1 Earliest Rome

12.6f Jews and Greeks in Alexandria (Egypt)
12,6 The Jews
The relations between Jews and Greeks in Alexandria were tense, with a long-
running dispute about the status of the Jewish community there: how far were
the Jews to be regarded as full citizens of Alexandria, sharing in all the privi­
leges that marked out the Alexandrian Greeks from the native Egyptians.
These disputes came to Roman attention most prominently in the reigns of the
emperors Gaius and Claudius, when Greek and Jewish embassies went to
Rome to present their opposing cases (see 10.6b and 12.6c(ii) for part of a text
presenting the Jewish case). But Greek and Jewish rights remained an issue
until the third century; and from this later period there survive papyrus frag­
ments of an extensive literature, written in Greek, about the Greek heroes who
stood up to the emperor in defence of their rights against the Jews.
The following text dates from the third century, but is a (largely fictional)
account of an embassy to the emperor Trajan (A.D. 98-117). This account
claims Roman favouritism towards the Jews and (in the voice of one of the
ambassadors) urges that the Romans should support their own kind (i.e. the
Greeks).
See further: Vol. 1, 362; Musurillo (1954) 161-78; Schurer (1973-87)
1.389-94, 398, 529-33, III. 1.92-4, 127-9; for the literary form compare the
Christian versions of trials of Christians (12.7f).
CP/II no.157; Acta Alexandrinorum, ed. H. Musurillo (Leipzig, 1961) 32-5
[ . . . ] Dionysios who had served in many procuratorships, and Salvius,
Julius Salvius, Teimagenes, Pastor a gymnasiarch, 1
Julius Phanias, Philoxenos a
gymnasiarch-elect, Sotion a gymnasiarch, Theon, Athenodoros, Pauios originally from
Tyre, who volunteered as advocate for the Alexandrians. When the Jews learned this
, they too elected ambassadors from
their own race: Simon, Glaukon, Theudes, Onias, Kolon, Iackoumbos, and Sopatros,
originally from Antioch, as advocate for the Jews. So they set sail from the city , each bearing their own gods, the Alexandrians [a bust of Sarapis, 2
and the
Jews their sacred books? . . . ]
[ . . . J He < ?the governor of Egypt> conversed with their companions, and
when winter was over they arrived at Rome. The emperor learned that the
ambassadors of the Jews and Alexandrians were present, and appointed the day on which
he would hear both sides. Plotina lobbied the senators to oppose the
Alexandrians and support the Jews. The Jews, who entered first, hailed the emperor
Trajan, and the emperor hailed them very warmly, as he too had already been won over
by Plotina. The ambassadors of the Alexandrians entered after them and hailed the
emperor. But, instead of going to meet them, he said: 'How dare you greet me, like
people who merit a greeting from me in spite of all the trouble you have ventured to
cause the Jews. But proceed and [...']
327