To Caesar What Is Caesar's: Tribute, Taxes, and Imperial Administration in Early Roman (Brown Judaic Studies, No. 343)

368 Pages·2006·5.37 MB·English

by  Fabian E. Udoh

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To Caesar What Is Caesar’s
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Program in Judaic Studies
Brown University
Box 1826
Providence, RI 02912
BROWNJUDAICSTUDIES
Edited by
David C. Jacobson
Ross S. Kraemer
Saul M. Olyan
Michael L. Satlow
Number 343
TO CAESAR WHAT IS CAESAR’S
Tribute, Taxes, and Imperial Administration
in Early Roman Palestine (63 B.C.E.–70 C.E.)
by
Fabian E. Udoh
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To Caesar What Is Caesar’s
Tribute, Taxes, and
Imperial Administration
in Early Roman Palestine
(63 B.C.E.–70 C.E.)
Fabian E. Udoh
Brown Judaic Studies
Providence, Rhode Island
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© 2005 Brown University. All rights reserved.
No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
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means of any information storage or retrieval system, except as may be expressly
permitted by the 1976 Copyright Act or in writing from the publisher. Requests
for permission should be addressed in writing to the Rights and Permissions
Office, Program in Judaic Studies, Brown University, Box 1826, Providence, RI
02912, USA.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Udoh, Fabian E., 1954-
To Caesar what is Caesar's : tribute, taxes and imperial administration in
early Roman Palestine (63 B.C.E.-70 C.E.) / Fabian E. Udoh.
p. cm. — (Brown Judaic studies ; no. 343)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN-13: 978-1-930675-25-4 (cloth binding : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 1-930675-25-9 (cloth binding : alk. paper)
1. Jews—History—168 B.C.-135 A.D. 2. Jews—Taxation—Palestine—
History—To 1500. 3. Taxation—Palestine—History—To 1500. 4. Taxation—
Rome—History. I. Title. II. Series.
DS122.U36 2006
336.200933'09014—dc22
2005030502
Printed in the United States of America
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Ima, Unyime, and Kufre,
qui attendent
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Contents
Preface and Acknowledgments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
Abbreviations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1 (cid:127) Roman Tribute in Jewish Palestine
under Pompey (63–47 B.C.E.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Cicero, Dio Cassius, and Appian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Cicero. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Dio Cassius . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Appian. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Tribute and Exactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
2 (cid:127) Caesar’s Favors (47–44 B.C.E.). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Tribute: For the City of Jerusalem, and for the City of Joppa. . . 41
Tribute for the City of Joppa. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Tribute for the City of Jerusalem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Further Reductions, Collection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Local Taxes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Territorial Grants: Joppa, “The Villages
in the Great Plain,” and Lydda. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
The Senate, Joppa, and the Plain of Sharon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Joppa, “The Villages in the Great Plain,” and Lydda . . . . . . . 71
Grants of Freedom: Billeting, Military Service,
and Molestation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Billeting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Military Service. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Molestation: Angareia, the Temple Tax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
3 (cid:127) Cassius and Antony in the East (43–40 B.C.E.). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
Cassius in Syria (43–42 B.C.E.). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
After Philippi: Antony and the Jewish State (42–31 B.C.E.). . . . 108
vii
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viii Contents
4 (cid:127) Herodian Taxation (37 B.C.E.–4 B.C.E.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
The Herods and Roman Tribute . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
Roman Tribute and the Status of Judea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
Appian’s Bell. civ. 5.75 and Herod’s Appointment. . . . . . . . . . . . 137
AKing’s Accounting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
Herod’s Taxes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
Land and Property Taxes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
The “Head Tax” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
Tolls and Duties on Goods in Transit. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Sales Taxes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
House Tax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
Epilogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
5 (cid:127) Taxation of Judea under the Governors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
Judea and the Provincial Census. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
Judea and Provincial Taxes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
Tributum Soli . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
Tributum Capitis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
Other Taxes and the System of Collection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238
Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
6 (cid:127) Tithes in the Second Temple Period. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
Tithes: For Priests or for Levites?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
Biblical Laws and Postexilic Harmonizations . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
“First Tithes” to Priests and to Levites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
Num 18:21–32; Lev 27:30–33 in Ezra/
Nehemiah’s Restoration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258
Centralized Collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
Offered Also to Individual Priests and Levites. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
Tithes of Livestock. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
Summary and Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
Epilogue. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314
Passages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314
Modern Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327
Subjects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335
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Preface and Acknowledgments
This book began as a Duke University dissertation, “Tribute and Taxes
in Early Roman Palestine (63 BCE-70 CE): The Evidence from Jose-
phus,” which I defended in 1996. My dissertation focused on the analysis
of the Jewish literary sources on taxation, in particular the writings of
Josephus. The scope of the investigation has been expanded. Although I
have integrated some of the material from the original (dissertation)
study, that material has been entirely recast into parts of the various argu-
ments of the present work, leading sometimes to different conclusions
from those that I had originally reached. Furthermore, some of the mater-
ial in the section “Territorial Grants” in chapter 2 appeared in my article
“Jewish AntiquitiesXIV. 205, 207–08 and ‘the Great Plain,’” Palestine Explo-
ration Quarterly134 (2002): 130–43.
In the course of writing this book, I have received generous help from
many individuals, many more than I can name here, and from various
institutions. ANational Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship at the
W. F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research, Jerusalem, and travel
grants from the Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts, University of
Notre Dame, permitted me to spend the year 2001–2002 doing research.
The College of Arts and Letters, University of Notre Dame, Dean’s Sup-
plemental Research and Teaching funds (2001–2004) enabled me to do
research and to hire student assistants. The Program of Liberal Studies,
University of Notre Dame, has been very generous to me, particularly in
providing undergraduate assistants.
Professor Ed P. Sanders has been, first, my mentor for many years,
and now a valued friend and colleague. This study, from its beginnings as
a dissertation, is the outcome of our mutual concerns and innumerable
conversations. I am profoundly grateful also to Professor Andrew Lintott,
Worcester College (Oxford) and Professor Shaye Cohen, Harvard, who
read the original manuscript of this book and offered detailed sugges-
tions for revising it.
I wish also to express my gratitude to all the students who have
worked with me on various aspects of this book—especially David G.
ix
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x Preface and Acknowledgments
George, my graduate research assistant, and Donna Bauters, my under-
graduate assistant.
The Greek and Latin authors, including the works by Josephus and
Philo, are cited according to the Loeb Classical Library (LCL) edition,
except where I have provided my own translation. Passages from the
Hebrew Bible are quoted from the Biblia Hebraica, edited by K. Elliger and
W. Rudolph (5th edition, 1997). The text of the Septuagint is given as in
the Septuaginta, edited by Alfred Rahlfs (1979). I quote the Greek text of
the New Testament from The Greek New Testament, edited by Kurt Aland
(3rd edition, 1983). Unless otherwise noted, passages from the English
translation of the Hebrew Bible (and the Apocrypha) and the New Testa-
ment are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version. Bibliographical
details are provided in the notes for other texts and translations that are
quoted in the book.
Fabian E. Udoh
University of Notre Dame
September 2004