the Jews with the far-reaching consequences drawn from
it by themselves was preserved, and only the use of the Greek language
was required of them. Thus amidst this Graecising, into which the East
was at that time coaxed or forced by those in authority, the Jews of
the Greek towns became Greek-speaking Orientals.

[Sidenote: Greek language.]

That in the Jew-communities of the Macedonian towns the Greek language
not merely attained to dominion in the natural way of intercourse, but
was a compulsory ordinance imposed upon them, seems of necessity to
result from the state of the case. In a similar way Trajan subsequently
Romanised Dacia with colonists from Asia Minor. Without this
compulsion, the external uniformity in the foundation of towns could
not have been carried out, and this material for Hellenising generally
could not have been employed. The governments went in this respect
very far and achieved much. Already under the second Ptolemy, and at
his instigation, the sacred writings of the Jews were translated into
Greek in Egypt, and at least at the beginning of the imperial period
the knowledge of Hebrew among the Jews of Alexandria was nearly as rare
as that of the original languages of Scripture is at present in the
Christian world; there was nearly as much discussion as to the faults
of translation of the so-called Seventy Alexandrians as on the part
of pious men among us regarding the errors of Luther’s translation.
The national language of the Jews had at this epoch disappeared
everywhere from the intercourse of life, and maintained itself only in
ecclesiastical use somewhat like the Latin language in the religious
domain of Catholicism. In Judaea itself its place had been taken by
the Aramaic popular language of Syria, akin no doubt to the Hebrew;
the Jews outside of Judaea, with whom we are concerned, had entirely
laid aside the Semitic idiom, and it was not till long after this
epoch that the reaction set in, which scholastically brought back the
knowledge and the use of it more generally among the Jews. The literary
works, which they produced at this epoch in great number, were in the
better times of the empire all Greek. If language alone conditioned
nationality, there would be little to tell for this period as to the
Jews.

[Sidenote: Retention of nationality.]

But with this linguistic compulsion, at first perhaps severely felt,
was combined the recognition of the distinctive nationality with
all its consequences. Everywhere in the cities of the monarchy of
Alexander the burgess-body was formed of the Macedonians, that is,
those really Macedonian, or the Hellenes esteemed equal to them. By
the side of these stood, in addition to foreigners, the natives, in
Alexandria the Egyptians, in Cyrene the Libyans and generally the
settlers from the East, who had indeed no other home than the new city,
but were not recognised as Hellenes. To this second category the Jews
belonged; but they, and they only, were allowed to form, so to speak,
a community within the community, and--while the other non-burgesses
were ruled by the authorities of the burgess-body--up to a certain
degree to govern themselves.[160] The “Jews,” says Strabo, “have in
Alexandria a national head (ἐθνάρχης) of their own, who presides over
the people (ἔθνος), and decides processes and disposes of contracts and
arrangements as if he ruled an independent community.” This was done,
because the Jews indicated a specific jurisdiction of this sort as
required by their nationality or--what amounts to the same thing--their
religion. Further, the general political arrangements had respect in
an extensive measure to the national-religious scruples of the Jews,
and accommodated them as far as possible by exemptions. The privilege
of dwelling together was at least frequently added; in Alexandria,
_e.g._ two of the five divisions of the city were inhabited chiefly
by Jews. This seems not to have been the Ghetto system, but rather a
usage resting on the basis of settlement to begin with, and thereafter
retained on both sides, whereby conflicts with neighbours were in some
measure obviated.

[Sidenote: Extent of the Diaspora.]

Thus the Jews came to play a prominent part in the Macedonian
Hellenising of the East; their pliancy and serviceableness on the
one hand, their unyielding tenacity on the other, must have induced
the very realistic statesmen who assigned this course of action,
to resolve on such arrangements. Nevertheless the extraordinary
extent and significance of the Jewish Diaspora, as compared with the
narrowness and poorness of their home, remains at once a fact and
a problem. In dealing with it we may not overlook the circumstance
that the Palestinian Jews furnished no more than the nucleus for the
Jews of other countries. The Judaism of the older time was anything
but exclusive; was, on the contrary, no less pervaded by missionary
zeal than were afterwards Christianity and Islam. The Gospel makes
reference to Rabbis who traversed sea and land to make a proselyte; the
admission of half-proselytes, of whom circumcision was not expected but
to whom religious fellowship was yet accorded, is an evidence of this
converting zeal and at the same time one of its most effective means.
Motives of very various kinds came to the help of this proselytising.
The civil privileges, which the Lagids and Seleucids conferred on
the Jews, must have induced a great number of non-Jewish Orientals
and half-Hellenes to attach themselves in the new towns to the
privileged category of the non-burgesses. In later times the decay of
the traditional faith of the country helped the Jewish _propaganda_.
Numerous persons, especially of the cultivated classes, whose sense
of faith and morality turned away with horror or derision from what
the Greeks, and still more from what the Egyptians termed religion,
sought refuge in the simpler and purer Jewish doctrine renouncing
polytheism and idolatry--a doctrine which largely met the religious
views resulting from the development of philosophy among the cultured
and half-cultured circles. There is a remarkable Greek moral poem,
probably from the later epoch of the Roman republic, which is drawn
from the Mosaic books on such a footing that it adopts the doctrine of
monotheism and the universal moral law, but avoids everything offensive
to the non-Jew and all direct opposition to the ruling religion,
evidently intended to gain wider acceptance for this denationalised
Judaism. Women in particular addicted themselves by preference to the
Jewish faith. When the authorities of Damascus in the year 66 resolved
to put to death the captive Jews, it was agreed to keep this resolution
secret, in order that the female population devoted to the Jews might
not prevent its execution. Even in the West, where the cultivated
circles were otherwise averse to Jewish habits, dames of rank early
formed an exception; Poppaea Sabina, Nero’s wife, sprung from a noble
family, was notorious for her pious Jewish faith and her zealous
protectorate of the Jews, as for other things less reputable. Cases of
formal transition to Judaism were not rare; the royal house of Adiabene
for example--king Izates and his mother Helena, as well as his brother
and successor--became at the time of Tiberius and of Claudius in every
respect Jews. It certainly was the case with all those Jewish bodies,
as it is expressly remarked of those of Antioch, that they consisted in
great part of proselytes.

[Sidenote: Hellenising tendencies in the Diaspora.]

This transplanting of Judaism to the Hellenic soil with the
appropriation of a foreign language, however much it took place with
a retention of national individuality, was not accomplished without
developing in Judaism itself a tendency running counter to its
nature, and up to a certain degree denationalising it. How powerfully
the bodies of Jews living amidst the Greeks were influenced by the
currents of Greek intellectual life, may be traced in the literature
of the last century before, and of the first after, the birth of
Christ. It is imbued with Jewish elements; and they are withal the
clearest heads and the most gifted thinkers, who seek admission either
as Hellenes into the Jewish, or as Jews into the Hellenic, system.
Nicolaus of Damascus, himself a Pagan and a noted representative of the
Aristotelian philosophy pleaded, as a scholar and diplomatist of king
Herod, the cause of his Jewish patron and of the Jews before Agrippa as
before Augustus; and not only so, but his historical authorship shows
a very earnest, and for that epoch significant, attempt to bring the
East into the circle of Occidental research, while the description
still preserved of the youthful years of the emperor Augustus, who
came personally into close contact with him, is a remarkable evidence
of the love and honour which the Roman ruler met with in the Greek
world. The dissertation on the Sublime, written in the first period
of the empire by an unknown author, one of the finest aesthetic works
preserved to us from antiquity, certainly proceeds, if not from a Jew,
at any rate from a man who revered alike Homer and Moses.[161] Another
treatise, also anonymous, upon the Universe--likewise an attempt,
respectable of its kind, to blend the doctrine of Aristotle with that
of the Stoa--was perhaps written also by a Jew, and dedicated certainly
to the Jew of highest repute and highest station in the Neronian age,
Tiberius Alexander (p. 204), chief of the staff to Corbulo and Titus.
The wedding of the two worlds of intellect meets us most clearly in
the Jewish-Alexandrian philosophy, the most acute and most palpable
expression of a religious movement, not merely affecting but also
attacking the essence of Judaism. The Hellenic intellectual development
conflicted with national religions of all sorts, inasmuch as it
either denied their views or else filled them with other contents,
drove out the previous gods from the minds of men and put into the
empty places either nothing, or the stars and abstract ideas. These
attacks affected also the religion of the Jews. There was formed a
Neo-Judaism of Hellenic culture, which dealt with Jehovah not quite
so badly, but yet not much otherwise, than the cultivated Greeks and
Romans with Zeus and Jupiter. The universal expedient of the so-called
allegorical interpretation, whereby in particular the philosophers
of the Stoa everywhere in courteous fashion eliminated the heathen
national religions, suited equally well and equally ill for Genesis as
for the gods of the Iliad; if Moses had meant by Abraham in a strict
sense understanding, by Sarah virtue, by Noah righteousness, if the
four streams of Paradise were the four cardinal virtues, then the most
enlightened Hellene might believe in the Law. But this pseudo-Judaism
was also a power, and the intellectual primacy of the Jews in Egypt was
apparent above all in the fact, that this tendency found pre-eminently
its supporters in Alexandria.

[Sidenote: Fellowship of the Jews generally.]

Notwithstanding the internal separation which had taken place among
the Jews of Palestine and had but too often culminated directly in
civil war, notwithstanding the dispersion of a great part of the
Jewish body into foreign lands, notwithstanding the intrusion of
foreign ingredients into it and even of the destructive Hellenistic
element into its very core, the collective body of the Jews remained
united in a way, to which in the present day only the Vatican perhaps
and the Kaaba offer a certain analogy. The holy Salem remained the
banner, Zion’s temple the Palladium of the whole Jewish body, whether
they obeyed the Romans or the Parthians, whether they spoke Aramaic
or Greek, whether even they believed in the old Jahve or in the new,
who was none. The fact that the protecting ruler conceded to the
spiritual chief of the Jews a certain secular power signified for the
Jewish body just as much, and the small extent of this power just as
little, as the so-called States of the Church in their time signified
for Roman Catholics. Every member of a Jewish community had to pay
annually to Jerusalem a _didrachmon_ as temple-tribute, which came in
more regularly than the taxes of the state; every one was obliged at
least once in his life to sacrifice personally to Jehovah on the spot
which alone in the world was well-pleasing to Him. Theological science
remained common property; the Babylonian and Alexandrian Rabbis took
part in it not less than those of Jerusalem. The feeling, cherished
with unparalleled tenacity, of belonging collectively to one nation--a
feeling which had established itself in the community of the returning
exiles and had thereafter contributed to create that distinctive
position of the Jews in the Greek world--maintained its ground in spite
of dispersion and division.

[Sidenote: Philo.]

Most worthy of remark is the continued life of Judaism itself in
circles whose inward religion was detached from it. The most noted and,
for us, the single clearly palpable representative of this tendency in
literature, Philo, one of the foremost and richest Jews of the time
of Tiberius, stands in fact towards the religion of his country in a
position not greatly differing from that of Cicero towards the Roman;
but he himself believed that he was not destroying but fulfilling it.
For him as for every other Jew, Moses is the source of all truth, his
written direction binding law, the feeling towards him reverence and
devout belief. This sublimated Judaism is, however, not quite identical
with the so-called faith in the gods of the Stoa. The corporeality of
God vanishes for Philo, but not His personality, and he entirely fails
in--what is the essence of Hellenic philosophy--the transferring of the
deity into the breast of man; it remains his view that sinful man is
dependent on a perfect being standing outside of, and above, him. In
like manner the new Judaism submits itself to the national ritual law
far more unconditionally than the new heathenism. The struggle between
the old and the new faith was therefore of a different nature in the
Jewish circle than in the heathen, because the stake was a greater one;
reformed heathenism contended only against the old faith, reformed
Judaism would in its ultimate consequence destroy the nationality,
which amidst the inundation of Hellenism necessarily disappeared with
the refining away of the native faith, and therefore shrank back from
drawing this consequence. Hence on Greek soil and in Greek language the
form, if not the substance, of the old faith was retained and defended
with unexampled obstinacy, defended even by those who in substance
surrendered before Hellenism. Philo himself, as we shall have to tell
further on, contended and suffered for the cause of the Jews. But on
that account the Hellenistic tendency in Judaism never exercised an
overpowering influence over the latter, never was able to take its
stand against the national Judaism, and barely availed to mitigate its
fanaticism and to check its perversities and crimes. In all essential
matters, especially when confronted with oppression and persecution,
the differences of Judaism disappeared; and, unimportant as was the
Rabbinical state, the religious communion over which it presided was a
considerable and in certain circumstances formidable power.

[Sidenote: The Roman government and Judaism]

Such was the state of things which the Romans found confronting them
when they entered on rule in the East. Conquest forces the hand of
the conqueror not less than of the conquered. The work of centuries,
the Macedonian urban institutions, could not be undone either by
the Arsacids or by the Caesars; neither Seleucia on the Euphrates
nor Antioch and Alexandria could be entered upon by the following
governments under the benefit of the inventory. Probably in presence
of the Jewish Diaspora there the founder of the imperial government
took, as in so many other things, the policy of the first Lagids as his
guiding rule, and furthered rather than hampered the Judaism of the
East in its distinctive position; and this procedure thereupon became
throughout the model for his successors. We have already mentioned
that the communities of Asia Minor under Augustus made the attempt to
draw upon their Jewish fellow-citizens uniformly in the levy, and no
longer to allow them the observance of the Sabbath; but Agrippa decided
against them and maintained the _status quo_ in favour of the Jews,
or rather, perhaps, now for the first time legalised the exemption of
the Jews from military service and their Sabbath privilege, that had
been previously conceded according to circumstances only by individual
governors or communities of the Greek provinces. Augustus further
directed the governors of Asia not to apply the rigorous imperial
laws respecting unions and assemblies against the Jews. But the Roman
government did not fail to see that the exempt position conceded to
the Jews in the East was not compatible with the absolute obligation
of those belonging to the empire to fulfil the services required by
the state; that the guaranteed distinctive position of the Jewish body
carried the hatred of race and under certain circumstances civil war
into the several towns; that the pious rule of the authorities at
Jerusalem over all the Jews of the empire had a perilous range; and
that in all this there lay a practical injury and a danger in principle
for the state.

[Sidenote: in the West]

The internal dualism of the empire expresses itself in nothing more
sharply than in the different treatment of the Jews in the respective
domains of the Latin and Greek languages. In the West autonomous bodies
of Jews were never allowed. There was toleration doubtless there for
the Jewish religious usages as for the Syrian and the Egyptian, or
rather somewhat less than for these; Augustus showed himself favourable
to the Jewish colony in the suburb of Rome beyond the Tiber, and made
supplementary allowance in his largesses for those who missed them on
account of the Sabbath. But he personally avoided all contact with the
Jewish worship as with the Egyptian; and, as he himself when in Egypt
had gone out of the way of the sacred ox, so he thoroughly approved
the conduct of his son Gaius, when he went to the East, in passing
by Jerusalem. Under Tiberius in the year 19 the Jewish worship was
even prohibited along with the Egyptian in Rome and in all Italy, and
those who did not consent openly to renounce it and to throw the holy
vessels into the fire were expelled from Italy--so far as they could
not be employed as useful for military service in convict-companies,
whereupon not a few became liable to court-martial on account of their
religious scruples. If, as we shall see afterwards, this same emperor
in the East almost anxiously evaded every conflict with the Rabbi, it
is here plainly apparent that he, the ablest ruler whom the empire had,
just as clearly perceived the dangers of the Jewish immigration as the
unfairness and the impossibility of setting aside Judaism, where it
existed.[162] Under the later rulers, as we shall see in the sequel,
the attitude of disinclination towards the Jews of the West did not in
the main undergo change, although they in other respects follow more
the example of Augustus than that of Tiberius. They did not prevent
the Jews from collecting the temple-tribute in the form of voluntary
contributions and sending it to Jerusalem. They were not checked, if
they preferred to bring a legal dispute before a Jewish arbiter rather
than before a Roman tribunal. Of compulsory levy for service, such as
Tiberius enjoined, there is no further mention afterwards in the West.
But the Jews never obtained in heathen Rome or generally in the Latin
West a publicly recognised distinctive position and publicly recognised
separate courts. Above all in the West--apart from the capital, which
in the nature of the case represented the East also, and already in
Cicero’s time included in it a numerous body of Jews--the Jewish
communities nowhere had special extent or importance in the earlier
imperial period.[163]

[Sidenote: and in the East.]

It was only in the East that the government yielded from the first, or
rather made no attempt to change the existing state of things and to
obviate the dangers thence resulting; and accordingly, as the sacred
books of the Jews were first made known to the Latin world in the
Latin language by means of the Christians, the great Jewish movements
of the imperial period were restricted throughout to the Greek East.
Here no attempt was made gradually to stop the spring of hatred
towards the Jews by assigning to them a separate position in law, but
just as little--apart from the caprice and perversities of individual
rulers--was the hatred and persecution of the Jews fomented on the part
of the government. In reality the catastrophe of Judaism did not arise
from the treatment of the Jewish Diaspora in the East. It was simply
the relations, as they became fatefully developed, of the imperial
government to the Jewish Rabbinical state that not merely brought about
the destruction of the commonwealth of Jerusalem, but further shook and
changed the position of the Jews in the empire generally. We turn to
describe the events in Palestine under the Roman rule.

[Sidenote: Judaea under the republic.]

The state of things in northern Syria was organised by the generals
of the republic, Pompeius and his immediate successors, on such a
footing, that the larger powers that were beginning to be formed
there were again reduced, and the whole land was broken up into
single city-domains and petty lordships. The Jews were most severely
affected by this course; not merely were they obliged to give up all
the possessions which they had hitherto gained, particularly the whole
coast (iv. 142) {iv. 136.}, but Gabinius had even broken up the empire
formerly subsisting into five independent self-administering districts,
and withdrawn from the high priest Hyrcanus his secular privileges (iv.
158) {iv. 151.}. Thus, as the protecting power was restored on the one
hand, so was the pure theocracy on the other.

[Sidenote: Antipater the Idumaean.]

This, however, was soon changed. Hyrcanus, or rather the minister
governing for him, the Idumaean Antipater,[164] attained once more the
leading position in southern Syria doubtless through Gabinius himself,
to whom he knew how to make himself indispensable in his Parthian and
Egyptian undertakings (iv. 345) {iv. 329.}. After the pillage of the
temple of Jerusalem by Crassus the insurrection of the Jews thereby
occasioned was chiefly subdued by him (iv. 355) {iv. 339.}. It was
for him a fortunate dispensation that the Jewish government was not
compelled to interfere actively in the crisis between Caesar and
Pompeius, for whom it, like the whole East, had declared. Nevertheless,
after the brother and rival of Hyrcanus, Aristobulus as well as his son
Alexander, had on account of their taking part for Caesar lost their
lives at the hands of the Pompeians, the second son, Antigonus, would
doubtless after Caesar’s victory have been installed by the latter as
ruler in Judaea. But when Caesar, coming to Egypt after the decisive
victory, found himself in a dangerous position at Alexandria, it was
chiefly Antipater who delivered him from it (iv. 452) {iv. 430.}, and
this carried the day; Antigonus had to give way before the more recent,
but more effective, fidelity.

[Sidenote: Caesar’s arrangements.]

Caesar’s personal gratitude was not the least element in promoting the
formal restoration of the Jewish state. The Jewish kingdom obtained
the best position which could be granted to a client-state, complete
freedom from dues to the Romans[165] and from military occupation
and levy,[166] whereas certainly the duties and the expenses of
frontier-defence were to be undertaken by the native government. The
town of Joppa, and thereby the connection with the sea, were given
back, the independence of internal administration as well as the free
exercise of religion was guaranteed; the re-establishment, hitherto
refused, of the fortifications of Jerusalem razed by Pompeius was
allowed (707) {47 B.C.}. Thus under the name of the Hasmonaean prince,
a half foreigner--for the Idumaeans stood towards the Jews proper
that returned from Babylon nearly as did the Samaritans--governed the
Jewish state under the protection and according to the will of Rome.
The Jews with national sentiments were anything but inclined towards
the new government. The old families, who led in the council of
Jerusalem, held in their hearts to Aristobulus, and, after his death,
to his son Antigonus. In the mountains of Galilee the fanatics fought
quite as much against the Romans as against their own government; when
Antipater’s son Herod took captive Ezekias, the leader of this wild
band, and had caused him to be put to death, the priestly council of
Jerusalem compelled the weak Hyrcanus to banish Herod under the pretext
of a violation of religious precepts. The latter thereupon entered the
Roman army, and rendered good service to the Caesarian governor of
Syria against the insurrection of the last Pompeians. But when, after
the murder of Caesar, the republicans gained the upper hand in the
East, Antipater was again the first who not merely submitted to the
stronger but placed the new holders of power under obligation to him by
a rapid levying of the contribution imposed by them.

[Sidenote: Herod.]

Thus it happened that the leader of the republicans, when he withdrew
from Syria, left Antipater in his position, and entrusted his son Herod
even with a command in Syria. Then, when Antipater died, poisoned as it
was said by one of his officers, Antigonus, who had found a refuge with
his father-in-law, the prince Ptolemaeus of Chalcis, believed that the
moment had come to set aside his weak uncle. But the sons of Antipater,
Phasael and Herod, thoroughly defeated his band, and Hyrcanus agreed
to grant to them the position of their father, nay, even to receive
Herod in a certain measure into the reigning house by betrothing to him
his niece Mariamne. Meanwhile the leaders of the republican party were
beaten at Philippi. The opposition in Jerusalem hoped now to procure
the overthrow of the hated Antipatrids at the hands of the victors;
but Antonius, to whom fell the office of arbiter, decidedly repelled
their deputations first in Ephesus, then in Antioch, and last in Tyre;
caused, indeed, the last envoys to be put to death; and confirmed
Phasael and Herod formally as “tetrarchs”[167] of the Jews (713) {41
B.C.}.

[Sidenote: The Parthians in Judaea.]

[Sidenote: Herod, king of Judaea.]

Soon the vicissitudes of world politics dragged the Jewish state
once more into their vortex. The invasion of the Parthians in the
following year (714) {40 B.C.} put an end in the first instance to
the rule of the Antipatrids. The pretender Antigonus joined them,
and possessed himself of Jerusalem and almost the whole territory.
Hyrcanus went as a prisoner to the Parthians: Phasael, the eldest
son of Antipater, likewise a captive, put himself to death in prison.
With great difficulty Herod concealed his family in a rock-stronghold
on the border of Judaea, and went himself a fugitive and in search of
aid first to Egypt, and, when he no longer found Antonius there, to
the two holders of power just at that time ruling in new harmony (714)
{40 B.C.} at Rome. Readily they allowed him--as indeed it was only
in the interest of Rome--to gain back for himself the Jewish kingdom;
he returned to Syria, so far as the matter depended on the Romans,
as recognised ruler, and even equipped with the royal title. But,
just like a pretender, he had to wrest the land not so much from the
Parthians as from the patriots. He fought his battles pre-eminently
with the help of Samaritans and Idumaeans and hired soldiers, and
attained at length, through the support of the Roman legions, to
the possession of the long-defended capital. The Roman executioners
delivered him likewise from his rival of many years, Antigonus; his own
made havoc among the noble families of the council of Jerusalem.

[Sidenote: Herod under Antonius and Cleopatra.]

[Sidenote: Herod under Augustus.]

But the days of trouble were by no means over with his installation.
The unfortunate expedition of Antonius against the Parthians remained
without consequences for Herod, since the victors did not venture
to advance into Syria; but he suffered severely under the ever
increasing claims of the Egyptian queen, who at that time more than
Antonius ruled the East; her womanly policy, primarily directed to
the extension of her domestic power and above all of her revenues,
was far indeed from obtaining at the hands of Antonius all that she
desired, but she wrested at any rate from the king of the Jews a
portion of his most valuable possessions on the Syrian coast and in
the territory lying between Egypt and Syria, nay, even the rich balsam
plantations and palm-groves of Jericho, and laid upon him severe
financial burdens. In order to maintain the remnant of his rule, he
was obliged either himself to lease the new Syrian possessions of the
queen or to be guarantee for other lessees less able to pay. After all
these troubles, and in expectation of still worse demands as little
capable of being declined, the outbreak of the war between Antonius
and Caesar was hopeful for him, and the fact that Cleopatra in her
selfish perversity released him from active participation in the war,
because he needed his troops to collect her Syrian revenues, was a
further piece of good fortune, since this facilitated his submission
to the victor. Fortune favoured him yet further on his changing sides;
he was able to intercept a band of faithful gladiators of Antonius,
who were marching from Asia Minor through Syria towards Egypt to lend
assistance to their master. When he, before resorting to Caesar at
Rhodes to obtain his pardon, caused the last male offshoot of the
Maccabaean house, the eighty-years old Hyrcanus, to whom the house of
Antipater was indebted for its position, to be at all events put to
death, he in reality exaggerated the necessary caution. Caesar did
what policy bade him do, especially as the support of Herod was of
importance for the intended Egyptian expedition. He confirmed Herod,
glad to be vanquished, in his dominion, and extended it, partly by
giving back the possessions wrested from him by Cleopatra, partly by
further gifts; the whole coast from Gaza to Strato’s Tower, the later
Caesarea, the Samaritan region inserted between Judaea and Galilee, and
a number of towns to the east of the Jordan thenceforth obeyed Herod.
On the consolidation of the Roman monarchy the Jewish principality was
withdrawn from the reach of further external crises.

[Sidenote: Government of Herod.]

From the Roman standpoint the conduct of the new dynasty appears
correct, in a way to draw tears from the eyes of the observer. It
took part at first for Pompeius, then for Caesar the father, then
for Cassius and Brutus, then for the triumvirs, then for Antonius,
lastly for Caesar the son; fidelity varies, as does the watchword.
Nevertheless this conduct is not to be denied the merit of consistency
and firmness. The factions which rent the ruling burgess-body, whether
republic or monarchy, whether Caesar or Antonius, in reality nowise
concerned the dependent provinces, especially those of the Greek East.
The demoralisation which is combined with all revolutionary change
of government--the degrading confusion between internal fidelity and
external obedience--was brought in this case most glaringly to light;
but the fulfilment of duty, such as the Roman commonwealth claimed
from its subjects, had been satisfied by king Herod to an extent
of which nobler and greater natures would certainly not have been
capable. In presence of the Parthians he constantly, even in critical
circumstances, held firmly to the protectors whom he had once chosen.

[Sidenote: In its relation to the Jews.]

From the standpoint of internal Jewish politics the government of Herod
was the setting aside of the theocracy, and in so far a continuance
of, and in fact an advance upon, the government of the Maccabees, as
the separation of the political and the ecclesiastical government
was carried out with the utmost precision in the contrast between
the all-powerful king of foreign birth and the powerless high-priest
often and arbitrarily changed. No doubt the royal position was sooner
pardoned in the Jewish high-priest than in a man who was a foreigner
and incapable of priestly consecration; and, if the Hasmonaeans
represented outwardly the independence of Judaism, the Idumaean held
his royal power over the Jews in fee from the lord-paramount. The
reaction of this insoluble conflict on a deeply-impassioned nature
confronts us in the whole life-career of the man, who causes much
suffering, but has felt perhaps not less. At all events the energy, the
constancy, the yielding to the inevitable, the military and political
dexterity, where there was room for it, secure for the king of the Jews
a certain place in the panorama of a remarkable epoch.

[Sidenote: Herod’s character and aims.]

To describe in detail the government of Herod for almost forty
years--he died in the year 750 {4 B.C.}--as the accounts of it
preserved at great length allow us to do, is not the task of the
historian of Rome. There is probably no royal house of any age in which
bloody feuds raged in an equal degree between parents and children,
between husbands and wives, and between brothers and sisters; the
emperor Augustus and his governors in Syria turned away with horror
from the share in the work of murder which was suggested to them; not
the least revolting trait in this picture of horrors is the utter
want of object in most of the executions, ordained as a rule upon
groundless suspicion, and the despairing remorse of the perpetrator,
which constantly followed. Vigorously and intelligently as the king
took care of the interest of his country, so far as he could and might,
and energetically as, not merely in Palestine but throughout the
empire, he befriended the Jews with his treasures and with his no small
influence--for the decision of Agrippa favourable to the Jews in the
great imperial affair of Asia Minor (p. 171) they were substantially
indebted to him--he found love and fidelity in Idumaea perhaps and
Samaria, but not among the people of Israel; here he was, and continued
to be, not so much the man laden with the guilt of blood in many
forms, as above all the foreigner. As it was one of the mainsprings of
that domestic war, that his wife of the Hasmonaean family, the fair
Mariamne, and their children were regarded and dreaded by him more as
Jews than as his own, he himself gave expression to the feeling that
he was as much drawn towards the Greeks as repelled by the Jews. It
is significant that he had the sons, for whom in the first instance
he destined the succession, brought up in Rome. While out of his
inexhaustible riches he loaded the Greek cities of other lands with
gifts and embellished them with temples, he built for the Jews no doubt
also, but not in the Jewish sense. The buildings of the circus and
theatre in Jerusalem itself, as well as the temples for the imperial
worship in the Jewish towns, were regarded by the pious Israelite as
a summons to blaspheme God. His conversion of the temple in Jerusalem
into a magnificent building was done half against the will of the
devout; much as they admired the building, his introduction into it of
a golden eagle was taken more amiss than all the sentences of death
ordained by him, and led to a popular insurrection, to which the eagle
fell a sacrifice, and thereupon doubtless the devotees as well, who
tore it down.

[Sidenote: Energy of his rule.]

Herod knew the land sufficiently not to let matters come to
extremities; if it had been possible to Hellenise it, the will to that
effect would not have been wanting on his part. In energy the Idumaean
was not inferior to the best Hasmonaeans. The construction of the great
harbour at Strato’s Tower, or as the town entirely rebuilt by Herod was
thenceforth called, Caesarea, first gave to a coast poor in harbours
what it needed, and throughout the whole period of the empire the town
remained a chief emporium of southern Syria. What the government was
able to furnish in other respects--development of natural resources,
intervention in case of famine and other calamities, above all things
internal and external security--was furnished by Herod. The evil of
brigandage was done away, and the defence--so uncommonly difficult
in these regions--of the frontier against the roving tribes of the
desert was carried out with sternness and consistency. Thereby the
Roman government was induced to place under him still further regions,
Ituraea, Trachonitis, Auranitis, Batanaea. Thenceforth his dominion
extended, as we have already mentioned (p. 146), compactly over the
region beyond the Jordan as far as towards Damascus and to the Hermon
mountains; so far as we can discern, after those further assignments
there was in the whole domain which we have indicated no longer
any free city or any rule independent of Herod. The defence of the
frontier itself fell more on the Arabian king than on the king of the
Jews; but, so far as it devolved on him, the series of well-provided
frontier-forts brought about here a general peace, such as had not
hitherto been known in those regions. We can understand how Agrippa,
after inspecting the maritime and military structures of Herod, should
have discerned in him an associate striving in a like spirit towards
the great work of organising the empire, and should have treated him in
this sense.

[Sidenote: The end of Herod and the partition of his kingdom.]

His kingdom had no lasting existence. Herod himself apportioned it
in his testament among his three sons, and Augustus confirmed the
arrangement in the main, only placing the important port of Gaza and
the Greek towns beyond the Jordan immediately under the governor
of Syria. The northern portions of the kingdom were separated from
the mainland; the territory last acquired by Herod to the south of
Damascus, Batanaea with the districts belonging to it, was obtained by
Philip; Galilee and Peraea, that is, the Transjordanic domain, so far
as it was not Greek, by Herod Antipas--both as tetrarchs; these two
petty principalities continued, at first as separate, then as united
under Herod “the Great’s” great-grandson Agrippa II., with slight
interruptions to subsist down to the time of Trajan. We have already
mentioned their government when describing eastern Syria and Arabia (p.
146 f.). Here it may only be added that these Herodians continued to
rule, if not with the energy, at least in the sense and spirit of the
founder of the dynasty. The towns established by them--Caesarea, the
ancient Paneas, in the northern territory, and Tiberias in Galilee--had
a Hellenic organisation quite after the manner of Herod; characteristic
is the proscription, which the Jewish Rabbis on account of a tomb found
at the laying out of Tiberias decreed over the unclean city.

[Sidenote: Judaea under Archelaus.]

[Sidenote: Judaea a Roman province.]

The main country, Judaea, along with Samaria on the north and Idumaea
on the south, was destined for Archelaus by his father’s will. But
this succession was not accordant with the wishes of the nation. The
orthodox, that is, the Pharisees, ruled with virtual exclusiveness
the mass of the people; and, if hitherto the fear of the Lord had
been in some measure kept down by the fear of the unscrupulously
energetic king, the mind of the great majority of the Jews was set
upon re-establishing under the protectorate of Rome the pure and godly
sacerdotal government, as it had once been set up by the Persian
authorities. Immediately after the death of the old king the masses
in Jerusalem had congregated to demand the setting aside of the
high-priest nominated by Herod and the ejection of the unbelievers from
the holy city, where the Passover was just to be celebrated; Archelaus
had been under the necessity of beginning his government by charging
into these masses; a number of dead were counted, and the observance
of the festival was suspended. The Roman governor of Syria--the
same Varus, whose folly soon afterwards cost the Romans Germany--on
whom it primarily devolved to maintain order in the land during the
interregnum, had allowed these mutinous bands in Jerusalem to send
to Rome, where the occupation of the Jewish throne was just being
discussed, a deputation of fifty persons to request the abolition
of the monarchy; and, when Augustus gave audience to it, eight
thousand Jews of the capital escorted it to the temple of Apollo.
The fanatical Jews at home meanwhile continued to help themselves;
the Roman garrison, which was stationed in the temple, was assailed
with violence, and pious bands of brigands filled the land; Varus had
to call out the legions and to restore quiet with the sword. It was
a warning for the suzerain, a supplementary justification of king
Herod’s violent but effective government. But Augustus, with all the
weakness which he so often showed, particularly in later years, while
dismissing, no doubt, the representatives of those fanatical masses
and their request, yet executed in the main the testament of Herod,
and gave over the rule in Jerusalem to Archelaus shorn of the kingly
title, which Augustus preferred for a time not to concede to the
untried young man; shorn, moreover, of the northern territories, and
reduced also in military status by the taking away of the defence of
the frontier. The circumstance that at the instigation of Augustus
the taxes raised to a high pitch under Herod were lowered, could but
little better the position of the tetrarch. The personal incapacity
and worthlessness of Archelaus were hardly needed, in addition, to
make him impossible; a few years later (A.D. 6) Augustus saw himself
compelled to depose him. Now he did at length the will of those
mutineers; the monarchy was abolished, and while on the one hand the
land was taken into direct Roman administration, on the other hand,
so far as an internal government was allowed by the side of this,
it was given over to the senate of Jerusalem. This procedure may
certainly have been determined in part by assurances given earlier by
Augustus to Herod as regards the succession, in part by the more and
more apparent, and in general doubtless justifiable, disinclination
of the imperial government to larger client-states possessing some
measure of independent self-movement. What took place shortly before
or soon after in Galatia, in Cappadocia, in Mauretania, explains why
in Palestine also the kingdom of Herod hardly survived himself. But,
as the immediate government was organised in Palestine, it was even
administratively a bad retrograde step as compared with the Herodian;
and above all the circumstances here were so peculiar and so difficult,
that the immediate contact between the governing Romans and the
governed Jews--which certainly had been obstinately striven for by the
priestly party itself and ultimately obtained--redounded to the benefit
neither of the one nor of the other.

[Sidenote: Provincial organisation.]

Judaea thus became in the year A.D. 6 a Roman province of the second
rank,[168] and, apart from the ephemeral restoration of the kingdom
of Jerusalem under Claudius in the years 41-44, thenceforth remained
a Roman province. Instead of the previous native princes holding
office for life and, under reservation of their being confirmed by
the Roman government, hereditary, came an official of the equestrian
order, nominated and liable to recall by the emperor. The port of
Caesarea rebuilt by Herod after a Hellenic model became, probably at
once, the seat of Roman administration. The exemption of the land from
Roman garrison as a matter of course ceased, but, as throughout in
provinces of the second rank, the Roman military force consisted only
of a moderate number of cavalry and infantry divisions of the inferior
class; subsequently one ala and five cohorts--about 3000 men--were
stationed there. These troops were perhaps taken over from the earlier
government, at least in great part formed in the country itself,
mostly, however, from Samaritans and Syrian Greeks.[169] The province
did not obtain a legionary garrison, and even in the territories
adjoining Judaea there was stationed at the most one of the four Syrian
legions. To Jerusalem there came a standing Roman commandant, who took
up his abode in the royal castle, with a weak standing garrison; only
during the time of the Passover, when the whole land and countless
strangers flocked to the temple, a stronger division of soldiers was
stationed in a colonnade belonging to the temple. That on the erection
of the province the obligation of tribute towards Rome set in, follows
from the very circumstance that the costs of defending the land were
thereby transferred to the imperial government. After the latter had
suggested a reduction of the payments at the installation of Archelaus,
it is far from probable that on the annexation of the country it
contemplated an immediate raising of them; but doubtless, as in every
newly-acquired territory, steps were taken for a revision of the
previous land-register.[170]

[Sidenote: The native authorities.]

[Sidenote: The Synhedrion of Jerusalem.]

For the native authorities in Judaea as everywhere the urban
communities were, as far as possible, taken as a basis. Samaria, or as
the town was now called, Sebaste, the newly laid out Caesarea, and the
other urban communities contained in the former kingdom of Archelaus,
were self-administering, under superintendence of the Roman authority.
The government also of the capital with the large territory belonging
to it was organised in a similar way. Already in the pre-Roman period
under the Seleucids there was formed, as we saw (p. 160), in Jerusalem
a council of the elders, the Synhedrion, or as Judaised, the Sanhedrin.
The presidency in it was held by the high priest, whom each ruler of
the land, if he was not possibly himself high priest, appointed for
the time. To the college belonged the former high priests and esteemed
experts in the law. This assembly, in which the aristocratic element
preponderated, acted as the supreme spiritual representative of the
whole body of Jews, and, so far as this was not to be separated from
it, also as the secular representative in particular of the community
of Jerusalem. It is only the later Rabbinism that has by a pious
fiction transformed the Synhedrion of Jerusalem into a spiritual
institute of Mosaic appointment. It corresponded essentially to the
council of the Greek urban constitution, but certainly bore, as
respected its composition as well as its sphere of working, a more
spiritual character than belonged to the Greek representations of
the community. To this Synhedrion and its high priest, who was now
nominated by the procurator as representative of the imperial suzerain,
the Roman government left or committed that jurisdiction which in the
Hellenic subject communities belonged to the urban authorities and the
common councils. With indifferent short-sightedness it allowed to the
transcendental Messianism of the Pharisees free course, and to the
by no means transcendental land-consistory--acting until the Messiah
should arrive--tolerably free sway in affairs of faith, of manners,
and of law, where Roman interests were not directly affected thereby.
This applied in particular to the administration of justice. It is true
that, as far as Roman burgesses were concerned, ordinary jurisdiction
in civil as in criminal affairs must have been reserved for the Roman
tribunals even already before the annexation of the land. But civil
jurisdiction over Jews remained even after that annexation chiefly with
the local authority. Criminal justice over them was exercised by the
latter probably in general concurrently with the Roman procurator; only
sentences of death could not be executed by it otherwise than after
confirmation by the imperial magistrate.

[Sidenote: The Roman provincial government.]

In the main those arrangements were the inevitable consequences of the
abolition of the principality, and when the Jews had obtained this
request of theirs, they in fact obtained those arrangements along with
it. Certainly it was the design of the government to avoid, as far
as possible, harshness and abruptness in carrying them out. Publius
Sulpicius Quirinius to whom, as governor of Syria the erection of the
new province was entrusted, was a magistrate of repute, and quite
familiar with the affairs of the East, and the several reports confirm
by what they say or by their silence the fact that the difficulties
of the state of things were known and taken into account. The local
coining of petty moneys, as formerly practised by the kings, now took
place in the name of the Roman ruler; but on account of the Jewish
abhorrence of images the head of the emperor was not even placed on the
coins. Setting foot within the interior of the temple continued to be
forbidden in the case of every non-Jew under penalty of death.[171]
However averse was the attitude of Augustus personally towards the
Oriental worships (p. 172), he did not disdain here any more than in
Egypt to connect them in their home with the imperial government;
magnificent presents of Augustus, of Livia, and of other members of the
imperial house adorned the sanctuary of the Jews, and according to an
endowment by the emperor the smoke of the sacrifice of a bullock and
two lambs rose daily there to the “Supreme God.” The Roman soldiers
were directed, when they were on service at Jerusalem, to leave the
standards with the effigies of the emperor at Caesarea, and, when a
governor under Tiberius omitted to do so, the government ultimately
yielded to the urgent entreaties of the pious and left matters on
the old footing. Indeed, when the Roman troops were to march through
Jerusalem on an expedition against the Arabians, they obtained another
route for the march in consequence of the scruples entertained by the
priests against the effigies on the standards. When that same governor
dedicated to the emperor at the royal castle in Jerusalem shields
without imagery, and the pious took offence at it, Tiberius commanded
the same to be taken away, and to be hung up in the temple of Augustus
at Caesarea. The festival dress of the high priest, which was kept in
Roman custody at the castle and hence had to be purified from such
profanation for seven days before it was put on, was delivered up to
the faithful upon their complaint; and the commandant of the castle
was directed to give himself no further concern about it. Certainly
it could not be asked of the multitude that it should feel the
consequences of the incorporation less heavily, because it had itself
brought them about. Nor is it to be maintained that the annexation of
the land passed off without oppression for the inhabitants, and that
they had no ground to complain; such arrangements have never been
carried into effect without difficulties and disturbances of the peace.
The number, moreover, of unrighteous and violent deeds perpetrated
by individual governors must not have been smaller in Judaea than
elsewhere. In the very beginning of the reign of Tiberius the Jews,
like the Syrians, complained of the pressure of the taxes; especially
the prolonged administration of Pontius Pilatus is charged with all
the usual official crimes by a not unfair observer. But Tiberius, as
the same Jew says, had during the twenty-three years of his reign
maintained the time-hallowed holy customs, and in no part set them
aside or violated them. This is the more to be recognised, seeing
that the same emperor in the West interfered against the Jews more
emphatically than any other (p. 172), and thus the long-suffering and
caution shown by him in Judaea cannot be traced back to personal favour
for Judaism.

[Sidenote: The Jewish opposition.]

In spite of all this both the opposition on principle to the Roman
government and the violent efforts at self-help on the part of
the faithful developed themselves even in this time of peace. The
payment of tribute was assailed, not perchance merely because it was
oppressive, but as being godless. “Is it allowable,” asks the Rabbi in
the Gospel, “to pay the census to Caesar?” The ironical answer which
he received did not by any means suffice for all; there were saints,
though possibly not in great number, who thought themselves polluted
if they touched a coin with the emperor’s image. This was something
new--an advance in the theology of opposition; the kings Seleucus and
Antiochus had also not been circumcised, and had likewise received
tribute in silver pieces bearing their image. Such was the theory; the
practical application of it was made, not certainly by the high council
of Jerusalem, in which, under the influence of the imperial government,
the more pliant notables of the land directed the vote, but by Judas
the Galilean from Gamala on the lake of Gennesaret, who, as Gamaliel
subsequently reminded this high council, “stood up in the days of the
census, and behind him the people rose in revolt.” He spoke out what
all thought, that the so-called census was bondage, and that it was a
disgrace for the Jew to recognise another lord over him than the Lord
of Zebaoth; but that He helped only those who helped themselves. If
not many followed his call to arms, and he ended his life, after a few
months, on the scaffold, the holy dead was more dangerous to the unholy
victors than the living man. He and his followers were regarded by the
later Jews alongside of the Sadducees, Pharisees, and Essenes, as the
fourth “School;” at that time they were called the Zealots, afterwards
they called themselves Sicarii, “men of the knife.” Their teaching was
simple: God alone is Lord, death indifferent, freedom all in all. This
teaching remained, and the children and grandchildren of Judas became
the leaders of the later insurrections.

[Sidenote: The emperor Gaius and the Jews.]

[Sidenote: Jew-hunt in Alexandria.]

If the Roman government had under the first two regents, taken on the
whole, skilfully and patiently sufficed for the task of repressing,
as far as possible, these explosive elements, the next change on the
throne brought matters close to the catastrophe. The change was saluted
with rejoicing, as in the whole empire, so specially by the Jews in
Jerusalem and Alexandria; and, after the unsociable and unloved old
man, the new youthful ruler Gaius was extravagantly extolled in both
quarters. But speedily out of trifling occasions there was developed a
formidable quarrel. A grandson of the first Herod and of the beautiful
Mariamne, named after the protector and friend of his grandfather
Herod Agrippa, about the most worthless and abandoned of the numerous
Oriental princes’ sons living in Rome, but nevertheless or on that very
account the favourite and youthful friend of the new emperor, hitherto
known solely by his dissoluteness and his debts, had obtained from his
protector, to whom he had been the first to convey the news of the
death of Tiberius, one of the vacant Jewish petty principalities as a
gift, and the title of king along with it. This prince in the year 38,
on the way to his new kingdom, came to the city of Alexandria, where
he a few months previously had attempted as a runaway bill-debtor
to borrow among the Jewish bankers. When he showed himself there in
public in his regal dress with his splendidly equipped halberdiers,
this naturally stirred up the non-Jewish inhabitants of the great
city--fond as it was of ridicule and of scandal--who bore anything but
good will to the Jews, to a corresponding parody; nor did the matter
stop there. It culminated in a furious hunting-out of the Jews. The
Jewish houses which lay detached were plundered and burnt; the Jewish
ships lying in the harbour were pillaged; the Jews that were met with
in the non-Jewish quarters were maltreated and slain. But against the
purely Jewish quarters they could effect nothing by violence. Then the
leaders lighted on the idea of consecrating the synagogues, which were
the object of their marked attentions, so far as these still stood,
collectively as temples of the new ruler, and of setting up statues of
him in all of them--in the chief synagogue a statue on a _quadriga_.
That the emperor Gaius deemed himself, as seriously as his confused
mind could do so, a real and corporeal god, everybody knew--the Jews
and the governor as well. The latter, Avillius Flaccus, an able man,
and, under Tiberius, an excellent administrator, but now hampered by
the disfavour in which he stood with the new emperor, and expecting
every moment recall and impeachment, did not disdain to use the
opportunity for his rehabilitation.[172] He not merely gave orders by
edict to put no hindrance in the way of setting up the statues in the
synagogues, but he entered directly into the Jew-hunting. He ordained
the abolition of the Sabbath. He declared further in his edicts that
these tolerated foreigners had possessed themselves unallowably of the
best part of the town; they were restricted to a single one of the five
wards, and all the other Jewish houses were abandoned to the rabble,
while masses of the ejected inhabitants lay without shelter on the
shore. No remonstrance was even listened to; eight and thirty members
of the council of the elders, which then presided over the Jews instead
of the Ethnarch,[173] were scourged in the open circus before all the
people. Four hundred houses lay in ruins; trade and commerce were
suspended; the factories stood still. There was no help left except
with the emperor. Before him appeared the two Alexandrian deputations,
that of the Jews led by the formerly (p. 170) mentioned Philo, a
scholar of Neojudaic leanings, and of a heart more gentle than brave,
but who withal faithfully took the part of his people in this distress;
that of the enemies of the Jews, led by Apion, also an Alexandrian
scholar and author, the “world’s clapper” [_cymbalum mundi_], as the
emperor Tiberius called him, full of big words and still bigger lies,
of the most assured omniscience[174] and unlimited faith in himself,
conversant, if not with men, at any rate with their worthlessness, a
celebrated master of discourse as of the art of misleading, ready for
action, witty, unabashed, and unconditionally loyal. The result of
the discussion was settled from the outset; the emperor received the
deputies while he was inspecting the works designed in his gardens, but
instead of giving a hearing to the suppliants, he put to them sarcastic
questions, which the enemies of the Jews in defiance of all etiquette
accompanied with loud laughter, and, as he was in good humour, he
confined himself to expressing his regret that these otherwise good
people should be so unhappily constituted as not to be able to
understand his innate divine nature--as to which he was beyond doubt
in earnest. Apion thus gained his case, and, wherever it pleased the
adversaries of the Jews, the synagogues were changed into temples of
Gaius.

[Sidenote: The statue of the emperor in the temple of Jerusalem.]

But the matter was not confined to these dedications introduced by
the street-youth of Alexandria. In the year 39 the governor of Syria,
Publius Petronius, received orders from the emperor to march with
his legions into Jerusalem, and to set up in the temple the statue
of the emperor. The governor, an honourable official of the school
of Tiberius, was alarmed; Jews from all the land, men and women,
gray-haired and children, flocked to him, first to Ptolemais in Syria,
then to Tiberias in Galilee, to entreat his mediation that the outrage
might not take place; the fields throughout the country were not
tilled, and the desperate multitudes declared that they would rather
suffer death by the sword or famine than be willing to look on at this
abomination. In reality the governor ventured to delay the execution
of the orders and to make counter-representations, although he knew
that his head was at stake. At the same time the king Agrippa, lately
mentioned, went in person to Rome to procure from his friend the
recall of the orders. The emperor in fact desisted from his desire, in
consequence, it is said, of his good humour when under the influence
of wine being adroitly turned to account by the Jewish prince. But at
the same time he restricted the concession to the single temple of
Jerusalem, and sent nevertheless to the governor on account of his
disobedience a sentence of death, which indeed, accidentally delayed,
was not carried into execution. Gaius now resolved to break the
resistance of the Jews; the enjoined march of the legions shows that he
had this time weighed beforehand the consequences of his order. Since
those occurrences the Egyptians, ready to believe in his divinity,
had his full affection just as the obstinate and simple-minded Jews
had his corresponding hatred; secretive as he was and accustomed to
grant favours in order afterwards to revoke them, the worst could not
but appear merely postponed. He was on the point of departing for
Alexandria in order there to receive in person the incense of his
altars; and the statue, which he thought of erecting to himself in
Jerusalem, was--it is said--quietly in preparation, when, in January
41, the dagger of Chaerea delivered, among other things, the temple of
Jehovah from the monster.

[Sidenote: Jewish dispositions.]

[Sidenote: The Apocalypse of John.]

The short season of suffering left behind it no outward consequences;
with the god his altars fell. But yet the traces of it remained on
both sides. The history, which is here being told, is that of an
increasing hatred between Jews and non-Jews, and in it the three years’
persecution of the Jews under Gaius marks a section and an advance.
The hatred of Jews and the Jew-hunts were as old as the Diaspora
itself; these privileged and autonomous Oriental communities within
the Hellenic could not but develop them as necessarily as the marsh
generates the malaria. But such a Jew-hunt as the Alexandrian of
the year 38, instigated by defective Hellenism and directed at once
by the supreme authority and by the low rabble, the older Greek and
Roman history has not to show. The far way from the evil desire of the
individual to the evil deed of the collective body was thus traversed,
and it was shown what those so disposed had to will and to do, and were
under circumstances also able to do. That this revelation was felt
also on the Jewish side, is not to be doubted, although we are not in
a position to adduce documentary evidence in support of it.[175] But
a far deeper impression than that of the Jew-hunt at Alexandria was
graven on the minds of the Jews by the statue of the god Gaius in the
Holy of Holies. The thing had been done once already; a like proceeding
of the king of Syria, Antiochus Epiphanes, had been followed by the
rising of the Maccabees and the victorious restoration of the free
national state (iii. 64) {iii. 61.}. That Epiphanes--the Anti-Messiah
who ushers in the Messiah, as the prophet Daniel had, certainly after
the event, delineated him--was thenceforth to every Jew the prototype
of abomination; it was no matter of indifference, that the same
conception came to be with equal warrant attached to a Roman emperor,
or rather to the image of the Roman ruler in general. Since that
fateful edict the Jews never ceased to dread that another emperor might
issue a like command; and so far certainly with reason, as according to
the organisation of the Roman polity such an enactment depended solely
on the momentary pleasure of the ruler for the time. This Jewish hatred
of the worship of the emperor and of imperialism itself, is depicted
with glowing colours in the Apocalypse of John, for which, chiefly
on that account, Rome is the harlot of Babylon and the common enemy
of mankind.[176] Still less matter of indifference was the parallel,
which naturally suggested itself, of the consequences. Mattathias of
Modein had not been more than Judas the Galilean; the insurrection of
the patriots against the Syrian king was almost as hopeless as the
insurrection against the monster beyond the sea. Historical parallels
in practical application are dangerous elements of opposition; only too
rapidly does the structure of long years of wise government come to be
shaken.

[Sidenote: Claudius and the Jews.]

[Sidenote: Agrippa.]

The government of Claudius turned back on both sides into the paths
of Tiberius. In Italy there was repeated, not indeed precisely the
ejection of the Jews, since there could not but arise a conviction that
this course was impracticable, but at any rate a prohibition of the
exercise of their worship[177] in common, which, it is true, amounted
nearly to the same thing and probably came as little into execution.
Alongside of this edict of intolerance and in an opposite sense, by an
ordinance embracing the whole empire the Jews were freed from those
public obligations which were not compatible with their religious
convictions; whereby, as respected service in war particularly, there
was doubtless conceded only what hitherto it had not been possible
to compel. The exhortation, expressed at the close of this edict, to
the Jews to exercise now on their part also greater moderation, and
to refrain from the insulting of persons of another faith, shows that
there had not been wanting transgressions also on the Jewish side.
In Egypt as in Palestine the religious arrangements were, at least
on the whole, re-established as they had subsisted before Gaius,
although in Alexandria the Jews hardly obtained back all that they had
possessed;[178] the insurrectionary movements, which had broken out,
or were on the point of breaking out, in the one case as in the other,
thereupon disappeared of themselves. In Palestine Claudius even went
beyond the system of Tiberius and committed the whole former territory
of Herod to a native prince, that same Agrippa who accidentally had
come to be friendly with Claudius and useful to him in the crises of
his accession. It was certainly the design of Claudius to resume the
system followed at the time of Herod and to obviate the dangers of the
immediate contact between the Romans and Jews. But Agrippa, leading an
easy life and even as a prince in constant financial embarrassment,
good-humoured, moreover, and more disposed to be on good terms with
his subjects than with the distant protector, gave offence in various
ways to the government, for example, by the strengthening the walls
of Jerusalem, which he was forbidden to carry further; and the towns
that adhered to the Romans, Caesarea and Sebaste, as well as the
troops organised in the Roman fashion, were disinclined to him. When
he died early and suddenly in the year 44, it appeared hazardous to
entrust the position, important in a political as in a military
point of view, to his only son of seventeen years of age, and those
who wielded power in the cabinet were reluctant to let out of their
hands the lucrative procuratorships. The Claudian government had here,
as elsewhere, lighted on the right course, but had not the energy to
carry it out irrespective of accessory considerations. A Jewish prince
with Jewish soldiers might exercise the government in Judaea for the
Romans; the Roman magistrate and the Roman soldiers offended probably
still more frequently through ignorance of Jewish views than through
intentional action in opposition to them, and whatever they might
undertake was on their part in the eyes of believers an offence, and
the most indifferent occurrence a religious outrage. The demand for
mutual understanding and agreement was on both sides just as warranted
of itself as it was impossible of execution. But above all a conflict
between the Jewish lord of the land and his subjects was a matter
of tolerable indifference for the empire; every conflict between
the Romans and the Jews in Jerusalem widened the gulf which yawned
between the peoples of the West and the Hebrews living along with
them; and the danger lay, not in the quarrels of Palestine, but in the
incompatibility of the members of the empire of different nationalities
who were now withal coupled together by fate.

[Sidenote: Preparation for the insurrection.]

Thus the ship was driving incessantly towards the whirlpool. In this
ill-fated voyage all taking part lent their help--the Roman government
and its administrators, the Jewish authorities and the Jewish people.
The former indeed continued to show a willingness to meet as far as
possible all claims, fair and unfair, of the Jews. When in the year
44 the procurator again entered Jerusalem, the nomination of the
high-priest and the administration of the temple-treasure, which
were combined with the kingly office and in so far also with the
procuratorship, were taken from him and transferred to a brother of
the deceased king Agrippa, king Herod of Chalcis, as well as, after
his death in the year 48, to his successor the younger Agrippa already
mentioned. The Roman chief magistrate, on the complaint of the Jews
caused a Roman soldier, who, on occasion of orders to plunder a
Jewish village, had torn in pieces a roll of the law, to be put to
death. The whole weight of Roman imperial justice fell, according to
circumstances, even upon the higher officials; when two procurators
acting alongside of one another had taken part for and against in the
quarrel of the Samaritans and the Galileans, and their soldiers had
fought against one another, the imperial governor of Syria, Ummidius
Quadratus, was sent with extraordinary full powers to Syria to punish
and to execute; as a result one of the guilty persons was sent into
banishment, and a Roman military tribune named Celer was publicly
beheaded in Jerusalem itself. But alongside of these examples of
severity stood others of a weakness partaking of guilt; in that same
process the second at least as guilty procurator Antonius Felix escaped
punishment, because he was the brother of the powerful menial Pallas
and the husband of the sister of king Agrippa. Still more than with the
official abuses of individual administrators must the government be
chargeable with the fact that it did not strengthen the power of the
officials and the number of the troops in a province so situated, and
continued to recruit the garrison almost exclusively from the province.
Insignificant as the province was, it was a wretched stupidity and an
ill-applied parsimony to treat it after the traditional pattern; the
seasonable display of a crushing superiority of force and unrelenting
sternness, a governor of higher rank, and a legionary camp, would have
saved to the province and the empire great sacrifices of money, blood,
and honour.

[Sidenote: High-priestly rule.]

[Sidenote: Ananias.]

But not less at least was the fault of the Jews. The high-priestly
rule, so far as it went--and the government was but too much inclined
to allow it free scope in all internal affairs--was, even according to
the Jewish accounts, at no time conducted with so much violence and
worthlessness as in that from the death of Agrippa to the outbreak of
the war. The best-known and most influential of these priest-rulers
was Ananias son of Nebedaeus, the “whitewashed wall,” as Paul called
him, when this spiritual judge bade his attendants smite him on the
mouth, because he ventured to defend himself before the judgment-seat.
It was laid to his charge that he bribed the governor, and that by a
corresponding interpretation of Scripture he alienated from the lower
clergy the tithe-sheaves.[179] As one of the chief instigators of the
war between the Samaritans and the Galileans, he had stood before
the Roman judge. Not because the reckless fanatics preponderated in
the ruling circles, but because these instigators of popular tumults
and organisers of trials for heresy lacked the moral and religious
authority whereby the moderate men in better times had guided the
multitude, and because they misunderstood and misused the indulgence of
the Roman authorities in internal affairs, they were unable to mediate
in a peaceful sense between the foreign rule and the nation. It was
under their very rule that the Roman authorities were assailed with
the wildest and most irrational demands, and popular movements arose
of grim absurdity. Of such a nature was that violent petition, which
demanded and obtained the blood of a Roman soldier on account of the
tearing up of a roll of the law. Another time there arose a popular
tumult, which cost the lives of many men, because a Roman soldier had
exhibited in the temple a part of his body in unseemly nudity. Even the
best of kings could not have absolutely averted such lunacy; but even
the most insignificant prince would not have confronted the fanatical
multitude with so little control of the helm as these priests.

[Sidenote: The Zealots.]

The actual result was the constant increase of the new Maccabees. It
has been customary to put the outbreak of the war in the year 66; with
equal and perhaps better warrant we might name for it the year 44.
Since the death of Agrippa warfare in Judaea had never ceased, and
alongside of the local feuds, which Jews fought out with Jews, there
went on constantly the war of the Roman troops against the seceders
in the mountains, the Zealots, as the Jews named them, or according
to Roman designation, the Robbers. Both names were appropriate; here
too alongside of the fanatics the decayed or decaying elements of
society played their part--at any rate after the victory one of the
first steps of the Zealots was to burn the bonds for debt that were
kept in the temple. Every one of the abler procurators, onward from
the first Cuspius Fadus, swept the land of them, and still the hydra
appeared afresh in greater strength. The successor of Fadus, Tiberius
Julius Alexander, himself sprung from a Jewish family, a nephew of the
above-mentioned Alexandrian scholar Philo, caused two sons of Judas the
Galilean, Jacob and Simon, to be crucified; this was the seed of the
new Mattathias. In the streets of the towns the patriots preached aloud
the war, and not a few followed to the desert; these bands set on fire
the houses of the peaceful and rational people who refused to take part
with them. If the soldiers seized bandits of this sort, they carried
off in turn respectable people as hostages to the mountains; and very
often the authorities agreed to release the former in order to liberate
the latter. At the same time the “men of the knife” began in the
capital their dismal trade; they murdered, doubtless also for money--as
their first victim the priest Jonathan is named, as commissioning
them in that case, the Roman procurator Felix--but, if possible, at
the same time as patriots, Roman soldiers or countrymen of their own
friendly to the Romans. How, with such dispositions, should wonders and
signs have failed to appear, and persons who, deceived or deceiving,
roused thereby the fanaticism of the masses? Under Cuspius Fadus the
miracle-monger Theudas led his faithful adherents to the Jordan,
assuring them that the waters would divide before them and swallow up
the pursuing Roman horsemen, as in the times of king Pharaoh. Under
Felix another worker of wonders, named from his native country the
Egyptian, promised that the walls of Jerusalem would collapse like
those of Jericho at the trumpet blast of Joshua; and thereupon four
thousand knife-men followed him to the Mount of Olives. In the very
absurdity lay the danger. The great mass of the Jewish population were
small farmers, who ploughed their fields and pressed their oil in the
sweat of their brow--more villagers than townsmen, of little culture
and powerful faith, closely linked to the free bands in the mountains,
and full of reverence for Jehovah and his priests in Jerusalem as
well as full of aversion towards the unclean strangers. The war there
was not a war between one power and another for the ascendency, not
even properly a war of the oppressed against the oppressors for the
recovery of freedom; it was not daring statesmen,[180] but fanatical
peasants that began and waged it, and paid for it with their blood. It
was a further stage in the history of national hatred; on both sides
continued living together seemed impossible, and they encountered each
other with the thought of mutual extirpation.

[Sidenote: Outbreak of the insurrection in Caesarea.]

The movement, through which the tumults were changed into war,
proceeded from Caesarea. In this urban community--originally Greek,
and then remodelled by Herod after the pattern of the colonies of
Alexander--which had developed into the first seaport of Palestine,
Greeks and Jews dwelt, equally entitled to civic privileges, without
distinction of nation and confession, the latter superior in number
and property. But the Hellenes, after the model of the Alexandrians,
and doubtless under the immediate impression of the occurrences of the
year 38, impugned the right of citizenship of the Jewish members of the
community by way of complaint to the supreme authority. The minister of
Nero,[181] Burrus († 62), decided in their favour. It was bad to make
citizenship in a town formed on Jewish soil and by a Jewish government
a privilege of the Hellenes; but it may not be forgotten how the
Jews behaved just at that time towards the Romans, and how naturally
they suggested to the Romans the conversion of the Roman capital and
the Roman headquarters of the province into a purely Hellenic urban
community. The decision led, as might be conceived, to vehement street
tumults, in which Hellenic scoffing and Jewish arrogance seem to have
almost balanced each other, particularly in the struggle for access
to the synagogue; the Roman authorities interfered, as a matter of
course, to the disadvantage of the Jews. These left the town, but were
compelled by the governor to return, and then all of them were slain in
a street riot (6th August 66). This the government had at any rate not
commanded, and certainly had not wished; powers were unchained which
they themselves were no longer able to control.

[Sidenote: Outbreak of the insurrection in Jerusalem.]

[Sidenote: Eleazar.]

If here the enemies of the Jews were the assailants, the Jews were
so in Jerusalem. Certainly their defenders in the narrative of these
occurrences assure us that the procurator of Palestine at the time,
Gessius Florus, in order to avoid impeachment on account of his
maladministration, wished to provoke an insurrection by the excessive
measure of his torture; and there is no doubt that the governors of
that time considerably exceeded the usual measure of worthlessness and
oppression. But, if Florus in fact pursued such a plan, it miscarried.
For according to these very reports the prudent and the possessors
of property among the Jews, and with them king Agrippa II., familiar
with the government of the temple, and just at that time present in
Jerusalem--he had meanwhile exchanged the rule of Chalcis for that
of Batanaea--lulled the masses so far, that the riotous assemblages
and the interference against them kept within the measure that had
been usual in the country for years. But the advances made by Jewish
theology were more dangerous than the disorder of the streets and
the robber patriots of the mountains. The earlier Judaism had in a
liberal fashion opened the gates of its faith to foreigners; it is true
that only those who belonged, in the strict sense, to their religion
were admitted to the interior of the Temple, but as proselytes of
the gate all were admitted without ceremony into the outer courts,
and even the non-Jew was here allowed to pray on his part and offer
sacrifices to the Lord Jehovah. Thus, as we have already mentioned (p.
189), sacrifice was offered daily there for the Roman emperor on the
basis of an endowment of Augustus. These sacrifices of non-Jews were
forbidden by the master of the temple at this time, Eleazar, son of the
above-mentioned high priest Ananias, a passionate young man of rank,
personally blameless and brave and, so far, an entire contrast to his
father, but more dangerous through his virtues than the latter was
through his vices. Vainly it was pointed out to him that this was as
offensive for the Romans as dangerous for the country, and absolutely
at variance with usage; he resolved to abide by the improvement of
piety and the exclusion of the sovereign of the land from worship.
Believers in Judaism had for long been divided into those who placed
their trust in the Lord of Zebaoth alone and endured the Roman rule
till it should please Him to realise the kingdom of heaven on earth,
and the more practical men, who had resolved to establish the kingdom
of heaven with their own hand and held themselves assured of the help
of the Lord of Hosts in the pious work, or, by their watchwords, into
the Pharisees and the Zealots. The number and the repute of the latter
were constantly on the increase. An old saying was discovered that
about this time a man would proceed from Judaea and gain the dominion
of the world; people believed this the more readily because it was so
very absurd, and the oracle contributed not a little to render the
masses more fanatical.

[Sidenote: Struggle of parties.]

[Sidenote: Victory of the Zealots.]

The moderate party perceived the danger, and resolved to put down the
fanatics by force; it asked for troops from the Romans in Caesarea and
from king Agrippa. From the former no support came; Agrippa sent a
number of horsemen. On the other hand the patriots and the knife-men
flocked into the city, among them the wildest Manahim, also one of
the sons of the oft-named Judas of Galilee. They were the stronger,
and soon were masters in all the city. The handful of Roman soldiers,
which kept garrison in the castle adjoining the temple, was quickly
overpowered and put to death. The neighbouring king’s palace, with the
strong towers belonging to it, where the adherents of the moderate
party, a number of Romans under the tribune Metilius, and the soldiers
of Agrippa were stationed, offered as little resistance. To the latter,
on their desire to capitulate, free departure was allowed, but was
refused to the Romans; when they at length surrendered in return for
assurance of life, they were first disarmed, and then put to death
with the single exception of the officer, who promised to undergo
circumcision and so was pardoned as a Jew. Even the leaders of the
moderates, including the father and the brother of Eleazar, became the
victims of the popular rage, which was still more savagely indignant
at the associates of the Romans than at the Romans themselves. Eleazar
was himself alarmed at his victory; between the two leaders of the
fanatics, himself and Manahim, a bloody hand-to-hand conflict took
place after the victory, perhaps on account of the broken capitulation:
Manahim was captured and executed. But the holy city was free, and
the Roman detachment stationed in Jerusalem was annihilated; the new
Maccabees had conquered, like the old.

[Sidenote: Extension of the Jewish war.]

Thus, it is alleged on the same day, the 6th August 66, the non-Jews
in Caesarea had massacred the Jews, and the Jews in Jerusalem had
massacred the non-Jews; and thereby was given on both sides the
signal to proceed with this patriotic work acceptable to God. In the
neighbouring Greek towns the Hellenes rid themselves of the resident
Jews after the model of Caesarea. For example, in Damascus all the Jews
were in the first instance shut up in the gymnasium, and, on the news
of a misfortune to the Roman arms, were by way of precaution all of
them put to death. The same or something similar took place in Ascalon,
in Scytopolis, Hippos, Gadara, wherever the Hellenes were the stronger.
In the territory of king Agrippa, inhabited mainly by Syrians, his
energetic intervention saved the lives of the Jews of Caesarea Paneas
and elsewhere. In Syria Ptolemais, Tyre, and more or less the other
Greek communities followed; only the two greatest and most civilised
cities, Antioch and Apamea, as well as Sidon, were exceptions. To this
is probably due the fact that this movement did not spread in the
direction of Asia Minor. In Egypt not merely did the matter come to
a popular riot, which claimed numerous victims, but the Alexandrian
legions themselves had to charge the Jews.--In necessary reaction
to these Jewish “vespers” the insurrection victorious in Jerusalem
immediately seized all Judaea and organised itself everywhere, with
similar maltreatment of minorities, but in other respects with rapidity
and energy.

[Sidenote: Vain expedition of Cestius Gallus.]

It was necessary to interfere as speedily as possible, and to prevent
the further extension of the conflagration; on the first news the
Roman governor of Syria, Gaius Cestius Gallus, marched with his troops
against the insurgents. He brought up about 20,000 Roman soldiers and
13,000 belonging to client-states, without including the numerous
Syrian militia; took Joppa, where the whole body of citizens was put to
death; and already in September stood before, and in fact in, Jerusalem
itself. But he could not breach the strong walls of the king’s palace
and of the temple, and as little made use of the opportunity several
times offered to him of getting possession of the town through the
moderate party. Whether the task was insoluble or whether he was not
equal to it, he soon gave up the siege, and purchased even a hasty
retreat by the sacrifice of his baggage and of his rear-guard. Thus
Judaea in the first instance, including Idumaea and Galilee, remained
in, or came into, the hands of the exasperated Jews; the Samaritan
district also was compelled to join. The mainly Hellenic coast towns,
Anthedon and Gaza, were destroyed, Caesarea and the other Greek towns
were retained with difficulty. If the rising did not go beyond the
boundaries of Palestine, that was not the fault of the government, but
was rather due to the national dislike of the Syro-Hellenes towards the
Jews.

[Sidenote: The Jewish war of Vespasian.]

The government in Rome took things in earnest, as earnest they were.
Instead of the procurator an imperial legate was sent to Palestine,
Titus Flavius Vespasianus, a prudent man and an experienced soldier.
He obtained for the conduct of the war two legions of the West,
which in consequence of the Parthian war were accidentally still
in Asia, and that Syrian legion which had suffered least in the
unfortunate expedition of Cestius, while the Syrian army under the
new governor, Gaius Licinius Mucianus--Gallus had seasonably died--by
the addition of another legion was restored to the status which it
had before.[182] To these burgess-troops and their auxiliaries were
added the previous garrison of Palestine, and lastly the forces of
the four client-kings of the Commagenians, the Hemesenes, the Jews,
and the Nabataeans, together about 50,000 men, including among them
15,000 king’s soldiers.[183] In the spring of the year 67 this army
was brought together at Ptolemais and advanced into Palestine. After
the insurgents had been emphatically repulsed by the weak garrison of
the town of Ascalon, they had not further attacked the cities which
took part with the Romans; the hopelessness, which pervaded the whole
movement, expressed itself in the renouncing at once of all offensive.
When the Romans thereupon passed over to the aggressive, the insurgents
nowhere confronted them in the open field, and in fact did not even
make attempts to bring relief to the several places assailed. Certainly
the cautious general of the Romans did not divide his troops, but kept
at least the three legions together throughout. Nevertheless, as in
most of the individual townships a number--often probably but small--of
the fanatics exercised terror over the citizens, the resistance was
obstinate, and the Roman conduct of the war neither brilliant nor rapid.

[Sidenote: First and second campaigns.]

Vespasian employed the whole first campaign (67) in bringing into his
power the fortresses of the small district of Galilee and the coast
as far as Ascalon; before the one little town of Jotapata the three
legions lay encamped for forty-five days. During the winter of 67-8
a legion lay in Scytopolis, on the south border of Galilee, the two
others in Caesarea. Meanwhile the different factions in Jerusalem fell
upon one another and were in most vehement conflict; the good patriots,
who were at the same time for civil order, and the still better
patriots, who, partly in fanatical excitement, partly from delight in
mob-riot, wished to bring about and turn to account a reign of terror,
fought with each other in the streets of the city, and were only at one
in accounting every attempt at reconciliation with the Romans a crime
worthy of death. The Roman general, on many occasions summoned to take
advantage of this disorder, adhered to the course of advancing only
step by step. In the second year of the war he caused the Transjordanic
territory in the first instance, particularly the important towns of
Gadara and Gerasa, to be occupied, and then took up his position at
Emmaus and Jericho, whence he took military possession of Idumaea in
the south and Samaria in the north, so that Jerusalem in the summer of
the year 68 was surrounded on all sides.

[Sidenote: Stoppage of the war.]

The siege was just beginning when the news of the death of Nero
arrived. Thereby _de iure_ the mandate conferred on the legate became
extinct, and Vespasian, not less cautious in a political than in a
military point of view, in fact suspended his operations until new
orders as to his attitude. Before these arrived from Galba, the good
season of the year was at an end. When the spring of 69 came, Galba was
overthrown, and the decision was in suspense between the emperor of the
praetorian guard and the emperor of the army on the Rhine. It was only
after Vitellius’s victory in June 69 that Vespasian resumed operations
and occupied Hebron; but very soon all the armies of the East renounced
their allegiance to the former and proclaimed the previous legate of
Judaea as emperor. The positions at Emmaus and Jericho were indeed
maintained in front of the Jews; but, as the German legions had denuded
the Rhine to make their general emperor, so the flower of the army went
from Palestine, partly with the legate of Syria, Mucianus, to Italy,
partly with the new emperor and his son Titus to Syria and onward to
Egypt, and it was only after the war of the succession was ended, at
the close of the year 69, and the rule of Vespasian was acknowledged
throughout the empire, that the latter entrusted his son with the
termination of the Jewish war.

[Sidenote: Titus against Jerusalem.]

Thus the insurgents had entirely free sway in Jerusalem from the summer
of 66 till the spring of 70. What the combination of religious and
national fanaticism, the noble desire not to survive the downfall of
their fatherland, the consciousness of past crimes and of inevitable
punishment, the wild promiscuous tumult of all noblest and all basest
passions in these four years of terror brought upon the nation, had its
horrors intensified by the fact that the foreigners were only onlookers
in the matter, and all the evil was inflicted directly by Jews upon
Jews. The moderate patriots were soon overpowered by the zealots
with the help of the levy of the rude and fanatical inhabitants of
the Idumaean villages (end of 68), and their leaders were slain. The
zealots thenceforth ruled, and all the bonds of civil, religious, and
moral order were dissolved. Freedom was granted to the slaves, the high
priests were appointed by lot, the ritual laws were trodden under foot
and scoffed at by those very fanatics whose stronghold was the temple,
the captives in the prisons were put to death, and it was forbidden
on pain of death to bury the slain. The different leaders fought with
their separate bands against one another: John of Gischala with his
band brought up from Galilee; Simon, son of Gioras from Gerasa, the
leader of a band of patriots formed in the south, and at the same time
of the Idumaeans in revolt against John; Eleazar, son of Simon, one
of the champions against Cestius Gallus. The first maintained himself
in the porch of the temple, the second in the city, the third in the
Holy of Holies; and there were daily combats in the streets of the city
between Jews and Jews. Concord came only through the common enemy;
when the attack began, Eleazar’s little band placed itself under the
orders of John, and although John in the temple and Simon in the city
continued to play the part of masters, they, while quarrelling among
themselves, fought shoulder to shoulder against the Romans.

[Sidenote: Task of the assailants.]

The task of the assailants was not an easy one. It is true that the
army, which had received in place of the detachments sent to Italy
a considerable contingent from the Egyptian and the Syrian troops,
was quite sufficient for the investment; and, in spite of the long
interval which had been granted to the Jews to prepare for the siege,
their provisions were inadequate, the more especially as a part of
them had been destroyed in the street conflicts, and, as the siege
began about the time of the Passover, numerous strangers who had come
on that account to Jerusalem were also shut in. But though the mass of
the population soon suffered distress, the combatant force took what
they needed where they found it, and, well provided as they were, they
carried on the struggle without reference to the multitudes that were
famishing and soon dying of hunger. The young general could not make
up his mind to a mere blockade; a siege with four legions, brought to
an end in this way, would yield to him personally no glory, and the
new government needed a brilliant feat of arms. The town, everywhere
else defended by inaccessible rocky slopes, was assailable only on the
north side; here, too, it was no easy labour to reduce the threefold
rampart-wall erected without regard to cost from the rich treasures
of the temple, and further within the city to wrest the citadel, the
temple, and the three vast towers of Herod from a strong, fanatically
inspired, and desperate garrison. John and Simon not merely resolutely
repelled the assaults, but often attacked with good success the troops
working at the trenches, and destroyed or burnt the besieging machines.

[Sidenote: Destruction of Jerusalem.]

But the superiority of numbers and the art of war decided for the
Romans. The walls were stormed, and thereafter the citadel Antonia;
then, after long resistance, first the porticoes of the temple went
on fire, and further on the 10th Ab (August) the temple itself, with
all the treasures accumulated in it for six centuries. Lastly, after
fighting in the streets which lasted for a month, on the 8th Elul
(September) the last resistance in the town itself was broken, and
the holy Salem was razed. The bloody work had lasted for five months.
The sword and the arrow, and still more famine, had claimed countless
victims; the Jews killed every one so much as suspected of deserting,
and forced women and children in the city to die of hunger; the Romans
just as pitilessly put to the sword the captives or crucified them.
The combatants that remained, and particularly the two leaders, were
drawn forth singly from the sewers, in which they had taken refuge. At
the Dead Sea, just where once king David and the Maccabees in their
utmost distress had found a refuge, the remnants of the insurgents
still held out for years in the rock-castles Machaerus and Massada,
till at length, as the last of the free Jews, Eleazar grandson of Judas
the Galilean, and his adherents put to death first their wives and
children, and then themselves. The work was done. That the emperor
Vespasian, an able soldier, did not disdain on account of such an
inevitable success over a small long-subject people to march as victor
to the Capitol, and that the seven-armed candelabrum brought home from
the Holy of Holies of the temple is still to be seen at the present
day on the honorary arch which the imperial senate erected to Titus
in the market of the capital,[184] gives no high conception of the
warlike spirit of this time. It is true that the deep aversion, which
the Occidentals cherished towards the Jewish people, made up in some
measure for what was wanting in martial glory, and if the Jewish name
was too vile for the emperors to assign it to themselves, like those of
the Germans and the Parthians, they deemed it not beneath their dignity
to prepare for the populace of the capital this triumph commemorative
of the victor’s pleasure in the misfortunes of others.

[Sidenote: Breaking up of the Jewish central power.]

The work of the sword was followed by a change of policy. The
policy pursued by the earlier Hellenistic states, and taken over
from them by the Romans--which reached in reality far beyond mere
tolerance towards foreign ways and foreign faith, and recognised
the Jews in their collective character as a national and religious
community--had become impossible. In the Jewish insurrection the
dangers had been too clearly brought to light, which this formation of
a national-religious union--on the one hand rigidly concentrated, on
the other spreading over the whole East and having ramifications even
in the West--involved. The central worship was accordingly once for all
set aside. This resolution of the government stood undoubtedly fixed,
and had nothing in common with the question, which cannot be answered
with certainty, whether the destruction of the temple took place by
design or by accident; if, on the one hand, the suppression of the
worship required only the closing of the temple and the magnificent
structure might have been spared, on the other hand, had the temple
been accidentally destroyed, the worship might have been continued
in a temple rebuilt. No doubt it will always remain probable that
it was not the chance of war that here prevailed, but the flames of
the temple were rather the programme for the altered policy of the
Roman government with reference to Judaism.[185] More clearly even
than in the events at Jerusalem the same change is marked in the
closing--which ensued at the same time on the order of Vespasian--of
the central sanctuary of the Egyptian Jews, the temple of Onias, not
far from Memphis, in the Heliopolitan district, which for centuries
stood alongside of that of Jerusalem, somewhat as the translation by
the Alexandrian Seventy stood side by side with the Old Testament; it
too was divested of its votive gifts, and the worship of God in it was
forbidden.

In the further carrying out of the new order of things the high
priesthood and the Synhedrion of Jerusalem disappeared, and thereby
the Jews of the empire lost their outward supreme head and their
chief authority having jurisdiction hitherto generally in religious
questions. The annual tribute--previously at least tolerated--on the
part of every Jew, without distinction of dwelling-place, to the temple
did not certainly fall into abeyance, but was with bitter parody
transferred to the Capitoline Jupiter, and his representative on
earth, the Roman emperor. From the character of the Jewish institutions
the suppression of the central worship involved dissolution of the
community of Jerusalem. The city was not merely destroyed and burnt
down, but was left lying in ruins, like Carthage and Corinth once upon
a time; its territory, public as well as private land, became imperial
domain.[186] Such of the citizens of the populous town as had escaped
famine or the sword came under the hammer of the slave market. Amidst
the ruins of the destroyed town was pitched the camp of the legion,
which, with its Spanish and Thracian auxiliaries, was thenceforth to
do garrison duty in the Jewish land. The provincial troops hitherto
recruited in Palestine itself were transferred elsewhere. In Emmaus, in
the immediate neighbourhood of Jerusalem, a number of Roman veterans
were settled, but urban rights were not conferred on this place. On
the other hand, the old Sichem, the religious centre of the Samaritan
community, perhaps a Greek city even from the time of Alexander the
Great, was now reorganised in the forms of Hellenic polity under the
name Flavia Neapolis. The capital of the land, Caesarea, hitherto
a Greek urban community, obtained as “first Flavian colony” Roman
organisation and Latin as the language of business. These were essays
towards the Occidental municipalising of the Jewish land. Nevertheless
Judaea proper, though depopulated and impoverished, remained still
Jewish as before; the light in which the government looked upon
the land is shown by the thoroughly anomalous permanent military
occupation, which, as Judaea was not situated on the frontier of the
empire, can only have been destined to keep down the inhabitants.

[Sidenote: The end of the Herodians.]

The Herodians, too, did not long survive the destruction of Jerusalem.
King Agrippa II., the ruler of Caesarea Paneas and of Tiberias,
had rendered faithful service to the Romans in the war against his
countrymen, and had even scars, honourable at least in a military
sense, to show from it; besides, his sister Berenice, a Cleopatra on
a small scale, held the heart of the conqueror of Jerusalem captive
with the remnant of her much sought charms. So he remained personally
in possession of the dominion; but after his death, some thirty years
later, this last reminiscence of the Jewish state was merged in the
Roman province of Syria.

[Sidenote: Further treatment of the Jews.]

No hindrances were put in the way of the Jews exercising their
religious customs either in Palestine or elsewhere. Their religious
instruction itself, and the assemblies in connection with it of their
law-teachers and law-experts, were at least permitted in Palestine;
and there was no hindrance to these Rabbinical unions attempting to
put themselves in some measure in the room of the former Synhedrion of
Jerusalem, and to fix their doctrine and their laws in the groundwork
of the Talmud. Although individual partakers in the Jewish insurrection
who fled to Egypt and Cyrene produced troubles there, the bodies
of Jews outside of Palestine, so far as we see, were left in their
previous position. Against the Jew-hunt, which just about the time
of the destruction of Jerusalem was called forth in Antioch by the
circumstance that the Jews there had been publicly charged by one of
their renegade comrades in the faith with the intention of setting the
town on fire, the representative of the governor of Syria interfered
with energy, and did not allow what was proposed--that they should
compel the Jews to sacrifice to the gods of the land and to refrain
from keeping the Sabbath. Titus himself, when he came to Antioch, most
distinctly dismissed the leaders of the movement there with their
request for the ejection of the Jews, or at least the cancelling of
their privileges. People shrank from declaring war on the Jewish faith
as such, and from driving the far-branching Diaspora to extremities; it
was enough that Judaism was in its political representation deleted
from the commonwealth.

[Sidenote: The consequences of the catastrophe.]

The alteration in the policy pursued since Alexander’s time towards
Judaism amounted in the main to the withdrawing from this religious
society unity of leadership and external compactness, and to the
wresting out of the hands of its leaders a power which extended not
merely over the native land of the Jews, but over the bodies of Jews
generally within and beyond the Roman empire, and certainly in the
East was prejudicial to the unity of imperial government. The Lagids
as well as the Seleucids, and not less the Roman emperors of the
Julio-Claudian dynasty, had put up with this; but the immediate rule
of the Occidentals over Judaea had sharpened the contrast between
the imperial power and this power of the priests to such a degree,
that the catastrophe set in with inevitable necessity and brought its
consequences. From a political standpoint we may censure, doubtless,
the remorselessness of the conduct of the war--which, moreover,
is pretty much common to this war with all similar ones in Roman
history--but hardly the religious-political dissolution of the nation
ordained in consequence of it. If the axe was laid at the root of
institutions which had led, and could not but with a certain necessity
lead, to the formation of a party like that of the zealots, there was
but done what was right and necessary, however severely and unjustly
in the special case the individual might be affected by it. Vespasian,
who gave the decision, was a judicious and moderate ruler. The question
concerned was one not of faith but of power; the Jewish church-state,
as head of the Diaspora, was not compatible with the absoluteness
of the secular great-state. From the general rule of toleration the
government did not even in this case depart; it waged war not against
Judaism but against the high priest and the Synhedrion.

[Sidenote: The Christians.]

Nor did the destruction of the temple wholly fail in this its aim.
There were not a few Jews and still more proselytes, particularly in
the Diaspora, who adhered more to the Jewish moral law and to Jewish
Monotheism than to the strictly national form of faith; the whole
important sect of the Christians had inwardly broken off from Judaism
and stood partly in open opposition to the Jewish ritual. For these
the fall of Jerusalem was by no means the end of things, and within
these extensive and influential circles the government obtained in some
measure what it aimed at by breaking up the central seat of the Jewish
worship. The separation of the Christian faith common to the Gentiles
from the national Jewish, the victory of the adherents of Paul over
those of Peter, was essentially promoted by the abolition of the Jewish
central cultus.

[Sidenote: Palestinian Jews.]

But among the Jews of Palestine, where the language spoken was not
Hebrew indeed, but Aramaic, and among the portion of the Diaspora
which clung firmly to Jerusalem, the breach between Judaism and the
rest of the world was deepened by the destruction of the temple. The
national-religious exclusiveness, which the government wished to
obviate, was in this narrow circle rather strengthened by the violent
attempt to break it down, and driven, in the first instance, to further
desperate struggles.

[Sidenote: The Jewish rising under Trajan.]

Not quite fifty years after the destruction of Jerusalem, in the
year 116,[187] the Jews of the eastern Mediterranean rose against
the imperial government. The rising, although undertaken by the
Diaspora, was of a purely national character in its chief seats,
Cyrene, Cyprus, Egypt, directed to the expulsion of the Romans as of
the Hellenes, and, apparently, to the establishment of a separate
Jewish state. It ramified even into Asiatic territory, and seized
Mesopotamia and Palestine itself. When the insurgents were victorious
they conducted the war with the same exasperation as the Sicarii in
Jerusalem; they killed those whom they seized--the historian Appian,
a native of Alexandria, narrates how he, running from them for
his life, with great difficulty made his escape to Pelusium--and
often they put the captives to death under excruciating torture, or
compelled them--just as Titus formerly compelled the Jews captured
in Jerusalem--to fall as gladiators in the arena in order to delight
the eyes of the victors. In Cyrene 220,000, in Cyprus even 240,000
men are said to have been thus put to death by them. On the other
hand, in Alexandria, which does not appear itself to have fallen
into the hands of the Jews,[188] the besieged Hellenes slew whatever
Jews were then in the city. The immediate cause of the rising is not
clear. The blood of the zealots, who had taken refuge at Alexandria
and Cyrene, and had there sealed their loyalty to the faith by dying
under the axe of the Roman executioner, may not have flowed in vain;
the Parthian war, during which the insurrection began, so far promoted
it, as the troops stationed in Egypt had probably been called to the
theatre of war. To all appearance it was an outbreak of the religious
exasperation of the Jews, which had been glowing in secret like a
volcano since the destruction of the temple and broke out after an
incalculable manner into flames, of such a kind as the East has at
all times produced and produces; if the insurgents really proclaimed
a Jew as king, this rising certainly had, like that in their native
country, its central seat in the great mass of the common people.
That this Jewish rising partly coincided with the formerly-mentioned
(p. 68) attempt at liberation of the peoples shortly before subdued
by the emperor Trajan, while the latter was in the far East at the
mouth of the Euphrates, gave to it even a political significance; if
the successes of this ruler melted away under his hands at the close
of his career, the Jewish insurrection, particularly in Palestine and
Mesopotamia, contributed its part to that result. In order to put down
the insurrection the troops had everywhere to take the field; against
the “king” of the Cyrenaean Jews, Andreas or Lukuas, and the insurgents
in Egypt, Trajan sent Quintus Marcius Turbo with an army and fleet;
against the insurgents in Mesopotamia, as was already stated, Lusius
Quietus--two of his most experienced generals. The insurgents were
nowhere able to offer resistance to the regular troops, although the
struggle was prolonged in Africa as in Palestine to the first times of
Hadrian, and similar punishments were inflicted on this Diaspora as
previously on the Jews of Palestine. That Trajan annihilated the Jews
in Alexandria, as Appian says, is hardly an incorrect, although perhaps
a too blunt expression for what took place; for Cyprus it is attested
that thenceforth no Jew might even set foot upon the island, and death
there awaited even the shipwrecked Israelites. If our traditional
information was as copious in regard to this catastrophe as in regard
to that of Jerusalem, it would probably appear as its continuation and
completion, and in some sense also as its explanation; this rising
shows the relation of the Diaspora to the home-country, and the state
within a state, into which Judaism had developed.

[Sidenote: The Jewish rising under Hadrian.]

[Sidenote: Aelia Capitolina.]

Even with this second overthrow the revolt of Judaism against the
imperial power was not at an end. We cannot say that the latter gave
further provocation to it; ordinary acts of administration, which were
accepted without opposition throughout the empire, affected the Hebrews
just where the full resisting power of the national faith had its seat,
and thereby called forth, probably to the surprise of the governors
themselves, an insurrection which was in fact a war. If the emperor
Hadrian, when his tour through the empire brought him to Palestine,
resolved in the year 130 to re-erect the destroyed holy city of the
Jews as a Roman colony, he certainly did not do them the honour of
fearing them, and had no thought of propagating religious-political
views; but he ordained that this legionary camp should--as shortly
before or soon afterwards was the case on the Rhine, on the Danube,
in Africa--be connected with an urban community recruiting itself
primarily from the veterans, which received its name partly from
its founder, partly from the god to whom at that time the Jews paid
tribute instead of Jehovah. Similar was the state of the case as to
the prohibition of circumcision; it was issued, as will be observed at
a later point, probably without any design of thereby making war on
Judaism as such. As may be conceived, the Jews did not inquire as to
the motives for that founding of the city and for this prohibition,
but felt both as an attack on their faith and their nationality, and
answered it by an insurrection which, neglected at first by the Romans,
thereupon had not its match for intensity and duration in the history
of the Roman imperial period. The whole body of the Jews at home and
abroad was agitated by the movement and supported more or less openly
the insurgents on the Jordan;[189] even Jerusalem fell into their
hands,[190] and the governor of Syria and indeed the emperor Hadrian
appeared on the scene of conflict. The war was led, significantly
enough, by the priest Eleazar[191] and the bandit-chief Simon, surnamed
Bar-Kokheba, _i.e._ son of the stars, as the bringer of heavenly help,
perhaps as Messiah. The financial power and the organisation of the
insurgents are testified by the silver and copper coins struck through
several years in the name of these two. After a sufficient number of
troops was brought together, the experienced general Sextus Julius
Severus gained the upper hand, but only by a gradual and slow advance;
quite as in the war under Vespasian no pitched battle took place, but
one place after another cost time and blood, till at length after a
three years’ warfare[192] the last castle of the insurgents, the strong
Bether, not far from Jerusalem, was stormed by the Romans. The numbers
handed down to us in good accounts of 50 fortresses taken, 985 villages
occupied, 580,000 that fell, are not incredible, since the war was
waged with inexorable cruelty, and the male population was probably
everywhere put to death.

[Sidenote: Judaea after Hadrian.]

In consequence of this rising the very name of the vanquished people
was set aside; the province was thenceforth termed, not as formerly
Judaea, but by the old name of Herodotus Syria of the Philistines, or
Syria Palaestina. The land remained desolate; the new city of Hadrian
continued to exist, but did not prosper. The Jews were prohibited under
penalty of death from even setting foot in Jerusalem; the garrison was
doubled; the limited territory between Egypt and Syria, to which only
a small strip of the Transjordanic domain on the Dead Sea belonged,
and which nowhere touched the frontier of the empire, was thenceforth
furnished with two legions. In spite of all these strong measures the
province remained disturbed, primarily doubtless in consequence of the
bandit-habits long interwoven with the national cause. Pius issued
orders to march against the Jews, and even under Severus there is
mention of a war against Jews and Samaritans. But no movements on a
great scale among the Jews recurred after the Hadrianic war.

[Sidenote: Position of the Jews in the second and third centuries.]

It must be acknowledged that these repeated outbreaks of the animosity
fermenting in the minds of the Jews against the whole of their
non-Jewish fellow-citizens did not change the general policy of the
government. Like Vespasian, the succeeding emperors maintained, as
respects the Jews in the main, the general standpoint of political and
religious toleration; and not only so, but the exceptional laws issued
for the Jews were, and continued to be, chiefly directed to release
them from such general civil duties as were not compatible with their
habits and their faith, and they are therefore designated directly as
privilegia.[193]

Since the time of Claudius, whose suppression of Jewish worship in
Italy (p. 199) is at least the last measure of the sort which we know
of, residence and the free exercise of religion in the whole empire
appear to have been in law conceded to the Jew. It would have been
no wonder if those insurrections in the African and Syrian provinces
had led to the expulsion generally of the Jews settled there; but
restrictions of this sort were enacted, as we saw, only locally, _e.g._
for Cyprus. The Greek provinces always remained the chief seat of the
Jews; even in the capital in some measure bilingual, whose numerous
body of Jews had a series of synagogues, these formed a portion of the
Greek population of Rome. Their epitaphs in Rome are exclusively Greek;
in the Christian church at Rome developed from this Jewish body the
baptismal confession was uttered in Greek down to a late period, and
throughout the first three centuries the literature was exclusively
Greek. But restrictive measures against the Jews appear not to have
been adopted even in the Latin provinces; through and with Hellenism
the Jewish system penetrated into the West, and there too communities
of Jews were found, although they were still in number and importance
even now, when the blows directed against the Diaspora had severely
injured the Jew-communities of the East, far inferior to the latter.

[Sidenote: Corporative unions.]

Political privileges did not follow of themselves from the toleration
of worship. The Jews were not hindered in the construction of
their synagogues and proseuchae any more than in the appointment
of a president for the same (ἀρχισυναγωγός), as well as of a
college of elders (ἄρχοντες), with a chief elder (γερουσιάρχης)
at its head. Magisterial functions were not meant to be connected
with these positions; but, considering the inseparableness of the
Jewish church-organisation and the Jewish administration of law,
the presidents probably everywhere exercised, like the bishops in
the Middle Ages, a jurisdiction, although merely _de facto_. The
bodies of Jews in the several towns were not recognised generally as
corporations, certainly not, for example, those of Rome; yet there
subsisted at many places on the ground of local privileges such
corporative unions with ethnarchs or, as they were now mostly called,
patriarchs at their head. Indeed, in Palestine we find at the beginning
of the third century once more a president of the whole Jewish body,
who, in virtue of hereditary sacerdotal right, bears sway over his
fellow-believers almost like a ruler, and has power even over life and
limb, and whom the government at least tolerates.[194] Beyond question
this patriarch was for the Jews the old high priest, and thus, under
the eyes and under the oppression of the foreign rule, the obstinate
people of God had once more reconstituted themselves, and in so far
overthrown Vespasian’s work.

[Sidenote: Public services.]

As respects the bringing of the Jews under obligations of public
service, their exemption from serving in war as incompatible with
their religious principles had long since been and continued to be
recognised. The special poll-tax to which they were subject, the old
temple-payment, might be regarded as a compensation for this exemption,
though it had not been imposed in this sense. For other services,
as _e.g._ for the undertaking of wardships and municipal offices,
they were at least from the time of Severus regarded in general as
capable and under obligation, but those which ran counter to their
“superstition” were remitted to them;[195] in connection with which we
have to take into account that exclusion from municipal offices became
more and more converted from a slight into a privilege. Even in the
case of state offices in later times a similar course was probably
pursued.

[Sidenote: Forbidding of circumcision.]

The only serious interference of the state-power with Jewish customs
concerned the ceremony of circumcision; the measures directed against
this, however, were probably not taken from a religious-political
standpoint, but were connected with the forbidding of castration, and
arose doubtless in part from misunderstanding of the Jewish custom.
The evil habit of mutilation, becoming more and more prevalent, was
first brought by Domitian within the sphere of penal offences; when
Hadrian, making the precept more stringent, placed castration under the
law of murder, circumcision appears also to have been apprehended as
castration,[196] which certainly could not but be felt and was felt (p.
224) by the Jews as an attack upon their existence, although this was
perhaps not its intention. Soon afterwards, probably in consequence of
the insurrection thereby occasioned, Pius allowed the circumcision of
children of Jewish descent, while otherwise even that of the non-free
Jew and of the proselyte was to involve, afterwards as before, the
penalty of castration for all participating in it. This was also of
political importance, in so far as thereby the formal passing over
to Judaism became a penal offence; and probably the prohibition was,
not indeed issued but, retained with this in view.[197] It must have
contributed its part to the abrupt demarcation of the Jews from the
non-Jews.

[Sidenote: Altered position of the Jews in the imperial period.]

If we look back on the fortunes of Judaism in the epoch from Augustus
to Diocletian, we recognise a thorough transformation of its character
and of its position. It enters upon this epoch as a national and
religious power firmly concentrated round its narrow native land--a
power which even confronts the imperial government in and beyond
Judaea with arms in hand, and in the field of faith evolves a mighty
propagandist energy. We can understand that the Roman government
would not tolerate the adoration of Jehovah and the faith of Moses on
another footing than that on which the cultus of Mithra and the faith
of Zoroaster were tolerated. The reaction against this exclusive and
self-centred Judaism came in the crushing blows directed by Vespasian
and Hadrian against the Jewish land, and by Trajan against the Jews
of the Diaspora, the effect of which reached far beyond the immediate
destruction of the existing society and the reduction of the repute
and power of the Jews as a body. In fact, the later Christianity and
the later Judaism were the consequences of this reaction of the West
against the East. The great propagandist movement, which carried the
deeper view of religion from the East into the West, was liberated
in this way, as was already said (p. 220 f.), from the narrow limits
of Jewish nationality; if it by no means gave up the attachment to
Moses and the prophets, it necessarily became released at any rate
from the government of the Pharisees, which had gone to pieces. The
Christian ideals of the future became universal, since there was no
longer a Jerusalem upon earth. But as the enlarged and deepened faith,
which with its nature changed also its name, arose out of these
disasters, so not less the narrowed and hardened orthodoxy, which
found a rallying point, if no longer in Jerusalem, at any rate in
hatred towards those who had destroyed it, and still more in hatred
towards the more free and higher intellectual movement which evolved
Christianity out of Judaism. The external power of the Jews was broken,
and risings, such as took place in the middle of the imperial period,
are not subsequently met with; the Roman emperors were done with the
state within the state, and, as the properly dangerous element--the
propagandist diffusion--passed over to Christianity, the confessors of
the old faith, who shut themselves off from the New Covenant, were set
aside, so far as the further general development was concerned.

[Sidenote: Altered character of Judaism.]

But if the legions could destroy Jerusalem, they could not raze Judaism
itself; and what on the one side was a remedy, exercised on the other
the effect of a poison. Judaism not only remained, but it became an
altered thing. There is a deep gulf between the Judaism of the older
time, which seeks to spread its faith, which has its temple-court
filled with the Gentiles, and which has its priests offering daily
sacrifices for the emperor Augustus, and the rigid Rabbinism, which
knew nothing and wished to know nothing of the world beyond Abraham’s
bosom and the Mosaic law. Strangers the Jews always were, and had
wished to be so; but the feeling of estrangement now culminated within
them as well as against them after a fearful fashion, and rudely were
its hateful and pernicious consequences drawn on both sides. From the
contemptuous sarcasm of Horace against the intruding Jew from the
Roman Ghetto there is a wide step to the solemn enmity which Tacitus
cherishes against this scum of the human race, to which everything
pure is impure and everything impure pure; in the interval lie those
insurrections of the despised people, and the necessity of conquering
it and of expending continuously money and men for its repression. The
prohibitions of maltreating the Jew, which are constantly recurring in
the imperial ordinances, show that those words of the cultured were
translated, as might be expected, by their inferiors into deeds. The
Jews, on their part, did not mend the matter. They turned away from
Hellenic literature, which was now regarded as polluting, and even
rebelled against the use of the Greek translation of the Bible; the
ever-increasing purification of faith turned not merely against the
Greeks and the Romans, but quite as much against the “half-Jews” of
Samaria and against the Christian heretics; the reverence toward the
letter of the Holy Scriptures rose to a giddy height of absurdity, and
above all an--if possible--still holier tradition established itself,
in the fetters of which all life and thought were benumbed. The gulf
between that treatise on the Sublime which ventures to place Homer’s
Poseidon shaking land and sea and Jehovah, who creates the shining sun,
side by side, and the beginnings of the Talmud which belong to this
epoch, marks the contrast between the Judaism of the first and that
of the third century. The living together of Jews and non-Jews showed
itself more and more to be just as inevitable, as under the given
conditions it was intolerable; the contrast in faith, law, and manners
became sharpened, and mutual arrogance and mutual hatred operated on
both sides with morally disorganising effect. Not merely was their
conciliation not promoted in these centuries, but its realisation was
always thrown further into the distance, the more its necessity was
apparent. This exasperation, this arrogance, this contempt, as they
became established at that time, were indeed only the inevitable growth
of a perhaps not less inevitable sowing; but the heritage of these
times is still at the present day a burden on mankind.



CHAPTER XII.

EGYPT.


[Sidenote: The annexation of Egypt.]

The two kingdoms of Egypt and Syria, which had so long striven and
vied with each other in every respect, fell nearly about the same time
without resistance into the power of the Romans. If these made no use
of the alleged or real testament of Alexander II. († 673) {81 B.C.}
and did not then annex the land, the last rulers of the Lagid house
were confessedly in the position of clients of Rome; the senate decided
in disputes as to the throne, and after the Roman governor of Syria,
Aulus Gabinius, had with his troops brought back the king Ptolemaeus
Auletes to Egypt (699; comp. iv. 160) {55. iv. 153.}, the Roman legions
did not again leave the land. Like the other client-kings, the rulers
of Egypt took part in the civil wars on the summons of the government
recognised by them or rather imposing itself on them; and, if it must
remain undecided what part Antonius in the fanciful eastern empire of
his dreams had destined for the native land of the wife whom he loved
too well (p. 25), at any rate the government of Antonius in Alexandria,
as well as the last struggle in the last civil war before the gates of
that city, belongs as little to the special history of Egypt as the
battle of Actium to that of Epirus. But doubtless this catastrophe, and
the death connected with it of the last prince of the Lagid house, gave
occasion for Augustus not to fill up again the vacant throne, but to
take the kingdom of Egypt under his own administration. This annexation
of the last portion of the coast of the Mediterranean to the sphere
of direct Roman administration, and the settlement, coincident with
it in point of time and of organic connection, of the new monarchy,
mark--as regards the constitution and administration of the huge empire
respectively--the turning-point, the end of the old and the beginning
of a new epoch.

[Sidenote: Egypt exclusively an imperial possession.]

The incorporation of Egypt into the Roman empire was accomplished
after an abnormal fashion, in so far as the principle--elsewhere
dominating the state--of dyarchy, _i.e._ of the joint rule of the two
supreme imperial powers, the princeps and the senate, found--apart from
some subordinate districts--no application in Egypt alone;[198] but,
on the contrary, in this land the senate as such, as well as every
individual of its members, were cut off from all participation in the
government, and indeed senators and persons of senatorial rank were
even prohibited from setting foot in this province.[199] We must not
conceive of this position as if Egypt were connected with the rest of
the empire only by a personal union; the princeps is, according to
the meaning and spirit of the Augustan organisation, an integral and
permanently acting element of the Roman polity just like the senate,
and his rule over Egypt is quite as much a part of the imperial rule as
is the rule of the proconsul of Africa.[200] We may rather illustrate
the exact constitutional position by saying that the British Empire
would find itself in the same plight if the ministry and Parliament
should be taken into account only for the motherland, whereas the
colonies should have to obey the absolute government of the Empress of
India. What motives determined the new monarch at the very outset of
his sole rule to adopt this deeply influential and at no time assailed
arrangement, and how it affected the general political relations, are
matters belonging to the general history of the empire; here we have to
set forth how the internal relations of Egypt shaped themselves under
the imperial rule.

What held true in general of all Hellenic or Hellenised
territories--that the Romans, when annexing them to the empire,
preserved the once existing institutions, and introduced modifications
only where these seemed absolutely necessary--found application in its
full compass to Egypt.

Like Syria, Egypt, when it became Roman, was a land of twofold
nationality; here too alongside of, and over, the native stood the
Greek--the former the slave, the latter the master. But in law and in
fact the relations of the two nations in Egypt were wholly different
from those of Syria.

[Sidenote: Greek and Egyptian towns.]

Syria, substantially already in the pre-Roman and entirely in the
Roman epoch, came under the government of the land only after an
indirect manner; it was broken up, partly into principalities, partly
into autonomous urban districts, and was administered, in the first
instance, by the rulers of the land or municipal authorities. In
Egypt,[201] on the other hand, there were neither native princes
nor imperial cities after the Greek fashion. The two spheres of
administration into which Egypt was divided--the “land” (ἡ χώρα) of
the Egyptians, with its originally thirty-six districts (νομοί), and
the two Greek cities, Alexandria in lower and Ptolemais in upper
Egypt[202]--were rigidly separated and sharply opposed to each other,
and yet in a strict sense hardly different. The rural, like the urban,
district was not merely marked off territorially, but the former as
well as the latter was a home-district; the belonging to each was
independent of dwelling-place and hereditary. The Egyptian from the
Chemmitic nome belonged to it with his dependents, just as much when
he had his abode in Alexandria as the Alexandrian dwelling in Chemmis
belonged to the burgess-body of Alexandria. The land-district had for
its centre always an urban settlement, the Chemmitic, for example, the
town of Panopolis, which grew up round the temple of Chemmis or of Pan,
or, as this is expressed in the Greek mode of conception, each nome had
its metropolis; so far each land-district may be regarded also as a
town-district. Like the cities, the nomes also became in the Christian
epoch the basis of the episcopal dioceses. The land-districts were
based on the arrangements for worship which dominated everything in
Egypt; the centre for each one is the sanctuary of a definite deity,
and usually it bears the name of this deity or of the animal sacred to
the same; thus the Chemmitic district is called after the god Chemmis,
or, according to Greek equivalent, Pan; other districts after the dog,
the lion, the crocodile. But, on the other hand, the town-districts are
not without their religious centre; the protecting god of Alexandria is
Alexander, the protecting god of Ptolemais the first Ptolemy, and the
priests, who are installed in the one place as in the other for this
worship and that of their successors, are the Eponymi for both cities.
The land-district is quite destitute of autonomy: administration,
taxation, justice, are placed in the hands of the royal officials,[203]
and the collegiate system, the Palladium of the Greek as of the Roman
commonwealth, was here in all stages absolutely excluded. But in the
two Greek cities it was not much otherwise. There was doubtless a body
of burgesses divided into phylae and demes, but no common council;[204]
the officials were doubtless different and differently named from those
of the nomes, but were also throughout officials of royal nomination
and likewise without collegiate arrangement. Hadrian was the first to
give to an Egyptian township, Antinoopolis, laid out by him in memory
of his favourite drowned in the Nile, urban rights according to the
Greek fashion; and subsequently Severus, perhaps as much out of spite
to the Antiochenes as for the benefit of the Egyptians, granted to the
capital of Egypt and to the town of Ptolemais, and to several other
Egyptian communities, not urban magistrates indeed, but at any rate an
urban council. Hitherto, doubtless, in official language the Egyptian
town calls itself Nomos, the Greek Polis, but a Polis without Archontes
and Bouleutae is a meaningless name. So was it also in the coinage. The
Egyptian nomes did not possess the right of coining; but still less did
Alexandria ever strike coins. Egypt is, among all the provinces of the
Greek half of the empire, the only one which knows no other than royal
money. Nor was this otherwise even in the Roman period. The emperors
abolished the abuses that crept in under the last Lagids; Augustus
set aside their unreal copper coinage, and when Tiberius resumed the
coinage of silver he gave to the Egyptian silver money just as real
value as to the other provincial currency of the empire.[205] But the
character of the coinage remained substantially the same.[206] There
is a distinction between Nomos and Polis as between the god Chemmis
and the god Alexander; in an administrative respect there is not any
difference. Egypt consisted of a majority of Egyptian and of a minority
of Greek townships, all of which were destitute of autonomy, and all
were placed under the immediate and absolute administration of the king
and of the officials nominated by him.

[Sidenote: Absence of a land-diet.]

It was a consequence of this, that Egypt alone of all the Roman
provinces had no general representation. The diet is the collective
representation of the self-administering communities of the province.
But in Egypt there was none such; the nomes were simply imperial or
rather royal administrative districts, and Alexandria not merely
stood virtually alone, but was likewise without proper municipal
organisation. The priest standing at the head of the capital of the
country might doubtless call himself “chief priest of Alexandria and
all Egypt” (p. 248, note), and has a certain resemblance to the Asiarch
and the Bithyniarch of Asia Minor, but the deep diversity of the
organisations is thereby simply concealed.

[Sidenote: The government of the Lagids.]

The rule bore accordingly in Egypt a far different character than in
the rest of the domain of Greek and Roman civilisation embraced under
the imperial government. In the latter the community administers
throughout; the ruler of the empire is, strictly taken, only the
common president of the numerous more or less autonomous bodies of
burgesses, and alongside of the advantages of self-administration its
disadvantages and dangers everywhere appear. In Egypt the ruler is
king, the inhabitant of the land is his subject, the administration
that of a domain. This administration, in principle as haughtily and
absolutely conducted as it was directed to the equal welfare of all
subjects without distinction of rank and of estate, was the peculiarity
of the Lagid government, developed probably more from the Hellenising
of the old Pharaonic rule than from the urban organisation of the
universal empire, as the great Macedonian had conceived it, and as it
was most completely carried out in the Syrian New-Macedonia (p. 120).
The system required a king not merely leading the army in his own
person, but engaged in the daily labour of administration, a developed
and strictly disciplined hierarchy of officials, scrupulous justice
towards high and low; and as these rulers, not altogether without
ground, ascribed to themselves the name of benefactor (εὐεργέτης), so
the monarchy of the Lagids may be compared with that of Frederick,
from which it was in its principles not far removed. Certainly Egypt
had also experienced the reverse side, the inevitable collapse of the
system in incapable hands. But the standard remained; and the Augustan
principate alongside of the rule of the senate was nothing but the
intermarriage of the Lagid government with the old urban and federal
development.

[Sidenote: Egypt and the imperial administration.]

A further consequence of this form of government was the undoubted
superiority, more especially from a financial point of view, of the
Egyptian administration over that of the other provinces. We may
designate the pre-Roman epoch as the struggle of the financially
dominant power of Egypt with the Asiatic empire, filling, so far as
space goes, the rest of the East; under the Roman period this was
continued in a certain sense in the fact that the imperial finances
stood forth superior in contrast to those of the senate, especially
through the exclusive possession of Egypt. If it is the aim of the
state to work out the utmost possible amount from its territory, in
the old world the Lagids were absolutely the masters of statecraft.
In particular they were in this sphere the instructors and the models
of the Caesars. How much the Romans drew out of Egypt we are not able
to say with precision. In the Persian period Egypt had paid an annual
tribute of 700 Babylonish talents of silver, about £200,000; the annual
income of the Ptolemies from Egypt, or rather from their possessions
generally, amounted in their most brilliant period to 14,800 Egyptian
silver talents, or £2,850,000, and besides 1,500,000 artabae = 591,000
hectolitres of wheat; at the end of their rule fully 6000 talents,
or £1,250,000. The Romans drew from Egypt annually the third part
of the corn necessary for the consumption of Rome, 20,000,000 Roman
bushels[207] = 1,740,000 hectolitres; a part of it, however, was
certainly derived from the domains proper, another perhaps supplied
in return for compensation, while, on the other hand, the Egyptian
tribute was assessed, at least for a great part, in money, so that we
are not in a position even approximately to determine the Egyptian
income of the Roman exchequer. But not merely by its amount was it of
decisive importance for the Roman state-economy, but because it served
as a pattern in the first instance for the domanial possessions of the
emperors in the other provinces, and generally for the whole imperial
administration, as this falls to be explained when we set it forth.

[Sidenote: Privileged position of the Hellenes.]

But if the communal self-administration had no place in Egypt, and in
this respect a real diversity does not exist between the two nations
of which this state, just like the Syrian, was composed, there was
in another respect a barrier erected between them, to which Syria
offers no parallel. According to the arrangement of the Macedonian
conquerors, the belonging to an Egyptian locality disqualified for
all public offices and for the better military service. Where the
state made gifts to its burgesses these were restricted to those of
the Greek communities;[208] on the other hand, the Egyptians only
paid the poll-tax; and even from the municipal burdens, which fell on
the settlers of the individual Egyptian district, the Alexandrians
settled there were exempted.[209] Although in the case of trespass the
back of the Egyptian as of the Alexandrian had to suffer, the latter
might boast, and did boast, that the cane struck him, and not the
lash, as in the case of the former.[210] Even the acquiring of better
burgess-rights was forbidden to the Egyptians.[211] The burgess-lists
of the two large Greek towns organised by and named after the two
founders of the empire in lower and upper Egypt embraced in them the
ruling population, and the possession of the franchise of one of these
towns was in the Egypt of the Ptolemies the same as the possession of
the Roman franchise was in the Roman empire. What Aristotle recommended
to Alexander--to be a ruler (ἡγεμών) to the Hellenes and a master to
the barbarians, to provide for the former as friends and comrades,
to use the latter like animals and plants--the Ptolemies practically
carried out in all its extent. The king, greater and more free than
his instructor, carried in his mind the higher idea of transforming
the barbarians into Hellenes, or at least of replacing the barbarian
settlements by Hellenic, and to this idea his successors almost
everywhere, and particularly in Syria, allowed ample scope.[212] In
Egypt this was not the case. Doubtless its rulers sought to keep touch
with the natives, particularly in the religious sphere, and wished not
to rule as Greeks over the Egyptians, but rather as earthly gods over
their subjects in common; but with this the inequality of rights on the
part of the subjects was quite compatible, just as the preference _de
iure_ and _de facto_ of the nobility was quite as essential a part of
the government of Frederick as the equality of justice towards gentle
and simple.

[Sidenote: Personal privileges in the Roman period.]

As the Romans in the East generally continued the work of the Greeks,
so the exclusion of the native Egyptians from the acquiring of Greek
citizenship not merely continued to subsist, but was extended to the
Roman citizenship. The Egyptian Greek, on the other hand, might acquire
the latter just like any other non-burgess. Entrance to the senate,
it is true, was as little allowed to him as to the Roman burgess from
Gaul (p. 89), and this restriction remained much longer in force for
Egypt than for Gaul;[213] it was not till the beginning of the third
century that it was disregarded in isolated cases, and it held good,
as a rule, even in the fifth. In Egypt itself the positions of the
upper officials, that is, of those acting for the whole province, and
likewise the officers’ posts, were reserved for Roman citizens in the
form of the knight’s horse being required as a qualification for them;
this was given by the general organisation of the empire, and similar
privileges had in fact been possessed in Egypt by the Macedonians in
contrast to the other Greeks. The offices of the second rank remained
under the Roman rule, as previously, closed to the Egyptian Egyptians,
and were filled with Greeks, primarily with the burgesses of Alexandria
and Ptolemais. If in the imperial war-service for the first class Roman
citizenship was required, they, at any rate in the case of the legions
stationed in Egypt itself, not seldom admitted the Egyptian Greek on
the footing that Roman citizenship was conferred on him upon occasion
of the levy. For the category of auxiliary troops the admission of the
Greeks was subject to no limitation; but the Egyptians were little
or not at all employed for this purpose, while they were employed
afterwards in considerable number for the lowest class, the naval force
still in the first imperial times formed of slaves. In the course of
time the slighting of the native Egyptians doubtless had its rigour
relaxed, and they more than once attained to Greek, and by means of it
also to Roman, citizenship; but on the whole the Roman government was
simply the continuation, as of the Greek rule, so also of the Greek
exclusiveness. As the Macedonian government had contented itself with
Alexandria and Ptolemais, so in this province alone the Romans did not
found a single colony.[214]

[Sidenote: Native language.]

The linguistic arrangement in Egypt remained essentially under the
Romans as the Ptolemies had settled it. Apart from the military,
among whom the Latin alone prevailed, the business-language for the
intercourse of the upper posts was the Greek. Of the native language,
which, radically different from the Semitic as from the Arian
languages, is most nearly akin perhaps to that of the Berbers in North
Africa, and of the native writing, the Roman rulers and their governors
never made use; and, if already under the Ptolemies a Greek translation
had to be appended to official documents written in Egyptian, at least
the same held good for these their successors. Certainly the Egyptians
were not prohibited from making use, so far as it seemed requisite
according to ritual or otherwise appropriate, of the native language
and of its time-hallowed written signs; in this old home, moreover, of
the use of writing in ordinary intercourse the native language, alone
familiar to the great public, and the usual writing must necessarily
have been allowed not merely in the case of private contracts, but
even as regards tax-receipts and similar documents. But this was a
concession, and the ruling Hellenism strove to enlarge its domain.
The effort to create for the views and traditions prevailing in the
land an universally valid expression also in Greek gave an extension
to the system of double names in Egypt such as we see nowhere else.
All Egyptian gods whose names were not themselves current among the
Greeks, like that of Isis, were equalised with corresponding or else
not corresponding Greek ones; perhaps the half of the townships and a
great number of persons bore as well a native as a Greek appellation.
Gradually Hellenism in this case prevailed. The old sacred writing
meets us on the preserved monuments last under the emperor Decius about
the middle of the third, and its more current degenerated form last
about the middle of the fifth century; both disappeared from common use
considerably earlier. The neglect and the decay of the native elements
of civilisation are expressed in these facts. The language of the
land itself maintained its ground still for long afterwards in remote
places and in the lower ranks, and only became quite extinct in the
seventeenth century, after it--the language of the Copts--had, just
like the Syriac, experienced in the later imperial period a limited
regeneration in consequence of the introduction of Christianity and
of the efforts directed to the production of a national-Christian
literature.

[Sidenote: Abolition of a resident court.]

In the government the first thing that strikes us is the suppression
of the court and of its residency, the necessary consequence of the
annexation of the land by Augustus. There was left doubtless as
much as could be left. On the inscriptions written in the native
language, and so merely for Egyptians, the emperors are termed, like
the Ptolemies, kings of upper and lower Egypt, and the elect of the
Egyptian native gods, and indeed withal--which was not the case with
the Ptolemies--great-kings.[215] Dates were reckoned in Egypt, as
previously, according to the current calendar of the country and its
royal year passing over to the Roman rulers; the golden cup which
every year the king threw into the swelling Nile was now thrown in
by the Roman viceroy. But these things did not reach far. The Roman
ruler could not carry out the part of the Egyptian king, which was
incompatible with his imperial position. The new lord of the land
had unpleasant experiences in his representation by a subordinate
on the very first occasion of his sending a governor to Egypt; the
able officer and talented poet, who had not been able to refrain from
inscribing his name also on the Pyramids, was deposed on that account
and thereby ruined. It was inevitable that limits should here be
set. The affairs, the transaction of which according to the system
of Alexander devolved on the prince personally[216] not less than
according to the arrangement of the Roman principate, might be managed
by the Roman governor as by the native king; king he might neither be
nor seem.[217] That was to a certainty deeply and severely felt in
the second city of the world. The mere change of dynasty would not
have told so very heavily. But a court like that of the Ptolemies,
regulated according to the ceremonial of the Pharaohs, king and queen
in their dress as gods, the pomp of festal processions, the reception
of the priesthoods and of ambassadors, the court-banquets, the great
ceremonies of the coronation, of the taking the oath, of marriage, of
burial, the court-offices of the body-guards and the chief of that guard
(ἀρχισωματοφύλαξ), of the introducing chamberlain (εἰσαγγελεύς), of
the chief master of the table (ἀρχεδέατρος), of the chief master of
the huntsmen (ἀρχικυνηγός), the cousins and friends of the king, the
wearers of decorations--all this was lost for the Alexandrians once
for all with the transfer of the seat of the ruler from the Nile to
the Tiber. Only the two famous Alexandrian libraries remained there,
with all their belongings and staff, as a remnant of the old regal
magnificence. Beyond question Egypt lost by being dispossessed of its
rulers very much more than Syria; both nations indeed were in the
powerless position of having to acquiesce in what was contrived for
them, and not more here than there was a rising for the lost position
of a great power so much as thought of.

[Sidenote: The officials.]

The administration of the land lay, as has been already said, in the
hands of the “deputy,” that is, the viceroy; for, although the new
lord of the land, out of respect for his position in the empire,
refrained as well for himself as for his delegates of higher station
from the royal appellations in Egypt, he yet in substance conducted
his rule throughout as successor of the Ptolemies, and the whole civil
and military supreme power was combined in his hand and that of his
representative. We have already observed that neither non-burgesses
nor senators might fill this position; it was sometimes committed to
Alexandrians, if they had attained to burgess-rights, and by way of
exception to equestrian rank.[218] We may add that this office stood at
first before all the rest of the non-senatorial in rank and influence,
and subsequently was inferior only to the commandership of the imperial
guard. Besides the officers proper, in reference to whom the only
departure from the general arrangement was the exclusion of the senator
and the lower title, thence resulting, of the commandant of the legion
(_praefectus_ instead of _legatus_), there acted alongside of and
under the governor, and likewise for all Egypt, a supreme official
for justice and a supreme finance-administrator, both likewise Roman
citizens of equestrian rank, and apparently not borrowed from the
administrative scheme of the Ptolemies, but attached and subordinated
to the governor after a fashion applied also in other imperial
provinces.[219]

All other officials acted only for individual districts, and were
in the main taken over from the Ptolemaic arrangement. That the
presidents of the three provinces of lower, middle, and upper Egypt,
provided--apart from the command--with the same sphere of business as
the governor, were taken in the time of Augustus from the Egyptian
Greeks, and subsequently, like the superior officials proper, from the
Roman knighthood, deserves to be noted as a symptom of the increasing
tendency in the course of the imperial period to repress the native
element in the magistracy.

Under these superior and intermediate authorities stood the local
officials, the presidents of the Egyptian as of the Greek towns, along
with the very numerous subalterns employed in the collecting of the
revenue and the manifold imposts laid on business-dealings, and again
in the individual district the presidents of the sub-districts and of
the villages--positions, which were looked upon more as burdens than
as honours, and were imposed by the higher officials upon persons
belonging to, or settled in, the locality, to the exclusion, however,
of the Alexandrians; the most important among them, the presidency of
the nome, was filled up every three years by the governor. The local
authorities of the Greek towns were different as to number and title;
in Alexandria in particular four chief officials acted, the priest of
Alexander,[220] the town-clerk (ὑπομνηματογράφος),[221] the supreme
judge (ἀρχιδικαστής), and the master of the night-watch (νυκτερινὸς
στρατηγός). That they were of more consequence than the _strategoi_ of
the nomes, is obvious of itself, and is shown clearly by the purple
dress belonging to the first Alexandrian official. We may add that they
originate likewise from the Ptolemaic period, and are nominated for a
time by the Roman government, like the presidents of the nomes, from
the persons settled therein. Roman officials of imperial nomination
are not found among these urban presidents. But the priest of the
Mouseion, who is at the same time president of the Alexandrian Academy
of Sciences and also disposes of the considerable pecuniary means
of this institute, is nominated by the emperor; in like manner the
superintendency of the tomb of Alexander and the buildings connected
with it, and some other important positions in the capital of Egypt,
were filled up by the government in Rome with officials of equestrian
rank.[222]

[Sidenote: Insurrections.]

[Sidenote: In the Palmyrene period.]

As a matter of course, Alexandrians and Egyptians were drawn into
those movements of pretenders which had their origin in the East,
and regularly participated in them; in this way Vespasian, Cassius,
Niger, Macrianus (p. 103), Vaballathus the son of Zenobia, Probus,
were here proclaimed as rulers. But the initiative in all those cases
was taken neither by the burgesses of Alexandria nor by the little
esteemed Egyptian troops; and most of those revolutions, even the
unsuccessful, had for Egypt no consequences specially felt. But the
movement connected with the name of Zenobia (p. 107) became almost
as fateful for Alexandria and for all Egypt as for Palmyra. In town
and country the Palmyrene and the Roman partisans confronted each
other with arms and blazing torches in their hands. On the south
frontier the barbarian Blemyes advanced, apparently in agreement with
the portion of the inhabitants of Egypt favourable to Palmyra, and
possessed themselves of a great part of upper Egypt.[223] In Alexandria
the intercourse between the two hostile quarters was cut off; it was
difficult and dangerous even to forward letters.[224] The streets were
filled with blood and with dead bodies unburied. The diseases thereby
engendered made even more havoc than the sword; and, in order that
none of the four steeds of destruction might be wanting, the Nile also
failed, and famine associated itself with the other scourges. The
population melted away to such an extent that, as a contemporary says,
there were formerly more gray-haired men in Alexandria than there were
afterwards citizens.

When Probus, the general sent by Claudius, at length gained the upper
hand, the Palmyrene partisans, including the majority of the members
of council, threw themselves into the strong castle of Prucheion in
the immediate neighbourhood of the city; and, although, when Probus
promised to spare the lives of those that should come out, the great
majority submitted, yet a considerable portion of the citizens
persevered to the uttermost in the struggle of despair. The fortress,
at length reduced by hunger (270), was razed and lay thenceforth
desolate; but the city lost its walls. The Blemyes still maintained
themselves for years in the land; the emperor Probus first wrested
from them again Ptolemais and Coptos, and drove them out of the country.

[Sidenote: Revolt under Diocletian.]

The state of distress, which these troubles prolonged through a series
of years, must have produced, may probably thereupon have brought to
an outbreak, the only revolution that can be shown to have arisen in
Egypt.[225] Under the government of Diocletian, we do not know why or
wherefore, as well the native Egyptians as the burgesses of Alexandria
rose in revolt against the existing government. Lucius Domitius
Domitianus and Achilleus were set up as opposition-emperors, unless
possibly the two names denote the same person; the revolt lasted from
three to four years, the towns Busiris in the Delta and Coptos not
far from Thebes were destroyed by the troops of the government, and
ultimately under the leading of Diocletian in person in the spring
of 297 the capital was reduced after an eight months’ siege. Nothing
testifies so clearly to the decline of the land, rich, but thoroughly
dependent on inward and outward peace, as the edict issued in the
year 302 by the same Diocletian, that a portion of the Egyptian grain
hitherto sent to Rome should for the future go to the benefit of the
Alexandrian burgesses.[226] This was certainly among the measures which
aimed at the decapitalising of Rome; but the supply would not have been
directed towards the Alexandrians, whom this emperor had truly no cause
to favour, unless they had urgently needed it.

[Sidenote: Agriculture.]

Economically Egypt, as is well-known, is above all the land of
agriculture. It is true that the “black earth”--that is the meaning
of the native name for the country, Chemi--is only a narrow stripe
on either side of the mighty Nile flowing from the last rapids near
Syene, the southern limit of Egypt proper, for 550 miles in a copious
stream, through the yellow desert extending right and left, to the
Mediterranean Sea; only at its lower end the “gift of the river,” the
Nile-delta, spreads itself out on both sides between the manifold arms
of its mouth. The produce of these tracts depends year by year on the
Nile and on the sixteen cubits of its flood-mark--the sixteen children
playing round their father, as the art of the Greeks represented the
river-god; with good reason the Arabs designate the low cubits by the
name of the angels of death, for, if the river does not reach its full
height, famine and destruction come upon the whole land of Egypt. But
in general Egypt--where the expenses of cultivation are singularly
low, wheat bears an hundred fold, and the culture of vegetables, of
the vine, of trees, particularly the date-palm, as well as the rearing
of cattle, yield good produce--is able not merely to feed a dense
population, but also to send corn in large quantity abroad. This led
to the result that, after the installation of the foreign rule, not
much of its riches was left to the land itself. The Nile rose at that
time nearly as in the Persian period and as it does to-day, and the
Egyptian toiled chiefly for other lands; and thereby in the first
instance Egypt played an important part in the history of imperial
Rome. After the grain-cultivation in Italy itself had decayed and Rome
had become the greatest city of the world, it needed constant supplies
of moderately-priced transmarine grain; and the principate strengthened
itself above all by the solution of the far from easy economic problem
how to make the supply of the capital financially possible and to
render it secure. This solution depended on the possession of Egypt,
and, in as much as here the emperor bore exclusive sway, he kept Italy
with its dependencies in check through Egypt. When Vespasian seized the
dominion he sent his troops to Italy, but he went in person to Egypt
and possessed himself of Rome through the corn-fleet. Wherever a Roman
ruler had, or is alleged to have had, the idea of transferring the seat
of government to the East, as is told us of Caesar, Antonius, Nero,
Geta, there the thoughts were directed, as if spontaneously, not to
Antioch, although this was at that time the regular court-residence
of the East, but towards the birthplace and the stronghold of the
principate--to Alexandria.

For that reason, accordingly, the Roman government applied itself
more zealously to the elevation of agriculture in Egypt than anywhere
else. As it is dependent on the inundation of the Nile, it was
possible to extend considerably the surface fitted for cultivation
by systematically executed water-works, artificial canals, dykes,
and reservoirs. In the good times of Egypt, the native land of the
measuring-chain and of artificial building, much was done for it,
but these beneficent structures fell, under the last wretched and
financially oppressed governments, into sad decay. Thus the Roman
occupation introduced itself worthily by Augustus subjecting the canals
of the Nile to a thorough purifying and renewal by means of the troops
stationed in Egypt. If at the time of the Romans taking possession a
full harvest required a state of the river of fourteen cubits, and
at eight cubits failure of the harvest occurred, at a later period,
after the canals were put into order, twelve cubits were enough for
a full harvest, and even eight cubits yielded a sufficient produce.
Centuries later the emperor Probus not merely liberated Egypt from the
Ethiopians but also restored the water-works on the Nile. It may be
assumed, generally, that the better successors of Augustus administered
in a similar sense, and that especially with the internal peace and
security hardly interrupted for centuries, Egyptian agriculture stood
in a permanently flourishing state under the Roman principate. What
reflex effect this state of things had on the Egyptians themselves we
are not able to follow out more exactly. To a great extent the revenues
from Egypt rested on the possession of the imperial domains, which
in Roman as in earlier times formed a considerable part of the whole
area;[227] here, especially considering the small cost of cultivation,
only a moderate proportion of the produce must have been left to the
small tenants who provided it, or a high money-rent must have been
imposed. But even the numerous, and as a rule smaller, owners must have
paid a high land-tax in corn or in money. The agricultural population,
contented as it was, remained probably numerous in the imperial period;
but certainly the pressure of taxation, as well in itself as on account
of the expenditure of the produce abroad, lay as a heavier burden on
Egypt under the Roman foreign rule than under the by no means indulgent
government of the Ptolemies.

[Sidenote: Trades.]

Of the economy of Egypt agriculture formed but a part; as it in
this respect stood far before Syria, so it had the advantage of a
high prosperity of manufactures and commerce as compared with the
essentially agricultural Africa. The linen manufacture in Egypt
was at least equal in age, extent, and renown to the Syrian, and
maintained its ground through the whole imperial period, although the
finer sorts at this epoch were especially manufactured in Syria and
Phoenicia;[228] when Aurelian extended the contributions made from
Egypt to the capital of the empire to other articles than corn, linen
cloth and tow were not wanting among them. In fine glass wares, both
as regards colouring and moulding, the Alexandrians held decidedly the
first place, in fact, as they thought, the monopoly, in as much as
certain best sorts were only to be prepared with Egyptian material.
Indisputably they had such a material in the papyrus. This plant,
which in antiquity was cultivated in masses on the rivers and lakes
of lower Egypt, and flourished nowhere else, furnished the natives
as well with nourishment as with materials for ropes, baskets, and
boats, and furnished writing materials at that time for the whole
writing world. What produce it must have yielded, we may gather from
the measures which the Roman senate took, when once in the Roman
market the papyrus became scarce and threatened to fail; and, as its
laborious preparation could only take place on the spot, numberless
men must have subsisted by it in Egypt. The deliveries of Alexandrian
wares introduced by Aurelian in favour of the capital of the empire
extended, along with linen, to glass and papyrus.[229] The intercourse
with the East must have had a varied influence on Egyptian manufactures
as regards supply and demand. Textiles were manufactured there for
export to the East, and that in the fashion required by the usage of
the country; the ordinary clothes of the inhabitants of Habesh were of
Egyptian manufacture; the gorgeous stuffs especially of the weaving in
colours and in gold skilfully practised at Alexandria went to Arabia
and India. In like manner the glass beads prepared in Egypt played
the same part in the commerce of the African coast as at the present
day. India procured partly glass cups, partly unwrought glass for its
own manufacture; even at the Chinese court the glass vessels, with
which the Roman strangers did homage to the emperor, are said to have
excited great admiration. Egyptian merchants brought to the king of
the Axomites (Habesh) as standing presents gold and silver vessels
prepared after the fashion of that country, to the civilised rulers
of the South-Arabian and Indian coast among other gifts also statues,
probably of bronze, and musical instruments. On the other hand the
materials for the manufacture of luxuries which came from the East,
especially ivory and tortoise-shell, were worked up hardly perhaps
in Egypt, chiefly, in all probability, at Rome. Lastly, at an epoch,
which never had its match in the West for magnificent public buildings,
the costly building materials supplied by the Egyptian quarries came
to be employed in enormous masses outside of Egypt; the beautiful red
granite of Syene, the green breccia from the region of Kosêr, the
basalt, the alabaster, after the time of Claudius the gray granite,
and especially the porphyry of the mountains above Myos Hormos. The
working of them was certainly effected for the most part on imperial
account by penal colonists; but the transport at least must have gone
to benefit the whole country and particularly the city of Alexandria.
The extent to which Egyptian traffic and Egyptian manufactures were
developed is shown by an accidentally-preserved notice as to the cargo
of a transport ship (ἄκατος), distinguished by its size, which under
Augustus brought to Rome the obelisk now standing at the Porta del
Popolo with its base; it carried, besides 200 sailors, 1200 passengers,
400,000 Roman bushels (34,000 hectolitres) of wheat, and a cargo of
linen cloth, glass, paper, and pepper. “Alexandria,” says a Roman
author of the third century,[230] “is a town of plenty, of wealth, and
of luxury, in which nobody goes idle; this one is a glass-worker, that
one a paper-maker, the third a linen-weaver; the only god is money.”
This held true proportionally of the whole land.

[Sidenote: Egyptian navigation of the Mediterranean.]

Of the commercial intercourse of Egypt with the regions adjoining it on
the south, as well as with Arabia and India, we shall speak more fully
in the sequel. The traffic with the countries of the Mediterranean
comes less into prominence in the traditional account, partly,
doubtless, because it belonged to the ordinary course of things,
and there was not often occasion to make special mention of it. The
Egyptian corn was conveyed to Italy by Alexandrian shipmasters, and
in consequence of this there arose in Portus near Ostia a sanctuary
modelled on the Alexandrian temple of Sarapis with a mariner’s
guild;[231] but these transport-ships would hardly be concerned to any
considerable extent in the sale of the wares going from Egypt to the
West. This sale lay probably just as much, and perhaps more, in the
hands of the Italian ship-owners and captains than of the Egyptian;
at least there was already under the Lagids a considerable Italian
settlement in Alexandria,[232] and the Egyptian merchants had not
the same diffusion in the West as the Syrian.[233] The ordinances of
Augustus, to be mentioned afterwards, which remodelled the commercial
traffic on the Arabian and Indian Seas, found no application to the
navigation of the Mediterranean; the government had no interest in
favouring the Egyptian merchants more than the rest in its case. The
traffic there remained, presumably, as it was.

[Sidenote: Population.]

Egypt was thus not merely occupied, in its portions capable of culture,
with a dense agricultural population, but also as the numerous and
in part very considerable hamlets and towns enable us to recognise,
a manufacturing land, and hence accordingly by far the most populous
province of the Roman empire. The old Egypt is alleged to have had a
population of seven millions; under Vespasian there were counted in
the official lists seven and a half millions of inhabitants liable to
poll tax, to which fall to be added the Alexandrians and other Greeks
exempted from poll tax, so that the population, apart from the slaves,
is to be estimated at least at eight millions of persons. As the area
capable of cultivation may be estimated at present at 10,500 English
square miles, and for the Roman period at the most at 14,700, there
dwelt at that time in Egypt on the average about 520 persons to the
square mile.

When we direct our glance upon the inhabitants of Egypt, the two
nations inhabiting the country--the great mass of the Egyptians
and the small minority of the Alexandrians--are circles thoroughly
different,[234] although the contagious power of vice and the
similarity of character belonging to all vice have instituted a bad
fellowship of evil between the two.

[Sidenote: Egyptian manners.]

[Sidenote: Revolt of the “Herdsmen.”]

The native Egyptians cannot have been far different either in position
or in character from their modern descendants. They were contented,
sober, capable of labour, and active, skilful artisans and mariners,
and adroit merchants, adhering to old customs and to old faith. If the
Romans assure us that the Egyptians were proud of the scourge-marks
received for perpetrating frauds in taxation,[235] these are views
derived from the standpoint of the tax officials. There was no want
of good germs in the national culture; with all the superiority of
the Greeks in the intellectual competition of the two so utterly
different races, the Egyptians in turn had the advantage of the
Hellenes in various and essential things, and they felt this too. It
is, after all, only the plain reflection of their own feeling, when
the Egyptian priests of the Greek conversational literature ridicule
the so-called historical research of the Hellenes and its treatment of
poetical fables as real tradition from primitive past times, saying
that in Egypt they made no verses, but their whole ancient history was
described in the temples and monuments; although now, indeed, there
were but few who knew it, since many monuments were destroyed, and
tradition was made to perish through the ignorance and the indifference
of later generations. But this well-warranted complaint carried in
itself hopelessness; the venerable tree of Egyptian civilisation had
long been marked for cutting down. Hellenism penetrated with its
decomposing influence even to the priesthood itself. An Egyptian
temple-scribe Chaeremon, who was called to the court of Claudius as
teacher of Greek philosophy for the crown-prince, attributed in his
_Egyptian History_ the elements of Stoical physics to the old gods of
the country, and expounded in this sense the documents written in the
native character. In the practical life of the imperial period the
old Egyptian habits come into consideration almost only as regards
the religious sphere. Religion was for this people all in all. The
foreign rule in itself was willingly borne, we might say hardly felt,
so long as it did not touch the sacred customs of the land and what was
therewith connected. It is true that in the internal government of the
country nearly everything had such a connection--writing and language,
priestly privileges and priestly arrogance, the manners of the court
and the customs of the country; the care of the government for the
sacred ox living at the moment, the provisions made for its burial
at its decease, and for the finding out of the fitting successor,
were accounted by these priests and this people as the test of the
capacity of the ruler of the land for the time, and as the measure of
the respect and homage due to him. The first Persian king introduced
himself in Egypt by giving back the sanctuary of Neith in Sais to its
destination--that is, to the priests; the first Ptolemy, when still
a Macedonian governor, brought back the images of the Egyptian gods,
that had been carried off to Asia, to their old abode, and restored
to the gods of Pe and Tep the land-gifts estranged from them; for the
sacred temple-images brought home from Persia in the great victorious
expedition of Euergetes the native priests convey their thanks to
the king in the famous decree of Canopus in the year 238 B.C.; the
customary insertion of the living rulers male or female in the circle
of the native gods these foreigners acquiesced in for themselves
just as did the Egyptian Pharaohs. The Roman rulers followed their
example only to a limited extent. As respects title they doubtless
entered, as we saw (p. 244, note), in some measure into the native
cultus, but avoided withal, even in the Egyptian setting, the customary
predicates that stood in too glaring a contrast to Occidental views.
Since these ‘favourites of Ptah and of Isis’ took much the same steps
in Italy against the Egyptian worship as against the Jewish, they
betrayed nothing, as may readily be understood, of such love except
in hieroglyphic inscriptions, and even in Egypt took no part in the
service of the native gods. However obstinately the religion of the
land was still retained under the foreign rule among the Egyptians
proper, the Pariah position in which these found themselves alongside
of the ruling Greeks and Romans, necessarily told heavily on the
cultus and the priests; and of the leading position, the influence,
the culture of the old Egyptian priestly order but scanty remains
were discernible under the Roman government. On the other hand, the
indigenous religion, from the outset disinclined to beauty of form
and spiritual transfiguration, served, in and out of Egypt, as a
starting-point and centre for all conceivable pious sorcery and sacred
fraud--it is enough to recall the thrice-greatest Hermes at home in
Egypt, with the literature attaching to his name of tractates and
marvel-books, as well as the corresponding widely diffused practice.
But in the circles of the natives the worst abuses were connected at
this epoch with their cultus--not merely drinking-bouts continued
through many days in honour of the individual local deities, with the
unchastity thereto appertaining, but also permanent religious feuds
between the several districts for the precedence of the ibis over
the cat, or of the crocodile over the baboon. In the year A.D. 127,
on such an occasion, the Ombites in southern Egypt were suddenly
assailed by a neighbouring community[236] at a drinking-festival, and
the victors are said to have eaten one of the slain. Soon afterwards
the community of the Hound, in defiance of the community of the Pike,
consumed a pike, and the latter in defiance of the other consumed a
hound, and thereupon a war broke out between these two nomes, till
the Romans interfered and chastised both parties. Such incidents were
of ordinary occurrence in Egypt. Nor was there a want otherwise of
troubles in the land. The very first viceroy of Egypt appointed by
Augustus had, on account of an increase of the taxes, to send troops
to upper Egypt, and not less, perhaps likewise in consequence of the
pressure of taxation, to Heroonpolis at the upper end of the Arabian
Gulf. Once, under the emperor Marcus, a rising of the native Egyptians
assumed even a threatening character. When in the marshes, difficult
of access, on the coast to the east of Alexandria--the so-called
“cattle-pastures” (_bucolia_), which served as a place of refuge for
criminals and robbers, and formed a sort of colony of them--some
people were seized by a division of Roman troops, the whole banditti
rose to liberate them, and the population of the country joined the
movement. The Roman legion from Alexandria went to oppose them, but it
was defeated, and Alexandria itself had almost fallen into the hands
of the insurgents. The governor of the East, Avidius Cassius, arrived
doubtless with his troops, but did not venture on a conflict against
the superiority of numbers, and preferred to provoke dissension in the
league of the rebels; after the one band ranged itself against the
other the government easily mastered them all. This so-called revolt of
the herdsmen probably bore, like such peasant wars for the most part,
a religious character; the leader Isidorus, the bravest man of Egypt,
was by station a priest; and the circumstance that for the consecration
of the league, after taking the oath, a captive Roman officer was
sacrificed and eaten by those who swore, was as well in keeping with it
as with the cannibalism of the Ombite war. An echo of these events is
preserved in the stories of Egyptian robbers in the late-Greek minor
literature. Much, moreover, as they may have given trouble to the Roman
administration, they had not a political object, and interrupted but
partially and temporarily the general tranquillity of the land.

[Sidenote: Alexandria.]

By the side of the Egyptians stood the Alexandrians, somewhat as
the English in India stand alongside of the natives of the country.
Generally, Alexandria was regarded in the imperial period before
Constantine’s time as the second city of the Roman empire and the first
commercial city of the world. It numbered at the end of the Lagid rule
upwards of 300,000 free inhabitants, in the imperial period beyond
doubt still more. The comparison of the two great capitals that grew
up in rivalry on the Nile and on the Orontes yields as many points
of similarity as of contrast. Both were comparatively new cities,
monarchical creations out of nothing, of symmetrical plan and regular
urban arrangements. Water ran into every house in Alexandria as at
Antioch. In beauty of site and magnificence of buildings the city in
the valley of the Orontes was as superior to its rival as the latter
excelled it in the favourableness of the locality for commerce on
a large scale and in the number of the population. The great public
buildings of the Egyptian capital, the royal palace, the Mouseion
dedicated to the Academy, above all the temple of Sarapis, were
marvellous works of an earlier epoch, whose architecture was highly
developed; but the Egyptian capital, in which few of the Caesars set
foot, has nothing corresponding to set off against the great number of
imperial structures in the Syrian residency.

[Sidenote: Alexandrian Fronde.]

The Antiochenes and Alexandrians stood on an equal footing in
insubordination and eagerness to oppose the government; we may add
also in this, that the two cities, and Alexandria more particularly,
flourished precisely under and through the Roman government, and had
much more reason to thank it than to play the Fronde. The attitude
of the Alexandrians to their Hellenic rulers is attested by the long
series of nicknames, in part still used at the present day, for which
the royal Ptolemies without exception were indebted to the public of
their capital. The Emperor Vespasian received from the Alexandrians for
the introducing of a tax on salt fish the title of the “sardine-dealer”
(Κυβιοσάκτης); the Syrian Severus Alexander that of the “chief Rabbin;”
but the emperors came rarely to Egypt, and the distant and foreign
rulers offered no genuine butt for this ridicule. In their absence
the public bestowed at least on the viceroys the same attention with
persevering zeal; even the prospect of inevitable chastisement was not
able to put to silence the often witty and always saucy tongue of these
townsmen.[237] Vespasian contented himself in return for that attention
shown to him with raising the poll-tax about six farthings, and got for
doing so the further name of the “sixfarthing-man;” but their sayings
about Severus Antoninus, the petty ape of Alexander the Great and
the favourite of Mother Jocasta, were to cost them more dearly. The
spiteful ruler appeared in all friendliness, and allowed the people
to keep holiday for him, but then ordered his soldiers to charge into
the festal multitude, so that for days the squares and streets of the
great city ran with blood; in fact, he enjoined the dissolution of the
Academy and the transfer of the legion into the city itself--neither of
which, it is true, was carried into effect.

[Sidenote: Alexandrian tumults.]

But while in Antioch, as a rule, the matter did not go beyond sarcasm,
the Alexandrian rabble took on the slightest pretext to stones and to
cudgels. In street uproar, says an authority, himself Alexandrian,
the Egyptians are before all others; the smallest spark suffices here
to kindle a tumult. On account of neglected visits, on account of the
confiscation of spoiled provisions, on account of exclusion from a
bathing establishment, on account of a dispute between the slave of
an Alexandrian of rank and a Roman foot-soldier as to the value or
non-value of their respective slippers, the legions were under the
necessity of charging among the citizens of Alexandria. It here became
apparent that the lower stratum of the Alexandrian population consisted
in greater part of natives; in these riots the Greeks no doubt acted as
instigators, as indeed the rhetors, that is, in this case the inciting
orators, are expressly mentioned;[238] but in the further course of the
matter the spite and the savageness of the Egyptian proper came into
the conflict. The Syrians were cowardly, and as soldiers the Egyptians
were so too; but in a street tumult they were able to develop a courage
worthy of a better cause.[239] The Antiochenes delighted in race-horses
like the Alexandrians; but among the latter no chariot race ended
without stone-throwing and stabbing. Both cities were affected by the
persecution of the Jews under the emperor Gaius; but in Antioch an
earnest word of the authorities sufficed to put an end to it, while
thousands of human lives fell a sacrifice to the Alexandrian outbreak
instigated by some clowns with a puppet-show. The Alexandrians, it was
said, when a riot arose, gave themselves no peace till they had seen
blood. The Roman officers and soldiers had a difficult position there.
“Alexandria,” says a reporter of the fourth century, “is entered by
the governors with trembling and despair, for they fear the justice
of the people; where a governor perpetrates a wrong, there follows
at once the setting of the palace on fire and stoning.” The naive
trust in the rectitude of this procedure marks the standpoint of
the writer, who belonged to this “people.” The continuation of this
Lynch-system, dishonouring alike to the government and to the nation,
is furnished by what is called Church-history, in the murder of the
bishop Georgius, alike obnoxious to the heathen and to the orthodox,
and of his associates under Julian, and that of the fair freethinker
Hypatia by the pious community of Bishop Cyril under Theodosius II.
These Alexandrian tumults were more malicious, more incalculable, more
violent than the Antiochene, but just like these, not dangerous either
for the stability of the empire or even for the individual government.
Mischievous and ill-disposed lads are very inconvenient, but not more
than inconvenient, in the household as in the commonwealth.

[Sidenote: Alexandrian worship.]

In religious matters also the two cities had an analogous position.
To the worship of the land, as the native population retained it in
Syria as in Egypt, the Alexandrians as well as the Antiochenes were
disinclined in its original shape. But the Lagids, as well as the
Seleucids, were careful of disturbing the foundations of the old
religion of the country; and, merely amalgamating the older national
views and sacred rites with the pliant forms of the Greek Olympus, they
Hellenised these outwardly in some measure; they introduced, _e.g._
the Greek god of the lower world Pluto into the native worship, under
the hitherto little mentioned name of the Egyptian god Sarapis, and
then gradually transferred to this the old Osiris worship.[240] Thus
the genuinely Egyptian Isis and the pseudo-Egyptian Sarapis played in
Alexandria nearly the same part as Belus and Elagabalus in Syria, and
made their way in a similar manner with these, although less strongly
and with more vehement opposition, by degrees into the Occidental
worship of the imperial period. As regards the immorality developed on
occasion of these religious usages and festivals, and the unchastity
approved and stimulated by priestly blessing, neither city was in a
position to upbraid the other.

Down to a late time the old cultus retained its firmest stronghold in
the pious land of Egypt.[241] The restoration of the old faith, as
well scientifically in the philosophy annexed to it as practically
in the repelling of the attacks directed by the Christians against
Polytheism, and in the revival of the heathen temple-worship and the
heathen divination, had its true centre in Alexandria. Then, when
the new faith conquered this stronghold also, the character of the
country remained nevertheless true to itself; Syria was the cradle of
Christianity, Egypt was the cradle of monachism. Of the significance
and the position of the Jewish body, in which the two cities likewise
resembled each other, we have already spoken in another connection
(p. 163). Immigrants called by the government into the land like the
Hellenes, the Jews were doubtless inferior to these and were liable
to poll-tax like the Egyptians, but accounted themselves, and were
accounted, more than these. Their number amounted under Vespasian to a
million, about the eighth part of the whole population of Egypt, and,
like the Hellenes, they dwelt chiefly in the capital, of the five wards
of which two were Jewish. In acknowledged independence, in repute,
culture, and wealth, the body of Alexandrian Jews was even before the
destruction of Jerusalem the first in the world; and in consequence of
this a good part of the last act of the Jewish tragedy, as has been
already set forth, was played out on Egyptian soil.

[Sidenote: The learned world of Alexandria.]

Alexandria and Antioch were pre-eminently seats of wealthy merchants
and manufacturers; but in Antioch there was wanting the seaport and
its belongings, and, however stirring matters were on the streets
there, they bore no comparison with the life and doings of the
Alexandrian artisans and sailors. On the other hand, for enjoyment
of life, dramatic spectacles, dining, pleasures of love, Antioch had
more to offer than the city in which “no one went idle.” Literary
amusements, linking themselves especially with the rhetorical
exhibitions--such as we sketched in the description of Asia Minor--fell
into the background in Egypt,[242] doubtless more amidst the pressure
of the affairs of the day than through the influence of the numerous
and well-paid _savants_ living in Alexandria, and in great part
natives of it. These men of the Museum, of whom we shall have to
speak further on, did not prominently affect the character of the
town as a whole, especially if they did their duty in diligent work.
But the Alexandrian physicians were regarded as the best in the whole
empire; it is true that Egypt was no less the genuine home of quacks
and of secret remedies, and of that strange civilised form of the
“shepherd-medicine,” in which pious simplicity and speculating deceit
draped themselves in the mantle of science. Of the thrice-greatest
Hermes we have already made mention (p. 261); the Alexandrian Sarapis,
too, wrought more marvellous cures in antiquity than any one of his
colleagues, and he infected even the practical emperor Vespasian, so
that he too healed the blind and lame, but only in Alexandria.

[Sidenote: Scholar-life in Alexandria.]

Although the place which Alexandria occupies, or seems to occupy,
in the intellectual and literary development of the later Greece
and of Occidental culture generally cannot be fitly estimated in a
description of the local circumstances of Egypt, but only in the
delineation of this development itself, the Alexandrian scholarship
and its continuation under the Roman government are too remarkable
a phenomenon not to have its general position touched on in this
connection. We have already observed (p. 126) that the blending of
the Oriental and the Hellenic intellectual world was accomplished
pre-eminently in Egypt alongside of Syria; and if the new faith which
was to conquer the West issued from Syria, the science homogeneous
with it--that philosophy which, alongside of and beyond the human
mind, acknowledges and proclaims the supra-mundane God and the divine
revelation--came pre-eminently from Egypt: probably already the new
Pythagoreanism, certainly the philosophic Neo-Judaism--of which we
have formerly spoken (p. 170)--as well as the new Platonism, whose
founder, the Egyptian Plotinus, was likewise already mentioned (p.
126). Upon this interpenetration of Hellenic and Oriental elements,
that was carried out especially in Alexandria, mainly depends the fact,
that--as falls to be set forth more fully in surveying the state of
things in Italy--the Hellenism there in the earlier imperial period
bears pre-eminently an Egyptian form. As the old-new wisdoms associated
with Pythagoras, Moses, Plato, penetrated from Alexandria into
Italy, so Isis and her belongings played the first part in the easy,
fashionable piety, which the Roman poets of the Augustan age and the
Pompeian temples from that of Claudius exhibit to us. Art as practised
in Egypt prevails in the Campanian frescoes of the same epoch, as in
the Tiburtine villa of Hadrian. In keeping with this is the position
which Alexandrian erudition occupies in the intellectual life of the
imperial period. Outwardly it is based on the care of the state for
intellectual interests, and would with more warrant link itself to the
name of Alexander than to that of Alexandria; it is the realisation of
the thought that in a certain stage of civilisation art and science
must be supported and promoted by the authority and the resources
of the state, the consistent sequel of the brilliant moment in the
world’s history which placed Alexander and Aristotle side by side. It
is not our intention here to inquire how in this mighty conception
truth and error, the injuring and elevating of the intellectual life,
became mingled, nor is the scanty after-bloom of the divine singing
and of the high thinking of the free Hellenes to be once more placed
side by side with the rank and yet also noble produce of the later
collecting, investigating, and arranging. If the institutions which
sprang from this thought could not, or, what was worse, could only
apparently, renew to the Greek nation what was irrecoverably lost, they
granted to it on the still free arena of the intellectual world the
only possible compensation, and that, too, a glorious one. For us the
local circumstances are above all to be taken into account. Artificial
gardens are in some measure independent of the soil, and it is not
otherwise with these scientific institutions; only that they from
their nature are directed towards the courts. Material support may be
imparted to them otherwise; but more important than this is the favour
of the highest circles, which swells their sails, and the connections,
which, meeting together in the great centres, replenish and extend
these circles of science. In the better time of the monarchies of
Alexander there were as many such centres as there were states, and
that of the Lagid court was only the most highly-esteemed among them.
The Roman republic had brought the others one after another into its
power, and had set aside with the courts also the scientific institutes
and circles belonging to them. The fact that the future Augustus,
when he did away with the last of these courts, allowed the learned
institutes connected with it to subsist, is a genuine, and not the
worst, indication of the changed times. The more energetic and higher
Philhellenism of the government of the Caesars was distinguished to
its advantage from that of the republic by the fact that it not merely
allowed Greek literati to earn money in Rome, but viewed and treated
the great guardianship of Greek science as a part of the sovereignty
of Alexander. No doubt, as in this regeneration of the empire as a
whole, the building-plan was grander than the building. The royally
patented and pensioned Muses, whom the Lagids had called to Alexandria,
did not disdain to accept the like payments also from the Romans;
and the imperial munificence was not inferior to the earlier regal.
The fund for the library of Alexandria and the fund for free places
for philosophers, poets, physicians, and scholars of all sorts,[243]
as well as the immunities granted to these, were not diminished
by Augustus, and were increased by the emperor Claudius--with the
injunction, indeed, that the new Claudian academicians should have the
Greek historical works of the singular founder publicly read year by
year in their sittings. With the first library in the world Alexandria
retained at the same time, through the whole imperial period, a
certain primacy of scientific work, until Islam burnt the library and
killed the ancient civilisation. It was not merely the opportunity
thus offered, but at the same time the old tradition and turn of mind
of these Hellenes, which preserved for the city that precedence, as
indeed among the scholars the native Alexandrians are prominent in
number and importance. In this epoch numerous and respectable labours
of erudition, particularly philological and physical, proceeded
from the circle of the _savants_ “of the Museum,” as they entitled
themselves, like the Parisians “of the Institute”; but the literary
importance, which the Alexandrian and the Pergamene court-science
and court-art had in the better epoch of Hellenism for the whole
Hellenic and Hellenising world, was never even remotely attached to
the Romano-Alexandrian. The cause lay not in the want of talents or in
other accidents, least of all in the fact that places in the Museum
were bestowed by the emperor sometimes according to gifts and always
according to favour, and the government dealt with them quite as with
the horse of the knight and the posts of officials of the household;
the case was not otherwise at the older courts. Court-philosophers
and court-poets remained in Alexandria, but not the court; it was
here very clearly apparent that the main matter was not pensions and
rewards, but the contact--quickening for both sides--of great political
and great scientific work. The latter doubtless presented itself for
the new monarchy and brought its consequences with it; but the place
for it was not Alexandria: this bloom of political development justly
belonged to the Latins and to the Latin capital. The Augustan poetry
and Augustan science attained, under similar circumstances, to a
similar important and pleasing development with that attained by the
Hellenistic at the court of the Pergamenes and the earlier Ptolemies.
Even in the Greek circle, so far as the Roman government operated upon
it in the sense of the Lagids, this development was linked more with
Rome than with Alexandria. It is true that the Greek libraries of the
capital were not equal to the Alexandrian, and there was no institute
in Rome comparable to the Alexandrian Museum. But a position at the
Roman libraries opened up relations to the court. The professorship of
Greek rhetoric in the capital, instituted by Vespasian, filled up and
paid for by the government, gave to its holder, although he was not an
officer of the household in the same sense as the imperial librarian,
a similar position, and was regarded, doubtless on that account, as
the chief professorial chair of the empire.[244] But, above all, the
office of imperial cabinet secretary in its Greek division was the most
esteemed and the most influential position to which a Greek man of
letters could at all attain. Transference from the Alexandrian academy
to such an office in the capital was demonstrably promotion.[245]
Even apart from all which the Greek literati otherwise found in Rome
alone, the court-positions and the court-offices were enough to draw
the most distinguished of them thither rather than to the Egyptian
“free table.” The learned Alexandria of this time became a sort of
“jointure” of Greek science, worthy of respect and useful, but of no
pervading influence on the great movement of culture or mis-culture of
the imperial period; the places in the Museum were, as was reasonable,
not seldom bestowed on scholars of note from abroad, and for the
institution itself the books of the library were of more account than
the burgesses of the great commercial and manufacturing city.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: The Egyptian army.]

The military circumstances of Egypt laid down, just as in Syria, a
double task for the troops there; the protection of the south frontier
and of the east coast, which indeed may not be remotely compared with
that required for the line of the Euphrates, and the maintenance of
internal order in the country as in the capital. The Roman garrison
consisted, apart from the ships stationed at Alexandria and on the
Nile, which seem chiefly to have served for the control of the customs,
under Augustus of three legions, along with the not numerous auxiliary
troops belonging to them, about 20,000 men. This was about half as many
as he destined for all the Asiatic provinces--which was in keeping
with the importance of this province for the new monarchy. But the
occupying force was probably even under Augustus himself diminished
about a third, and then under Domitian by about a further third. At
first two legions were stationed outside of the capital; but the main
camp, and soon the only one, lay before its gates, where Caesar the
younger had fought out the last battle with Antonius, in the suburb
called accordingly Nicopolis. The suburb had its own amphitheatre
and its own imperial popular festival, and was quite independently
organised; so that for a time the public amusements of Alexandria were
thrown into the shade by those of Nicopolis. The immediate watching of
the frontier fell to the auxiliaries. The same causes therefore which
relaxed discipline in Syria--the police-character of their primary task
and their immediate contact with the great capital--came into play
also for the Egyptian troops; to which fell to be added, that the bad
custom of allowing to the soldiers with the standards a married life
or at any rate a substitute for it, and of filling up the troop from
their camp-children, had for long been naturalised among the Macedonian
soldiers of the Ptolemies, and soon prevailed also among the Romans,
at least up to a certain degree. Accordingly, the Egyptian corps, in
which the Occidentals served still more rarely than in the other armies
of the East, and which was recruited in great part from the citizens
and the camp of Alexandria, appears to have been among all the sections
of the army the least esteemed; as indeed also the officers of this
legion, as was already observed, were inferior in rank to those of the
rest.

The properly military task of the Egyptian troops was closely connected
with the measures for the elevation of Egyptian commerce. It will be
convenient to take the two together, and to set forth in connection, in
the first instance, the relations to the continental neighbours in the
south, and then those to Arabia and India.

[Sidenote: Aethiopia.]

[Sidenote: War with queen Candace.]

Egypt reaches on the south, as was already remarked, as far as the
barrier which the last cataract, not far from Syene (Assouan),
opposes to navigation. Beyond Syene begins the stock of the Kesch,
as the Egyptians call them, or, as the Greeks translated it, the
dark-coloured, the Aethiopians, probably akin to the Axomites to be
afterwards mentioned, and, although perhaps sprung from the same
root as the Egyptians, at any rate confronting them in historical
development as a foreign people. Further to the south follow the Nahsiu
of the Egyptians, that is, the Blacks, the Nubians of the Greek,
the modern Negroes. The kings of Egypt had in better times extended
their rule far into the interior, or at least emigrant Egyptians had
established for themselves here dominions of their own; the written
monuments of the Pharaonic government go as far as above the third
cataract to Dongola, where Nabata (near Nûri) seems to have been the
centre of their settlements; and considerably further up the stream,
some six days’ journey to the north of Khartoum, near Shendy, in
Sennaar, in the neighbourhood of the long forgotten Aethiopian town
Meroe, are found groups of temples and pyramids, although destitute
of writing. When Egypt became Roman, all this development of power
was long a matter of the past; and beyond Syene there ruled an
Aethiopian stock under queens, who regularly bore the name or the title
Candace,[246] and resided in that once Egyptian Nabata in Dongola; a
people at a low stage of civilisation, predominantly shepherds, in a
position to bring into the field an army of 30,000, but equipped with
shields of ox-hides, armed mostly not with swords, but with axes or
lances and iron-mounted clubs, predatory neighbours, not a match for
the Romans in combat. In the year 730 or 731 {24, 23. B.C.} these
invaded the Roman territory--as they asserted, because the presidents
of the nearest nomes had injured them--as the Romans thought, because
the Egyptian troops were then to a large extent occupied in Arabia,
and they hoped to be able to plunder with immunity. In reality they
overcame the three cohorts who covered the frontier, and dragged
away the inhabitants from the nearest Egyptian districts--Philae,
Elephantine, Syene--as slaves, and the statues of the emperor, which
they found there, as tokens of victory. But the governor, who just
then took up the administration of the province, Gaius Petronius,
speedily requited the attack; with 10,000 infantry and 800 cavalry
he not merely drove them out, but followed them along the Nile into
their own land, defeated them emphatically at Pselchis (Dekkeh),
and stormed their stronghold Premis (Ibrim), as well as the capital
itself, which he destroyed. It is true that the queen, a brave woman,
renewed the attack next year and attempted to storm Premis, where a
Roman garrison had been left; but Petronius brought seasonable relief,
and so the Aethiopian queen determined to send envoys and to sue for
peace. The emperor not merely granted it, but gave orders to evacuate
the subject territory, and rejected the proposal of his governor to
make the vanquished tributary. This event, otherwise not important, is
remarkable in so far as just then the definite resolution of the Roman
government became apparent, to maintain absolutely the Nile valley as
far as the river was navigable, but not at all to contemplate taking
possession of the wide districts on the upper Nile. Only the tract
from Syene, where under Augustus the frontier-troops were stationed,
as far as Hiera Sycaminos (Maharraka), the so-called Twelve-mile-land
(Δωδεκάσχοινος), while never organised as a nome and never viewed as
a part of Egypt, was yet regarded as belonging to the empire; and at
least under Domitian the posts were even advanced as far as Hiera
Sycaminos.[247] On that footing substantially the matter remained.
The Oriental expedition planned by Nero (p. 61) was certainly intended
to embrace Aethiopia; but it did not go beyond the preliminary
reconnoitring of the country by Roman officers as far as Meroe. The
relations with the neighbours on the Egyptian southern frontier down
to the middle of the third century must have been on the whole of a
peaceful kind, although there were not wanting minor quarrels with that
Candace and with her successors, who appear to have maintained their
position for a considerable time, and subsequently perhaps with other
tribes, that attained to ascendency beyond the imperial bounds.

[Sidenote: The Blemyes.]

It was not till the empire was unhinged in the period of Valerian
and Gallienus, that the neighbours broke over this boundary. We have
already mentioned (p. 250) that the Blemyes settled in the mountains
on the south-east frontier, formerly obeying the Aethiopians, a
barbarous people of revolting savageness, who even centuries later had
not abandoned human sacrifices, advanced at this epoch independently
against Egypt, and by an understanding with the Palmyrenes occupied
a good part of upper Egypt, and held it for a series of years. The
vigorous emperor Probus drove them out; but the inroads once begun did
not cease,[248] and the emperor Diocletian resolved to draw back the
frontier. The narrow “Twelve-mile-land” demanded a strong garrison, and
brought in little to the state. The Nubians, who roamed in the Libyan
desert, and were constantly visiting in particular the great Oasis,
agreed to give up their old abodes and to settle in this region, which
was formally ceded to them; at the same time fixed annual payments
were made to them as well as to their eastern neighbours the Blemyes,
nominally in order to compensate them for guarding the frontier, in
reality beyond doubt to buy off their plundering expeditions, which
nevertheless of course did not cease. It was a retrograde step--the
first, since Egypt became Roman.

[Sidenote: Aethiopian commercial traffic.]

Of the mercantile intercourse on this frontier little is reported from
antiquity. As the cataracts of the upper Nile closed the direct route
by water, the traffic between the interior of Africa and the Egyptians,
particularly the trade in ivory, was carried on in the Roman period
more by way of the Abyssinian ports than along the Nile; but it was
not wanting also in this direction.[249] The Aethiopians who dwelt in
numbers beside the Egyptians on the island of Philae were evidently
mostly merchants, and the border-peace that here prevailed must have
contributed its part to the prosperity of the frontier-towns of upper
Egypt and of Egyptian trade generally.

[Sidenote: The Egyptian east coast and general commerce.]

[Sidenote: The sea route to India.]

The east coast of Egypt presented to the development of general traffic
a problem difficult of solution. The thoroughly desolate and rocky
shore was incapable of culture proper, and in ancient as in later times
a desert.[250] On the other hand the two seas, eminently important for
the development of culture in the ancient world, the Mediterranean and
the Red or Indian, approach each other most closely at the two most
northern extremities of the latter, the Persian and the Arabian gulfs;
the former receives into it the Euphrates, which in the middle of its
course comes near to the Mediterranean; the latter is only a few days’
march distant from the Nile, which flows into the same sea. Hence in
ancient times the commercial intercourse between the East and the West
took preponderantly either the direction along the Euphrates to the
Syrian and Arabian coast, or it made its way from the east coast of
Egypt to the Nile. The traffic routes from the Euphrates were older
than those by way of the Nile; but the latter had the advantage of the
stream being better for navigation and of the shorter land-transport;
the getting rid of the latter by preparing an artificial water-route
was in the case of the Euphrates excluded, in that of Egypt found in
ancient as in modern times difficult doubtless, but not impossible.
Accordingly nature itself prescribed to the land of Egypt to connect
the east coast with the course of the Nile and the northern coast by
land or water routes; and the beginnings of such structures go back to
the time of those native rulers who first opened up Egypt to foreign
countries and to traffic on a great scale. Following in the traces
apparently of older structures of the great rulers of Egypt, Sethi I.
and Rhamses II., king Necho, the son of Psammetichus (610-594 B.C.)
began the building of a canal, which, branching off from the Nile in
the neighbourhood of Cairo, was to furnish a water-communication with
the bitter lakes near Ismailia, and through these with the Red Sea,
without being able, however, to complete the work. That in this he had
in view not merely the control of the Arabian Gulf and the commercial
traffic with the Arabians, but already brought within his horizon the
Persian and the Indian seas, and the more remote East, is probable, for
this reason, that the same ruler suggested the only circumnavigation of
Africa executed in antiquity. Beyond doubt thus thought king Darius I.,
the lord of Persia as well as of Egypt; he completed the canal, but,
as his memorial-stones found on the spot mention, he caused it to be
filled up again, probably because his engineers feared that the water
of the sea, admitted into the canal, would overflow the fields of Egypt.

[Sidenote: The Egyptian eastern ports.]

The rivalry of the Lagids and the Seleucids, which dominated the
policy of the post-Alexandrine period generally, was at the same
time a contest between the Euphrates and the Nile. The former was in
possession, the latter the pretender; and in the better time of the
Lagids the peaceful offensive was pursued with great energy. Not only
was that canal undertaken by Necho and Darius, now named the “river
of Ptolemaeus,” opened for the first time to navigation by the second
Ptolemy Philadelphus († 247 B.C.); but comprehensive harbour-structures
were carried out at the points of the difficult east coast that were
best fitted for the security of the ships and for the connection with
the Nile. Above all, this was done at the mouth of the canal leading to
the Nile, at the townships of Arsinoe, Cleopatris, Clysma, all three in
the region of the present Suez. Further downward, besides several minor
structures, arose the two important emporia, Myos Hormos, somewhat
above the present Kosêr, and Berenice, in the land of the Trogodytes,
nearly in the same latitude with Syene on the Nile as well as with the
Arabian port Leuce Come, the former distant six or seven, the latter
eleven days’ march from the town Coptos, near which the Nile bends
farthest to the eastward, and connected with this chief emporium on the
Nile by roads constructed across the desert and provided with large
cisterns. The goods traffic of the time of the Ptolemies probably went
less through the canal than by these land routes to Coptos.

[Sidenote: Abyssinia.]

Beyond that Berenice, in the land of the Trogodytes, the Egypt proper
of the Lagids did not extend. The settlements lying farther to the
south, Ptolemais “for the chase” below Suâkim, and the southmost
township of the Lagid kingdom, the subsequent Adulis, at that time
perhaps named “Berenice the Golden” or “near Saba,” Zula not far from
the present Massowah, by far the best harbour on all this coast, were
not more than coast-forts and had no communication by land with Egypt.
These remote settlements were beyond doubt either lost or voluntarily
abandoned under the later Lagids, and at the epoch when the Roman rule
began, the Trogodytic Berenice was on the coast, like Syene in the
interior, the limit of the empire.

[Sidenote: The kingdom of the Axomites.]

In this region, never occupied or early evacuated by the Egyptians,
there was formed--whether at the end of the Lagid epoch or in the first
age of the empire--an independent state of some extent and importance,
that of the Axomites,[251] corresponding to the modern Habesh. It
derives its name from the town Axômis, the modern Axum, situated in the
heart of this Alpine country eight days’ journey from the sea, in the
modern country of Tigre; the already-mentioned best emporium on this
coast, Adulis in the bay of Massowah, served it as a port. The original
population of the kingdom of Axômis, of which tolerably pure remnants
still maintain themselves at the present day in individual tracts of
the interior, belonged from its language, the Agau, to the same Hamitic
cycle with the modern Bego, Sali, Dankali, Somali, Galla; to the
Egyptian population this linguistic circle seems related in a similar
way as the Greeks to the Celts and Slaves, so that here doubtless for
research an affinity may subsist, but for their historical existence
rather nothing but contrast. But before our knowledge of this country
so much as begins, superior Semitic immigrants belonging to the
Himyaritic stocks of southern Arabia must have crossed the narrow gulf
of the sea and rendered their language as well as their writing at
home there. The old written language of Habesh, extinct in popular use
since the seventeenth century, the Ge’ez, or as it is for the most part
erroneously termed, the Aethiopic,[252] is purely Semitic,[253] and
the still living dialects, the Amhara and the Tigriña, are so also in
the main, only disturbed by the influence of the older Agau.

[Sidenote: Its extent and development.]

As to the beginnings of this commonwealth no tradition has been
preserved. At the end of Nero’s time, and perhaps already long before,
the king of the Axomites ruled on the African coast nearly from Suâkim
to the Straits of Bab el Mandeb. Some time afterwards--the epoch cannot
be more precisely defined--we find him as a frontier-neighbour of the
Romans on the southern border of Egypt, and on the other coast of the
Arabian Gulf in warlike activity in the territory intervening between
the Roman possession and that of the Sabaeans, and so coming into
immediate contact towards the north with the Roman territory also in
Arabia; commanding, moreover, the African coast outside of the Gulf
perhaps as far as Cape Guardafui. How far his territory of Axômis
extended inland is not clear; Aethiopia, that is, Sennaar and Dongola,
at least in the earlier imperial period, hardly belonged to it; perhaps
at this time the kingdom of Nabata may have subsisted alongside of the
Axomitic. Where the Axomites meet us, we find them at a comparatively
advanced stage of development. Under Augustus the Egyptian commercial
traffic increased not less with these African harbours than with India.
The king had the command not merely of an army, but, as his very
relations to Arabia presuppose, also of a fleet. A Greek merchant, who
was present in Adulis, terms king Zoskales, who ruled in Vespasian’s
time in Axômis, an upright man and acquainted with Greek writing;
one of his successors has set up on the spot a memorial-writing
composed in current Greek which told his deeds to the foreigners;
he even names himself in it a son of Ares--which title the kings of
the Axomites retained down to the fourth century--and dedicates the
throne, which bears that memorial inscription, to Zeus, to Ares, and
to Poseidon. Already in Zoskales’s time that foreigner names Adulis a
well organised emporium; his successors compelled the roving tribes
of the Arabian coast to keep peace by land and by sea, and restored a
land communication from their capital to the Roman frontier, which,
considering the nature of this district primarily left dependent on
communication by sea, was not to be esteemed of slight account. Under
Vespasian brass pieces, which were divided according to need, served
the natives instead of money, and Roman coin circulated only among the
strangers settled in Adulis; in the later imperial period the kings
themselves coined. The Axomite ruler withal calls himself king of
kings, and no trace points to Roman clientship; he practises coining in
gold, which the Romans did not allow, not merely in their own territory
but even within the range of their power. There was hardly another land
in the imperial period beyond the Romano-Hellenic bounds which had
appropriated to itself Hellenic habits with equal independence and to
an equal extent as the state of Habesh. That in the course of time the
popular language, indigenous or rather naturalised from Arabia, gained
the upper hand and dispossessed the Greek, is probably traceable partly
to Arabian influence, partly to that of Christianity and the revival
connected with it of the popular dialects, such as we found also in
Syria and Egypt; and it does not exclude the view that the Greek
language in Axomis and Adulis in the first and second centuries of our
era had a similar position to what it had in Syria and Egypt, so far as
it is allowable to compare small and great.

[Sidenote: Rome and the Axomites.]

Of political relations of the Romans to the state of Axomis hardly
anything is mentioned from the first three centuries of our era, to
which our narrative is confined. With the rest of Egypt they took
possession also of the ports of the east coast down to the remote
Trogodytic Berenice, which on account of that remoteness was in the
Roman period placed under a commandant of its own.[254] Of extending
their territory into the inhospitable and worthless mountains along
the coast there was never any thought; nor can the sparse population,
standing at the lowest stage of development, in the immediately
adjoining region have ever given serious trouble to the Romans. As
little did the Caesars attempt, as the early Lagids had done, to
possess themselves of the emporia of the Axomitic coast. There is
express mention only of the fact that envoys of the Axomite kings
negotiated with the emperor Aurelian. But this very silence, as well as
the formerly indicated independent position of the ruler,[255] leads
to the inference that here the recognised frontier was permanently
respected on both sides, and that a relation of good neighbourhood
subsisted, which proved advantageous to the interests of peace and
especially of Egyptian commerce. That the latter, especially the
important traffic in ivory, in which Adulis was the chief entrepôt for
the interior of Africa, was carried on predominantly from Egypt and
in Egyptian vessels, cannot--considering the superior civilisation of
Egypt--be subject to any doubt even as regards the Lagid period; and
in Roman times this traffic probably only increased in amount, without
undergoing further change.

[Sidenote: The west coast of Arabia.]

Far more important for Egypt and the Roman empire generally than the
traffic with the African south was that which subsisted with Arabia
and the coasts situated farther to the east. The Arabian peninsula
remained aloof from the sphere of Hellenic culture. It would possibly
have been otherwise had king Alexander lived a year longer; death
swept him away amidst the preparations for sailing round and occupying
the already-explored south coast of Arabia, setting out from the
Persian Gulf. But the voyage which the great king had not been able to
enter on was never undertaken by any Greek after him. From the most
remote times, on the other hand, a lively intercourse had taken place
between the two coasts of the Arabian Gulf over its moderately broad
waters. In the Egyptian accounts from the time of the Pharaohs the
voyages to the land of Punt, and the spoils thence brought home in
frankincense, ebony, emeralds, leopards’ skins, play an important part.
It has been already (p. 148) mentioned that subsequently the northern
portion of the Arabian west coast belonged to the territory of the
Nabataeans, and with this came into the power of the Romans. This was
a desolate beach;[256] only the emporium Leuce Come, the last town of
the Nabataeans and so far also of the Roman empire, was not merely in
maritime intercourse with Berenice lying opposite, but was also the
starting-point of the caravan-route leading to Petra and thence to
the ports of southern Syria, and in so far, one of the centres of the
traffic between the East and the West (p. 151). The adjoining regions
on the south, northward and southward of the modern Mecca, corresponded
in their natural character to the opposite Trogodyte country, and were,
like this, neither politically nor commercially of importance, nor yet
apparently united under one sceptre, but occupied by roving tribes. But
at the south end of this gulf was the home of the only Arabic stock,
which attained to greater importance in the pre-Islamic period. The
Greeks and the Romans name these Arabs in the earlier period after
the people most prominent at that time Sabaeans, in later times after
another tribe usually Homerites, as, according to the new Arabic form
of the latter name, now for the most part Himjarites.

[Sidenote: The state of the Homerites.]

The development of this remarkable people had reached a considerable
stage long before the beginning of the Roman rule over Egypt.[257] Its
native seat, the Arabia Felix of the ancients, the region of Mocha
and Aden, is surrounded by a narrow plain along the shore intensely
hot and desolate, but the healthy and temperate interior of Yemen
and Hadramaut produces on the mountain-slopes and in the valleys a
luxuriant vegetation, and the numerous mountain-waters permit in
many respects with careful management a garden-like cultivation. We
have even at the present day an expressive testimony to the rich and
peculiar civilisation of this region in the remains of city-walls
and towers, of useful buildings, particularly aqueducts, and temples
covered with inscriptions, which completely confirm the description of
ancient authors as to the magnificence and luxury of this region; the
Arabian geographers have written books concerning the strongholds and
castles of the numerous petty princes of Yemen. Famous are the ruins of
the mighty embankment which once in the valley of Mariaba dammed up the
river Dana and rendered it possible to water the fields upwards,[258]
and from the bursting of which, and the migration alleged to have been
thereby occasioned of the inhabitants of Yemen to the north, the Arabs
for long counted their years. But above all this district was one of
the original seats of wholesale traffic by land and by sea, not merely
because its productions, frankincense, precious stones, gum, cassia,
aloes, senna, myrrh, and numerous other drugs called for export, but
also because this Semitic stock was, just like that of the Phoenicians,
formed by its whole character for commerce; Strabo says, just like the
more recent travellers, that the Arabs are all traders and merchants.
The coining of silver is here old and peculiar; the coins were at
first modelled after Athenian dies, and later after Roman coins of
Augustus, but on an independent, probably Babylonian basis.[259]
From the land of these Arabians the original frankincense-routes led
across the desert to the marts on the Arabian gulf, Aelana and the
already-mentioned Leuce Come, and the emporia of Syria, Petra and
Gaza;[260] these routes of the land-traffic, which along with those of
the Euphrates and the Nile, furnish the means of intercourse between
East and West from the earliest times, may be conjectured to be the
proper basis of the prosperity of Yemen. But the sea-traffic likewise
soon became associated with them; the great mart for this was Adane,
the modern Aden. From this the goods went by water, certainly in the
main in Arabian ships, either to those same marts on the Arabian gulf
and so to the Syrian ports, or to Berenice and Myos Hormos, and from
thence to Coptos and Alexandria. We have already stated that the
same Arabs likewise at a very early time possessed themselves of the
opposite coast, and transplanted their language, their writing and
their civilisation to Habesh. If Coptos, the Nile-emporium for the
eastern traffic, had just as many Arab as Egyptian inhabitants, if
even the emerald-mines above Berenice (near Jebel Zebâra) were worked
by the Arabs, this shows that in the Lagid state itself they had the
trade up to a certain degree in their hands; and its passive attitude
in respect to the traffic on the Arabian Sea, whither at most an
expedition against the pirates was once undertaken,[261] is the more
readily intelligible, if a state well organised and powerful at sea
ruled these waters. We meet the Arabs of Yemen even beyond their own
sea. Adane remained down to the Roman imperial times a mart of traffic
on the one hand with India, on the other with Egypt, and, in spite
of its own unfavourable position on the treeless shore, rose to such
prosperity that the name of “Arabia Felix” had primary reference to
this town. The dominion, which in our days the Imam of Muscat in the
south-east of the peninsula has exercised over the islands of Socotra
and Zanzibar and the African east coast from Cape Guardafui southward,
pertained in Vespasian’s time “from of old” to the princes of Arabia;
the island of Dioscorides, that same Socotra, belonged then to the
king of Hadramaut, Azania, that is, the coast of Somal and further
southward, to one of the viceroys of his western neighbour, the king
of the Homerites. The southernmost station on the east African coast
which the Egyptian merchants knew of, Rhapta in the region of Zanzibar,
was leased from this sheikh by the merchants of Muza, that is nearly
the modern Mocha, “and they send thither their trading-ships, mostly
manned by Arabian captains and sailors, who are accustomed to deal and
are often connected by marriage with the natives, and are acquainted
with the localities and the languages of the country.” The cultivation
of the soil and industry went hand in hand with commerce; in the houses
of rank in India, Arabian wine was drunk alongside of the Falernian
from Italy and the Laodicene from Syria; and the lances and shoemakers’
awls, which the natives of the coast of Malabar purchased from the
foreign traders were manufactured at Muza. Thus this region, which
moreover sold much and bought little, became one of the richest in the
world.

How far its political development kept pace with the economic, cannot
be determined for the pre-Roman and earlier imperial period; only this
much seems to result both from the accounts of the Occidentals and
from the native inscriptions, that this south-west point of Arabia
was divided among several independent rulers with territories of
moderate size. There subsisted in that quarter, alongside of the more
prominent Sabaeans and Homerites, the already-mentioned Chatramotitae
in the Hadramaut, and northward in the interior the Minaeans, all under
princes of their own.

With reference to the Arabians of Yemen the Romans pursued the very
opposite policy to that adopted towards the Axomites. Augustus, for
whom the non-enlargement of the empire was the starting-point of the
imperial government, and who allowed almost all the plans of conquest
of his father and master to drop, made an exception of the south-west
coast of Arabia, and here took aggressive measures of his own free
will. This was done on account of the position which this group of
peoples occupied at that time in Indo-Egyptian commercial intercourse.
In order to bring the province of his dominions, which was politically
and financially the most important, up, in an economic aspect, to the
level which his predecessors in rule had neglected to establish or had
allowed to decline, he needed above all to obtain inter-communication
between Arabia and India on the one hand and Europe on the other.
The Nile-route for long competed successfully with the Arabian and
the Euphrates routes; but Egypt played in this respect, as we saw, a
subordinate part at least under the later Lagids. A trading rivalry
subsisted not with the Axomites, but doubtless with the Arabians; if
the Egyptian traffic was to be converted from a passive into an active,
from indirect into direct, the Arabs had to be overthrown; and this
it was that Augustus desired and the Roman government in some measure
achieved.

[Sidenote: Expedition of Gallus.]

In the sixth year of his reign in Egypt (end of 729) {25 B.C.}
Augustus despatched a fleet, fitted out expressly for this expedition,
of 80 warships and 130 transports, and the half of the Egyptian army,
a corps of 10,000 men, without reckoning the contingents of the two
nearest client kings, the Nabataean Obodas and the Jew Herod, against
the states of Yemen, in order either to subjugate or at least to ruin
them,[262] while at the same time the treasures there accumulated
were certainly taken into account. But the enterprise completely
miscarried, and that from the incapacity of the leader, the governor
of Egypt at the time, Gaius Aelius Gallus.[263] Since the occupation
and the possession of the desolate coast from Leuce Come downwards to
the frontier of the enemy’s territory was of no consequence at all,
it was necessary that the expedition should be directed immediately
against the latter, and that the army should be conducted from the most
southern Egyptian port at once into Arabia Felix.[264] Instead of this
the fleet was got ready at the most northerly, that of Arsinoe (Suez),
and the army was landed at Leuce Come, just as if it were the object
to prolong as much as possible the voyage of the fleet and the march
of the troops. Besides, the war-vessels were superfluous, since the
Arabians possessed no war-fleet, the Roman sailors were unacquainted
with the navigation on the Arabian coast, and the transports, although
specially built for this expedition, were unsuited for their purpose.
The pilots had difficulty in finding their way between the shallows and
the rocks, and even the voyage in Roman waters from Arsinoe to Leuce
Come cost many vessels and men. Here the winter was passed; in the
spring of 730 the campaign in the enemy’s country began. The Arabians
offered no hindrance, but Arabia undoubtedly did so. Wherever the
double axes and the slings and bows came into collision with the pilum
and the sword, the natives dispersed like chaff before the wind; but
the diseases, which are endemic in the country, scurvy, leprosy, palsy,
decimated the soldiers worse than the most bloody battle, and all
the more as the general did not know how to move rapidly forward the
unwieldy mass of his army. Nevertheless the Roman army arrived in front
of the walls of Mariaba, the capital of the Sabaeans first affected by
the attack. But, as the inhabitants closed the gates of their powerful
walls still standing,[265] and offered energetic resistance, the
Roman general despaired of solving the problem proposed to him; and,
after he had lain six days in front of the town, he entered on his
retreat, which the Arabians hardly disturbed in earnest, and which was
accomplished with comparative rapidity under the pressure of need,
although with a severe loss in men.

[Sidenote: Further enterprises against the Arabs.]

It was a bad miscarriage; but Augustus did not abandon the conquest
of Arabia. It has already been related (p. 39) that the journey to
the East, which the crown-prince Gaius entered upon in the year 753
{1 B.C.}, was to terminate at Arabia; it was this time contemplated
after the subjugation of Armenia to reach, in concert with the Parthian
government or in case of need after the overthrow of their armies, the
mouth of the Euphrates, and from thence to take the sea-route which
the admiral Nearchus had once explored for Alexander, towards Arabia
Felix.[266] These hopes ended in another but not less unfortunate
way, through the Parthian arrow which struck the crown-prince before
the walls of Artageira. With him was buried the plan of Arabian
conquest for all the future. The great peninsula remained through the
whole imperial period--apart from the stripes of coast on the north
and north-west--in possession of that freedom from which Islam, the
executioner of Hellenism, was in its own time to issue.

[Sidenote: Injury to Arabian commerce.]

But the Arabian commerce was at all events broken down partly by the
measures, to be explained further on, of the Roman government for
protecting the Egyptian navigation, partly by a blow struck by the
Romans against the chief mart of Indo-Arabian traffic. Whether under
Augustus himself, possibly among the preparations for the invasion to
be carried out by Gaius, or under one of his immediate successors,
a Roman fleet appeared before Adane and destroyed the place; in
Vespasian’s time it was a village, and its prosperity was gone. We
know only the naked fact,[267] but it speaks for itself. A counterpart
to the destruction of Corinth and of Carthage by the republic, it, like
these, attained its end, and secured for the Romano-Egyptian trade the
supremacy in the Arabian gulf and in the Indian Sea.

[Sidenote: Later fortunes of the Homerites.]

The prosperity, however, of the blessed land of Yemen was too firmly
founded to succumb to this blow; politically it was even perhaps in
this epoch only that it more energetically rallied its resources.
Mariaba, at the time when the arms of Gallus failed before its walls,
was perhaps no more than the capital of the Sabaeans; but already
at that time the tribe of the Homerites, whose capital Sapphar lay
somewhat to the south of Mariaba, also in the interior, was the
strongest in Arabia Felix. A century later we find the two united
under a king of the Homerites and of the Sabaeans reigning in Sapphar,
whose rule extends as far as Mocha and Aden, and, as was already said,
over the island of Socotra and the coast of Somal and Zanzibar; and
at least from this time we may speak of a kingdom of the Homerites.
The desert northwards from Mariaba as far as the Roman frontier did
not at that time belong to it, and was under no regular authority at
all;[268] the principalities of the Minaei and of the Chatramotitae
continued also to be under sovereigns of their own. The eastern half
of Arabia formed constantly a part of the Persian empire (p. 13), and
never was under the sceptre of the rulers of Arabia Felix. Even now
therefore the bounds were narrow and probably remained so; little is
known as to the further development of affairs.[269] In the middle of
the fourth century the kingdom of the Homerites was united with that of
the Axomites, and was governed from Axomis[270]--a subjection, however,
which was subsequently broken off again. The kingdom of the Homerites,
as well as the united Axomitico-Homeritic, stood as independent states
in intercourse and treaty with Rome during the later imperial period.

[Sidenote: Commercial intercourse of the Homerites.]

In commerce and navigation the Arabians of the south-west of the
peninsula occupied, if no longer the place of supremacy, at any rate
a prominent position throughout the whole imperial period. After
the destruction of Adane, Muza became the commercial metropolis of
this region. The representation formerly given is still in the main
appropriate for the time of Vespasian. The place is described to us at
this time as exclusively Arabian, inhabited by ship-owners and sailors,
and full of stirring mercantile life; the Muzaites with their own ships
navigate the whole east coast of Africa and the west coast of India,
and not merely carry the goods of their own country, but bring also
the purple stuffs and gold embroideries prepared according to Oriental
taste in the workshops of the West, and the fine wines of Syria and
Italy, to the Orientals, and in turn to the western lands the precious
wares of the East. In frankincense and other aromatics Muza and the
emporium of the neighbouring kingdom of Hadramaut, Cane to the east of
Aden, must always have retained a sort of practical monopoly; these
wares, used in antiquity very much more than at present, were produced
not only on the southern coast of Arabia, but also on the African coast
from Adulis as far as the “promontory of spices,” Cape Guardafui, and
from thence the merchants of Muza fetched them and brought them into
general commerce. On the already mentioned island of Dioscorides there
was a joint trading settlement of the three great seafaring nations of
these seas, the Hellenes, that is, the Egyptians, the Arabians, and
the Indians. But of relations to Hellenism, such as we found on the
opposite coast among the Axomites (p. 283), we meet no trace in the
land of Yemen; if the coinage is determined by Occidental types (p.
287 f.), these were current throughout the East. Otherwise writing
and language and the exercise of art, so far as we are able to judge,
developed themselves here just as independently as commerce and
navigation; and certainly this co-operated in producing the result that
the Axomites, while they subjected to themselves the Homerites in a
political point of view, subsequently reverted from the Hellenic path
into the Arabic (p. 283).

[Sidenote: Land routes and harbours in Egypt.]

In the same spirit as for the relations to southern Africa and to the
Arabian states, and in a more pleasing way, provision was made in
Egypt itself for the routes of commercial intercourse, in the first
instance by Augustus, and beyond doubt by all its intelligent rulers.
The system of roads and harbours established by the earlier Ptolemies
in the footsteps of the Pharaohs had, like the whole administration,
fallen into sad decay amidst the troubles of the last Lagid period.
It is not expressly mentioned that Augustus put again into order the
land and water routes and the ports of Egypt; but that it was done,
is none the less certain. Coptos remained through the whole imperial
period the rendezvous of this traffic.[271] From a recently found
document we gather that in the first imperial period the two routes
leading thence to the ports of Myos Hormos and of Berenice were
repaired by the Roman soldiers and provided at the fitting places
with the requisite cisterns.[272] The canal which connected the Red
Sea with the Nile, and so with the Mediterranean Sea, was in the
Roman period only of secondary rank, employed chiefly perhaps for
the conveyance of blocks of marble and porphyry from the Egyptian
east coast to the Mediterranean; but it remained navigable throughout
the imperial period. The emperor Trajan renewed and probably also
enlarged it--perhaps it was he who placed it in communication with the
still undivided Nile near Babylon (not far from Cairo), and thereby
increased its water-supply--and assigned to it the name of Trajan’s or
the emperor’s river (_Augustus amnis_), from which in later times this
part of Egypt was named (_Augustamnica_).

[Sidenote: Piracy.]

Augustus exerted himself also in earnest for the suppression of piracy
on the Red and Indian Seas; the Egyptians long even after his death
thanked him, that through his efforts piratical sails disappeared from
the sea and gave way to trading vessels. No doubt what was done in
that respect was far from enough. The facts that, while the government
doubtless from time to time set naval squadrons to work in these
waters, it did not station there a standing war-fleet; and that the
Roman merchantmen regularly took archers on board in the Indian Sea to
repel the attacks of the pirates, would be surprising, if a comparative
indifference to the insecurity of the sea had not everywhere--here,
as well as on the Belgian coast, and on those of the Black Sea--clung
like a hereditary sin to the Roman imperial government or rather to
the Roman government in general. It is true that the governments of
Axomis and of Sapphar were called by their geographical position still
more than the Romans at Berenice and Leuce Come to check piracy, and it
may be partly due to this consideration that the Romans remained, upon
the whole, on a good understanding with these weaker but indispensable
neighbours.

[Sidenote: Growth of the Egyptian active traffic to the East.]

We have formerly shown that the maritime intercourse of Egypt, if not
with Adulis (p. 284), at any rate with Arabia and India at the epoch
which immediately preceded the Roman rule, was not carried on in the
main through the medium of Egyptians. It was only through the Romans
that Egypt obtained the great maritime traffic to the East. “Not
twenty Egyptian ships in the year,” says a contemporary of Augustus,
“ventured forth under the Ptolemies from the Arabian gulf; now 120
merchantmen annually sail to India from the port of Myos Hormos alone.”
The commercial gain, which the Roman merchant had been obliged hitherto
to share with the Persian or Arabian intermediary, flowed to him in
all its extent after the opening up of direct communication with
the more remote East. This result was probably brought about in the
first instance by the circumstance that the Egyptian ports were, if
not directly barred, at any rate practically closed, by differential
custom-dues against Arabian and Indian transports;[273] only by the
hypothesis of such a navigation-act in favour of their own shipping
could this sudden revolution of commercial relations be explained. But
the traffic was not merely violently transformed from a passive into an
active one; it was also absolutely increased, partly in consequence of
the increased inquiry in the West for the wares of the East, partly at
the expense of the other routes of traffic through Arabia and Syria.
For the Arabian and Indian commerce with the West the route by way
of Egypt more and more proved itself the shortest and the cheapest.
The frankincense, which in the olden time went in great part by the
land-route through the interior of Arabia to Gaza (p. 288, note 2),
came afterwards for the most part by water through Egypt. The Indian
traffic received a new impulse about the time of Nero, when a skilled
and courageous Egyptian captain, Hippalus, ventured, instead of making
his way along the long stretch of coast, to steer from the mouth of
the Arabian Gulf directly through the open sea for India; he knew the
monsoon, which thenceforth the mariners, who traversed this route
after him, named the Hippalus. Thenceforth the voyage was not merely
materially shortened, but was less exposed to the land and sea pirates.
To what extent the secure state of peace and the increasing luxury
raised the consumption of Oriental wares in the West, may be discerned
in some measure from the complaints, which were in the time of
Vespasian loudly expressed, regarding the enormous sums which went out
of the empire for that purpose. The whole amount of the purchase-money
annually paid to the Arabians and the Indians is estimated by Pliny at
100,000,000 sesterces (= £1,100,000), for Arabia alone at 55,000,000
sesterces (= £600,000), of which, it is true, a part was covered by
the export of goods. The Arabians and the Indians bought doubtless the
metals of the West, iron, copper, lead, tin, arsenic, the Egyptian
articles mentioned formerly (p. 254), wine, purple, gold and silver
plate, also precious stones, corals, saffron, balm; but they had always
far more to offer to foreign luxury than to receive for their own.
Hence the Roman gold and silver money went in considerable quantities
to the great Arabian and Indian emporia. In India it had already under
Vespasian so naturalised itself that the people there preferred to
use it. Of this Oriental traffic the greatest part went to Egypt; and
if the increase of the traffic benefited the government-chest by the
increased receipts from customs, the need for building ships and making
mercantile voyages of their own elevated the prosperity of private
individuals.

While thus the Roman government limited its rule in Egypt to the narrow
space which is marked off by the navigableness of the Nile, and,
whether in pusillanimity or in wisdom, at any rate never attempted
with consistent energy to conquer either Nubia or Arabia, it strove
as energetically after the possession of the Arabian and the Indian
wholesale traffic, and attained at least an important limitation of
the competitors. As the unscrupulous pursuit of commercial interests
characterised the policy of the republic, so not less did it mark that
of the principate, especially in Egypt.

[Sidenote: Romano-Indian commercial intercourse.]

We can only determine approximately how far the direct Roman maritime
traffic went towards the East. In the first instance it took the
direction of Barygaza (Barôtch on the Gulf of Cambay above Bombay),
which great mart must have remained through the whole imperial
period the centre of the Egyptio-Indian traffic; several places in
the peninsula of Gujerat bear among the Greeks Greek designations,
such as Naustathmos and Theophila. In the Flavian period, in which the
monsoon-voyages had already become regular, the whole west coast of
India was opened up to the Roman merchants as far down as the coast
of Malabar, the home of the highly-esteemed and dear-priced pepper,
for the sake of which they visited the ports of Muziris (probably
Mangaluru) and Nelcynda (in Indian doubtless Nilakantha from one
of the surnames of the god Shiva, probably the modern Nîlêswara);
somewhat farther to the south at Kananor numerous Roman gold coins of
the Julio-Claudian epoch have been found, formerly exchanged against
the spices destined for the Roman kitchens. On the island Salice, the
Taprobane of the older Greek navigators, the modern Ceylon, in the time
of Claudius a Roman official, who had been driven thither from the
Arabian coast by storms, had met with a friendly reception from the
ruler of the country, and the latter, astonished, as the report says,
at the uniform weight of the Roman pieces of money in spite of the
diversity of the emperor’s heads, had sent along with the shipwrecked
man envoys to his Roman colleague. Thereby in the first instance it was
only the sphere of geographical knowledge that was enlarged; it was not
till later apparently that navigation was extended as far as that large
and productive island, in which on several occasions Roman coins have
come to light. But coins are found only by way of exception beyond Cape
Comorin and Ceylon,[274] and hardly has even the coast of Coromandel
and the mouth of the Ganges, to say nothing of the Further Indian
peninsula and China, maintained regular commercial intercourse with the
Occidentals.

Chinese silk was certainly already at an early period sold regularly
to the West, but, as it would appear, exclusively by the land-route,
and through the medium partly of the Indians of Barygaza, partly and
chiefly of the Parthians; the Silk-people or the Seres (from the
Chinese name of silk Sr) of the Occidentals were the inhabitants of
the Tarim-basin to the north-west of Thibet, whither the Chinese
brought their silk, and the Parthian intermediaries jealously guarded
the traffic thither. By sea, certainly, individual mariners reached
accidentally or by way of exploration at least to the east coast of
Further India and perhaps still farther; the port of Cattigara known
to the Romans at the beginning of the second century A.D. was one of
the Chinese coast-towns, perhaps Hang-chow-foo at the mouth of the
Yang-tse-kiang. The report of the Chinese annals that in A.D. 166
an embassy of the emperor Antun of Ta-(that is Great) Tsin (Rome)
landed in Ji-nan (Tonkin), and thence by the land-route arrived at the
capital Lo-yang (or Ho-nan-foo on the middle Hoang-ho) to the emperor
Hwan-ti, may warrantably be referred to Rome and to Marcus Antoninus.
This event, however, and what the Chinese authorities mention as to
a similar appearance of the Romans in their country in the course of
the third century, can hardly be understood of public missions, since
as to these Roman statements would hardly have been wanting; but
possibly individual captains may have passed with the Chinese court
as messengers of their government. These connections had perceptible
consequences only in so far as the earlier tales regarding the
procuring of silk gradually gave way to better knowledge.



CHAPTER XIII.

THE AFRICAN PROVINCES.


[Sidenote: North Africa and the Berber stock.]

North Africa, in a physical and ethnographic point of view, stands by
itself like an island. Nature has isolated it on all sides, partly by
the Atlantic and the Mediterranean Sea, partly by the widely-extended
shore, incapable of cultivation, of the Great Syrtis below the modern
Fezzan, and, in connection therewith, by the desert, likewise closed
against cultivation, which shuts off the steppe-land and the oases of
the Sahara to the south. Ethnographically the population of this wide
region forms a great family of peoples, distinguished most sharply
from the Blacks of the south, but likewise strictly separated from the
Egyptians, although perhaps with these there may once have subsisted
a primeval fellowship. They call themselves in the Riff near Tangier
Amâzigh, in the Sahara Imôshagh, and the same name meets us, referred
to particular tribes, on several occasions among the Greeks and Romans,
thus as Maxyes at the founding of Carthage (ii. 8) {ii. 7.}, as Mazices
in the Roman period at different places of the Mauretanian north
coast; the similar designation that has remained with the scattered
remnants proves that this great people has once had a consciousness,
and has permanently retained the impression, of the relationship of
its members. To the peoples who came into contact with them this
relationship was far from clear; the diversities which prevail among
their several parts are not merely at the present day glaring, after in
the past thousands of years the mixture with the neighbouring peoples,
particularly the Negroes in the south and the Arabs in the north,
has had its effect upon them, but certainly were as considerable even
before these foreign influences as their extension in space demands.
A universally valid expression for the nation as such is wanting in
all other idioms; even where the name goes beyond the designation of
stock,[275] it yet does not describe the circle as a whole. That of
Libyans, which the Egyptians, and after their precedent the Greeks use,
belongs originally to the most easterly tribes coming into contact
with Egypt, and has always remained specially pertaining to those of
the eastern half. That of Nomades, of Greek origin, expresses in the
first instance only the absence of settlement, and then in its Roman
transformation as Numidians, has become associated with that territory
which king Massinissa united under his sway. That of Mauri, of native
origin, and current among the later Greeks as well as the Romans, is
restricted to the western parts of the land, and continues in use for
the kingdoms here formed and the Roman provinces that have proceeded
from them. The tribes of the south are comprehended under the name of
the Gaetulians, which, however, the stricter use of language limits to
the region on the Atlantic Ocean to the south of Mauretania. We are
accustomed to designate the nation by the name of Berbers, which the
Arabs apply to the northern tribes.

[Sidenote: Type.]

As to their type they stand far nearer to the Indo-Germanic than
to the Semitic, and form even at the present day, when since the
invasion of Islam North Africa has fallen to the Semitic race, the
sharpest contrast to the Arabs. It is not without warrant that
various geographers of antiquity have refused to let Africa pass at
all as a third continent, but have attached Egypt to Asia and the
Berber territory to Europe. As the plants and animals of northern
Africa correspond in the main to those of the opposite south-European
coast, so the type of man, where it has been preserved unmixed,
points altogether to the north:--the fair hair and the blue eyes of a
considerable portion, the tall stature, the slender but powerfully knit
form, the prevailing monogamy and respect for the position of woman,
the lively and emotional temperament, the inclination to settled life,
the community founded on the full equality in rights among the grown-up
men, which in the usual confederation of several communities affords
also the basis for the formation of a state.[276] To strictly political
development and to full civilisation this nation, hemmed round by
Negroes, Egyptians, Phoenicians, Romans, Arabs, at no time attained;
it must have approximated to it under the government of Massinissa.
The alphabet, derived independently from the Phoenician, of which
the Berbers made use under Roman rule, and which those of the Sahara
still use at the present day, as well as the feeling which, as we have
observed, they once had of common national relationship, may probably
be referred to the great Numidian king and his descendants, whom the
later generations worshipped as gods.[277] In spite of all invasions
they have maintained their original territory to a considerable
extent; in Morocco now about two-thirds, in Algiers about half of the
inhabitants are reckoned of Berber descent.

[Sidenote: Phoenician immigration.]

The immigration, to which all the coasts of the Mediterranean were
subjected in the earliest times, made North Africa Phoenician. To the
Phoenicians the natives had to give up the largest and best part of
the north coast; the Phoenicians withdrew all North Africa from Greek
civilisation. The Great Syrtis again forms the linguistic as well
as the political line of separation; as on the east the Pentapolis
of Cyrene belongs to the Greek circle, so on the west the Tripolis
(Tripoli) of Great-Leptis became and remained Phoenician. We have
formerly narrated how the Phoenicians after several hundred years of
struggle succumbed to the Romans. Here we have to give account of the
fortunes of Africa, after the Romans had occupied the Carthaginian
territory and had made the neighbouring regions dependent on them.

[Sidenote: The government of the Roman republic.]

The short-sightedness and narrow-mindedness--we may here say, the
perversity and brutality--of the foreign government of the Roman
republic had nowhere so full sway as in Africa. In southern Gaul,
and still more in Spain, the Roman government pursued at least a
consolidated extension of territory, and, half involuntarily, the
rudiments of Latinising; in the Greek East the foreign rule was
mitigated and often almost compensated by the power of Hellenism
forcing the hand even of hard policy. But as to this third continent
the old national hatred towards the Poeni seemed still to reach beyond
the grave of Hannibal’s native city. The Romans held fast the territory
which Carthage had possessed at its fall, but less in order to develop
it for their own benefit than to prevent its benefiting others, not
to awaken new life there, but to watch the dead body; it was fear and
envy, rather than ambition and covetousness, that created the province
of Africa. Under the republic it had not a history; the war with
Jugurtha was for Africa nothing but a lion-hunt, and its historical
significance lay in its connection with the republican party struggles.
The land was, as a matter of course, turned to full account by Roman
speculation; but neither might the destroyed great city rise up afresh,
nor might a neighbouring town develop into a similar prosperity; there
were here no standing camps as in Spain and Gaul; the Roman province,
with its narrow bounds, was on all sides surrounded by relatively
civilised territory of the dependent king of Numidia, who had helped
in the work of the destruction of Carthage, and now, as a reward
for it, received not so much the spoil as the task of protecting it
from the inroads of the wild hordes of the interior. That thereby a
political and military importance was given to this state, such as no
other client-state of Rome ever possessed, and that even on this side
the Roman policy, in order merely to banish the phantom of Carthage,
conjured up serious dangers, was shown by the share of Numidia in the
civil wars of Rome; never during all the internal crises of the empire
before or after did a client-prince play such a part as the last king
of Numidia in the war of the republicans against Caesar.

[Sidenote: Caesar’s African policy.]

All the more necessarily the state of things in Africa became
transformed by this decision of arms. In the other provinces, as a
consequence of the civil wars, there was a change of rule; in Africa
there was a change of system. The African possession of the Phoenicians
itself was not a proper dominion over Africa; it may be in some measure
compared with the dominion in Asia Minor of the Hellenes before
Alexander. Of this dominion the Romans had then taken over but a small
part, and of that part they had nipped the bud. Now Carthage arose
afresh, and, as if the soil had only been waiting for the seed, soon
flourished anew. The whole country lying behind--the great kingdom of
Numidia--became a Roman province, and the protection of the frontier
against the barbarians was undertaken by the Roman legionaries.
The kingdom of Mauretania became, in the first instance, a Roman
dependency, and soon also a part of the Roman empire. With the dictator
Caesar the civilising and Latinising of Africa took their place among
the tasks of the Roman government. Here we have to set forth how the
task was carried out, first as to the outward organisation, and then as
to the arrangements made and results achieved for the several districts.

[Sidenote: Extent of the Roman rule.]

Territorial sovereignty over the whole of North Africa had doubtless
already been claimed on the part of the Roman republic, perhaps as a
portion of the Carthaginian inheritance, perhaps because “our sea”
early became one of the fundamental ideas of the Roman commonwealth;
and, in so far, all its coasts were regarded by the Romans even of the
developed republic as their true property. Nor had this claim of Rome
ever been properly contested by the larger states of North Africa after
the destruction of Carthage; if in many places the neighbours did not
submit to the dominion, they were just as little obedient to their
local rulers. That the silver moneys of king Juba I. of Numidia and of
king Bogud of Mauretania were coined after the Roman standard, and the
Latin legend--little as it was suited to the relations of language and
of intercourse then subsisting in North Africa--was never absent from
them, was the direct recognition of the Roman supremacy, a consequence,
it may be presumed, of the new organisation of North Africa that in the
year 674 U.C. {80 B.C.} was accomplished by Pompeius. The generally
insignificant resistance which the Africans, apart from Carthage,
opposed to the Romans, came from the descendants of Massinissa; after
king Jugurtha, and later king Juba, were vanquished, the princes of the
western country submitted without more ado to the dependence required
of them. The arrangements which the emperors made were carried out
quite after the same way in the territory of the dependent princes as
in the immediate territory of Rome; it was the Roman government that
regulated the boundaries in all North Africa, and constituted Roman
communities at its discretion in the kingdom of Mauretania no less
than in the province of Numidia. We cannot therefore speak, in the
strict sense, of a Roman subjugation of North Africa. The Romans did
not conquer it like the Phoenicians or the French; but they ruled over
Numidia as over Mauretania, first as suzerains, then as successors of
the native governments. It is so much the more a question, whether
the notion of frontier admits of application to Africa in the usual
sense. The states of Massinissa, of Bocchus, of Bogud, as also
the Carthaginian, proceeded from the northern verge, and all the
civilisation of North Africa is based pre-eminently on this coast;
but, so far as we can discern, they all regarded the tribes settled
or roving in the south as subjects, and, if they withdrew themselves
from subjection, as insurgents, so far as the distance and the desert
did not by doing away with contact do away with control. Neighbouring
states, with which relations of right or of treaty might have
subsisted, can hardly be pointed out in the south of northern Africa,
or where such a one appears, such as, in particular, the kingdom of the
Garamantes, its position is not to be strictly distinguished from that
of the hereditary principalities within the civilised territory. This
was the case also as regards Roman Africa; as for the previous rulers,
so also doubtless for Roman civilisation there was to be found a limit
to the south, but hardly so for the Roman territorial supremacy. There
is never mention of any formal extension or taking back of the frontier
in Africa; the insurrections in the Roman territory, and the inroads
of the neighbouring peoples, look here all the more similar to each
other, as even in the regions undoubtedly in Roman possession, still
more than in Syria or Spain, many a remote and impassable district knew
nothing of Roman taxation and of Roman recruiting. For that reason it
seems appropriate to connect with the view of the several provinces
at the same time the slight information which has been left to us in
historical tradition, or by means of preserved monuments, respecting
the friendly or hostile relations of the Romans with their southern
neighbours.

[Sidenote: Province of Africa and Numidia.]

The former territory of Carthage and the larger part of the earlier
kingdom of Numidia, united with it by the dictator Caesar, or, as they
also called it, the old and the new Africa, formed until the end of the
reign of Tiberius the province of that name, which extended from the
boundary of Cyrene to the river Ampsaga, embracing the modern state
of Tripoli as well as Tunis and the French province of Constantine
(iv. 470 f.) {iv. 447.}. The government, however, for this territory,
which was considerable, and required an extended frontier-defence,
reverted under the emperor Gaius in the main to the twofold division
of the republican times, and committed the portion of the province
that did not stand in need of special border-defence to the civil
government, and the rest of the territory furnished with garrisons to
a military commandant not further amenable to its authority. The cause
of this was, that Africa in the partition of the provinces between
emperor and senate was given to the latter, and, as from the state
of things there a command on a larger scale could not be dispensed
with, the co-ordination of the governor delegated by the senate and
of the military commandant nominated by the emperor--which latter
according to the subsisting hierarchy was placed under the orders of
the former--could not but provoke and did provoke collisions between
these officials and even between emperor and senate. To this an end was
put in the year 37 by an arrangement that the coast-land from Hippo
(Bonah), as far as the borders of Cyrene, should retain the old name
of Africa and should remain with the proconsul, whereas the western
part of the province with the capital Cirta (Constantine), as well
as the interior with the great military camps to the north of the
Aures, and generally all territory furnished with garrisons, should
be placed under the commandant of the African legion. This commandant
had senatorial rank, but belonged not to the consular, but to the
praetorial class.

[Sidenote: The two Mauretanian kingdoms.]

The western half of North Africa was divided at the time of the
dictator Caesar (iv. 461) {iv. 438.} into the two kingdoms of Tingi
(Tangier), at that time under king Bogud and of Iol, the later
Caesarea (Zershell), at that time under king Bocchus. As both kings
had as decidedly taken the side of Caesar in the struggle against
the republicans as king Juba of Numidia had taken the side of the
opposite party, and as they had rendered most essential services to
him during the African and the Spanish wars, not merely were both left
in possession of their rule, but the domain of Bocchus, and probably
also that of Bogud, was enlarged by the victor.[278] Then, when the
rivalries between Antonius and Caesar the younger began, king Bogud
alone in the west placed himself on the side of Antonius, and on the
instigation of his brother and of his wife invaded Spain during the
Perusine war (714) {40 B.C.}; but his neighbour Bocchus and his own
capital Tingis took part for Caesar and against him. At the conclusion
of peace Antonius allowed Bogud to fall, and Caesar gave the rest of
his territory to king Bocchus, but gave Roman municipal rights to the
town of Tingis. When, some years later, a rupture took place between
the two rulers, the ex-king took part energetically in the struggle in
the hope of regaining his kingdom on this occasion, but at the capture
of the Messenian town Methone he was taken prisoner by Agrippa and
executed.

[Sidenote: Juba II.]

Already some years before (721) {33 B.C.} king Bocchus had died;
his kingdom, the whole of western Africa, was soon afterwards (729)
{25 B.C.} obtained by the son of the last Numidian king, Juba II.,
the husband of Cleopatra, the daughter of Antonius by the Egyptian
queen.[279] Both had been exhibited to the Roman public in early youth
as captive kings’ children, Juba in the triumphal procession of Caesar
the father, Cleopatra in that of the son; it was a wonderful juncture
that they now were sent away from Rome as king and queen of the most
esteemed vassal-state of the empire, but it was in keeping with the
circumstances. Both were brought up in the imperial family; Cleopatra
was treated by the legitimate wife of her father with motherly kindness
like her own children; Juba had served in Caesar’s army. The youth of
the dependent princely houses, which was numerously represented at the
imperial court and played a considerable part in the circle around
the imperial princes, was generally employed in the early imperial
period for the filling up of the vassal principalities, after a similar
manner, according to free selection, as the first class in rank of the
senate was employed for the filling up of the governorships of Syria
and Germany. For almost fifty years (729-775 U.C., 25 B.C-A.D. 23) he,
and after him his son Ptolemaeus, bore rule over western Africa; it is
true that, like the town Tingis from his predecessor, a considerable
number of the most important townships, particularly on the coast, was
withdrawn from him by the bestowal of Roman municipal rights, and,
apart from the capital, these kings of Mauretania were almost nothing
but princes of the Berber tribes.

[Sidenote: Erection of the provinces of Caesarea and Tingi.]

This government lasted up to the year 40, when it appeared fitting to
the emperor Gaius, chiefly on account of the rich treasure, to call
his cousin to Rome, to deliver him there to the executioner, and to
take the territory into imperial administration. Both rulers were
unwarlike, the father a Greek man of letters after the fashion of this
period, compiling so-called memorabilia of a historical or geographical
kind, or relative to the history of art, in endless books, noteworthy
by his--we might say--international literary activity, well read in
Phoenician and Syrian literature, but exerting himself above all to
diffuse the knowledge of Roman habits and of so-called Roman history
among the Hellenes, moreover, a zealous friend of art and frequenter
of the theatre; the son a prince of the common type, passing his time
in court-life and princely luxury. Among their subjects they were
held of little account, whether as regards their personality or as
vassals of the Romans; against the Gaetulians in the south king Juba
had on several occasions to invoke the help of the Roman governor,
and, when in Roman Africa the prince of the Numidians, Tacfarinas,
revolted against the Romans, the Moors flocked in troops to his banner.
Nevertheless the end of the dynasty and the introduction of Roman
provincial government into the land made a deep impression. The Moors
were faithfully devoted to their royal house; altars were still erected
under the Roman rule in Africa to the kings of the race of Massinissa
(p. 305). Ptolemaeus, whatever he might be otherwise, was Massinissa’s
genuine descendant in the sixth generation, and the last of the old
royal house. A faithful servant of his, Aedemon, after the catastrophe
called the mountain-tribes of the Atlas to arms, and it was only after
a hard struggle that the governor Suetonius Paullinus--the same who
afterwards fought with the Britons (I. 179)--was able to master the
revolt (in the year 42). In the organisation of the new territory
the Romans reverted to the earlier division into an eastern and a
western half, or, as they were thenceforth called from the capitals,
into the provinces of Caesarea and of Tingi; or rather they retained
that division, for it was, as will be afterwards shown, necessarily
suggested by the physical and political relations of the territory,
and must have continued to subsist even under the same sceptre in one
or the other form. Each of these provinces was furnished with imperial
troops of the second class, and placed under an imperial governor not
belonging to the senate.

The state and the destinies of this great and peculiar new seat of
Latin civilisation were conditioned by the physical constitution of
North Africa. It is formed by two great mountain-masses, of which the
northern falls steeply towards the Mediterranean, while the southern,
the Atlas, slopes off slowly in the Sahara-steppe dotted with numerous
oases towards the desert proper. A smaller steppe, similar on the whole
to the Sahara and dotted with numerous salt-lakes, serves in the middle
portion, the modern Algeria, to separate the mountains on the north
coast and those on the southern frontier. There are in North Africa no
extensive plains capable of culture; the coast of the Mediterranean
Sea has a level foreland only in a few districts; the land capable of
cultivation, according to the modern expression the Tell, consists
essentially of the numerous valleys and slopes within those two broad
mountain-masses, and so extends to its greatest width where, as in the
modern Morocco and in Tunis, no steppe intervenes between the northern
and the southern border.

[Sidenote: Tripolis.]

The region of Tripolis, politically a part of the province of
Africa, stands as respects its natural relations outside of the
territory described, and is annexed to it in peninsular fashion. The
frontier-range sloping down towards the Mediterranean Sea touches at
the bay of Tacapae (Gabes), with its foreland of steppe and salt-lake,
immediately on the shore. To the south of Tacapae as far as the Great
Syrtis there extends along the coast the narrow Tripolitan island of
cultivation, bounded inland towards the steppe by a chain of moderate
height. Beyond it begins the steppe-country with numerous oases. The
protection of the coast against the inhabitants of the desert is here
of special difficulty, because the high margin of mountains is wanting;
and traces of this are apparent in the accounts that have come to us of
the military expeditions and the military positions in this region.

[Sidenote: The wars with the Garamantes.]

It was the arena of the wars with the Garamantes. Lucius Cornelius
Balbus, who in his younger years had fought and administered under
Caesar with the most adventurous boldness as well as with the
most cruel recklessness, was selected by Augustus to reduce these
inconvenient neighbours to quiet, and in his proconsulate (735) he
subdued the interior as far as Cidamus (Ghadames), twelve days’
journey inland from Tripolis, and Garama (Germa) in Fezzan;[280] at
his triumph--he was the last commoner who celebrated such an one--a
long series of towns and tribes, hitherto unknown even by name, were
displayed as vanquished. This expedition is named a conquest; and
so doubtless the foreland must have been thereby brought in some
measure under the Roman power. There was fighting subsequently on
many occasions in this region. Soon afterwards, still under Augustus,
Publius Sulpicius Quirinius made an expedition against the tribes of
Marmarica, that is, of the Libyan desert above Cyrene, and at the same
time against the Garamantes. That the war against Tacfarinas under
Tiberius extended also over this region will be mentioned further
on. After its termination the king of the Garamantes sent envoys to
Rome, to procure pardon for his having taken part in it. In the year
70 an irruption of the Garamantes into the pacified territory was
brought about by the circumstance that the town Oea (Tripoli) called
the barbarians to help the Tripolis in a quarrel, which had grown
into war, with the neighbouring town Great-Leptis (Lebda), whereupon
they were beaten back by the governor of Africa and pursued to their
own settlements. Under Domitian on the coast of the Great Syrtis,
which had been from of old held by the Nasamones, a revolt of the
natives provoked by the exorbitant taxes had to be repressed with
arms by the governor of Numidia; the territory already poor in men
was utterly depopulated by this cruelly conducted war. The emperor
Severus took conspicuous care of this his native province--he was from
Great-Leptis--and gave to it stronger military protection against the
neighbouring barbarians. With this we may bring into connection the
fact, that in the time from Severus to Alexander the nearest oases,
Cidamus (Ghadames), Gharia el Gharbia, Bonjem, were provided with
detachments of the African legion, which, it is true, owing to the
distance from the headquarters, could not be much more than a nucleus
for the probably considerable contingents of the subject tribes here
rendering services to the Romans. In fact the possession of these oases
was of importance not merely for the protection of the coast, but also
for the traffic, which at all times passed by way of these oases from
the interior of Africa to the harbours of Tripolis. It was not till
the time of decay that the possession of these advanced posts was
abandoned; in the description of the African wars under Valentinian
and Justinian we find the towns of the coast directly harassed by the
natives.

[Sidenote: The Africano-Numidian territory and army.]

The basis and core of Roman Africa was the province of that name,
including the Numidian, which was a branch from it. Roman civilisation
entered upon the heritage partly of the city of Carthage, partly of
the kings of Numidia, and if it here attained considerable results, it
may never be forgotten that it, properly speaking, merely wrote its
name and inscribed its language on what was already there. Besides the
towns, which were demonstrably founded by the former or by the latter,
and to which we shall still return, the former as well as the latter
led the Berber tribes, inclined at any rate to agriculture, towards
fixed settlements. Even in the time of Herodotus the Libyans westward
of the bay of Gabes were no longer nomads, but peacefully cultivated
the soil; and the Numidian rulers carried civilisation and agriculture
still farther into the interior. Nature, too, was here more favourable
for husbandry than in the western part of North Africa; the middle
depression between the northern and the southern range is indeed here
not quite absent, but the salt lakes and the steppe proper are less
extensive than in the two Mauretanias. The military arrangements were
chiefly designed to plant the troops in front of the mighty Aurasian
mountain-block, the Saint Gotthard of the southern frontier-range,
and to check the irruption of the non-subject tribes from the latter
into the pacified territory of Africa and Numidia. For that reason
Augustus placed the stationary quarters of the legion at Theveste
(Tebessa), on the high plateau between the Aures and the old province;
even to the north of it, between Ammaedara and Althiburus, Roman forts
existed in the first imperial period. Of the details of the warfare we
learn little; it must have been permanent, and must have consisted in
the constant repelling of the border-tribes, as well as in not less
constant pillaging raids into their territory.

[Sidenote: War against Tacfarinas.]

Only as to a single occurrence of this sort has information in some
measure accurate come to us; namely, as to the conflicts which derive
their name from the chief leader of the Berbers, Tacfarinas. They
assumed unusual proportions; they lasted eight years (17-24), and
the garrison of the province otherwise consisting of a legion was on
that account reinforced during the years 20-22 by a second despatched
thither from Pannonia. The war had its origin from the great tribe of
the Musulamii on the south slope of the Aures, against whom already
under Augustus Lentulus had conducted an expedition, and who now under
his successor chose that Tacfarinas as their leader. He was an African
Arminius, a native Numidian, who had served in the Roman army, but had
then deserted and made himself a name at the head of a band of robbers.
The insurrection extended eastwards as far as the Cinithii on the
Little Syrtis and the Garamantes in Fezzan, westwards over a great part
of Mauretania, and became dangerous through the fact that Tacfarinas
equipped a portion of his men after the Roman fashion on foot and on
horseback, and gave them Roman training; these gave steadiness to the
light bands of the insurgents, and rendered possible regular combats
and sieges. After long exertions, and after the senate had been on
several occasions induced to disregard the legally prescribed ballot in
filling up this important post of command, and to select fitting men
instead of the usual generals of the type of Cicero, Quintus Iunius
Blaesus in the first instance made an end of the insurrection by a
combined operation, inasmuch as he sent the left flank column against
the Garamantes, and with the right covered the outlets from the Aures
towards Cirta, while he advanced in person with the main army into the
territory of the Musulamii and permanently occupied it (year 22). But
the bold partisan soon afterwards renewed the struggle, and it was only
some years later that the proconsul Publius Cornelius Dolabella, after
he had nipped in the bud the threatened revolt of the just chastised
Musulamii by the execution of all the leaders, was able with the aid of
the troops of the king of Mauretania to force a battle in his territory
near Auzia (Aumale), in which Tacfarinas lost his life. With the fall
of the leader, as is usual in national wars of insurrection, this
movement had an end.[281]

[Sidenote: Later conflicts.]

From later times detailed accounts of a like kind are lacking; we
can only follow out in some measure the general course of the Roman
work of pacification. The tribes to the south of Aures were, if not
extirpated, at any rate ejected and transplanted into the northern
districts; so in particular the Musulamii themselves,[282] against
whom an expedition was once more conducted under Claudius. The demand
made by Tacfarinas to have settlements assigned to him and his people
within the civilised territory, to which Tiberius, as was reasonable,
only replied by redoubling his exertions to annihilate the daring
claimant, was supplementarily after a certain measure fulfilled in
this way, and probably contributed materially to the consolidation of
the Roman government. The camps more and more enclosed the Aurasian
mountain-block. The garrisons were pushed farther forward into the
interior; the headquarters themselves moved under Trajan away from
Theveste farther to the west; the three considerable Roman settlements
on the northern slope of the Aures, Mascula (Khenschela), at the egress
of the valley of the Arab and thereby the key to the Aures mountains, a
colony at least already under Marcus and Verus; Thamugadi, a foundation
of Trajan’s; and Lambaesis, after Hadrian’s day the headquarters of
the African army, formed together a settlement comparable to the great
military camps on the Rhine and on the Danube, which, laid out on the
lines of communication from the Aures to the great towns of the north
and the coast Cirta (Constantine), Calama (Gelma), and Hippo regius
(Bonah), secured the peace of the latter. The intervening steppe-land
was, so far as it could not be gained for cultivation, at least
intersected by secure routes of communication. On the west side of
the Aures a strongly occupied chain of posts which followed the slope
of the mountains from Lambaesis over the oases Calceus Herculis (el
Kantara) and Bescera (Beskra), cut off the connection with Mauretania.
Even the interior of the mountains subsequently became Roman; the war,
which was waged under the emperor Pius in Africa, and concerning
which we have not accurate information, must have brought the Aurasian
mountains into the power of the Romans. At that time a military road
was carried through these mountains by a legion doing garrison duty
in Syria and sent beyond doubt on account of this war to Africa, and
in later times we meet at that very spot traces of Roman garrisons
and even of Roman towns, which reach down to Christian times; the
Aurasian range had thus at that time been occupied, and continued to
be permanently occupied. The oasis Negrin, situated on its southern
slope, was even already under or before Trajan furnished by the Romans
with troops, and still somewhat farther southward on the extreme verge
of the steppe at Bir Mohammed ben Jûnis are found the ruins of a Roman
fort; a Roman road also ran along the southern base of this range.
Of the mighty slope which falls from the table-land of Theveste, the
watershed between the Mediterranean and the desert, in successive
stages of two to three hundred mètres down to the latter, this oasis
is the last terrace; at its base begins, in sharp contrast towards
the jagged mountains piled up behind, the sand desert of Suf, with
its yellow rows of dunes similar to waves, and the sandy soil moved
about by the wind, a huge wilderness, without elevation of the ground,
without trees, fading away without limit into the horizon. Negrin was
certainly of old, as it still is in our time, the standing rendezvous
and the last place of refuge of the robber chiefs as well as of the
natives defying foreign rule--a position commanding far and wide the
desert and its trading routes. Even to this extreme limit reached Roman
occupation and even Roman settlement in Numidia.

[Sidenote: Roman civilisation in Mauretania.]

Mauretania was not a heritage like Africa and Numidia. Of its earlier
condition we learn nothing; there cannot have been considerable towns
even on the coast here in earlier times, and neither Phoenician
stimulus nor sovereigns after the type of Massinissa effectively
promoted civilisation in this quarter. When his last descendants
exchanged the Numidian crown for the Mauretanian, the capital, which
changed its name Iol into Caesarea, became the residence of a
cultivated and luxurious court, and a seat of seafaring and of traffic.
But how much less this possession was esteemed by the government than
that of the neighbouring province, is shown by the difference of the
provincial organisation; the two Mauretanian armies were together not
inferior in number to the Africano-Numidian,[283] but here governors
of equestrian rank and imperial soldiers of the class of _peregrini_
sufficed. Caesarea remained a considerable commercial town; but in
the province the fixed settlement was restricted to the northern
mountain-range, and it was only in the eastern portion that larger
inland towns were to be found. Even the fertile valley of the most
considerable river of this province, the Shelîf, shows weak urban
development; further to the west in the valleys of the Tafna and the
Malua it almost wholly disappears, and the names of the divisions of
cavalry here stationed serve partly in place of local designations. The
province of Tingi (Tangier) even now embraced nothing but this town
with its immediate territory and the stripe of the coast along the
Atlantic Ocean as far as Sala, the modern Rebât, while in the interior
Roman settlement did not even reach to Fez. No land-route connects this
province with that of Caesarea; the 220 miles from Tingi to Rusaddir
(Melilla) they traversed by water, along the desolate and insubordinate
coast of the Riff. Consequently for this province the communication
with Baetica was nearer than that with Mauretania; and if subsequently,
when the empire was divided into larger administrative districts, the
province of Tingi fell to Spain, that measure was only the outward
carrying out of what in reality had long subsisted. It was for Baetica
what Germany was for Gaul; and, far from lucrative as it must have
been, it was perhaps instituted and retained for the reason that its
abandonment would even then have brought about an invasion of Spain
similar to that which Islam accomplished after the collapse of the
Roman rule.

[Sidenote: The Gaetulian wars.]

Beyond the limit of fixed settlement herewith indicated,--the line of
frontier tolls and of frontier posts--and in various non-civilised
districts enclosed by it, the land in the two Mauretanias during the
Roman times remained doubtless with the natives, but they came under
Roman supremacy; there would be claimed from them, as far as possible,
taxes and war-services, but the regular forms of taxation and of levy
would not be applied in their case. For example, the tribe of Zimizes,
which was settled on the rocky coast to the west of Igilgili (Jijeli)
in eastern Mauretania, and so in the heart of the domain of the Roman
power, had assigned to it a fortress designed to cover the town of
Igilgili, to be occupied on such a footing that the troops were not
allowed to pass beyond the radius of 500 paces round the fort.[284]
They thus employed these subject Berbers in the Roman interest, but did
not organise them in the Roman fashion, and hence did not treat them
as soldiers of the imperial army. Even beyond their own province the
irregulars from Mauretania were employed in great numbers, particularly
as horsemen in the later period,[285] while the same did not hold of
the Numidians.

How far the field of the Roman power went beyond the Roman towns and
garrisons and the end of the imperial roads, we are not able to say.
The broad steppe-land round the salt-lakes to the west of Lambaesis,
the mountain-region from Tlemsen till towards Fez, including the coast
of the Riff, the fine corn-country on the Atlantic Ocean southward
from Sala as far as the high Atlas, the civilisation of which in the
flourishing time of the Arabs vied with the Andalusian, lastly, the
Atlas range in the south of Algeria and Morocco and its southern
slopes, which afforded for pastoral people abundant provision in the
alternation of mountain and steppe pastures, and developed the most
luxuriant fertility in the numerous oases--all these regions remained
essentially untouched by the Roman civilisation; but from this it does
not follow that they were in the Roman time independent, and still
less that they were not at least reckoned as belonging to the imperial
domain. Tradition gives us but slight information in this respect. We
have already mentioned (p. 313) that the proconsuls of Africa helped to
make the Gaetulians--that is, the tribes in southern Algeria--subject
to king Juba; and the latter constructed purple dyeworks at Madeira
(p. 338, note). After the end of the Mauretanian dynasty and the
introduction of the immediate Roman administration, Suetonius Paullinus
crossed, as the first Roman general, the Atlas (p. 313), and carried
his arms as far as the desert-river Ger, which still bears the same
name, in the south-east of Morocco. His successor, Gnaeus Hosidius
Geta, continued this enterprise, and emphatically defeated the leader
of the Mauri Salabus. Subsequently several enterprising governors of
the Mauretanian provinces traversed these remote regions, and the
same holds true of the Numidian, under whose command, not under the
Mauretanian, was placed the frontier-range stretching southward behind
the province of Caesarea;[286] yet nothing is mentioned from later
times of war-expeditions proper in the south of Mauretania or Numidia.
The Romans can scarcely have taken over the empire of the Mauretanian
kings in quite the same extent as these had possessed it; but yet the
expeditions that were undertaken after the annexation of the country
were probably not without lasting consequences. At least a portion
of the Gaetulians submitted, as the auxiliary troops levied there
prove, even to the regular conscription during the imperial period;
and, if the native tribes in the south of the Roman provinces had
given serious trouble to the Romans, the traces of it would not have
been wholly wanting.[287] Probably the whole south as far as the great
desert passed as imperial land,[288] and even the effective dependence
extended far beyond the domain of Roman civilisation, which, it is
true, does not exclude frequent levying of contributions and pillaging
raids on the one side or the other.

[Sidenote: Incursions of the Moors into Spain.]

[Sidenote: Quinquegentiani.]

The pacified territory experienced attack, properly so called, chiefly
from the inhabitants of the shore settled around and along the Riff,
the Mazices, and the Baquates; and this indeed took place, as a rule,
by sea, and was directed chiefly against the Spanish coast (I. 67).
Accounts of inroads of the Moors into Baetica run through the whole
imperial period,[289] and show that the Romans, in consequence of the
absence of energetic offensive, found themselves here permanently
on a defensive, which indeed did not involve a vital danger for the
empire, but yet brought constant insecurity and often sore harm over
rich and peaceful regions. The civilised territories of Africa appear
to have suffered less under the Moorish attacks, probably because the
headquarters of Numidia, immediately on the Mauretanian frontier, and
the strong garrisons on the west side of the Aures, did their duty. But
on the collapse of the imperial power in the third century the invasion
here also began; the feud of Five Peoples, as it was called, which
broke out about the time of Gallienus, and on account of which twenty
years later the emperor Maximianus went personally to Africa, arose
from the tribes beyond the Shott on the Numido-Mauretanian frontier,
and affected particularly the towns of Eastern Mauretania and of
Western Numidia, such as Auzia and Mileu.[290]

[Sidenote: Continuance of the Berber language.]

We come to the internal organisation of the country. In respect of
language, that which belonged properly to the people was treated
like the Celtic in Gaul and the Iberian in Spain; here in Africa all
the more, as the earlier foreign rule had already set the example in
that respect, and certainly no Roman understood this popular idiom.
The Berber tribes had not merely a national language, but also a
national writing (p. 305); but never, so far as we see, was use made
of it in official intercourse, at least it was never put upon the
coins. Even the native Berber dynasties formed no exception to this,
whether because in their kingdoms the more considerable towns were
more Phoenician than Libyan, or because the Phoenician civilisation
prevailed so far generally. The language was written indeed also
under Roman rule, in fact most of the Berber votive or sepulchral
inscriptions proceed certainly from the imperial period; but their
rarity proves that it attained only to limited written use in the
sphere of the Roman rule. It maintained itself as a popular language
above all naturally in the districts, to which the Romans came little
or not at all, as in the Sahara, in the mountains of the Riff of
Morocco, in the two Kabylias; but even the fertile and early cultivated
island of the Tripolis, Girba (Jerba), the seat of the Carthaginian
purple manufacture, still at the present day speaks Libyan. Taken on
the whole, the old popular idiom in Africa defended itself better than
among the Celts and the Iberians.

[Sidenote: Continuance of the Phoenician language.]

The language which prevailed in North Africa, when it became Roman,
was that of the foreign rule which preceded the Roman. Leptis,
probably not the Tripolitan, but that near Hadrumetum, was the only
African town which marked its coins with a Greek legend, and thus
conceded to this language an at least secondary position in public
intercourse. The Phoenician language prevailed at that time so far as
there was a civilisation in North Africa, from Great Leptis to Tingi,
most thoroughly in and around Carthage, but not less in Numidia and
Mauretania.[291] To this language of a highly developed although
foreign culture certain concessions were made on the change in the
system of administration. Perhaps already under Caesar, certainly under
Augustus and Tiberius, as well the towns of the Roman province, such as
Great Leptis and Oea, as those of the Mauretanian kingdom, like Tingi
and Lix, employed in official use the Phoenician language, even those
which like Tingi had become Roman burgess-communities. Nevertheless
they did not go so far in Africa as in the Greek half of the empire. In
the Greek provinces of the empire the Greek language prevailed, as in
business intercourse generally, so particularly in direct intercourse
with the imperial government and its officials; the coin of the city
organised after the Greek fashion names also the emperor in Greek. But
in the African the coin, even if it speaks in another language, names
the emperor or the imperial official always in Latin. Even on the coins
of the kings of Mauretania the name of the Greek queen stands possibly
in Greek, but that of the king--also an imperial official--uniformly in
Latin, even where the queen is named beside him. That is to say, even
the government did not admit the Phoenician in its intercourse with the
communities and individuals in Africa, but it allowed it for internal
intercourse; it was not a third imperial language, but a language of
culture recognised in its own sphere.

But this limited recognition of the Phoenician language did not long
subsist. There is no document for the public use of Phoenician from
the time after Tiberius, and it hardly survived the time of the first
dynasty.[292] How and when the change set in we do not know; probably
the government, perhaps Tiberius or Claudius, spoke the decisive word
and accomplished the linguistic and national annexation of the African
Phoenicians as far as it could be done by state authority. In private
intercourse the Phoenician held its ground still for a long time in
Africa, longer apparently than in the motherland; at the beginning
of the third century ladies of genteel houses in Great Leptis spoke
so little Latin or Greek, that there was no place for them in Roman
society; even at the end of the fourth there was a reluctance to
appoint clergymen in the environs of Hippo Regius (Bona), who could
not make themselves intelligible in Punic to their countrymen; these
termed themselves at that time still Canaanites, and Punic names
and Punic phrases were still current. But the language was banished
from the school[293] and even from written use, and had become a
popular dialect; and even this probably only in the region of the old
Phoenician civilisation, particularly the old Phoenician places on the
coast that stood aloof from intercourse on a large scale.[294] When the
Arabs came to Africa they found as language of the country doubtless
that of the Berbers, but no longer that of the Poeni;[295] with the
Carthagino-Roman civilisation the two foreign languages disappeared,
while the old native one still lives in the present day. The civilised
foreign dominions changed; the Berbers remained like the palm of the
oasis and the sand of the desert.

[Sidenote: The Latin language.]

The heritage of the Phoenician language fell not to Greek, but to
Latin. This was not involved in the natural development. In Caesar’s
time the Latin and the Greek were alike in North Africa foreign
languages, but as the coins of Leptis already show, the latter by
far more diffused than the former; Latin was spoken then only by the
officials, the soldiers, and the Italian merchants. It would have at
that time been probably easier to introduce the Hellenising of Africa
than the Latinising of it. But it was the converse that took place.
Here the same will prevailed, which did not allow the Hellenic germs to
spring up in Gaul, and which incorporated Greek Sicily into the domain
of Latin speech; the same will, which drew the boundaries between the
Latin West and the Greek East, assigned Africa to the former.

[Sidenote: The Phoenician urban organisation.]

In a similar sense the internal organisation of the country was
regulated. It was based, as in Italy on the Latin and in the East on
the Hellenic urban community, so here on the Phoenician. When the
Roman rule in Africa began, the Carthaginian territory at that time
consisted predominantly of urban communities, for the most part small,
of which there were counted three hundred, each administered by its
sufetes;[296] and the republic had made no change in this respect.
Even in the kingdoms the towns formerly Phoenician had retained their
organisation under the native rulers, and at least Calama--an inland
town of Numidia hardly of Phoenician foundation--had demonstrably
the same Phoenician municipal constitution; the civilisation which
Massinissa gave to his kingdom must have consisted essentially in his
transforming the villages of the agricultural Berbers into towns after
the Phoenician model. The same will hold good of the few older urban
communities which existed in Mauretania before Augustus. So far as
we see, the two annually changing sufetes of the African communities
coincide in the main with the analogous presidents of the community
in the Italian municipal constitution; and that in other respects,
_e.g._ in the common councils among the Carthaginians formed after a
fashion altogether divergent from the Italian (ii. 16) {ii. 15.}, the
Phoenician urban constitution of Roman Africa has preserved national
peculiarities, does not at least admit of proof.[297] But the fact
itself that the contrast, if even but formal, of the Phoenician town
to the Italian was retained was, like the permission of the language,
a recognition of the Phoenician nationality and a certain security
for its continuance even under Roman rule. That it was recognised
in the first instance as the regular form of administration of the
African territory, is proved by the establishment of Carthage by Caesar
primarily as a Phoenician city as well under the old sufetes[298] as
in a certain measure with the old inhabitants, seeing that a great,
perhaps the greatest part of the new burgesses was taken from the
surrounding townships, again also under the protection of the great
goddess of the Punic Carthage, the queen of heaven Astarte, who at
that time marched in with her votaries anew into her old abode. It
is true that in Carthage itself this organisation soon gave place
to the Italian colonial constitution, and the protecting patroness
Astarte became the--at least in name--Latin Caelestis. But in the rest
of Africa and in Numidia the Phoenician urban organisation probably
remained throughout the first century the predominant one, in so far
as it pertained to all communities of recognised municipal rights and
lacking Roman or Latin organisation. Abolished in the proper sense
it doubtless was not, as in fact sufetes still occur under Pius; but
by degrees they everywhere make way for the duoviri, and the changed
principle of government entails in this sphere also its ultimate
consequences.

[Sidenote: Transformation of the Phoenician towns into Italian.]

The transformation of Phoenician urban rights into Italian began under
Caesar. The old Phoenician town of Utica, predecessor and heiress of
Carthage--as some compensation for the severe injury to its interests
by the restoration of the old capital of the country--obtained, as
the first Italian organisation in Africa, perhaps from the dictator
Caesar, Latin rights, certainly from his successor Augustus the
position of a Roman _municipium_. The town of Tingi received the
same rights, in gratitude for the fidelity which it had maintained
during the Perusine war (p. 311). Several others soon followed; yet
the number of communities with Roman rights in Africa down to Trajan
and Hadrian remained limited.[299] Thenceforth there were assigned on
a great scale--although, so far as we see, throughout by individual
bestowal--to communities hitherto Phoenician municipal or else colonial
rights; for the latter too were subsequently as a rule conferred
merely in a titular way without settlement of colonists. If the
dedications and memorials of all sorts, that formerly appeared but
sparingly in Africa, present themselves in abundance from the beginning
of the second century, this was doubtless chiefly the consequence of
the adoption of numerous townships into the imperial union of the towns
with best rights.

[Sidenote: Settlement of Italian colonists in Africa.]

Besides the conversion of Phoenician towns into Italian _municipia_ or
colonies, not a few towns of Italian rights arose in Africa by means
of the settlement of Italian colonists. For this too the dictator
Caesar laid the foundation--as indeed for no province perhaps so much
as for Africa were the paths prescribed by him--and the emperors of
the first dynasty followed his example. We have already spoken of the
founding of Carthage; the town obtained not at once, but very soon,
Italian settlers and therewith Italian organisation and full rights
of Roman citizenship. Beyond doubt from the outset destined once more
to be the capital of the province and laid out as a great city, it
rapidly in point of fact became so. Carthage and Lugudunum were the
only cities of the West which, besides the capital of the empire, had
a standing garrison of imperial troops. Moreover in Africa--in part
certainly already by the dictator, in part only by the first emperor--a
series of small country-towns in the districts nearest to Sicily,
Hippo Diarrhytus, Clupea, Curubi, Neapolis, Carpi, Maxula, Uthina,
Great-Thuburbo, Assuras, were furnished with colonies, probably not
merely to provide for veterans, but to promote the Latinising of this
region. The two colonies which arose at that time in the former kingdom
of Numidia, Cirta with its dependencies, and New-Cirta or Sicca, were
the result of special obligations of Caesar towards the leader of free
bands Publius Sittius from Nuceria and his Italiano-African bands
(iv. 470, 574) {iv. 447, 544.}. The former, inasmuch as the territory
on which it was laid out belonged at that time to a client-state (p.
311, note), obtained a peculiar and very independent organisation, and
retained it in part even later, although it soon became an imperial
city. Both rose rapidly and became considerable centres of Roman
civilisation in Africa.

[Sidenote: And in Mauretania.]

The colonisation, which Augustus undertook in the kingdom of Juba and
Claudius carried forward, bore another character. In Mauretania, still
at that time very primitive, there was a want both of towns and of the
elements for creating them; the settlement of soldiers of the Roman
army, who had served out their time, brought civilisation here into
a barbarous land. Thus in the later province of Caesarea along the
coast Igilgili, Saldae, Rusazu, Rusguniae, Gunugi, Cartenna (Tenes),
and farther away from the sea Thubusuptu and Zuccabar, were settled
with Augustan, and Oppidum Novum with Claudian, veterans; as also
in the province of Tingi under Augustus Zilis, Babba, Banasa, under
Claudius Lix. These communities with Roman burgess-rights were not, as
was already observed, under the kings of Mauretania, so long as there
were such, but were attached administratively to the adjoining Roman
province; consequently there was involved in these settlements, as
it were, a beginning towards the annexation of Mauretania.[300] The
pushing forward of civilisation, such as Augustus and Claudius aimed
at, was not subsequently continued, or at any rate continued only to
a very limited extent, although there was room enough for it in the
western half of the province of Caesarea and in that of Tingi; that
the later colonies regularly proceeded from titular bestowal without
settlement, has already been remarked (p. 332).

[Sidenote: Large landed estates.]

Alongside of this urban organisation we have specially to mention
that of the large landed estates in this province. According to Roman
arrangement it fitted itself regularly into the communal constitution;
even the extension of the _latifundia_ affected this relationship
less injuriously than we should think, since these, as a rule, were
not locally compact and were often distributed among several urban
territories. But in Africa the large estates were not merely more
numerous and more extensive than elsewhere, but these assumed also the
compactness of urban territories; around the landlord’s house there was
formed a settlement, which was not inferior to the small agricultural
towns of the province, and, if its president and common councillors
often did not venture and still oftener were not able to subject such a
fellow-burgess to the full payment of the communal burdens falling upon
him, the _de facto_ release of these estates from the communal bond of
union became still further marked, when such a possession passed over
into the hands of the emperor.[301] But this early occurred in Africa
to a great extent; Nero in particular, lighted with his confiscations
on the landowners, as is said, of half Africa, and what was once
imperial was wont to remain so. The small lessees, to whom the domanial
estate was farmed out, appear for the most part to have been brought
from abroad, and these imperial _coloni_ may be reckoned in a certain
measure as belonging to the Italian immigration.

[Sidenote: Organisation of the Berber communities.]

We have formerly remarked (p. 306) that the Berbers formed a
considerable portion of the population of Numidia and Mauretania
through the whole time of the Roman rule. But as to their internal
organisation hardly more can be ascertained than the emergence of the
clan (_gens_)[302] instead of the urban organisation under duoviri or
sufetes. The societies of the natives were not, like those of North
Italy, assigned as subjects to individual urban communities, but were
placed like the towns immediately under the governors, doubtless also,
where it seemed necessary, under a Roman officer specially placed over
them (_praefectus gentis_), and further under authorities of their
own[303]--the “headman” (_princeps_), who in later times bore possibly
the title of king, and the “eleven first.” Presumably this arrangement
was monarchical in contrast to the collegiate one of the Phoenician as
of the Latin community, and there stood alongside of the tribal chief a
limited number of elders instead of the numerous senate of decuriones
of the towns. The communities of natives in Roman Africa seem to have
attained afterwards to Italian organisation only by way of exception;
the African towns with Italian rights, which did not originate from
immigration, had doubtless for the most part Phoenician civic rights
previously. Exceptions occur chiefly in the case of transplanted
tribes, as indeed the considerable town Thubursicum originated from
such a forced settlement of Numidians. The Berber communities possessed
especially the mountains and the steppes; they obeyed the foreigners,
without either the masters or the subjects feeling any desire to come
to terms with one another; and, when other foreigners invaded the land,
their position in presence of the Vandals, the Byzantines, the Arabs,
the French, remained almost on the old footing.

[Sidenote: Husbandry.]

In the economy of the soil the eastern half of Africa vies with Egypt.
Certainly the soil is unequal, and rocks and steppes occupy not
only the greater portion of the western half, but also considerable
tracts in the eastern; here too there were various inaccessible
mountain-regions, which yielded but slowly or not at all to
civilisation; particularly on the rocky ridges along the coast the
Roman rule left few or no traces. Even the Byzacene, the south-eastmost
part of the proconsular province, is only designated as a specially
productive region by an erroneous generalisation of what holds good
as to individual coast districts and oases; from Sufetula (Sbitla)
westward the land is waterless and rocky; in the fifth century A.D.
Byzacene was reckoned to have about a half less per cent of land
capable of culture than the other African provinces. But the northern
and north-western portion of the proconsular province, above all the
valley of the largest river in north Africa, the Bagradas (Mejerda),
and not less a considerable part of Numidia, yield abundant grain
crops, almost like the valley of the Nile. In the favoured districts
the country towns, very frequent, as their ruins show, lay so near
to each other that the population here cannot have been much less
dense than in the land of the Nile, and according to all traces it
prosecuted especially husbandry. The mighty armed masses, with which
after the defeat at Pharsalus the republicans in Africa took up the
struggle against Caesar, were formed of these peasants, so that in the
year of war the fields lay untilled. Since Italy used more corn than
it produced, it was primarily dependent, in addition to the Italian
islands, on the almost equally near Africa; and after it became subject
to the Romans, its corn went thither not merely by way of commerce,
but above all as tribute. Already in Cicero’s time the capital of
the empire doubtless subsisted for the most part on African corn;
through the admission of Numidia under Caesar’s dictatorship the corn
thenceforth coming in as tribute increased according to the estimate
about 1,200,000 Roman bushels (525,000 hectolitres) annually. After the
Egyptian corn supplies were instituted under Augustus, for the third
part of the corn used in Rome North Africa was reckoned upon, and Egypt
for a like amount; while the desolated Sicily, Sardinia, and Baetica,
along with Italy’s own production, covered the rest of the need. In
what measure the Italy of the imperial period was dependent for its
subsistence on Africa is shown by the measures taken during the wars
between Vitellius and Vespasian and between Severus and Pescennius;
Vespasian thought that he had conquered Italy when he occupied Egypt
and Africa; Severus sent a strong army to Africa to hinder Pescennius
from occupying it.

[Sidenote: Oil and wine.]

Oil, too, and wine had already held a prominent place in the old
Carthaginian husbandry, and on Little-Leptis (near Susa), for
example, an annual payment of 3,000,000 pounds of oil (nearly 10,000
hectolitres) could be imposed by Caesar for the Roman baths, as indeed
Susa still at the present day exports 40,000 hectolitres of oil.
Accordingly the historian of the Jugurthan war terms Africa rich in
corn, poor in oil and wine, and even in Vespasian’s time the province
gave in this respect only a moderate yield. It was only when the peace
with the empire became permanent--a peace which the fruit-tree needed
even far more than the fruits of the field--that the culture of olives
extended; in the fourth century no province supplied such quantities
of oil as Africa, and the African oil was predominantly employed for
the baths in Rome. In quality, doubtless, it was always inferior to
that of Italy and Spain, not because nature there was less favourable,
but because the preparation lacked skill and care. The cultivation of
the vine acquired no prominent importance in Africa for export. On the
other hand the breeding of horses and of cattle flourished, especially
in Numidia and Mauretania.

[Sidenote: Manufactures and commerce.]

Manufactures and trade never had the same importance in the African
provinces as in the East and in Egypt. The Phoenicians had transplanted
the preparation of purple from their native country to these coasts,
where the island of Gerba (Jerba) became the African Tyre, and was
inferior only to the latter itself in quality. This manufacture
flourished through the whole imperial period. Among the few deeds which
king Juba II. has to show, is the arrangement for obtaining purple
on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean and on the adjacent islands.[304]
Woollen stuffs of inferior quality and leather goods were manufactured
in Mauretania, apparently by the natives, also for export.[305] The
trade in slaves was very considerable. The products of the interior
of the country naturally passed by way of North Africa into general
commerce, but not to such an extent as by way of Egypt. The elephant,
it is true, was the device of Mauretania in particular, and there,
where it has now for long disappeared, it was still hunted down to the
imperial period; but probably only small quantities came thence into
commerce.

[Sidenote: Prosperity.]

The prosperity which subsisted in the part of Africa at all cultivated
is clearly attested by the ruins of its numerous towns, which, in
spite of the narrow bounds of their domains, everywhere exhibit baths,
theatres, triumphal arches, gorgeous tombs, and generally buildings
of luxury of all kinds, mostly mediocre in art, often excessive in
magnificence. Not quite in the villas of the superior nobility, as in
the Gallic land, but in the middle class of the farming burgesses must
the economic strength of these regions have lain.[306]

[Sidenote: Roads.]

The frequency of intercourse, so far as we may judge of it from our
knowledge of the network of roads, must within the civilised territory
have corresponded to the density of the population. During the first
century the imperial roads originated, which connected the headquarters
of that time, Theveste, partly with the coast of the Lesser Syrtis--a
step, having close relation to the formerly narrated pacification of
the district between the Aures and the sea--partly with the great
cities of the north coast, Hippo regius (Bona) and Carthage. From
the second century onward we find all the larger towns and several
smaller active in providing the necessary communications within their
territory; this, however, doubtless holds true of most of the imperial
lands, and only comes into clearer prominence in Africa, because
this opportunity was made use of more diligently here than elsewhere
to do homage to the reigning emperor. As to the road-system of the
districts, which though Roman were yet not Romanised, and as to the
routes which were the medium of the important traffic through the
desert, we have no general information.

[Sidenote: Introduction of camels.]

But probably a momentous revolution occurred in the desert-traffic
during that time by the introduction of the camel. In older times it
meets us, as is well known, only in Asia as far as Arabia, while Egypt
and all Africa knew simply the horse. During the first three centuries
of our era the countries effected an exchange, and, like the Arabian
horse, the Libyan camel, we may say, made its appearance in history.
Mention of the latter first occurs in the history of the war waged by
the dictator Caesar in Africa; when here among the booty by the side
of captive officers twenty-two camels of king Juba are adduced, such
a possession must at that time have been of an extraordinary nature
in Africa. In the fourth century the Roman generals demand from the
towns of Tripolis thousands of camels for the transport of water and of
provisions before they enter upon the march into the desert. This gives
a glimpse of the revolution that had taken place during the interval in
the circumstances of the intercourse between the north and the south of
Africa; whether it originated from Egypt or from Cyrene and Tripolis we
cannot tell, but it redounded to the advantage of the whole north of
this continent.

[Sidenote: Character and culture of the people.]

Thus North Africa was a valuable possession for the finances of the
empire. Whether the Roman nation generally gained or lost more by
the assimilation of North Africa, is less ascertained. The dislike
which the Italian felt from of old towards the African did not change
after Carthage had become a Roman great city, and all Africa spoke
Latin; if Severus Antoninus combined in himself the vices of three
nations, his savage cruelty was traced to his African father, and the
ship captain of the fourth century, who thought that “Africa was a
fine country but the Africans were not worthy of it, for they were
cunning and faithless, and there might be some good people among them,
but not many,” was at least not thinking of the bad Hannibal, but
was speaking out the feeling of the great public at the time. So far
as the influence of African elements may be recognised in the Roman
literature of the imperial period, we meet with specially unpleasant
leaves in a book generally far from pleasant. The new life, which
bloomed for the Romans out of the ruins of the nations extirpated by
them, was nowhere full and fresh and beautiful; even the two creations
of Caesar, the Celtic land and North Africa--for Latin Africa was not
much less his work than Latin Gaul--remained structures of ruins.
But the toga suited, at any rate, the new-Roman of the Rhone and the
Garonne better than the “Seminumidians and Semigaetulians.” Doubtless
Carthage remained in the numbers of its population and in wealth not
far behind Alexandria, and was indisputably the second city of the
Latin half of the empire, next to Rome the most lively, perhaps also
the most corrupt, city of the West, and the most important centre of
Latin culture and literature. Augustine depicts with lively colours how
many an honest youth from the province went to wreck there amid the
dissolute doings of the circus, and how powerful was the impression
produced on him--when, a student of seventeen years of age, he came
from Madaura to Carthage--by the theatre with its love-pieces and
with its tragedy. There was no lack in the African of diligence
and talent; on the contrary, perhaps more value was set upon the
Latin and along with it the Greek instruction, and on its aim of
general culture, in Africa than anywhere else in the empire, and the
school-system was highly developed. The philosopher Appuleius under
Pius, the celebrated Christian author Augustine, both descended from
good burgess-families--the former from Madaura, the latter from the
neighbouring smaller place Thagaste--received their first training in
the schools of their native towns; then Appuleius studied in Carthage,
and finished his training in Athens and Rome; Augustine went from
Thagaste first to Madaura, then likewise to Carthage; in this way the
training of youth was completed in the better houses throughout.
Juvenal advises the professor of rhetoric who would earn money to go
to Gaul or, still better, to Africa, “the nurse of advocates.” At a
nobleman’s seat in the territory of Cirta there has recently been
brought to light a private bath of the later imperial period equipped
with princely magnificence, the mosaic pavement of which depicts
how matters went on once at the castle; the palaces, the extensive
hunting-park with the hounds and stags, the stables with the noble
race-horses, occupy no doubt most of the space, but there is not
wanting also the “scholar’s corner” (_filosofi locus_), and beside it
the noble lady sitting under the palms.

[Sidenote: Scholasticism.]

But the black spot of the African literary character is just its
scholasticism. It does not begin till late; before the time of Hadrian
and of Pius the Latin literary world exhibits no African name of
repute, and subsequently the Africans of note were throughout, in the
first instance, schoolmasters, and came as such to be authors. Under
those emperors the most celebrated teachers and scholars of the capital
were native Africans, the rhetor Marcus Cornelius Fronto from Cirta,
instructor of the princes at the court of Pius, and the philologue
Gaius Sulpicius Apollinaris from Carthage. For that reason there
prevailed in these circles sometimes the foolish purism that forced
back the Latin into the old-fashioned paths of Ennius and of Cato,
whereby Fronto and Apollinaris made their repute, sometimes an utter
oblivion of the earnest austerity innate in Latin, and a frivolity
producing a worse imitation of bad Greek models, such as reaches its
culmination in the--in its time much admired--“Ass-romance” of that
philosopher of Madaura. The language swarmed partly with scholastic
reminiscences, partly with unclassical or newly coined words and
phrases. Just as in the emperor Severus, an African of good family and
himself a scholar and author, his tone of speech always betrayed the
African, so the style of these Africans, even those who were clever and
from the first trained in Latin, like the Carthaginian Tertullian, has
regularly something strange and incongruous, with its diffuseness of
petty detail, its minced sentences, its witty and fantastic conceits.
There is a lack of both the graceful charm of the Greek and of the
dignity of the Roman. Significantly we do not meet in the whole field
of Africano-Latin authorship a single poet who deserves to be so much
as named.

[Sidenote: Christian literature in Africa.]

It was not till the Christian period that it became otherwise. In
the development of Christianity Africa plays the very first part;
if it arose in Syria, it was in and through Africa that it became
the religion for the world. As the translation of the sacred books
from the Hebrew language into the Greek, and that into the popular
language of the most considerable Jewish community out of Judaea,
gave to Judaism its position in the world, so in a similar way for
the transference of Christianity from the serving East to the ruling
West the translation of its confessional writings into the language
of the West became of decisive importance; and this all the more,
inasmuch as these books were translated, not into the language of the
cultivated circles of the West, which early disappeared from common
life and in the imperial age was everywhere a matter of scholastic
attainment, but into the decomposed Latin already preparing the way
for the structure of the Romance languages--the Latin of common
intercourse at that time familiar to the great masses. If Christianity
was by the destruction of the Jewish church-state released from its
Jewish basis (p. 229), it became the religion of the world by the
fact, that in the great world-empire it began to speak the universally
current imperial language; and those nameless men, who since the
second century Latinised the Christian writings, performed for this
epoch just such a service, as at the present day, in the heightened
measure required by the enlarged horizon of the nations, is carried
out in the footsteps of Luther by the Bible Societies. And these men
were in part Italians, but above all Africans.[307] In Africa to all
appearance the knowledge of Greek, which is able to dispense with
translations, was far more seldom to be met with than at least in
Rome; and, on the other hand, the Oriental element, that preponderated
particularly in the early stages of Christianity, here found a readier
reception than in the other Latin-speaking lands of the West. Even as
regards the polemic literature called especially into existence by
the new faith, since the Roman church at this epoch belonged to the
Greek circle (p. 226), Africa took the lead in the Latin tongue. The
whole Christian authorship down to the end of this period is, so far
as it is Latin, African; Tertullian and Cyprian were from Carthage,
Arnobius from Sicca, Lactantius, and probably in like manner Minucius
Felix, were, in spite of their classic Latin, Africans, and not less
the already mentioned somewhat later Augustine. In Africa the growing
church found its most zealous confessors and its most gifted defenders.
For the literary conflict of the faith Africa furnished by far the
most and the ablest combatants, whose special characteristics, now in
eloquent discussion, now in witty ridicule of fables, now in vehement
indignation, found a true and mighty field for their display in the
onslaught on the old gods. A mind--intoxicated first by the whirl of
a dissolute life, and then by the fiery enthusiasm of faith--such
as utters itself in the Confessions of Augustine, has no parallel
elsewhere in antiquity.



APPENDIX: ROMAN BRITAIN

(Chapter V. Vol. I. pp. 170-194)


Mommsen’s sketch of Roman Britain has often been called deficient and
inaccurate. As a general judgment, this is wholly unjust. The sketch
has real and distinct merits. When first issued in 1885, it marked a
great advance towards a right conception of its subject. It differed
conspicuously, and all for the better, from the other sketches of Roman
Britain which were then current and accepted, Hübner’s papers since
collected in his _Römische Herrschaft in Westeuropa_, Wright’s _Celt,
Roman, and Saxon_, Scarth’s _Roman Britain_. To-day it is perhaps the
best existing account of the conquest and military administration of
the province, and it contains much which no one--least of all, our
English archaeologists--can afford to neglect. On the other hand, it
is undeniably not one of the best sections in the volume to which it
belongs, and it treats some parts of its theme, notably the civil life
and civilisation, very shortly. One may be pardoned for taking the
occasion of its republication in English dress, to make a few additions
and corrections which may interest English readers, while they fill
some gaps and take note of some recent discoveries.

The accounts of the Claudian invasion and the early years of the
conquest (pp. 172-9) are, in their broad outlines, beyond reasonable
doubt. But details can perhaps be added or altered. The army which
started in A.D. 43 in three corps (τριχῇ νεμηθέντες, Dio, 60, 20) may
well have landed in the three harbours afterwards used by the Romans in
Kent, Lymne, Dover, and Richborough--the last named being the principal
port for passengers to and from Britain throughout the Roman period.
The difficult river crossed shortly afterwards by Plautius may be the
Medway near Rochester, where in after years the Roman road from the
Kentish ports to London had its bridge. The subsequent course of the
invading armies is not easy to trace. But it would seem that, when
they had won London and Colchester, they advanced from this base-line
in three separate corps to the conquest of the South and Midlands.
The left wing, the Second Legion Augusta under Vespasian, overran the
south as far (probably) as South Wales and Exeter (Suet. _Vesp._ 4;
Tac. _Agric._ 13; _Hist._ iii. 44; tile of Legio ii. Aug. at Seaton,
_Archæological Journal_, xlix. 180). The centre, the Fourteenth and
Twentieth Legions, crossed the Midlands to Wroxeter and Chester (tile
of Legio xx. at Whittlebury, _Vict. Hist. of Northants_, i. 215;
inscriptions at Wroxeter and Chester). The right wing, the Ninth, moved
up the east side of Britain to Lincoln (tile of Legio ix. at Hilly
Wood, on the road towards Lincoln, _Vict. Hist. of Northants_, i. 214;
inscriptions at Lincoln). These three lines of advance led direct to
the positions of the fortresses where we find the legions presently
posted. They agree also with the three main groups of Roman roads which
radiate from London: (1) the south-west route to Silchester, and thence
by branches to Winchester, Exeter, Bath, South Wales; (2) the Midland
“Watling Street,” by St. Albans to Wroxeter and Chester; (3) the
eastern route to Colchester, Cambridge, and Castor near Peterborough,
to Lincoln.[308]

In any case there can be little doubt that by A.D. 47 or 48--within
four or five years of the first landing--the Roman troops had reached
the basins of the Humber and the Severn, as Mommsen observes (p. 176).
This much is plain from the fact that Ostorius, who came out in 47, had
at once to deal with the Iceni of Norfolk, the Decangi of Flintshire,
the Brigantes of Yorkshire, the Silures of Monmouthshire (Tac. _Ann._
xii. 31). But the difficult corruption of Tacitus (_ibid._), _cuncta
castris antonam et Sabrinam fluvios cohibere parat_, is probably to be
emended (with Dr. H. Bradley, _Academy_, April and May 1883) _cuncta
cis Trisantonam_, _i.e._ the Roman frontier at the moment was, roughly,
Severn and Trent. This is preferable both to Mommsen’s suggestion
(given above, p. 176 note) and to mine (_Journ. Phil._ xvii. 268).
The older and more violent remedy, _Avonam inter et Sabrinam_, though
revived in the text of the second edition of Furneaux’s _Tacitus_
(1907), is pretty certainly wrong; indeed, it is not Latin.

It would seem then that, by 47 or 48, practically the whole lowlands
were in the hands of the Romans. Whether Chester had already been
occupied or (as seems likelier) was first garrisoned when Ostorius
attacked the Decangi, must remain uncertain; it must in any case have
been occupied soon (_Eph. Epigr._ vii. 903; Domaszewski, _Rhein. Mus._
xlviii. 344). Caerleon, connected by Mommsen with Tac. _Ann._ xii. 32,
presents more difficulty, since it has yielded hardly any datable
remains earlier than about A.D. 70-80; however, no other site can be
suggested on our present evidence for the _hiberna_ of the Second
Legion Augusta before 70. Wroxeter rests its claim to a fortress on
two early inscriptions of Legio xiv. (_Vict. Hist. Shropshire_, i.
243, 244), and this may be adequate, though Domaszewski doubts it.
The course of Watling Street seems to show that Wroxeter was occupied
before the troops pushed on to Chester.

Mommsen’s account of the Boadicean revolt (pp. 179-181) is famous for
his denunciation of Tacitus as “the most unmilitary of all authors.”
It must be conceded that Tacitus is unmilitary--not so much because he
is condensed or discontinuous or ignorant of geography (E. G. Hardy,
_Journ. Phil._ xxxi. 123), as because he has a literary horror of
all technical detail, and desires to give the general effect of each
situation without distracting the reader by vexatious precision and
difficult _minutiae_. But in this case his narrative (_Ann._ xii. 32
foll.) is better than Mommsen (or indeed Domaszewski) allows. Paullinus
doubtless marched to London, as Horsley long ago observed, because it
lay on the road (Watling Street) from Chester to Colchester; that he
hurried on in front of his main forces is implied in the _iam_ at the
beginning of c. 34.

The conquest of Wales (p. 182) was completed, as Mommsen says, in the
decade A.D. 70-80. But his statements require some re-wording. Roman
remains are not “completely absent” in the interior; the continuance
of native resistance to Rome is very doubtful; the existence of
Celtic speech and nationality in Wales to-day is--in large part,
at least--due to a Celtic revival in the late fourth or the fifth
century, and to immigration of new Celtic elements at that time, and
cannot therefore be cited as here. So far as present evidence goes,
the district as a whole seems during the first, second, and third
centuries to have closely resembled the similar mountainous districts
of northern England, save only that the Welsh tribes never revolted
after A.D. 80, while the Brigantes gave trouble throughout the second
century. The same system of small auxiliary _castella_ was established
in Wales as in northern England. These forts are at present almost
wholly unexplored. But we can detect unquestionable examples at
Caerhun (Canovium, _Eph._ vii. 1099) and Carnarvon, in the north; at
Tommen-y-mur, Llanio-i-sa, and Caio, in the west; at Caergai (_Eph._
vii. 863), Castle Collen near Llandrindod (_ibid._ 862), Caersws in
the upper valley of the Severn, and the Gaer near Brecon, in the
interior; at Gelligaer (_Trans. Cardiff Nat. Soc._ xxxv. 1903), Merthyr
Tydfil, Cardiff, Abergavenny, Usk, in the south, besides others not
yet satisfactorily identified as military sites. Several of these
have yielded remains suggestive of the first century, and indeed of
the Flavian period. The only one as yet properly excavated, Gelligaer,
seems to have been occupied under the Flavians, and dismantled after
no very long occupation, probably early in the second century. Such
dismantlement suggests that the land was then growing less unquiet. But
Wales never reached any higher degree of Roman civilisation than the
north of England. Towns and country houses were always rare, and its
population lived mostly, it would seem, in primitive villages (_Arch.
Cambrensis_, 1907). Later on, in the fourth century, Celts began to
come in from Ireland, much as other barbarians entered other parts of
the Empire, but their dates and numbers are very little known; see my
_Romanisation of Roman Britain_, pp. 27 foll. and refs. there given.

The invasion of Caledonia (p. 183) by Agricola has been illustrated by
recent discoveries. As I have pointed out elsewhere, we have traces
of Agricola’s line of forts (Tac. _Agr._ 23) at Camelon (_Proc.
Soc. Antiq. Scotland_, xxxv. fig. 10) and Bar Hill (G. Macdonald,
_Roman Forts on the Bar Hill_, Glasgow, 1906). Farther north, near
the junction of the Tay and Isla, at Inchtuthill, in the policies of
Delvine, a large encampment of Roman type has yielded a few objects
datable to the Agricolan age (_Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot._ xxxvi. pp.
237, 242), and may give a clue to the site of Mons Graupius. Farther
south, the large fort lately excavated by Mr. James Curle, at Newstead,
near Melrose (_C. I. L._ vii. 1080, 1081; _Scottish Hist. Review_,
1908), was certainly occupied in the Agricolan age. To this date, too,
may perhaps be assigned the siege works round the native fortress on
Birrenswark in Dumfriesshire, with their leaden sling-bullets (_Proc.
Soc. Antiq. Scot._ xxxiii. 198 foll.). Evidence that the Legio ii.
Adiutrix was then posted at Chester, probably forming a double-legion
fortress with Legio xx., was obtained in the excavations of 1890
(_Catal. of the Grosvenor Museum, Chester_ (1900), pp. 7 foll. and
Nos. 23-35). An inscription from Camelon with the letters MILITES
L·II·A·DIE may have been intended to refer to this legion, but is a
forgery (_Class. Review_, xix. 57). No trace of Agricolan or of Flavian
remains has yet been found on the line of Hadrian’s Wall, except at
two points, which, strictly speaking, are near but not on the wall,
Carlisle (Luguvallium), and Corbridge (Corstopitum), where the two
great north roads pass on towards Caledonia. For the influence of
continental frontier troubles on the British operations of Agricola see
also Ritterling, _Jahreshefte des österr. arch. Instituts_, vii. 26.

The years between the recall of Agricola and the building of Hadrian’s
Wall (roughly A.D. 85-120) are a historical blank. Even the position of
the northern frontier during these years is unknown. The Romans seem
to have soon withdrawn from the line of the Clyde and Forth (Macdonald,
_Bar Hill_, pp. 14, 15). Whether they also withdrew south of Cheviot is
not quite clear, in the present state of the Newstead excavations.

Hadrian’s Wall from Tyne to Solway (p. 186) has assumed a very
different historical appearance since Mommsen wrote his paragraphs on
it in 1885. Then, the theory of Hodgson and Bruce held the field--that
the stone wall which is still visible, and the double rampart and
ditch to the south of it (called by English antiquaries the “Vallum”),
were both Hadrian’s work, the wall for defence against Caledonia and
the “Vallum” for defence against stray foes from the south. This view
was accepted by Mommsen. But later excavation and observation have
shown that the “Vallum” cannot be regarded as a military work--though
it is certainly Roman and connected with the wall. Excavations have
also shown that the wall itself falls into two periods. At Birdoswald
(Amboglanna) there was first a wall of turf (_murus caespiticius_);
later, almost but not quite on the same line, came the wall of stone
and the fort of Amboglanna in its present form. Similarly at Chesters
(Cilurnum) two building periods are discernible; the character of the
first is obscure, but the stone wall and the fort of Cilurnum belong
unquestionably to the second (_Cumberland Arch. Soc._ xiv. 187, 415,
xv. 180, 347, xvi. 84; _Arch. Aeliana_, xxiii. 9). As our ancient
authorities persistently mention two wall-builders, Hadrian and
Severus, and as the earlier wall of turf can be assigned to no one but
Hadrian, it would seem that we may assume a first fortification of the
Tyne and Solway line in turf about A.D. 120, and a rebuilding in stone,
on almost exactly the same _tracé_, about A.D. 208 by Severus. The
“Vallum” seems to have been built in relation to one or the other--more
probably the earlier--of these stone walls, and may represent a civil
frontier contemporaneous with it (Mommsen, _Gesammelte Schriften_, v.
461; Pelham, _Trans. Cumberland Arch. Soc._ xiv. 175). The attempt
of Dr. E. Krueger (_Bonner Jahrbücher_, cx. 1-38) to show that the
“Vallum” is an earlier independent work, built by Hadrian, while the
turf and stone walls are post-Hadrianic, seems to me both unproven and
contradicted by recent excavations.

Mommsen’s account of the Wall of Pius between Forth and Clyde and of
the Roman occupation of Scotland also needs modification. Statistics
of coins found in Scotland (printed in _Antonine Wall Report_, 1899,
pp. 158 foll., confirmed by all later finds) show that the Romans
had retired south of Cheviot by about A.D. 180, and never reoccupied
the positions thus lost. The mass of inscriptions, to which Mommsen
alludes, also contains nothing later than the reign of Marcus. It
becomes, therefore, impossible to connect the Wall of Pius with the
literary evidence relating to wall-building by Severus. That evidence
must belong to the Tyne and Solway. The length which it assigns to the
wall, cxxxii. miles, suits the southern line best. The numeral in any
case needs emendation, but it is as easy to read lxxxii. as xxxii.,
and 82 Roman miles fit closer to the length of the southern line
(73-1/2 English miles) than do 32 Roman miles to the 36-1/2 English
miles of the northern wall. Our knowledge of the northern wall itself
and of forts either north of it, like Ardoch, or south, like Lyne and
Newstead, has been much widened by excavation, but the gain has been
rather to the archaeologist than to the pure historian.

In the later history of north Britain the chief recent addition has
been evidence of a serious rising about A.D. 158, which perhaps covered
all the land of the Brigantes from Derbyshire to Dumfriesshire.
Inscriptions found at Birrens, at Netherby between Birrens and
Carlisle, at Newcastle-on-Tyne, and at Brough in north Derbyshire,
mention a governor Iulius Verus as then specially active, and special
reinforcements as then arriving from Germany (_Proc. Soc. Antiq.
Scot._ xxxviii. 454). It is natural to connect these with the words
of Pausanias (cited on p. 188, note 2), and the connection had the
approval of Mommsen. For the division of the province into two by
Severus see Domaszewski, _Rangordnung_, p. 173. The boundary between
the two provinces is unknown; perhaps a line from the Humber to the
Mersey is not altogether improbable. Nor is there evidence to show how
long the division lasted.

Of the civil life and Romanisation of Britain (pp. 191-4) I have
written somewhat fully in a paper on _The Romanisation of Roman
Britain_. Here I may indicate some points. Mommsen’s view that the
cantonal system adopted in Gaul was dropped in Britain is opposed by
an inscription found at Caerwent in 1903, which records the erection
of a monument by the canton of the Silures after a decree of the local
senate--_ex decreto ordinis respublica civitatis Silurum_ (_Athenaeum_,
Sept. 26, 1903; _Archaeologia_, lix. 290); other inscriptions, if less
decisive, suggest that the case of the Silures was not unique in the
province. Indeed, a list of the cantonal capitals, and therefore
of the cantons, seems to survive mutilated in the _Ravennas_ (ed.
Parthey and Pinder, pp. 425 foll.). There we meet, besides three
municipalities carefully so labelled, nine or ten towns with tribal
affixes--Isca Dumnoniorum, Exeter; Venta Belgarum, Winchester;
Venta Silurum, Caerwent; Corinium Dobunorum, Cirencester; Calleva
Atrebatum, Silchester; Durovernum Cantiacorum, Canterbury; Viroconium
Cornoviorum, Wroxeter; Ratae Coritanorum, Leicester; Venta Icenorum,
Caistor-by-Norwich--and perhaps Noviomagus Regentium, Chichester.
Add to these Isurium Brigantum, known otherwise by this title, and
Dorchester in Dorset, and there emerges a fairly complete list of
just those towns which are declared by their remains to have been the
chief “country towns” of Roman Britain. The reasons why so little is
heard of the cantons are, I think, plain. They were smaller, poorer,
and less important than those of Gaul--as, indeed, a comparison of
the town-remains shows; there was, further, no British literature to
mention them; and, lastly, they quickly fell before the barbarians in
the fifth century.

The town-life of Roman Britain (p. 192) was somewhat more extensive
than Mommsen allows. There were four _coloniae_--Colchester or
_Camulodunum_, founded about A.D. 48 (Tac. _Ann._ xii. 32); Lincoln,
_Lindum_, established after the transference of the Ninth Legion to
York, probably in the late first century; Gloucester or _Glevum_,
founded A.D. 96-98 (_C. I. L._ vi. 3346); York or _Eburacum_, planted
at an unknown date, on the opposite bank of the Ouse to the legionary
fortress; and one _municipium_, Verulamium, outside St. Albans,
founded before A.D. 60. There were also about a dozen “country towns,”
already enumerated in the last paragraph. These were for the most
part not large villages, but actual towns, furnished with temples,
_fora_, houses, and street plans of Roman fashion, and inhabited, so
far as our scanty evidence goes, by populations of which both upper
and lower classes spoke and wrote Latin. At Bath, _Aquae Sulis_, were
well-built baths, and a stately temple of the goddess of the waters.
At London, _Londinium_ (later _Augusta_), was a prosperous and wealthy
trading-centre. But London was the only town of real size or splendour.
The rest, like the cantons mentioned above, were small and unimportant
as compared with similar towns elsewhere, and though it is not strictly
true that Gloucester and Verulam have produced no inscriptions (p. 193;
_Eph. Epigr._ iv. p. 195), the epigraphic yield has been scanty in
every town except perhaps York.

The roads of the province (p. 192) are numerous, though fewer than our
English antiquaries sometimes suppose. Those in the south, as Mommsen
rightly saw, radiate from London: see p. 192 above. The northern
military district is traversed by three main routes. One runs up the
west coast to the Solway and Carlisle. A second runs through the east
of the island, from York to Corbridge and to various points on the
eastern part of Hadrian’s Wall. The third, diverging from the second,
crossed the Yorkshire and Westmorland hills and thus reached Carlisle.
From Corbridge and Carlisle roads ran on northwards, and the eastern,
if not the western, of these gave access to the Wall of Pius. The Roman
roads of Wales are still imperfectly known, but there was a road from
Chester to Carnarvon, another from Caerleon past Neath to Carmarthen,
and a third joined the western parts of these two, while others
connected the forts in the interior.

More doubt surrounds the Romanisation of the province. Vinogradoff
(_Growth of the Manor_, p. 83) thinks that the Roman civilisation
spread like a river with many channels which traverse a wide area,
but only affect the immediate neighbourhood of their banks. I agree
rather with Mommsen’s conclusion (pp. 193, 194)--though the real
difference between the two writers is not so very great. The towns,
both municipalities and “country towns,” seem to have been thoroughly
Romanised. The numerous farms and country-houses (often styled
“villas”) are also in nearly every respect Roman, and the very scanty
evidence which we possess as to the language used in them favours
the idea that it was Latin. Even the villages, such as Pitt-Rivers
excavated (_Excavations in Cranborne Chase_, etc., 1887-98), show
little survival of native culture. It is to be noted, too, that Celtic
inscriptions of Roman date, such as occur occasionally in Gaul (Rhys,
_Proc. British Acad._ ii. 275 foll.), are wholly wanting in Britain.
Probably, therefore, Roman civilisation came to predominate throughout
the lowlands, though not in its more elaborate and splendid forms.
There were, however, thinly populated areas where we can trace hardly
any population of any sort, Romanised or other, as, for example, the
Weald of Kent and Sussex, and a large part of the Midlands (_Vict.
Hist. of Warwickshire_, i. 228), while the Cornish, Welsh, and northern
hills seem never to have admitted very much Romanisation outside the
forts which garrisoned parts of them. The analogies of other western
provinces, of Gaul (above, vol. i. p. 101) and Africa (ii. 328),
suggest that Celtic speech may have lingered on in such districts for
centuries, though not as an element hostile to the Roman; it is also
quite probable that Celtic private law and custom survived beside the
Roman (L. Mitteis, _Reichsrecht und Volksrecht_, p. 8). But we have no
distinct evidence of either fact.

The spellings Ordovici (p. 182 and map) and Cartimandus (pp. 182, 183)
are Mommsen’s own choice.


[Illustration: SYRIEN UND MESOPOTAMIEN.]

[Illustration: AEGYPTEN.

_Moderne Namen in_ rückliegender Schrift

Mommsen Röm. Gesch. V.      X.

H.K. 1884.]


FOOTNOTES:

[1] The conception that the Roman and the Parthian empires were
two great states standing side by side, and indeed the only ones
in existence, dominated the whole Roman East, particularly the
frontier-provinces. It meets us palpably in the Apocalypse of John, in
which there is a juxtaposition as well of the rider on the white horse
with the bow and of the rider on the red horse with the sword (vi. 2,
3) as of the Megistanes and the Chiliarchs (vi. 15, comp. xviii. 23,
xix. 18). The closing catastrophe, too, is conceived as a subduing of
the Romans by the Parthians bringing back the emperor Nero (ix. 14,
xvi. 12) and Armageddon, whatever may be meant by it, as the rendezvous
of the Orientals for the collective attack on the West. Certainly the
author, writing in the Roman empire, hints these far from patriotic
hopes more than he expresses them.

[2] This holds true even in some measure for the chronology. The
official historiography of the Sassanids reduces the space between the
last Darius and the first Sassanid from 558 to 266 years (Nöldeke,
_Tabari_, p. 1).

[3] The viceroys of Persis are called in their title constantly “Zag
Alohin” (at least the Aramaean signs correspond to these words, which
were presumably in pronunciation expressed in the Persian way), son
of God (Mordtmann, _Zeitschrift für Numismatik_, iv. 155 f.), and
to this corresponds the title θεοπάτωρ on the Greek coins of the
great-kings. The designation “God” is also found, as with the Seleucids
and the Sassanids.--Why a double diadem is attributed to the Arsacids
(Herodian, vi. 2, 1) is not cleared up.

[4] Τῶν Παρθυαίων συνέδριόν φησιν (Ποσειδώνιος) εἶναι, says Strabo, xi.
9, 3, p. 515, διττόν, τὸ μὲν συγγενῶν, τὸ δὲ σοφῶν καὶ μάγων, ἐξ ὧν
ἀμφοῖν τοὺς βασιλεῖς καθίστασθαι (καθίστησιν in MSS.); Justinus, xvii.
3, 1, _Mithridates rex Parthorum ... propter crudelitatem a senatu
Parthico regno pellitur_.

[5] In Egypt, whose court ceremonial, as doubtless that of all the
states of the Diadochi, is based on that ordained by Alexander, and in
so far upon that of the Persian empire, the like title seems to have
been conferred also personally (Franz, _C. I. Gr._ iii. 270). That the
same occurred with the Arsacids, is possible. Among the Greek-speaking
subjects of the Arsacid state the appellation μεγιστᾶνες seems in the
original stricter use to denote the members of the seven houses; it
is worthy of notice that _megistanes_ and _satrapae_ are associated
(Seneca, _Ep._ 21; Josephus, _Arch._ xi. 3, 2; xx. 2, 3). The
circumstance that in court mourning the Persian king does not invite
the _megistanes_ to table (Suetonius, _Gai._ 5) suggests the conjecture
that they had the privilege of taking meals with him. The title τῶν
πρώτων φίλων is also found among the Arsacids just as at the Egyptian
and Pontic courts (_Bull. de corr. Hell._ vii. p. 349).

[6] A royal cup-bearer, who is at the same time general, is mentioned
in Josephus, _Arch._ xiv. 13, 7 = _Bell. Jud._ i. 13, 1. Similar court
offices are of frequent occurrence in the states of the Diadochi.

[7] Tacitus, _Ann._ xv. 2, 31. If, according to the preface of
Agathangelos (p. 109, Langlois), at the time of the Arsacids the oldest
and ablest prince bore rule over the country, and the three standing
next to him were kings of the Armenians, of the Indians, and of the
Massagetae, there is here perhaps at bottom the same arrangement. That
the Partho-Indian empire, if it was combined with the main land, was
likewise regarded as an appanage for the second son, is very probable.

[8] These are doubtless meant by Justinus (xli. 2, 2), _proximus
maiestati regum praepositorum ordo est; ex hoc duces in bello, ex hoc
in pace rectores habent_. The native name is preserved by the gloss in
Hesychius, βίσταξ ὁ βασιλεὺς παρὰ Πέρσαις. If in Ammianus, xxiii. 6,
14, the presidents of the Persian _regiones_ are called _vitaxae_ (read
_vistaxae_), _id est magistri equitum et reges et satrapae_, he has
awkwardly referred what is Persian to all Inner Asia (comp. _Hermes_,
xvi. 613); we may add that the designation “leaders of horsemen”
for these viceroys may relate to the fact that they, like the Roman
governors, united in themselves the highest civil and the supreme
military power, and the army of the Parthians consisted preponderantly
of cavalry.

[9] This we learn from the title σατράπης τῶν σατραπῶν, attributed to
one Gotarzes in the inscription of Kermanschahân in Kurdistan (_C.
I. Gr._ 4674). It cannot be assigned to the Arsacid king of the same
name as such; but perhaps there may be designated by it, as Olshausen
(_Monatsbericht der Berliner Akademie_, 1878, p. 179) conjectures,
that position which belonged to him after his renouncing of the
great-kingdom (Tacitus, _Ann._ xi. 9).

[10] Still later a troop of horse in the Parthian army is called that
“of the free:” Josephus, _Arch._ xiv. 13, 5 = _Bell. Jud._ i. 13, 3.

[11] The oldest known coin with Pahlavi writing was struck in
Claudius’s time under Vologasus I.; it is bilingual, and gives to the
king in Greek his full title, but only the name Arsaces, in Iranian
merely the native individual name shortened (_Vol._).

[12] Usually this is restricted to the large silver money, and the
small silver and most of the copper are regarded as of royal coinage.
But by this view a singular secondary part in coinage is assigned to
the great-king. More correctly perhaps the former coinage is conceived
of as predominantly destined for dealings abroad, the latter as
predominantly for internal intercourse; the diversities subsisting
between the two kinds are also explained in this way.

[13] The first ruler that bears it is Phraapates about 188 B.C. (Percy
Gardner, _Parthian Coinage_, p. 27).

[14] Thus there stands on the coins of Gotarzes (under Claudius)
Γωτέρζης βασιλεὺς βασιλέων ὑὸς κεκαλουμένος Ἀρταβάνου. On the later
ones the Greek legend is often quite unintelligible.

[15] While the kingdom of Darius, according to his inscriptions,
includes in it the Gādara (the Gandhâra of the Indians, Γανδαρῖτις
of the Greeks on the Cabul river) and the Hîdu (the dwellers by the
Indus), the former are in one of the inscriptions of Asoka adduced
among his subjects, and a copy of his great edict has been found in
Kapurdi Giri, or rather in Shahbaz Garhi (Yusufzai-district), nearly
27 miles north-west of the point where the Cabul river falls into
the Indus at Attock. The seat of the government of these north-west
provinces of Asoka’s kingdom was (according to the inscription _C.
I. Indicar._ i. p. 91) Takkhasilâ, Τάξιλα of the Greeks, some 40
miles E.S.E. of Attock, the seat of government for the south-western
provinces was Ujjênî (Ὀζήνη). The eastern part of the Cabul valley thus
belonged at any rate to Asoka’s empire. It is not quite impossible
that the Khyber pass formed the boundary; but probably the whole Cabul
valley belonged to India, and the boundary to the south of Cabul was
formed by the sharp line of the Suleiman range, and farther to the
south-west by the Bolan pass. Of the later Indo-Scythian king Huvishka
(Ooerke of the coins), who seems to have resided on the Yamunâ in
Mathurâ, an inscription has been found at Wardak not far northward from
Cabul (according to information from Oldenberg).

[16] The Egyptian merchant named in note 3 makes mention, c. 47, of
“the warlike people of the Bactrians, who have their own king.” At
that time, therefore, Bactria was separated from the Indus-empire that
was under Parthian princes. Strabo, too (xi. 11, 1, p. 516) treats the
Bactro-Indian empire as belonging to the past.

[17] Probably he is the Kaspar--in older tradition Gathaspar--who
appears among the holy three kings from the East (Gutschmid, _Rhein.
Mus._ xix. 162).

[18] The most definite testimony to the Parthian rule in these regions
is found in the description of the coasts of the Red Sea drawn up by
an Egyptian merchant under Vespasian, c. 38: “Behind the mouth of the
Indus in the interior lies the capital of Scythia Minnagara; but this
is ruled by the Parthians, who constantly chase away one another”
(ὑπὸ Πάρθων συνεχῶς ἀλλήλους ἐνδιωκόντων). The same is repeated in a
somewhat confused way, c. 41; it might here appear as if Minnagara lay
in India itself above Barygaza, and Ptolemy has already been led astray
by this; but certainly the writer, who speaks as to the interior only
from hearsay, has only wished to say that a large town Minnagara lay
inland not far from Barygaza, and much cotton was brought thence to
Barygaza. The numerous traces also of Alexander, which occur according
to the same authority in Minnagara, can be found only on the Indus,
not in Gujerat. The position of Minnagara on the lower Indus not far
from Hyderabad, and the existence of a Parthian rule there under
Vespasian, appear hereby assured.--With this we may be allowed to
combine the coins of king Gondopharus or Hyndopherres, who in a very
old Christian legend is converted to Christianity by St. Thomas, the
apostle of the Parthians and Indians, and in fact appears to belong
to the first period of the Roman empire (Sallet, _Num. Zeitschr._ vi.
355; Gutschmid, _Rhein. Mus._ xix. 162); of his brother’s son Abdagases
(Sallet, _ib._ p. 365), who may be identical with the Parthian prince
of this name in Tacitus, _Ann._ vi. 36, at any rate bears a Parthian
name; and lastly of king Sanabarus, who must have reigned shortly after
Hyndopherres, perhaps was his successor. Here belongs also a number
of other coins marked with Parthian names, Arsaces, Pacorus, Vonones.
This coinage attaches itself decidedly to that of the Arsacids (Sallet,
_ib._ p. 277); the silver pieces of Gondopharus and of Sanabarus--of
the others the coins are almost solely copper--correspond exactly to
the Arsacid drachmae. To all appearance these belong to the Parthian
princes of Minnagara; the appearance here of Indian legend alongside of
the Greek, as of Pahlavi writing among the late Arsacids, suits this
view. These, however, are not coins of satraps, but, as the Egyptian
indicates, of great-kings rivalling those of Ctesiphon; Hyndopherres
names himself in very corrupt Greek βασιλεὺς βασιλέων μέγας ἀυτόκρατωρ,
and in good Indian “Maharajah Rajadi Rajah.” If, as is not improbable,
under the Mambaros or Akabaros, whom the Periplus, c. 41, 52,
designates as ruler of the coast of Barygaza, there lurks the Sanabarus
of the coins, the latter belongs to the time of Nero or Vespasian, and
ruled not merely at the mouths of the Indus, but also over Gujerat.
Moreover, if an inscription found not far from Peshawur is rightly
referred to king Gondopharus, his rule must have extended up thither,
probably as far as Cabul.--The fact that Corbulo in the year 60 sent
the embassy of the Hyrcanians who had revolted from the Parthians--in
order that they might not be intercepted by the latter--to the coast of
the Red Sea, whence they might reach their home without setting foot
on Parthian territory (Tacitus, _Ann._ xv. 25), tells in favour of the
view that the Indus valley at that time was not subject to the ruler of
Ctesiphon.

[19] That the great kingdom of the Arsacids of Minnagara did not
subsist much beyond the time of Nero, is probable from the coins.
It is questionable what rulers followed them. The Bactro-Indian
rulers of Greek names belong predominantly, perhaps all of them, to
the pre-Augustan epoch; and various indigenous names, _e.g._ Maues
and Azes, fall in point of language and writing (_e.g._ the form of
the ω Ω) before this time. On the other hand the coins of the kings
Kozulokadphises and Oemokadphises, and those of the Sacian kings,
Kanerku and his successors, while all are clearly characterised as
belonging to one coinage by the gold stater of the weight of the Roman
aureus, which does not previously occur in the Indian coinage, are
to all appearance later than Gondopharus and Sanabarus. They show
how the state of the Indus valley assumed a national Indian type in
ever increasing measure in contrast to the Hellenes as well as to the
Iranians. The reign of these Kadphises will thus fall between the
Indo-Parthian rulers and the dynasty of the Sacae, which latter begins
with A.D. 78 (Oldenberg, in Sallet’s _Zeitschr. für Num._ viii. 292).
Coins of these Sacian kings, found in the treasure of Peshawur, name
in a remarkable way Greek gods in a mutilated form, Ηρακιλο, Σαραπο,
alongside of the national Βουδο. The latest of their coins show the
influence of the oldest Sassanid coinage, and might belong to the
second half of the third century (Sallet, _Zeitschr. für Num._ vi. 224).

[20] The Indo-Greek and the Indo-Parthian rulers, just as the
Kadphises, make use on their coins to a large extent of the indigenous
Indian language and writing alongside of the Greek: the Sacian kings
on the other hand never used the Indian language and Indian alphabet,
but employ exclusively the Greek letters, and the non-Greek legends of
their coins are beyond doubt Scythian. Thus on Kanerku’s gold pieces
there sometimes stands βασιλεὺς βασιλέων Κανήρκου, sometimes ραο
νανοραο κανηρκι κορανο, where the first two words must be a Scythian
form of the Indian Rajâdi Rajah, and the two following contain the
personal and the family name (Gushana) of the king (Oldenberg, _l. c._
p. 294). Thus these Sacae were foreign rulers in India in another sense
than the Bactrian Hellenes and the Parthians. Yet the inscriptions set
up under them in India are not Scythian but Indian.

[21] Arrian, who, as governor of Cappadocia, had himself wielded
command over the Armenians (_contra Al._ 29), always in the _Tactica_
names the Armenians and Parthians together (4, 3, 44, 1, as respects
the heavy cavalry, the mailed κοντοφόροι and the light cavalry, the
ἀκροβολισταί or ἱπποτοξόται; 34, 7 as respects the wide hose); and,
where he speaks of Hadrian’s introduction of barbaric cavalry into the
Roman army, he traces the mounted archers back to the model of “the
Parthians or Armenians” (44, 1).

[22] Caesar’s illegitimate son Πτολεμαῖος ὁ καὶ Καῖσαρ θεὸς φιλοπάτωρ
φιλομήτωρ, as his royal designation runs (_C. I. Gr. 4717_), entered
on the joint rule of Egypt in the Egyptian year 29 Aug. 711/2, as the
era shows (Wescher, _Bullet. dell’ Inst._ 1866, p. 199; Krall, _Wiener
Studien_, v. 313). As he came in place of Ptolemaeus the younger, the
husband and brother of his mother, the setting aside of the latter by
Cleopatra, of which the particulars are not known, must have taken
place just then, and have furnished the occasion to proclaim him as
king of Egypt. Dio also, xlvii. 31, places his nomination in the summer
of 712 {42 B.C.} before the battle of Philippi. It was thus not the
work of Antonius, but sanctioned by the two rulers in concert at a time
when it could not but be their object to meet the wishes of the queen
of Egypt, who certainly had from the outset ranged herself on their
side.

[23] This is what Augustus means when he says that he had brought again
to the empire the provinces of the East in great part distributed among
kings (_Mon. Ancyr._ 5, 41: _provincias omnis, quae trans Hadrianum
mare vergunt ad orientem, Cyrenasque, iam ex parte magna regibus eas
possidentibus ... reciperavi_).

[24] The decorum, which was as characteristic of Augustus as its
opposite was of his colleague, did not fail him here. Not merely in
the case of Caesarion was the paternity, which the dictator himself
had virtually acknowledged, afterwards officially denied; the children
also of Antonius by Cleopatra, where indeed nothing was to be denied,
were regarded doubtless as members of the imperial house, but were
never formally acknowledged as children of Antonius. On the contrary
the son of the daughter of Antonius by Cleopatra, the subsequent king
of Mauretania Ptolemaeus, is called in the Athenian inscription,
_C. I. A._ iii. 555, grandson of Ptolemaeus; for Πτολεμαίου ἔκγονος
cannot well in this connection be taken otherwise. This maternal
grandfather was invented in Rome, that they might be able officially
to conceal the real one. Any one who prefers--as O. Hirschfeld
proposes--to take ἔκγονος as great-grandson, and to refer it to the
maternal great-grandfather, comes to the same result; for then the
grandfather is passed over, because the mother was in the legal sense
fatherless.--Whether the fiction, which is in my view more probable,
went so far as to indicate a definite Ptolemaeus, possibly to prolong
the life of the last Lagid who died in 712 {42 B.C.}, or whether they
were content with inventing a father without entering into particulars,
cannot be decided. But the fiction was adhered to in this respect, that
the son of Antonius’s daughter obtained the name of the fictitious
grandfather. The circumstance that in this case preference was given to
the descent from the Lagids over that from Massinissa may probably have
been occasioned more by regard to the imperial house, which treated the
illegitimate child as belonging to it, than by the Hellenic inclination
of the father.

[25] It is in itself credible that Antonius concealed the impending
invasion from Phraates as long as possible, and therefore, when sending
back Monaeses, declared himself ready to conclude peace on the basis
of the restitution of the lost standards (Plutarch, 37; Dio, xlix. 24;
Florus, ii. 20 [iv. 10]). But he knew presumably that this offer would
not be accepted, and in no case can he have been in earnest with those
proposals; beyond doubt he wished for the war and the overthrow of
Phraates.

[26] The account of the matter given by Strabo, xi. 13, 4, p. 524,
evidently after the description of this war compiled by Antonius’s
comrade in arms Dellius, and, it may be conjectured, at his bidding
(comp. _ib._ xi. 13, 3; Dio, xlix. 39), is a very sorry attempt to
justify the beaten general. If Antonius did not take the nearest route
to Ctesiphon, king Artavazdes cannot be brought in for the blame of
it as a false guide; it was a military, and doubtless still more a
political, miscalculation of the general in chief.

[27] The fact of the deposition and execution, and the time, are
attested by Dio, xlix. 32, and Valerius Maximus, ix. 15, ext. 2; the
cause or the pretext must have been connected with the Armenian war.

[28] The account of the seizure of Armenia is wanting, but the fact
is clearly apparent from Tacitus, _Ann._ xi. 9. To this connection
probably belongs what Josephus, _Arch._ xx. 3, 3, tells of the design
of the successor of Artabanus to wage war against the Romans, from
which Izates the satrap of Adiabene vainly dissuades him. Josephus
names this successor, probably in error, Bardanes. The immediate
successor of Artabanus III. was, according to Tacitus, _Ann._ xi. 8,
his son of the same name, whom along with his son thereupon Gotarzes
put out of the way; and this Artabanus IV. must be here meant.

[29] The statement of Petrus Patricius (_fr._ 3 Müll.) that king
Mithradates of Iberia had planned revolt from Rome, but in order to
preserve the semblance of fidelity, had sent his brother Cotys to
Claudius, and then, when the latter had given information to the
emperor of those intrigues, had been deposed and replaced by his
brother, is not compatible with the assured fact that in Iberia, at
least from the year 35 (Tacitus, _Ann._ vi. 32) till the year 60
(Tacitus, _Ann._ xiv. 26), Pharasmanes, and in the year 75 his son
Mithradates (_C. I. L._ iii. 6052) bore rule. Beyond doubt Petrus has
confused Mithradates of Iberia and the king of the Bosporus of the same
name (I. 316, note 1), and here at the bottom lies the narrative, which
Tacitus, _Ann._ xii. 18, presupposes.

[30] If the coins, which, it is true, for the most part admit of being
distinguished only by resemblance of effigy, are correctly attributed,
those of Gotarzes reach to Sel. 362 Daesius = A.D. 51 June, and
those of Vologasus (we know none of Vonones II.) begin with Sel. 362
Gorpiaeus = A.D. 51 Sept. (Percy Gardner, _Parthian Coinage_, pp. 50,
51), which agrees with Tacitus, _Ann._ xii. 14, 44.

[31] Gorneae, called by the Armenians _Garhni_, as the ruins (nearly
east of Erivân) are still at present named. (Kiepert.)

[32] Even after the attack Tiridates complained _cur datis nuper
obsidibus redintegrataque amicitia ... vetere Armeniae possessione
depelleretur_, and Corbulo presented to him, in case of his turning
as a suppliant to the emperor, the prospect of a _regnum stabile_
(Tacitus, _Ann._ xii. 37). Elsewhere too the refusal of the oath of
fealty is indicated as the proper ground of war (Tacitus, _Ann._ xii.
34).

[33] The report in Tacitus, _Ann._ xiii. 34-41, embraces beyond doubt
the campaigns of 58 and 59, since Tacitus under the year 59 is silent
as to the Armenian campaign, while under the year 60, _Ann._ xiv. 23
joins on immediately to xiii. 41, and evidently describes merely a
single campaign; generally, where he condenses in this way, he as a
rule anticipates. That the war cannot have begun only in 59, is further
confirmed by the fact that Corbulo observed the solar eclipse of 30th
April 59 on Armenian soil (Plin. _H. N._ ii. 70, 180); had he not
entered the country till 59, he could hardly have crossed the enemy’s
frontier so early in the year. The narrative of Tacitus, _Ann._ xiii,
34-41, does not in itself show an intercalation of a year, but with his
mode of narrating it admits the possibility that the first year was
spent in the crossing of the Euphrates and the settling in Armenia, and
so the winter mentioned in _c._ 35 is that of the year 58-9, especially
as in view of the character of the army such a beginning to the war
would be quite in place, and in view of the short Armenian summer
it was militarily convenient thus to separate the marching into the
country and the conduct proper of the war.

[34] From the representation of Tacitus, _Ann._ xv. 6, the partiality
and the perplexity are clearly seen. He does not venture to express the
surrender of Armenia to Tiridates, and only leaves the reader to infer
it.

[35] This is said by Tacitus himself, _Ann._ xv. 10: _nec a Corbulone
properatum, quo gliscentibus periculis etiam subsidii laus augeretur_,
in naive unconcern at the severe censure which this praise involves.
How partial is the tone of the whole account resting on Corbulo’s
despatches, is shown among other things by the circumstance that
Paetus is reproached in one breath with the inadequate provisioning
of the camp (xv. 8) and with the surrender of it in spite of copious
supplies (xv. 16), and the latter fact is inferred from this, that
the retiring Romans preferred to destroy the stores which, according
to the capitulation, were to be delivered to the Parthians. As the
exasperation against Tiberius found its expression in the painting of
Germanicus in fine colours, so did the exasperation against Nero in the
picture of Corbulo.

[36] The statement of Corbulo that Paetus bound himself on oath in
presence of his soldiers and of the Parthian deputies to send no troops
to Armenia till the arrival of Nero’s answer, is declared by Tacitus,
_Ann._ xv. 16, unworthy of credit; it is in keeping with the state of
the case, and nothing was done to the contrary.

[37] As, according to Tacitus, _Ann._ xv. 25 (comp. Dio, lxii. 22),
Nero dismissed graciously the envoys of Vologasus, and allowed them
to see the possibility of an understanding if Tiridates appeared
in person, Corbulo may in this case have acted according to his
instructions; but this was rather perhaps one of the turns added in the
interest of Corbulo. That these events were brought under discussion
in the trial to which he was subjected some years after, is probable
from the statement that one of the officers of the Armenian campaign
became his accuser. The identity of the cohort-prefect, Arrius Varus,
in Tacitus, _Ann._ xiii. 9, and of the primipilus, _Hist._ iii. 6, has
been without reason disputed; comp. on _C. I. L._ v. 867.

[38] In Ziata (Charput) there have been found two inscriptions of a
fort, which one of the legions led by Corbulo over the Euphrates, the
3d Gallica, constructed there by Corbulo’s orders in the year 64 (_Eph.
epigr._ v. p. 25).

[39] Nero intended _inter reliqua bella_, an Ethiopian one (Plin. vi.
29, comp. 184). To this the sending of troops to Alexandria (Tacitus,
_Hist._ i. 31, 70) had reference.

[40] As the aim of the expedition both Tacitus, _Hist._ i. 6, and
Suetonius, _Ner._ 19, indicate the Caspian gates, _i.e._ the pass
of the Caucasus between Tiflis and Vladi-Kavkas at Darial, which,
according to the legend, Alexander closed with iron gates (Plin. _H.
N._ vi. 11, 30; Josephus, _Bell. Jud._ vii. 7, 4; Procopius, _Pers._
i. 10). Both from this locality and from the whole scheme of the
expedition it cannot possibly have been directed against the Albani
on the western shore of the Caspian Sea; here, as well as at another
passage (_Ann._ ii. 68, _ad Armenios, inde Albanos Heniochosque_), only
the Alani can be meant, who in Josephus, _l. c._ and elsewhere appear
just at this spot and are frequently confounded with the Caucasian
Albani. No doubt the account of Josephus is also confused. If here the
Albani, with consent of the king of the Hyrcanians, invade Media and
then Armenia through the Caspian gates, the writer has been thinking
of the other Caspian gate eastward from Rhagae; but this must be his
mistake, since the latter pass, situated in the heart of the Parthian
kingdom, cannot possibly have been the aim of the Neronian expedition,
and the Alani had their seats not on the eastern shore of the Caspian
but to the north of the Caucasus. On account of this expedition the
best of the Roman legions, the 14th, was recalled from Britain,
although it went only as far as Pannonia (Tacitus, _Hist._ ii. 11,
comp. 27, 66), and a new legion, the 1st Italic, was formed by Nero
(Suetonius, _Ner._ 19). One sees from this what was the scale on which
the project was conceived.

[41] In what connection he refused to Vespasian the title of emperor
(Dio, lxvi. 11) is not clear; possibly immediately after his
insurrection, before he had perceived that the Flavians were the
stronger. His intercession for the princes of Commagene (Josephus,
_Bell. Jud._ vii. 7, 3) was attended by success, and so was purely
personal, by no means a protest against the conversion of the kingdom
into a province.

[42] The four Syrian legions were the 3d _Gallica_, the 6th _ferrata_
(both hitherto in Syria), the 4th _Scythica_ (hitherto in Moesia, but
having already taken part in the Parthian as in the Jewish war), and
the 16th _Flavia_ (new). The one legion of Palestine was the 10th
_fretensis_ (hitherto in Syria). The two of Cappadocia were the 12th
_fulminata_ (hitherto in Syria, moved by Titus to Melitene, Josephus,
_Bell. Jud._ vii. 1, 3), and the 15th _Apollinaris_ (hitherto in
Pannonia, but having taken part, like the 4th _Scythica_, in the
Parthian as in the Jewish war). The garrisons were thus changed as
little as possible, only two of the legions already called earlier to
Syria received fixed stations there, and one newly instituted was moved
thither.--After the Jewish war under Hadrian the 6th _ferrata_ was
despatched from Syria to Palestine.

[43] At this time (comp. _C. I. L._ v. 6988), probably falls also the
Cappadocian governorship of C. Rutilius Gallicus, of which it is said
(Statius, i. 4, 78): _hunc ... timuit ... Armenia et patiens Latii
iam pontis Araxes_, with reference presumably to a bridge-structure
executed by this Roman garrison. That Gallicus served under Corbulo, is
from the silence of Tacitus not probable.

[44] That war threatened to break out under Vespasian in the year 75 on
the Euphrates, while M. Ulpius Trajanus, the father of the emperor, was
governor of Syria, is stated by Pliny in his panegyric on the son, c.
14, probably with strong exaggeration; the cause is unknown.

[45] There are coins dated, and provided with the individual names
of the kings, of (V)ologasus from the years 389 and 390 = 77-78; of
Pacorus from the years 389-394 = 77-82 (and again 404-407 = 92-95);
of Artabanus from the year 392 = 80-1. The corresponding historical
dates are lost, with the exception of the notice connecting Titus and
Artabanus in Zonaras, xi. 18 (comp. Suetonius, _Ner._ 57; Tacitus,
_Hist._ i. 2), but the coins point to an epoch of rapid changes on the
throne, and, apparently, of simultaneous coinage by rival pretenders.

[46] This is proved by the detached notice from Arrian in Suidas
(_s. v._ ἐπίκλημα): ὁ δὲ Πάκορος ὁ Παρθυαίων βασιλεὺς καὶ ἄλλα τινὰ
ἐπικλήματα ἐπέφερε Τραιανῷ τῷ βασιλεῖ, and by the attention which
is devoted in Pliny’s report to the emperor, written about the year
112 (_ad Trai._ 74), to the relations between Pacorus and the Dacian
king Decebalus. The time of the reign of this Parthian king cannot be
sufficiently fixed. There are no Parthian coins with the king’s name
from the whole period of Trajan; the coining of silver seems to have
been in abeyance during that period.

[47] That Axidares (or Exedares) was a son of Pacorus and king of
Armenia before Parthomasiris, but had been deposed by Chosroes, is
shown by the remnants of Dio’s account, lxviii. 17; and to this point
also the two fragments of Arrian (16 Müller), the first, probably from
an address of a supporter of the interests of Axidares to Trajan:
Ἀξιδάρην δὲ ὅτι ἄρχειν χρὴ Ἀρμενίας, οὔ μοι δοκεῖ εἶναί σε ἀμφίλογον,
whereupon doubtless the complaints brought against Parthomasiris
followed; and the answer, evidently of the emperor, that it is not the
business of Axidares, but his, to judge as to Parthomasiris, because
he--apparently Axidares--had first broken the treaty and suffered for
it. What fault the emperor imputes to Axidares is not clear; but in Dio
also Chosroes says that he has not satisfied either the Romans or the
Parthians.

[48] The remnants of Dio’s account in Xiphilinus and Zonaras show
clearly that the Parthian expedition falls into two campaigns, the
first (Dio, lvi. 17, 1, 18, 2, 23-25), which is fixed at A.D. 115
by the consulate of Pedo (the date also of Malalas, p. 275, for the
earthquake of Antioch, 13 Dec. 164 of the Antiochene era = A.D. 115
agrees therewith), and the second (Dio, c. 26-32, 3), which is fixed at
A.D. 116 by the conferring of the title _Parthicus_ (c. 28, 2), took
place between April and August of that year (see my notice in Droysen,
_Hellenismus_, iii. 2, 361). That at c. 23 the titles _Optimus_
(conferred in the course of A.D. 114) and _Parthicus_ are mentioned
out of the order of time, is shown as well by their juxtaposition as
by the later recurrence of the second honour. Of the fragments most
belong to the first campaign; c. 22, 3 and probably also 22, 1, 2 to
the second.--The acclamations of _imperator_ do not stand in the way.
Trajan was demonstrably in the year 113 imp. VI. (_C. I. L._ vi. 960);
in the year 114 imp. VII. (_C. I. L._ ix. 1558 _et al._); in the year
115 imp. IX. (_C. I. L._ ix. 5894 _et al._), and imp. XI. (Fabretti,
398, 289 _et al._); in the year 116 imp. XII. (_C. I. L._ viii. 621,
x. 1634), and XIII. (_C. I. L._ iii. D. xxvii.). Dio attests an
acclamation from the year 115 (lxviii. 19), and one from the year 116
(lxviii. 28); there is ample room for both, and there is no reason to
refer imp. VII. precisely, as has been attempted, to the subjugation of
Armenia.

[49] The pungent description of the Syrian army of Trajan in Fronto
(p. 206 f. Naber) agrees almost literally with that of the army of
Corbulo in Tacitus, _Ann._ xiii. 35. “The Roman troops generally had
sadly degenerated (_ad ignaviam redactus_) through being long disused
to military service; but the most wretched of the soldiers were the
Syrian, insubordinate, refractory, unpunctual at the call to arms,
not to be found at their post, drunk from midday onward; unaccustomed
even to carry arms and incapable of fatigue, ridding themselves of
one piece of armour after another, half naked like the light troops
and the archers. Besides they were so demoralised by the defeats they
had suffered that they turned their backs at the first sight of the
Parthians, and the trumpets were regarded by them, as it were, as
giving the signal to run away.” In the contrasting description of
Trajan it is said among other things: “He did not pass through the
tents without closely concerning himself as to the soldiers, but showed
his contempt for the Syrian luxury, and looked closely into the rough
doings of the Pannonians (_sed contemnere_--so we must read--_Syrorum
munditias, introspicere Pannoniorum inscitias_); so he judged of the
serviceableness (_ingenium_) of the man according to his bearing
(_cultus_).” In the Oriental army of Severus also the “European” and
the Syrian soldiers are distinguished (Dio, lxxv. 12).

[50] This is shown by the _mala proelia_ in the passage of Fronto
quoted, and by Dio’s statement, lxviii. 19, that Trajan took Samosata
without a struggle; thus the 16th legion stationed there had lost it.

[51] It may be that at the same time Armenia also revolted. But when
Gutschmid (quoted by Dierauer in Büdinger’s _Untersuchungen_, i. 179),
makes Meherdotes and Sanatrukios, whom Malalas adduces as kings of
Persia in the Trajanic war, into kings of Armenia again in revolt,
this result is attained by a series of daring conjectures, which shift
the names of persons and peoples as much as they transform the causal
nexus of events. There are certainly found in the confused coil of
legends of Malalas some historical facts, _e.g._ the installation of
Parthamaspates (who is here son of king Chosroes of Armenia) as king of
Parthia by Trajan; and so, too, the dates of Trajan’s departure from
Rome in October (114), of his landing in Seleucia in December, and of
his entrance into Antioch on the 7th Jan. (115) may be correct. But,
as this report stands, the historian can only decline to accept it; he
cannot rectify it.

[52] Fronto, _Princ. hist._ p. 209 Naber: _cum praesens Traianus
Euphratis et Tigridis portoria equorum et camelorum trib_[_utaque
ordinaret, Ma_]_cer_ (?) _caesus est_. This applies to the moment when
Babylonia and Mesopotamia revolted, while Trajan was tarrying at the
mouth of the Tigris.

[53] Nearly with equal warrant, Julian (_Caes._ p. 328) makes the
emperor say that he had not taken up arms against the Parthians before
they had violated right, and Dio (lxviii. 17) reproaches him with
having waged the war from ambition.

[54] Hadrian cannot possibly have released Armenia from the position
of a Roman dependency. The notice of his biographer, c. 21: _Armeniis
regem habere permisit, cum sub Traiano legatum habuissent_ points
rather to the contrary, and we find at the end of Hadrian’s reign a
contingent of Armenians in the army of the governor of Cappadocia
(Arrian, _c. Alan._ 29). Pius did not merely induce the Parthians by
his representations to desist from the intended invasion of Armenia
(_vita_, 9), but also in fact invested them with Armenia (coins from
the years 140-144, Eckhel, vii. p. 15). The fact also that Iberia
certainly stood in the relation of dependence under Pius, because
otherwise the Parthians could not have brought complaints as to its
king in Rome (Dio, lxix. 15), presupposes a like dependent relation for
Armenia. The names of the Armenian kings of this period are not known.
If the _proximae gentes_, with the rule of which Hadrian compensated
the Parthian prince nominated as Parthian king by Trajan (_vita_, c.
5), were in fact Armenians, which is not improbable, there lies in it
a confirmation as well of the lasting dependence of Armenia on Rome as
of the continuous rule of the Arsacids there. Even the Ἀυρήλιος Πάκορος
βασιλεὺς μεγάλης Ἀρμενίας, who erected a monument in Rome to his
brother Aurelius Merithates who died there (_C. I. Gr._ 6559), belongs
from his name to the house of the Arsacids. But he was hardly the king
of Armenia installed by Vologasus IV. and deposed by the Romans (p.
74); if the latter had come to Rome as a captive, we should know it,
and even he would hardly have been allowed to call himself king of
Great Armenia in a Roman inscription.

[55] As vassals holding from Trajan or Hadrian, Arrian (_Peripl._ c.
15) adduces the Heniochi and Machelones (comp. Dio, lxviii. 18; lxxi.
14); the Lazi (comp. Suidas, _s. v._ Δομετιανός), over whom also Pius
put a king (_vita_, 9); the Apsilae; the Abasgi; the Sanigae, these
all within the imperial frontier reaching as far as Dioscurias =
Sebastopolis; beyond it, in the region of the Bosporan vassal-state,
the Zichi or Zinchi (_ib._ c. 27).

[56] This is confirmed not only by Arrian, _Peripl._ c. 7, but by the
officer of Hadrian’s time _praepositus numerorum tendentium in Ponto
Absaro_ (_C. I. L._ x. 1202).

[57] Comp. p. 75 note 2. The detachment probably of 1000 men (because
under a tribune) doing garrison duty in the year 185 in Valarshapat
(Etshmiazin) not far from Artaxata, belonged to one of the Cappadocian
legions (_C. I. L._ iii. 6052).

[58] Hadrian’s efforts after the friendship of the Oriental
vassal-princes are often brought into prominence, not without a hint
that he was more than fairly indulgent to them (_vita_, c. 13, 17,
21). Pharasmanes of Iberia did not come to Rome on his invitation, but
complied with that of Pius (_vita Hadr._ 13, 21; _vita Pii_, 9; Dio,
lxix. 15, 2, which excerpt belongs to Pius).

[59] We still possess the remarkable report of the governor of
Cappadocia under Hadrian, Flavius Arrianus, upon the mobilising of the
Cappadocian army against the “Scythians” among his minor writings; he
was himself at the Caucasus and visited the passes there (Lydus, _de
Mag._ iii. 53).

[60] This we learn from the fragments of Dio’s account in Xiphilinus,
Zonaras, and in the Excerpts; Zonaras has preserved the correct reading
Ἀλανοί instead of Ἀλβανοί; that the Alani pillaged also the territory
of the Albani, is shown by the setting of the exc. Ursin. lxxii.

[61] So he is named in Lucian, _Hist. conscr._ 21; if the same calls
him (_Alex._ 27) Othryades, he is drawing here from a historian of the
stamp of those whom he ridicules in that treatise, and of whom another
Hellenised the same man as Oxyroes (_Hist. conscr._ c. 18).

[62] Syria was administered when the war broke out by L. Attidius
Cornelianus (_C. I. Gr._ 4661 of the year 160; _vita Marci_, 8; _C.
I. L._ iii. 129 of the year 162), after him by Julius Verus (_C. I.
L._ iii. 199, probably of the year 163) and then by Avidius Cassius
presumably from the year 164. The statement that the other provinces of
the East were assigned to Cassius’s command (Philostratus, _vit. Soph._
i. 13; Dio, lxxi. 3), similarly to what was done to Corbulo as legate
of Cappadocia, can only relate to the time after the departure of the
emperor Verus; so long as the latter held the nominal chief command
there was no room for it.

[63] A fragment probably of Dio (in Suidas _s. v._ Μάρτιος), tells
that Priscus in Armenia laid out the Καινὴ πόλις and furnished it with
a Roman garrison, his successor Martius Verus silenced the national
movement that had arisen there, and declared this city the first
of Armenia. This was Valarshapat (Οὐαλαρσαπάτ or Οὐαλεροκτίστη in
Agathangelos), thenceforth the capital of Armenia. Καινὴ πόλις was, as
Kiepert informs me, already recognised by Stilting as translation of
the Armenian Nôr-Khalakh, which second name Valarshapat constantly
bears in Armenian authors of the fifth century alongside of the usual
one. Moses of Chorene, following Bardesanes, makes the town originate
from a Jewish colony brought thither under king Tigranes VI., who
according to him reigned 150-188; he refers the enclosing of it with
walls and the naming of it to his son Valarsch II. 188-208. That the
town had a strong Roman garrison in 185 is shown by the inscription _C.
I. L._ iii. 6052.

[64] That Sohaemus was Achaemenid and Arsacid (or professed to be) and
king’s son and king, as well as Roman senator and consul, before he
became king of Great Armenia, is stated by his contemporary Jamblichus
(c. 10 of the extract in Photius). Probably he belonged to the dynastic
family of Hemesa (Josephus, _Arch._ xx. 8, 4, _et al._) If Jamblichus
the Babylonian wrote “under him,” this can doubtless only be understood
to the effect that he composed his romance in Artaxata. That Sohaemus
ruled over Armenia before Pacorus is nowhere stated, and is not
probable, since neither Fronto’s words (p. 127 Naber), _quod Sohaemo
potius quam Vologaeso regnum Armeniae dedisset aut quod Pacorum regno
privasset_, or those of the fragment from Dio (?) lxxi. 1: Μάρτιος
Οὐῆρος τὸν Θουκυδίδην ἐκπέμπει καταγαγεῖν Σόαιμον ἐς Ἀρμενίαν point to
reinstatement, and the coins with _rex Armeniis datus_ (Eckhel, vii.
91, comp. _vita Veri_, 7, 8) in fact exclude it. We do not know the
predecessor of Pacorus, and are not even aware whether the throne which
he took possession of was vacant or occupied.

[65] This is shown by the Mesopotamian royal and urban coins. There are
no accounts in our tradition as to the conditions of peace.

[66] The beginning of the Ursinian excerpt of Dio, lxxv. 1, 2, is
confused. Οἱ Ὀρροηνοὶ, it is said, καὶ οἱ Ἀδιαβηνοὶ ἀποστάντες καὶ
Νίσιβιν πολιορκοῦντες καὶ ἡττηθέντες ὑπὸ Σεουήρου ἐπρεσβεύσαντο πρὸς
αὐτὸν μετὰ τὸν τοῦ Νίγρου θάνατον. Osrhoene was then Roman, Adiabene
Parthian; from whom did the two districts revolt? and whose side did
the Nisibenes take? That their opponents were defeated by Severus
before the sending of the embassy is inconsistent with the course of
the narrative; for the latter makes war upon them because their envoys
make unsatisfactory offers to him. Probably the supporting of Niger by
subjects of the Parthians and their concert with Niger’s Roman partisan
are now strictly apprehended as a revolt from Severus; the circumstance
that the people afterwards maintain that they had intended rather to
support Severus, is clearly indicated as a makeshift. The Nisibenes may
have refused to co-operate, and therefore have been attacked by the
adherents of Niger. Thus is explained what is clear from the extract
given by Xiphilinus from Dio, lxxv. 2, that the left bank of the
Euphrates was for Severus an enemy’s land, but not Nisibis; therefore
the town need not have been Roman at that time; on the contrary,
according to all indications, it was only made Roman by Severus.

[67] As the wars against the Arabians and the Adiabenians were in
fact directed against the Parthians, it was natural that the titles
_Parthicus_, _Arabicus_, and _Parthicus Adiabenicus_, should on that
account be conferred on the emperor; they are also so found, but
usually Parthicus is omitted, evidently because, as the biographer
of Severus says (c. 9), _excusavit Parthicum nomen, ne Parthos
lacesseret_. With this agrees the notice certainly belonging to the
year 195 in Dio, lxxv. 9, 6, as to the peaceful agreement with the
Parthians and the cession of a portion of Armenia to them.

[68] That Armenia also fell into their power is indicated by Herodian,
v. 9, 2; no doubt his representation is warped and defective.

[69] When at the peace in 218 the old relation between Rome and Armenia
was renewed, the king of Armenia gave himself the prospect of a renewal
of the Roman annual moneys (Dio, lxxviii. 27: τοῦ Τιριδάτου τὸ ἀργύριον
ὃ κατ’ ἔτος παρὰ τῶν Ῥωμαίων εὑρίσκετο ἐλπίσαντος λήψεσθαι). Payment
of tribute proper by the Romans to the Armenians is excluded for the
period of Severus and the time before Severus, and by no means agrees
with the words of Dio; the connection must be what we have indicated.
In the fourth and fifth centuries the fortress of Biriparach in the
Caucasus, which barred the Dariel pass, was maintained by the Persians,
who played the part of masters here after the peace of 364, with a
Roman contribution, and this was likewise conceived as payment of
tribute (Lydus, _de Mag._ iii. 52, 53; Priscus, _fr._ 31, Mull.).

[70] Artaxares names his father Papacus in the inscription, quoted
at p. 83, note 1, king; how it is to be reconciled with this, that
not merely does the native legend (in Agathias ii. 27) make Pabek a
shoemaker, but also the contemporary Dio (if in reality Zonaras, xii.
15, has borrowed these words from him) names Artaxares ἐξ ἀφανῶν καὶ
ἀδόξων, we do not know. Naturally the Roman authors take the side of
the weak legitimate Arsacid against the dangerous usurper.

[71] Strabo (under Tiberius) xv. 3, 24: νῦν δ’ ἤδη καθ’ αὐτοὺς
συνεστῶτες οἱ Πἐρσαι βασιλέας ἔχουσιν ὑπηκόους ἑτέροις βασιλεῦσι,
πρότερον μὲν Μακεδόσι, νῦν δὲ Παρθυαίοις.

[72] When Nöldeke says (_Tabari_, p. 449), “The subjection of the
chief lands of the monarchy directly to the crown formed the chief
distinction of the Sassanid kingdom from the Arsacid, which had real
kings in its various provinces,” the power of the great-kingdom beyond
doubt is thoroughly dependent on the personality of the possessor,
and under the first Sassanids must have been much stronger than
under the last decayed Arsacids. But a contrast in principle is not
discoverable. From Mithradates I., the proper founder of the dynasty,
onward the Arsacid ruler names himself “king of kings,” just as did
subsequently the Sassanid, while Alexander the Great and the Seleucids
never bore this title. Even under them individual vassal-kings ruled,
_e.g._ in Persis (p. 81, note 2); but the vassal-kingdom was not then
the regular form of imperial administration, and the Greek rulers
did not name themselves according to it, any more than the Caesars
assumed the title of great-king on account of Cappadocia or Numidia.
The satraps of the Arsacid state were essentially the Marzbans of the
Sassanids. Perhaps rather the great imperial offices, which in the
Sassanid polity correspond to the supreme administrative posts of the
Diocletiano-Constantinian constitution, and probably were the model for
the latter, were wanting to the Arsacid state; then certainly the two
would be related to each other much as the imperial organisation of
Augustus to that of Constantine. But we know too little of the Arsacid
organisation to affirm this with certainty.

[73] According to the Persian records of the last Sassanid period
preserved in the Arabic chronicle of Tabari Ardashir, after he has cut
off with his own hand the head of Ardawan and has assumed the title
Shahan-shah, king of kings, conquers first Hamadhan (Ecbatana) in Great
Media, then Aderbijan (Atropatene), Armenia, Mosul (Adiabene); and
further Suristan or Sawad (Babylonia). Thence he returns to Istachr
unto his Persian home, and then starting afresh conquers Sagistan,
Gurgan (Hyrcania), Abrashahr (Nisapur in the Parthian land), Merv
(Margiane), Balkh (Bactra), and Charizm (Khiva) up to the extreme
limits of Chorasan. “After he had killed many people and had sent their
heads to the fire-temple of Anahedh (in Istachr), he returned from Merv
to Pars and settled in Gor” (Feruzabad). How much of this is legend, we
do not know (comp. Nöldeke, _Tabari_, p. 17, 116).

[74] The title runs in Greek (_C. I. Gr._ 4675), Μάσδασνος
(Mazda-servant, treated as a proper name) θεὸς Ἀρταξάρης βασιλεὺς
βασιλέων Ἀριανῶν ἐκ γένους θεῶν; with which closely agrees the title
of his son Sapor I. (_ib._ 4676), only that after Ἀριανῶν there is
inserted καὶ Ἀναριανῶν, and so the extension of the rule to foreign
lands is brought into prominence. In the title of the Arsacids, so
far as it is clear from the Greek and Persian legends of coins, θεός,
βασιλεὺς βασιλέων, θεοπάτωρ (= ἐκ γένους θεῶν) recur, whereas there
is no prominence given to the Arians and, significantly, to the
“Mazda-servant”; by their side appear numerous other titles borrowed
from the Syrian kings, such as ἐπιφάνης, δίκαιος, νικάτωρ, also the
Roman αὐτοκράτωρ.

[75] Frawardin, Ardhbehesht, etc. (Ideler, _Chronologie_, ii. 515).
It is remarkable that essentially the same names of the months have
maintained themselves in the provincial calendar of the Roman province
Cappadocia (Ideler, i. 443); they must proceed from the time when it
was a Persian satrapy.

[76] Such is the account of the trustworthy Dio, lxxviii. 1; the
version of Herodian, iv. 11, that Artabanus promised his daughter, and
at the celebration of the betrothal allowed Antoninus to cut down the
Parthians present, is unauthenticated.

[77] If there is any truth in the mention of the Cadusians in the
biography, c. 6, the Romans induced this wild tribe, not subject to the
government in the south-west of the Caspian Sea, to fall at the same
time upon the Parthians.

[78] The subsequently received chronology puts the beginning of the
Sassanid dynasty in the Seleucid year 538 = 1st Oct. A.D. 226-7, or
the fourth (full) year of Severus Alexander, reigning since spring 222
(Agathias, iv. 24). According to other data king Ardashir numbered
the year from the autumn A.D. 223-4 as his first, and so doubtless
assumed in this the title of great-king (Nöldeke, _Tabari_, p. 410).
The last dated coin as yet known of the older system is of the year
539. When Dio wrote between 230 and 234, Artabanus was dead and his
adherents were overpowered, and the advance of Artaxares into Armenia
and Mesopotamia was expected.

[79] The emperor remained probably in Palmyra; at least a Palmyrene
inscription, _C. I. Gr._ 4483, mentions the ἐπιδημία θεοῦ Ἀλεξάνδρου.

[80] The incomparably wretched accounts of this war (relatively the
best is that drawn from a common source in Herodian, Zonaras, and
Syncellus, p. 674) do not even decide the question who remained victor
in these conflicts. While Herodian speaks of an unexampled defeat of
the Romans, the Latin authorities, the Biography as well as Victor,
Eutropius, and Rufius Festus, celebrate Alexander as the conqueror
of Artaxerxes or Xerxes, and according to these latter the further
course of things was favourable. Herodian vi. 6, 5, offers the means of
adjustment. According to the Armenian accounts (Gutschmid, _Zeitschr.
der deutschen morgenländ. Gesellschaft_, xxxi. 47) the Arsacids with
the support of the tribes of the Caucasus held their ground in Armenia
down to the year 237 against Ardashir; this diversion may be correct
and may have tended to the advantage of the Romans.

[81] The best account is furnished by Syncellus, p. 683 and Zonaras,
xii. 18, drawing from the same source. With this accord the individual
statements of Ammianus, xxiii. 5, 7, 17, and nearly so the forged
letter of Gordian to the Senate in the Biography, c. 27, from which the
narrative, c. 26, is ignorantly prepared; Antioch was in danger, but
not in the hands of the Persians.

[82] So Zonaras, xii. 19, represents the course of affairs; with this
Zosimus, iii. 33, agrees, and the later course of things shows that
Armenia was not quite in Persian possession. If, according to Euagrius,
v. 7, at that time merely Lesser Armenia remained Roman, this may not
be incorrect, in so far as the dependence of the vassal-king of Great
Armenia after the peace was doubtless merely nominal.

[83] The Biblical account (1 Kings, ix. 18) as to the building of the
town Thamar in Idumaea by king Solomon has only been transferred to
Tadmor by a misunderstanding doubtless old; at all events the erroneous
reference of it to this town among the later Jews (2 Chron. viii.
4, and the Greek translation of 1 Kings, ix. 18) form the oldest
testimony for its existence (Hitzig, _Zeitschr. der deutschen morgenl.
Gesellschaft_, viii. 222).

[84] This is nowhere expressly stated; but all the circumstances tell
in favour of it. That the Romano-Parthian frontier, before the Romans
established themselves on the left bank of the Euphrates, was on the
right a little below Sura, is most distinctly said by Pliny (_H. N._ v.
26, 89: _a Sura proxime est Philiscum_--comp. p. 95, note 1--_oppidum
Parthorum ad Euphratem; ab eo Seleuciam dierum decem navigatio_), and
there it remained till the erection of the province of Mesopotamia
under Severus. The Palmyrene of Ptolemy (v. 15, 24, 25) is a district
of Coele-Syria, which seems to embrace a good part of the territory to
the south of Palmyra, but certainly reaches as far as the Euphrates
and includes Sura; other urban centres besides Palmyra seem not to be
mentioned, and there is nothing to stand in the way of our taking this
large district as civic territory. So long in particular as Mesopotamia
was Parthian, but subsequently also with reference to the adjoining
desert, a permanent protection of the frontier could not here be
dispensed with; as indeed in the fourth century, according to the tenor
of the Notitia, Palmyrene was strongly occupied, the northern portion
by the troops of the Dux of Syria, Palmyra itself and the southern half
by those of the Dux of Phoenice. That in the earlier imperial period
no Roman troops were stationed here, is vouched for by the silence of
authors and the absence of inscriptions, which in Palmyra itself are
numerous. If in the Tabula Peutingeriana it is remarked under Sura:
_fines exercitus Syriatici et commercium barbarorum_, that is, “here
end the Roman garrisons and here is the place of exchange for the
traffic of the barbarians,” this is only saying, what at a later time
is repeated by Ammianus (xxiii. 3, 7: _Callinicum munimentum robustum
et commercandi opimitate gratissimum_) and further by the emperor
Honorius (_Cod. Just._ iv. 63, 4), that Callinicon was one of the few
entrepôts devoted to the Romano-barbarian frontier-traffic; but it
does not at all follow from this as regards the time when the Tabula
originated, that these imperial troops were stationed there, since in
fact the Palmyrenes in general belonged to the Syrian army and might
be thought of in using the expression _exercitus Syriaticus_. The
city must have furnished a force of its own in a way similar to that
of the princes of Numidia and of Panticapaeum. By this means alone we
come to understand as well the rejection of the troops of Antonius as
the attitude of the Palmyrenes in the troubles of the third century,
and not less the emergence of the _numeri Palmyrenorum_ among the
military novelties of this epoch.

[85] Ammianus, xxiii. 5, 2: _Cercusium ... Diocletianus exiguum
ante hoc et suspectum muris turribusque circumdedit celsis, ... ne
vagarentur per Syriam Persae ita ut paucis ante annis cum magnis
provinciarum contigerat damnis_. Comp. Procopius _de aed._ ii. 6.
Perhaps this place is not different from the Φάλγα or Φάλιγα of
Isidorus of Charax (_mans. Parth._ 1; Stephanus Byz. _s. v._) and the
_Philiscum_ of Pliny (p. 94, note).

[86] Of the seven dedications, hitherto found outside of Palmyra, to
the Palmyrene Malach Belos the three brought to light in Rome (_C. I.
L._ vi. 51, 710; _C. I. Gr._ 6015) have along with a Greek or Latin
also a Palmyrene text, two African (_C. I. L._ viii. 2497, 8795 add.)
and two Dacian (_Arch. epig. Mitth. aus Oesterreich_, vi. 109, 111)
merely Latin. One of the latter was set up by P. Aelius Theimes, a
_duoviralis_ of Sarmizegetusa, evidently a native of Palmyra, _diis
patriis Malagbel et Bebellahamon et Benefal et Manavat_.

[87] Whence these names of the months come, is not clear; they first
appear in the Assyrian cuneiform writing, but are not of Assyrian
origin. In consequence of the Assyrian rule they then remained in use
within the sphere of the Syrian language. Variations are found; the
second month, the Dios of the Greek-speaking Syrians, our November,
is called among the Jews Markeshvan, among the Palmyrenes Kanun
(Waddington, n. 2574_b_). We may add that these names of the months,
so far as they came to be applied within the Roman empire, are
adapted, like the Macedonian, to the Julian calendar, so that only the
designation of the month differs; the year-beginning (1 Oct.) of the
Syro-Roman year finds uniformly application to the Greek as to the
Aramaean appellations.

[88] _E.g._ Archon, Grammateus, Proedros, Syndikos, Dekaprotoi.

[89] This is shown by the inscription of Palmyra (_C. I. Gr._ 4491,
4492 = Waddington 2600 = Vogué, _Insc. sém. Palm._ 22) set up to
this Hairanes in the year 251 by a soldier of the legion stationed
in Arabia. His title is in Greek ὁ λαμπρότατος συγκλητικός, ἔξα[ρχος
(= _princeps_) Παλμυ]ρηνῶν, in Palmyrene “illustrious senator, head
of Tadmor.” The epitaph (_C. I. Gr._ 4507 = Waddington 2621 = Vogué,
21) of the father of Hairanes, Septimios Odaenathos, son of Hairanes,
grandson of Vaballathos, great-grandson of Nassoros, gives to him also
senatorial rank.

[90] Certainly the father of this Odaenathus is nowhere named; but it
is as good as certain that he was the son of the Hairanes just named,
and bore the name of his grandfather. Zosimus, too, i. 39, terms him
a Palmyrene distinguished from the days of his forefathers by the
government (ἄνδρα Παλμυρηνὸν καὶ ἐκ προγόνων τῆς παρὰ τῶν βασιλέων
ἀξιωθέντα τίμης).

[91] In the inscription Waddington 2603 = Vogué 23, which the guild of
gold and silver workers of Palmyra set up in the year 257 to Odaenathus
he is called ὁ λαμπρότατος ὑπατικός, and so _vir consularis_, and in
Greek δεσπότης, in Syriac _mâran_. The former designation is not a
title of office, but a statement of the class in which he ranked; so
_vir consularis_ stands not unfrequently after the name quite like _vir
clarissimus_ (_C. I. L._ x. p. 1117 and elsewhere), and ὁ λαμπρότατος
ὑπατικός is found alongside of and before official titles of various
kinds, _e.g._ that of the proconsul of Africa (_C. I. Gr._ 2979, where
λαμπρότατος is absent), of the imperial legate of Pontus and Bithynia
(_C. I. Gr._ 3747, 3748, 3771) and of Palestine (_C. I. Gr._ 4151), of
the governor of Lycia and Pamphylia (_C. I. Gr._ 4272); it is only in
the age after Constantine that it is in combination with the name of
the province employed as an official title (_e.g._ _C. I. Gr._ 2596,
4266_e_). From this, therefore, no inference is to be drawn as to the
legal position of Odaenathus. Likewise, in the Syriac designation
of “lord,” we may not find exactly the ruler; it is also given to a
procurator (Waddington 2606 = Vogué 25).

[92] Syria in the imperial period formed an imperial customs-district
of its own, and the imperial dues were levied not merely on the coast
but also at the Euphrates-frontier, in particular at Zeugma. Hence it
necessarily follows that farther to the south, where the Euphrates
was no longer in the Roman power, similar dues were established on
the Roman eastern frontier. Now a decree of the council of Palmyra
of the year 137 informs us that the city and its territory formed a
special customs-district, and the dues were levied for the benefit of
the town upon all goods imported or exported. That this territory lay
beyond the imperial dues, is probable--first, because, if there had
existed an imperial customs-line enclosing the Palmyrene territory, the
mention of it could not well be omitted in that detailed enactment;
secondly, because a community of the empire enclosed by the imperial
customs-lines would hardly have had the right of levying dues at the
boundary of its territory to this extent. We shall thus have to discern
in the levying of dues by the community of Palmyra the same distinctive
position which must be attributed to it in a military point of view.
Perhaps, on the other hand, there was an impost laid on it for the
benefit of the imperial exchequer, possibly the delivering up of a
quota of the produce of the dues or a heightened tribute. Arrangements
similar to those for Palmyra may have existed also for Petra and
Bostra; for goods were certainly not admitted here free of dues, and
according to Pliny, _H. N._ xii. 14, 65, imperial dues from the Arabic
frankincense exported by way of Gaza seem only to have been levied at
Gaza on the coast. The indolence of Roman administration was stronger
than its fiscal zeal; it may frequently have devolved the inconvenient
tolls of the land-frontier away from itself on the communities.

[93] These caravans (συνοδίαι) appear on the Palmyrene inscriptions
as fixed companies, which undertake the same journeys beyond doubt
at definite intervals under their foreman (συνοδιάρχης, Waddington,
2589, 2590, 2596); thus a statue is erected to such a one by “the
merchants who went down with him to Vologasias” (οἱ σὺν αὐτῷ
κατελθόντες εἰς Ὀλογεσιάδα ἔνποροι, Waddington 2599 of the year 247),
or “up from Forath (comp. Pliny, _H. N._ vi. 28, 145) and Vologasias”
(οἱ συναναβάντες μετ’ αὐτοῦ ἔμποροι ἀπὸ Φοράθου κὲ Ὀλογασιάδος,
Waddington, 2589 of the year 142), or “up from Spasinu Charax” (οἱ
σὺν αὐτῷ ἀναβάντες ἀπὸ Σπασίνου Χάρακος, Waddington, 2596 of the year
193; similarly 2590 of the year 155). All these conductors are men of
standing furnished with lists of ancestors; their honorary monuments
stand in the great colonnade beside those of queen Zenobia and her
family. Specially remarkable is one of them, Septimius Vorodes, of
whom there exists a series of honorary monuments of the years 262-267
(Waddington, 2606-2610); he, too, was a caravan-head (ἀνακομίσαντα τὰς
συνοδίας ἐκ τῶν ἰδίων καὶ μαρτυρηθέντα ὑπὸ τῶν ἀρχεμπόρων, Waddington,
n. 2606 _a_; consequently he defrayed the costs of the journey back
for the whole company, and was on account of this liberality publicly
praised by the wholesale traders). But he filled not merely the
civic offices of _strategos_ and _agoranomos_, he was even imperial
procurator of the second class (_ducenarius_) and _argapetes_ (p. 104,
note 1).

[94] According to the Greek account (Zonaras, xii. 21) king Tiridates
takes refuge with the Romans, but his sons take the side of the
Persians; according to the Armenian, king Chosro is murdered by his
brethren, and Chosro’s son, Tiridates, fled to the Romans (Gutschmid,
_Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenl. Gesellsch._ xxxi. 48). Perhaps the
latter is to be preferred.

[95] The only fixed chronological basis is furnished by the Alexandrian
coins, according to which Valerian was captured between 29th August 259
and 28th August 260. That after his capture he was no longer regarded
as emperor, is easily explained, seeing that the Persians compelled him
in their interest to issue orders to his former subjects (continuation
of Dio, _fr._ 3).

[96] The better accounts simply know the fact that Valerian died in
Persian captivity. That Sapor used him as a footstool in mounting his
horse (Lactantius, _de Mort. persec._ 5; Orosius, vii. 22, 4; Victor,
_Ep._ 33), and finally caused him to be flayed (Lactantius, _l. c._;
Agathias, iv. 23; Cedrenus, p. 454) is a Christian invention--a
requital for the persecution of the Christians ordered by Valerian.

[97] The tradition according to which Mareades (so Ammianus, xxiii.
5, 3; Mariades in Malalas, 12, p. 295; Mariadnes in contin. of Dio,
_fr._ 1), or, as he is here called, Cyriades, had himself proclaimed
as Augustus (_Vit. trig. tyr._ 1) is weakly attested; otherwise there
might doubtless be found in it the occasion why Sapor caused him to be
put to death.

[98] He is called Callistus in the one tradition, doubtless traceable
to Dexippus, in Syncellus, p. 716, and Zonaras, xii. 23, on the other
hand, Ballista in the biographies of the emperors and in Zonaras, xii.
24.

[99] He was, according to the most trustworthy account, _procurator
summarum_ (ἐπὶ τῶν καθόλου λόγων βασιλέως: Dionysius in Eusebius, _H.
E._ vii. 10, 5), and so finance-minister with equestrian rank; the
continuator of Dio (_fr._ 3 Müll.) expresses this in the language of
the later age by κόμης τῶν θησαυρῶν καὶ ἐφεστὼς τῇ ἀγορᾷ τοῦ σίτου.

[100] At least according to the report, which forms the basis of the
imperial biographies (_vita Gallieni_, 3, and elsewhere). According
to Zonaras, xii. 24, the only author who mentions besides the end of
Callistus, Odaenathus caused him to be put to death.

[101] That Odaenathus, as well as after him his son Vaballathus (apart,
of course, from the time after the rupture with Aurelian), were by
no means Augusti (as the _vit. Gallieni_, 12, erroneously states),
is shown both by the absence of the name of Augustus on the coins
and by the title possible only for a subject, _v(ir) c(onsularis)_
= ὑ(πατικός), which, like the father (p. 97, note 3), the son still
bears. The position of governor is designated on the coins of the son
by _im(perator) d(ux) R(omanorum)_ = αὐτ(οκράτωρ) σ(τρατηγός); in
agreement therewith Zonaras (xii. 23, and again xii. 24) and Syncellus
(p. 716) state that Gallienus appointed Odaenathus, on account of his
victory over the Persians and Ballista, as στρατηγὸς τῆς ἐῴας, or
πάσης ἀνατολῆς; and the biographer of Gallienus, 10, that he _obtinuit
totius Orientis imperium_. By this is meant all the Asiatic provinces
and Egypt; the added _imperator_ = αὐτοκράτωρ (comp. _Trig. tyr._ 15,
6, _post reditum de Perside_--Herodes son of Odaenathus--_cum patre
imperator est appellatus_) is intended beyond doubt to express the
freer handling of power, different from the usual authority of the
governor.--To this was added further the now formally assumed title of
a king of Palmyra (_Trig. tyr._ 15, 2: _adsumpto nomine regali_), which
also the son bears, not on the Egyptian, but on the Syrian coins. The
circumstance that Odaenathus is probably called _melekh malke_, “king
of kings,” on an inscription set up in August 271, and so after his
death and during the war of his adherents with Aurelian (Vogué, n. 28),
belongs to the revolutionary demonstrations of this period and forms no
proof for the earlier time.

[102] The numerous inscriptions of Septimius Vorodes, set up in the
years 262 to 267 (Waddington, 2606-2610), and so in the lifetime of
Odaenathus, all designate him as imperial procurator of the second
class (_ducenarius_), but at the same time partly by the title
ἀργαπέτης, which Persian word, current also among the Jews, signifies
“lord of a castle,” “viceroy” (Levy, _Zeitsch. der deutschen morgenl.
Gesellschaft_, xviii. 90; Nöldeke, _ib._ xxiv. 107), partly as
δικαιοδότης τῆς μητροκολωνίας, which, beyond doubt, is in substance
at any rate, if not in language, the same office. Presumably we
must understand by it that office on account of which the father of
Odaenathus is called the “head of Tadmor” (p. 97, note 2); the one
chief of Palmyra competent for martial law and for the administration
of justice; only that, since extended powers were given to the
position of Odaenathus, this post as a subordinate office is filled
by a man of equestrian rank. The conjecture of Sachau (_Zeitschr. der
d. morgenl. Gesellsch._ xxxv. 738) that this Vorodes is the “Wurud”
of a copper coin of the Berlin cabinet, and that both are identical
with the elder son of Odaenathus, Herodes, who was killed at the same
time with his father, is liable to serious difficulties. Herodes and
Orodes are different names (in the Palmyrene inscription, Waddington,
2610, the two stand side by side); the son of a senator cannot well
fill an equestrian office; a procurator coining money with his image
is not conceivable even for this exceptional state of things. Probably
the coin is not Palmyrene at all. “It is,” von Sallet writes to me,
“probably older than Odaenathus, and belongs perhaps to an Arsacid
of the second century A.D.; it shows a head with a headdress similar
to the Sassanid; the reverse, S C in a chaplet of laurel, appears
imitated from the coins of Antioch.”--If subsequently, after the breach
with Rome in 271, on an inscription of Palmyra (Waddington, 2611) two
generals of the Palmyrenes are distinguished, ὁ μέγας στρατηλάτης, the
historically known Zabdas, and ὁ ἐνθάδε στρατηλάτης, Zabbaeos, the
latter is, it may be presumed, just the Argapetes.

[103] The state of the case speaks in favour of this; evidence is
wanting. In the imperial biographies of this epoch the Armenians
are wont to be adduced among the border peoples independent of Rome
(_Valer._ 6; _Trig. tyr._ 30, 7, 18; _Aurel._ 11, 27, 28, 41); but this
is one of their quite untrustworthy elements of embellishment.

[104] This more modest account (Eutropius, ix. 10; _vita Gallieni_, 10;
_Trig. tyr._ 15, 4; Zos. i. 39, who alone attests the two expeditions)
must be preferred to that which mentions the capture of the city
(Syncellus, p. 716).

[105] This is shown by the accounts as to Carinus (cont. of Dio, p. 8)
and as to Rufinus (p. 106, note 2). That after the death of Odaenathus
Heraclianus, a general acting on Gallienus’s orders against the
Persians, was attacked and conquered by Zenobia (_vita Gallieni_, 13,
5), is in itself not impossible, seeing that the princes of Palmyra
possessed _de iure_ the chief command in all the East, and such an
action, even if it were suggested by Gallienus, might be treated as
offending against this right, and this would clearly indicate the
strained relation; but the authority vouching it is so bad that little
stress can be laid on it.

[106] This we learn from the characteristic narrative of Petrus, _fr._
10, which is to be placed before _fr._ 11.

[107] The account of the continuator of Dio, _fr._ 7, that the
old Odaenathus was put to death, as suspected of treason, by one
(not elsewhere mentioned) Rufinus, and that the younger, when he
had impeached this person at the bar of the emperor Gallienus, was
dismissed on the declaration of Rufinus that the accuser deserved the
same fate, cannot be correct as it stands. But Waddington’s proposal
to substitute Gallus for Gallienus, and to recognise in the accuser
the husband of Zenobia, is not admissible, since the father of this
Odaenathus was Hairanes, in whose case there existed no ground at
all for such an execution, and the excerpt in its whole character
undoubtedly applies to Gallienus. Rather must the old Odaenathus have
been the husband of Zenobia, and the author have erroneously assigned
to Vaballathus, in whose name the charge was brought, his father’s name.

[108] All the details which are current in our accounts of Zenobia
originate from the imperial biographies; and they will only be repeated
by such as do not know this source.

[109] The name Vaballathus is given, in addition to the coins and
inscriptions, by Polemius Silvius, p. 243 of my edition, and the
biographer of Aurelian, c. 38, while he describes as incorrect the
statement that Odaenathus had left two sons, Timolaus and Herennianus.
In reality these two persons emerging simply in the imperial
biographies appear along with all that is connected with them as
invented by the writer, to whom the thorough falsification of these
biographies is to be referred. Zosimus too, i. 59, knows only of one
son, who went into captivity with his mother.

[110] Whether Zenobia claimed for herself formal joint-rule, cannot
be certainly determined. In Palmyra she names herself still after the
rupture with Rome merely βασιλίσση (Waddington, 2611, 2628), in the
rest of the empire she may have laid claim to the title _Augusta_,
Σεβαστή; for, though there are no coins of Zenobia from the period
prior to the breach with Rome, yet on the one hand the Alexandrian
inscription with βασιλισσης καὶ βασιλέως προσταξάντων (_Eph. epigr._
iv. p. 25, p. 33) cannot lay any claim to official redaction, and
on the other hand the inscription of Byblos, _C. I. Gr._ 4503 b =
Waddington, n. 2611, gives in fact to Zenobia the title Σεβαστή
alongside of Claudius or Aurelian, while it refuses it to Vaballathus.
This is so far intelligible, as Augusta was an honorary designation,
Augustus an official one, and thus that might well be conceded to the
woman which was refused to the man.

[111] So Zosimus, i. 44, narrates the course of events with which
Zonaras, xii. 27 and Syncellus, p. 721, in the main agree. The report
in the life of Claudius, c. 11, is more displaced than properly
contradictory; the first half is only indicated by the naming of Saba;
the narrative begins with the successful attempt of Timagenes to ward
off the attack of Probus (here Probatus). The view taken of this by me
in Sallet (_Palmyra_, p. 44) is not tenable.

[112] The determination of the date depends on the fact that the
usurpation-coins of Vaballathus cease already in the fifth year of his
Egyptian reign, _i.e._ 29th August 270-71; the fact that they are very
rare speaks for the beginning of the year. With this essentially agrees
the circumstance that the storming of the Prucheion (which, we may add,
was no part of the city, but a locality close by the city on the side
of the great oasis; Hieronymus, _vit. Hilarionis_, c. 33, 34, vol. ii.
p. 32 Vall.) is put by Eusebius in his Chronicle in the first year of
Claudius, by Ammianus, xxii. 16, 15, under Aurelian; the most exact
report in Eusebius, _H. Eccl._ vii. 32, is not dated. The reconquest
of Egypt by Probus stands only in his biography, c. 9; it may have
happened as it is told, but it is possible also that in this thoroughly
falsified source the history of Timagenes has been _mutatis mutandis_
transferred to the emperor.

[113] This is perhaps what the report on the battle of Hemesa,
extracted by Zosimus, i. 52, wished to bring out, when it enumerates
among the troops of Aurelian the Dalmatians, Moesians, Pannonians,
Noricans, Raetians, Mauretanians, and the guard. When he associates
with these the troops of Tyana and some divisions from Mesopotamia,
Syria, Phoenice, Palestine, this applies beyond doubt to the
Cappadocian garrisons, which had joined after the capture of Tyana,
and to some divisions of the armies of the East favourably disposed to
Rome, who went over to Aurelian upon his marching into Syria.

[114] By mistake Eutropius, ix. 13, places the decisive battle _haud
longe ab Antiochia_: the mistake is heightened in Rufius, c. 24 (on
whom Hieronymus, _chron. a. Abr._ 2289 depends), and in Syncellus,
p. 721, by the addition _apud Immas_, ἐν Ἴμμαις, which place, lying
33 Roman miles from Antioch on the road to Chalcis, is far away from
Hemesa. The two chief accounts, in Zosimus and the biographer of
Aurelian, agree in all essentials.

[115] This is the name given by Zosimus, i. 60, and Polemius Silvius,
p. 243; the Achilleus of the biographer of Aurelian, c. 31, seems a
confusion with the usurper of the time of Diocletian.--That at the same
time in Egypt a partisan of Zenobia and at the same time robber-chief,
by name Firmus, rose against the government, is doubtless possible, but
the statement rests only on the imperial biographies, and the details
added sound very suspicious.

[116] The chronology of these events is not quite settled. The rarity
of the Syrian coins of Vaballathus as Augustus shows that the rupture
with Aurelian (end of 270) was soon followed by the conquest. According
to the dated inscriptions of Odaenathus and Zenobia of August 271
(Waddington, 2611), the rule of the queen was at that time still
intact. As an expedition of this sort, from the conditions of the
climate, could not well take place otherwise than in spring, the first
capture of Palmyra must have ensued in the spring of 272. The most
recent (merely Palmyrene) inscription which we know from that quarter
(Vogué, n. 116) is of August 272. The insurrection probably falls at
this time; the second capture and the destruction somewhere in the
spring of the year 273 (in accordance with which, I. 166, note 1, is to
be corrected).

[117] It throws no light on the position of the Armenians, that in
descriptions otherwise thoroughly apocryphal (_vita Valer._ 6; _vita
Aurel._ 37, 28) the Armenians after the catastrophe of Valerian keep to
the Persians, and appear in the last crisis of the Palmyrenes as allies
of Zenobia by the side of the Persians; both are obvious consequences
from the general position of things. That Aurelian did not subdue
Armenia any more than Mesopotamia, is supported in this case partly by
the silence of the authorities, partly by the account of Synesius (_de
regno_, p. 17) that the emperor Carinus (rather Carus) had in Armenia,
close to the frontier of the Persian territory, summarily dismissed
a Persian embassy, and that the young Persian king, alarmed by its
report, had declared himself ready for any concession. I do not see
how this narrative can be referred to Probus, as von Gutschmid thinks
(_Zeitschr. d. deutsch. morgenl. Gesell._ xxxi. 50); on the other hand
it suits very well the Persian expedition of Carus.

[118] The reconquest of Mesopotamia is reported only by the biographer,
c. 8; but at the outbreak of the Persian war under Diocletian it is
Roman. There is mention at the same place of internal troubles in the
Persian empire; also in a discourse held in the year 289 (_Paneg._
iii. c. 17) there is mention of the war, which is waged against the
king of Persia--this was Bahram II.--by his own brother Ormies or
rather Hormizd _adscitis Sacis et Ruffis (?) et Gellis_ (comp. Nöldeke,
_Tabarî_, p. 479). We have altogether only some detached notices as to
this important campaign.

[119] This is stated clearly by Mamertinus (_Paneg._ ii. 7, comp.
ii. 10, iii. 6) in the oration held in 289: _Syriam velut amplexu
suo tegebat Euphrates antequam Diocletiano sponte_ (that is, without
Diocletian needing to have recourse to arms, as is then further set
forth) _se dederent regna Persarum_; and further by another panegyrist
of the year 296 (_Paneg._ v. 3): _Partho ultra Tigrim reducto_. Turns
like that in Victor, _Caes._ xxxix. 33, that Galerius _relictis
finibus_ had marched to Mesopotamia, or that Narseh, according to
Rufius Festus, c. 25, ceded Mesopotamia in peace, cannot on the other
hand be urged; and as little, that Oriental authorities place the Roman
occupation of Nisibis in 609 Sel. = A.D. 297/8 (Nöldeke, _Tabarî_, p.
50). If this were correct, the exact account as to the negotiations
for peace of 297 in Petrus Patricius, _fr._ 14, could not possibly be
silent as to the cession of Mesopotamia and merely make mention of the
regulation of the frontier-traffic.

[120] That Narseh broke into Armenia at that time Roman, is stated
by Ammianus, xxiii. 5, 11; for Mesopotamia the same follows from
Eutropius, ix. 24. On the 1st March 296 peace was still subsisting,
or at any rate the declaration of war was not yet known in the west
(_Paneg._ v. 10).

[121] The differences in the exceptionally good accounts, particularly
of Petrus Patricius, _fr._ 14, and Ammianus, xxv. 7, 9, are probably
only of a formal kind. The fact that the Tigris was to be the proper
boundary of the empire, as Priscus says, does not exclude, especially
considering the peculiar character of its upper course, the possibility
of the boundary there partially going beyond it; on the contrary, the
five districts previously named in Petrus appear to be adduced just
as beyond the Tigris, and to be excepted from the following general
definition. The districts adduced by Priscus here and, expressly as
beyond the Tigris, by Ammianus--these are in both Arzanene, Carduene,
and Zabdicene, in Priscus Sophene and Intilene (“rather Ingilene, in
Armenia Angel, now Egil”; Kiepert), in Ammianus Moxoene and Rehimene
(?)--cannot possibly all have been looked on by the Romans as Persian
before the peace, when at any rate Armenia was already _Romano iuri
obnoxia_ (Ammianus, xxiii. 5, 11); beyond doubt the more westerly of
them already then formed a part of Roman Armenia, and stand here only
in so far as they were, in consequence of the peace, incorporated with
the empire as the satrapy of Sophene. That the question here concerned
not the boundary of the cession, but that of the territory directly
imperial, is shown by the conclusion, which settles the boundary
between Armenia and Media.

[122] We cannot exactly determine the standing quarters of the Syrian
legions; yet what is here said is substantially assured. Under Nero the
10th legion lay at Raphaneae, north-west from Hamath (Josephus, _Bell.
Jud._ vii. 1, 3); and at that same place, or at any rate nearly in
this region under Tiberius the 6th (Tacitus, _Ann._ ii. 79); probably
in or near Antioch the 12th under Nero (Josephus, _Bell. Jud._ ii. 18,
19). At least one legion lay on the Euphrates; for the time before the
annexation of Commagene Josephus attests this (_Bell. Jud._ vii. 1,
3), and subsequently one of the Syrian legions had its headquarters
in Samosata (Ptolemaeus, v. 15, 11; inscription from the time of
Severus, _C. I. L._ vi. 1409; _Itin. Antonini_, p. 186). Probably the
staffs of most of the Syrian legions had their seat in the western
districts, and the ever-recurring complaint that encamping in the towns
disorganised the Syrian army, applies chiefly to this arrangement. It
is doubtful whether in the better times there existed headquarters
proper of the legions on the edge of the desert; at the frontier-posts
there detachments of the legions were employed, and in particular the
specially disturbed district between Damascus and Bostra was strongly
furnished with legionaries provided on the one hand by the command of
Syria, on the other by that of Arabia after its institution by Trajan.

[123] There is a coin of Byblus from the time of Augustus with a Greek
and Phoenician legend (Imhoof-Blumer, _Monnaies grecques_, 1883, p.
443).

[124] Johannes Chrysostomus of Antioch († 407) points on several
occasions (_de sanctis martyr._ Opp. ed. Paris, 1718, vol. ii. p. 651;
_Homil._ xix. _ibid._ p. 188) to the ἑτεροφωνία, the βάρβαρος φωνή of
the λαός in contrast to the language of the cultured.

[125] The extract of Photius from the romance of Jamblichus, c. 17,
which erroneously makes the author a Babylonian, is essentially
corrected and supplemented by the _scholion_ upon it. The private
secretary of the great-king, who comes among Trajan’s captives to
Syria, becomes there tutor of Jamblichus, and instructs him in the
“barbarian wisdom,” is naturally a figure of the romance running its
course in Babylon, which Jamblichus professes to have heard from
this his instructor; but characteristic of the time is the Armenian
court-man-of-letters and princes’ tutor (for it was doubtless as “good
rhetor” that he was called by Sohaemus to Valarshapat) himself, who in
virtue of his magical art not merely understands the charming of flies
and the conjuring of spirits, but also predicts to Verus the victory
over Vologasus, and at the same time narrates in Greek to the Greeks
stories such as might stand in the _Thousand and One Nights_.

[126] Syriac literature consists almost exclusively of translations of
Greek works. Among profane writings treatises of Aristotle and Plutarch
stand in the first rank, then practical writings of a juristic or
agronomic character, and books of popular entertainment, such as the
romance of Alexander, the fables of Aesop, the sentences of Menander.

[127] The Syriac translation of the New Testament, the oldest text of
the Syriac language known to us, probably originated in Edessa; the
στρατιῶται of the Acts of the Apostles are here called “Romans.”

[128] This is said by Diodorus, xx. 47, of the forerunner of Antioch,
the town of Antigonea, situated about five miles farther up the river.
Antioch was for the Syria of antiquity nearly what Aleppo is for the
Syria of the present day, the rendezvous of inland traffic; only that,
in the case of that foundation, as the contemporary construction of the
port of Seleucia shows, the immediate connection with the Mediterranean
was designed, and hence the town was laid out farther to the west.

[129] The space between Antioch and Daphne was filled with
country-houses and villas (Libanius, _pro rhetor._ ii. p. 213 Reiske),
and there was also here a suburb Heraclea or else Daphne (O. Müller,
_Antiq. Antioch_, p. 44; comp. _vita Veri_, 7); but when Tacitus,
_Ann._ ii. 83, names this suburb Epidaphne, this is one of his most
singular blunders. Plinius, _H. N._ v. 27, 79, says correctly:
_Antiochia Epidaphnes cognominata_.

[130] “That wherein we especially beat all,” says the Antiochene
Libanius, in the Panegyric on his home delivered under Constantius
(i. 354 R.), after having described the springs of Daphne and the
aqueducts thence to the city, “is the water-supply of our city; if in
other respects any one may compete with us, all give way so soon as
we come to speak of the water, its abundance and its excellence. In
the public baths every stream has the proportions of a river, in the
private several have the like, and the rest not much less. He who has
the means of laying out a new bath does so without concern about a
sufficient flow of water, and has no need to fear that, when ready,
it will remain dry. Therefore every district of the city (there were
eighteen of these) carefully provides for the special elegance of its
bathing-establishment; these district-bathing-establishments are so
much finer than the general ones, as they are smaller than these are,
and the inhabitants of the district strive to surpass one another. One
measures the abundance of running water by the number of the (good)
dwelling-houses; for as many as are the dwelling-houses, so many are
also the running waters, nay there are even in individual houses
often several; and the majority of the workshops have also the same
advantage. Therefore we have no fighting at the public wells as to who
shall come first to draw--an evil, under which so many considerable
towns suffer, when there is a violent crowding round the wells and
outcry over the broken jars. With us the public fountains flow for
ornament, since every one has water within his doors. And this water is
so clear that the pail appears empty, and so pleasant that it invites
us to drink.”

[131] “Other lights,” says the same orator, p. 363, “take the place
of the sun’s light, lamps which leave the Egyptian festival of
illumination far behind; and with us night is distinguished from
day only by the difference of the lighting; diligent hands find no
difference and forge on, and he who will sings and dances, so that
Hephaestos and Aphrodite here share the night between them.” In the
street-sport which the prince Gallus indulged in, the lamps of Antioch
were very inconvenient to him (Ammianus, xiv. 1, 9).

[132] The remarkable description of the empire from the time of
Constantius (Müller, _Geog. Min._ ii. p. 213 ff.), the only writing
of the kind in which the state of industry meets with a certain
consideration, says of Syria in this respect: “Antioch has everything
that one desires in abundance, but especially its races. Laodicea,
Berytus, Tyre, Caesarea (in Palestine) have races also. Laodicea
sends abroad jockeys, Tyre and Berytus actors, Caesarea dancers
(_pantomimi_), Heliopolis on Lebanon flute-players (_choraulae_), Gaza
musicians (_auditores_, by which ἀκροάματα is incorrectly rendered),
Ascalon wrestlers (_athletae_), Castabala (strictly speaking in
Cilicia) boxers.”

[133] From the Syrian word _abbubo_, fife.

[134] The little treatise, ascribed to Lucian, as to the Syrian
goddess at Hierapolis adored by all the East, furnishes a specimen
of the wild and voluptuous fable-telling which was characteristic
of the Syrian cultus. In this narrative--the source of Wieland’s
Kombabus--self-mutilation is at once celebrated and satirised in turn
as an act of high morality and of pious faith.

[135] The Austrian engineer, Joseph Tschernik (Petermann’s _Geogr.
Mittheil._ 1875, _Ergänzungsheft_, xliv. p. 3, 9) found basalt-slabs
of oil-presses not merely on the desert plateau at Kala’at el-Hossn
between Hemesa and the sea, but also to the number of more than twenty
eastward from Hemesa at el-Ferklûs, where the basalt itself does not
occur, as well as numerous walled terraces and mounds of ruins at the
same place; with terracings on the whole stretch of seventy miles
between Hemesa and Palmyra. Sachau (_Reise in Syrien und Mesopotamien_,
1883, p. 23, 55) found remains of aqueducts at different places of the
route from Damascus to Palmyra. The cisterns of Aradus cut in the rock,
already mentioned by Strabo (xvi. 2, 13, p. 753), still perform their
service at the present day (Renan, _Phénicie_, p. 40).

[136] In Aradus, a town very populous in Strabo’s time (xvi. 2, 13, p.
753), there appears under Augustus a πρόβουλος τῶν ναυαρχησάντων (_C.
I. Gr._ 4736 _h_, better in Renan, _Mission de Phénicie_, p. 31).

[137] _Totius orbis descriptio_, c. 24: _nulla forte civitas Orientis
est eius spissior in negotio_. The documents of the _statio_ (_C.
I. Gr._ 5853; _C. I. L._ x. 1601) give a lively picture of these
factories. They serve in the first instance for religious ends, that
is, for the worship of the Tyrian gods at a foreign place; for this
object a tax is levied at the larger station of Ostia from the Tyrian
mariners and merchants, and from its produce there is granted to the
lesser a yearly contribution of 1000 sesterces, which is employed for
the rent of the place of meeting; the other expenses are raised by the
Tyrians in Puteoli, doubtless by voluntary contributions.

[138] For Berytus this is shown by the Puteolan inscription _C. I. L._
x. 1634; for Damascus it is at least suggested by that which is there
set up (x. 1576) to the _Iupiter optimus maximus Damascenus_.--We may
add that it is here apparent with how good reason Puteoli is called
Little Delos. At Delos in the last age of its prosperity, that is,
nearly in the century before the Mithradatic war, we meet with Syrian
factories and Syrian worships in quite a like fashion and in still
greater abundance; we find there the guild of the Herakleistae of
Tyre (τὸ κοινὸν τῶν Τυρίων Ἡρακλεϊστῶν ἐμπόρων καὶ ναυκλήρων, _C.
I. Gr._ 2271), of the Poseidoniastae of Berytus (τὸ κοινὸν Βηρυτίων
Ποσειδωνιαστῶν ἐμπόρων καὶ ναυκλήρων καὶ ἐγδοχέων, _Bull. de corr.
Hell._ vii., p. 468), of the worshippers of Adad and Atargatis of
Heliopolis (_ib._ vi. 495 f.), apart from the numerous memorial-stones
of Syrian merchants. Comp. Homolle _ib._ viii. p. 110 f.

[139] When Salvianus (towards 450) remonstrates with the Christians
of Gaul that they are in nothing better than the heathens, he points
(_de gub. Dei_, iv. 14, 69) to the worthless _negotiatorum et Syricorum
omnium turbae, quae maiorem ferme civitatum universarum partem
occupaverunt_. Gregory of Tours relates that king Guntchram was met
at Orleans by the whole body of citizens and extolled, as in Latin,
so also in Hebrew and in Syriac (viii. 1: _hinc lingua Syrorum, hinc
Latinorum, hinc ... Judaeorum in diversis laudibus varie concrepabat_),
and that after a vacancy in the episcopal see of Paris a Syrian
merchant knew how to procure it for himself, and gave away to his
countrymen the places belonging to it (x. 26: _omnem scholam decessoris
sui abiciens Syros de genere suo ecclesiasticae domui ministros esse
statuit_). Sidonius (about 450) describes the perverse world of Ravenna
(Ep. 1, 8) with the words: _fenerantur clerici, Syri psallunt;
negotiatores militant, monachi negotiantur_. _Usque hodie_, says
Hieronymus (in Ezech. 27, vol. v. p. 513 Vall.) _permanet in Syris
ingenitus negotiationis ardor, qui per totum mundum lucri cupiditate
discurrunt et tantam mercandi habent vesaniam, ut occupato nunc orbe
Romano_ (written towards the end of the fourth century) _inter gladios
et miserorum neces quaerant divitias et paupertatem periculis fugiant_.
Other proofs are given by Friedländer, _Sittengeschichte_, ii.^5 p.
67. Without doubt we may be allowed to add the numerous inscriptions
of the West which proceed from Syrians, even if those do not designate
themselves expressly as merchants. Instructive as to this point is the
Coemeterium of the small north-Italian country-town Concordia of the
fifth century; the foreigners buried in it are all Syrians, mostly of
Apamea (_C. I. L._ iii. p. 1060); likewise all the Greek inscriptions
found in Treves belong to Syrians (_C. I. Gr._ 9891, 9892, 9893). These
inscriptions are not merely dated in the Syrian fashion, but show also
peculiarities of the dialectic Greek there (_Hermes_, xix. 423).--That
this Syro-Christian Diaspora, standing in relation to the contrast
between the Oriental and Occidental clergy, may not be confounded with
the Jewish Diaspora, is clearly shown by the account in Gregorius; it
evidently stood much higher, and belonged throughout to the better
classes.

[140] This is partly so even at the present day. The number of
silk-workers in Höms is estimated at 3000 (Tschernik, _l. c._).

[141] One of the oldest (_i.e._ after Severus and before Diocletian)
epitaphs of this sort is the Latin-Greek one found not far from Lyons
(Wilmanns, 2498; comp. Lebas-Waddington, n. 2329) of a Θαῖμος ὁ καὶ
Ἰουλιανὸς Σαάδου (in Latin _Thaemus Iulianus Sati fil._), a native of
Atheila (_de vico Athelani_), not far from Canatha in Syria (still
called ’Atîl, not far from Kanawât in the Haurân), and _decurio_ in
Canatha, settled in Lyons (πάτραν λείπων ἧκε τῷδ’ ἐπὶ χώρῳ), and a
wholesale trader there for Aquitanian wares ([ἐς πρ]ᾶσιν ἔχων ἐνπόρ[ιο]ν
ἀγορασμῶν [με]στὸν ἐκ Ἀκουιτανίης ὧδ’ ἐπὶ Λουγουδούνοιο--_negotiatori
Luguduni et prov. Aquitanica_). Accordingly these Syrian merchants must
not only have dealt in Syrian goods, but have, with their capital and
their knowledge of business, practised wholesale trading generally.

[142] Characteristic is the Latin epigram on a press-house, _C. I. L._
iii. 188, in this home of the “Apamean grape” (_vita Elagabali_, c. 21).

[143] That the Decapolis and the reorganisation of Pompeius reached at
last as far as Kanata (Kerak), north-west of Bostra, is established by
the testimonies of authors and by the coins dated from the Pompeian era
(Waddington on 2412, _d_). To the same town probably belong the coins
with the name Γαβ(ε)ίν(ια) Κάναθα, with the name and dates of the same
era (Reichardt, _Num. Zeitschrift_, 1880, p. 53); this place would
accordingly belong to the numerous ones restored by Gabinius (Josephus,
_Arch._ xiv. 5, 3). Waddington no doubt (on no. 2329) assigns these
coins, so far as he knew them, to the second place of this name, the
modern Kanawât, the proper capital of the Haurân, to the northward of
Bostra; but it is far from probable that the organisation of Pompeius
and Gabinius extended so far eastward. Presumably this second city
was younger and named after the first, the most easterly town of the
Decapolis.

[144] The “refugees from the tetrarchy of Philippus,” who serve in the
army of Herodes Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee, and pass over to the
enemy in the battle with Aretas the Arabian (Josephus, _Arch._ xviii.
5, 1), are beyond doubt Arabians driven out from the Trachonitis.

[145] Waddington, 2366 = Vogué, _Inscr. du Haouran_, n. 3. Bilingual is
also the oldest epitaph of this region from Suwêda, Waddington, 2320
= Vogué, n. 1, the only one in the Haurân, which expresses the mute
_iota_. The inscriptions are so put on both monuments that we cannot
determine which language takes precedence.

[146] At Medain Sâlih or Hijr, southward from Teimâ, the ancient
Thaema, there has recently been found by the travellers Doughty and
Huber, a series of Nabataean inscriptions, which, in great part dated,
reach from the time of Augustus down to the death of Vespasian. Latin
inscriptions are wanting, and the few Greek are of the latest period;
to all appearance, on the conversion of the Nabataean kingdom into a
Roman province, the portion of the interior of Arabia that belonged to
the former was given up by the Romans.

[147] The city of Damascus voluntarily submitted under the last
Seleucids about the time of the dictatorship of Sulla to the king of
the Nabataeans at the time, presumably the Aretas, with whom Scaurus
fought (Josephus, _Arch._ xiii. 15). The coins with the legend βασιλέως
Ἀρέτου φιλέλληνος (Eckhel, iii. 330; Luynes, _Rev. de Numism._ 1858,
p. 311), were perhaps struck in Damascus, when this was dependent on
the Nabataeans; the reference of the number of the year on one of them
is not indeed certain, but points, it may be presumed, to the last
period of the Roman republic. Probably this dependence of the city
on the Nabataean kings subsisted so long as there were such kings.
From the fact that the city struck coins with the heads of the Roman
emperors, there follows doubtless its dependence on Rome and therewith
its self-administration, but not its non-dependence on the Roman
vassal-prince; such protectorates assumed shapes so various that these
arrangements might well be compatible with each other. The continuance
of the Nabataean rule is attested partly by the circumstance that the
ethnarch of king Aretas in Damascus wished to have the Apostle Paul
arrested, as the latter writes in the 2d Epistle to the Corinthians,
xi. 32, partly by the recently-established fact (see following note)
that the rule of the Nabataeans to the north-east of Damascus was still
continuing under Trajan.--Those who start, on the other hand, from the
view that, if Aretas ruled in Damascus, the city could not be Roman,
have attempted in various ways to fix the chronology of that event in
the life of Paul. They have thought of the complication between Aretas
and the Roman government in the last years of Tiberius; but from the
course which this took it is not probable that it brought about a
permanent change in the state of possession of Aretas. Melchior de
Vogué (_Mélanges d’arch. orientale_, app. p. 33) has pointed out that
between Tiberius and Nero--more precisely, between the years 33 and 62
(Saulcy, _Num. de la terre sainte_, p. 36)--there are no imperial coins
of Damascus, and has placed the rule of the Nabataeans there in this
interval, on the assumption that the emperor Gaius showed his favour to
the Arabian as to so many others of the vassal-princes, and invested
him with Damascus. But such interruptions of coinage are of frequent
occurrence, and require no such profound explanation. The attempt to
find a chronological basis for the history of Paul’s life in the sway
of the Nabataean king at Damascus, and generally to define the time
of Paul’s abode in this city, must probably be abandoned. If we may
so far trust the representation--in any case considerably shifted--of
the event in Acts ix., Paul went to Damascus before his conversion,
in order to continue there the persecution of the Christians in which
Stephen had perished, and then, when on his conversion he took part on
the contrary in Damascus for the Christians, the Jews there resolved
to put him to death, in which case it must therefore be presupposed
that the officials of Aretas, like Pilate, allowed free course to
the persecution of heretics by the Jews. Moreover, it follows from
the trustworthy statements of the Epistle to the Galatians, that the
conversion took place at Damascus (for the ὑπέστρεψα shows this), and
Paul went from thence to Arabia; further, that he came three years
after his conversion for the first time, and seventeen years after
it for the second time, to Jerusalem, in accordance with which the
apocryphal accounts of the Book of Acts as to his Jerusalem-journeys
are to be corrected (Zeller, _Apostelgesch._ p. 216). But we cannot
determine exactly either the time of the death of Stephen, much less
the time intervening between this and the flight of the converted Paul
from Damascus, or the interval between his second journey to Jerusalem
and the composition of the Galatian letter, or the year of that
composition itself.

[148] The Nabataean inscription found recently near Dmêr, to the
north-east of Damascus on the road to Palmyra (Sachau, _Zeitschr. der
deutschen morgenl. Gesellschaft_, xxxviii. p. 535), dates from the
month Ijjar of the year 410 according to the Roman (_i.e._ Seleucid)
reckoning, and the 24th year of king Dabel, the last Nabataean one, and
so from May A.D. 99, has shown that this district up to the annexation
of this kingdom remained under the rule of the Nabataeans. We may add
that the dominions here seem to have been, geographically, a tangled
mosaic; thus the tetrarch of Galilee and the Nabataean king fought
about the territory of Gamala on the lake of Gennesaret (Josephus,
_Arch._ xviii. 51).

[149] Perhaps through Gabinius (Appian, _Syr._ 51).

[150] Strabo, xvi. 4, 21, p. 779. The coins of these kings, however,
do not show the emperor’s head. But that in the Nabataean kingdom
dates might run by the Roman imperial years is shown by the Nabataean
inscription of Hebrân (Vogué, _Syrie Centrale_, _insc._ n. 1), dated from
the seventh year of Claudius, and so from the year 47. Hebrân, a little
to the north of Bostra, appears to have been reckoned also at a later
time to Arabia (Lebas-Waddington, 2287); and Nabataean inscriptions of
a public tenor are not met with outside of the Nabataean state; the few
of the kind from Trachonitis are of a private nature.

[151] “Leuke Kome in the land of the Nabataeans,” says Strabo under
Tiberius, xvi. 4, 23, p. 780, “is a great place of trade, whither and
whence the caravan-traders (καμηλέμποροι) go safely and easily from and
to Petra with so large numbers of men and camels that they differ in
nothing from encampments.” The Egyptian merchant also, writing under
Vespasian, in his description of the coasts of the Red Sea (c. 19),
mentions “the port and the fortress (φρούριον) of Leuce Come, whence
the route leads towards Petra to the king of the Nabataeans Malichas.
It may be regarded as the emporium for the goods conveyed thither from
Arabia in not very large vessels. Therefore there is sent thither
(ἀποστέλλεται) a receiver of the import-dues of a fourth of the value,
and for the sake of security a centurion (ἑκατοντάρχης) with men.” As
one belonging to the Roman empire here mentions officials and soldiers,
these can only be Roman; the centurion does not suit the army of the
Nabataean king, and the form of tax is quite the Roman. The bringing a
client-state within the sphere of imperial taxation occurs elsewhere,
_e.g._ in the regions of the Alps. The road from Petra to Gaza is
mentioned by Plin. _H. N._ vi. 28, 144.

[152] Waddington, 2196; Ἀδριανοῦ τοῦ καὶ Σοαίδου Μαλέχου ἐθνάρχου
στρατηγοῦ νομάδων τὸ μνημεῖον.

[153] Epiphanius, _Haeres._ li. p. 483, Dind., sets forth that the 25th
December, the birthday of Christ, had already been festally observed
after an analogous manner at Rome in the festival of the Saturnalia, at
Alexandria in the festival (mentioned also in the decree of Canopus)
of the Kikellia, and in other heathen worships. “This takes place in
Alexandria at the so-called Virgin’s shrine (Κόριον) ... and if we ask
people what this mystery means, they answer and say that to-day at
this hour the Virgin has given birth to the Eternal (τὸν αἰῶνα). This
takes place in like manner at Petra, the capital of Arabia, in the
temple there, and in the Arabic language they sing the praise of the
Virgin, whom they call in Arabic Chaamu, that is the maiden, and Him
born of her Dusares, that is the Only-begotten of the Lord.” The name
Chaamu is perhaps akin to the Aumu or Aumos of the Greek inscriptions
of this region, who is compared with Ζεὺς ἀνίκητος Ἥλιος (Waddington,
2392-2395, 2441, 2445, 2456).

[154] This is said apart from the remarkable Arabo-Greek inscription
(see below) found in Harrân, not far from Zorava, of the year A.D. 568,
set up by the phylarch Asaraelos, son of Talemos (Waddington, 2464).
This Christian is a precursor of Mohammed.

[155] Αὐσονίων μούσης ὑψινόου πρύτανις, Kaibel, _Epigr._ 440.

[156] According to the Arabian accounts the Benu Sâlih migrated from
the region of Mecca (about A.D. 190, according to the conjectures of
Caussin de Perceval, _Hist. des Arabes_, i. 212) to Syria, and settled
there alongside of the Benu-Samaida, in whom Waddington finds anew the
φυλὴ Σομαιθηνῶν of an inscription of Suwêda (n. 2308). The Ghassanids,
who (according to Caussin, about 205) migrated from Batn-Marr likewise
to Syria and to the same region, were compelled by the Salihites, at
the suggestion of the Romans, to pay tribute, and paid it for a time,
until they (according to the same, about the year 292) overcame the
Salihites, and their leader Thalaba, son of Amos, was recognised by the
Romans as phylarch. This narrative may contain correct elements; but
our standard authority remains always the account of Procopius, _de
bello Pers._ i. 17, reproduced in the text. The phylarchs of individual
provinces of Arabia (_i.e._ the province Bostra; _Nov._ 102 c.) and of
Palestine (_i.e._ province of Petra; Procop. _de bello Pers._ i. 19),
are older, but doubtless not much. Had a sheikh-in-chief of this sort
been recognised by the Romans in the times before Justinian, the Roman
authors and the inscriptions would doubtless show traces of it; but
there are no such traces from the period before Justinian.

[157] [This statement and several others of a kindred tenor in
this chapter appear to rest on an unhesitating acceptance of views
entertained by a recent school of Old Testament criticism, as to which
it may at least be said: _Adhuc sub iudice lis est._--TR.]

[158] Whether the legal position of the Jews in Alexandria is
warrantably traced back by Josephus (_contra Ap._ ii. 4) to Alexander
is so far doubtful, as, to the best of our knowledge, not he, but the
first Ptolemy, settled Jews in masses there (Josephus, _Arch._ xii. 1.;
Appian, _Syr._ 50). The remarkable similarity of form assumed by the
bodies of Jews in the different states of the Diadochi must, if it is
not based on Alexander’s ordinances, be traced to rivalry and imitation
in the founding of towns. The fact that Palestine was now Egyptian, now
Syrian, doubtless exercised an essential influence in the case of these
settlements.

[159] The community of Jews in Smyrna is mentioned in an inscription
recently found there (Reinach, _Revue des études juives_, 1883, p.
161): Ῥουφεῖνα Ἰουδαί(α) ἀρχισυναγωγὸς κατεσκεύασεν τὸ ἐνσόριον τοῖς
ἀπελευθέροις καὶ θρέμ(μ)ασιν μηδένος ἄλ(λ)ου ἐξουσίαν ἔχοντος θάψαι
τινά· εἰ δέ τις τολμήσει, δώσει τῷ ἱερωτάτῳ ταμείῳ (δηναρίους) ͵αφ, καὶ
τῷ ἔθνει τῶν Ἰουδαίων (δηναρίους) ͵α. Ταύτης τῆς ἐπιγραφῆς τὸ ἀντίγραφον
ἀποκεῖται εἰς τὸ ἀρχεῖον. Simple _collegia_ are, in penal threats of
this sort, not readily put on a level with the state or the community.

[160] If the Alexandrian Jews subsequently maintained that they
were legally on an equal footing with the Alexandrian Macedonians
(Josephus, _contra Ap._ ii. 4; _Bell. Jud._ ii. 18, 7) this was a
misrepresentation of the true state of the case. They were clients
in the first instance of the Phyle of the Macedonians, probably the
most eminent of all, and therefore named after Dionysos (Theophilus,
_ad Autolycum_, ii. 7), and, because the Jewish quarter was a part
of this Phyle, Josephus in his way makes themselves Macedonians. The
legal position of the population of the Greek towns of this category
is most clearly apparent from the account of Strabo (in Josephus,
_Arch._ xiv. 7, 2) as to the four categories of that of Cyrene:
city-burgesses, husbandmen (γεωργοί), strangers, and Jews. If we lay
aside the _metoeci_, who have their legal home elsewhere, there remain
as Cyrenaeans having rights in their home the burgesses of full rights,
that is, the Hellenes and what were allowed to pass as such, and the
two categories of those excluded from active burgess-rights--the Jews,
who form a community of their own, and the subjects, the Libyans,
without autonomy. This might easily be so shifted, that the two
privileged categories should appear as having equal rights.

[161] Pseudo-Longinus, περὶ ὕψους, 9: “Far better than the war of
the gods in Homer is the description of the gods in their perfection
and genuine greatness and purity, like that of Poseidon (_Ilias_,
xiii. 18 ff.). Just so writes the legislator of the Jews, no mean man
(οὐχ ὁ τυχὼν ἀνήρ), after he has worthily apprehended and brought
to expression the Divine power, at the very beginning of the Laws
(_Genesis_, i. 3): ‘God said’--what? ‘Let there be light, and there was
light; let the earth be, and the earth was.’”

[162] The Jew Philo sets down the treatment of the Jews in Italy to the
account of Sejanus (_Leg._ 24; _in Flacc._ 1), that of the Jews in the
East to the account of the emperor himself. But Josephus rather traces
back what happened in Italy to a scandal in the capital, which had been
occasioned by three Jewish pious swindlers and a lady of rank converted
to Judaism; and Philo himself states that Tiberius, after the fall of
Sejanus, allowed to the governors only certain modifications in the
procedure against the Jews. The policy of the emperor and that of his
ministers towards the Jews was essentially the same.

[163] Agrippa II., who enumerates the Jewish settlements abroad (in
Philo, _Leg. ad Gaium_, 36), names no country westward of Greece, and
among the strangers sojourning in Jerusalem, whom the Book of Acts, ii.
5 f., records, only Romans are named from the West.

[164] Antipater began his career as governor (στρατηγός) of Idumaea
(Josephus, _Arch._ xiv. 1, 3), and is there called administrator of
the Jewish kingdom (ὁ τῶν Ἰουδαίων ἐπιμελητής Joseph. _Arch._ xiv.
8, 1), that is, nearly first minister. More is not implied in the
narrative of Josephus coloured with flattery towards Rome as towards
Herod (_Arch._ xiv. 8, 5; _Bell. Jud._ i. 10, 3), that Caesar had
left to Antipater the option of himself determining his position of
power (δυναστεία), and, when the latter left the decision with him,
had appointed him administrator (ἐπίτροπος) of Judaea. This is not,
as Marquardt, _Staatsalth._ v. 1, 408, would have it, the (at that
time not yet existing) Roman procuratorship of the imperial period,
but an office formally conferred by the Jewish ethnarch, an
ἐπιτροπή, like that mentioned by Josephus, _Bell. Jud._ ii. 18, 6. In
the official documents of Caesar’s time the high priest and ethnarch
Hyrcanus alone represents the Jews; Caesar gave to Antipater what could
be granted to the subjects of a dependent state, Roman burgess-rights
and personal immunity (Josephus, _Arch._ xiv. 8, 3; _Bell. Jud._ i. 9,
5), but he did not make him an official of Rome. That Herod, driven out
of Judaea, obtained from the Romans a Roman officer’s post possibly in
Samaria, is credible; but the designations στρατηγὸς τῆς Κοίλης Συρίας
(Josephus, _Arch._ xiv. 9, 5, c. 11, 4), or στρατηγὸς Κοίλης Συρίας καὶ
Σαμαρείας (_Bell. Jud._ i. 10, 8) are at least misleading, and with as
much incorrectness the same author names Herod subsequently, for the
reason that he is to serve as counsellor τοῖς ἐπιτροπεύουσι τῆς Συρίας
(_Arch._ xv. 10, 3), even Συρίας ὅλης ἐπίτροπον (_Bell. Jud._ i. 20,
4), where Marquardt’s change, _Staatsalth._ v. i. 408, Κοίλης destroys
the sense.

[165] In the decree of Caesar in Josephus, _Arch._ xiv. 10, 5, 6,
the reading which results from Epiphanius is the only possible
one; according to this the land is freed from the tribute (imposed
by Pompeius; Josephus, _Arch._ xiv. 4, 4) from the second year of
the current lease onward, and it is further ordained that the town
of Joppa, which at that time passed over from Roman into Jewish
possession, should continue indeed to deliver the fourth part of
field-fruits at Sidon to the Romans, but for that there should be
granted to Hyrcanus, likewise at Sidon, as an equivalent annually
20,675 bushels of grain, besides which the people of Joppa paid also
the tenth to Hyrcanus. The whole narrative otherwise shows that
the Jewish state was thenceforth free from payment of tribute; the
circumstance that Herod pays φόροι from the districts assigned to
Cleopatra which he leases from her (_Arch._ xv. 4, 2, 4, c. 5, 3) only
confirms the rule. If Appian, _B. C._ v. 75, adduces among the kings
on whom Antonius laid tribute Herod for Idumaea and Samaria, Judaea is
not absent here without good reason; and even for these accessory lands
the tribute may have been remitted to him by Augustus. The detailed and
trustworthy account as to the census enjoined by Quirinius shows with
entire clearness that the land was hitherto free from Roman tribute.

[166] In the same decree it is said: καὶ ὅπως μηδεὶς μήτε ἄρχων μήτε
στρατηγὸς ἢ πρεσβευτὴς ἐν τοῖς ὅροις τῶν Ἰουδαίων ἀνιστᾷ (“perhaps
συνιστᾷ” Wilamowitz) συμμαχίαν καὶ στρατιώτας ἐξιῇ (so
Wilamowitz, for ἐξείη) ἢ τὰ χρήματα τούτων εἰσπράττεσθαι ἢ εἰς
παραχειμασίαν ἢ ἄλλῳ τινὶ ὀνόματι, ἀλλ’ εἶναι πανταχόθεν ἀνεπηρεάστους
(comp. _Arch._ xiv. 10, 2: παραχειμασίαν δὲ καὶ χρήματα πράττεσθαι
οὐ δοκιμάζω). This corresponds in the main to the formula of the
charter, a little older, for Termessus (_C. I. L._ i. n. 204): _nei
quis magistratu prove magistratu legatus ne[ive] quis alius meilites
in oppidum Thermesum ... agrumve ... hiemandi caussa introducito ...
nisei senatus nominatim utei Thermesum ... in hibernacula meilites
deducantur decreverit_. The marching through is accordingly allowed.
In the Privilegium for Judaea the levy seems, moreover, to have been
prohibited.

[167] This title, which primarily denotes the collegiate tetrarchate,
such as was usual among the Galatians, was then more generally
employed for the rule of all together, nay, even for the rule of one,
but always as in rank inferior to that of king. In this way, besides
Galatia, it appears also in Syria, perhaps from the time of Pompeius,
certainly from that of Augustus. The juxtaposition of an ethnarch and
two tetrarchs, as it was arranged in the year 713 {41 B.C.} for
Judaea, according to Josephus (_Arch._ xiv. 13, 1; _Bell. Jud._ i. 12,
5), is not again met with elsewhere; Pherores tetrarch of Peraea under
his brother Herodes (_Bell. Jud._ i. 24, 5) is analogous.

[168] The statement of Josephus that Judaea was attached to the
province of Syria and placed under its governor (_Arch._ xvii _fin._:
τοῦ δὲ Ἀρχελάου χώρας ὑποτελοῦς προσνεμηθείσης τῇ Σύρων; xviii. 1, 1:
εἰς τὴν Ἰουδαίων προσθήκην τῆς Συρίας γενομένην; c. 4, 6) appears to
be incorrect; on the contrary, Judaea probably formed thenceforth a
procuratorial province of itself. An exact distinction between the _de
iure_ and _de facto_ interference of the Syrian governor may not be
expected in the case of Josephus. The fact that he organised the new
province and conducted the first census does not decide the question
what arrangement was assigned to it. Where the Jews complain of their
procurator to the governor of Syria and the latter interferes against
him, the procurator is certainly dependent on the legate; but, when
L. Vitellius did this (Josephus, _Arch._ xviii. 4, 2), his power
extended in quite an extraordinary way over the province (Tacitus,
_Ann._ vi. 32; _Staatsrecht_, ii. 822), and in the other case the
words of Tacitus, _Ann._ xii. 54: _quia Claudius ius statuendi etiam
de procuratoribus dederat_, show that the governor of Syria could not
have pronounced such a judgment in virtue of his general jurisdiction.
Both the _ius gladii_ of these procurators (Josephus, _Bell. Jud._ ii.
8, 1: μέχρι τοῦ κτείνειν λαβὼν παρὰ τοῦ Καίσαρος ἐξουσίαν, _Arch._
xviii. 1, 1; ἡγησόμενος Ἰουδαίων τῇ ἐπὶ πᾶσιν ἐξουσίᾳ) and their whole
demeanour show that they did not belong to those who, placed under an
imperial legate, attended only to financial affairs, but rather, like
the procurators of Noricum and Raetia, formed the supreme authority for
the administration of law and the command of the army. Thus the legates
of Syria had there only the position which those of Pannonia had in
Noricum and the upper German legate in Raetia. This corresponds also
to the general development of matters; all the larger kingdoms were on
their annexation not attached to the neighbouring large governorships,
whose plenitude of power it was not the tendency of this epoch to
enlarge, but were made into independent governorships, mostly at first
equestrian.

[169] According to Josephus (_Arch._ xx. 8, 7, more exact than _Bell.
Jud._ ii. 13, 7) the greatest part of the Roman troops in Palestine
consisted of Caesareans and Sebastenes. The _ala Sebastenorum_ fought
in the Jewish war under Vespasian (Josephus, _Bell. Jud._ ii. 12,
5). Comp. _Eph. epigr._ v. 194. There are no _alae_ and _cohortes
Iudaeorum_.

[170] The revenues of Herod amounted, according to Josephus, _Arch._
xvii. 11, 4, to about 1200 talents, whereof about 100 fell to Batanaea
with the adjoining lands, 200 to Galilee and Peraea, the rest to the
share of Archelaus; in this doubtless the older Hebrew talent (of about
£390) is meant, not, as Hultsch (Metrol. ^2, p. 605) assumes, the
denarial talent (of about £260), as the revenues of the same territory
under Claudius are estimated in the same Josephus (_Arch._ xix. 8, 2),
at 12,000,000 denarii (about £500,000). The chief item in it was formed
by the land-tax, the amount of which we do not know; in the Syrian
time it amounted at least for a time to the third part of corn and
the half of wine and oil (1 Maccab. x. 30), in Caesar’s time for Joppa
a fourth of the fruit (p. 175, note), besides which at that time the
temple-tenth still existed. To this was added a number of other taxes
and customs, auction-charges, salt-tax, road and bridge moneys, and the
like; it is to these that the publicans of the Gospels have reference.

[171] On the marble screen (δρύφακτος), which marked off the inner
court of the temple, were placed for that reason tablets of warning
in the Latin and Greek language (Josephus, _Bell. Jud._ v. 5, 2; vi.
2, 4; _Arch._ xv. 11, 5). One of the latter, which has recently been
found (_Revue Archéologique_, xxiii. 1872, p. 220), and is now in the
public museum of Constantinople, is to this effect: μήθ’ ἕνα ἀλλογενῆ
εἰσπορεύεσθαι ἐντὸς τοῦ περὶ τὸ ἱερὸν τρυφάκτου καὶ περιβόλου. ὃς
δ’ ἂν ληφθῆ, ἑαυτῷ αἴτιος ἔσται διὰ τὸ ἐξακολουθεῖν θάνατον. The iota
in the dative is present, and the writing good and suitable for the
early imperial period. These tablets were hardly set up by the Jewish
kings, who would scarcely have added a Latin text, and had no cause to
threaten the penalty of death with this singular anonymity. If they
were set up by the Roman government, both are explained; Titus also
says (in Josephus, _Bell. Jud._ vi. 2, 4), in an appeal to the Jews:
οὐχ ἡμεῖς τοὺς ὑπερβάντας ὑμῖν ἀναιρεῖν ἐπετρέψαμεν, κἂν Ῥωμαῖός τις
ᾖ;--If the tablet really bears traces of axe-cuts, these came from the
soldiers of Titus.

[172] The special hatred of Gaius against the Jews (Philo, _Leg._ 20)
was not the cause, but the consequence, of the Alexandrian Jew-hunt.
Since therefore the understanding of the leaders of the Jew-hunt
with the governor (Philo, _in Flacc._ 4) cannot have subsisted on
the footing that the Jews imagined, because the governor could not
reasonably believe that he would recommend himself to the new emperor
by abandoning the Jews, the question certainly arises, why the leaders
of those hostile to the Jews chose this very moment for the Jew-hunt,
and above all, why the governor, whose excellence Philo so emphatically
acknowledges, allowed it, and, at least in its further course, took
personal part in it. Probably things occurred as they are narrated
above: hatred and envy towards the Jews had long been fermenting in
Alexandria (Josephus, _Bell. Jud._ ii. 18, 9; Philo, _Leg._ 18); the
abeyance of the old stern government, and the evident disfavour in
which the prefect stood with Gaius, gave room for the tumult; the
arrival of Agrippa furnished the occasion; the adroit conversion of the
synagogues into temples of Gaius stamped the Jews as enemies of the
emperor, and, after this was done, Flaccus must certainly have seized
on the persecution to rehabilitate himself thereby with the emperor.

[173] When Strabo was in Egypt in the earlier Augustan period the Jews
in Alexandria were under an Ethnarch (_Geogr._ xvii. 1, 13, p. 798,
and in Josephus, _Arch._ xiv. 7, 2). Thereupon, when under Augustus
the Ethnarchos or Genarchos, as he was called, died, a council of the
elders took his place (Philo, _Leg._ 10); yet Augustus, as Claudius
states (Josephus, _Arch._ xix. 5, 2), “did not prohibit the Jews from
appointing an Ethnarch,” which probably is meant to signify that the
choice of a single president was only omitted for this time, not
abolished once for all. Under Gaius there were evidently only elders of
the Jewish body; and also under Vespasian these are met with (Josephus,
_Bell._ vii. 10, 1). An archon of the Jews in Antioch is named in
Josephus, _Bell._ vii. 3, 3.

[174] Apion spoke and wrote on all and sundry matters, upon the
metals and the Roman letters, on magic and concerning the Hetaerae,
on the early history of Egypt and the cookery receipts of Apicius;
but above all he made his fortune by his discourses upon Homer, which
acquired for him honorary citizenship in numerous Greek cities. He had
discovered that Homer had begun his Iliad with the unsuitable word
μῆνις for the reason that the first two letters, as numerals, exhibit
the number of the books of the two epics which he was to write; he
named the guest-friend in Ithaca, with whom he had made inquiries as
to the draught-board of the suitors; indeed he affirmed that he had
conjured up Homer himself from the nether world to question him about
his native country, and that Homer had come and had told it to him, but
had bound him not to betray it to others.

[175] The writings of Philo, which bring before us this whole
catastrophe with incomparable reality, nowhere strike this chord; but,
apart even from the fact that this rich and aged man had in him more of
the good man than of the good hater, it is obvious of itself that these
consequences of the occurrences on the Jewish side were not publicly
set forth. What the Jews thought and felt may not be judged of by what
they found it convenient to say, particularly in their works written
in Greek. If the Book of Wisdom and the third book of Maccabees are
in reality directed against the Alexandrian persecution of the Jews
(Hausrath, _Neutestam. Zeitgesch._ ii. 259 ff.)--which we may add is
anything but certain--they are, if possible, couched in a still tamer
tone than the writings of Philo.

[176] This is perhaps the right way of apprehending the Jewish
conceptions, in which the positive facts regularly run away into
generalities. In the accounts of the Anti-Messias and of the Antichrist
no positive elements are found to suit the emperor Gaius; the view
that would explain the name Armillus, which the Talmud assigns to
the former, by the circumstance that the emperor Gaius sometimes
wore women’s bracelets (_armillae_, Suetonius, _Gai._ 52), cannot
be seriously maintained. In the Apocalypse of John--the classical
revelation of Jewish self-esteem and of hatred towards the Romans--the
picture of the Anti-Messias is associated rather with Nero, who did not
cause his image to be set up in the Holy of Holies. This composition
belongs, as is well known, to a time and a tendency, which still viewed
Christianity as essentially a Jewish sect; those elected and marked
by the angel are all Jews, 12,000 from each of the twelve tribes, and
have precedence over the “great multitude of other righteous ones,”
_i.e._ of proselytes (ch. vii.; comp. ch. xii. 1). It was written,
demonstrably, after Nero’s fall, and when his return from the East was
expected. Now it is true that a pseudo-Nero appeared immediately after
the death of the real one, and was executed at the beginning of the
following year (Tacitus, _Hist._ ii. 8, 9); but it is not of this one
that John is thinking, for the very exact account makes no mention,
as John does, of the Parthians in the matter, and for John there is
a considerable interval between the fall of Nero and his return, the
latter even still lying in the future. His Nero is the person who,
under Vespasian, found adherents in the region of the Euphrates, whom
king Artabanus acknowledged under Titus and prepared to reinstate in
Rome by military force, and whom at length the Parthians surrendered,
after prolonged negotiations, about the year 88, to Domitian. To these
events the Apocalypse corresponds quite exactly.

On the other hand, in a writing of this character no inference as to
the state of the siege at the time can possibly be drawn, from the
circumstance that, according to xi. 1, 2, only the outer court, and
not the Holy of Holies of the Temple of Jerusalem was given into the
power of the heathen; here everything in the details is imaginary, and
this trait is certainly either invented at pleasure or, if the view
be preferred, possibly based on orders given to the Roman soldiers,
who were encamped in Jerusalem after its destruction, not to set
foot in what was formerly the Holy of Holies. The foundation of the
Apocalypse is indisputably the destruction of the earthly Jerusalem,
and the prospect thereby for the first time opened up of its future
ideal restoration; in place of the razing of the city which had taken
place there cannot possibly be put the mere expectation of its capture.
If, then, it is said of the seven heads of the dragon: βασιλεῖς ἑπτά
εἰσιν· οἱ πέντε ἔπεσαν, ὁ εἷς ἔστιν, ὁ ἄλλος οὔπω ἦλθεν, καὶ ὅταν
ἔλθῃ ὀλίγον αὐτὸν δεῖ μεῖναι (xvii. 10), the five, presumably, are
Augustus, Tiberius, Gaius, Claudius, Nero, the sixth Vespasian, the
seventh undefined; “the beast which was, and is not, and is itself the
eighth, but of the seven,” is, of course, Nero. The undefined seventh
is incongruous, like so much in this gorgeous, but contradictory and
often tangled imagery; and it is added, not because the number seven
was employed, which was easily to be got at by including Caesar, but
because the writer hesitated to predicate immediately of the reigning
emperor the short government of the last ruler and his overthrow by
the returning Nero. But one cannot possibly--as is done after others
by Renan--by including Caesar in the reckoning, recognise in the sixth
emperor, “who is,” Nero, who immediately afterward is designated as he
who “was and is not,” and in the seventh, who “has not yet come and
will not rule long,” even the aged Galba, who, according to Renan’s
view, was ruling at the time. It is clear that the latter does not
belong at all to such a series, any more than Otho and Vitellius.

It is more important, however, to oppose the current conception,
according to which the polemic is directed against the Neronian
persecution of the Christians and the siege or the destruction
of Jerusalem, whereas it is pointed against the Roman provincial
government generally, and in particular against the worship of the
emperors. If of the seven emperors Nero alone is named (by his
numerical expression), this is so, not because he was the worst of
the seven, but because the naming of the reigning emperor, while
prophesying a speedy end of his reign in a published writing, had its
risk, and some consideration towards the one “who is” beseems even
a prophet. Nero’s name was given up, and besides, the legend of his
healing and of his return was in every one’s mouth; thereby he has
become for the Apocalypse the representative of the Roman imperial
rule, and the Antichrist. The crime of the monster of the sea, and of
his image and instrument, the monster of the land, is not the violence
to the city of Jerusalem (xi. 2)--which appears not as their misdeed,
but rather as a portion of the world-judgment (in which case also
consideration for the reigning emperor may have been at work)--but
the divine worship, which the heathen pay to the monster of the sea
(xiii. 8: προσκυνήσουσιν αὐτὸν πάντες οἱ κατοικοῦντες ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς),
and which the monster of the land--called for that reason also the
pseudo-prophet--demands and compels for that of the sea (xiii. 12:
ποιεῖ τὴν γῆν καὶ τοὺς κατοικοῦντας ἐν αὐτῇ ἵνα προσκυνήσουσιν τὸ
θηρίον τὸ πρῶτον, οὗ ἐθεραπεύθη ἡ πληγὴ τοῦ θανάτου αὐτοῦ); above all,
he is upbraided with the desire to make an image for the former (xiii.
14: λέγων τοῖς κατοικοῦσιν ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς, ποιῆσαι εἰκόνα τῷ θηρίῳ ὃς
ἔχει τὴν πληγὴν τῆς μαχαίρης καὶ ἔζησεν, comp. xiv. 9; xvi. 2; xix.
20). This, it is plain, is partly the imperial government beyond the
sea, partly the lieutenancy on the Asiatic continent, not of this
or that province or even of this or that person, but generally such
representation of the emperor as the provincials of Asia and Syria
knew. If trade and commerce appear associated with the use of the
χάραγμα of the monster of the sea (xiii. 16, 17), there lies clearly
at bottom an abhorrence of the image and legend of the imperial
money--certainly transformed in a fanciful way, as in fact Satan makes
the image of the emperor speak. These very governors appear afterwards
(xvii.) as the ten horns, which are assigned to the monster in its
copy, and are here called, quite correctly, the “ten kings, which have
not the royal dignity, but have authority like kings;” the number,
which is taken over from the vision of Daniel, may not, it is true, be
taken too strictly.

In the sentences of death pronounced over the righteous, John is
thinking of the regular judicial procedure on account of the refusal
to worship the emperor’s image, such as the Letters of Pliny describe
(xiii. 15: ποιήσῃ ἵνα ὅσοι ἐὰν μὴ προσκυνήσωσιν τὴν εἰκόνα τοῦ
θηρίου ἀποκτανθῶσιν, comp. vi. 9; xx. 4). When stress is laid on
these sentences of death being executed with special frequency in
Rome (xvii. 6; xvii. 24), what is thereby meant is the execution of
sentences wherein men were condemned to fight as gladiators or with
wild beasts, which often could not take place on the spot where they
were pronounced, and, as is well known, took place chiefly in Rome
itself (Modestinus, _Dig._ xlviii. 19, 31). The Neronian executions on
account of alleged incendiarism do not formally belong to the class of
religious processes at all, and it is only prepossession that can refer
the martyrs’ blood shed in Rome, of which John speaks, exclusively
or pre-eminently to these events. The current conceptions as to the
so-called persecutions of the Christians labour under a defective
apprehension of the rule of law and the practice of law subsisting
in the Roman empire; in reality the persecution of the Christians
was a standing matter as was that of robbers; only such regulations
were put into practice at times more gently or even negligently, at
other times more strictly, and were doubtless on occasion specially
enforced from high quarters. The “war against the saints” is only a
subsequent interpolation on the part of some, for whom John’s words
did not suffice (xiii. 7). The Apocalypse is a remarkable evidence of
the national and religious hatred of the Jews towards the Occidental
government; but to illustrate with these colours the Neronian tale of
horrors, as Renan does in particular, is to shift the place of the
facts and to detract from their depth of significance. The Jewish
national hatred did not wait for the conquest of Jerusalem to originate
it, and it made, as might be expected, no distinction between the good
and the bad Caesar; its Anti-Messias is named Nero, doubtless, but not
less Vespasian or Marcus.

[177] The circumstance that Suetonius (_Claud._ 25) names a certain
Chrestus as instigator of the constant troubles in Rome, that had
in the first instance called forth these measures (according to him
the expulsion from Rome; in contrast to Dio, lx. 6) has been without
sufficient reason conceived as a misunderstanding of the movement
called forth by Christ among Jews and proselytes. The Book of Acts
xviii. 2, speaks only of the expulsion of the Jews. At any rate it
is not to be doubted that, with the attitude at that time of the
Christians to Judaism, they too fell under the edict.

[178] The Jews there at least appear later to have had only the fourth
of the five wards of the city in their possession (Josephus, _Bell.
Jud._ ii. 18, 8). Probably, if the 400 houses that were razed had been
given back again to them in so striking a manner, the Jewish authors
Josephus and Philo, who lay stress on all the imperial marks of favour
shown to the Jews, would not have been silent on the subject.

[179] The question was, apparently, whether the gift of the tenth
sheaf belonged to Aaron the priest (Numb. xviii. 28), to the priest
generally, or to the high-priest (Ewald, _Jüd. Gesch._ vi.^3 635).

[180] It is nothing but an empty fancy, when the statesman Josephus,
in his preface to his History of the war, puts it as if the Jews
of Palestine had reckoned on the one hand upon a rising of the
Euphrates-lands, on the other hand, upon the troubles in Gaul and the
threatening attitude of the Germans and on the crises of the year of
four emperors. The Jewish war had long been in full course when Vindex
appeared against Nero, and the Druids really did what is here assigned
to the Rabbis; and, however great was the importance of the Jewish
Diaspora in the lands of the Euphrates, a Jewish expedition from that
quarter against the Romans of the East was almost as inconceivable as
from Egypt and Asia Minor. Doubtless some free-lances came from thence,
as _e.g._ some young princes of the zealously Jewish royal house of
Adiabene (Josephus, _Bell. Jud._ ii. 19, 2; vi. 6, 4), and suppliant
embassies went thither from the insurgents (_ib._ vi. 6, 2); but even
money hardly flowed to the Jews from this quarter in any considerable
amount. This statement is characteristic of the author more than of the
war. If it is easy to understand how the Jewish leader of insurgents
and subsequent courtier of the Flavians was fond of comparing himself
with the Parthians exiled at Rome, it is the less to be excused that
modern historical authorship should walk in similar paths, and in
endeavouring to apprehend these events as constituent parts of the
history of the Roman court and city or even of the Romano-Parthian
quarrels, should by this insipid introduction of so-called great policy
obscure the fearful necessity of this tragic development.

[181] Josephus (_Arch._ xx. 8, 9), makes him indeed secretary of Nero
for Greek correspondence, although he, where he follows Roman sources
(xx. 8, 2), designates him correctly as prefect; but certainly the same
person is meant. He is called παιδαγωγός with him as with Tacitus,
_Ann._ xiii. 2: _rector imperatoriae iuventae_.

[182] It is not quite clear what were the arrangements for the forces
occupying Syria after the Parthian war was ended in the year 63. At
its close there were seven legions stationed in the East, the four
originally Syrian, 3d Gallica, 6th Ferrata, 10th Fretensis, 12th
Fulminata, and three brought up from the West, the 4th Scythica from
Moesia (I. 213), the 5th Macedonica, probably from the same place (I.
219; for which probably an upper German legion was sent to Moesia I.
132), the 15th Apollinaris from Pannonia (I. 219). Since, excepting
Syria, no Asiatic province was at that time furnished with legions,
and the governor of Syria certainly in times of peace had never more
than four legions, the Syrian army beyond doubt had at that time been
brought back, or at least ought to have been brought back, to this
footing. The four legions which accordingly were to remain in Syria
were, as this was most natural, the four old Syrian ones; for the
3d had in the year 70 just marched from Syria to Moesia (Suetonius,
_Vesp._ 6; Tacitus, _Hist._ ii. 74), and that the 6th, 10th, 12th
belonged to the army of Cestius follows from Josephus, _Bell. Jud._
ii. 18, 9, c. 19, 7; vii. 1, 3. Then, when the Jewish war broke out,
seven legions were again destined for Asia, and of these four for Syria
(Tacitus, _Hist._ i. 10), three for Palestine; the three legions added
were just those employed for the Parthian war, the 4th, 5th, 15th,
which perhaps at that time were still in course of marching back to
their old quarters. The 4th probably went at that time definitively to
Syria, where it thenceforth remained; on the other hand, the Syrian
army gave off the 10th to Vespasian, presumably because this had
suffered least in the campaign of Cestius. In addition he received the
5th and the 15th. The 5th and the 10th legions came from Alexandria
(Josephus, _Bell. Jud._ iii. 1, 3, c. 4, 2); but that they were brought
up from Egypt cannot well be conceived, not merely because the 10th
was one of the Syrian, but especially because the march by land from
Alexandria on the Nile to Ptolemais through the middle of the insurgent
territory at the beginning of the Jewish war could not have been
so narrated by Josephus. Far more probably Titus went by ship from
Achaia to Alexandria on the Gulf of Issus, the modern Alexandretta,
and brought the two legions thence to Ptolemais. The orders to march
may have reached the 15th somewhere in Asia Minor, since Vespasian,
doubtless in order to take them over, went to Syria by land (Josephus,
_Bell. Jud._ iii. 1, 3). To these three legions, with which Vespasian
began the war, there was added under Titus a further one of the
Syrian, the 12th. Of the four legions that occupied Jerusalem the two
previously Syrian remained in the East, the 10th in Judaea, the 12th in
Cappadocia, while the 5th returned to Moesia, and the 15th to Pannonia
(Josephus, _Bell. Jud._ vii. 1, 3 c. 5, 3).

[183] To the three legions there belonged five _alae_ and eighteen
cohorts, and the army of Palestine consisting of one _ala_ and five
cohorts. These _auxilia_ numbered accordingly 3000 alarians and (since
among the twenty-three cohorts ten were 1000 strong, thirteen 720,
or probably rather only 420 strong; for instead of the startling
ἑξακοσίους we expect rather τριακοσίους ἑξάκοντα) 16,240 (or, if 720 is
retained, 19,360) cohortales. To these fell to be added 1000 horsemen
from each of the four kings, and 5000 Arabian archers, with 2000 from
each of the other three kings. This gives together--reckoning the
legion at 6000 men--52,240 men, and so towards 60,000, as Josephus
(_Bell. Jud._ iii. 4, 2) says. But as the divisions are thus all
calculated at the utmost normal strength, the effective aggregate
number can hardly be estimated at 50,000. These numbers of Josephus
appear in the main trustworthy, just as the analogous ones for the army
of Cestius (_Bell. Jud._ ii. 18, 9); whereas his figures, resting on
the census, are throughout measured after the scale of the smallest
village in Galilee numbering 15,000 inhabitants (_Bell. Jud._ iii. 3,
2), and are historically as useless as the figures of Falstaff. It is
but seldom, _e.g._ at the siege of Jotapata, that we recognise reported
numbers.

[184] This arch was erected to Titus after his death by the imperial
senate. Another, dedicated to him during his short government by the
same senate in the circus (_C. I. L._ vi. 944) specifies even with
express words as the ground of erecting the monument, “because he,
according to the precept and direction and under the superintendence
of his father, subdued the people of the Jews and destroyed the town
of Hierusolyma, which up to his time had either been besieged in
vain by all generals, kings, and peoples, or not assailed at all.”
The historic knowledge of this singular document, which ignores not
merely Nebuchadnezzar and Antiochus Epiphanes, but their own Pompeius,
stands on the same level with its extravagance in the praise of a very
ordinary feat of arms.

[185] The account of Josephus, that Titus with his council of war
resolved not to destroy the temple, excites suspicion by the manifest
intention of it, and, as the use made of Tacitus in the chronicle of
Sulpicius Severus is completely proved by Bernays, it may certainly
well be a question whether his quite opposite account (_Chron._ ii.
30, 6), that the council of war had resolved to destroy the temple,
does not proceed from Tacitus, and whether the preference is not to be
given to it, although it bears traces of Christian revision. This view
further commends itself through the fact that the dedication addressed
to Vespasian of the Argonautica of the poet Valerius Flaccus celebrates
the victor of Solyma, who hurls the fiery torches.

[186] That the emperor took this land for himself (ἰδίαν αὐτῷ τὴν χώραν
φυλάττων) is stated by Josephus, _Bell. Jud._ vii. 6, 6; not in accord
with this is his command πᾶσαν γῆν ἀποδόσθαι τῶν Ἰουδαίων (_l. c._), in
which doubtless there lurks an error or a copyist’s mistake. It is in
keeping with the expropriation that land was by way of grace assigned
elsewhere to individual Jewish landowners (Josephus, _vit._ 16). We
may add that the territory was probably employed as an endowment for
the legion stationed there (_Eph. epigr._ ii. n. 696; Tacitus, _Ann._
xiii. 54).

[187] Eusebius, _H. E._ iv. 2, puts the outbreak on the 18th, and so,
according to his reckoning (in the Chronicle), the penultimate year of
Trajan; and therewith Dio, lxviii. 32, agrees.

[188] Eusebius himself (in Syncellus) says only: Ἀδριανὸς Ἰουδαίους
κατὰ Ἀλεξανδρέων στασιάζοντας ἐκόλασεν. The Armenian and Latin
translations appear to have erroneously made out of this a restoration
of Alexandria destroyed by the Jews, of which Eusebius, _H. E._ iv. 2,
and Dio, lxviii. 32, know nothing.

[189] This is shown by the expressions of Dio, lxix. 13: οἱ ἁπανταχοῦ
γῆς Ἰουδαῖοι and πάσης ὡς εἰπεῖν κινουμένης ἐπὶ τούτῳ τῆς οἰκουμένης.

[190] If, according to the contemporary Appian (_Syr._ 50), Hadrian
once more destroyed (κατέσκαψε) the town, this proves as well that it
was preceded by an at least in some measure complete formation of the
colony, as that it was captured by the insurgents. Only thereby is
explained the great loss which the Romans suffered (Fronto, _de bello
Parth._ p. 218 Nab.: _Hadriano imperium obtinente quantum militum a
Iudaesis ... caesum_; Dio, lxix. 14); and it accords at least well
with this, that the governor of Syria, Publicius Marcellus, left his
province to bring help to his colleague Tineius Rufus (Eusebius, _H.
E._ iv. 6; Borghesi, _Opp._ iii. 64), in Palestine (_C. I. Gr._ 4033,
4034).

[191] That the coins with this name belong to the Hadrianic
insurrection is now proved (v. Sallet, _Zeitschr. für Numism._ v.
110); this is consequently the Rabbi Eleazar from Modein of the Jewish
accounts (Ewald, _Gesch. Isr._ vii.^2, 418; Schürer, _Lehrbuch_, p.
357). That the Simon whom these coins name partly with Eleazar, partly
alone, is the Bar-Kokheba of Justin Martyr and Eusebius is at least
very probable.

[192] Dio (lxix. 12) calls the war protracted (οὔτ’ ὀλιγοχρόνιος);
Eusebius in his Chronicle puts its beginning in the sixteenth, its
end in the eighteenth or nineteenth year of Hadrian; the coins of the
insurgents are dated from the first or from the second year of the
deliverance of Israel. We have not trustworthy dates; the Rabbinic
tradition (Schürer, _Lehrbuch_, p. 361) is not available in this
respect.

[193] Biography of Alexander, c. 22: _Iudaeis privilegia reservavit,
Christianos esse passus est_. Clearly the privileged position of the
Jews as compared with the Christians comes here to light--a position,
which certainly rests in its turn on the fact that the former represent
a nation the latter do not.

[194] In order to make good that even in bondage the Jews were able to‘’“”
exercise a certain self-administration, Origen (about the year 226)
writes to Africanus, c. 14: “How much even now, where the Romans rule
and the Jews pay to them the tribute (τὸ δίδραχμον), has the president
of the people (ὁ ἐθνάρχης) among them in his power with permission
of the emperor (συγχωροῦντος Καίσαρος)? Even courts are secretly
held according to the law, and even on various occasions sentence of
death is pronounced. This I, who have long lived in the land of this
people, have myself experienced and ascertained.” The patriarch of
Judaea already makes his appearance in the letter forged in the name
of Hadrian in the biography of the tyrant Saturninus (c. 8), in the
ordinances first in the year 392 (_C. Th._ xvi. 8, 8). Patriarchs as
presidents of individual Jewish communities, for which the word from
its signification is better adapted, meet us already in the ordinances
of Constantine I. (_C. Th._ xvi. 8, 1, 2).

[195] The jurists of the third century lay down this rule, appealing to
an edict of Severus (_Dig._ xxvii. 1, 15, 6; l. 2, 3, 3). According to
the ordinance of the year 321 (_C. Th._ xvi. 8, 3) this appears even
as a right, not as a duty of the Jews, so that it depended on them to
undertake or decline the office.

[196] The analogous treatment of castration in the Hadrianic edict,
_Dig._ xlviii. 8, 4, 2, and of circumcision in Paulus, _Sent._ v. 22,
3, 4, and Modestinus, _Dig._ xlviii. 8, 11 pr., naturally suggests this
point of view. The statement that Severus _Judaeos fieri sub gravi
poena vetuit_ (_Vita_, 17), is doubtless nothing but the enforcement of
this prohibition.

[197] The remarkable account in Origen’s treatise _against Celsus_,
ii. 13 (written about 250), shows that the circumcision of the non-Jew
involved _de iure_ the penalty of death, although it is not clear how
far this found application to Samaritans or Sicarii.

[198] This exclusion of the joint rule of the senate as of the senators
is indicated by Tacitus (_Hist._ i. 11) with the words that Augustus
wished to have Egypt administered exclusively by his personal servants
(_domi retinere_; comp. _Staatsrecht_, ii. p. 963). In principle this
abnormal form of government was applicable for all the provinces not
administered by senators, the presidents of which were also at the
outset called chiefly _praefecti_ (_C. I. L._ v. p. 809, 902). But
at the first division of the provinces between emperor and senate
there was probably no other of these but just Egypt; and subsequently
the distinction here came into sharper prominence, in so far as all
the other provinces of this category obtained no legions. For in the
emergence of the equestrian commandants of the legion instead of the
senatorial, as was the rule in Egypt, the exclusion of the senatorial
government finds its most palpable expression.

[199] This ordinance holds only for Egypt, not for the other
territories administered by non-senators. How essential it appeared to
the government, we see from the constitutional and religious apparatus
called into requisition to secure it (_Trig. tyr._ c. 22).

[200] The current assertion that _provincia_ is only by an abuse of
language put for the districts not administered by senators is not
well founded. Egypt was private property of the emperor just as much
or just as little as Gaul and Syria--yet Augustus himself says (_Mon.
Ancyr._ 5, 24) _Aegyptum imperio populi Romani adieci_, and assigns
to the governor, since he as _eques_ could not be _pro praetore_, by
special law the same jurisdiction in processes as the Roman praetors
had (Tacitus, _Ann._ xii. 60).

[201] As a matter of course what is here meant is the land of Egypt,
not the possessions subject to the Lagids. Cyrene was similarly
organised (p. 165). But the properly Egyptian government was never
applied to southern Syria and to the other territories which were for a
longer or a shorter time under the power of Egypt.

[202] To these falls to be added Naucratis, the oldest Greek town
already founded in Egypt before the Ptolemies, and further Paraetonium,
which indeed in some measure lies beyond the bounds of Egypt.

[203] There was not wanting of course a certain joint action, similar
to that which is exercised by the _regiones_ and the _vici_ of
self-administering urban communities; to this category belongs what
we meet with of agoranomy and gymnasiarchy in the nomes, as also the
erection of honorary memorials and the like, all of which, we may add,
make their appearance only to a small extent and for the most part but
late. According to the edict of Alexander (_C. I. Gr._ 4957, l. 34) the
_strategoi_ do not seem to have been, properly speaking, nominated by
the governor, but only to have been confirmed after an examination; we
do not know who had the proposing of them.

[204] The position of matters is clearly apparent in the inscription
set up at the beginning of the reign of Pius to the well-known orator
Aristides by the Egyptian Greeks (_C. I. Gr._ 4679); as dedicants are
named ἡ πόλις τῶν Ἀλεξανδρέων καὶ Ἑρμούπολις ἡ μεγάλη καὶ ἡ βουλὴ ἡ
Ἀντινοέων νέων Ἑλλήνων καὶ οἱ ἐν τῷ Δέλτᾳ τῆς Αἰγύπτου καὶ οἱ τὸν
Θηβαϊκὸν νομὸν οἰκοῦντες Ἕλληνες. Thus only Antinoopolis, the city of
the “new Hellenes,” has a Boule; Alexandria appears without this, but
as a Greek city in the aggregate. Moreover there take part in this
dedication the Greeks living in the Delta and those living in Thebes,
but of the Egyptian towns Great-Hermopolis alone, on which probably
the immediate vicinity of Antinoopolis has exercised an influence.
To Ptolemais Strabo (xvii. 1, 42, p. 813) attributes a σύστημα
πολιτικὸν ἐν τῷ Ἑλληνικῷ τρόπῳ; but in this we may hardly think of
more than what belonged to the capital according to its constitution
more exactly known to us--and so specially of the division of the
burgesses into _phylae_. That the pre-Ptolemaic Greek city Naucratis
retained in the Ptolemaic time the Boule, which it doubtless had, is
possible, but cannot be decisive for the Ptolemaic arrangements.--Dio’s
statement (ii. 17) that Augustus left the other Egyptian towns with
their existing organisation, but took the common council from the
Alexandrians on account of their untrustworthiness, rests doubtless on
misunderstanding, the more especially as, according to it, Alexandria
appears slighted in comparison with the other Egyptian communities,
which is not at all in keeping with probability.

[205] The Egyptian coining of gold naturally ceased with the annexation
of the land, for there was in the Roman empire only imperial gold.
With the silver also Augustus dealt in like manner, and as ruler of
Egypt caused simply copper to be struck, and even this only in moderate
quantities. At first Tiberius coined, after A.D. 27-28, silver money
for Egyptian circulation, apparently as token-money, as the pieces
correspond nearly in point of weight to four, in point of silver
value to one, of the Roman denarius (Feuardent, _Numismatique, Égypte
ancienne_, ii. p. xi.). But as in legal currency the Alexandrian
drachma was estimated as obolus (consequently as a sixth, not as a
fourth; comp. _Röm. Münzwesen_, p. 43, 723) of the Roman denarius
(_Hermes_, v. p. 136), and the provincial silver always lost as
compared with the imperial silver, the Alexandrian tetradrachmon of the
silver value of a denarius has rather been estimated at the current
value of two-thirds of a denarius. Accordingly down to Commodus, from
whose time the Alexandrian tetradrachmon is essentially a copper
coin, the same has been quite as much a coin of value as the Syrian
tetradrachmon and the Cappadocian drachma; they only left to the former
the old name and the old weight.

[206] That the emperor Hadrian, among other Egyptising caprices,
gave to the nomes as well as to his Antinoopolis for once the right
of coining, which was thereupon done subsequently on a couple of
occasions, makes no alteration in the rule.

[207] This figure is given by the so-called Epitome of Victor, c.
1, for the time of Augustus. After this payment was transferred to
Constantinople there went thither under Justinian (_Ed._ xiii. c. 8)
annually 8,000,000 artabae (for these are to be understood, according
to c. 6, as meant), or 26-2/3 millions of Roman bushels (Hultsch,
_Metrol._ p. 628), to which falls further to be added the similar
payment to the town of Alexandria, introduced by Diocletian. To the
shipmasters for the freight to Constantinople 8000 solidi = £5000 were
annually paid from the state-chest.

[208] At least Cleopatra on a distribution of grain in Alexandria
excluded the Jews (Josephus, _contra Ap._ ii. 5), and all the more,
consequently, the Egyptians.

[209] The edict of Alexander (_C. I. Gr._ 4957), l. 33 ff., exempts the
ἐνγενεῖς Ἀλεξανδρεῖς dwelling ἐν τῇ χώρᾳ (not ἐν τῇ πόλει) on account
of their business from the λειτουργίαι χωρικαί.

[210] “There subsist,” says the Alexandrian Jew Philo (_in Flacc._ 10),
“as respects corporal chastisement (τῶν μαστίγων), distinctions in our
city according to the rank of those to be chastised; the Egyptians are
chastised with different scourges and by others, but the Alexandrians
with canes (σπάθαις; σπάθη is the stem of the palm-leaf), and by the
Alexandrian cane-bearers” (σπαθηφόροι, perhaps _bacillarius_). He
afterwards complains bitterly that the elders of his community, if they
were to be scourged at all, should not have been provided at least
with decorous burgess-lashes (ταῖς ἐλευθεριωτέραις καὶ πολιτικωτέραις
μάστιξιν).

[211] Josephus, _contra Ap._ ii. 4, μόνοις Αἰγυπτίοις οἱ κύριοι νῦν
Ῥωμαῖοι τῆς οἰκουμένης μεταλαμβάνειν ἡστινοσοῦν πολιτείας ἀπειρήκασιν.
6, _Aegyptiis neque regum quisquam videtur ius civitatis fuisse
largitus neque nunc quilibet imperatorum_ (comp. _Eph. epigr._
v. p. 13). The same upbraids his adversary (ii. 3, 4) that he, a
native Egyptian, had denied his home and given himself out as an
Alexandrian.--Individual exceptions are not thereby excluded.

[212] Alexandrian science, too, protested in the sense of the
king against this proposition (Plutarch, _de fort. Alex._ i. 6);
Eratosthenes designated civilisation as not peculiar to the Hellenes
alone, and not to be denied to all barbarians, _e.g._ not to the
Indians, the Arians, the Romans, the Carthaginians; men were rather
to be divided into “good” and “bad” (Strabo, i. _fin._ p. 66). But of
this theory no practical application was made to the Egyptian race even
under the Lagids.

[213] Admission to the equestrian positions was at least rendered
difficult: _non est ex albo iudex patre Aegyptio_ (_C. I. L._ iv. 1943;
comp. _Staatsrecht_, ii. 919, note 2; _Eph. epigr._ v. p. 13, note 2).
Yet we meet early with individual Alexandrians in equestrian offices,
like Tiberius Julius Alexander (p. 246, note).

[214] If the words of Pliny (_H. N._ v. 31, 128) are accurate, that
the island of Pharos before the harbour of Alexandria was a _colonia
Caesaris dictatoris_ (comp. iv. 574), the dictator has here too, like
Alexander, gone beyond the thought of Aristotle. But there can be no
doubt as to the point, that after the annexation of Egypt there never
was a Roman colony there.

[215] The titles of Augustus run with the Egyptian priests to the
following effect: “The beautiful boy, lovely through worthiness to
be loved, the prince of princes, elect of Ptah and Nun the father
of the gods, king of upper Egypt and king of lower Egypt, lord of
the two lands, Autokrator, son of the sun, lord of diadems, Kaisar,
ever living, beloved by Ptah and Isis;” in this case the proper
names “Autokrator, Kaisar,” are retained from the Greek. The title
of Augustus occurs first in the case of Tiberius in an Egyptian
translation (_nti χu_), and with the retention of the Greek Σεβαστός
under Domitian. The title of the fair, lovely boy, which in better
times was wont to be given only to the children proclaimed as
joint-rulers, afterwards became stereotyped, and is found employed,
as for Caesarion and Augustus, so also for Tiberius, Claudius, Titus,
Domitian. It is more important that in deviation from the older title,
as it is found, _e.g._ in Greek on the inscription of Rosetta (_C. I.
Gr._ 4697), in the case of the Caesars from Augustus onward the title
“prince of princes” is appended, by which beyond doubt it was intended
to express their position of great-king, which the earlier kings had
not.

[216] If people knew, king Seleucus was wont to say (Plutarch, _An
seni_, 11), what a burden it was to write and to read so many letters,
they would not take up the diadem if it lay at their feet.

[217] That he wore other insignia than the officers generally
(Hirschfeld, _Verw. Gesch._ p. 271), it is hardly allowable to infer
from _vita Hadr._ 4.

[218] Thus Tiberius Julius Alexander, an Alexandrian Jew, held this
governorship in the last years of Nero (p. 204); certainly he belonged
to a very rich family of rank, allied by marriage even with the
imperial house, and he had distinguished himself in the Parthian war
as chief of the staff of Corbulo--a position which he soon afterwards
took up once more in the Jewish war of Titus. He must have been
one of the ablest officers of this epoch. To him is dedicated the
pseudo-Aristotelian treatise περὶ κοσμοῦ (p. 168), evidently composed
by another Alexandrian Jew (Bernays, _Gesammelte Abhandl._ ii. 278).

[219] Unmistakably the _iuridicus Aegypti_ (_C. I. L._ x. 6976; also
_missus in Aegyptum ad iurisdictionem_, _Bull. dell’ Inst._ 1856, p.
142; _iuridicus Alexandreae_, _C._ vi. 1564, viii. 8925, 8934; _Dig._
i. 20, 2), and the _idiologus ad Aegyptum_ (_C._ x. 4862; _procurator
ducenarius Alexandriae idiulogu_, _Eph. cp._ v. p. 30, and _C. I.
Gr._ 3751; ὁ γνώμων τοῦ ἰδίου λόγου, _C. I. Gr._ 4957, v. 44, comp.
v. 39), are modelled on the assistants associated with the legates
of the imperial provinces for the administration of justice (_legati
iuridici_) and the finances (_procuratores provinciae_; _Staatsrecht_
1^2, p. 223, note 5). That they were appointed for the whole land,
and were subordinate to the _praefectus Aegypti_, is stated by Strabo
expressly (xvii. 1, 12, p. 797), and this assumption is required by
the frequent mention of Egypt in their style and title as well as by
the turn in the edict _C. I. Gr._ 4957, v. 39. But their jurisdiction
was not exclusive; “many processes,” says Strabo, “are decided by
the official administering justice” (that he assigned guardians, we
learn from _Dig._ i. 20, 2), and according to the same it devolved
on the Idiologus in particular to confiscate for the exchequer the
_bona vacantia et caduca_.--This does not exclude the view that the
Roman _iuridicus_ came in place of the older court of thirty with the
ἀρχιδικαστής at its head (Diodorus, i. 75), who was Egyptian, and may
not be confounded with the Alexandrian ἀρχιδικαστής, had moreover
perhaps been set aside already before the Roman period, and that the
Idiologus originated out of the subsistence in Egypt of a claim of the
king on heritages, such as did not occur to the same extent in the rest
of the empire, which latter view Lumbroso (_Recherches_, p. 285) has
made very probable.

[220] The ἐξηγητής, according to Strabo, xvii. 1, 12, p. 797, the
first civic official in Alexandria under the Ptolemies as under the
Romans, and entitled to wear the purple, is certainly identical
with the year-priest in the testament of Alexander appearing in
the Alexander-romance very well instructed in such matters (iii.
33, p. 149, Müller). As the Exegetes has, along with his title,
doubtless to be taken in a religious sense, the ἐπιμέλεια τῶν τῇ
πόλει χρησίμων, that priest of the romance is ἐπιμελιστὴς τῆς πόλεως.
The romance-writer will not have invented the payment with a talent
and the hereditary character any more than the purple and the golden
chaplet; the hereditary element, in reference to which Lumbroso
(_l’Egitto al tempo dei Greci e Romani_, p. 152) recalls the ἐξηγητὴς
ἔναρχος of the Alexandrian inscriptions (_C. I. Gr._ 4688, 4976 c.),
is presumably to be conceived to the effect that a certain circle of
persons was called by hereditary right, and out of these the governor
appointed the year-priest. This priest of Alexander (as well as of
the following Egyptian kings, according to the stone of Canopus and
that of Rosetta, _C. I. Gr._ 4697), was under the earlier Lagids the
eponym for Alexandrian documents, while later as under the Romans
the kings’ names come in for that purpose. Not different from him
probably was the “chief priest of Alexandria and all Egypt,” of an
inscription of the city of Rome from Hadrian’s time (_C. I. Gr._
5900: ἀρχιερεῖ Ἀλεξανδρείας καὶ Αἰγύπτου πάσης Λευκίῳ Ἰουλίῳ Οὐηστίνῳ
καὶ ἐπιστάτῃ τοῦ Μουσείου καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν ἐν Ῥώμῃ βιβλιοθηκῶν Ῥωμαικῶν
τε καὶ Ἑλληνικῶν καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς παιδείας Ἀδριανοῦ, ἐπιστολεῖ τοῦ αὐτοῦ
αὐτοκράτορος); the proper title, ἐξηγητής was avoided out of Egypt,
because it usually denoted the sexton. If the chief priesthood, as the
tenor of the inscription suggests, is to be assumed as having been
at that time permanent, the transition from the annual tenure to the
at least titular, and not seldom also real, tenure for life repeats
itself, as is well known, in the _sacerdotia_ of the provinces, to
which this Alexandrian one did not indeed belong, but the place of
which it represented in Egypt (p. 238). That the priesthood and the
presidency of the Museum are two distinct offices is shown by the
inscription itself. We learn the same from the inscription of a royal
chief physician of a good Lagid period, who is withal as well exegete
as president of the Museum (Χρύσερμον Ἡρακλείτου Ἀλεξανδρέα τὸν συγγενῆ
βασιλέως Πτολεμαίου καὶ ἐξηγητὴν καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν ἰατρῶν καὶ ἐπιστάτην τοῦ
Μουσείου). But the two monuments at the same time suggest that the post
of first official of Alexandria and the presidency of the Museum were
frequently committed to the same man, although in the Roman time the
former was conferred by the prefect, the latter by the emperor.

[221] Not to be confounded with the similar office which Philo (in
_Flacc._ 16) mentions and Lucian (_Apolog._ 12) held; this was not an
urban office, but a subaltern’s post in the praefecture of Egypt, in
Latin _a commentariis_ or _ab actis_.

[222] This is the _procurator Neaspoleos et mausolei Alexandriae_ (_C.
I. L._ viii. 8934; Henzen, 6929). Officials of a like kind and of like
rank, but whose functions are not quite clear, are the _procurator ad
Mercurium Alexandreae_ (_C. I. L._ x. 3847), and the _procurator
Alexandreae Pelusii_ (_C._ vi. 1024). The Pharos also is placed under
an imperial freedman (_C._ vi. 8582).

[223] The alliance of the Palmyrenes and the Blemyes is pointed to by
the notice of the _vita Firmi_, c. 3, and by the statement, according
to Zosimus, i. 71, that Ptolemais fell away to the Blemyes (comp.
Eusebius, _Hist. Eccl._ vii. 32). Aurelian only negotiated with these
(_Vita_, 34, 41); it was Probus who first drove them again out of Egypt
(Zosimus, _l.c._; _Vita_, 17).

[224] We still possess letters of this sort, addressed by the bishop
of the city, at that time Dionysius († 265), to the members of the
church shut off in the hostile half of the town (Eusebius, _Hist.
Eccl._ vii. 21, 22, comp. 32). When it is therein said: “one gets more
easily from the West to the East than from Alexandria to Alexandria,”
and ἡ μεσαιτάτη τῆς πόλεως ὁδός, consequently the street furnished
with colonnades, running from the Lochias point right through the town
(comp. Lumbroso, _l’Egitto al tempo dei Greci e Romani_, 1882, p. 137)
is compared with the desert between Egypt and the promised land, it
appears almost as if Severus Antoninus had carried out his threat of
drawing a wall across the town and occupying it in a military fashion
(Dio, lxxvii. 23). The razing of the walls after the overthrow of the
revolt (Ammianus, xxii. 16, 15) would then have to be referred to this
very building.

[225] The alleged Egyptian tyrants, Aemilianus, Firmus, Saturninus, are
at least not attested as such. The so-called description of the life
of the second is nothing else than the sadly disfigured catastrophe of
Prucheion.

[226] _Chr. Pasch._ p. 514; Procopius, _Hist. arc._ 26; Gothofred. on
_Cod. Theod._ xiv. 26, 2. Stated distributions of corn had already been
instituted earlier in Alexandria, but apparently only for persons old
and decayed, and--it may be conjectured--on account of the city, not of
the state (Eusebius, _Hist. Eccl._ vii. 21).

[227] In the town of Alexandria there appears to have been no landed
property to the strict sense, but only a sort of hereditary lease
(Ammianus, xxii. 11, 6; _Staatsrecht_, ii. 963, note 1); but otherwise
private property in the soil prevailed also in Egypt, in the sense in
which the provincial law knows such a thing at all. There is often
mention of domanial possession, _e.g._ Strabo, xvii. 1, 51, p. 828, says
that the best Egyptian dates grow on an island on which private persons
might not possess any land, but it was formerly royal, now imperial,
and yielded a large income. Vespasian sold a portion of the Egyptian
domains and thereby exasperated the Alexandrians (Dio, lxvi. 8)--beyond
doubt the great farmers who then gave the land in sub-lease to the
peasants proper. Whether landed property in mortmain, especially of
the priestly colleges, was in the Roman period still as extensive as
formerly, may be doubted; as also whether otherwise large estates or
small properties predominated; petty husbandry was certainly general.
We possess figures neither for the domanial quota nor for that of the
land-tax; that the fifth sheaf in Orosius, i. 8, 9, is copied including
the _usque ad nunc_ from Genesis, is rightly observed by Lumbroso,
_Recherches_, p. 94. The domanial rent cannot have amounted to less
than the half; even for the land-tax the tenth (Lumbroso, _l. c._ p.
289, 293) may have hardly sufficed. Export of grain otherwise from
Egypt needed the consent of the governor (Hirschfeld, _Annona_, p.
23), doubtless because otherwise scarcity might easily set in in the
thickly-peopled land. Yet this arrangement was certainly more by way
of control than of prohibition; in the Periplus of the Egyptian corn
is on several occasions (c. 7, 17, 24, 28, comp. 56) adduced among the
articles of export. Even the cultivation of the fields seems to have
become similarly controlled; “the Egyptians, it is said, are fonder
of cultivating rape than corn, so far as they may, on account of the
rape-seed oil” (Plinius, _H. N._ xix. 5, 79).

[228] In the edict of Diocletian among the five fine sorts of linen
the first four are Syrian or Cilician (of Tarsus) and the Egyptian
linen appears not merely in the last place, but is also designated as
Tarsian-Alexandrian, that is, prepared in Alexandria after the Tarsian
model.

[229] It was related of a rich man in Egypt that he had lined his
palace with glass instead of with marble, and that he possessed papyrus
and lime enough to provide an army with them (_Vita Firmi_, 3).

[230] That the alleged letter of Hadrian (_Vita Saturnini_, 8) is a
late fabrication, is shown _e.g._ by the fact, that the emperor in
this highly friendly letter addressed to his father-in-law, Servianus,
complains of the injuries which the Alexandrians at his first departure
had heaped on his son Verus, while on the other hand it is established
that this Servianus was executed at the age of ninety in the year 136,
because he had disapproved the adoption of Verus, which had taken place
shortly before.

[231] The ναύκληροι τοῦ πορευτικοῦ Ἀλεξανδρεινοῦ στόλου, who set up
the stone doubtless belonging to Portus, _C. I. Gr._ 5889, were the
captains of these grain-ships. From the Serapeum of Ostia we possess a
series of inscriptions (_C. I. L._ xiv. 47), according to which it was
in all parts a copy of that at Alexandria; the president is at the same
time ἐπιμελητὴς παντὸς τοῦ Ἀλεξανδρείνου στόλου (_C. I. Gr._ 5973).
Probably these transports were employed mainly with the carriage of
grain, and this consequently took place by succession, to which also
the precautions adopted by the emperor Gaius in the straits of Reggio
(Josephus, _Arch._ xix. 2, 5) point. With this well comports the fact,
that the first appearance of the Alexandrian fleet in the spring was a
festival for Puteoli (Seneca, _Ep._ 77, 1).

[232] This is shown by the remarkable Delian inscriptions, _Eph.
epigr._ i. p. 600, 602.

[233] Already in the Delian inscriptions of the last century of the
republic the Syrians predominate. The Egyptian deities had doubtless
a much revered shrine there, but among the numerous priests and
dedicators we meet only a single Alexandrian (Hauvette-Besnault, _Bull.
de corr. Hell._ vi. 316 f.). Guilds of Alexandrian merchants are known
to us at Tomi (I. 310, note) and at Perinthus (_C. I. Gr._ 2024).

[234] After Juvenal has described the wild drinking bouts of the native
Egyptians in honour of the local gods of the several nomes, he adds
that therein the natives were in no respect inferior to the Canopus,
_i.e._ the Alexandrian festival of Sarapis, notorious for its unbridled
licentiousness (Strabo, xvii. 1, 17, p. 801): _horrida sane Aegyptus,
sed luxuria quantum ipse notavi, barbara famoso non cedit turba Canopo_
(_Sat._ xv. 44).

[235] Ammianus, xxii. 16, 23: _Erubescit apud (Aegyptios), si qui non
infitiando tributa plurimas in corpore vibices ostendat_.

[236] This was according to Juvenal Tentyra, which must be a mistake,
if the well known Tentyra is meant; but the list of the Ravennate
chronicler, iii. 2, names the two places together.

[237] Seneca, _ad Helv._ 19, 6: _loquax et in contumelias praefectorum
ingeniosa provincia ... etiam periculosi sales placent_.

[238] Dio Chrysostom says in his address to the Alexandrians (_Or._
xxxii. p. 663 Reiske): “Because now (the intelligent) keep in the
background and are silent, there spring up among you endless disputes
and quarrels and disorderly clamour, and bad and unbridled speeches,
accusers, aspersions, trials, a rabble of orators.” In the Alexandrian
Jew-hunt, which Philo so drastically describes, we see these
mob-orators at work.

[239] Dio Cassius, xxxix. 58: “The Alexandrians do the utmost in all
respects as to daring, and speak out everything that occurs to them. In
war and its terrors their conduct is cowardly; but in tumults, which
with them are very frequent and very serious, they without scruple come
to mortal blows, and for the sake of the success of the moment account
their life nothing, nay, they go to their destruction as if the highest
things were at stake.”

[240] The “pious Egyptians” offered resistance, as Macrobius, _Sat._
i. 7, 14, reports, but _tyrannide Ptolemaeorum pressi hos quoque deos_
(Sarapis and Saturnus) _in cultum recipere Alexandrinorum more, apud
quos potissimum colebantur, coacti sunt_. As they thus had to present
bloody sacrifices, which was against their ritual, they did not admit
these gods, at least into the towns; _nullum Aegypti oppidum intra
muros suos aut Saturni aut Sarapis fanum recepit_.

[241] The often-quoted anonymous author of a description of the
empire from the time of Constantius, a good heathen, praises Egypt
particularly on account of its exemplary piety: “Nowhere are the
mysteries of the gods so well celebrated as there from of old and
still at present.” Indeed, he adds, some were of opinion that the
Chaldaeans--he means the Syrian cultus--worshipped the gods better;
but he held to what he had seen with his own eyes--“Here there are
shrines of all sorts and magnificently adorned temples, and there are
found numbers of sacristans and priests and prophets and believers
and excellent theologians, and all goes on in its order; you find
the altars everywhere blazing with flame and the priests with their
fillets and the incense-vessels with deliciously fragrant spices.”
Nearly from the same time (not from Hadrian), and evidently also from a
well-informed hand, proceeds another more malicious description (_vita
Saturnini_, 8): “He who in Egypt worships Sarapis is also a Christian,
and those who call themselves Christian bishops likewise adore Sarapis;
every grand Rabbi of the Jews, every Samaritan, every Christian
clergyman is there at the same time a sorcerer, a prophet, a quack
(_aliptes_). Even when the patriarch comes to Egypt some demand that
he pray to Sarapis, others that he pray to Christ.” This diatribe is
certainly connected with the circumstance that the Christians declared
the Egyptian god to be the Joseph of the Bible, the son of Sara, and
rightfully carrying the bushel. The position of the Egyptian orthodox
party is apprehended in a more earnest spirit by the author, belonging
presumably to the third century, of the Dialogue of the Gods, preserved
in a Latin translation among the writings attributed to Appuleius, in
which the thrice-greatest Hermes announces things future to Asklepios:
“Thou knowest withal, Asklepios, that Egypt is a counterpart of heaven,
or, to speak more correctly, a transmigration and descent of the whole
heavenly administration and activity; indeed, to speak still more
correctly, our fatherland is the temple of the whole universe. And yet
a time will set in, when it would appear as if Egypt had vainly with
pious mind in diligent service cherished the divine, when all sacred
worship of the gods will be without result and a failure. For the deity
will betake itself back into heaven, Egypt will be forsaken, and the
land, which was the seat of religious worships, will be deprived of the
presence of divine power and left to its own resources. Then will this
consecrated land, the abode of shrines and temples, be densely filled
with graves and corpses. O Egypt, Egypt, of thy worships only rumours
will be preserved, and even these will seem incredible to thy coming
generations, only words will be preserved on the stones to tell of thy
pious deeds, and Egypt will be inhabited by the Scythian or Indian or
other such from the neighbouring barbarian land. New rights will be
introduced, a new law, nothing holy, nothing religious, nothing worthy
of heaven and of the celestials will be heard or in spirit believed.
A painful separation of the gods from men sets in; only the bad
angels remain there, to mingle among mankind” (according to Bernays’s
translation, _Ges. Abh._ i. 330).

[242] When the Romans ask from the famous rhetor Proaeresios (end of
the third and beginning of the fourth century) one of his disciples for
a professorial chair, he sends to them Eusebius from Alexandria; “as
respects rhetoric,” it is said of the latter (Eunapius, _Proaer._ p. 92
Boiss.), “it is enough to say that he was an Egyptian; for this people,
no doubt, pursues versemaking passionately, but earnest oratory (ὁ
σπουδαῖος Ἕρμης) is not at home among them.” The remarkable resumption
of Greek poetry in Egypt, to which, _e.g._ the epic of Nonnus belongs,
lies beyond the bounds of our narrative.

[243] A “Homeric poet” ἐκ Μουσείου is ready to sing the praise of
Memnon in four Homeric verses, without adding a word of his own (_C.
I. Gr._ 4748). Hadrian makes an Alexandrian poet a member in reward
for a loyal epigram (Athenaeus, xv. p. 677 _e_). Examples of rhetors
from Hadrian’s time may be seen in Philostratus, _Vit. Soph._ i. 22, 3,
c. 25, 3. A φιλόσοφος ἀπὸ Μουσείου in Halicarnassus (_Bull. de corr.
Hell._ iv. 405). At a later period, when the circus was everything, we
find a noted pugilist figuring (so to say) as an honorary member of the
philosophical class (inscription from Rome, _C. I. Gr._ 5914: νεωκόρος
τοῦ μεγά[λου Σαράπιδ]ος καὶ τῶν ἐν τῷ Μουσείῳ [σειτου]μένων ἀτελῶν
φιλοσόφων; comp. _ib._ 4724, and Firmicus Maternus, _de errore prof.
rel._ 13, 3). Οἱ ἐν Ἐφέσῳ ἀπὸ τοῦ Μουσείου ἰατροί (Wood, _Ephesus,
inscriptions from tombs_, n. 7), a society of Ephesian physicians, have
relation doubtless to the Museum at Alexandria, but were hardly members
of it; they were rather trained in it.

[244] Ὁ ἄνω θρόνος in Philostratus, _Vit. Soph._ ii. 10, 5.

[245] Examples are Chaeremon, the teacher of Nero, previously installed
in Alexandria (Suidas, Διονύσιος Ἀλεξανδρεύς; comp. Zeller, _Hermes_,
xi. 430, and above, p. 259); Dionysius, son of Glaucus, at first in
Alexandria, successor of Chaeremon, then from Nero down to Trajan
librarian in Rome and imperial cabinet secretary (Suidas, _l. c._); L.
Julius Vestinus under Hadrian, who, even after the presidency of the
Museum, filled the same positions as Dionysius in Rome (p. 248 note),
known also as a philological author.

[246] The eunuch of Candace, who reads in Isaiah (Acts of the Apostles,
viii. 27) is well known; and a Candace reigned also in Nero’s time
(Plinius, _H. N._ vi. 29, 182).

[247] That the imperial frontier reached to Hiera Sycaminos, is evident
for the second century from Ptolemaeus, v. 5, 74, for the time of
Diocletian from the Itineraries, which carry the imperial roads thus
far. In the _Notitia dignitatum_, a century later, the posts again
do not reach beyond Syene, Philae, Elephantine. In the tract from
Philae to Hiera Sycaminos, the Dodecaschoinos of Herodotus (ii. 29),
temple-tribute appears to have been raised already in early times for
the Isis of Philae always common to the Egyptians and Aethiopians; but
Greek inscriptions from the Lagid period have not been found here,
whereas numerous dated ones occur from the Roman period, the oldest
from the time of Augustus (Pselchis, A.D. 2; _C. I. Gr._ n. 5086),
and of Tiberius (_ib._ A.D. 26, n. 5104, A.D. 33, n. 5101), the most
recent from that of Philippus (Kardassi, A.D. 248, n. 5010). These do
not prove absolutely that the place where the inscription was found
belonged to the empire; but that of a land-measuring soldier of the
year 33 (n. 5101), and that of a _praesidium_ of the year 84 (Talmis,
n. 5042 f.), as well as numerous others certainly presuppose it. Beyond
the frontier indicated no similar stone has ever been found; for the
remarkable inscription of the _regina_ (_C. I. L._ iii. 83), found
at Messaurât, to the south of Shendy (16° 25′ lat., 5 leagues to the
south of the ruins of Naga), the most southern of all known Latin
inscriptions, now in the Berlin Museum, has been set up, not by a
Roman subject, but presumably by an envoy of an African queen, who was
returning from Rome, and who spoke Latin perhaps only in order to show
that he had been in Rome.

[248] The _tropaea Niliaca, sub quibus Aethiops et Indus intremuit_, in
an oration probably held in the year 296 (Paneg. v. 5), apply to such a
_rencontre_, not to the Egyptian insurrection; and the oration of the
year 289 speaks of attacks of the Blemyes (Paneg. iii. 17).--Procopius,
_Bell. Pers._ i. 19, reports the cession of the “Twelve-mile-territory”
to the Nubians. It is mentioned as standing under the dominion, not
of the Nubians, but of the Blemyes by Olympiodorus, _fr._ 37, Müll.
and the inscription of Silko, _C. I. Gr._ 5072. The fragment recently
brought to light of a Greek heroic poem as to the victory of a late
Roman emperor over the Blemyes is referred by Bücheler (_Rhein. Mus._
xxxix. 279 f.) to that of Marcianus, in the year 451 (comp. Priscus,
_fr._ 27).

[249] Juvenal (xi. 124) mentions the elephant’s teeth, _quos mittit
porta Syenes_.

[250] According to the mode in which Ptolemy (iv. 5, 14, 15) treats of
this coast, it seems, just like the “Twelve-mile-land,” to have lain
outside of the division into nomes.

[251] Our best information as to the kingdom of Axomis is obtained from
a stone erected by one of its kings, beyond doubt in the better period
of the empire, at Adulis (_C. I. Gr._ 5127 _b_), a sort of writing
commemorative of the deeds of this apparent empire-founder in the style
of that of Darius at Persepolis, or that of Augustus at Ancyra, and
fixed on the king’s throne, before which down to the sixth century
criminals were executed. The skilful disquisition of Dillmann (_Abh.
der Berliner Akademie_, 1877, p. 195 f.), explains as much of it as
is explicable. From the Roman standpoint it is to be noted that the
king does not name the Romans, but clearly has in view their imperial
frontiers when he subdues the Tangaites μέχρι τῶν τῆς Αἰγύπτου ὁρίων,
and constructs a road ἀπὸ τῶν τῆς ἐμῆς βασιλείας τόπων μέχρι Αἰγύπτου,
and further, names as the northern limit of his Arabian expedition
Leuce Come, the last Roman station on the Arabian west coast. Hence it
follows further, that this inscription is more recent than the Periplus
of the Red Sea written under Vespasian; for according to this (c. 5)
the king of Axomis rules ἀπὸ τῶν Μοσχοφάγων μέχρι τῆς ἄλλης Βαρβαρίας,
and this is to be understood exclusively, since he names in c. 2 the
τύραννοι of the Moscophages, and likewise remarks in c. 14, that beyond
the Straits of Bab el Mandeb there is no “king,” but only “tyrants.”
Thus at that time the Axomitic kingdom did not reach to the Roman
frontier, but only to somewhere about Ptolemais “of the chase,” just as
in the other direction not to Cape Guardafui, but only as far as the
Straits of Bab el Mandeb. Nor does the Periplus speak of possessions
of the king of Axomis on the Arabian coast, although he on several
occasions mentions the dynasts there.

[252] The name of the Aethiopians was associated in the better period
with the country on the Upper Nile, especially with the kingdoms of
Meroe and Nabata (p. 275), and so with the region which we now call
Nubia. In later antiquity, for example by Procopius, the designation
is referred to the state of Axomis, and hence in more recent times is
frequently employed for Abyssinia.

[253] Hence the legend that the Axomites were Syrians settled by
Alexander in Africa, and still spoke Syrian (Philostorgius, _Hist.
Eccl._ iii. 6).

[254] This is the _praefectus praesidiorum et montis Beronices_ (_C.
I. L._ ix. 3083), _praefectus montis Berenicidis_ (Orelli, 3881),
_praefectus Bernicidis_ (_C. I. L._ x. 1129), an officer of equestrian
rank, analogous to those adduced above (p. 249), as stationed in
Alexandria.

[255] The letter, which the emperor Constantius in the year 356 directs
to Aeizanas, the king of the Axomites at that time, is that of one
ruler to another on an equal footing; he requests his friendly and
neighbourly assistance against the spread of the Athanasian heresy, and
for the deposition and delivering up of an Axomitic clergyman suspected
of it. The fellowship of culture comes here into the more definite
prominence, as the Christian invokes against the Christian the arm of
the heathen.

[256] Inland lay the primeval Teimâ, the son of Ishmael of Genesis,
enumerated by the Assyrian king Tiglath-Pilesar in the eighth century
before Christ among his conquests, named by the prophet Jeremiah
together with Sidon, around which gather in a remarkable way Assyrian,
Egyptian, Arabian relations, the further unfolding of which, after
bold travellers have opened up the place, we may await from Oriental
research. In Teimâ itself Euting recently found Aramaic inscriptions of
the oldest epoch (Nöldeke, _Sitzungsberichte der Berliner Akademie_,
1884, p. 813 f.). From the not far distant place Medâin-Sâlih (Hijr)
proceed certain coins modelled after the Attic, which in part replace
the owl of Pallas by that image of a god which the Egyptians designate
as Besa the lord of Punt, _i.e._ of Arabia (Erman, _Zeitschrift für
Numismatik_, ix. 296 f.). We have already mentioned the Nabataean
inscriptions just found there (p. 148, note 3). Not far from thence,
near ’Ola (el-Ally) inscriptions have been found, which correspond
in the writing and in the names of gods and kings to those of the
South-Arabian Minaeans, and show that these had a considerable
station here, sixty days’ journey from their home, but on the
frankincense-route mentioned by Eratosthenes, from Minaea to Aelana;
and alongside of these others of a cognate but not identical South-Arabian
stock (D. H. Müller in the _Berichte der Wiener Akademie_ of
17th December 1884). The Minaean inscriptions belong beyond doubt to
the pre-Roman period. As on the annexation of the Nabataean kingdom by
Trajan these districts were abandoned (p. 152), from that time another
south-Arabian tribe may have ruled there.

[257] The accounts connected with the trade in frankincense in
Theophrastus († 287 B.C.; _Hist. plant._ ix. 4) and more fully in
Eratosthenes († 194 B.C.); in Strabo (xvi. 4, 2, p. 768) of the four
great tribes of the Minaeans (Mamali Theophr.?) with the capital Carna;
the Sabaeans (Saba Theophr.) with the capital Mariaba; the Cattabanes
(Kitibaena Theophr.) with the capital Tamna; the Chatramotitae
(Hadramyta Theophr.) with the capital Sabata, describe the very circle
out of which the Homerite kingdom developed itself, and indicate
its beginnings. The much sought for Minaei are now pointed out with
certainty in Ma’in in the interior above Marib and Hadramaut, where
hundreds of inscriptions have been found, and have yielded already no
fewer than twenty-six kings’ names. Mariaba is even now named Marib.
The region Chatramotitis or Chatramitis is Hadramaut.

[258] The remarkable remains of this structure, executed with the
greatest precision and skill, are described by Arnaud (_Journal
Asiatique_, 7 série, tome 3, for the year 1874, p. 3 f. with plans;
comp. Ritter, _Erdkunde_, xii. 861). On the two sides of the
embankment, which has now almost wholly disappeared, stand respectively
two stone structures built of square blocks, of conical almost
cylindrical form, between which a narrow opening is found for the
water flowing out of the basin; at least on the one side a canal lined
with pebbles leads it to this outlet. It was once closed with planks
placed one above another, which could be individually removed, to carry
the water away as might be needed. The one of those stone cylinders
bears the following inscription (according to the translation, not
indeed quite certain in all its details, of D. H. Müller, _Wiener
Sitzungsberichte_, vol. xcvii, 1880, p. 965): “Jata’amar the glorious,
son of Samah’alî the sublime, prince of Saba, caused the Balap
(mountain) to be pierced (and erected) the sluice-structure named
Rahab for easier irrigation.” We have no secure basis for fixing the
chronological place of this and numerous other royal names of the
Sabaean inscriptions. The Assyrian king Sargon says in the Khorsabad
inscription, after he has narrated the vanquishing of the king of Gaza,
Hanno, in the year 716 B.C.: “I received the tribute of Pharaoh the
king of Egypt, of Shamsiya the queen of Arabia, and of Ithamara the
Sabaean; gold, herbs of the eastern land, slaves, horses, and camels”
(Müller, _l. c._ p. 988; Duncker, _Gesch. des Alterthums_, ii.^5 p.
327).

[259] Sallet in the _Berliner Zeitschrift für Numismatik_, viii. 243;
J. H. Mordtmann in the _Wiener Numism. Zeitschrift_, xii. 289.

[260] Pliny, _H. N._ xii. 14, 65, reckons the cost of a camel’s load of
frankincense by the land-route from the Arabian coast to Gaza at 688
denarii (= £30). “Along the whole tract fodder and water and shelter
and various custom-dues have to be paid for; then the priests demand
certain shares and the scribes of the kings; moreover the guards and
the halberdiers and the body-guards and servants have their exactions;
to which our imperial dues fall to be added.” In the case of the
water-transport these intervening expenses were not incurred.

[261] The chastising of the pirates is reported by Agatharchides in
Diodorus, iii. 43, and Strabo, xvi. 4, 18, p. 777. But Ezion-Geber in
Palestine, on the Elanitic gulf, ἣ νῦν Βερενίκη καλεῖται (Josephus,
_Arch._ viii. 6, 4), was so called certainly not from an Egyptian
princess (Droysen, _Hellenismus_, iii. 2, 349), but from the Jewess of
Titus.

[262] This (προσοικειοῦσθαι τούτους--τοὺς Ἄραβας--ἢ καταστρέφεσθαι:
Strabo, xvi. 4, 22, p. 780; εἰ μὴ ὁ Συλλαῖος αὐτὸν--τὸν
Γάλλον--προὐδίδου, κἂν κατεστρέψατο τὴν Εὐδαίμονα πᾶσαν: _ib._ xvii.
1, 53, p. 819) was the proper aim of the expedition, although also the
hope of spoil, just at that time very welcome for the treasury, is
expressly mentioned.

[263] The account of Strabo (xvi. 4, 22 f., p. 780) as to the Arabian
expedition of his “friend” Gallus (φίλος ἡμῖν καὶ ἑταῖρος, Strabo,
ii. 5, 12, p. 118), in whose train he travelled in Egypt, is indeed
trustworthy and honest, like all his accounts, but evidently accepted
from this friend without any criticism. The battle in which 10,000 of
the enemy and two Romans fell, and the total number of the fallen in
this campaign, which is seven, are self-condemned; but not better is
the attempt to devolve the want of success on the Nabataean vizier
Syllaeos by means of a “treachery,” such as is familiar with defeated
generals. Certainly the latter was so far fitted for a scapegoat, as
he some years afterwards was on the instigation of Herod brought to
trial before Augustus, condemned and executed (Josephus, _Arch._ xvi.
10); but although we possess the report of the agent who managed this
matter for Herod in Rome, there is not a word to be found in it of this
betrayal. That Syllaeos should have had the design of first destroying
the Arabians by means of the Romans, and then of destroying the latter
themselves, as Strabo “thinks,” is, looking to the position of the
client-states of Rome, quite irrational. It might rather be thought
that Syllaeos was averse to the expedition, because the commercial
traffic through the Nabataean land might be injured by it. But to
accuse the Arabian minister of treachery because the Roman transports
were not fitted for navigating the Arabian coast, or because the Roman
army was compelled to carry water with it on camels, to eat durra and
dates instead of bread and flesh, and butter instead of oil; to bring
forward the deceitfulness of the guidance as an excuse for the fact
that 180 days were employed for the forward march over a distance
overtaken on the return march in 60 days; and lastly, to criticise the
quite correct remark of Syllaeos that a march by land from Arsinoe
to Leuce Come was impracticable, by saying that a caravan route went
thence to Petra, only shows what a Roman of rank was able to make a
Greek man of letters believe.

[264] The sharpest criticism of the campaign is furnished by the
detailed account of the Egyptian merchant as to the state of the
Arabian coast from Leuce Come (el-Haura to the north of Janbô, the
port of Medina) to the Catacecaumene island (Jebel Taik near Lôhaia).
“Different peoples inhabit it, who speak languages partly somewhat
different, partly wholly so. The inhabitants of the coast live in pens
like the ‘fish-eaters’ on the opposite coast” (these pens he describes,
c. 2, as isolated and built into the clefts of the rocks), “those of
the interior in villages and pastoral companies; they are ill-disposed
men speaking two languages, who plunder the seafarers that drift out
of their course and drag the shipwrecked into slavery. For that reason
they are constantly hunted by the viceroys and chief kings of Arabia;
they are called Kanraites (or Kassanites). In general navigation
on all this coast is dangerous, the shore is without harbours and
inaccessible, with a troublesome surf, rocky and in general very bad.
Therefore, when we sail into these waters, we keep to the middle and
hasten to get to the Arabian territory at the island Catacecaumene;
from thence onward the inhabitants are hospitable, and we meet with
numerous flocks of sheep and camels.” The same region between the Roman
and the Homeritic frontiers, and the same state of things are in the
view of the Axomite king, when he writes: πέραν δὲ τῆς ἐρυθρᾶς θαλάσσης
οἰκοῦντας Ἀρραβίτας καὶ Κιναιδοκολπίτας (comp. Ptolemaeus vi. 7, 20),
στράτευμα ναυτικὸν καὶ πεζικὸν διαπεμψάμενος καὶ ὑποτάξας αὐτῶν τοὺς
βασιλέας, φόρους τῆς γῆς τελεῖν ἐκέλευσα καὶ ὁδεύεσθαι μετ’ εἰρήνης καὶ
πλέεσθαι, ἀπό τε Λευκῆς κώμης ἕως τῶν Σαβαίων χώρας ἐπολέμησα.

[265] These walls, built of rubble, form a circle of a mile in
diameter. They are described by Arnaud (_l.c._, comp. p. 287, note 1).

[266] That the Oriental expedition of Gaius had Arabia as its goal, is
stated expressly by Pliny (particularly _H. N._ xii. 14, 55, 56; comp.
ii. 67, 168; vi. 27, 141, c. 28, 160; xxxii. 1, 10). That it was to set
out from the mouth of the Euphrates, follows from the fact that the
expedition to Armenia and the negotiations with the Parthians preceded
it. For that reason the Collectanea of Juba as to the impending
expedition were based upon the reports of the generals of Alexander as
to their exploring of Arabia.

[267] Our only information as to this remarkable expedition has been
preserved to us by the Egyptian captain, who about the year 75 has
described his voyage on the coasts of the Red Sea. He knows (c. 26)
the Adane of later writers, the modern Aden, as a village on the
coast (κώμη παραθαλάσσιος), which belongs to the realm of Charibael,
king of the Homerites, but was earlier a flourishing town, and was
so termed (εὐδαίμων δ’ ἐπεκλήθη πρότερον οὖσα πόλις) because before
the institution of the direct Indo-Egyptian traffic this place served
as a mart: νῦν δὲ οὐ πρὸ πολλοῦ τῶν ἡμετέρων χρόνων Καῖσαρ αὐτὴν
κατεστρέψατο. The last word can here only mean “destroy,” not, as
more frequently, “subdue,” because the conversion of the town into a
village is to be accounted for. For Καῖσαρ Schwanbeck (_Rhein. Mus.
neue Folge_, vii. 353) has proposed Χαριβαήλ, C. Müller Ἰλασάρ (on
account of Strabo, xvi. 4, 21, p. 782): neither is possible--not the
latter, because this Arabian dynast ruled in a far remote district and
could not possibly be presumed as well known; not the former, because
Charibael was a contemporary of the writer, and there is here reported
an incident which occurred before his time. We shall not take offence
at the tradition, if we reflect what interest the Romans must have
had in setting aside the Arabian mart between India and Egypt, and in
bringing about direct intercourse. That the Roman accounts are silent
as to this occurrence is in keeping with their habit; the expedition,
which beyond doubt was executed by an Egyptian fleet and simply
consisted in the destruction of a presumably defenceless place on the
coast, would not be from a military point of view of any importance;
about great commercial dealings the annalists gave themselves no
concern, and generally the incidents in Egypt came still less than
those in the other imperial provinces to the knowledge of the senate
and therewith of the annalists. The naked designation Καῖσαρ, in which
from the nature of the case the ruler then reigning is excluded, is
probably to be explained from the circumstance that the reporting
captain, while knowing doubtless the fact of the destruction by the
Romans, knew not its date or author.--It is possible that to this the
notice in Pliny (_H. N._ ii. 67, 168) is to be referred: _maiorem
(oceani) partem et orientis victoriae magni Alexandri lustravere usque
in Arabicum sinum, in quo res gerente C. Caesare Aug. f. signa navium
ex Hispaniensibus naufragiis feruntur agnita_. Gaius did not reach
Arabia (Plin. _H. N._ vi. 28, 160); but during the Armenian expedition
a Roman squadron may very well have been conducted by one of his
sub-commanders to this coast, in order to pave the way for the main
expedition. That silence reigns elsewhere respecting it cannot surprise
us. The Arabian expedition of Gaius had been so solemnly announced and
then abandoned in so wretched a way, that loyal reporters had every
reason to obliterate a fact which could not well be mentioned without
also reporting the failure of the greater plan.

[268] The Egyptian merchant distinguishes the ἔνθεσμος βασιλεύς of
the Homerites (c. 23) sharply from the τύραννοι, the tribal chiefs
sometimes subordinate to him, sometimes independent (c. 14), and as
sharply distinguishes these organised conditions from the lawlessness
of the inhabitants of the desert (c. 2). If Strabo and Tacitus had had
eyes as open for these things as that practical man had, we should have
known somewhat more of antiquity.

[269] The war of Macrinus against the _Arabes eudaemones_ (_vita_, 12)
and their envoys sent to Aurelian (_vita_, 33), who are named along
with those of the Axomites, would prove their continued independence at
that time, if these statements could be depended on.

[270] The king names himself, about the year 356 (p. 284, note 2), in
a document (_C. I. Gr._ 5128) βασιλεὺς Ἀξωμιτῶν καὶ Ὁμηριτῶν καὶ τοῦ
Ῥαειδὰν (castle in Sapphar, the capital of the Homerites; Dillmann,
_Abh. der Berl. Akad._ 1878, p. 207) ... καὶ Σαβαειτῶν καὶ τοῦ Σιλεῆ
(castle in Mariaba, the capital of the Sabaeans; Dillmann, _l.c._).
With this agrees the contemporary mission of envoys _ad gentem
Axumitarum et Homerita[rum]_ (_C. Th._ xii. 12, 2). As to the later
state of things comp. especially Nonnosus (_fr. hist. Gr._ iv. p. 179,
Müll.) and Procopius, _Hist. Pers._ i. 20.

[271] Aristides (_Or._ xlviii. p. 485, Dind.) names Coptos the Indian
and Arabian entrepôt. In the romance of Xenophon the Ephesian (iv. 1),
the Syrian robbers resort to Coptos, “for there a number of merchants
pass through, who are travelling to Aethiopia and India.”

[272] Hadrian later constructed “the new Hadrian’s road” which led from
his town Antinoopolis near Hermopolis, probably through the desert
to Myos Hormos, and from Myos Hormos along the sea to Berenice, and
provided it with cisterns, stations (σταθμοί), and forts (inscription
in _Revue Archéol._ N. S. xxi. year 1870, p. 314). However there is
no mention of this road subsequently, and it is a question whether it
continued to subsist.

[273] This is nowhere expressly said, but it is clearly evident
from the Periplus of the Egyptian. He speaks at numerous places of
the intercourse of the non-Roman Africa with Arabia (c. 7, 8), and
conversely of the Arabians with the non-Roman Africa (c. 17, 21, 31;
and after him Ptolemaeus, i. 17, 6), and with Persia (c. 27, 33), and
India (c. 21, 27, 49); as also of that of the Persians with India (c.
36), as well as of the Indian merchantmen with the non-Roman Africa (c.
14, 31, 32), and with Persia (c. 36) and Arabia (c. 32). But there is
not a word indicating that these foreign merchants came to Berenice,
Myos Hormos, or Leuce Come; indeed, when he remarks with reference to
the most important mart of all this circle of traffic, Muza, that these
merchants sail with their own ships to the African coast outside of the
Straits of Bab El Mandeb (for that is for him τὸ πέραν), and to India,
Egypt cannot possibly be absent by accident.

[274] In Bâmanghati (district Singhbhum) westward from Calcutta, a
great treasure of gold coins of Roman emperors (Gordian and Constantine
are named) is said to have come to light (Beglar, in Cunningham’s
_Archaeological Survey of India_, vol. xiii. p. 72); but such an
isolated find does not prove that regular intercourse extended so far.
In Further India and China Roman coins have very seldom been found.

[275] The designation _Afer_ does not belong to this series. So far as
we can follow it back in linguistic usage, it is never given to the
Berber in contrast to other African stocks, but to every inhabitant of
the Continent lying over against Sicily, and particularly also to the
Phoenician; if it has designated a definite people at all, this can
only have been that, with which the Romans here first and chiefly came
into contact (comp. Suetonius, _vita Terent._). Reasons philological
and real oppose themselves to our attempt in i. 162 {i. 154} to trace
back the word to the name of the Hebrews; a satisfactory etymology has
not yet been found for it.

[276] A good observer, Charles Tissot, (_Géogr. de la province romaine
de l’Afrique_, i. p. 403) testifies that upwards of a third of the
inhabitants of Morocco have fair or brown hair, and in the colony of
the inhabitants of the Riff in Tangier two-thirds. The women made the
impression on him of those of Berry and of Auvergne. _Sur les hauts
sommets de la chaîne atlantique, d’après les renseignements qui m’ont
été fournis, la population tout entière serait remarquablement blonde.
Elle aurait les yeux bleus, gris ou “verts, comme ceux des chats,”
pour reproduire l’expression même dont s’est servi le cheikh qui me
renseignait._ The same phenomenon meets us in the mountain masses of
Grand Kabylia and of the Aures, as well as on the Tunisian island Jerba
and the Canary Islands. The Egyptian representations also show to us
the Libu not red, like the Egyptians, but white, and with fair or brown
hair.

[277] Cyprian, _Quod idola dii non sint_, c. 2: _Mauri manifeste
reges suos colunt nec ullo velamento hoc nomen obtexunt_. Tertullian,
_Apolog._ 24: _Mauretaniae (dei sunt) reguli sui_. _C. I. L._ viii.,
8834: _Iemsali L. Percenius L. f. Stel. Rogatus v. (s. l. a.)_, found
at Thubusuptu in the region of Sitifis, which place may well have
belonged to the Numidian kingdom of Hiempsal. Thus the inscription also
of Thubursicum (_C. I. L._ viii. n. 7* comp. _Eph. epigr._ v. p. 651,
n. 1478) must have rather been badly copied than falsified. Still,
in the year 70, it was alleged that in Mauretania a pretender to the
throne had ascribed to himself the name of Juba (Tacitus, _Hist._ ii.
58).

[278] This is attested for the year 705 {49 B.C.} as regards both by
Dio, xli. 42 (comp. Suetonius, _Caes._ 54). In the year 707 {47 B.C.}
Bogud lends assistance to the Caesarian governor of Spain (_Bell.
Alex._ 59, 60), and repels an incursion of the younger Gnaeus Pompeius
(_Bell. Afric._ 23). Bocchus, in combination with P. Sittius, in the
African war makes a successful diversion against Juba and conquers
even the important Cirta (_Bell. Afr._ 23; Appian, ii. 96; Dio, xliii.
3). The two obtained in return from Caesar the territory of the prince
Massinissa (Appian, iv. 54). In the second Spanish war Bogud appears
in the army of Caesar (Dio, xliii. 36, 38); the statement that the son
of Bocchus had served in the Pompeian army (Dio, _l. c._) must be a
confusion, probably with Arabio the son of Massinissa, who certainly
went to the sons of Pompeius (Appian, _l. c._). After Caesar’s death
Arabio possessed himself afresh of his dominion (Appian, _l. c._),
but after his death in the year 714 {40 B.C.} (Dio, xlviii. 22) the
Caesarian arrangement must have again taken effect in its full extent.
The bestowal on Bocchus and Sittius is probably to be understood to
the effect that, in the western part of the former Numidian kingdom
otherwise left to Bocchus, the colony of Cirta to be founded by
Sittius was to be regarded as an independent Roman town, like Tingi
subsequently in the kingdom of Mauretania.

[279] If, according to Dio, xl. 43, Caesar in the year 721 {33
B.C.} after the death of Bocchus, nominates no successor, but makes
Mauretania a province, and then (li. 15) in the year 724 {30 B.C.},
on occasion of the end of the queen of Egypt, there is mention of
the marriage of her daughter with Juba and his investiture with his
father’s kingdom, and, lastly (liii. 26), under the year 729 {25 B.C.}
there is reported Juba’s investiture with a portion of Gaetulia instead
of his hereditary kingdom, as well as with the kingdoms of Bocchus and
Bogud; only the last account confirmed by Strabo, xvii. 3, 7, p. 828,
is correct. The first is at least incorrect in its way of apprehending
the matter, as Mauretania evidently was not made a province in 721
{33 B.C.}, but only the investiture was held in abeyance for the time
being; and the second partly anticipates, since Cleopatra, born before
the triumph about 719 (_Eph. epigr._ i., p. 276), could not possibly be
married in 724, and is partly mistaken, because Juba certainly never
got back his paternal kingdom as such. If he had been king of Numidia
before 729, and if it had been merely the extent of his kingdom that
then underwent a change, he would have counted his years from the first
installation and not merely from 729.

[280] That Balbus carried on this campaign as proconsul of Africa,
is shown in particular by the triumphal Fasti; but the consul L.
Cornelius of the year 732 must have been another person, since Balbus,
according to Velleius ii. 51, obtained that consular governorship, _ex
privato consularis_, _i.e._ without having filled a curule office.
The nomination, therefore, cannot have taken place according to the
usual arrangement by lot. To all appearance he fell into disgrace
with Augustus for good reasons on account of his Spanish quaestorship
(Drumann ii. 609), and was then, after the lapse of more than twenty
years, sent, as an extraordinary measure, to Africa, on account of his
undoubted aptitude for this specially difficult task.

[281] The tribes whom Tacitus names in his account of the war, far
from clear, as always, in a geographical point of view, may be in some
measure determined; and the position between the Leptitanian and the
Cirtensian columns (_Ann._ iii. 74) points for the middle column to
Theveste. The town of Thala (_Ann._ iii. 20) cannot possibly be sought
above Ammaedara, but is probably the Thala of the Jugurthan war in the
vicinity of Capsa. The last section of the war has its arena in western
Mauretania about Auzia (iv. 25), and accordingly in Thubuscum (iv. 24)
there lurks possibly Thubusuptu or Thubusuctu. The river Pagyda (_Ann._
iii. 20) is quite indefinable.

[282] Ptolemaeus, iv. 3, 23, puts the Musulamii southward from the
Aures, and it is only in accord therewith that they are called in
Tacitus ii. 52, dwellers beside the steppe and neighbours of the
Mauri; later they are settled to the north and west of Theveste (_C.
I. L._ viii. 270, 10667). The Nattabutes dwelt according to Ptolemaeus
_l. c._ southward of the Musulamii; subsequently we find them to the
south of Calama (_C. I. L._ viii. 484). In like manner the _Chellenses
Numidae_, between Lares and Althiburus (_Eph. epigr._ V. n. 639), and
the _conventus (civium Romanorum et) Numidarum qui Mascululae habitant_
(_ib._ n. 597), are probably Berber tribes transplanted from Numidia to
the proconsular province.

[283] In the year 70 the troops of the two Mauretanias amounted
together, in addition to militia levied in large numbers, to 5 alae
and 19 cohortes (Tacitus, _Hist._ ii. 58), and so, if we reckon on
the average every fourth as a double troop, to about 15,000 men. The
regular army of Numidia was weaker rather than stronger.

[284] Inscription _C. I. L._ viii. 8369 of the year 129: _Termini
positi inter Igilgilitanos, in quorum finibus kastellum Victoriae
positum est, et Zimiz(es), ut sciant Zimizes non plus in usum se habere
ex auctoritate M. Vetti Latronis pro(curatoris) Aug(usti) qua(m) in
circuitu a muro kast(elli) p(edes)_ D. The _Zimises_ are placed by the
Peutingerian map alongside of Igilgili to the westward.

[285] If the praefect of a cohort doing garrison duty in Numidia held
the command at the same time over six Gaetulian tribes (_nationes_, _C.
I. L._ v. 5267), men that were natives of Mauretania were employed as
irregulars in the neighbouring province. Irregular Mauretanian horsemen
frequently occur, especially in the later imperial period. Lusius
Quietus under Trajan, a Moor and leader of a Moorish troop (Dio lxviii.
32), no Λίβυς ἐκ τῆς ὑπηκόου Λιβύης, ἀλλ’ ἐξ ἀδόξου καὶ ἀπῳκισμένης
ἐσχατιᾶς (Themistius, _Or._ xvi p. 250 Dind.), was without doubt a
Gaetulian sheikh, who served with his followers in the Roman army.
That his home was formally independent of the empire, is not affirmed
in the words of Themistius; the “subject-territory” is that with Roman
organisation, the ἐσχατιά its border inhabited by dependent tribes.

[286] To the inscriptions, which prove this (_C. I. L._ viii. p. xviii.
747), falls now to be added the remarkable dedication of the leader of
an expeditionary column from the year 174, found in the neighbourhood
of Géryville (_Eph. epigr._ v. n. 1043).

[287] The _tumultus Gaetulicus_ (_C. I. L._ viii. 6958) was rather an
insurrection than an invasion.

[288] Ptolemy certainly takes as boundary of the province of Caesarea
the line above the Shott, and does not reckon Gaetulia as belonging to
it; on the other hand he extends that of Tingis as far as the Great
Atlas. Pliny v. 4, 30, numbers among the subject peoples of Africa “all
Gaetulia as far as the Niger and the Ethiopian frontier,” which points
nearly to Timbuctoo. The latter statement will accord with the official
conception of the matter.

[289] Already in Nero’s time Calpurnius (_Egl._ iv. 40) terms the
shore of Baetica _trucibus obnoxia Mauris_.--If under Pius the Moors
were beaten off and driven back as far as and over the Atlas (_vita
Pii_, 5; Pausanias viii. 43), the sending of troops at that time from
Spain to the Tingitana (_C. I. L._ iii. 5212-5215) makes it probable
that this attack of the Moors affected Baetica, and the troops of the
Tarraconensis marching against these followed them over the straits.
The probably contemporary activity of the Syrian legion at the Aures
(p. 320) suggests moreover that this war extended also to Numidia.--The
war with the Moors under Marcus (_vita Marci_, 21, 22; _vita Severi_,
2), had its scene essentially in Baetica and Lusitania.--A governor of
Hither Spain under Severus had to fight with the “rebels” by water and
by land (_C. I. L._ ii. 4114).--Under Alexander (_vita_, 58) there was
fighting in the province of Tingi, but without mention of Spain in the
case.--From the time of Aurelian (_vita Saturnini_, 9) there is mention
of Mauro-Spanish conflicts. We cannot exactly determine the time of a
sending of troops from Numidia to Spain and against the Mazices (_C. I.
L._ viii. 2786), where presumably not the Mazices of the Caesariensis
but those of the Tingitana on the Riff (Ptolem. iv. 1, 10), are meant;
perhaps with this is connected the fact that Gaius Vallius Maximianus,
as governor of Tingitana, achieved in the province Baetica (according
to Hirschfeld, _Wiener Stud._ vi. 123, under Marcus and Commodus) a
victory over the Moors and relieved towns besieged by them (_C. I. L._
ii. 1120, 2015); these events prove at least that the conflicts with
the Moors on the Riff and the associates that flocked to them from
the country lying behind did not cease. When the Baquates on the same
coast besieged the pretty remote Cartenna (Tenes) in the Caesariensis
(_C. I. L._ viii. 9663), they perhaps came by sea. Where the wars with
the Moors under Hadrian (_vita_, 5, 12) and Commodus (_vita_, 13) took
place is not known.

[290] More information than in the scanty accounts of Victor and
Eutropius is supplied as to this war by the inscribed stones,
_C. I. L._ viii. 2615, 8836, 9045, 9047. According to these the
_Quinquegentiani_ may be followed out from Gallienus to Diocletian. The
beginning is made by the Baquates who, designated as _Transtagnenses_,
must have dwelt beyond the Shott. Four “kings” combine for an
expedition. The most dreaded opponent is Faraxen with his _gentiles
Fraxinenses_. Towns like Mileu in Numidia not far from Cirta and Auzia
in the Caesariensis are attacked, and the citizens must in good part
defend themselves against the enemy. After the end of the war Maximian
constructs great magazines in Thubusuctu not far from Saldae. These
fragmentary accounts give in some measure an insight into the relations
of the time.

[291] Apart from the coins this is proved also by the inscriptions.
According to the comparison, for which I am indebted to Herr Euting,
the great mass of the old Punic inscriptions, that is, those written
probably before the destruction of Carthage, falls to Carthage
itself (about 2500), the rest to Hadrumetum (9), Thugga (the famous
Phoenico-Berber one), Cirta (5), Iol-Caesarea (1). The new Punic occur
most numerously in and around Carthage (30), and generally they are
found not unfrequently in the proconsular province, also in Great
Leptis (5) and on the islands of Girba (1) and Cossura (1); in Numidia,
in and near Calama (23), and in Cirta (15); in Mauretania hitherto only
in Portus Magnus (2).

[292] The coining in Africa ceases in the main after Tiberius, and
thereafter, since African inscriptions from the first century after
Christ are before us only in very small numbers, for a considerable
period documents fail us. The coins of Babba in the Tingitana, going
from Claudius down to Galba, have exclusively Latin legends; but the
town was a colony. The Latin-Punic inscriptions of Great Leptis, _C.
I. L._ viii. 7, and of Naraggara, _C. I. L._ viii. 4636, may doubtless
belong to the time after Tiberius, but as bilingual tell rather for
the view that, when they were set up, the Phoenician language was
already degraded.

[293] From the expression in the epitome of Victor, that the emperor
Severus was _Latinis litteris sufficienter instructus, Graecis
sermonibus eruditus, Punica eloquentia promptior, quippe genitus apud
Leptim_, we may not infer a Punic course of rhetoric in the Tripolis of
that time; the late and inferior author has possibly given a scholastic
version of the well-known notice.

[294] On the statement of the younger Arnobius, writing about 460
(_ad Psalm._ 104, p. 481 Migne: _Cham vero secundus filius Noe a
Rhinocoruris usque Gadira habens linguas sermone Punico a parte
Garamantum, Latino a parte boreae, barbarico a parte meridiani,
Aethiopum et Aegyptiorum ac barbaris interioribus vario sermone numero
viginti duabus linguis in patriis trecentis nonaginta et quattuor_), no
reliance is to be placed, still less upon the nonsense of Procopius,
_de bello Vand._ ii. 10, as to the Phoenician inscription and language
in Tigisis. Authorities of this sort were hardly able to distinguish
Berber and Punic.

[295] In a single place on the Little Syrtis the Phoenician may still
have been spoken in the eleventh century (Movers, _Phön._ ii. 2, 478).

[296] More clearly than by the Latin inscriptions found in Africa,
which begin too late to illustrate the state of things before
the second century A.D., this is shown by the four contracts of
_patronatus_ from the time of Tiberius, quoted in next note, concluded
by two small places of the proconsular province Apisa maius and Siagu,
and two others nowhere else mentioned, probably adjacent, Themetra and
Thimiligi; according to which the statement of Strabo (xvii. 3, 15, p.
833) that at the beginning of the last war the Carthaginian territory
numbered 300 towns, appears not at all incredible. In each of those
four smaller places there were sufetes; even where the old and new
Punic inscriptions name magistrates, there are regularly two sufetes.
That these are comparatively frequent in the proconsular province, and
elsewhere can only be pointed out in Calama, serves to show how much
more strongly the Phoenician urban organisation was developed in the
former.

[297] The contracts of _patronatus_ from the time of Caesar (_C. I.
L._ viii. 10525), of Augustus (_ib._ 68 comp. 69), and Tiberius (_C.
I. L._ v. 4919-4922), concluded by the _senatus populusque_ of African
communities (_civitates_) of peregrine rights with Romans of rank,
appear to have been entered into quite after the Roman fashion by the
common council, which represents and binds the community.

[298] On the coin undoubtedly struck under Caesar (Müller _Num. de
l’Afr._ ii. 149) with _Kar(thago) Veneris_ and _Aristo Mutumbal Ricoce
suf(etes)_, the first two names are probably to be taken together as
a Graeco-Phoenician double name, such as elsewhere is not rare (comp.
_C. I. L._ v. 4922: _agente Celere Imilchonis Gulalsae filio sufete_).
Since on the one hand sufetes cannot be assigned to a Roman colony, and
on the other hand the conducting of such a colony to Carthage itself is
well attested, Caesar himself must either have subsequently changed the
form of founding the city, or the founding of the colony must have been
carried into effect by the triumvirate as a posthumous ordinance of the
dictator (as is hinted by Appian, _Pun._ 136). We may compare the fact
that Curubis stands in the earlier time of Caesar under sufetes (_C.
I. L._ viii. 10525), in the year 709 U.C. as a Caesarian colony under
duoviri (_ib._ 977); yet the case is different, since this town did
not, like Carthage, owe its existence to Caesar.

[299] For Africa and Numidia Pliny (_H. N._, v. 4, 29 f.) numbers in
all 516 communities, among which are 6 colonies, 15 communities of
Roman burgesses, 2 Latin towns (for the _oppidum stipendiarium_ must,
according to the position which is given to it, have been also of
Italian rights), the rest either Phoenician towns (_oppida_), among
which were 30 free, or else Libyan tribes (_non civitates tantum, sed
pleraeque etiam nationes iure dici possunt_). Whether these figures
are to be referred to Vespasian’s time or to an earlier, is not
ascertained; in any case they are not free from errors, for, besides
the six colonies specially adduced, six are wanting (Assuras, Carpi,
Clupea, Curubi, Hippo Diarrhytos, Neapolis), which are referable,
partly with certainty partly with probability, to Caesar or Augustus.

[300] Pliny, v. 1, 2, says indeed only of Zulil or rather Zili _regum
dicioni exempta et iura in Baeticam petere iussa_, and this might be
connected with the transfer of this community to Baetica as _Iulia
Traducta_ (Strabo, iii. 1, 8, p. 140). But probably Pliny gives this
notice in the case of Zili alone, just because this is the first colony
laid out beyond the imperial frontier which he names. The burgess of a
Roman colony cannot possibly have had his forum of justice before the
king of Mauretania.

[301] Frontinus in the well-known passage, p. 53 Lachm., respecting
processes between the urban communities and private persons, or, as
it may be, the emperor, appears not to presuppose state-districts _de
iure_ independent and of a similar nature with urban territories--such
as are incompatible with Roman law--but a _de facto_ refractory
attitude of the great land-owner towards the community which makes him
liable, _e.g._ for the furnishing of recruits or compulsory services,
basing itself on the allegation that the piece of land made liable is
not within the bounds of the community requiring the service.

[302] The technical designation _gens_ comes into prominence
particularly in the fixed title of the _praefectus gentis Musulamiorum,
etc._; but, as this is the lowest category of the independent
commonwealth, the word is usually avoided in dedications (comp. _C. I.
L._ viii. p. 1100) and _civitas_ put instead, a designation, which,
like the _oppidum_ of Pliny foreign to the technical language (p.
331, note), includes in it all communities of non-Italian or Greek
organisation. The nature of the _gens_ is described by the paraphrase
(_C. I. L._ viii. 68) alternating with _civitas Gurzensis_ (_ib._ 69):
_senatus populusque civitatium stipendiariorum pago Gurzenses_, that
is, the “elders and community of the clans of tributary people in the
village of Gurza.”

[303] When the designation _princeps_ (_C. I. L._ viii. p. 1102) is
not merely enunciative but an official title, it appears throughout in
communities which are neither themselves urban communities nor parts
of such, and with special frequency in the case of the _gentes_. We
may compare the “eleven first” (comp. _Eph. epigr._ v. n. 302, 521,
533) with the _seniores_ to be met with here and there. An evidence
in support of both positions is given in the inscription _C. I. L._
viii. 7041: _Florus Labaeonis f. princeps et undecimprimus gentis
Saboidum_. Recently at Bu Jelîda, a little westward of the great road
between Carthage and Theveste, in a valley of the Jebel Rihan, and so
in a quite civilised region, there have been found the remains of a
Berber village, which calls itself on a monument of the time of Pius
(still unprinted) _gens Bacchuiana_, and is under “eleven elders”;
the names of gods (_Saturno Achaiaei [?] Aug[usio]_), like the names
of men (_Candidus Braisamonis fil._), are half local, half Latin. In
Calama the dating after the two sufetes and the _princeps_ (_C. I. L._
viii. 5306, comp. 5369) is remarkable; it appears that this probably
Libyan community was first under a chief, and then obtained sufetes
without the chief being dropped. It may readily be understood that our
monuments do not give much information upon the _gentes_ and their
organisation; in this field doubtless little was written on stone.
Even the Libyan inscriptions belong, at least as regards the majority,
to towns in part or wholly inhabited by Berbers; the bilingual
inscriptions found at Tenelium (_C. I. L._ viii. p. 514), in Numidia
westward from Bona in the Sheffia plain, the same place that has
furnished till now most of the Berber stone inscriptions, show indeed
in their Latin part Libyan names, _e.g._ _Chinidial Misicir_ f. and
_Naddhsen Cotuzanis_ f., both from the clan (_tribu_) of the _Misiciri_
or _Misictri_; but one of these people, who has served in the Roman
army and has acquired the Roman franchise, names himself in the Latin
text _in civitate sua Tenelio flamen perpetuus_, according to which
this place seems to have been organised like a town. If, therefore,
success should ever attend the attempt to read and decipher the Berber
inscriptions with certainty, they would hardly give us sufficient
information as to the internal organisation of the Berber tribes.

[304] That the Gaetulian purple is to be referred to Juba is stated by
Pliny, _H. N._ vi. 31, 201: _paucas (Mauretaniae insulas) constat esse
ex adverso Autololum a Iuba repertas, in quibus Gaetulicam purpuram
tinguere instituerat_; by these _insulae purpurariae_ (_ib._ 203) can
only be meant Madeira. In fact the oldest mention of this purple is
that in Horace, _Ep._ ii. 2, 181. Proofs are wanting as to the later
duration of this manufacture, and, as the Roman rule did not extend to
these islands, it is not probable, although from the _sagum purpurium_
of the tariff of Zarai (_C. I. L._ viii. 4508) we may infer Mauretanian
manufactures of purple.

[305] The tariff of Zarai set up at the Numidian customs-frontier
towards Mauretania (_C. I. L._ viii. 4508) from the year 202 gives a
clear picture of the Mauretanian exports. Wine, figs, dates, sponges,
are not wanting; but slaves, cattle of all sorts, woollen stuffs
(_vestis Afra_), and leather wares play the chief part. The Description
of the earth also from the time of Constantius says, c. 60, that
Mauretania _vestem et mancipia negotiatur_.

[306] According to an epitaph found in Mactaris in the Byzacene (_Eph.
epigr._ v. n. 279), a man of free birth there, after having been
actively engaged in bringing in the harvests far around in Africa,
first throughout twelve years as an ordinary reaper and then for another
eleven as a foreman, purchased for himself with the savings of his pay
a town and a country house, and became in his turn a member of council
and burgomaster. His poetical epitaph shows, if not culture, at least
pretensions to it. A development of life of this sort was in the Roman
imperial period doubtless not so rare as it at first may seem, but
probably occurred in Africa more frequently than elsewhere.

[307] How far our Latin texts of the Bible are to be referred to
several translations originally different, or whether, as Lachmann
assumed, the different recensions have proceeded from one and the
same translation as a basis by means of manifold revision with the
aid of the originals, are questions which can scarcely be definitely
decided--for the present at least--in favour of either one or the
other view. But that both Italians and Africans took part in this
work--whether of translation or of correction--is proved by the famous
words of Augustine, _de doctr. Christ._ ii. 15, 22, _in ipsis autem
interpretationibus Itala ceteris praeferatur, nam est verborum tenacior
cum perspicuitate sententiae_, over which great authorities have been
perplexed, but certainly without reason. Bentley’s proposal, approved
afresh of late (by Corssen, _Jahrb. für protestant. Theol._ vii. p.
507 f.), to change _Itala_ into _illa_ and _nam_ into _quae_, is
inadmissible alike philologically and in substance. For the twofold
change is destitute of all external probability, and besides _nam_
is protected by the copyist Isidorus, _Etym._ vi. 4, 2. The further
objection that linguistic usage would require _Italica_, is not borne
out (_e.g._ Sidonius and Iordanes as well as the inscriptions of later
times, _C. I. L._ x. p. 1146, write _Italus_ by turns with _Italicus_),
and the designation of a single translation as the most trustworthy
on the whole is quite consistent with the advice to consult as many
as possible; whereas by the change proposed an intelligent remark is
converted into a meaningless commonplace. It is true that the Christian
Church in Rome in the first three centuries made use throughout of
the Greek language, and that we may not seek _there_ for the _Itali_
who took part in the Latin Bible. But that in Italy outside of Rome,
especially in Upper Italy, the knowledge of Greek was not much more
diffused than in Africa, is most clearly shown by the names of
freedmen; and it is just to the non-Roman Italy that the designation
used by Augustine points; while we may perhaps also call to mind the
fact that Augustine was gained for Christianity by Ambrosius in Milan.
The attempt to identify the traces of the recension called by Augustine
_Itala_ in such remains as have survived of Bible translations before
Jerome’s, will at all events hardly ever be successful; but still
less will it admit of being proved that Africans only worked at the
pre-Hieronymian Latin Bible texts. That they originated largely,
perhaps for the most part, in Africa has certainly great probability.
The contrast to the one _Itala_ can only in reason have been several
_Afrae_; and the vulgar Latin, in which these texts are all of them
written, is in full agreement with the vulgar Latin, as it was
demonstrably spoken in Africa. At the same time we must doubtless not
overlook the fact that we know the vulgar Latin in general principally
from African sources, and that the proof of the restriction of any
individual linguistic phenomenon to Africa is as necessary as it
is for the most part unadduced. There existed side by side as well
vulgarisms in general use as African provincialisms (comp. _Eph.
epigr._ iv. p. 520, as to the cognomina in _-osus_); but that forms
like _glorificare_, _nudificare_, _justificare_, belong to the second
category, is by no means proved from the fact that we first meet with
them in Africa, since analogous documents to those which we possess,
_e.g._ for Carthage in the case of Tertullian, are wanting to us as
regards Capua and Milan.

[308] The arguments of Mr. B. W. Henderson (_English Hist. Review_,
1903, 1-23) for a different advance seem to me to be based on a
misconception of some of the evidence. Thus, there is no tile of
Leg. ix. at Leicester, nor any trace yet noted of Leg. ii. Aug. at
Cirencester or Gloucester.



INDEX


  Abdagaeses, ii. 44.

  Abgarus, of Edessa, ii. 46 (under Claudius), 68 (under Trajan),
    78 (under Severus).

  Abrinca, rivulet, i. 119 _n._

  Achaeans, diet, i. 264.

  Achaemenids, dynasty, ii. 2, 3, 10;
    “seven houses,” 6.

  Achaia, province, i. 255 f. _n._;
    under the emperors, 260.

  Acraephia, inscription, i. 265 _n._, 273 _n._

  Actiads, i. 296 _n._

  Actian games, i. 296 _n._

  Adane, ii. 288 f.;
    destroyed, 293 f. _n._

  Adiabene, ii. 68, 78 _n._, 88.

  _Adiabenicus_, ii. 78 _n._

  Adminius, i. 174.

  Adrianopolis, i. 307.

  Adulis, ii. 280, 281, 282, 296.

  Aedemon, ii. 313.

  Aegium, diet of, ii. 264 _n._

  Aeizanas, ii. 284 _n._

  Aelana, ii. 288.

  Aemilianus, Marcus Aemilius, i. 241.

  Aemilianus, Egyptian tyrant, ii. 251.

  Aethiopia and Aethiopians, ii. 275-278;
    traffic, 278.

  _Afer_, ii. 304 _n._

  Africa, North, ii. 303;
    Berber stock, 303-305;
    Phoenician immigration, 306;
    government of republic, 306 f.;
    Caesar’s policy, 307 f.;
    extent of Roman rule, 308 f.;
    no strict frontier, 309;
    province of, 310;
    two Mauretanian kingdoms, 310 f.;
    physical conformation, 314;
    Africano-Numidian territory, 316 f.;
    war against Tacfarinas and later conflicts, 317-320;
    Roman civilisation in Mauretania, 320 f.;
    continuance of Berber language, 325 f.;
    of Phoenician, 326 f.;
    coinage, 327 _n._;
    Latin language, 329;
    Phoenician urban organisation, 329;
    transformed into Italian, 331;
    number of towns, 331 _n._;
    Italian colonists, 332;
    large landed estates, 333 f.;
    husbandry, 336;
    corn supplied to Rome, 337;
    oil and wine, 337 f.;
    manufactures and commerce, 338 f.;
    prosperity, 339;
    roads, 339 f.;
    introduction of camels, 340;
    character and culture of people, 340 f.;
    scholasticism, 342;
    Christian literature, 343-345;
    Latin Scriptures, 343 f. _n._

  Agonistic institutes, i. 289 _n._

  _Agonothesia_, i. 347 _n._, 348 _n._

  Agricola, Gnaeus Julius, i. 182-184, 194.

  Agrippa;
    _see_ Herod Agrippa.

  Agrippa, M. Vipsanius, in command on the Danube, i. 22;
    transference of Ubii, 25;
    combats in Gaul, 80.

  Agrippa, Marcus Fonteius, i. 218.

  Agrippina (Cologne), i. 119.

  Ahenobarbus, Lucius Domitius, expedition to Elbe, i. 31;
    dyke between Ems and Lower Rhine, 34.

  Ahuramazda, ii. 10 f., 84.

  Alamanni, war with, i. 161 f., 163;
    raids, 166 f.

  Alani, ii. 62 _n._, 64, 73, 74 _n._

  Albani, ii. 72 f.

  Alexander the Great, basing his empire on towns, not on tribes, ii. 120.

  Alexander II. of Egypt, testament, ii. 232.

  Alexander, son of Cleopatra, ii. 24, 25, 26;
    installed king of Armenia, 33.

  Alexander Severus, purchases peace in Germany, i. 162;
    murder, 162; ii. 91;
    character, 89 f.;
    war with Ardashir, 90 _n._;
    nicknamed “chief Rabbi,” 263.

  Alexander of Abonoteichos, i. 350.

  Alexander, Tiberius Julius, ii. 168, 204, 242 _n._, 246 _n._

  Alexandria, in Egypt, under the Palmyrenes, ii. 107, 108 _n._, 250;
    number and position of Jews, 165 _n._, 200 _n._, 267;
    Jew-hunt, 192, 193 _n._;
    deputations to Gaius, 193 f.;
    “Greek city,” 235 f.;
    chief priest of, 238;
    exemptions and privileges, 240 _n._;
    libraries, 246, 271;
    chief officials, 248 _n._;
    distribution of corn, 251 _n._;
    Italian settlement in, 257;
    mariners’ guilds, 257 _n._;
    comparison with Antioch, 262;
    Alexandrian Fronde, 263;
    nicknames, 263;
    tumults frequent and serious, 264 _n._, 265;
    worship, 265 f., 266 _n._;
    old cultus retaining its hold, 267;
    learned world, 267 f.;
    physicians and quacks, 268;
    scholar-life, 269 f.;
    Museum, 271 f., 272;
    labours of erudition, 271 f.;
    “jointure” of Greek science, 273;
    camp in suburb of Nicopolis, 274.

  Alexandria, in Troas, i. 326 f.

  Alexandropolis, ii. 15.

  Aliso, fortress, i. 34 f., 36;
    defence by Caedicius, 48.

  Allegorical interpretation, Jewish, ii. 168 f.

  Allobroges, i. 87, 88 _n._, 91.

  Alps, subjugation, i. 15;
    military districts, 17 f.;
    roads and colonies, 19.

  Amasia, i. 331.

  Amâzigh, ii. 303.

  _Ambubaia_, ii. 133.

  Amida, ii. 115.

  Amisus, i. 331 f.

  Amphictiony remodelled by Augustus, i. 254 _n._, 255 _n._

  Amsivarii, i. 124.

  Amyntas, i. 335 _n._; ii. 24, 37.

  Ananias, ii. 102 f.

  Ancyra, i. 341 _n._, 342 _n._

  Anthedon, ii. 210.

  Antigonea, ii. 127 _n._

  Antigonus, son of Hyrcanus, ii. 175-178.

  Antinoopolis, ii. 236, 237 _n._, 297 _n._

  Antioch, earthquake at, ii. 68;
    capture by the Persians (260), 101, 132;
    and by Aurelian, 109;
    creation of monarchic policy, 127;
    capital of Syria, 127;
    Daphne, 128;
    water supply, and lighted streets, 129 _n._;
    poverty of intellectual interests, 130;
    paucity of inscriptions, 132;
    exhibitions and games, 132;
    races, 132 _n._;
    immorality, 133;
    dissolute cultus, 134;
    fondness for ridicule, 134 f.;
    support of pretenders, 134;
    reception of, and capture by Nushirvan, 135;
    Jew-hunt at, 219.

  Antioch in Pisidia, i. 336 f.

  Antiochus of Commagene, ii. 49, 53;
    tomb of, 125;
    his buildings at Athens, i. 278.

  Antiochus Epiphanes, ii. 196.

  Antipater the Idumaean, ii. 174-177.

  Antoninus Pius: wall from Forth to Clyde, i. 187 _n._;
    conflicts in Britain under, 188 _n._

  Antonius, Marcus, ii. 22 f.;
    position in 38 B.C., 23 f.;
    his army, 24;
    his aims, 24 f.;
    children by Cleopatra, 26 _n._;
    preparations for Parthian war, 26 f.;
    temperament, 27;
    Parthian war, 27 f.;
    resistance in Atropatene, 29;
    retreat, 30, 31;
    last years in the East, 32;
    dismisses Octavia seeking reconciliation, 33;
    punishes those blamed for his miscarriage, 33;
    attempt on Palmyra, 93;
    government in Alexandria, 232.

  Apamea in Phrygia, i. 327.

  Apamea in Syria, ii. 136, 141.

  Aper, Marcus, i. 113.

  Apharban, ii. 114.

  Apion, ii. 193, 194 _n._

  Apocalypse of John: conception of Roman and Parthian empires as standing
      side by side, ii. 1 _n._;
    pseudo-Nero of, 64 f.;
    directed against the worship of the emperors, 196, 197-199 _n._

  Apollinaris, Gaius Sulpicius, ii. 342.

  Apollo, Actian, i. 295 f.

  Apollonia, i. 201 f., 299.

  Apollonius of Tyana, i. 350.

  Appian, historian, ii. 221 f., 223.

  Appuleius of Madaura, ii. 341, 342.

  Appuleius, Pseudo-, Dialogue of the gods quoted, ii. 266 _n._

  Apri, i. 306.

  Apronius, Lucius, i. 125.

  Apulum, i. 228.

  Aquae Sextiae, i. 78, 81.

  Aquileia, i. 197 f., 231, 233.

  Aquincum, i. 228;
    contra-Aquincum, 249.

  Aquitania, wars, i. 64, 80;
    coins, 79 _n._;
    province, 88;
    cantons of, 96.

  Arabia, ii. 13;
    Roman, what it included, 143 f.;
    institution of province by Trajan, 152;
    west coast of, 284 f.;
    Homerites, 286 f.;
    Felix, 285, 289;
    policy of Augustus, 290;
    expedition of Gallus, 290 f.;
    state of the coast, 291 _n._;
    expedition of Gaius, 293 _n._;
    injury to its commerce, 293.

  Arachosia, ii. 13, 15.

  Aradus, ii. 138 _n._

  Aramaic language, ii. 164.

  Arbela, ii. 4, 88.

  Archaism, Greek, i. 282 _n._

  Archelaus of Cappadocia, ii. 41.

  Archelaus, son of Herod the Great, ii. 183 f.

  Architecture, Syrian, ii. 156 f.

  Ardashir (Artaxares), ii. 81 _n._, 83 _n._, 84, 85, 89 _n._, 91.

  Arelate, i. 86, 89;
    amphitheatre, 106.

  Aretas, ii. 148 _n._, 149 f. _n._, 150 f.

  Argentoratum, i. 119, 147, 159.

  Ariarathes of Cappadocia, ii. 33.

  Ariobarzanes, ii. 38, 39.

  Aristobulus, of Chalcis, ii. 49.

  Aristobulus, prince of Judaea, ii. 175 f.

  Aristotle’s recommendation to Alexander, ii. 241.

  Armenia, ii. 6, 19, 20, 33, 34, 35, 36, 40 f.;
    Parthian appanage for second son, 51, 60;
    Roman policy as to, 50-52;
    subdued by Corbulo, 53 f.;
    under Parthian prince vassal to Rome, 60 f.;
    Roman province under Trajan, 67 f., 70 f.;
    becomes again vassal-state, 72;
    Parthian invasion, 74 f., 80 _n._, 89 f., 92, 102, 104, 112 _n._,
      113, 114 _n._, 115 _n._

  Arminius, i. 43;
    defeat of Varus, 46 f.;
    combats with Germanicus, 54;
    attack on Maroboduus, 60 f.;
    desertion of Inguiomerus, 61;
    civil war and end, 62.

  Arnobius, ii. 345.

  Arrianus, Flavius, ii. 20 _n._, 73 _n._

  Arsaces, founder of Parthian dynasty, ii. 3, 4, 6.

  Arsaces, son of Artabanus, ii. 42.

  Arsacids and their rule, ii. 3-12 _el._

  Arsamosata, ii. 56, 59.

  Arsinoe, ii. 280, 291 f.

  Art, constructive, in Gaul, i. 115;
    in Syria, ii. 156 f.

  Artabanus (III.), king of the Parthians, ii. 40-45.

  Artabanus (IV.), ii. 87 f.

  Artageira, ii. 40.

  Artavazdes of Armenia, ii. 28-33.

  Artavazdes of Atropatene, ii. 28, 29, 32.

  Artaxares;
    _see_ Ardashir.

  Artaxata, ii. 48, 53 f., 75.

  Artaxes, ii. 33-38.

  Artaxias of Armenia, ii. 42 f.

  Asander, i. 312, 313 _n._

  Ascalon, ii. 212.

  Asia Minor: natives and colonists, i. 320;
    Hellenism, 321 f.;
    formation of new centres, 322;
    provinces of, 323;
    territories added to empire, 323 f.;
    senatorial and imperial government, 323 f.;
    changes in boundaries of provinces and vassal-states, 324 _n._;
    municipal vanity, 328 _n._;
    honorary Hellenism, 344;
    leagues of Hellenism, 343, 344 _n._;
    representatives, 344 _n._;
    land-diets and land festivals, 344 f.;
    provincial priests and Asiarchs, 345 f.;
    superintendence of emperor-worship, 348;
    system of religion, 350;
    public safety, 350;
    occupying force, 350 f.;
    justice in, 352 _n._;
    constitution of towns, 352 f.;
    clubs, 353;
    free autonomous communities, 354;
    urban life, 354 f.;
    prosperity, 354 f.;
    defects of municipal administration, 357;
    roads, 358 _n._;
    trade, 359 f.;
    commerce, 360;
    supplies teachers and physicians to Italy, 361, 365;
    literary activity, 362;
    instruction, 362;
    sophistic system, 362-366.

  Asia, Roman: extent of province, i. 325;
    coast-towns, 325 f.;
    inland townships, 326 f.;
    position under Romans, 327;
    urban rivalries, 329 f.;
    legions in, ii. 63.

  Asiarchs, i. 345-347 _n._

  Asklepios, i. 350.

  Asoka, ii. 13, 14 _n._

  Astarte, ii. 331.

  Astingi, i. 237.

  Astures, i. 65, 71.

  Asturica Augusta, i. 66.

  Athens: privileged position, i. 254, 258;
    administration, 276 f.;
    possessions, 277;
    Hadrian’s grants, 277 f.;
    street-riots, 279;
    state of the language, 281, 282 _n._

  Atropatene, ii. 6, 19, 28 f., 33 f., 38.

  Attalia, i. 334.

  Augusta Emerita, i. 64 _n._

  Augusta Praetoria (Aosta), i. 19 f.

  Augusta Vindelicorum, i. 19, 20, 154, 196 f.

  Augustamnica, ii. 298.

  Augustan History, falsification as to Postumus, i. 164 _n._

  Augustodunum, seat of Gallic studies, i. 112 f.

  Augustinus, Aurelius, picture of Carthage, ii. 341;
    _Itala_, 343 _n._;
    _Confessions_, 345.

  Augustus, the Emperor: expedition against Alpine tribes, i. 16;
    monument to, above Monaco, 17;
    roads or colonies in Alps, 19 f.;
    visit to Germany, 26;
    German policy and motives for changing it, 56-59;
    visits Spain, 64;
    organisation of towns there, 68 f.;
    organisation of the three Gauls, 84 f.;
    restricted franchise of Gauls, 98;
    altar at Lugudunum, 94;
    altar for Germanic cantons, 35, 97, 118;
    discharge of Batavian guards, 121;
    project of connecting Rhine and Danube, 148;
    projects as to Britain not carried out, 172;
    reasons for and against its occupation, 172;
    conviction of its necessity, 173 f.;
    arrangements on the Danubian frontier, 195 f.;
    Illyricum subdued, 201;
    settlement of veterans in Dalmatia, 202;
    his Amphictiony, 254 f.;
    dealings with Greece, 261;
    treatment of Athens, 277;
    insurrection at, 279;
    foundation and privileges of Nicopolis, 294 f.;
    colonies in Macedonia, 301;
    pacification of Cilicia and Pisidia, 335 f.;
    diets and festivals for, in Asia Minor, 345;
    cancels debtors’ claims there, 357;
    decorum of, ii. 26 _n._;
    first arrangements in East, 34 f.;
    policy open to him, 36;
    inadequate measures, 36 f.;
    in Syria (20 B.C.), 37 f.;
    mission of Gaius to East, 39;
    Nicolaus Damascenus on his youth, 168;
    treatment of the Jews, 171 f.;
    dealing with Herod’s testament, 182, 184;
    attitude towards Jewish worship, 187;
    annexation of Egypt, 232 f., 239;
    Egyptian titles, 244;
    policy as to south-western Arabia, 290;
    expedition of Gallus, 290 f.;
    of Gaius, 293;
    repression of piracy in Red Sea, 298;
    colonisation in Mauretania, 333;
    death, i. 50.

  Aurelianus, defeats the Juthungi, i. 166;
    combats with the Goths on Danube, 248 f.;
    against the Palmyrenes, ii. 108 f.;
    battle of Hemesa, 109 _n._, 110 _n._;
    destruction of Palmyra, 111 _n._

  Aurelius Antoninus, Marcus, Germany under, i. 160;
    Chattan war, 161;
    Roman wall in Britain attacked, 188;
    Marcomanian war, 229 f.;
    his qualities, 232;
    progress of war, 232 f.;
    takes name of Germanicus, 234;
    terms laid down for the vanquished, 234;
    second war, 235;
    death, 235;
    Parthian war under Marcus and Verus, ii. 74 f.;
    embassy to China, 302.

  Aures, ii. 317, 318, 320.

  Ausonius, i. 109, 113, 114 _n._

  Autonomy, idea of, ii. 120.

  Autricum, i. 91.

  Auzia, ii. 319, 325.

  Aventicum, i. 129.

  Avestâ, ii. 10.

  Axidares, ii. 66 _n._

  Axomis, kingdom of, ii. 281 _n._;
    extent and development, 282 f.;
    Rome and the Axomites, 284;
    envoys to Arvidian, 284;
    relation to piracy, 298.

  Azania, ii. 289.


  Bactra, ii. 14, 15 _n._, 18.

  Bactro-Indian empire, ii. 14, 16 _n._

  Baetica, i. 67;
    towns with burgess-rights, 68;
    exemption from levy, 73;
    Moors in, ii. 324.

  Bagradas, ii. 336.

  Balbus, Lucius Cornelius, ii. 315 _n._

  Ballomarius, i. 230 _n._

  Bâmanghati, coins found at, ii. 301 _n._

  Baquates, ii. 324, 325 _n._

  Bar-Kokheba, Simon, ii. 224 _n._

  Barley-wine, i. 108 _n._

  Barsemias of Hatra, ii. 78.

  Barygaza, ii. 16 _n._, 300.

  Basil of Caesarea, i. 333.

  Bassus, Caecilius, ii. 21 f.

  Bassus, Publius Ventidius, ii. 23, 27.

  Bastarnae, i. 12, 217, 238.

  Batanaea, ii. 144;
    _see_ Haurân.

  Batavi, i. 26, 43, 97 _n._;
    settlements and privileges, 120;
    rising of Batavian auxiliaries, 129 f.;
    Civilis, 130;
    progress of the movement, 130 f.;
    its consequences, 143 f.;
    later attitude, 145.

  Bato, the Dalmatian, i. 39, 41.

  Bato, the Pannonian, i. 39-42.

  Beads, glass, ii. 255.

  Beer, i. 108.

  Belatucadrus (Mars), i. 193.

  Belgica, i. 85;
    division of command, 118 _n._

  Belus, ii. 266.

  Berbers, ii. 302 f.;
    type, 304, 305 _n._;
    language, 325 f.;
    organisation of _gentes_, 334 f.

  Berenice, sister of Agrippa II., ii. 219.

  Berenice, Trogodytic, ii. 280, 284 _n._, 286, 288, 297.

  Beroe, i. 240.

  Berytus, ii. 121;
    Latin island in the East, 130;
    factories in Italy, 139 _n._

  Bescera, ii. 319.

  Bessi, i. 12, 209 _n._

  Bether, ii. 225.

  Betriacum, i. 130, 143.

  Biriparach, ii. 80.

  Bithynia, i. 323, 324, 330;
    Greek settlements in, 330 f.;
    Hellenism of, 330 f.;
    place in literature, 331;
    Gothic raids, 245.

  Bithyniarch, i. 346.

  Blaesus, Quintus Junius, ii. 318.

  Blemyes, ii. 250 _n._, 277 _n._, 278.

  Bocchus, ii. 309, 310, 311 _n._

  Boeotian league, i. 259, 265.

  Bogud, ii. 308 f., 310, 311 _n._

  Borani, i. 243, 245.

  Bosporan kingdom, i. 242;
    Greek towns of, 244, 312;
    kings, 314 _n._;
    extent of, 314 f.;
    coins, 317 _n._, 318;
    titles, 316 _n._;
    military position, 316 f.;
    court, 318;
    trade and commerce, 319.

  Bostra, ii. 95;
    plain around, 144 f.;
    legionary camp at, 153;
    importance of, 155;
    Hellenic basis, 155.

  Boudicca, i. 179, 181.

  Boule, the, in Egyptian cities, ii. 236 _n._

  Bracara, i. 16.

  Breuci, i. 23.

  Brigantes, i. 178, 181, 182, 188.

  Brigetio, i. 228.

  Britain, Caesar’s expedition, i. 170;
    designs of Augustus, 171;
    reasons for and against occupation, 172 f.;
    conviction of its necessity, 173 f.;
    occasion for the war, 174;
    arrangements for occupation, 174 _n._;
    its course, 175 f.;
    Roman towns, 176 f.;
    resistance in West Britain, 177 f.;
    national insurrection, 179 f.;
    subjugation of the West, 180 f.;
    of the North, 182;
    Caledonia abandoned, 184;
    grounds for this policy, 184 f.;
    diversities of race, 185;
    fortifying of northern frontier, 186 f.;
    wars in second and third centuries, 188 f.;
    Roman fleet, 189;
    garrison and administration, 190;
    taxation and levy, 190 f.;
    communal organisation, 191;
    prosperity, 192;
    roads, 192;
    Roman manners and culture, 193;
    country houses, 194;
    scholastic training, 194.

  Brixia, i. 191.

  Bructeri, i. 36, 51, 133, 145.

  Burdigala, i. 113.

  Burebista, i. 10, 216, 220, 309 f.

  Burgundiones, i. 167.

  Buri, i. 221, 224.

  Burnum, i. 203.

  Burrus, ii. 206.

  Busiris, ii. 251.

  Buthrotum, i. 295.

  Byzacene, ii. 336.

  Byzantium, i. 246, 292, 305, 306 _n._, 308.


  Cabinet-secretary, imperial, ii. 272 f.

  Cadusians, ii. 88 _n._

  Caecina, Aulus, governor of Moesia, i. 40 f.;
    march to the Ems, and retreat, 52 f.

  Caedicius, Lucius, defence of Aliso, i. 48.

  Caesar, Gaius Julius, measures for Dalmatian war, i. 7 f.;
    Romanising of southern Gaul, 86;
    policy as to cantons of Gaul, 92 f.;
    Britannic expedition and aims, 170;
    project of crossing Euphrates, ii. 22;
    arrangements as to Judaea, 175 f.;
    African policy, 307 f.;
    Italian colonists in Africa, 332.

  Caesar, Gaius, mission to East, ii. 38 f.;
    meeting with Phraataces, 39;
    early death, 40.

  Caesaraugusta, i. 68.

  Caesarea in Cappadocia, i. 332; ii. 101 f.

  Caesarea (Iol), province of, ii. 313, 314, 321.

  Caesarea Paneas, ii. 65, 147, 151.

  Caesarea Stratonis, ii. 182, 186 f.;
    insurrection, 205 f., 209 f.;
    obtains Roman organisation, 218.

  Caesarion, ii. 25 _n._, 26 _n._

  Caesian Forest, i. 124.

  Calama, ii. 319 _n._, 329 _n._, 335 _n._

  Calceus Herculis, ii. 319.

  Caledonia abandoned, i. 184;
    probable grounds for this policy, 184 f.;
    under Severus, 189.

  Caligula, Gaius Caesar, incapable of serious plans, i. 172;
    declines “great number” of statues, 291;
    the East under, ii. 45;
    pardons Aretas, 151;
    treatment of Jews, 191 f.;
    Jewish deputations to, 193 f.;
    orders his effigy to be set up in the Temple, 195;
    death, 195.

  Callaecia, Roman, i. 63 f.;
    separated from Lusitania, 65.

  Callistus, ii. 102 _n._, 103.

  Calybe, i. 303, 305 _n._

  Camalodunum, i. 170, 171, 175, 176, 180, 192 f.

  Camels in Africa, ii. 340.

  Camunni, i. 15 f.

  _Canabae_, i. 168.

  Canal, Egyptian, ii. 279, 280, 297 f.

  Canatha, ii. 147;
    temple of Baalsamin, 156;
    “Odeon,” 157.

  Candace, ii. 275 _n._, 276, 277.

  Cane, ii. 296.

  Canius Rufus, i. 76.

  Cannenefates, i. 36, 97 _n._, 121, 126 f., 131, 139, 141.

  Canopus, ii. 258 _n._;
    decree of, 260.

  Cantabri, i. 65, 66, 67.

  Cantonal system of Spain, i. 71, 72 _n._;
    of Gaul, 90 f.;
    influence of, 94;
    cantons represented in diet, 95 _n._, 96 _n._;
    in Britain, 191.

  Cappadocia, i. 323, 324;
    inland, 332;
    division into praefectures, 332;
    Greek accent of, 333; ii. 19, 41, 63.

  Caracalla, Severus Antoninus, campaign against Alamanni, i. 162;
    named _Geticus_, 139;
    Parthian war, ii. 87;
    assassinated, 88;
    treatment of Alexandria, 263;
    uniting the vices of three races, 126, 340.

  Caratacus, i. 175 f., 178.

  Caravans, Palmyrene, ii. 98 _n._

  Carên, ii. 6, 46, 84.

  Carnuntum, i. 23, 198, 206.

  Carnutes, i. 91.

  Carpi, i. 238 f.

  Carrhae, ii. 21, 22, 23, 77, 114.

  Carteia, i. 68.

  Carthage, ii. 307, 330, 331, 341.

  Carthage, New, i. 68.

  Cartimandus, i. 182 f.

  Carus, Marcus Aurelius, Persian war, ii. 112 f.;
    death, 113.

  Caspian gates, ii. 62 _n._

  Cassius, Avidius, ii. 75 _n._, 262.

  Cassivellannus, i. 170.

  Castra Regina, i. 197.

  Cattigara, ii. 302.

  Catualda, i. 61, 215.

  Caucasian tribes, ii. 35, 36, 61, 68, 72 _n._, 73, 91 _n._

  Cavalry recruited mainly from Gaul, i. 107.

  Celtic inscriptions, i. 100 _n._;
    divinities, 104 f.;
    language;
      _see_ Gaul.

  Cenomani, i. 91.

  Census of Gaul, i. 84.

  Cerialis, Quintus Petillius, i. 140 f., 142, 180, 183.

  Cernunnos, i. 104.

  Chaeremon, ii. 259, 273 _n._

  Chaeronea in the civil wars, i. 267.

  Chalcedon, i. 245.

  Chalcidian peninsula, i. 300.

  Chandragupta, ii. 13.

  Charax Spasinu, ii. 68, 98 _n._

  Charibael, ii. 294 _n._

  Chariomerus, i. 146.

  Chastisement, corporal, in Egypt, ii. 240 _n._

  Chatramotitis, ii. 286, 290, 295.

  Chatti, i. 27, 28, 29, 51, 133;
    take the lead, 149;
    Chattan wars, 150 _n._;
    under Domitian, 151 _n._, 158;
    under Marcus, 161, 197, 230 f.

  Chauci, i. 28, 29;
    renewed rising, 36, 43;
    settlements and attitude, 121;
    revolt, 125.

  _Chemi_, ii. 251.

  Chemmis, ii. 235.

  Cherusci, i. 27, 28, 29;
    rising, 36;
    under Arminius, 43, 52, 60;
    later position, 146.

  China, embassy to, ii. 302.

  Chosroes, ii. 66.

  Chosroes Nushirvan, ii. 135.

  Chrestus, ii. 199 _n._

  Christianity in Syria, ii. 126;
    Syriac Christian literature, 124;
    Christian symbols, 141;
    effect on Christians of destruction of Jerusalem, 220 f.;
    Christians not, like Jews, a nation, 226 _n._;
    Christianity and Judaism, 229 f.;
    Christians and the imperial cultus, i. 348;
    conception of the persecutions of the Christians, ii. 198 _n._

  Chrysogonus, i. 245.

  Cidamus, ii. 316.

  Cilicia, i. 323, 324;
    piracy in, 334;
    becomes province, 334.

  Cimbri, i. 37.

  Cinithii, ii. 317.

  Circesium, ii. 91, 95 _n._

  Circumcision, ii. 224;
    prohibited, 228 _n._, 229.

  Cirta, ii. 310, 311 _n._, 319, 332, 342.

  Civilis, i. 130 f.;
    siege of Vetera, 133 f.;
    capitulation of Romans, 138;
    last struggles, 141 f.

  Classieus, Julius, i. 137 f., 139.

  Claudius I., emperor, a true Gaul, i. 98;
    cancels restriction of Gallic franchise, 99;
    rising of Chauci, 125;
    directs withdrawal from right bank of Rhine, 125;
    occupation of Britain, 172, 175 f.;
    Jazyges under, 216;
    re-establishes old arrangement in Greece, 276;
    policy of Claudius in the East, ii. 45;
    death, 49;
    policy towards the Jews, 199 f.;
    directs his works to be read publicly, 271.

  Claudius Gothicus, Gothic victories of, i. 247 f.;
    renewed fortifying of Danubian frontier, 248.

  Cleopatra, ii. 25 _n._, 27, 178 f.

  Clitae, i. 336.

  Clubs, i. 353, 354 _n._, 356.

  Cnidus, appeal to the Emperor from, 352 _n._

  Cogidumnus, i. 176.

  Colonate, i. 237.

  Columella, i. 76.

  Column of Trajan, i. 124 f.

  Commagene, ii. 19;
    annexed, 41;
    kingdom revived by Gaius, 45;
    province, 63 _n._, 118.

  Commodus, conflicts in Britain under, i. 188;
    frontier-regulation in Dacia, 228;
    character, 236;
    peace with Marcomani, 236.

  Concordia, coemeterium of, ii. 140.

  Coptic, ii. 244.

  Coptos, ii. 251, 280, 288, 297 _n._

  Corbulo, Gnaeus Domitius, reduces Frisians, i. 125;
    directed to withdraw from right bank of Rhine, 125;
    sent to Cappadocia, ii. 49;
    character of troops, 50;
    offensive against Tiridates, 52;
    in Armenia, 53 _n._;
    capitulation of Paetus, 57 _n._, 58 _n._;
    conclusion of peace, 58-60;
    partiality of Tacitus’s account, 57 _n._, 58 _n._, 60 _n._

  Corduba in Latin literature, i. 75.

  Corinth, treatment of, i. 257;
    Caesar’s atonement, 260 f.

  Corn drawn from Egypt, ii. 239 f.

  _Correctores_, i. 279 f.

  Corycus, epitaphs of Christians at, i. 359 _n._, 361 _n._

  Costoboci, i. 242.

  Cottius of Segusio, i. 16, 18.

  Cotys, i. 210 _n._

  Cragus-Sidyma, i. 355 f.

  Cremna, i. 335, 337, 338.

  Crete, i. 323, 324, 343.

  Ctesiphon, ii. 3, 8, 28, 77, 79, 83, 113.

  Cugerni, i. 33, 124 _n._

  Cunobelinus, i. 171 _n._, 174, 175.

  Cyprian, ii. 345.

  Cyprus, i. 323, 324, 343;
    Jews in, ii. 221 f., 223, 226.

  Cyrene, i. 323 f.;
    Pentapolis, 343;
    “peasants,” 343;
    categories of population, ii. 165 _n._;
    Jewish rising in, 221, 223, 234 _n._

  Cyzicus, i. 330, 348.


  Dabel, ii. 149 _n._, 151.

  Daci and Dacia: preparations for Dacian war, i. 10;
    internal troubles, 11;
    raid to Apollonia, 13;
    war of Lentulus, 42;
    Dacian language, 208;
    Daci under Tiberius, 217;
    war under Domitian, 219;
    chronology of it, 220 _n._;
    war under Trajan, 221 f.;
    second war, 222 f.;
    Dacia an advanced position, 228 f.;
    loss of Dacia, 241.

  Daesitiatae, i. 38 f., 41.

  Dalmatia, war, i. 8 f.;
    towns with Roman franchise, 10;
    Dalmato-Pannonian rising, 38 f.;
    Italian civilisation, 201;
    ports, 202;
    state of interior, 203;
    prosperity under Diocletian, 203 f.

  Damascus, environs of, ii. 144;
    Greek, 146;
    under Nabataean protection, 148 _n._;
    relation to Aretas, 149 _n._;
    Jews in, 167;
    Jews put to death, 209.

  Danava, ii. 95, 153.

  Danube, region of, i. 21 f.;
    boundary of empire, 23, 195 f.;
    fleet, 205;
    army, 218 f.;
    military position after Trajan, 225;
    primacy of Danubian armies, 250.

  Daphne, ii. 109;
    pleasure-garden, 128, 129 _n._

  Dardani, i. 9, 12, 299.

  Decapolis, ii. 146 _n._

  Decebalus, i. 220 f., 223.

  Decianus, i. 76.

  Decianus Catus, i. 180.

  Decius Traianus proclaimed emperor, i. 240;
    conflicts with Goths and relief of Nicopolis, 240;
    death, 241.

  Declamations in Gaul, i. 114.

  _Decumates_ (_agri_), i. 152 _n._, 196 f.

  Deiotarus, i. 339 f.

  Dellius, ii. 32 _n._

  Delminium, i. 203.

  Delos, i. 258, 269;
    Delian inscriptions, ii. 257 f.

  Dentheletae, i. 12.

  Deultus, i. 307.

  Deva, camp of, i. 178, 193.

  Dexippus, i. 239 _n._, 241 _n._, 243 _n._, 246 _n._, 247 _n._, 281.

  Diegis, i. 221.

  Dio of Prusa, i. 268 f., 274, 293 _n._, 366 f.;
    address to Rhodians, i. 270 f.

  Diocletianus: favour for Dalmatia and Salonae, i. 203 f.;
    Sarmatian victories, 250;
    Persian war under, ii. 110 f.;
    terms of peace, 115;
    revolt in Egypt, 251;
    edict, as to grain, 251 f.;
    as to linen, 254 _n._;
    resolves to cede the Dodecaschoinos to Nubians, 277 f.

  Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria, ii. 250 _n._

  Dionysius, cabinet secretary, ii. 273 _n._

  Dionysos, Thracian shrine of, i. 14, 24;
    Thracian god, 209.

  Dioscorides, island of, ii. 289, 296.

  Dioscurias, i. 242.

  Dmêr, ii. 149, 153.

  Dodecaschoinos, ii. 274 _n._, 277 _n._, 278 _n._

  Dodona, i. 297 _n._

  Dolabella, Publius Cornelius, ii. 318.

  Domitianus: careful administration, i. 108;
    restricts number of vines, 108 f.;
    wars with the Chatti, 150 f.;
    construction of the “Flavian altars,” 153;
    Dacian war, 219 f.;
    defeated by Marcomani, 221;
    gives urban rights to Philippopolis, 307.

  Domitius Afer, Gnaeus, i. 111.

  Double names in Egypt, ii. 244.

  Drobetae, bridge at, i. 222.

  Druids and Druidism in Gaul, i. 104 f.;
    prohibited by Tiberius and Claudius, 105;
    schools of priests, 112;
    in Anglesey, 185.

  Druidesses, i. 106.

  Drusus, Nero Claudius: victory over Raeti, i. 16, 17;
    sent to the Rhine, 22;
    German war, 26 f.;
    expedition to North Sea, 28;
    death of, 29 f.;
    character, 26, 30;
    German tribes subdued, 123 f.

  Dubnovellaunus, i. 171 _n._

  Durocortorum, i. 89, 90.

  Durostorum, i. 227, 309.

  Dusaris, ii. 153;
    Dusaria, 153 _n._

  Dyarchy not applied in Egypt, ii. 233.

  Dyme, letter of governor to, i. 237 _n._, 260 _n._

  Dynamis, i. 313.

  Dyrrachium, i. 201, 299, 301.


  Earthquakes in Asia Minor, i. 358.

  Eburacum, i. 183, 186, 193, 194.

  Ecbatana, ii. 4, 28.

  Edessa, ii. 68 f., 76, 77, 79, 100, 102, 125 _n._

  Education in Gaul, i. 112 f.;
    in Asia Minor, 362 f.;
    in Africa, ii. 341 f.

  Egypt: annexation, ii. 232 f.;
    exclusively an imperial possession, 233 f.;
    twofold nationality, 234;
    land-districts and Greek cities, 235 f.;
    coinage, 237 _n._;
    absence of land-diet, 238;
    government of Lagids, 238 f.;
    imperial administration financially, 239 f.;
    revenues, 239 f.;
    privileged position of Hellenes, 240 f.;
    personal privileges in Roman period, 242;
    native language, 243;
    titles of Augustus in, 244 _n._;
    abolition of resident court, 244 f.;
    officials, general and local, 246-248;
    insurrections, 249;
    in the Palmyrene period (ii. 107 f.), 249 f.;
    revolt under Diocletian, 251;
    opposition emperors, 251;
    agriculture, 251;
    granary of Rome, 252 f.;
    revenue from imperial domains, 253 _n._, 254;
    trades, 254;
    linen, 254;
    papyrus, 255;
    building materials, 256;
    navigation of Mediterranean, 257 f.;
    population, 258;
    manners, 258 f.;
    religious customs, 259 f.;
    sorcery, 261;
    other abuses connected with the cultus, 261;
    revolt of the “Herdsmen,” 261 f.;
    Alexandria, 262-273;
    strength of occupying army, 273 f.;
    recruited from camp-children, 274;
    task of the troops, 274;
    east coast and general commerce, 278 f.;
    canal, 279 f.;
    sea-route to India, 279;
    eastern ports, 280;
    relations with west coast of Arabia, 284 f.;
    land-routes and harbours, 297;
    piracy repressed, 298;
    active traffic to the east, 298 f.

  Eirenarchs, i. 351 _n._, 353.

  Elagabalus, origin of name, ii. 123.

  Elateia, i. 242.

  Eleazar, ii. 207, 208, 214, 215.

  Eleazar of Modein, ii. 224 _n._

  Elegeia, battle of, ii. 74.

  Elentherolacones, i. 260.

  Elis, i. 261;
    flax of, 292.

  Elymais, ii. 7.

  Emmaus, ii. 212 f., 218.

  Emona, i. 10, 20, 198, 206.

  Ephesus, i. 329, 360, 361.

  Epictetus, i. 273.

  _Epidaphne_, a blunder of Tacitus, ii. 128 _n._

  Epirus, i. 294 f.;
    northern, i. 297.

  Equestrian offices in Egypt, ii. 233 _n._, 242 _n._, 246, 247, 249.

  Eratosthenes, ii. 241 _n._

  Esus, i. 104.

  Ethnarch of the Jews in Alexandria, ii. 193 _n._

  Euergetes, title of, ii. 238.

  Eumolpidae, i. 281.

  Eupatorids, i. 314.

  Euphorion, librarian to Antiochus the Great, ii. 130.

  Euphrates, frontier of the, ii. 1;
    Romano-Parthian frontier-regions, 19;
    recognised as boundary, 21;
    customs-district, 70 f., 97 _n._;
    Romans on left bank, 77;
    need of watch, 118 f.;
    as route for commerce, 278 f.

  Europus, battle at, ii. 76.

  Eurycles, i. 283.

  _Exegetes_ in Alexandria, ii. 248 _n._

  Eziongeber, ii. 288 _n._

  Ezra, ii. 161.


  Fadus, Cuspius, ii. 204.

  Faustinopolis, i. 333.

  Favorinus, polymath, i. 110 f.

  Felix, Antonius, ii. 202, 204.

  _Filosofi locus_, ii. 342.

  Firmus in Egypt, ii. 111 _n._

  Flaccus, Avillius, ii. 192 _n._, 193.

  “Flavian altars,” i. 153 _n._

  Floras, Gessius, ii. 206.

  Forath, ii. 98 _n._

  Forum Julii, i. 86.

  Frankincense routes, ii. 286 _n._, 288 _n._, 299.

  Franks, i. 163, 165, 167;
    settled on Black Sea, 250.

  Frontinus, Sextus Julius, i. 181.

  Fronto, Marcus Claudius, i. 234.

  Fronto, Marcus Cornelius, ii. 342.

  Frisians, i. 27, 28, 43, 97 _n._, 121, 124, 126 _n._, 129, 131, 145.

  Furtius, i. 233 f.

  Fuscus, Arellius, i. 365.

  Fuscus, Cornelius, i. 220.


  Gabinius, Aulus, ii. 174 f., 232.

  Gades, i. 68, 74 f.;
    Gaditanian songs, 75.

  Gaetulians, ii. 304, 322 _n._, 323 f.

  Galatia, i. 323 f., 336, 338 f.;
    Galatian kingdom, 339 f.;
    province, 340;
    inhabitants, 340;
    former cantons, 341;
    language under the Romans, 341 f.;
    Galatians as soldiers, 342;
    garrison of, 350.

  Galatarchs, i. 344 _n._;
    Julian’s letter to, 349 _n._

  Galba, i. 130; ii. 198 _n._, 213.

  Galenus of Pergamus, i. 366.

  Gallicus, Gaius Rutilius, ii. 64 _n._

  Gallienus, energetic action in Germany, i. 163;
    victory over pirates at Thrace, 246;
    character, 247;
    murder, 247;
    recognition of Odaenathus, ii. 103 f.

  Gallus, Gaius Aelius, expedition of, ii. 290 f.;
    Strabo’s account of it, 291 _n._

  Gallus, Gaius Cestius, ii. 209 f.

  Gallus, Trebonianus, i. 240 f.

  Ganna, i. 146.

  Gannascus, i. 125.

  Garamantes, ii. 309, 315, 318.

  Gaul, administrative partition of, i. 33 _n._;
    acquisition of Southern, 78;
    later conflicts in three Gauls, 79 f.;
    Celtic rising under Tiberius, 80;
    gradual pacification, 81;
    rising after Nero’s death, 82, 136 f.;
    Romanising policy, 82 f.;
    organisation of the three Gauls, 84 f.;
    law and justice, 85;
    Romanising of Southern province, 88 f.;
    cantonal organisation, 90 f.;
    influence of cantonal constitution, 92;
    smaller client-unions, 92 _n._;
    diet, 94;
    altar and priest, 94;
    composition of the diets, 95 f.;
    officials, 94 _n._, 95 _n._;
    restricted Roman franchise, 98 f.;
    Latin rights conferred on individual communities, 99;
    Celtic language, 99 f.;
    evidences of its continued use, 101;
    Romanising stronger in Eastern Gaul, 102;
    land measurement, 102;
    religion, 103;
    economic condition, 106;
    culture of vine, 108;
    network of roads, 109;
    Hellenism in South Gaul, 110;
    Latin literature in Southern province, 111;
    literature in imperial Gaul, 112;
    constructive and plastic art, 114;
    extent of the three Gauls, 117;
    attempt to establish a Gallic empire, 137-141.

  Gaza, ii. 210.

  Gedrosia, ii. 13.

  Gelduba, camp at, i. 144 f.

  Geneva, i. 91.

  _Gens_ and _civitas_, ii. 334 _n._

  Georgius, murder of, ii. 265.

  Gerba, ii. 338.

  Germanicus, associated with Tiberius, i. 41;
    in sole command on the Rhine, 49;
    course after death of Augustus, 50;
    renewed offensive, 51 f.;
    expedition to the Ems, 50 f.;
    campaign of the year 16, 53 f.;
    disaster to his fleet, 54;
    recall, 55;
    aims and results of campaigns, 55-59;
    triumph, 62;
    mission to the East, ii. 40;
    its results, 41 f.

  Germany and Germans: Rhine-boundary, i. 25 f.;
    war of Drusus, 26 f.;
    Roman camps and base, 31 f.;
    organisation of province, 35;
    altar for Germanic cantons, 35, 118;
    rising under Arminius, 42 f.;
    character of Romano-German conflict, 49;
    abolition of command-in-chief on the Rhine, 55;
    Elbe frontier and its abandonment, 56-59;
    Germans against Germans, 60;
    original province, 117;
    Upper and Lower, 118 f.;
    strength of the armies, 119 _n._;
    right bank of Rhine abandoned, 125 f.;
    position after fall of Nero, 127;
    consequences of Batavian war, 143 f.;
    later attitude of Romano-Germans on left bank, 144 f.;
    free Germans there, 145;
    Upper Germany, 147 f.;
    _Limes_, 154-160;
    distribution of troops, 156 _n._, 159 _n._;
    under Marcus, 160;
    later wars, 161-167;
    Romanising of, 167;
    towns arising out of encampments, 168;
    Germanising of the Roman state, its beginnings and progress, 168 f.;
    picture of, by Tacitus, 169.

  Gerusia, i. 353, 354 _n._

  Geta, Gnaeus Hosidius, ii. 323.

  Getae, language of, i. 208.

  Gibbon, i. 6.

  Gindarus, battle of, ii. 23.

  Gladiatorial games, latest in Greece, i. 272.

  Glass of Sidon, ii. 137;
    glass-wares, 255.

  Gods, Iberian, i. 75;
    Celtic, in Spain, 75 _n._;
    British, 193;
    Syrian, ii. 123;
    Egyptian, 235, 260 f.

  Gondopharus, ii. 15, 16 _n._

  Gordianus, “conqueror of Goths,” i. 239;
    Persian wars of, ii. 91.

  Gordiou Kome, i. 330.

  Gorneae, ii. 48 _n._

  Gotarzes, ii. 7 _n._, 12 _n._, 46, 47.

  Goths: migrations, i. 238;
    Gothic wars, 239;
    under Decius, 240 f.;
    invasions of Macedonia and Thrace, 240;
    maritime expeditions, 243 f.;
    victories of Claudius, 247 f.;
    character of these wars, 248.

  Graupian Mount, battle of, i. 183 f., 190.

  Great-king, ii. 7.

  Greece: Hellas and Rome, i. 253;
    towns under republic, 256;
    city-leagues broken up, 256 f.;
    revived, 259;
    freed communities and colonies, 258-261;
    decay of, 261;
    decrease of population, 268;
    statements of Plutarch, Dio, and Strabo, 268 f.;
    tone of feeling, 270 f.;
    good old manners, 271 f.;
    parallel between Roman and Athenian life, 273;
    misrule of provincial administration, 275;
    misrule in towns, 276;
    clinging to memories of past, 280;
    religion, 280;
    worship of pedigrees, 280 f.;
    language--archaism and barbarism, 281 f.;
    great families, 283 f.;
    career of state-offices, 284 f.;
    personal service of the emperor, 285;
    municipal administration, 285;
    Plutarch on its duties, 286;
    games, universal interest in, 287-290;
    municipal ambition, its honours and toils, 290 f.;
    trade and commerce, 292 f.;
    roads, 294;
    piratic invasions, i. 245 f.;
    description of Greece from the time of Constantius, i. 293 _n._

  Greek islands, places of punishment, i. 343.

  Gregorius Nazianzenus, i. 333.


  Hadrianoi, i. 328.

  Hadrianus: Hadrian’s wall, i. 186;
    disaster at Eburacum, 188 _n._;
    Panhellenism at Athens, 266;
    grants to Athens, 277 f.;
    his _Novae Athenae_, 278;
    Olympieion, 278;
    evacuates Assyria and Mesopotamia, and restores Armenia
      as vassal-state, ii. 71, 72;
    Jewish rising under, 223 f.;
    lays out Antinoopolis, 236;
    gives exceptional right of coining, 237;
    alleged letter to Servianus, 256 _n._
    “Hadrian’s road” in Egypt, 297 _n._

  Haedui, i. 80, 99.

  Hairanes, Septimius, ii. 97 _n._

  Harmozika, ii. 64.

  Hasmonaeans, ii. 161.

  Hatra, ii. 69, 78, 79, 89.

  Haurân, red soil, ii. 144;
    mountain-pastures, 145;
    cave-towns, 147;
    robbers, 147 _n._;
    bilingual inscriptions, 148 _n._;
    forts, 153;
    agriculture, 154;
    Ledjâ, 154;
    aqueducts, 155;
    buildings, 156.

  Hebron, ii. 213.

  Hecatompylos, ii. 4.

  Heliopolis, ii. 121, 123.

  Helladarch, i. 255, 265 _n._, 344 _n._

  Hellenism and Panhellenism, i. 252 f.

  Helvetii, i. 27, 92, 93, 99, 117, 119, 128;
    “Helvetian desert,” 152.

  Hemesa, ii. 103, 106, 109 f.;
    oil-presses near, 136 _n._

  Heraclea (Chersonesus), i. 305, 312;
    coins of, 315 _n._

  Hercules in Gaul, i. 106.

  Hermogenes of Smyrna, i. 366 _n._

  Hermunduri, i. 31, 38, 150 f., 158, 214 f.

  Herod the Great, ii. 176 f.;
    confirmed by Antonius as tetrarch, 177;
    king of Judaea, 178;
    under Augustus, 179;
    government in relation to the Romans, 179 f.;
    in relation to the Jews, 180;
    character and aims, 180 f.;
    energy of his rule, 182;
    extent of his dominions, 182;
    partition of his kingdom, 183;
    revenues of, 187 _n._;
    territory beyond the Jordan, ii. 146 f.;
    represses brigandage, 147.

  Herod Agrippa I., ii. 49, 191, 194 f., 200.

  Herod Agrippa II., ii. 152, 171, 173 _n._, 181, 183, 207, 208, 209, 219.

  Herod Antipas, ii. 150.

  Herod of Chalcis, ii. 201.

  Herodes Atticus, i. 281, 282, 283 _n._, 284.

  Herodians, ii. 218.

  Heroonpolis, ii. 261.

  Heruli, i. 246 f.

  Hiera Sycaminos, ii. 276 _n._

  Hieronymus, i. 101.

  Hilary of Poitiers, opinion of his countrymen, i. 83.

  Hippalus, ii. 299.

  Hippo, ii. 310, 319, 328, 339.

  Homerites, ii. 286 f.;
    coinage, 287 f., 290;
    later fortunes, 294;
    united with kingdom of Axomites, 295 _n._;
    commercial intercourse of, 296.

  Homonadenses, i. 335 f.

  Hordeonius Flaccus, i. 132.

  Hyginus, i. 75.

  Hypatia, murder of, ii. 265.

  Hyrcanus, ii. 174, 175 _n._, 177, 179.


  Iapydes, i. 9.

  Iazyges, i. 216, 220, 230, 234.

  Iberians, range and language, i. 69;
    Romanising, 69 f.;
    north of Pyrenees, 79;
    coinage, 79 _n._

  Iceni, i. 179.

  Iconium, i. 336 f.

  _Idiologus_, ii. 247 _n._

  Idumaea, ii. 213, 214.

  Igel column, i. 115 f.

  Igilgili, ii. 324.

  Illyrian stock, i. 199 f.;
    range and character, 199 f.;
    admixture of Celtic elements, 200 f.

  Illyricum, relation to Moesia, i. 14 _n._;
    erection and extent of province, 20 f.;
    rising in, 39;
    administrative subdivision, 195, 201;
    excellence of Illyrian soldiers, 250 f.;
    Illyrian emperors, 251.

  India, commercial intercourse with, ii. 300 f.

  Indus, region of, ii. 13 f.

  Inguiomerus, i. 52, 60, 61.

  Insubres, i. 91.

  Iol (Caesarea), ii. 311, 321.

  Iran, empire of: Iranian stocks and rule, ii. 1 f.;
    religion, 9 f.;
    Bactria bulwark of Iran, 18.
    _See_ Persia.

  Irenaeus, i. 101.

  Isauria, i. 334 f., 337.

  Isca, camp of, i. 178, 193.

  Isidorus (leader of “herdsmen”), ii. 262.

  Isidorus, geographer, ii. 39.

  Isis, i. 280; ii. 266.

  Istachr;
    _see_ Persepolis.

  Isthmus of Corinth, piercing of, i. 294.

  Istria, i. 200.

  Istros, i. 239.

  Istropolis, i. 13.

  _Itala_ version of Bible, by whom prepared, ii. 343 _n._

  Italica, i. 67.

  Italicus, i. 146.

  Italy, northern frontier of, i. 7 f.;
    ceases to be military, 251.

  Ivernia, i. 178, 182, 184.

  Izates of Adiabene, ii. 46, 167.


  Jahve, ii. 160, 161, 169.

  Jamblichus, ii. 76 _n._, 123 _n._, 131.

  Jannaeus Alexander, ii. 162.

  Jerusalem, standing garrison, ii. 186;
    destruction of, 215, 218;
    colony of Hadrian, 224 _n._
    _See_ Judaea.

  Jews: Jewish traffic, ii. 141 f.;
    Pariah position in Rome, 142 f.;
    Diaspora, 142, 162 f.;
    at Alexandria, 162 _n._, 163;
    at Antioch, 163;
    in Asia Minor, 163 _n._;
    Greek language compulsory, 163 f.;
    retention of nationality, 164 f.;
    self-governing community in Alexandria, 165;
    extent of the Diaspora, 166 f.;
    proselytism, 166 f.;
    Hellenising tendencies, 167;
    Jewish-Alexandrian philosophy, 168;
    Neo-Judaism, 168 f.;
    fellowship of, as a body, 169 f.;
    Philo, 170;
    Roman government and Judaism, 171 f.;
    policy of Augustus, 171 f.;
    of Tiberius, 172;
    treatment in the West, 172;
    and in the East, 173 f.;
    treatment by Gaius, 191 f.;
    Jew-hunt at Alexandria, 192 f.;
    statue of emperor in the Temple, 194 f.;
    impression produced by the attempt, 195;
    hatred of emperor-worship depicted in the Apocalypse, 196-198 _n._;
    treatment by Claudius, 199 f.;
    preparations for the insurrection, 201 f.;
    high-priestly rule, 202;
    Zealots, 203 f.;
    outbreak in Caesarea, 205 f.;
    and in Jerusalem, 206 f.;
    struggle of parties, 208 f.;
    extension of the war, 209;
    war of Vespasian, 210 f.;
    forces, 211 _n._;
    first and second campaigns, 213;
    Titus against Jerusalem, 213;
    task of assailants, 214 f.;
    destruction of Jerusalem, 215;
    breaking up of Jewish central power, 216;
    central worship set aside, 216 f.;
    tribute transferred to Capitoline Jupiter, 217 f.;
    territory becomes domain-land, 218 _n._;
    further treatment, 219 f.;
    consequences of catastrophe, 220;
    Palestinian Jews, 220 f.;
    rising under Trajan, 221;
    under Hadrian, 223, 225 _n._;
    position in second and third centuries, 225 f.;
    toleration of worship, 226;
    corporative unions, 226 f.;
    patriarchs, 227 _n._;
    exemptions from, and obligations to, public services, 227, 228 _n._;
    circumcision prohibited, 228 _n._;
    altered position of Jews and altered character of Judaism in
      the imperial period, 229, 230.

  John of Gischala, ii. 214.

  Joppa, ii. 175 _n._, 176.

  Josephus, on cave-towns of Haurân, ii. 147;
    account of Titus’s council of war, 217 _n._;
    value of statements in the preface to his History of the Jewish War,
      ii. 205 _n._

  Jotapata, ii. 212.

  Juba I., ii. 308.

  Juba II., ii. 312, 313, 338 _n._;
    his Collectanea, ii. 39, 293 _n._

  Judaea: distinction between Jewish land and Jewish people, ii. 160;
    priestly rule under Seleucids, 160 f.;
    kingdom of Hasmonaeans, 161;
    Pharisees and Sadducees, 161;
    under the republic, 174;
    Caesar’s arrangements, 175 f.;
    freedom from dues, 175 _n._;
    Parthians in Judaea, 177 f.;
    under Herod, 180-182;
    under Archelaus, 183 f.;
    Roman province, 184, 185 _n._;
    provincial organisation, 186;
    military force in, 186;
    tribute, 186 f.;
    native authorities, 187;
    deference to Jewish scruples, 189 f.;
    the Jewish opposition, 190 f.
    _See also_ Jews.

  Judaism;
    _see_ Jews _and_ Judaea.

  Judas, the Galilean, ii. 195, 198.

  Jugurtha, war with, ii. 307.

  Julianus defeats Dacians at Tapae, i. 220.

  Julianus, Emperor, epigram on barley-wine, i. 108;
    reply to “beard-mockers” of Antioch, ii. 135.

  Julii, tomb of, at S. Remy, i. 115.

  _Juridicus_, ii. 247 _n._

  Jurisprudence, studied at Berytus, ii. 130.

  Juthungi, i. 161, 166.


  Kainepolis, ii. 75 _n._

  Kanata and Canatha, ii. 146 _n._

  Kanerku, ii. 16, 17 _n._

  Kerykes, i. 246, 281.

  King of kings, ii. 11.


  Labeo, Claudius, i. 136.

  Labienus, Quintus, ii. 22, 23.

  Lachares, i. 283.

  Lactantius, ii. 345.

  Lactora, i. 97 _n._

  Laetus, ii. 79.

  Lagids, government of, ii. 238;
    finance of, 239 f., 241.

  Lambaesis, ii. 319.

  Lancia, i. 66.

  Langobardi, i. 35, 37, 146, 230.

  Laodicea, i. 327, 360; ii. 130.

  Larisa, i. 298.

  _Latifundia_, ii. 334.

  Latin version of Bible, ii. 343 _n._

  Latobici in Carniola, i. 200.

  Latro, Marcus Porcius, i. 76.

  Lauriacum, i. 198.

  Leagues of Greek cities, i. 259, 264 _n._;
    diets, 264 f.

  Lentulus, Gnaeus, Dacian war, i. 42.

  Leptis, Great, ii. 316, 326, 327, 328.

  Leuce Come, ii. 148, 280, 285, 288, 291.

  _Leuga_, i. 103.

  _Lex Julia_ II., i. 10.

  Libanius, description of Antioch, ii. 129 _n._

  Library of Alexandria, ii. 271 f.

  Libyans, ii. 304, 317.

  Licinianus, Valerius, i. 76.

  _Limes_, meaning of, i. 122 _n._;
    _Limes Germaniae_, 122 f.;
    Upper Germanic, 154 f.;
    _Raetiae_, 155 f.;
    construction of, 156, 197;
    object and effect of these structures, i. 157-160.

  Lindum, i. 182.

  Linen, Syrian, ii. 137, 138;
    Egyptian, 254 _n._

  Lingones, i. 102, 139, 140;
    testament of man of rank among, i. 107.

  _Logistae_, i. 353.

  Lollius, Marcus, defeat of, i. 26.

  Londinium, i. 177, 180, 192.

  Longinus (Pseudo-), on the Sublime, ii. 168, 231.

  Lucanus, i. 76.

  Lucian of Commagene, ii. 131;
    on the Syrian goddess, 134 _n._;
    (Pseudo-), parallel between Roman and Athenian life, 273 f.

  Lugii, i. 37, 215, 220.

  Lugudunum, i. 87-90.

  Lusitania, i. 63, 64;
    towns with burgess-rights in, 68.

  Lutetia described by Julian, i. 109.

  Lycia, i. 323 f., 333;
    Lycian cities-league, 333.

  Lydius, robber-chief, i. 337.

  Lysimachia, i. 303, 322 _n._


  Macedonia, frontier of, i. 11 f.;
    extent under the empire, 298 f.;
    nationalities, 299 f.;
    Greek polity, 300 f.;
    diet, 300;
    economy, roads and levy, 301 f.;
    Macedonians at Alexandria, ii. 164, 165 _n._

  Machaerus, ii. 215.

  Macrianus, Fulvius, ii. 102 _n._, 103.

  Macrinus, ii. 88.

  Mactaris, ii. 339 _n._

  Madaura, ii. 341.

  Madeira, dyeworks at, ii. 323, 338 _n._

  Maeates, i. 189.

  Magians, ii. 10, 84.

  Magnesia on Maeander, i. 325, 329.

  Malchus, ii. 151.

  Mamaea, ii. 90.

  Marble quarries, i. 292.

  Marcianopolis, i. 308, 310.

  Marcomani, i. 27;
    retire to Bohemia, 29;
    isolated, 31;
    under Maroboduus, 37, 60 f.;
    under Roman clientship, 214 f.;
    war under Marcus Aurelius, 229 f.;
    invasion of Italy, 231;
    pestilence, 231;
    progress of war, 232;
    submission of Quadi, 233;
    terms of, 234;
    second war, 235;
    results, 235 f.;
    conclusion of peace by Commodus, 236.

  Mareades, ii. 101 _n._

  Margiane (Merv), ii. 18.

  Mariaba, ii. 287 _n._, 292, 295.

  Mariamne, ii. 177, 181.

  Mariccus, i. 129.

  Marmarica, ii. 315.

  Marnus, temple of, ii. 133.

  Maroboduus, i. 37, 43, 48, 60 f.

  Marsi, i. 51.

  Martialis, Valerius, i. 76.

  Mascula, ii. 319.

  Massada, ii. 215.

  Massilia, i. 78, 79, 86, 110.

  Massinissa, ii. 305, 309.

  Mattiaci, i. 33, 133, 149 _n._

  Mauretania, Roman dependency, ii. 308;
    two Mauretanian kingdoms, 310 f.;
    Roman civilisation in, 320 f.;
    Gaetulian wars, 322;
    incursions of Moors into Spain, 324 _n._;
    colonisation of Augustus, 333;
    large landed estates, 333 f.

  Mauri, ii. 304.

  Maximianus, Galerius, ii. 114.

  Maximinus, expedition into heart of Germany, i. 162;
    Mesopotamia falls to Ardashir, ii. 91.

  Maximus, Terentius, ii. 65.

  Mazices, ii. 303, 324.

  Media, ii. 4, 6, 10.

  Mediolanum, i. 91.

  Mediomatrici, i. 141.

  Megasthenes sent to India, ii. 130.

  _Megistanes_, ii. 5 f.

  Meherdates, ii. 46.

  Mela, Pomponius, i. 76.

  Menahim, ii. 208.

  Menecrates, physician, i. 366 _n._

  Menippus of Gadara, ii. 131.

  Meroe, ii. 275, 277.

  Mesembria, i. 305.

  Mesene, ii. 68.

  Mesopotamia ceded to Parthians, ii. 21;
    Vologasus in, 55;
    occupied by Trajan, 68;
    revolt of Seleucia and siege, 68 f.;
    Roman province, 68, 70 f.;
    evacuated by Hadrian, 72;
    again Roman province under Severus, 79;
    battle of Nisibis, 88;
    falls to Ardashir, 91;
    reconquered by Gordian, 91;
    but ceded by Philippus, 92;
    struggle under Valerian, 100;
    action of Odaenathus, 104;
    once more Roman under Carus, 113 _n._;
    invaded by Narseh, but recovered by Diocletian, 113-115.

  Messalla, Marcus Valerius, vanquishes the Aquitanians, i. 80.

  Minaeans, ii. 285 _n._, 286 _n._, 290, 295.

  Minnagara, ii. 15, 16 _n._

  Minucius, Felix, ii. 345.

  Mithra, worship of, ii. 126.

  Mithradates I., ii. 4, 5.

  Mithradates, brother of Pharasmanes, ii. 43, 45, 46 _n._, 47.

  Mithradates of Pergamus, i. 313, 340.

  Moesia, i. 12;
    subjugation by Crassus, 13, 212;
    relation to Illyricum, 14 _n._;
    province, 22;
    Latin civilisation of, 213;
    legionary camps, 213 _n._, 218, 227;
    Greek towns in lower, 308 f.;
    mints in, 308 _n._

  Mogontiacum, i. 32, 49, 118, 149, 168.

  Mona, i. 178, 179, 180, 182.

  Monachism cradled in Egypt, ii. 267.

  Monaeses, ii. 24, 26, 28, 29, 31.

  Monobazus of Adiabene, ii. 54.

  Montanus, Votienus, i. 111.

  Months, Persian names of, ii. 85 _n._;
    Palmyrene, 96 _n._

  Morini, i. 80.

  Mosaic pavements in Britain, i. 194.

  Moselle valley, i. 115 f.

  Museum of Alexandria, president of the, ii. 248 _n._;
    _savants_ of the, 268 f., 271 _n._, 272.

  Musulamii, ii. 317, 318, 319 _n._

  Muza, ii. 289, 296, 299 _n._

  Muziris, ii. 301.

  Myos Hormos, ii. 280, 288, 297, 298.


  Nabata, ii. 275, 281, 282 _n._

  Nabataea: language and writing, ii. 146;
    kingdom of Nabat, 148;
    its extent and power, 148 f.;
    Nabataean inscriptions, 148, 149 _n._;
    king subject to the Romans, 150;
    coins of, 150 _n._;
    Greek designations of magistrates, 181 f.;
    merged partly in Roman province of Arabia by Trajan, 152;
    worship, 153;
    Phylarchs, 154.

  Naissus, i. 248.

  Namara, stronghold of, ii. 153, 157.

  Napoca, i. 228.

  Narbo, i. 78 f., 86.

  Narcissus, i. 175.

  Naristae, i. 237.

  Narona, i. 202.

  Narseh, ii. 114 _n._

  Nasamones, ii. 316.

  Nattabutes, ii. 319 _n._

  Naucratis, ii. 235 _n._, 236 _n._

  Nauplia, i. 293.

  Nauportus, i. 8, 198.

  Neapolis, Flavia, ii. 218.

  Necho, ii. 278.

  Neckar, region of the, i. 152 f.

  Negrin, oasis of, ii. 320.

  Neith, sanctuary of, ii. 260.

  Nelcynda, ii. 301.

  Nemausus, i. 87;
    temples, 106;
    coins, 110.

  Neocorate, i. 346 f.

  _Neoi_, i. 353.

  Neo-Judaism, ii. 269.

  Neo-Platonism, ii. 126, 209.

  Neo-Pythagoreanism, ii. 269.

  Nero, report of Aelianus as to Moesia, i. 217;
    attempt to pierce the Isthmus of Corinth, 294;
    under Burrus and Seneca, ii. 49;
    aims of the government in the East, 50, 51;
    Parthian war under, 55 f.;
    intended Oriental expedition, 61 f.;
    Vologasus on Nero’s memory, 62;
    confiscations in Africa, 334;
    Pseudo-Nero, ii. 62, 64.

  Nicaea, i. 245, 329.

  Nicanor, Julius, buys back Salamis, i. 278.

  Nicephorium, ii. 76, 94, 114.

  Nicetes of Smyrna, i. 365.

  Nicolaus of Damascus, ii. 167 f.

  Nicomedia, i. 245, 329, 345;
    Dio’s address to, 330 _n._

  Nicopolis, Epirot, i. 254, 295 f.

  Nicopolis on Haemus, i. 240, 307.

  Nicopolis, suburb of Alexandria, ii. 274.

  Niger, Pescennius, ii. 77, 78 _n._, 118.

  Nile: Nile-flood, ii. 252, 253;
    Nile-route for commerce, 278.

  Nisibis, ii. 68 f., 76, 78 _n._, 79, 115;
    battle at, 88, 91.

  Nomes, constitution and distinctive features of, ii. 235 f.;
    agoranomy in, 235 f., 239 _n._;
    presidents of the nomes, 248 f.

  Nonnus, epic of, ii. 268.

  Noreia, i. 198.

  Noricum, province of, i. 18, 196;
    Italising of, 197 f.;
    military arrangements, 198;
    townships, 199.

  Novae, i. 227.

  Novaesium, i. 132-136, 141, 142.

  Novempopulana, i. 197.

  Noviodunum, i. 87 _n._

  Noviomagus, i. 119, 120.

  Nubians, ii. 275, 278.

  Numidians, ii. 304;
    Numidia in civil wars, 307;
    a province, 307, 310.


  Obodas, ii. 150, 290.

  Octavia, ii. 27, 32.

  Odaenathus, Septimius, ii. 97 _n._

  Odaenathus, king of Palmyra, ii. 103 _n._;
    campaign against Persians, 104 f.;
    assassination, 106 _n._

  Odessus, i. 13, 315.

  Odrysae, i. 11, 209 f., 304, 306 _n._

  Oea, ii. 316, 327.

  Oescus, i. 214, 309.

  Ogmius, i. 104.

  Olbia, i. 239, 242, 305, 310 _n._, 311.

  Olympic games, i. 288 f.

  Ombites, ii. 261, 262.

  Onias, temple of, closed, ii. 217.

  Ordovici, i. 178, 182.

  Orodes, ii. 21, 22, 23 f., 43.

  Orontes valley, ii. 134, 141.

  Osicerda, coin of, i. 70.

  Osiris worship, ii. 266 _n._

  Osrhoene, ii. 88.

  Otho, defeat of, i. 128.

  Oxus, ii. 83.


  Pacorus I., son of Orodes, ii. 21, 22, 23.

  Pacorus, Parthian king in time of Trajan, ii. 65 _n._

  Paetus, Lucius Caesennius, ii. 56 f.;
    capitulation at Rhandeia, 57 f.;
    recalled, 59.

  Pahlavi language, ii. 11, 12 _n._, 85.

  Palikars, i. 207.

  Palma, Aulus Cornelius, ii. 152.

  Palmyra, ii. 92 f.;
    predatory expedition of Antonius, 93;
    military independence, 93, 94 _n._;
    distinctive position, 93 f.;
    administrative independence, 95 f.;
    language, 95 f.;
    votive inscriptions, 96 _n._;
    magistrates, 96 f.;
    “Headman,” 97;
    official titles, 97 _n._;
    customs-district, 97 _n._;
    commercial position, 98;
    under Odaenathus, 103 f.;
    under Zenobia, 106-110;
    destruction, 111 f.;
    chronology, 111 _n._

  Pamphylia, i. 324;
    coast towns, 333 f.;
    earlier rulers, 334;
    assigned to governor of its own, 336.

  Panhellenism, i. 252 f.;
    Panhellenes, 265;
    Panhellenion of Hadrian, 266 _n._;
    letters of recommendation, 267 _n._;
    Olympia, 288 f.

  Pannonia, province, i. 22;
    first Pannonian war, 22 f.;
    Dalmatio-Pannonian rising, 38 f.;
    military arrangements, 204 f.;
    urban development, 206 f.;
    camps advanced, 219;
    prosperity, 229.

  Panopeus, i. 290.

  Panopolis, ii. 235.

  Panticapaeum, i. 305, 312, 313, 315 _n._, 316 f., 318, 319.

  Papak, ii. 87 _n._

  Papyrus, ii. 255 _n._

  Paraetonium, ii. 235 _n._

  Paropanisus, ii. 14.

  Parthamaspates, ii. 69.

  Parthia and Parthians, rule of, ii. 2 f.;
    Parthians Scythian, 3;
    regal office, 5;
    Megistanes, 5, 6 _n._;
    satraps, 6;
    as vassals, 7;
    Greek towns, 8;
    counterpart to Roman empire, 9;
    language, 11 f.;
    coinage, 12;
    extent of empire, 12 f.;
    wars between Parthians and Scythians, 18;
    Romano-Parthian frontier-region, 19;
    during the civil wars, 21;
    at Philippi, 22;
    in Syria and Asia Minor, 22;
    [Judaea, 177 f.];
    seizure of Armenia, 45 _n._;
    occupation of Armenia, 47 f.;
    war under Nero, 55 f.;
    the East under the Flavians, 61 f.;
    coinage of pretenders, 65 _n._;
    war under Trajan, 65 f.;
    his oriental policy, 70 f.;
    reaction under Hadrian and Pius, 71 f.;
    war under Marcus and Verus, 74 f.;
    wars under Severus, 77 f.;
    wars of Severus Antoninus, 87;
    beginning of Sassanid dynasty, 80 f., 89;
    Partho-Indian empire, ii. 15 f., 17 _n._

  Parthini, i. 9.

  Parthomasiris, ii. 66 _n._, 67.

  Patrae, i. 260 f., 292 f., 297.

  Patriarchs of Jews, ii. 227 _n._

  Patrocles, Admiral, exploring Caspian, ii. 130.

  _Patronatus_, contracts of, ii. 329 _n._, 330 _n._

  Paul at Damascus, chronology of, ii. 149 _n._

  Paullinus, Gaius Suetonius, i. 179 f., 181, 182; ii. 313, 323.

  Pedigrees, i. 287 f.

  Pentapolis, Pontic, i. 308 f.;
    coinage of, 309.

  Pergamus, i. 326, 329, 345, 350.

  Persepolis (Istachr), ii. 83.

  Persian empire, extent of, ii. 1 f.;
    _see_ Sassanids.

  Persis, viceroys of, how named, ii. 5 _n._;
    king of, 7;
    royal dynasty, Sassanids, 81.

  Pertinax, Helvius, i. 233.

  Petra, client-state of Nabat, ii. 65;
    residence of king, 148;
    traffic-route, 151 _n._, 288;
    constitution under Hadrian, 155;
    structures of, 156;
    rock-tombs, 157.

  Petronius, Gaius, governor of Egypt, ii. 276.

  Petronius, Publius, governor of Syria, ii. 194.

  Pessinus, i. 341, 342 _n._

  Phanagoria, i. 315, 319.

  Pharasmanes (I.), ii. 43, 47, 53.

  Pharasmanes (II.), ii. 73.

  Pharisees, ii. 161, 183, 188, 208.

  Pharnaces, i. 312, 339.

  Pharnapates, ii. 23.

  Pharsalus, i. 298 _n._

  Phasael, ii. 177 f.

  Philadelphia (in Lydia), i. 360.

  Philadelphia (in Syria), ii. 146.

  Philae, ii. 276, 278.

  Philhellenism of the Romans, i. 276 f.

  Philippi, i. 301, 303.

  Philippopolis, i. 211, 232, 260, 304, 307.

  Philippus, Marcus Julius, proclaimed emperor, ii. 91 f.;
    cession of Euphrates frontier, 92.

  Philo, Neo-Judaism, ii. 170;
    deputations to Gaius, 193;
    silence accounted for, 196 _n._

  Phoenician language in Africa, ii. 326 f., 328 _n._

  Phraataces, ii. 39.

  Phraates, ii. 24, 28 f., 34, 37, 38.

  Phrygia, Great, i. 325;
    language, i. 328;
    coins and inscriptions, 328.

  Phylarchs, ii. 154, 158 _n._

  _Picti_, i. 189.

  Piracy in Black Sea, i. 242 f.;
    expeditions to Asia Minor and Greece, 245 f.;
    in Pisidia, 334 f.;
    in Red Sea, ii. 298.

  Piraeus, i. 278, 293.

  Pirustae, i. 41.

  Pisidia, independence, i. 334;
    subdued by Augustus, 335;
    Pisidian colonies, 336;
    brigandage in, 351.

  Piso, Lucius, Thracian war, i. 24 f.

  Pityus, i. 242, 243 f.

  Pius, Cestius, i. 365.

  Plataeae, i. 266 _n._, 267 _n._

  Plautius, Aulus, i. 175, 177.

  Plotinus, ii. 126.

  Plutarch, knowledge of Latin, i. 272;
    account of his countrymen, 272;
    on population of Greece, 268;
    character of, 274 f.;
    view of municipal duties, 286, 290.

  Poetovio, i. 18, 23, 205, 206.

  Polemon, i. 313; ii. 24, 35.

  _Polis_ and _Nomos_, ii. 237.

  Politarchs, i. 300 _n._

  Pollio, Coelius, ii. 48.

  Pompeianus, Tiberius Claudius, i. 233.

  Pompeiopolis, ii. 102.

  Pontus, province organised by Pompeius, i. 331 f.;
    annexation of kingdom of, ii. 61.

  Poppaea Sabina, ii. 167.

  Porphyrius, ii. 126.

  Portus, mariners’ guild at, ii. 257 _n._

  Posidonius of Apamea, quoted, ii. 133.

  Postumus, Marcus Cassianius Latinius, proclaimed emperor in Gaul,
      i. 164;
    takes Cologne, 165;
    falsifications of the Imperial Biographies in his case, 164 _n._

  Potaissa, i. 228.

  Praaspa, ii. 29.

  _Praefectus_, ii. 233 _n._, 246, 247 _n._

  Prasutagus, i. 176.

  Premis, ii. 276.

  Priests in Asia Minor, i. 348.

  Princeps: position as to Egypt, ii. 233 f.;
    _princeps et undecim primus_, 335 _n._

  Priscus, Statius, ii. 75.

  Priscus, governor of Macedonia, i. 240.

  Proaeresios, ii. 268 _n._

  Probus, opens vine-culture to provincials, i. 109;
    resumes aggression against the Germans, 166 f.;
    transfers Bastarnae to Roman bank, 249;
    subdues Lydus in Isauria, 337;
    delivers Egypt from Palmyrenes, ii. 108, 250, 277;
    restores water-works on Nile, 253.

  _Provincia_, alleged use of term, ii. 233 _n._

  Prucheion, ii. 250, 251.

  Pselchis, ii. 276.

  Pseudo-Nero, ii. 62, 64 f.

  Ptolemaeus Philadelphus, son of Antonius, ii. 25.

  Ptolemaeus Philadelphus, ii. 280.

  Ptolemaeus, king of Mauretania, ii. 312 f.

  Ptolemais, “Greek” city in Egypt, ii. 235, 236.

  Ptolemais “for the Chase,” on Red Sea, ii. 280.

  Ptolemies, court of the, ii. 245 f.

  Punic inscriptions, ii. 326 _n._

  Punt, ii. 285 _n._

  Purple dyeworks, Syrian, ii. 137.

  Puteoli, called little Delos, ii. 139 _n._


  Quadi, i. 214, 229, 230, 233, 234, 237.

  Quadratus, Ummidius, ii. 48 f., 202.

  Quarries, Egyptian, ii. 256.

  Quietus, Fulvius, ii. 103.

  Quietus, Lusius, i. 222; ii. 69, 223, 322 _n._

  Quinquegentiani, ii. 325 _n._

  Quintilianus, Marcus Fabius, i. 77.

  Quirinius, Publius Sulpicius, i. 336; ii. 136, 188, 315.


  Raetia, affinity of Raeti, i. 196;
    subjugation, 16, 17;
    organisation, 17 f.;
    war in Raetia, 161;
    late civilisation, 196;
    military arrangements, 197;
    Raetian _limes_, 197.

  Ratiaria, i. 214.

  Religion in Spain, i. 75;
    in Gaul, 103 f.;
    in Britain, 193;
    in Greece, 280;
    in Asia Minor, 350;
    in Iran, ii. 9 f.;
    in Syria, 123;
    in Egypt, 265, 266 _n._

  Resaina, battle at, ii. 91, 95.

  Rhadamistus, ii. 47 f.

  Rhagae, ii. 4, 28.

  Rhandeia, capitulation of, ii. 56, 57 f.

  Rhapta, ii. 289.

  Rhetoric, professors of, at Treves, i. 89 _n._;
    professorship of Greek, at Rome, ii. 272.

  Rhetors in Alexandria, ii. 264 _n._

  Rhine, boundary, i. 25;
    camps on left bank, 31 f.;
    positions on right bank, 33 f.;
    canal to Zuider-Zee, 28, 34;
    dyke between Ems and Lower Rhine, 34;
    Rhine-army as bearing on Gaul, 81;
    Rhine fleet, 119;
    army of Lower Rhine, 147 _n._

  Rhodians, Dio’s address to, i. 270 f., 285.

  Rhoemetalces, i. 40, 209 f.

  Riff in Morocco, ii. 321, 324.

  Roads in Spain, i. 74;
    in Gaul, 109 f.;
    road-measurement in Gaul and Germany, 102 f.;
    in Britain, 192;
    in Greece, 294;
    in Asia Minor, 358;
    in Egypt, ii. 297;
    in Africa, 339.

  Roman empire, character of its history as compared with that of
      the republic, i. 3 f.;
    value of authorities for it, 4;
    nature of task assigned to it, 4 f.;
    object and limits of the present work, 4-6;
    its divisions, 6;
    northern frontier of, 7 f.

  Roxolani, i. 217, 238.


  Sabaeans, ii. 158, 286, 290.

  Sabinus, Julius, i. 137, 139.

  Sabinus, Oppius, i. 220.

  Sacae, ii. 14;
    Sacastane, 15;
    empire on Indus, 16, 17 _n._

  Sacrovir, Julius, rising of, i. 80 f.

  Sadducees, ii. 161.

  Sagalassus, i. 337.

  Salabus, ii. 323.

  Salassi, i. 15;
    extirpated by Augustus, 19.

  Salice (Ceylon), ii. 301.

  Salonae, i. 202, 204, 232.

  Samaria, ii. 187.

  Samaritans, ii. 160.

  Sanabarus, ii. 16 _n._

  Sapor, ii. 91;
    title and policy of conquest, 99 f.

  Sapphar, ii. 295.

  Saracens, ii. 158 f.

  Sarapis, ii. 265, 266 _n._, 268;
    festival of, ii. 258 _n._

  Sardes, i. 327, 330.

  Sarmatae, ii. 43.

  Sarmizegetusa, i. 221, 228.

  Sassanids, ii. 3 f.;
    official historiography, 3 _n._;
    legend of, 81, 85 f.;
    dynasty of Persis, 81;
    extent of Sassanid kingdom, 82;
    distinction between Sassanid and Arsacid kingdoms, 82 _n._;
    official titles of ruler, 83 _n._;
    church and priesthood, 84 f.;
    languages of the country under, 85 f.;
    new Persians and Romans, 86;
    strike gold pieces, 86 f.;
    chronology, 89 _n._;
    East forfeited to Persians, 101.

  Satraps, ii. 6.

  Saturninus, Gaius Sentius, i. 38.

  Saturninus, Lucius Antonius, i. 150.

  Sauromates, i. 311, 314 _n._, 317 _n._

  Savaria, i. 205, 206.

  Saxa, Decidius, ii. 22.

  Saxons, i. 60 f., 167.

  Scapula, Publius Ostorius, i. 178.

  Scarbantia, i. 206.

  Scaurus, Marcus, expedition against Nabataeans, ii. 149 f.

  Scironian cliffs, i. 294.

  Scodra, i. 200.

  Scordisci, i. 200 f., 300.

  Scoti, i. 189.

  Scythians, i. 239, 242, 243 _n._, 311;
    (Asiatic), ii. 14, 15, 17.

  Segestes, i. 43, 46, 51, 62.

  Segusiavi, i. 88 _n._, 92 _n._

  Sejanus, ii. 172 _n._, 173.

  Seleucia (in western Cilicia), i. 334.

  Seleucia Siderus (in Pisidia), i. 336, 337.

  Seleucia (in Syria), ii. 127 _n._, 128.

  Seleucia (on the Tigris), ii. 8, 11, 43, 44, 45, 68, 77, 79, 85, 113,
    127.

  Seleucids, ii. 3 _al._

  Seleucus, saying of, ii. 245.

  Selga, i. 337, 359.

  “Seminumidians and Semigaetulians,” ii. 341.

  Semnones, i. 146, 161.

  Senate and senators excluded from Egypt, ii. 233 _n._

  Seneca, M. Annaeus and L. Annaeus, i. 76.

  Septuagint, ii. 164.

  Sequani, i. 80, 99, 139.

  Seres, i. 302.

  Servianus, letter (of Hadrian?) to, ii. 256 _n._

  Severianus, ii. 74.

  Severus, Alexander;
    _see_ Alexander Severus.

  Severus Antoninus;
    _see_ Caracalla.

  Severus, Septimius, Wall of Severus, i. 187 _n._;
    conflicts in Britain, 189;
    death at Eburacum, 189, 269;
    Parthian wars under, ii. 77 f.;
    title of _Parthicus_, 78 _n._;
    partition of Syria, 118.

  Severus, Sextus Julius, ii. 224 f.

  Sicca, ii. 332.

  Sido, i. 216, 229.

  Silk, Chinese, ii. 302;
    silk of Berytus, ii. 137 f.

  Silures, i. 177 f., 179, 181.

  Silvanus Aelianus, Tiberius Plautius, i. 217.

  Simon, son of Gioras, ii. 214.

  Singidunum, i. 213, 228.

  Sinnaces, ii. 44.

  Sinope, i. 331 f.

  Siraci, i. 316 _n._, 317, 319.

  Siscia, i. 9, 205.

  Sittius, Publius, ii. 311 _n._, 332.

  Skipetars, i. 199.

  Slaves, treatment of, in Greece, i. 273;
    traffic in, through Galatia, ii. 360.

  Smyrna, i. 325 f., 329, 346, 354;
    Jews at, ii. 163 _n._

  Sohaemus of Hemesa, ii. 49.

  Sohaemus, king of Armenia, ii. 75 _n._, 126.

  Sophene, ii. 115.

  Sophists, addresses of, i. 363 f.;
    Asia Minor takes the lead in, 365.

  Sostra, dam at, ii. 102.

  Spain, conclusion of its conquest, i. 63 f.;
    visit of Augustus to organise, 64;
    triumphs over, 63 _n._, 64;
    warfare in north of Spain, 64 f.;
    military organisation and distribution of legions, 65 _n._, 66;
    incursions of Moors, 67;
    introduction of Italian municipal law, 67;
    diffusion of Roman language, 70;
    cantons, 71;
    broken up, 72;
    levy, 73;
    traffic and roads, 73 f.;
    religious rites, 75;
    Spaniards in Latin literature, 75-77.

  Sparta, treatment of, i. 259 f.

  Statianus, Oppius, ii. 29.

  Statues, honorary, i. 291 _n._

  Stobi, i. 301.

  Successianus, i. 244.

  Suebi, i. 60 f., 206, 214, 216, 220.

  Sufetes, ii. 329, 330 _n._

  Sugambri, i. 26, 27, 28, 30, 33, 124;
    probably = Cugerni, 124 _n._

  Sulis, i. 177, 194.

  Surên, ii. 6, 84.

  Syene, ii. 256, 280.

  Syllaeos, ii. 291 _n._

  Symmachus, i. 113.

  Synhedrion of Jerusalem, constitution and jurisdiction, ii. 187 f.;
    disappears, 217.

  Synnada, i. 326.

  _Synoekismos_, i. 295 f.

  Syria, conquest of, ii. 116;
    boundaries of territory, 117;
    provincial government, and its changes, 117 f.;
    partition into Coele-Syria and Syro-Phoenicia, 118;
    troops and quarters of legions, 63 _n._, 118 _n._;
    inferiority in discipline, 66 _n._, 119 f.;
    Hellenising of, 120 f.;
    Syria = New Macedonia, 121;
    continuance of native language, 121 f.;
    Macedonian native and Greek names, 121 f.;
    worship, 123;
    later Syriac literature, 124 _n._;
    Syro-Hellenic mixed culture, 125;
    minor Syrian authorship, 130 f.;
    epigram and _feuilleton_, 130 f.;
    culture of soil, 133 f.;
    wines of, 137;
    manufactures, 137;
    commerce, 137 f.;
    ship-captains, 138 _n._;
    Syrian factories abroad, 138 f.;
    Syrian merchants in the West, 139 _n._;
    Syro-Christian Diaspora, 140 _n._;
    wealth of Syrian traders, 140;
    country houses in valley of Orontes, 141;
    military arrangements after A.D. 63, 210 _n._

  Syria, Eastern, conditions of culture in, ii. 144 f.;
    Greek influence in, 145 f.;
    inhabitants of Arabian stock, 145;
    Pompeius strengthens Greek urban system, 146;
    civilisation under Roman rule, 153 f.;
    agriculture and commerce, 154;
    buildings, 156;
    south Arabian immigration, 158.

  Syrtis, Great, ii. 306, 316.


  Tacapae, ii. 314.

  Tacfarinas, ii. 313, 314, 317, 318.

  Tacitus, dialogue on oratory, i. 113;
    picture of the Germans, 169;
    narrative of war in Britain criticised, 181 _n._

  Tadmor, ii. 92 _n._

  Talmud, beginnings of, ii. 219, 231.

  Tanais, i. 315 _n._, 319.

  Tarraco, i. 64.

  Tarraconensis, towns in the, i. 68.

  Tarsus, ii. 101, 122.

  Taunus, i. 33, 148.

  Tava (Tay), i. 183, 186.

  Tavium, i. 341, 342 _n._

  Taxila, ii. 14 _n._

  Teachers and salaries at Teos, i. 362.

  Teimâ, description of, ii. 285 _n._

  Temple-tribute, Jewish, ii. 169, 173;
    temple-screen, tablets of warning on, 189 _n._

  Tencteri, i. 26, 27, 124, 133, 139 f.

  Tenelium, ii. 335.

  Teos, decree as to instruction, i. 362.

  Tertullian, ii. 342, 345.

  Tetrarch, title of, ii. 177 _n._

  Tetricus submits to Aurelian, i. 166.

  Teutoburg forest, i. 53, 55.

  Thaema, ii. 148 _n._

  Thagaste, ii. 341.

  Thamugadi, ii. 319.

  Themistius, i. 342.

  Theocracy, Mosaic, ii. 160.

  Thessalonica, i. 300 f., 302.

  Thessaly, i. 297 f.;
    diet in Larisa, 298.

  Theudas, ii. 204.

  Theudosia, i. 315.

  Theveste, ii. 317, 320, 339.

  Thrace: dynasts and tribes, i. 13 f.;
    vassal-princes, 14;
    war of Piso, 24 f., 210;
    Thracian stock, 207 f.;
    language, 208;
    worship, 209;
    principate, 209 f.;
    province, 210 f.;
    rising under Tiberius, 211;
    garrison and roads, 212 f.;
    Hellenism and Romanism in, 212 f.;
    Hellenism imported, 302, 304;
    Philip and Alexander, 303;
    Lysimachus, 303;
    empire of Tylis, 303;
    later Macedonian rulers, 304;
    Roman province, 304 f.;
    Greek towns in, 305;
    strategies of, 306 _n._;
    townships receiving civic rights from Trajan, 307;
    “Thracian shore,” i. 212.

  Thubursicum, ii. 336.

  Thubusuctu, ii. 325 _n._

  Tiberias, ii. 183.

  Tiberius, assists Drusus in Raetia, i. 16, 17;
    first Pannonian war, 22 f., 205;
    German war, 30 f.;
    resigns command on Rhine, 35;
    reconciliation with Augustus, 36;
    resumes command, 36;
    further campaigns in Germany, 36 f.;
    expedition to North Sea, 37;
    campaign against Maroboduus, 37 f.;
    return to Illyricum, 40 f.;
    again on Rhine after defeat of Varus, 48 f.;
    recall of Germanicus, 55;
    German policy, 55;
    motives for changing it, 56-59;
    Gallic rising under, 80;
    Frisian rising, 124;
    road-making in Dalmatia, 203;
    procures recognition for Vannius, 215;
    Dacians under, 217;
    takes Greece into his own power, 276;
    small number of statues, 291 f.;
    leads force into Armenia, ii. 37 f.;
    again commissioned to the East, but declines, 39;
    mission of Germanicus to the East, 40 f.;
    Artabanus and Tiberius, 40 f.;
    mission of Vitellius, 42 f.;
    movement against Aretas, 151;
    treatment of the Jews, 172;
    attitude towards Jewish customs, 189, 190;
    war against Tacfarinas, 317 f.

  Tigranes, brother of Artaxias, invested with Armenia by Tiberius,
    ii. 37, 38.

  Tigranes, installed in Armenia by Corbulo, ii. 54 f.

  Tigranocerta, ii. 45, 54.

  Tigris, boundary of, ii. 71, 115 _n._

  Timagenes, ii. 106.

  Timarchides, Claudius, i. 283 _n._

  Timesitheus, Furius, ii. 91.

  Tingi, i. 67; ii. 360 f., 312 f., 314, 321, 331.

  Tiridates, proclaimed king of Parthia under Augustus, ii. 34, 35, 37.

  Tiridates set up as king of Parthia in opposition to Artabanus,
    under Tiberius, and superseded, ii. 44.

  Tiridates I., king of Armenia, brother of Vologasus I., ii. 52, 53,
    54, 55, 58, 59, 60 [and ii. 11].

  Tiridates II., king of Armenia under Caracalla, ii. 87.

  Tiridates, king of Armenia under Sapor, ii. 99.

  Titus, against Jerusalem, ii. 213 f.;
    Arch of, 216;
    refuses to eject Jews at Antioch, 219.

  Togodumnus, i. 175 f.

  Tombstones, Gallic, i. 116.

  Tomis, i. 13, 227 _n._, 305, 308;
    Ovid’s description of, 309;
    Mariners’ guild, 310 _n._

  Town-districts in Egypt, ii. 235 f.

  Trachonitis, ii. 144;
    _see_ Haurân.

  Trajanus, M. Ulpius: military road from Mentz towards Offenburg, i. 153;
    settlements in Upper Germany, 160;
    mission thither, 160 _n._;
    Dacian war, 221 f.;
    second Dacian war, 222 f.;
    column in Rome, 224 f.;
    confers civic rights on Thracian townships, 309;
    Parthian war, ii. 65 f.;
    death, 69 f.;
    triumph accorded after death, 70;
    Oriental policy, 70 f.;
    erects province of Arabia, 143;
    Jewish rising under, 221 f.;
    enlargement of Egyptian canal, 297 f.

  Transport-ship, Egyptian, ii. 256, 257 _n._

  Trapezus, i. 245, 332; ii. 35, 53.

  Trebellianus Rufus, Titus, i. 211.

  Treveri, i. 80, 93, 94, 102, 136, 137, 139, 140.

  Treves, primacy in Belgica, i. 89;
    subsequently capital of Gaul, 89;
    receives Italian rights, 99.

  Triballi, i. 12.

  Triboci, i. 117, 140, 147.

  Trinovantes, i. 170, 171 _n._, 180.

  Tripolis, ii. 314 f.

  Trismegistus, Hermes, ii. 261, 266 _n._, 268.

  Troesmis, i. 227.

  Trogodytes, ii. 280, 286.

  Trogus Pompeius, historian of Hellenic type, i. 110.

  Trumpilini, i. 15.

  Tungri, i. 133, 136.

  Turan, ii. 12, 17, 45.

  Turbo, Quintus Marcius, ii. 223.

  Tyana, i. 333; ii. 109.

  Tylis, empire of, i. 303.

  Tyra, i. 226, 239, 242, 244, 305, 310.

  Tyrian factories in Italy, ii. 138 _n._


  Ubii, i. 25, 35, 97, 98 f., 102, 117, 118, 119, 134, 136;
    Roman town of, 168.

  Ulpia Noviomagus, i. 168.

  Ulpia Traiana, i. 168.

  Universe, anonymous treatise on, ii. 168.

  Usipes, i. 26, 27, 51, 124, 133, 150.

  Utica, ii. 331.


  Vaballathus, ii. 106 _n._, 108.

  Valerianus, Publius Licinius, conquers Aemilianus, i. 241;
    piratical expedition of Goths, 243 f.;
    character, 247; ii. 100;
    capture by the Persians, 100 _n._, 101 _n._

  Vangio, i. 215, 229.

  Vannius, i. 215, 216.

  Vardanes, ii. 45, 46.

  Varus, Publius Quintilius, character, i. 44;
    defeat and death, 45-47;
    locality of the disaster, 47 _n._;
    governor of Syria, ii. 184.

  Vascones, i. 66.

  Vatinius, Publius, i. 89.

  Veleda, i. 140, 142, 145.

  Veneti, i. 200.

  Verulamium, i. 179, 180, 193.

  Verus, Lucius, character of, i. 232 f.;
    in the East, ii. 75.

  Verus, Martius, ii. 75.

  Vespasianus: municipal organisation in Spain, i. 69, 73;
    proclaimed as emperor, 128;
    instigation of Civilis, 130 f.;
    consequences of Batavian war, 143 f.;
    takes possession of “Helvetian desert,” 152;
    pushes forward camps on the Danube, 219;
    Eastern arrangements, ii. 62 f.;
    Jewish war, 210 f.;
    possessing himself of Rome through corn-fleet, 252;
    nicknamed the “sardine-dealer” and “six-farthing-man,” 263.

  Vestinus, L. Julius, ii. 273 _n._

  Vetera (Castra), i. 32, 49, 118, 133, 138.

  Via Augusta in Spain, i. 74;
    in Gaul, 109 f.

  Via Claudian, i. 20.

  Via Egnatia, i. 302.

  Victorinus, Gaius Aufidius, i. 230.

  Vienna, i. 87, 88 _n._, 91.

  Viminacium, i. 212, 213, 228, 241.

  Vindelici, i. 16, 17, 196.

  Vindex, rising of, i. 82, 127, 128 f.

  Vindex, Marcus Macrinius, i. 234.

  Vindobona, i. 206.

  Vindonissa, i. 18, 119, 140, 159.

  Vine-culture in Gaul, i. 108 f.;
    restricted by Domitian, 108;
    on Moselle, 109.

  Viroconium, camp of, i. 178, 182.

  Vitellius, Lucius, i. 128, 129, 130; ii. 42, 43, 44, 213.

  Vocula, Villius, i. 132, 134-136, 137, 138.

  Volcae, i. 86 f., 93.

  Vologasias, ii. 47, 65, 98 _n._

  Vologasus I., ii. 47, 49, 52, 54 f., 57, 62, 63, 64, 65 _n._

  Vologasus IV., ii. 74.

  Vologasus V., ii. 77 f.

  Vonones, ii. 40, 41.

  Vorodes, Septimius, ii. 104 _n._


  Weaving in Asia Minor, i. 360.

  Wines, Gallic, i. 109.


  Xenophon, of Cos, physician, i. 361 _n._


  Zabdas, ii. 105 _n._, 107, 109.

  Zaitha, ii. 92.

  Zarai, tariff of, ii. 338 _n._

  Zealots, ii. 191, 203 f., 207, 208.

  Zenobia, government of, ii. 106 f.;
    claim to joint-rule, 106 _n._;
    occupation of Egypt, 107, 249 f.;
    Aurelian against, 108;
    battle of Hemesa, 109 f.;
    capture, 110.

  Zenodorus, of Abila, ii. 147.

  Zimises, ii. 322 _n._

  Zoelae, i. 73 _n._

  Zoskales, ii. 283.

  Zula, ii. 280.



THE END.


_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_.


Transcriber's Notes:

Notes, originally in the margin, relating to dates have been moved to
follow the U.C. (_ab urbe condita_) dates in the text to which they
refer. These notes are clothed in { }, and refer to the 'B.C.' era.
Similar notes in the margins, relating to other works, have also been
moved into the text, again clothed with { }. References to the maps and
index have been added to the Table of Contents.



BY DR. MOMMSEN

THE HISTORY OF ROME

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BY

PROFESSOR THEODOR MOMMSEN

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