[242]. The language of the inscriptions in the various Jewish cemeteries at Rome is almost always Greek, as is that of most of the monuments in the Christian catacombs. Latin is rare and generally later. But these monuments belong to Jews who lived several generations after 63 B.C.E. As far as Palestine is concerned, both inscriptions and literature leave no doubt that the masses spoke only Aramaic or Hebrew.
[243]. Caesar, Bell. Gall. II. xxxiii. 7; III. xvi. 4.
[244]. Foucart, Mém. sur l’affranchissement des esclaves.
[245]. Suet. Div. Iul. 84, 76, 80.
[246]. The pretensions of the senatorial party to be the only true Romans were not altogether unfounded. The terms boni and optimates which they gave themselves were perhaps consciously adapted from the καλοὶ κἀγαθοί of Athens. The importance of nobilitas as a criterion of true Roman blood lay in the fact that it attested lineage in a wholly unmistakable way. We may compare the insistence of Nehemiah upon documentary evidence of Israelitish blood (Neh. vii. 61, 64).
[247]. Pro Flacco, 15, 36, compared with 26, 62 seq.
[248]. Cf. ch. XIV., notes 11, 12.
[249]. The chief political asset of the triumvirs was the orientalized plebs of the city, whose origin and poverty would combine to make them bitterly detest the organized tax-farmers. Now Crassus, one of the triumvirs, was himself the head of a powerful financial group. It may be that the tax-farmers persecuted by Gabinius belonged to a rival organization, or that Crassus had withdrawn from that form of speculation before 60 B.C.E. In the case of Flaccus, the complaint of the tax-financier Decianus was a pretext, or else Decianus may have been forethoughtful enough to have joined the right syndicate.
[250]. Cicero ad Att. ii. 9.
[251]. Augustinus, De Civ. Dei, iv. 31, 2.