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Greeks, Egyptians and Jews under Rome

Date

38CE

38–41 CE

In 38 CE, anti-Jewish riots left many dead and synagogues destroyed in Alexandria; in 41 the Jews struck back. It was one chapter in decades of conflict fed by Roman policy.

Diaspora communitiesAntisemitism and persecution31.2014°N 29.9098°E
50 BCE
50 CE
100 CE
Between Caesar and God: each bar is an event of the period; this one is in coral.

Sourced narrative

Each block is a verifiable statement. The number opens the cited page; amber or coral blocks flag tradition or contested interpretation.

4 statements

01A divided city

In the mixed cities of North Africa, Jews shared cities with large Greek-speaking and indigenous communities, and coexistence often turned to violence. Alexandria is the best-known case. Greeks and Egyptians resented the Jews, Rome stoked the rivalry by sometimes taking sides and sometimes setting one group against the other, and the Jews, insecure in their position, feared their neighbors and at times attacked them. In 38 CE an anti-Jewish riot left many dead and synagogues destroyed; in 41, with Caligula's death, came the Jewish reprisal; in 66 a new fight ended with a Roman massacre of Jews.

02Jews and images

Jerusalem had no images of gods, but in Alexandria or Rome Jews lived with statues worshiped by their neighbors. They tolerated their presence; what they refused was to venerate them. That was where they parted from Greeks, Egyptians and other peoples, for whom adding worship of the emperor's statue to their practices posed no problem.

Context

Josephus was no exception: in Palestine (the Romans' name for the strip between the Mediterranean and the Jordan) and in Alexandria, many Jews not only accepted Rome but served it. In Philo's family, his nephew Tiberius Julius Alexander rose to governor-general and was Titus's deputy at the siege of 70 CE. Philo himself saw in emperors such as Augustus a reflection of divine virtues. Seneca, who killed himself in 65 CE, complained that Jewish customs were spreading so far that the conquered were setting rules for the conquerors. Tacitus (56 to 117 CE) is the most hostile: he portrays the Jews as loyal among themselves and hostile to every other people, and says converts learned to scorn gods, homeland and kin.

§ 01Geography

Where it happened

Gazetteer coordinates (Pleiades for ancient places; Natural Earth and Wikidata for modern ones) over modern physical geography (Natural Earth). Coastlines and the Dead Sea have changed since antiquity.
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§ 04Network

Connections

§ 05Bibliography

Further reading

No specific reading recorded for this event.

§ 06Apparatus

Sources on this page

  1. 01Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman, p. 99; Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman, p. 520inspect
  2. 02Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman, p. 107inspect
  3. 03Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman, p. 92inspect
  4. 04Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman, p. 95; Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman, p. 95inspect
  • Documented evidenceAttested by contemporary evidence: texts, inscriptions, coins, papyri or archaeology.
  • Scholarly reconstructionHistorians' inference from indirect evidence.
  • Tradition or narrativeA literary, traditional or religious account; significant in itself, but not independently verified.
  • Contested interpretationScholars explicitly disagree; see the positions in the debate.
  • Illustrative reconstructionA hypothesis or visual scheme to guide reading; not a historical claim.