[260]. Until the time of Claudius, we are told by John Lydus, no Roman citizen might actively participate in the rites of Cybele. Cf. Dendrophori, Pauly-Wissowa, p. 216. Claudius removed the restriction, perhaps to make Cybele a counterfoil to Isis.
[261]. The story in Livy, XXXIX., viii. seq. is a case in point. The abominable excesses which, as Hispala testifies, took place among the Bacchae (ibid. 13) are almost certainly gross exaggerations.
This hostility to new-comers was not a sudden departure from previous usage. Sporadic instances are mentioned in Livy’s narrative. As early as 429 B.C.E., he tells us, Datum negotium aedilibus ne qui nisi Romani dii neu quo alio more quam patrio colerentur (Livy, IV. xxx. 11). The notice is of value as an indication that the general Roman feeling was not always so cordially receptive as is often assumed.
[262]. Valerius Max. I. iii. 3.
[263]. Cf. Cic. ad Att. iii. 15, 4; Asconius ad Pison. 8.
[264]. Suetonius, Div. Iul. 42. Josephus, Ant. XIV. x. 8. Suetonius (ibid. 84) states that many exterae gentes enjoyed his favor. The Jews may have been only one group among many. However, the statement is indirectly made by Suetonius and directly by Josephus, that they received his special protection to a striking extent. We have only the political support given the triumvirs and Caesar personally to fall back upon for a motive.
[265]. I undertake with some diffidence to revive a conjecture made before without much success, that the 30th Sabbath was the Day of Atonement. One remarkable misunderstanding of the Sabbath institution was that it was a fast-day. When we consider the number and activity of the Roman Jews, it seems scarcely credible that so many otherwise well-informed persons supposed that the Jews fasted once a week. Augustus in his letter to Tiberius seems to do so (Suet. Aug. 76). Pomp. Trogus (Justinus), xxxvi. 2, explicitly states it. Cf. also Petronius (Bücheler, Anth. Lat. Frg. 37) and Martial, iv. 4. But at least one man, Plutarch, not only knew that it was not so, but was aware that, if anything, the Sabbath was a joyous feast-day (Moralia ii., Quaest. Con. v. 2). To this testimony must be added that of Persius, Sat. v. 182 seq. It is in the highest degree surprising that Reinach (p. 265, n. 3) could have accepted the theory that the pallor alluded to is the faintness brought on by fasting. The tunny fish on the plate should have convinced him of his error. It may be remembered that fish in all its forms was one of the chief delicacies of the Romans. Tunny, however, was a very common fish, and one of the principal food staples of the proletariat.
Persius writes from personal experience. Of the other writers it is only Pompeius Trogus who makes the unqualified statement that the Sabbath as such was a fast-day. When Strabo writes that Pompey is said to have taken Jerusalem τὴν τῆς νηστείας ἡμέραν τηρήσας (xvi. 40), he is assumed to have been guilty of the same confusion. But it is not easy to see why he should have hesitated to say the Sabbath if he meant the Sabbath. Nor is it so certain that Josephus is mechanically copying Strabo (Reinach, p. 104. n. 1) when he says (Ant. XIV. iv. 3) that Jerusalem was taken περὶ τρίτον μηνα τῇ τῆς νηστείας ἡμέρᾳ. The details of Josephus are vastly fuller than those of Strabo, and he is not guilty of the latter’s error regarding Jewish observance of the Sabbath in times of war (Ant. XIV. iv. 2). Besides, the siege lasted several weeks—more than two months—so that Pompey’s maneuver, if it depended wholly upon the Sabbath, might have been performed at once.
Hilgenfeld’s supposition (Monatsschrift, 1885, pp. 109-115) that the day was the Atonement, is better founded than Reinach would have us think. In the mouth of Josephus, ἡ τῆς νηστείας ἡμέρα can scarcely have any other sense. And if Josephus believed that Jerusalem fell on the Kippur, he believed so from more intimate tradition than the writings of Strabo.
Now, ἡ τῆς νηστείας ἡμέρα, the great fast of the Jews, must have been as marked a feature in their life two thousand years ago as to-day. While all the other feasts have individual names, it does not appear that this one did. יום הכפורים (Lev. xxiii. 27; LXX, ἡμέρα ἐξιλασμοῦ) seems rather a descriptive term than a proper name. Josephus (Ant. IV. x.) has no name for it, although he has for the others. In the Talmud, it is ימא “the Day,” יומא רבא “the Great Day,” צומא רבא, “the Great Fast.” In Acts xxvii. 9 we meet the phrase ἡ νηστεία, “the fast κατ’ ἐξοχήν.” Similarly in Philo, De Septenario, all the festivals have names except this, which is referred to simply as “the Fast.” It must be, however, evident that with the institution of other fasts, ἡ νηστεία would hardly be adequate. As a distinctive appellation, some other name had to be chosen.