Synagogue and society in imperial Ostia: Archaeological and epigraphic evidence

Harvard Theological Review

Volumn 90, Issue 1, 1997, Pages 23-53

  White, L Michael ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 61949297006     PISSN: 00178160     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/s0017816000006179     Document Type: Review

References (107)

1. Wayne A. Meeks, The First Urban Christians (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983) 32
2. So, for example, E. P. Sanders, Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983) 183-90
3. Peter J. Tomson, Paul and the Jewish Law (CRINT 3.1; Assen: Van Gorcum and Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990) 51-55
4. or Philip F. Essler, Community and Gospel in Luke-Acts (SNTSMS 57; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987) 30-34, 65-70
5. Peter Lampe, Die stadtrömischen Christen in den ersten beiden Jahrhunderten (WUNT 2.18; Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1987) 26-29
6. (2 vols.; Rome: Pontificio Instituto di Archeologia Cristiana, 1936). For Rome, see especially CII 1. lvi-cxvii. See also George La Piana, "Foreign Groups in Rome during the First Centuries of the Empire," HTR 20 (1927) 183-403, esp. 341-93
7. Harry Joshua Leon, The Jews of Ancient Rome (Philadelphia: JPS, 1960) 73-74. Leon's groundbreaking work, originally his 1927 doctoral dissertation at Harvard, was completed when he was Professor and Chair of Classics at the University of Texas at Austin
8. For example, the prologue and corrections to the 2d ed. of CII (see 1. 21-97); compare Lawrence H. Kant, "Jewish Inscriptions in Greek and Latin," ANRW 2.20.2 (1987) 672-713
9. Pieter Willem van der Horst, Ancient Jewish Epitaphs (Kampen: Kok Pharos, 1991)
10. The most recent work has been done by Leonard V. Rutgers, "Archaeological Evidence for the Interaction of Jews and Non-Jews in Late Antiquity," AJA 96 (1992) 101-18
11. and Leonard V. Rutgers, idem, The Jews in Late Ancient Rome: Evidence of Cultural Interaction in the Roman Diaspora (Leiden: Brill, 1995) 100, who estimates the number of inscriptions now at 594, but new explorations in a hitherto unexcavated Jewish catacomb have just begun
12. Leon, Jews of Ancient Rome, 135-66
13. On the question of certainty regarding the number and identity of the Roman synagogues, see esp. 159-65. Most recently, van der Horst (Ancient Jewish Epitaphs, 73-84) corrected the number to ten. These calculations depend on how one identifies the various group names given in the epitaphs. At least some of these clearly refer to particular congregations, but in other cases they may be ethnic markers or may refer to a subgroup of one of the other known congregations
14. Kant, "Jewish Inscriptions," 694
15. Erwin R. Goodenough, Jewish Symbols in the Graeco-Roman Period (13 vols.; New York: Bollingen, 1952-65) esp. vols. 1-3
16. Jonathan Z. Smith, "Fences and Neighbors: Some Contours of Early Judaism," in William Scott Green, ed., Approaches to Ancient Judaism (BJS 9; Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1980) 1-25
17. reprinted in Jonathan Z. Smith, Imagining Religion: From Babylon to Jonestown (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982) 1-18
18. Bernadette J. Brooten, Women Leaders in the Ancient Synagogue: Inscriptional Evidence and Background Issues (BJS 36; Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1982) esp. 58-62, 68-70, 75-76
19. see also Ross S. Kraemer, "A New Inscription from Malta and the Question of Women Elders in Diaspora Jewish Communities," HTR 78 (1986) 431-38
20. Ross S. Kraemer, idem, "Non-Literary Evidence for Jewish Women in Rome and Egypt," Helios 13 (1986) 85-101
21. In his recent work, however, Leonard Rutgers (The Jews of Late Ancient Rome, 134-35) has questioned some of Brooten's conclusions regarding the nature of this "leadership." Nonetheless, it is clear that women occupied much more prominent social positions within the Roman Jewish congregations than hitherto suspected, and this includes significant patronage
22. See especially Eric M. Meyers and A. Thomas Kraabel, "Archaeology, Iconography, and Nonliterary Written Remains," in Robert A. Kraft and George W. E. Nickelsburg, eds., Early Judaism and its Modern Interpreters (SBLCP; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1986) 175-210
23. A. Thomas Kraabel, "Impact of the Discovery of the Sardis Synagogue," in George M. A. Hanfmann, ed., Sardis from Prehistoric to Roman Times: Results of the Archaeological Exploration of Sardis 1958-1975 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983) 178-90
24. A. Thomas Kraabel, idem, "The Roman Diaspora: Six Questionable Assumptions," in Geza Vermes and Jacob Neusner, eds., Essays in Honor of Yigael Yadin (JJS 33 [1-2] 1982) 445-64
25. A. Thomas Kraabel, idem, "The Diaspora Synagogue: Archaeological and Epigraphic Evidence since Sukenik," in ANRW 2.19.1 (1979) 477-510
26. A. Thomas Kraabel, idem, "The Social Systems of Six Diaspora Synagogues," in Joseph Gutmann, ed., Ancient Synagogues the State of Research (BJS 22; Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1981) 79-93
27. A. Thomas Kraabel, idem, "Unity and Diversity among Diaspora Synagogues," in Lee I. Levine, ed., The Synagogue in Late Antiquity (Philadelphia: ASOR, 1987) 49-60
28. Andrew R. Seager, "Ancient Synagogue Architecture: An Overview," in Joseph Gutmann, ed., Ancient Synagogues, 39-48
29. L. Michael White, "The Delos Synagogue Revisited: Recent Fieldwork in the Graeco-Roman Diaspora," HTR 80 (1987) 133-66
30. and Dan Urman and Paul V. M. Flesher, eds., Ancient Synagogues: Historical Analysis and Archaeological Discovery (Leiden: Brill, 1995)
31. See my Building God's House in the Roman World: Architectural Adaptation among Pagans, Jews, and Christians (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990) esp. 60-101
32. idem, "Delos Synagogue Revisited"
33. idem, The Social Origins of Christian Architecture, vol. 2: The Christian Domus Ecclesiae in its Environment (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity, 1997)
34. This was the conclusion reached by the principal Italian excavator, Maria Floriani Squarciapino in various works: "La sinagoga di Ostia," Bolletino d'Arte (1961) 326-37
35. Maria Floriani Squarciapino idem, "Die Synagoge von Ostia Antica," Raggi: Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte und Archäologie 4 (1962) 1-8
36. Kraabel concurs in his earlier work on this subject (see "Diaspora Synagogue," ANRW 2.19.1 [1979] 498)
37. The primary publications of the excavations to date are Floriani Squarciapino, "Sinagoga di Ostia"
38. Floriani Squarciapino, idem, "Sinagoga recentemente"
39. Floriani Squarciapino, idem, "Synagoge von Ostia"
40. and Heinz L. Hempel, "Synagogenfunde in Ostia Antica," ZAW 74 (1962) 72-73
41. The most complete report (following the 1962 season) is that of Floriani Squarciapino, "La sinogaga di Ostia: secondo campagna di scavo," in Atti di VI Congresso internationale di archeologia cristiana, 1962 (Rome: Pontifical Press, 1965) 299-315
42. also published as Floriani Squarciapino, idem, La sinagoga di Ostia (Rome, 1964)
43. an extensive English summary of this same article appears in "The Synagogue at Ostia," Archeology 16 (1963) 194-203 (but it is weak in documentation and detail)
44. Other brief reports of the find were made by Russell Meiggs, Roman Ostia (2d ed., Oxford: Clarendon, 1973) 587-89
45. Rachel Wischnitzer, The Architecture of the European Synagogue (Philadelphia: JPS, 1974) 5-7 (and fig. 3)
46. and Hershel Shanks, Judaism in Stone: The Archaeology of Ancient Synagogues (New York: Harper & Row, 1979) 162-69
47. See Carlo Pavolini, "OSTIA (Roma): Saggi lungo la via Severiana," in Notizie degli Scavi di Antichità 8.35 (1981) 115-43
48. Compare Russell Meiggs, Roman Ostia, 133-41 and 539-48
49. For further discussion of this type of masonry, see Marion Elizabeth Blake, Roman Construction in Italy from Tiberius through the Flavians (Washington: Carnegie Institute, 1959) 66
50. The most recent work on the Roman brickwork of Ostia is in Johannes S. Boersma, Amoenissima civitas (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1985) 303. Boersma's work is an extensive analysis of the construction history of Insula V.ii, which contains the collegial hall known as the House of Fortune Annonaria (V.ii.8). Generally, Boersma dates the opus reticulatum/ mixtum a masonry in that complex to the Trajanic period. See esp., 198-225
51. I intentionally take a cautious approach to the dating, since the secondary literature often dates the synagogue naively as "from the first century," thereby leaving a faulty impression (so Shanks [Judaism in Stone, 162]
52. following M. Floriani Squarciapino ["Synagogue," 196])
53. The masonry of the core of the building makes it very unlikely that the edifice predates the Flavian period (that is, not before the 70s to 90s) and it is probably later, most likely from the time of Trajan or even Hadrian. This later dating, based on Boersma's work, now finds support in Pavolini's work on the buildings across the street from the synagogue edifice; and, significantly, these buildings show phases of masonry work similar to those in the synagogue itself. See Pavolini, "Saggi lungo di via Severiana," 124, 141-42
54. See Meiggs, Roman Ostia, 544-45, 550-53
55. See also the excavation reports from this region by Giovanni Becatti, Scavi di Ostia, vol. 6: Edificio con Opus Sectile fuori Porta Marina (Rome: Instituto poligrafico dello Stato, 1967)
56. In the niche structure's original configuration, these colonelles rested on the floor and framed the podium steps. Later construction enlarged the podium so that the steps were no longer free standing, and the colonettes became part of the podium. For discussion of the form of the aedicula, see Floriani Squarciapino ("Synagogue," 198)
57. and Kraabel ("Diaspora Synagogue," 498), who cite the inscription from Side, Pamphylia for a structure in the synagogue called a "simma" (that is, Greek lunate sigma)
58. See also Louis Robert, "Inscriptions grecques de Side," Revue philologique 32 (1958) 36-47
59. Floriani Squarciapino, "La Sinagoga," 314-15
60. "Synagogue," 197-98
61. "Diaspora Synagogue," 499-500. This would result in making the subsequent enlargement of the aedicula podium (which Kraabel does not discuss) part of stage 4. The crucial piece of evidence here is that the plaque of the Mindi(u)s Faustus inscription (late second to early third centuries) was reused in the floorwork of the final synagogue
62. It also appears that there were some original windows or apertures in the first-floor level of the western and southern walls of room D which the opus vittatum renovation also sealed. At ca. 3.40-3.50 m above the original floor level of room D, the opus latericium band is consistent with first floor ceiling height in the House of Fortuna Annonaria (Ins. V.ii); see Boersma, Amoenissima Civitas, 153. The planning involved in the renovation buttressing is further evidenced by the way that the window fill was bonded into the exterior pier, thus forming an integral wall to support the new roof
63. See White, Building God's House, 95 and n. 126
64. See above, n. 20. See also Kraabel, "Social Systems of Six Diaspora Synagogues," 87
65. A hitherto little-known inscription suggests that another Jewish community may have resided at nearby Portus, the imperial harbor. Compare Maria Floriani Squarciapino, "Plotius Fortunatus archisynagogus," Rassegna mensile di Israel 36 (1970) 183-91
66. More generally on Portus, see Leon, idem, "The Jewish Community of Porto," HTR 45 (1952) 165-75. This study, however, certainly needs updating in the light of recent work
67. Floriani Squarciapino, "La Sinagoga di Ostia," 314
68. I have corrected the name to Mindius based on other inscriptions from the immediate environs of Ostia. It must have been a fairly common name. It occurs in a list of the members of the Corporis Fabrum Navalium, an association of shipwrights at Ostia (found at Portus, CIL 14.256, line 246). Two texts from Isola Sacra deserve special notice in this regard. For the texts, see especially Hilding Thylander, Inscriptions du port d'Ostie (Skrifter Utgivna av Svenska Institutet i Rom; Lund: Gleerup, 1952). Thylander's no. A181 (from tomb N. 73) gives the name L. Mindius Diocas (and his wife Julia Zoe) and is datable to the reign of Antoninus Pius (138-161 CE). Thylander's no. A182 (from tomb C) gives the name L. Mindius Dius (and his wife Genucia Tryphaena) and dates from the time of Hadrian (117-138 CE). The complete text of the latter is as follows: L. Mindius Dius fecit sibi et Genuciae Tryphaenae coniugi incomparabili cum qua vixit annis xxiiii mens iii et Lucceiae Ianuariae maritae et Anniae Laueriae contuvernali suae santissimae et libert[is] libertab[usque] suis pos[ter(is)q(ue)] eor[um] h[oc] m[onumentum] e[xterum] h[eredem] n[on] [s(equetur)]. In fronte p[edes] xxx, in agro p[edes] xxxi. L(ucius) Mindius Dius made (this tomb) for himself and for Genucia Tryphaena, his incomparable wife with whom he lived for 24 years and 3 months, and for Lucceia Januaria, his (second) wife/spouse, and for Annia Laveria his most holy domestic partner, and for his freedmen and freedwomen and their posterity. This monument shall not succeed to the possession of a foreign heir. In width 30 feet and in depth 31 feet. In addition to its onomastic similarities, the form of this epitaph will also prove useful for the discussion below of the second Jewish inscription. While both inscriptions are in Latin, the names of both wives have clear Greek influences. The mid-second century dating for both is significant. One may note, moreover, the names Dius and Diocas (which could even be cognates) in the light of the badly damaged portions of Lines 6 and 7 in our Jewish text, which yield portions of two more words Me[...] and Dio[...]. The similarity to the two names from Isola Sacra is striking. Another possibility is the name Livius Dionysius, from the second Jewish inscription below. There is, of course, no way of being certain, but it would be typical of the form of such inscriptions if Lines 6-7 would have given the name of important relatives (or patrons). It is not impossible that Mindius Faustus was somehow related or attached to the families of Mindius Diocas and Mindius Dius. Thus, it should be noticed that L. Mindius Dius (in the epitaph above) had three wives: the first, a legal marriage, was to Genucia Tryphaena (termed conjux or "wife"), who was deceased at the time of the dedication. Mindius Dius was still living with Lucciea Januaria, to whom he was married (here using marita ["wife or spouse"] instead of the more usual conjux), and he also had a contubernalis (a "domestic partner," usually a slave or freedwoman, where there was no legal status to the marriage) named Annia Laveria, most likely a freedwoman. Mindius Dius might have produced children by all three, and their familial position and inheritance would have been quite variable, depending on his wishes. Mindius Faustus could have been a Jewish freedman, or the descendant of a freedman from such a complex family, but such a reconstruction must remain highly speculative. I am grateful to Dr. Hanne Sigismund Nielsen of the University of Aarhus for pointing out these inscriptions to me and for other suggestions in the epigraphic analysis
69. Line 3: would normally mean "gifts," but could bear here the derived meaning "funds" (presumably given for the project). Still, the use of this term is unusual and another option suggests itself. Given the generally nonstandard orthography of the text, one might read the omicron for an omega, hence, a variant found in some papyri (compare P.Petr. III.42; so James Hope Moulton and George Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament (1930; repr. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980) 168, 174
70. This spelling would seem a natural substitution also in a Latin context, given the regular use of the loanword domus in Greek as. Read in this way, then, the phrase would refer to the house or rooms from which the synagogue was renovated. A similar use of the term as "rooms" associated with a synagogue building (as hostelry) may be found in the Ophel synagogue inscription (CII 1404; White, Social Origins of Christian Architecture, no. 63)
71. It is also possible to identify the work with phase 3a, a few decades later. See also Baruch Lifshitz, Donateurs et fondateurs dans les synagogues juives (Cahiers de la Revue Biblique 7; Paris: Gabalda, 1967)
72. had earlier estimated 76%, but these numbers have subsequently been revised through the work of Heikki Solin, "Juden und Syrer im westlichen Teil der römischen Welt. Eine ethnisch-demographische Studie mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der sprachlichen Zustände," ANRW 2.29.2 (1983) 590-789, esp. 701-2
73. See Maarten J. Vermaseren, ed., Corpus Inscriptionum et Monumentorum Religionis Mithriacae (2 vols; The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1956-60) no. 273 (from the Planta pedis mithraeum in Ostia [Reg. III.xiii.2] in the Porta Marina quarter, probably under Marcus Aurelius), and no. 510 (= CIL VI.727, from Rome, under Commodus)
74. Note also the Mithraic inscription from Noricum (Vermaseren, Corpus Inscriptionum Mithriacae, 1438; CIL 3.4800, dated to the year 239 CE), which seems to come from members of the imperial bureaucracy who were also patrons of the local Mithraic cell
75. Compare White, Social Origins of Christian Architecture, no. 85. The stone is now in the Museo Nazionale della Therme in Rome
76. See the important work of Werner Eck on the form and dating of funerary inscriptions in the environs of Rome: "Inschriften aus der vatikanischen Nekropole unter St. Peter," Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 65 (1986) 245-93
77. idem, "Römische Grabinschriften. Aussageabsicht und Aussagefähigkeit im funerären Kontext," in Henner von Hesberg and Paul Zanker, eds., Römische Gräberstrassen (Abhandlung der bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften; Munich: Akademie Verlag, 1988) 61-83
78. and idem, "Inschriften und Grabbauten in der Nekropole unter St. Peter," in Peter Neukam, ed., Die Antike im Brennpunkt (Munich: Bayerischer Schulbuch-Verlag, 1991) 26-58
79. On the formulaic nature and the social relationships reflected in these inscriptions, see the careful study of the tombs and texts from Isola Sacra by Hanne Sigismund Nielsen ("The Physical Context of Roman Epitaphs and the Structure of the Roman Family," Analecta Romana instituti Danici 23 [1996] 35-60). I thank Dr. Nielsen for allowing me to use a draft of this article and for other assistance in the analysis of the Ostian inscriptions
80. Other funerary tituli regularly mention the legal provisions for the acquisition of the land on which the monument was built. Compare the wording of a Hadrianic-period titulus of an imperial slave from tomb 94 at Isola Sacra (Thylander, Inscriptions, no. A251): Dis Manibus Trophimus Caes[aris] n[ostris] ser[vus] et Claudia Tyche sibi et Claudiae Saturninae filiae pientisimae quae vixit ann[is] xv mensibus vi dieb[us] xiii, et libertis libertabus[que], posterisque eorum
81. I am in complete agreement with Leon (pp. 168-70, following Emil Schürer, Gemeindeverfassung der Juden in Rom [Leipzig: Teubner, 1879] 15
82. For comparable honorific Jewish texts, see Lifshitz, Donateurs
83. see White, Social Origins of Christian Architecture, nos. 64
84. (White, "The Delos Synagogue Revisited," HTR 80 [1987] 141-44)
85. For the title pater/mater and other social implications, see Brooten, Women Leaders in the Ancient Synagogue, 57-72 (she discusses the Castel Porziano inscription on p. 70)
86. John H. D'Arms, Commerce and Social Standing in Ancient Rome (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981) 127, 137 n. 82, and App. 1, nos. 62-65 (compare CIL 14.369, 461, and 5322)
87. At least two of these (nos. 63 and 65) also married outside of their gentilicium ("family lineage," traditionally denoting the Roman orders by the gensnomen of the Roman trianomina), which gives further testimony to their social prestige; see also D'Arms, Commerce and Social Standing, 134 and App. 2
88. On the problems of onomastic changes in the later empire in general, see Benet Salway, "What's in a name? A Survey of Roman Onomastic Practice from c. 700 BC to AD 700," JRomS 84 (1994) 124-51
89. On the problems of Jewish names, see especially Heikki Solin, "Die Namen der orientalischen Sklaven in Rom," in Noël Nuval, ed., L'onomastique latine (Paris:' Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique, 1977) 205-9
90. On the use of polynomy as a sign of social status, rare among the Jewish epitaphs from Rome, see Rutgers, The Jews of Late Ancient Rome, 167
91. D'Arms, Commerce and Social Standing, 138 and App. 1, nos. 68-74. Of these, three (nos. 70, 72, and 74) married outside their gentilicium; see App. 2
92. See also Richard Duncan-Jones, The Economy of the Roman Empire: Quantitative Studies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974) 176
93. Such freedmen were prominent in the guilds and collegia of Ostia, especially those engaged in building and shipping. Usually, the freedmen Augustales held the highest offices in these collegia, while the patrons of the same collegia were from the decurionate. In other words, these organizations furnished yet another mechanism for establishing and maintaining the social connections. See also Ramsay MacMullen, Roman Social Relations (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974) 97-100
94. For the use of private benefactions to foreign cults as a mechanism in this upward mobility, note the case of N. Popidius Celsinus at Pompeii (discussed in my Building God's House, 31)
95. On the upward mobility of freedmen (especially of non-Italian background) into the decurionate at Pompeii, with implications for population growth and socioeconomic conditions, see the study by Willem Jongman, The Economy and Society of Pompeii (Amsterdam: Gieben, 1988) 284-311
96. More generally on slaves and freedmen in the economic and social activities of the Roman world, see also Susan Treggiari, Roman Freedmen during the Late Republic (Oxford: Clarendon, 1969) esp. 205-6 (for Jewish groups and collegia)
97. and Keith Hopkins, Conquerors and Slaves (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978) 64-74, 163-72
98. Also at Puteoli, there is the well-known case of the Tyrian merchants who dedicated a monument to Helios Seraptenos. See Arthur Darby Nock, Conversion (Oxford: Clarendon, 1933) 66-67
99. The two inscriptions are, respectively, CII 76(CIL 10. 2258): DM P(ublius) Claudius Aciba sibi fecit To the divine shades. Publius Claudius Akiba made (this monument) for himself. and 75(CIL 10. 1931): DM P(ublius) Caulio Coerano Negotiatori ferrariarum et vinariariae Acibas lib(ertis) Patrono merenti To the divine shades. Publius Claudius (sic) Coeranus, merchant of irongoods and wine (sic), Akiba, his freedman, (made this monument) for his deserving patron. Frey's listing indicates that he considered the Jewish identity of Akiba dubious, despite the name. Others would disagree. On the use of formula D M (Dis manibus) in clearly Jewish contexts see Lawrence Kant, "Jewish Inscriptions in Greek and Latin," ANRW 2.20.2 (1987) 683
100. Rutgers, The Jews in Late Ancient Rome, 269-72
101. See my article "Finding the Ties that Bind: Issues from Social History," in Semeia 56 (1991) esp. 15-21
102. Eck, "Römische Grabinschriften. Aussageabsicht und Aussagefähigkeit im funerären Kontext," 61-83. For the measurements: I Rom. ft. = 0.295 m; 1 m = 3.39 Rom. ft., 1 sq. m = 11.495 sq. Rom. ft
103. A tantalizing glimpse of the centripetal pull of provincials into this social mix appears even in a casual reference from a private letter from Egypt, in which it is reported that "Herminos went off to Rome and became a freedman of Caesar in order to receive offices". The text is from P.Oxy. XLVI 3312, lines 11-13 (ed. John R. Rea); for the text and discussion, see Gregory H. R. Horsley, New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity 3 (1983) 7-9
104. But see also Gerhard Fuks, "Where have all the Freedmen Gone? On an Anomaly in the Jewish Grave-Inscriptions from Rome," JJS 36 (1985) 25-32
105. A recent study of slavery and manumission practices among Jews and Christians is that of J. Albert Harrill, The Manumission of Slaves in Early Christianity (Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1995)
106. See Kraabel, "The Roman Diaspora: Six Questionable Assumptions," 457-58
107. Smith, "Fences and Neighbors," in idem, Imagining Religion, 17-18