Cosmin Onofrei

The aim of the present paper is to re-evaluate the data on Jewish communities in Roman Dacia. Even with a decent amount of articles focused on this subject, some of them recent (see the bibliography); there is a need to review the proofs on the presence of this ethnic community in the province. Our analysis is focused on the cults of Theos Hypsistos and Deus Aeternus, divinities directly connected with the Jewish community, but also on the inscriptions and other archaeological finds. From the methodological point of view, the analysis will use an interdisciplinary approach, by correlating the data from ancient literary sources, epigraphy, archaeology and onomastics. A look over the information on the various ethnic groups present in Roman Dacia show that the evidence on Jews presence in the province are modest, relative at least to the number of inscriptions discovered. Because of the scarcity of archaeological and epigraphic evidence, conclusive results in identifying Jewish communities in the studied area are still to be discovered, at least from our point of view. Even if the subject has been the focus of some researches 2 , a reassessment of the Jewish presence in the province is a necessity.

The paper analyses a roman military diploma discovered in Turkey. The diploma is a well preserved copy of the Imperial constitution of 14 April 123. It represents the oldest evidence, till now, of the existence of the province Dacia Porolissensis. After a brief introduction, we establish that in some military diplomas the situation of the auxilia is that from the moment of the discharge of veterans and not that from the constitution release and we state that the territory north of the river Arieș and of the upper course of the river Mureș, had not been established as a province on 12 November 119. For the moment, we can say that Dacia Porolissensis must have been founded between the 12 th of November 119 and 14 th of April 123. In the second part of the study we talk about the holder of the diploma, the Syrian Zacca, and his large family. After we analyzed all the names from the text we established that the holder of the diploma and some of his children bear traditional Syrian names, while the wife, together with the other children, have roman, Iranian or mythological Greek names. We have a mixed family of Syrians and Thracians, showing a certain degree of Romanization. 1 This paper is a revised and translated version of ONOFREI 2006, 37-43. 2 Independent researcher,