The Jews Of Ancient Rome Harry Joshua Leon 9781258432379 Books
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The Jews Of Ancient Rome Harry Joshua Leon 9781258432379 Books
This is a scholarly rather than popular account of the Jews of Rome. Among Classical scholars it is considered a magisterial work comprising a lifetime of research on this topic, of which Prof. Leon was the world's leading authority. This is a technical book because it represents painstaking historical research on primary materials, inscriptions, tombs, name lists, literary references, etc. All that can be known about the Jews of Rome is knowable only from such mundane primary source materials.Product details
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The Jews Of Ancient Rome Harry Joshua Leon 9781258432379 Books Reviews
The Jewish presence in late Republican and Imperial Rome is an intriguing topic, one that has not received the attention that it deserves. This volume is overall a good account of the Jewish Community of Rome, though as a previous reviewer stated its title is misleading - there is as much about catacombs, inscriptions and the naming patterns of Romanized Jews as there is about the actual history of the Jewish people in ancient Rome.
Despite the large amount of technical content, this is a great source of information on Rome's Jewish communities, and reveals the vital, if overlooked social role they played.
This is an interesting and informative text, but the title is a little misleading. Since it's called "The Jews of Ancient Rome" I expected a history of the Jews who lived in Rome. But the bulk of the book was about the catacombs and archeological discoveries about Judaism and the catacombs.
Certain features will interest anyone who is intrigued by ancient history. He argues that Suetonius' famous remark about 'impulsore Chresto' "would have used the qualifying word quodam...if" (p 25) he had not meant Christians "The allusion is, as most scholars believe, to Jesus as the Christ, the spelling variant offers no difficulty, since Christus and Christianus were commonly written with e instead of i at the the time (p 25).
Of the 534 Jewish inscriptions found in the catacombs "three-fourths of the inscriptions are written in Greek and one-fourth in Latin, while less than one percent were in either Hebrew or Aramaic" (P 76). Many gave "indications of poverty and lowly economic pursuits among the Roman Jews (p 235).
Here is one clearly prosperous Jew remembering his wife
"Here lies Regina, covered by this tomb,
Which, to reveal his love, her husband raised.
A score of years plus one, four months, and eight
Days more she spent in wedlock by his side.
Again she'll live, again will see the light;
For she may hope that she will rise aloft
To that eternal life which is ordained
As our true faith doth teach..."
In the first two or three centuries of the Roman Empire (roughly until 300) the Jews of Rome buried their dead in underground cemeteries known as catacombs. This book analyzes the catacombs to reveal information about the lives of this long-lost culture.
Much of the book is highly technical, discussing details about ancient Greek grammar. So some of it was over my head. Nevertheless, I got a few interesting facts out of it, such as
*Roman Jews were primarily a Greek-speaking community. Of 534 catacomb inscriptions, 405 were in Greek, 123 Latin, and only 4 in Hebrew or Aramaic. For these Jews, Greek was the "mama-loshen" (mother tongue).
*On the other hand, these Greek-speakers did make some effort to assimilate into Roman culture. 46% of all names were in Latin, 31% in Greek, and the author labels 13% as "Semitic" (Hebrew or obviously Hebrew-derived). Some of the most popular boys' names were Justus, Eusebius, and Julianus. (No one name was all that popular for girls). Some "traditional" Jewish names were common (such as Esther, renamed Aster) but others (such as Rachel or Abraham) were not represented at all in this sample.
*Roman Jewry was religiously diverse, at least in some ways. Eleven synagogues were mentioned in burial inscriptions some named after the birthplace of their founders (e.g. "Synagogue of the Hebrews"), others for friends of Judaism (e.g. "Auguestion" named after the first emperor Augustus).
*Art in the catacombs mixed pagan and Jewish themes. Some were dominated by menorahs and lulavs, but here and there one found the odd nude youth or satyr.
*Ages on catacombs show the appalling state of 3rd-century health. Over half of Jews whose ages were listed on gravestones died at age 20 or other; only 12% made it past 60. Infant mortality was not the only culprit; though 39% died before age 10, 30% more died between 10 and 30. Then again, most headstones did not reference the age of the decedent, so the 164 that did may not be a representative sample.
This is a scholarly rather than popular account of the Jews of Rome. Among Classical scholars it is considered a magisterial work comprising a lifetime of research on this topic, of which Prof. Leon was the world's leading authority. This is a technical book because it represents painstaking historical research on primary materials, inscriptions, tombs, name lists, literary references, etc. All that can be known about the Jews of Rome is knowable only from such mundane primary source materials.
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