Rome and Jerusalem: The Clash of Ancient Civilizations

650 Pages·2007·5.52 MB·English

by  Martin Goodman

for Sarah
Contents
Illustrations, Figures and Maps
Acknowledgements
INTRODUCTION: The Main Witness
PROLOGUE: The Destruction of Jerusalem, 66–70 CE
PART ONE: A MEDITERRANEAN WORLD
CHAPTER ONE : A Tale of Two Cities
CHAPTER TWO: One World Under Rome
CHAPTER THREE: Diversity and Toleration
PART TWO: ROMANS AND JEWS
CHAPTER FOUR: Identities
CHAPTER FIVE: Communities
CHAPTER SIX: Perspectives
CHAPTER SEVEN: Lifestyles
CHAPTER EIGHT: Government
CHAPTER NINE: Politics
CHAPTER TEN: Romans and Jews
PART THREE: CONFLICT
CHAPTER ELEVEN: The Road to Destruction, 37 BCE–70 CE
CHAPTER TWELVE: Reactions, 70–312 CE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN : The Growth of the Church
CHAPTER FOURTEEN : A New Rome and a New Jerusalem
EPILOGUE: The Origins of Antisemitism
Notes
Further Reading
illustrations, figures and maps
PHOTOGRAPHS
Photographic acknowledgements are given in parentheses.
1. Apartment block, Via di Diana, Ostia (Alinari Archives, Florence)
2. The Colosseum, Rome (Jon Arnold/Alamy)
3. Courtyard of the House of the Silver Wedding in Pompeii (Alinari Archives,
Florence)
4. Interior of the Burnt House, Jerusalem (Israel Images, Jerusalem)
5. Aerial view of the mausoleum of Augustus in Rome (Charles E. Rotkin/Corbis)
6. Circular structure on the summit of the Herodium near Bethlehem (Israel Images,
Jerusalem)
7. Flight of steps on the Temple Mount, Jerusalem
8. Remains of the Western Wall on the Temple Mount, Jerusalem (Mervyn
Rees/Alamy)
9–12. Inscribed reliefs depicting the Jews, Dacians, Crete and Cyprus from the
Sebasteion at Aphrodisias (courtesy New York University Excavations at Aphrodisias)
13. Personification of Egypt on a coin of Hadrian (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford)
14. Britannia on a coin of Hadrian (copyright © Trustees of the British Museum)
15. Mauretania on a coin of Hadrian (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford)
16. Judaea on a coin of Hadrian (copyright © Trustees of the British Museum)
17. Funerary portrait of young woman, probably from er-Rubayat, Egypt, in the
British Museum, London (Top Foto/Alinari Archives, Florence)
18. The so-called Tomb of Absalom in the Kidron valley, Jerusalem (Israel Images,
Jerusalem)
19. Detail from Trajan's column, showing the slaughter of Dacians (Alinari Archives,
Florence)
20. Roman statue of Antinous as Bacchus, in the Museo Nazionale, Naples (copyright
© 1990 Photo Scala, Florence, courtesy of the Ministero Beni e Att. Culturali)
21. Fresco showing Bacchus and Vesuvius from Pompeii (Alinari Archives, Florence)
22, 23. Silver shekel minted by the independent Jewish state in 68 CE (Ashmolean
Museum, Oxford)
24. Frieze from the Arch of Titus, Rome (Alinari Archives, Florence)
25, 26. Judaea Capta coin (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford)
27. Aerial view of Masada (Israel Images, Jerusalem)
28. Façade of the Temple of Jerusalem depicted on a tetradrachm minted by Jewish
rebels (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford)
29. The she-wolf suckling Romulus and Remus, depicted on a coin of Aelia Capitolina
(photograph copyright © The Israel Museum, Jerusalem)
30. Oil lamp from Aelia Capitolina (photograph copyright © The Israel Museum,
Jerusalem)
31. Mural from the Dura Europus synagogue depicting the destruction of the Temple
of Dagon (Department of Ancient Art, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven)
32. Jewish sarcophagus from Rome in the Museo Nazionale Romano delle Terme,
Rome (akg-images/Erich Lessing)
33. Sol Invictus depicted on a coin of Victorinus (copyright © Trustees of the British
Museum)
34. Sol Invictus depicted on a coin of Constantine (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford)
35. Mosaic depicting Helios from Hammat Tiberias (Israel Images, Jerusalem)
36. Bronze statue of Hadrian from Tel Shalem (photograph copyright © The Israel
Museum, Jerusalem)
FIGURES
The Julio-Claudian dynasty xvi
The Herodian dynasty xviii
MAPS
Maps Jerusalem in 66 CE II
Judaea in the first century CE 13
Rome in the Julio-Claudian period 40
Central Italy in the first century CE 42
The Roman world in 14 CE 68
Aelia Capitolina 474
Rome in the time of Constantine 525
Jerusalem in the time of Constantine 541
Acknowledgments
Many friends, colleagues and students have contributed to this book over the years I
have been teaching and writing on Jewish and Roman history. I am particularly
indebted to Judith Lieu, Fergus Millar and Sacha Stern, who all read the manuscript at
an early stage in its long evolution and gave me invaluable help. The remaining errors
are entirely my responsibility.
The idea for the book came from Stuart Proffitt at Penguin, and I owe a great deal to
his meticulous reading of the text and his wise advice. In the selection of images for
illustration I have been much helped by Cecilia Mackay, Volker Heuchert and Janet
Delaine. I am grateful to Amos Kloner for his expertise when I was drawing up the maps
of Jerusalem. Neelum Ali has typed and altered the long typescript in its many revisions
with remarkably good humour and forbearance. The text was expertly copy-edited by
Elizabeth Stratford. The maps were drawn by John Gilkes. The index was compiled by
Margaret Binns.
A book that covers so wide a span of history has necessarily culled insights from
much previous scholarship, and in the endnotes, which are intended only as a general
guide to the reader, I have not been able to give a full acknowledgement of all the many
works to which I am indebted. I have made much use of previous English versions of
ancient sources, in particular Geza Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English
(London, 1997), Averil Cameron and Stuart G. Hall, Eusebius, Life of Constantine (Oxford,
1999) and a number of the translations published in the Loeb Classical Library,
especially the translation by H. St.-J. Thackeray of Jose-phus, The Jewish War.
I am grateful to the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies and to the Oriental
Studies Faculty of the University of Oxford for financial support in preparing the book
for publication, and to the British Academy for awarding me a Research Readership,
without which I do not think it would have been possible to complete the task.
It is a great sadness that my father did not live to see the book, but he did enjoy the
knowledge that it was on its way (and he liked the cover). I dedicate this book to my
wife, Sarah, whose consistent enthusiasm for penguins has encouraged me to keep
going.
Martin Goodman
Oxford and Birmingham
October 2006