Roman Policy towards the Jews: Expulsions from the City of Rome during the First

Century C.E.
Author(s): Leonard Victor Rutgers
Source: Classical Antiquity , Apr., 1994, Vol. 13, No. 1 (Apr., 1994), pp. 56-74
Published by: University of California Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25011005

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 LEONARD VICTOR RUTGERS

Roman Policy towards the Jews:

Expulsions from the City of Rome
during the First Century c. E.

Tant de causes secretes se melent souvent a la cause apparente, tant de ressorts

inconnus servent a persecuter un homme, qu'il est impossible de demeler dans les
siecles posterieures la source cachee des malheurs des hommes les plus consider
ables, a plus forte raison celle du supplice d'un particulier qui ne pouvait etre
connu que par ceux de son parti.
-Voltaire, Traite sur la tolerance (1763)

IN THIS ARTICLE I want to discuss the evidence for expulsions of Jews from
the city of Rome in the first century C.E. Scholars have long been interested in the
reasons underlying these expulsions. Because the ancient literary sources regard
ing such expulsions are scanty and often contradictory, no generally accepted
explanation for the rationale behind these events has hitherto been offered. We in
fact often lack even the most basic kind of information. Not infrequently it re
mains obscure, for example, how many Jews were expelled by Roman authorities
and to what social class they belonged. Similarly, we simply cannot tell whether
expulsions of Jews from Rome were at all effective in the long run.
Rather than studying individual expulsions of Jews in isolation-as several
scholars have done recently-I have opted in this article for a more comprehen
sive approach. In order to explain Rome's decision to remove Jews from the

I would like to thank S. J. D. Cohen, H. A. Drake, D. B. Martin, E. M. Meyers, E. M.

Moormann, G. Stemberger, and F. H. Stewart as well as Classical Antiquity's anonymous reviewers
for their comments on various drafts of this paper. A somewhat different version of this paper was read
in 1992 at the 47th General Meeting of the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas in Madrid, Spain. I am
grateful to P. Richardson for offering me the opportunity to participate in this conference. For
financial support I am indebted to the Annenberg Research Institute and to Duke University.

? 1994 BY THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

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 RUTGERS: Roman Policy towards the Jews 57

capital of its empire, it is necessary to study the question of the position of the
Jews in the Roman Empire in general. In addition, it is necessary to study the
evidence for expulsions of people other than Jews. Finally, we also need to
establish if (and if so, how) Romans were tolerant of other, non-Roman peoples.

THE FIRST ROMAN LEGAL MEASURES REGARDING THE JEWS:

THE ACTA PRO JUDAEIS

Although the Jews of both Palestine and the Diaspora had steadily moved
into the orbit of the Roman world in the course of the second century B.C.E.,
Rome did not develop a substantial body of laws regarding the Jews until the
second half of the first century B.C.E. Only then, in the fifty-odd years from
Caesar to Augustus, did Roman magistrates pass a number of decrees aimed at
protecting the free exercise of Jewish religion. They decreed that Jews might
gather freely in thiasoi, observe the Sabbath and the Jewish festivals, send
money to the Temple in Jerusalem, and enjoy autonomy in their communal
affairs. Jews were also absolved from compulsory enrollment in the Roman
military.
Josephus, our only ancient source on these decrees, indicates that by passing
legal measures in favor of the Jews Rome acted in its own interest, but not of its
own initiative. In the later first century B.C.E., Roman law on the Jews developed
primarily in response to the requests of the Jewish communities of the Aegean,
Asia Minor, and other parts of the Near East, including Cyrenaica, to help them
protect their traditional Jewish way of life against the constant attacks of their
Greek neighbors.
Roman legal measures normally took the form of senatus consulta that were
sent to individual Greek cities of the East in order to settle specific disputes
between Jews and Greeks. Because the rulings contained in these senatus con
sulta never attained universal validity, it is not correct to regard such senatorial
decrees as a Magna Charta or formal document that aimed at defining the legal
status of all Jewish communities in the eastern Mediterranean once and for all.
The senatus consulta regarding the Jews were essentially ad hoc measures that
related to geographical units of much smaller dimension.2 That this was so

1. Josephus, AJ 14.190-264, 16.162-73. For later measures taken by Claudius, see Josephus,
AJ 19.278-91, 19.299-311, 20.1-14. 1 Macc. 15 claims that Rome became a guarantor of Jewish
religious liberty throughout the Mediterranean as early as the second century B.C.E. But there is no
convincing evidence to substantiate this claim: see J.-D. Gauger, Beitrage zur judischen Apologetik:
Untersuchungen zur Authentizitat von Urkunden bei Flavius Josephus und im ersten Makkabaerbuch
(Cologne: Hansten, 1977) 299f. The enrollment of the Jews in the formula amicorum et sociorum of
the Roman People in 140 B.C.E. did not oblige the Romans to protect the rights of individual Jews
living in the Diaspora: see ibid. 188f., 205, 229f., 253f., 324.
2. Earlier literature in L. H. Feldman, Josephus and Modern Scholarship (Berlin: de Gruyter,
1984) 273-76. T. Rajak, "Jewish Rights in the Greek Cities under Roman Rule: A New Approach,"
in W. S. Green, ed., Approaches to Ancient Judaism, vol. 5, Studies in Judaism in Its Greco-Roman

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 58 CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY Volume 13/No. 1/April 1994

should not surprise us: a variety of sources indicates that in the later Republic
and early Principate Rome tried to leave the constitutions of the Greek cities
intact as far as possible.3
Scholars have often wondered whether the documents presented by Jo
sephus are at all genuine. Josephus is the only ancient author to mention
these decrees. We furthermore also know that Josephus's text suffers from
serious textual corruptions. Finally, numerous mistakes in chronology and in
the names of serving magistrates further complicate the interpretation of this
already problematical text.4 All this is true. Yet, instead of focusing exclu
sively on the more formal characteristics of Josephus's account, we rather
need to ask whether textual difficulties suffice to discredit altogether the
evidence presented by Josephus as regards the substance of these decrees.
The answer to this question is negative. For example, it is well known from
sources other than Josephus that attacks on Jewish property were punished
immediately by the Roman authorities.5 It is likewise well known that anyone
who attempted to confiscate money destined for the (Second) Temple in
Jerusalem was liable to prosecution.6 Last but not least, evidence for Jews
serving in the Roman military is virtually nonexistent.7 Such evidence suggests
uniformly that when Roman magistrates intervened in disputes involving
Jews, they were enforcing decrees very similar to the ones Josephus claims
the Romans issued. There thus exists little circumstantial evidence to suggest
that Josephus invented these decrees to insert them in his Antiquities for
purely apologetic purposes.
From a Jewish perspective, the first series of Roman senatorial decrees con
cerning the Jews was above all important in that they gave the various Jewish
communities under Roman rule something to fall back on when under pressure
from their non-Jewish neighbors.8 From the Roman point of view, the senatus

Context (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1985) 23; ead., "Was There a Roman Charter for the Jews?" JRS
74 (1984) 107-23.
3. L. Mitteis, Reichsrecht und Volksrecht in den ostlichen Provinzen des romischen Kaiserreichs
(Hildesheim: Olms, 1963) 85-109; R. Bernhardt, Polis und romische Herrschaft in der spdteren
Republik (149-31 v. Chr.) (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1985) 219f., 227f.
4. These problems are discussed in detail by H. R. Moehring, "The Acta pro Judaeis in the
Antiquities of Flavius Josephus," in J. Neusner, ed., Christianity, Judaism and Other Greco-Roman
Cults: Studies for Morton Smith at Sixty (Leiden: Brill, 1975) 124-58. More recently, C. Saulnier,
"Lois romaines sur les juifs selon Flavius Josephe," RBi 87 (1981) 161-98.
5. Hippol. Haeres. 9.1-9.
6. Witness Cicero, Flacc. 66-69; and cf. Philo, Leg. 156. For evidence from Cyrenaica, see M.
W. Baldwin Bowsky, "M. Tittius and the Jews of Berenice," AJPh 108 (1987) 509.
7. Jews could serve in the Roman army (cf. CTh 16.8.24, 12.1.100, 16.8.16, 16.8.24), but it is
not clear if they ever did so in large numbers. Two epitaphs of soldiers published by A. Scheiber
(Jewish Inscriptions in Hungary: From the Third Century to 1686 [Leiden: Brill, 1983] nos. 4 and 6)
contain names that are Semitic but not necessarily Jewish. The same is true of the names in V. A.
Tcherikover et al., Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum 3 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
1964) no. 465. Further references in L. Cracco Ruggini, "Note sugli ebrei in Italia dal IV al XVI
secolo," RSI 6 (1964) 932 n. 21.
8. See, e.g., Josephus, AJ 16.172.

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 RUTGERS: Roman Policy towards the Jews 59

consulta were significant in terms of both administration and law: these decrees
quickly assumed the role of legal precedents to which provincial governors and
indeed emperors could refer in order to justify their decisions when confronted
with disputes over Jewish rights.9 For the ancient historian, finally, an analysis of
Josephus's account is particularly interesting in that it helps to place into a long
term perspective the question of the expulsions of Jews from Rome during the first
century C.E. Josephus's description serves to illustrate that Roman policy toward
the Jewish community of Rome during the first century C.E. was not a new phe
nomenon, but rather that this policy followed patterns that had already been
established in the later Republic. The most salient feature of this policy (at least
for the purpose of this article) was that Rome did not have a standard policy
toward the Jews: Roman magistrates responded to situations.

THE CIVIC STATUS OF THE JEWS OF ROME

In order to understand the legal aspects of the expulsions of Jews from Rome
during the first century C.E. we need to know something about the civic status of
those Jews.
Philo says that the Jews of Rome were mostly slaves who had become Roman
citizens after manumission.'0 This seems to be fairly close to the truth. Jews may
have reached Rome as early as the middle of the second century B.C.E.11 Whether
they arrived there as free peregrini or whether they descended from manumitted
slaves who had first reached Rome through the slave markets of the eastern
Mediterranean (such as Delos) it is impossible to tell.12 After Pompey's victories
of 63 B.C.E. in Syria and Palestine, new Jewish slaves were brought in, this time
directly from Palestine. We do not know how many of these prisoners of war
actually reached Italy or what percentage of them ended up as slaves in the city of
Rome.'3 What is clear, however, is that by the time of their arrival, a Jewish
community was already well established in Rome. It must have counted free
immigrants among its members as well as the many who were slaves or freedmen.

9. Josephus, AJ 16.173, 19.282-3, 19.304-6; V.A. Tcherikover et al., Corpus Papyrorum

Judaicarum 2 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1960) no. 153, col. V, lines 86-87.
Edicts issued by an emperor remained in force after his death: F. Millar, The Emperor in the Roman
World (31 B.C.-A.D. 337) (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1977) 252-53; RE 5 (1905) 1947.
10. Philo, Leg. 156.
11. E. M. Smallwood, The Jews under Roman Rule: From Pompey to Diocletian (Leiden: Brill,
1976) 130; H. J. Leon, The Jews of Ancient Rome (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of
America, 1960) 3-4; H. Solin, "Juden and Syrer im westlichen Teil der romischen Welt: Eine
ethnisch-demographische Studie mit besonderer Beriicksichtigung der sprachlichen Zustande,"
ANRW 11.29.2 (1983) 607.
12. The enrollment in the formula amicorum et sociorum (cf. A.N. Sherwin-White, Roman
Foreign Policy in the East 168 B. C. to A.D. 1 [Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1983] 58-77)
resulted in all Jews on Roman territory who were not Roman citizens or slaves automatically
becoming peregrini; see Kiibler in RE 19 (1937) 639-55 s.v. peregrinus.
13. Josephus, AJ 14.78; Plut. Vita Pomp. 45.1-2; App. Mith. 117.571; Eutropius, Breviarum
a.u.c. 6.16.

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 60 CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY Volume 13/No. 1/April 1994

That a not inconsiderable number of Jews in Rome had become cives Ro

mani by the time of Augustus can be inferred from their participation in the
monthly doles;'4 exact figures, however, cannot be given. Not every slave of
Jewish origin automatically became a Roman citizen upon manumission, since
not all manumissions were formally carried out, that is testamento, vindicta, or
censu. Informal manumission led, at least after 19 C.E., to a status inferior to that
of the Roman citizen, namely to that of the Junian Latin.15 Of course, such
Latini luniani could become cives Romani, for example by serving in the police
or by supplying Rome with corn for a period of time, but once more, it is not
clear whether this was common or even whether achieving the status of Roman
citizen was considered desirable.16 Cicero remarks that prisoners of war should
be freed after six years of slavery, but this cannot be taken to mean that Jewish
(or non-Jewish) slaves were always quick to acquire their freedom.17
Under Roman law Jews in Rome during the first century C.E. belonged to one
of the three following categories. (1) Some were slaves. Although lacking legal
personality, slaves were subject to criminal law. In case of criminal offenses they
could be punished either by their master or by the Roman state. (2) Some were
free peregrini or Latini luniani. As such they were largely outside the sphere of the
ius civile and subject to the coercitio of the magistrates. They could be chased out
of the city without any form of trial.18 (3) Some were Roman citizens, who could
only be expelled after they had been found guilty of a criminal offense in a Roman
court.19 Yet, even after having been convicted, a Roman citizen had the right to
appeal (provocatio) to a higher authority, in the present case the emperor.

THE EXPULSION OF JEWS FROM ROME UNDER TIBERIUS

Various authors relate how in 19 C.E. Jews as well as worshipers of Isis were ex
pelled from Rome. The sources disagree as to why these expulsions took place and
who was responsible for them.20 That the problems that had arisen were serious is,

14. Philo, Leg. 158; A.N. Sherwin-White, The Roman Citizenship, 2d ed. (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1973), esp. 221f.
15. A. Watson, Roman Slave Law (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987) 24f. On
formal manumission, see Gaius 1.17.
16. Watson (above, n. 15); P. R. C. Weaver, "Where Have All the Junian Latins Gone?
Nomenclature and Status in the Early Empire," Chiron 20 (1990) 275-305, esp. 303f. R. MacMullen,
"Notes on Romanization," BASP 21 (1984) 167.
17. Cic. Phil. 8.32.
18. Examples of limited legal protection provided to peregrini in RE 10 (1919) 1229-30 s.v.
"Ius Gentium."
19. When someone's guilt was beyond doubt, however, or when someone was a confessus, no
trial was necessary: cf. W. Kunkel, "Prinzipien des romischen Strafverfahrens," in Kleine Schriften:
Zum romischen Strafverfahren und zur romischen Verfassungsgeschichte (Weimar: Bohlaus, 1974) 17f.
20. Tacitus, Ann. 2.85.4-5; Suet. Tib. 36.1; Josephus, AJ 18.63f.; Dio Cassius 57.18.5a; Philo,
Leg. 159-61. Cf. also Philo, In Flacc. 1. I do not believe that the evidence provided by Philo suggests
two separate moves against the Jews in Tiberius's reign, contra Smallwood (above, n. 11) 208f. and
Solin (above, n. 11) 688 n. 218b.

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 RUTGERS: Roman Policy towards the Jews 61

however, beyond doubt: the incident was scandalous enough for the Senate to
deal with it directly rather than to leave it to the intervention of the city prefect.21
Because of the contradictory statements in the primary sources, scholars
have offered differing accounts of what actually happened. Some argue that Jews
and devotees of Isis were expelled for religious reasons, while others contend
that Rome acted merely to maintain law and order.22 Let us consider these two
views in turn.
From Josephus's account it seems to follow that in 19 C.E. Jews were ex
pelled from Rome for religious reasons. Josephus writes that a few Jews de
ceived an aristocratic female proselyte called Fulvia by stealing the "purple and
gold" Fulvia had intended as gifts to the Temple in Jerusalem, and that it was this
that led to the expulsion. This rather detailed account is highly interesting, but it
cannot be taken at face value. In dealing with the Isis worshipers the Roman
authorities punished only the auctores seditionis, who were found guilty of seri
ously maltreating an aristocratic woman:23 why then, on being confronted by a
less serious offense committed by a few Jews, should they have punished the
whole Jewish community of the city? Given Rome's generally moderate policy
toward the Jews, and given the fact that Roman magistrates took the trouble of
issuing a special senatus consultum, it is hardly possible to accept Josephus's view
that the Roman authorities blamed the entire Roman Jewish community for the
misdeeds of a handful of culprits.24 It is quite possible, therefore, that Josephus
inserted the story of Fulvia in order to absolve the Jews from any real responsibil
ity for the expulsion of 19 C.E.25
Some scholars who reject the deception of Fulvia by a few impostors as the
reason for the expulsion of Jews from Rome suggest, along with Dio and possibly
Tacitus, that the reason for expelling the Jews must be sought in the fact that in

21. See, in general, P. Garnsey, Social Status and Legal Privilege in the Roman Empire (Ox
ford: Clarendon Press, 1970) 30-33.
22. References to earlier literature in M. H. Williams, "The Expulsion of the Jews from Rome
in A.D. 19," Latomus 48 (1989) 765, to which should be added Solin (above, n. 11) 686-89, and the
uncritical essay by G. Marasco, "Tiberio e l'esilio degli ebrei in Sardegna nel 19 d.C.," in A.
Mastino, ed., L'Africa romana: Atti del VIII convegno di studio, Cagliari, 14-16 XII 1990 (Sassari:
Gallizzi, 1991) 649-59.
23. In case of the Isis worshipers, the charge is most likely to have been adultery: so, correctly,
Garnsey (above, n. 21) 22. Cf. also M. Malaise, Les conditions de penetration et de diffusion des
cultes egyptiens en Italie (Leiden: Brill, 1972) 88f. The adultery laws promulgated by Augustus
continued to be valid under Tiberius and later emperors: see the list of adultery prosecutions in S.
Treggiari, Roman Marriage. lusti Coniuges from the Time of Cicero to the Time of Ulpian (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1991) 509-10. On the importance of adultery cases in later Roman penal law in
general, see T. Mommsen, Romisches Strafrecht (Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt,
1955) 528-29 and 691f. On the Roman practice of punishing accomplices to a crime, see ibid. 100
103; and, on the auctor seditionis, ibid. 564.
24. Note that also Philo, who is likewise somewhat apologetic about what happened, remarks
that the people who were really guilty were few in number (Leg. 161).
25. Pace Williams (above, n. 22) 775-77, and contra Marasco (above, n. 22) 652, 654. But
Williams' suggestion that the men who carried out the deceit became folk heroes is far-fetched.
Malaise (above, n. 23) 88 considers even the story involving the Isis priests an invention.

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 62 CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY Volume 13/No. 1/April 1994

general the Jews of ancient Rome were all too successful in making new con
verts.26 Tacitus observes that "another debate dealt with the proscription of the
Egyptian and Jewish rites," and then continues by remarking that four thousand
men libertini generis were sent to Sardinia to help suppress brigandage there; all
others had to leave Italy "unless they had renounced their impious rites by a
given date."27 Dio writes that "as the Jews had flocked to Rome in great numbers
and were converting many of the natives to their ways, he [sc. Tiberius] banished
most of them."
The interpretation of these passages raises several problems. Tacitus no
where states that Jews were found objectionable because they tried to win over
new converts. He observed only that the Senate decided to expell all practitio
ners of Judaism and of "Egyptian rites." By adding that all those who were
willing to give up their "impious rites" did not have to leave Italy, he implied that
the offense of those to be expelled had to do with their religious customs rather
than with regular offenses of a criminal nature.28 Yet, Tacitus never elaborated
in any detail on the rationale behind this measure. In his eyes, the Senate's
decision was too self-evident to need a more specific explanation.29
Dio, by contrast, is very explicit as to why Jews were expelled from Rome:
Jews were proselytizing on too large a scale.30 Although this explanation is straight
forward, it is nevertheless not very plausible. The passage in Dio's Roman History
is only a casual reference inserted into an account written roughly two-hundred
years after the expulsion. It is even more problematical that evidence pointing to
widespread conversion of non-Jews to Judaism under Tiberius is extremely weak.
It is true that Jewish proselytism was one of the favorite subjects of first-century
authors who wrote about the Jews,31 though the remarks are rather stereotypic. It
is also true that in the first century C.E. some upper-class Romans felt attracted to
Judaism, not improbably because of its "lofty moralism with high moral codes."32

26. Leon (above, n. 11) 19; Smallwood (above, n. 11) 203-4; M. Stern, Greek and Latin
Authors on Jews and Judaism 2 (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1976-84)
70; Solin (above, n. 11) 687; K. A. D. Smelik, "Tussen tolerantie en vervolging," Lampas 22 (1989)
181; Suet. Tib. 36.1.
27. On the translation of this expression, see Solin (above, n. 11) 687-88. L. Feldman, "Jewish
Proselytism," in H. W. Attridge and G. Hata, eds., Eusebius, Christianity, and Judaism (Leiden:
Brill, 1992) 372-408. Nothing, however, warrants the conclusion that these people were "proseliti
ebrei," contra Marasco (above, n. 22) 649.
28. Suetonius says of the astrologers only that those who gave up the practice of their art were
permitted to stay.
29. Mommsen thought that the practice of Judaism by cives Romani (even Jewish ones) consti
tuted an abandonment of Roman religion ("Der Religionsfrevel nach r6mischem Recht," in
Gesammelte Schriften 3 [Berlin: Weidmann, 1907] 403-6, 413), but this is too rigid and less convinc
ing. Mommsen (p. 418) believed that before 70 C.E. the "Jewish privileges" did not apply to a Jew
who became a Roman citizen.
30. This passage is, in my view, not superior to all other accounts, contra Smallwood (above, n.
11) 208. I agree with Williams (above, n. 22) 767-78.
31. Sources in Stern (above, n. 26) vol. 3, index, s.v. "proselytism."
32. Smallwood (above, n. 11) 205.

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 RUTGERS: Roman Policy towards the Jews 63

Yet, as a result of the inclusivist character of Roman religion, as opposed to the

exclusivist tendency of Jewish and, later, early Christian monotheism, sympathy
for Judaism could also take forms other than conversion. From a Roman perspec
tive there was nothing strange about integrating the Jewish god into a larger, non
Jewish pantheon.33 Furthermore, to think that many conversions to Judaism took
place because Roman religion had become petrified by the early first century C.E.
is grossly to oversimplify the situation. Recent studies have shown that in the early
Principate the Roman cults of old had far from disappeared. In this period many
Romans were not desperately looking elswhere for spiritual guidance.34 In this
context we should also consider, once more, Josephus's story of the proselyte
Fulvia. Even if the story as a whole is probably fictional, it contains valuable
information in its details. According to it, the Jews of Rome were punished only
for stealing the "purple and gold" Fulvia wanted to send to the Temple in Jerusa
lem. Nowhere does Josephus indicate that Jews were penalized for converting a
member of the ruling class to Judaism.35 On the basis of these considerations,
then, it is simply impossible to maintain that in early first-century Rome conver
sions to Judaism were taking place on a large scale;36 nor, more important, can one
tell whether Roman authorities thought such conversions were actually taking
place. Inscriptions from the third- and fourth-century Jewish catacombs cannot, of
course, be used to demonstrate that the number of proselytes in the first century
C.E. was either large or small.37
Another explanation for the expulsion of the Jews from Rome in 19 C.E.
favors political over religious concerns. The evidence for this thesis, however,
is even more scanty than for a religious one. H. Solin, unsatisfied with Jose
phus's explanation of the event, designates the Jews of Rome as a "standiges

33. E.g. SHA, Alex. Sev. 29.2. Other good examples in E. Bickermann, "The Altars of the
Gentiles: A Note on the Jewish 'Ius Sacrum,' " in Studies in Jewish and Christian History 2 (Leiden:
Brill, 1980) 339-40. See in this context also M. H. Williams, "Theosebes gar en-The Jewish Tenden
cies of Poppaea Sabina," JThS 39 (1988) 97-111, esp. 104-5; S. J. D. Cohen, "Crossing the Bound
ary and Becoming a Jew," HThR 82 (1989) 13-33; J. Reynolds and R. Tannenbaum, Jews and
Godfearers at Aphrodisias, Cambridge Philological Society Suppl. vol. 12 (Cambridge, 1987); and A.
F. Segal, Paul the Convert: The Apostolate and Apostasy of Saul the Pharisee (New Haven, Yale
University Press, 1990) 95f.
34. K. Latte, Romische Religionsgeschichte (Miinchen: Beck, 1960) 327f.; Smallwood (above,
n. 11) 205. With special emphasis on the Isis cult, Malaise (above, n. 23) 152f., esp. 155; 357f. For
different views, A. Momigliano in Ottavo contibuto alla storia degli studi classici e del mondo antico
(Roma: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 1987) 234; A. Wardman, Religion and Statecraft among the
Romans (London: Granada, 1982) 23f., 42f., 113-14; J. H. W. G. Liebeschiitz, Continuity and
Change in Roman Religion (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979) 27f.
35. Esp. Josephus, AJ 18.81-83.
36. Tac. Hist. 5.5 does not, in my view, support the inference that Jewish proselytism was
successful, contra Segal (above, n. 33) 86, a book that contains an otherwise very useful discussion of
conversion. Williams (above, n. 22) 771-72 shows that Tacitus is misleading with his designation ea
superstitone infecti.
37. Contra Williams (above, n. 22) 771 and n. 32, and contra Smallwood (above, n. 11) 205 n.
14. For the dating of the Jewish catacombs, see L. V. Rutgers, "Uberlegungen zu den jidischen
Katakomben Roms," JbAC 33 (1990) 140-57.

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64 CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY Volume 13/No. 1/April 1994

Ferment der Unruhe," but he does not offer any evidence in support of this
judgment. There is no such evidence in the ancient sources. To anyone familiar
with the so-called Berliner Antisemitismusstreit it need hardly be pointed out
that in reality Solin's phrase is nothing but a condensed and somewhat garbled
version of the phrase that sparked this controversy. It may be found in the third
volume of Mommsen's Romische Geschichte: "Auch in der alten Welt war das
Judentum ein wirksames Ferment des Kosmopolitismus und der nationalen
Dekomposition usw."38
In a recent study, M. H. Williams independently arrives at a conclusion very
similar to that of Solin.39 She too tries to show that the Jews of Rome were guilty
of unruly behavior. In order to prove her case she refers to a passage in Sueto
nius and to the account of a famous repetundae case of 59 B.C.E. written by
Cicero in defense of the propraetor of Asia of the year 62 B.C.E., L. Valerius
Flaccus. A closer look at both sources, however, reveals that these references do
not support Williams' point. Cicero, it is true, depicts the Jews of Rome in his
Pro Flacco as a disorderly lot, but his remarks are not trustworthy. In other
defense speeches, Cicero discredits non-Jewish opponents using exactly the same
kind of expressions he applies to the Jews on this occasion.40 It is obvious,
therefore, that Cicero's negative comments on the Jews of Rome are rhetorical
devices too stereotypical to be of much evidential value.41 In addition, even if
these comments are correct, they predate the events of 19 C.E. by some eighty
years. The passage from Suetonius is likewise useless as evidence for the idea
that Jews were a disturbing element in Rome. To infer that in 19 C.E. Jews in
Rome were notorious troublemakers from the fact that in 44 B.C.E. Jews were
among those who had most intensely lamented the death of Caesar, flocking to
the Forum for several nights in succession to see the dictator's bier, is in fact too
ridiculous to merit further comment.42
Williams suggests, furthermore, that the real reason why the Roman Senate
expelled Jews in 19 C.E. was to suppress the unrest caused by a deficiency in
Rome's corn supply in that same year. This cannot be proven, as she herself
admits, but the suggestion certainly has its merits. It was quite common for the
Roman authorities to expel easily identifiable groups from Rome in times of
political turmoil. Such expulsions were ordered not for religious reasons, but
rather to maintain law and order. It is conceivable that the expulsion of both

38. Solin (above, n. 11) 686, sim. 690 n. 224. T. Mommsen, Romische Geschichte, 8th ed.
(Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 1889), 3.550. On this controversy, see C. Hoffmann, Juden
und Judentum in den Werken deutscher Althistoriker des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts (Leiden: Brill,
1988) 87-132.
39. Williams (above, n. 22) 780.
40. Examples in B. Wardy, "Jewish Religion in Pagan Literature during the Late Republic and
Early Empire," ANRW II.19.1 (1979) esp. 604f.
41. This also explains how in other contexts the same Cicero argues in a much more concilia
tory tone (Off. 3.6.28, Fin. 5.23.65).
42. Suet. lul. 84.5.

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 RUTGERS: Roman Policy towards the Jews 65

Jews and worshipers of Isis in 19 C.E. is just another example of such a policy.43
But as a result of the piecemeal information provided by the ancient sources,
several of the most basic questions remain unanswered. Why, for example, were
the Jews chosen to be expelled for reasons of law and order? What had the Jews
done to interfere with the law? How would an expulsion of Jews (as opposed to
any other group of the city populace) have aided the reestablishment of law and
order? One simply cannot tell.
What we do know is that the measures taken by the Roman state were con
fined to the Jewish community in Rome and not directed against the Jewish popula
tion in other parts of the Roman empire.44 As in the case of other troublemakers,
the verdict was relegatio but not deportatio.45 Jews were banished from Rome, but
it appears that their civic or religious liberty was not otherwise impeded. In fact, it
is conceivable that they did not have to move very far away from the capital. The
decision to conscript Jews, probably in auxiliary units, was made in order to expel
a significant number of Jewish cives Romani and Latini luniani without having to
go to the trouble of convicting each one individually.46 The action could not have
encompassed all Jewish citizens living in Rome at this time. Women, children, and
those above or below military age were not legally affected by these measures. In
fact, one wonders how individual Jews were at all identified.47 Yet, even though
some Jews escaped direct punishment, it was clear to everyone that in taking such
harsh measures, Rome was determined to restore law and order.

THE EXPULSION OF JEWS FROM ROME UNDER CLAUDIUS

During the reign of Claudius, the Jewish community and the Roman authori
ties clashed once more. The sources yield even less information than they do for
the events of 19 C.E.48
In their accounts of these events both Suetonius and Dio indicate that Clau

43. Williams (above, n. 22) 783. Different and unconvincing is Marasco (above, n. 22) 657-58.
Exile as a punishment for committing vis publica of one sort or another is well documented in Roman
legal sources: see Garnsey (above n. 21) 113.
44. Tacitus writes that Jews were expelled from Italy, while Josephus and Suetonius talk about
an expulsion from Rome only. The latter authors are probably correct. Solin's argument that Jose
phus must be believed because Josephus of all people "hat die Strafe sicher nicht unterschatzt" is
incorrect ([above, n. 11] 686 n. 212; sim. Smallwood [above, n. 11] 204). After all, it is conceivable
that Josephus would have attempted to play down the extent of the expulsion had it concerned the
whole of Italy. Note that in dealing with the expulsion of astrologers and actors from Rome Tacitus
likewise always talks about expulsions from the whole of Italy: Ann. 2.32, 4.14, 15.52, 13.25; Hist.
2.62. Is this a coincidence?
45. Garnsey (above, n. 21) 116, 119.
46. Note that freedmen were not normally admitted to the legions: RE 5.1 (1923) 604, and esp.
612-22 s.u. dilectus.
47. Did Roman officials proceed as aggressively as they did later under Domitian (Suet. Dom.
12.2)? Similarly, one wonders how the worshipers of Bacchus who were expelled in 186 B.C.E. (Livy
39.17.5) were identified in the first place. (Through informers? cf. Livy 39.17.1.)
48. Suet. Claud. 25.4, Dio Cassius 60.6.6, Acts 18.2, Oros. Adv. Paganos 7.6.15.

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 66 CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY Volume 13/No. 1/April 1994

dius intervened because he wanted to maintain law and order. Suetonius, in a

famous phrase, writes that Jews were expelled because "they constantly made
disturbances impulsore Chresto [at the instigation of Chrestus]." Acts 18.2 con
firms that Claudius banished Jews from Rome, but does not specify why. Accord
ing to Dio, Claudius did not banish the Jews from Rome, because there were too
many of them. In Dio's version, Claudius rather permitted the Jews to continue
to live their traditional Jewish way of life. At the same time, however, he
suppressed all gatherings, whether of Jews or of non-Jews, because he consid
ered such gatherings a potential source of unrest.
Because the interpretation of Suetonius's phrase impulsore Chresto is diffi
cult, opinions differ as to what caused these disturbances. Some see in Chrestus an
otherwise unknown individual by that name,49 while others consider Chrestus to
be a synonym for Christianity and, consequently, believe that it was the preaching
of Christianity that led to all this commotion.50 Most recently, Slingerland has
argued forcefully that a Christian interpretation of the evidence provided by
Suetonius is wrong because it is based exclusively on arguments ex silentio.51
Slingerland's observations, while not new, are correct. Yet, though it cannot be
proved, the idea that the appearance of Christianity created unrest within the
Roman Jewish community still remains, in my view, an attractive possibility.52
Whatever upset the Jews of Rome, however, there can be no doubt that
Rome intervened because there were disturbances, and not because it wanted to
meddle in the internal affairs of the Jewish community of Rome. We would like
to know the nature of the disturbances referred to by Suetonius, and how an
expulsion of Jews would affect the reestablishment of law and order. Were the
Jews really responsible for these disturbances, as Suetonius claims? Or were they
just a convenient group whose expulsion could serve as an example to reestablish
peace and quiet among the city populace at large? Why the Jews? Even though
the passage from Suetonius can be interpreted to mean that only a small group
and not the entire community was expelled, one also wonders how many Jews
were expelled, or what legal machinery was used to achieve this purpose.53 We
have no answer to these important questions.

49. Solin (above, n. 11) 659, 690, following E. Koestermann, "Ein folgenschweres Irrtum des
Tacitus (Ann. 15.44.2f.)?" Historia 16 (1967) 456-69.
50. Smallwood (above, n. 11) 211, and P. Lampe, Die stadtromischen Christen in den ersten
beiden Jahrhunderten: Untersuchungen zur Sozialgeschichte (Tiibingen: Mohr, 1989) 6, interpret the
term as misapprehension on the part of Suetonius.
51. D. Slingerland, "Chrestus: Christus?" in A. J. Avery-Peck, New Perspectives on Ancient
Judaism 4 (Lanham: University Press of America, 1989) esp. 143.
52. Cf. Lampe (above, n. 50) 8-9.
53. Leon (above, n. 11) 24, Solin (above, n. 11) 690, Lampe (above, n. 50) 7. Smallwood
(above, n. 11) 210f. has suggested that under Claudius measures against the Jews of Rome were
taken on two separate occasions, but there are several reasons for believing that Jews were expelled
only once; cf. Stern (above, n. 26) 2.116, Solin (above, n. 11) 689-90, Smallwood (above, n. 11) 216,
Lampe (above, n. 50) 8; see also D. Slingerland, "Suetonius Claudius 25.4 and the Account in
Cassius Dio," JQR 79 (1989) 305f., esp. 320; and see the discussion in id., "Suetonius Claudius 25.4,

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 RUTGERS: Roman Policy towards the Jews 67
PROBLEMS UNDER DOMITIAN

Dio Cassius recounts that under Domitian, "many who drifted into Jewish
ways were condemned." The charge against these people was atheism. From
Dio's remarks it is not clear what kind of attachment to Judaism these people
displayed, nor do we know who was responsible for familiarizing them with
Jewish beliefs and practices. Even though it may very well have been an addi
tional factor, we cannot even be sure whether attraction to Judaism was the real
reason for prosecution. It is certainly conceivable that the charge "Jewish ways"
offered nothing but a convenient excuse for the autocratic Domitian to eliminate
all those suspected of conspiracy. Punishments were heavy. They varied from the
confiscation of property to the death penalty.54 Despite such rigorous actions
against those who felt affinity for Judaism, the Roman Jewish community as a
whole was left undisturbed under Domitian. The fiscus Judaicus was rigorously
extracted in these days,55 but no one who was born a Jew seems to have been
banished from Rome.56

FURTHER REFLECTIONS ON THE EXPULSIONS OF JEWS FROM

FIRST-CENTURY ROME

Was Rome's policy toward the Jews in first-century Rome determined by

religious concerns, by the wish to maintain law and order, or by a combination of
the two?
Analyzing the expulsions of Jews from Rome under Tiberius and Claudius, I
have shown that there is only very little ancient evidence to suggest that in the
first century C.E. Roman Jews were persecuted because of their religious prac
tices and beliefs.57 Insofar as the sources indicate at all why Roman authorities
decided to act, they all suggest that the main motive was the wish to suppress
unrest. The fact that Roman authors use disparaging terms such as supersitio
and "impious [profani] rites" in describing these events reflects a general antipa
thy to un-Roman religious practices.58 In the case of Tacitus and Suetonius, the
choice of a depreciative vocabulary in respect to Jews may, in addition, have

Acts 18, and Paulus Orosius' Historiarum Adversum Paganos Libri VII: Dating the Claudian
Expulsion(s) of Roman Jews," JQR 83 (1992) 127-44.
54. Dio 67.14.1-3.
55. Most recently, M. H. Williams, "Domitian, the Jews and the 'Judaizers'-A Simple Matter
of Cupiditas and Maiestas," Historia 39 (1990) 196-211, esp. 209.
56. The evidence in the apocryphal Acts of John and rabbinic evidence cannot be used to
document an expulsion of Jews from Rome under Domitian (contra Smallwood [above, n. 11]
383-84).
57. Correctly seen by A. Momigliano, "Freedom of Speech and Religious Tolerance in the
Ancient World," in S. C. Humphreys, Anthropology and the Greeks (London, 1978) 189, 193.
58. Tac. Ann. 2.85, Suet. Tib. 36. See, in general, S. Calderone, "Superstitio," ANRW II.1.2
(1972) 377-96.

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 68 CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY Volume 13/No. 1/April 1994

been caused by Rome's bitter experiences during the Jewish Revolt of 66-70/73
C.E. The use of such verbal aggression, however, should not mislead us into
believing that Roman magistrates expelled Jews from first-century Rome for
religious reasons. At best, a dislike for Judaism served to justify on a subcon
scious level decisions that had essentially been reached on the basis of administra
tive and legal considerations.
Other data further support the idea that Rome's measures concerning the
Jews had straightforward political causes. For example, Roman law of this pe
riod never prescribes expulsion as the penalty for un-Roman religious practices.
Of course, irreligious behavior could be exploited in the courts,59 yet neither
ipietas nor superstitio was considered a criminal offense. Before the fourth
iry, no technical legal term for religious crimes seems to have existed.60 To
my Knowledge, there is no evidence to support Mommsen's view that in the early
Principate Roman citizens who converted to Judaism were liable for capital
punishment.61
If the objective of the authorities in first-century Rome really was systemati
cally to stamp out Judaism as a religion, why then, one might ask, did they
simultaneously protect the free exercise of Jewish religious practices in other
parts of the empire? The many senatorial decrees issued at the end of the
Republic, the measures concerning the Jews in Alexandria taken by Claudius,62
and the fact that, during the First Jewish Revolt, Titus was unwilling to abrogate
privileges that had been accorded to the Jewish inhabitants of Antioch,63 are all
expressions of a policy aimed at guaranteeing the unimpeded observance of
Jewish cult practices.
Rome was of course capable of treating the Jews harshly, but usually it had
good reasons when it did so. Under Vespasian the Jewish temple at Leontopolis
in Egypt was destroyed. This happened, in the words of Josephus, because
Vespasian was "suspicious of the incessant tendency of the Jews to revolution."64
Similarly, during the Jewish Revolt of 66-70/73 C.E. Rome treated her adversar
ies without clemency.65 In Rome itself one of the more prominent commanders
of the same revolt, being a hostis of the Roman people, was put to death without
formal trial.66 Yet, it is clear that these were special measures that were dictated

59. J. A. North, "Religious Toleration in Republican Rome," PCPhS 25 (1979) 85, 98 n. 2.

60. This was already noted by Mommsen (above, n. 29) 399-400, 406-7; cf. also A. Watson,
The State, Law and Religion (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1992) passim.
61. The sources cited by Mommsen (above, n. 23) 574 n. 3 do not prove his point. The evidence
for this does not predate the second century c.E. (Stern [above, n. 26] 2.625). Nor have I found
evidence that citizenship was bestowed on the basis of religious preference (so Segal [above, n. 33] 89).
62. Josephus, AJ 19.278f.
63. Josephus, BJ 7.100-111.
64. Josephus, BJ 7.420.
65. M. Goodman, The Ruling Class of Judaea: The Origin of the Jewish Revolt against Rome,
A.D. 66-70 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987) 231, 235-36.
66. Josephus, BJ 7.154. In that sense a hostis was similar to a confessus; cf. Kunkel (above, n.
19) 22. On the Roman law of war, Mommsen (above, n. 23) 59.

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 RUTGERS: Roman Policy towards the Jews 69

by the war. They did not have any lasting effect on Rome's general policy toward
the Jews.67
Josephus mentions the expulsion of Jews from Rome in 19 C.E. in direct
conjunction with an expulsion of devotees of Isis. This connection is not acciden
tal. In repeatedly expelling the devotees of this Egyptian goddess during the first
centuries B.C.E. and C.E., Roman magistrates had concerns very similar to the
ones that prompted them to banish the Jews from Rome.68 Measures against the
cult of Isis were not taken out of fear of non-Roman religion per se. They
occurred rather in times of general political unrest, as in 58 B.C.E. when Clodius
manipulated religion for factional purposes.69 On such occasions restrictive mea
sures such as forbidding Isiac cult practices from taking place inside the
pomerium quickly followed. Yet significantly, Isis worship outside the pomerium
was not prohibited, nor were its practitioners ever severely persecuted.
In the first and early second centuries C.E., astrologers formed another
group that was chased out of Rome at regular intervals. Like the actions
against Jews and worshipers of Isis, such expulsions took place without excep
tion in times of political turmoil. Yet, again, an edict forbidding astrology
throughout the Roman Empire was never issued, at least not before the time of
Diocletian.70
The Roman response to the events surrounding the Roman Jewish commu
nity in the first century C.E., then, did not differ essentially from the way in which
Rome treated Isis worshipers and astrologers: when law and order were seriously
disturbed, expulsion was used as a means to suppress disorder. In dealing with
such situations, Roman authorities systematically applied a well-tried formula
that can be traced back as far as the Bacchanalia affair of 186 B.C.E. In that year,
which followed a period of general unrest, the Senate took vigorous action
against the worshipers of Dionysos. These not only had shocked their Roman
contemporaries by immodest and promiscuous behavior, but were also alleged
to have committed crimes such as the forging of wills and even murder. What
most upset the Patres, however, was that the number of these worshipers "was so
great that they almost constituted a state in the state."71 In Roman eyes, then,

67. Cf. Josephus, BJ 7.100-111, 447-50; AJ 12.124; Vita 424.

68. Tac. Ann. 2.85, Suet. Tib. 36. Cf. H. Last, "The Study of the Last 'Persecutions,' " JRS 27
(1937) 84-88; G. E. M. de Ste Croix, "Why Were the Early Christians Persecuted?" P&P 26 (1963)
24-25, 28.
69. Dio Cassius 53.2.4 (28 B.C.E.); Malaise (above, n. 23) 78, 369f., 378; Latte (above, n. 34)
282f.; F. Coarelli, "I monumenti dei culti orientali in Roma," in U. Bianchi and M. J. Vermaseren,
eds., La soteriologia dei culti orientali nell'impero romano (Leiden: Brill, 1982) 33-67, esp. 53f.
70. F. H. Cramer, "Expulsion of Astrologers From Ancient Rome," C&M 12 (1951) esp. 10,
12, 21, 49; Liebeschiitz (above, n. 34) 119f.
71. Livy 39.8.8; cf. 14.16.2f., 39.13.14. North (above, n. 59) 86f.; P. Garnsey, "Religious
Toleration in Classical Antiquity," in W. Shiels, ed., Persecution and Toleration, Studies in Church
History 21 (Oxford, 1984) 8-9; J. M. Pailler, Bacchanalia: Repression de 186 av. J.-C. a Rome et en
Italie: Vestiges, Images, Tradition, BEFAR 270 (Rome: cole Francaise, 1988) esp. 247f.; R. A.
Bauman, "The Suppression of the Bacchanals: Five Questions," Historia 39 (1990) 334-48.

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 70 CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY Volume 13/No. 1/April 1994

the cult of Bacchus appeared above all as a politically dangerous coniuratio.72

The Senate reacted by punishing those held responsible for conspiracy. Worship
of Bacchus was forcefully discouraged, but, significantly, it remained possible
under certain conditions.73
All the elements one later encounters in Rome's actions against Jews, Isis
worshipers, and astrologers are thus present in Livy's account of the Bacchanalia
affair: when law and order were disturbed, Roman authorities interfered be
cause they feared the possible political consequences of such disturbances. The
scope and actual effectiveness of the measures taken tended to be limited. Inter
ventions were most likely to occur in periods of general civil unrest. Religious
concerns played only a subordinate role; that is, intervention was not generally
aimed at suppressing religious practices as such, but was usually carried out
because specific criminal offenses that could be formally prosecuted had been
committed.

WERE THE ROMANS TOLERANT?

It has long been customary to see in Rome's dealing with the Jews aspects of
tolerance or intolerance. For example, Rajak considers the expulsions of Jews
from first-century Rome a sign of a Roman intolerance not dissimilar to the
intolerance displayed by the Greek cities of Asia Minor half a century earlier.
Williams regards the forcible undressing of a ninety-year-old Jew reported by
Suetonius as indicative of persecution, while Wardman defines persecution by
the test of "a government's will or reluctance to take steps which it knows will be
offensive to a significant group" and concludes that in Judaea, Alexandria, and
indeed in the entire Diaspora Jews felt persecuted.74 Does the evidence justify
such conclusions?
To label Rome's policy toward its subjects as tolerant or intolerant is mislead
ing when such terms are not clearly defined. The word "tolerance" can mean the
mere willingness to allow people to practice their religion provided that there is
no particular reason to stop them. But in other contexts, as for example in
Voltaire's Traite sur la tolerance (1763), the word has wider implications. It is
used to indicate a policy of tolerance, that is, a policy based on the belief that
people have a right freely to practice their religion (whatever it may be).75

72. Livy 14.17.6. North (above, n. 59) 91 maintains that it is impossible to distinguish between
political and religious issues.
73. Livy 39.18.7-9, CIL 12 581, North (above, n. 59) 91, Pailler (above, n. 71) 821, Bauman
(above, n. 71) 342-43, 347.
74. Rajak (above, n. 2) 28; Suet. Dom. 12.2.; Williams (above, n. 55) 205, 209, 211; Wardman
(above, n. 34) 125-27.
75. Voltaire, Traits sur la tolerance (Paris: Flammarion, 1989 [1763]) passim; Roger Williams,
The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution for Cause of Conscience Discussed (1644) as cited in S. Ettinger,
"The Beginnings of the Change in the Attitude of European Society Towards the Jews," Scripta
Hierosolymitana 7 (1961) 201.

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 RUTGERS: Roman Policy towards the Jews 71

Roman laws of the first century C.E. that relate to Jews give the impression
that tolerance or intolerance was nothing but a by-product in the formulation of
a given policy. Conscious efforts to be tolerant or intolerant do not seem to have
been frequently made.76 Rome was interested in keeping the urban masses under
control and in checking initiatives of too political a nature. For the rest, Roman
authorities just let people be. The first definition of "tolerance" is thus more
appropriate than the second to characterize Roman policy toward the Jews.
Further evidence likewise illustrates that tolerance was only a by-product of
Rome's administrative measures. The reaffirmation of Jewish privileges in Asia
Minor by the Senate in the last half of the first century B.C.E., for example, was
primarily an organizational measure aimed at reestablishing peace and quiet on
the local level. It was not the expression of a policy whose main objective was to
ensure religious freedom. That the motive behind Rome's confirmation of Jew
ish privileges during the first centuries B.C.E. and C.E. did not result from a policy
of tolerance also follows from the fact that most, if not all, senatorial and
imperial decrees regarding the Jews were not initiated by the Romans them
selves, but were the result of initiatives taken by individual Jewish communi
ties.77 Comparably, during the First Jewish Revolt (66-70/73 C.E.), Rome
showed little mercy to the Jewish insurgents. Yet no repressive measures were
taken against the Jews of the Diaspora. Again, this happened not because Ro
mans were generally tolerant, but simply because such measures were not neces
sary. Later, early in the third century C.E., the decurionate was imposed on Jews
wealthy enough to carry the financial burdens connected with this office.78 Once
again, such an act is not indicative of specifically pro- or anti-Jewish feelings on
the part of Roman authorities. Rather it was the economic situation of the
empire that necessitated the measure. All these examples suggest that Roman
policy toward the Jews was often guided by purely pragmatic concerns rather
than by an ideology of tolerance.
There were many areas where Roman authorities did not regulate. Once
more, it is not correct to equate such nonintrusion with tolerance. In first
century Rome, shrines dedicated to gods of foreign extraction were springing up
throughout the city.79 Urban officials do not seem to have interfered with this
development. Clearly, such officials did not display tolerance. They were just
being indifferent. Even when it came to persecuting the earliest Christian com

76. Contra Smelik (above, n. 26) 179.

77. Garnsey (above, n. 71) 11. On the pattern of "petition and response" in general, see Millar
(above, n. 9) 541-44.
78. Dig. 50.2.3.3, 27.1.15.6.
79. See Coarelli (above, n. 69) 33-67, esp. the map between pp. 38 and 39 (the evidence partly
postdates the period addressed in this article); S. M. Savage, "The Cults of Ancient Trastevere,"
MAAR 17 (1940) 26-56; M. Le Glay, "Sur l'implantation des sanctuaires orientaux a Rome," in
L'urbs: Espace urbain et histoire, CEFR 98 (Rome: cole Francaise 1987) 545-57. On the ad hoc
character of urban development in first-century Rome, see D. G. Favro, "The Urban Image of
Augustan Rome" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1984).

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 72 CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY Volume 13/No. 1/April 1994

munities in the course of the second century C.E., an element of noninterference

did not disappear completely: the emperor Trajan decided that Christians should
be punished, but simultaneously made it clear that no efforts should be made to
track them down.80
Much of what has been said with regard to tolerance also holds true in respect
to intolerance. After the First Jewish Revolt the Temple tax was converted into
the fiscus Judaicus. It has been suggested that a punitive element played a role in
this conversion, but there is little ancient evidence that points in that direction.81 It
is not correct to infer that the Romans wanted to penalize the Jews from the fact
that some Jews viewed the Jewish tax as a punishment.82 It is much more likely that
Rome construed this measure as an ingenious redirecting and systematization of
an already existing tax. Especially when seen in the larger context of Vespasian's
taxation policy, the institution of the fiscus Judaicus ceases to appear as an act of
vindictiveness that was aimed at the Jews because they were Jews. In the 70s C.E.
various forms of taxation were enforced with great rigor among all subjects of the
empire.83 To their disappointment, even the opportunistic Alexandrians had to
pay the same heavy taxes as everyone else.84 Thus, for Vespasian, it was not
merely privy money that did not stink; no money did.85
Earlier Roman measures concerning the Jews can likewise not be said to
reflect an ideology of intolerance. Julius Caesar, the great benefactor of the
Jews, had doubled taxation in kind in Judaea, but this was not a specifically anti
Jewish measure.86 Little less than a century later, Claudius confirmed the exist
ing rights of the Jewish community of Alexandria in 41 C.E. but abolished the last
remnants of the Jewish state following the death of Agrippa I three years later.
Again, decisions like these were reached on the basis of administrative concerns.
They were not influenced by pro- or anti-Jewish sentiments, but must rather be
seen within the larger framework of the ruling of the empire.
From the moment they had first encountered Jews onwards, upper-class
Romans had grown used to making a distinction between practical consider
ations and ideas of a more theoretical nature. In Latin literature of the first
century C.E., negative remarks on Jews and Judaism went hand in hand with a
tendency to confirm rather than to abrogate Jewish privileges. From a Roman

80. For "accusatory" as opposed to "inquisitorial," see de Ste Croix (above, n. 68) 15. Cf. also
Voltaire (above, n. 75) 69-76.
81. S. W. Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews 2 (Philadelphia: The Jewish
Publication Society of America, 1952) 106, believes Vespasian instituted the tax to demonstrate to
the rebels in Gaul and Germany that Rome was powerful enough to curb revolts.
82. A. Carlebach, "Rabbinic References to Fiscus Judaicus," JQR 66 (1975) 57-58.
83. Suet. Vesp. 16. Carlebach (above, n. 82) 61 is not aware of this.
84. Dio Cassius 65.8.2-4.
85. Suet. Vesp. 23. On the conceptual background of this tax as interpreted by Josephus, see
M. Simon, "Jupiter-Yavhe," Numen 23 (1976) 56-57, 65-66; cf. also C. Saulnier, "Flavius Josephe
et la propagande flavienne," RBi 96 (1986) 545-62.
86. On the rate of this tax, R. Duncan-Jones, Structure and Scale in the Roman Economy
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990) 189-90.

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 RUTGERS: Roman Policy towards the Jews 73

perspective, there was nothing anomalous about this combination of maintaining

the legal status of the Jewish community on the one hand with strong verbal
abuse of this same community on the other. Several centuries later we encounter
the same phenomenon once more, this time in the laws dealing with Jews con
tained in the Codex Theodosianus of 438 C.E.87 Such a state of affairs shows that
in unconditionally calling Roman attitudes toward the Jews tolerant or intoler
ant, one is making a complex set of issues too simple. In the early fifth century,
as in the first, verbal "intolerance" could very well be combined with practical
"tolerance," at least as far as the Jews were concerned. Now as then, attitudes to
religion and way of life did not directly or automatically affect decisions of a
political or administrative nature.

CONCLUSIONS
The evidence discussed in this article warrants the conclusion that the
constant factor in Roman policy toward the Jews was that there was no such
constant factor. In the Republican period, as in the early Empire, Rome's
"Jewish policy" remained in essence a collection of ad hoc measures with
often limited effectiveness in both space and time. The senatus consulta of the
late first century B.C.E. as well as the expulsions of Jews from Rome a few
decades later are all examples of a policy that responded to situations. The ad
hoc character of Roman policy toward the Jews resulted from the fact that
both the Jewish communities of the Mediterranean and the policies of individ
ual emperors were subject to change. In the earlier Roman Empire, there
never was a standard Roman "Jewish policy," let alone a Magna Charta for
the Jews.
To call Rome's treatment of the Jews either tolerant or intolerant is to
misunderstand the nature of Rome's dealings with the Jews. Rome readily ac
knowledged the distinctiveness of the Jewish people and, when they were under
attack, was willing to help the Jews protect it-witness, for example, the series
of senatus consulta dating to the later first century B.C.E. In general, however,
Roman magistrates remained hesitant to supervise too closely the practices that
expressed aspects of this distinctiveness. In fact, most of the time they saw no
reason to do so.88 Thus, Roman magistrates treated the Jews the way they did
not because they were consciously tolerant, but simply because they had no
reason to hinder the free exercise of Jewish religious practices. It is not neces
sary, therefore, to suppose that Rome treated the Jews reasonably in explicit
response to Jewish beneficia. Nor is it correct to state on the basis of the limited
number of attested Jewish beneficia that "toleration of the Jews was sporadic

87. Listed but not interpreted by A. Linder, The Jews in Roman Imperial Legislation (Detroit
and Jerusalem: Wayne State University Press and the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities,
1987) 60-61.
88. Cf. Garnsey (above, n. 71) 12. Contra Smelik (above, n. 26) 179f.

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 74 CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY Volume 13/No. 1/April 1994

because their loyalty to the empire was an uncertain factor."89 The opposite is
true: well into late antiquity, nontoleration (or better, interference with) rather
than toleration of the Jews was sporadic.
Study of the expulsions of Jews from first-century Rome serves to illustrate
the central concern that profoundly determined Rome's measures concerning its
Jewish subjects: the wish to maintain law and order. When law and order were
maintained (in the eyes of the Roman authorities), Jews had nothing to fear.
When they were disturbed, as in 19 C.E. or under Claudius, legal and administra
tive measures were taken. In addition to being aimed at remedying the situation,
such measures frequently also resulted in impeding the free exercise of religious
practices. Interventions by Roman authorities were usually not isolated events.
More often than not, Rome intervened in periods characterized by an atmo
sphere of general unrest among the city populace. In such cases, the emperor or
the Senate normally followed a pattern first developed while resolving the Bac
chanalia affair of 186 B.C.E.: expulsion of those who on the basis of their un
Roman rituals and practices could easily be represented as threatening the
boundaries of Roman society.90 In the first century C.E. this happened to at least
segments of the Jewish community of Rome; before and after, it happened in a
more or less identical fashion to other groups such as Isis worshipers and astrolo
gers. Why Jews were chosen to be banished from Rome on at least two occasions
during the first century C.E., it is impossible to tell. In placing the expulsions of
Jews from first-century Rome within the larger framework of Roman republican
and early imperial administration we unfortunately perceive only the how, not
the why. But this much is clear: the expulsion of Jews from first-century Rome
cannot be regarded as an example of a specifically "Jewish policy" on the part of
Roman officials: people other than Jews could be and were expelled under
circumstances comparable to those under which the Jews had to leave the city at
least twice in the first half of the first century C.E. Thus, in banishing Jews from
Rome, Roman officials did not display a systematic ideology of anti-Judaism;
they merely gave expression to general administrative concerns as they had
arisen unanticipated at specific points in place and time.

Istituto Olandese, Rome

89. Garnsey (above, n. 71) 11, 25; cf. also Rajak (above, n. 2) 116-18.
90. On the possible influence of the Bacchanalia on Pliny's famous Letter 96, Pailler (above, n.
71), esp. 759-70; Bauman (above, n. 71) 342-43.

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