We must therefore assign the settlement of Jews in Rome to a much earlier date. The tradition that some of the train of Simon’s embassy had remained in Rome is, as we have seen, probable enough. To that nucleus there was added, by a perfectly natural and even inevitable infiltration, a group of Jewish freedmen, artisans, and merchants who were establishing themselves all over the Mediterranean. Jews are met with at Delphi a hundred years before the delivery of this speech.[[244]]
We have therefore, in 59 B.C.E., an established Jewish community, necessarily organized in synagogues and chiefly of servile origin. The use of foreigners at the polls by the political leaders had led to the Lex Junia Penni of 80 B.C.E. and the Lex Papia of 65 B.C.E., which ordered foreigners to leave the city. But these measures were wholly ineffective, and in any case could have only partly served those who proposed them, since the mass of the democratic strength lay in the proletariat, and the proletariat was largely composed of undoubted citizens, although freedmen. The Jews formed, as we see, an active and troublesome element in the turbulent city populace. Their attachment to the democratic leader, Caesar, is well attested, and Caesar’s marked favor toward them has all the appearance of the payment of a political debt, as in the case of the Cisalpine Gauls.[[245]]
As far as Cicero was concerned personally, we may assume that his attitude was the contempt which he no doubt honestly felt for the infima plebs and for Syrian barbarians in particular. He probably voices the sentiments of the optimates,[[246]] with whom, though still hesitant, he had already cast his fortunes. The abuse arises from the necessities of the case. As previously pointed out, it is in this very speech that we have fine examples of the device of abusing your opponent’s witnesses when arguments give out. These phrases show no special animus. Just as Greeks are liars if they are on the other side, and men of honor on his own, as exhibited almost in successive paragraphs of this speech,[[247]] so we may be sure if Cicero were prosecuting Flaccus, a few eloquent periods would extol the character of those ancient allies and firm friends of Rome, the Jews.
How much Cicero really knew of the Jews is not certain. He is aware that in point of religious observance the Jews are strikingly different from other tribes. The contrast he emphasizes in his speech may be an allusion to the imageless cult of the Jews and the inference of meanness and poverty of ceremonial which Romans would draw from it. And the taunt quam dis cara, “how dear to the gods,” seems an unmistakable fling at the claim of the Jews, loudly voiced in their propaganda, to possess in a high degree the favor of the Divinity, or even a special communion with the Deity in their mysteries.
All this Cicero might have learned from his surroundings. It is doubtful that he learned it from Posidonius and Molo, both of whom he knew well. In these two appear stories which Cicero could hardly have overlooked if he knew them. When we remember what he says of Sardinians in the Scauriana, of Gauls in the Fonteiana,[[248]] he surely would not have omitted to catalogue the tales treasured up by these two Greek teachers of his; to wit, the ass-god, the scrofulous prophet, the savage inhospitality and absurd fanaticism Molo and Posidonius ascribe to the Jews.
One other phrase which Cicero applies to Jews would deserve little attention if it were not for the extraordinary general inferences some have drawn from it. In May, 56 B.C.E., Cicero has an opportunity to vent his venom on his enemy Gabinius, consul in 59 B.C.E., whom he held personally responsible for the humiliation of his exile. Gabinius, in 56, was governor of Syria, and seems to have been rather short with the tax-farmers, whom, to the delight of the provincials, he treated with contumely and no doubt with gross injustice. The persistent favor he showed to all provincial claims against these men, many of them Cicero’s personal friends and at all times his supporters, caused the orator to exclaim:
As far as the unfortunate tax-farmers are concerned—and I count myself equally unfortunate to be compelled to relate their misfortunes and sufferings—Gabinius made them the chattel-slaves of Jews and Syrians, races themselves born to be slaves.
The concluding phrase is simply the application of the rhetorical commonplace of Greeks that barbarians as such were slaves by nature. It was applied to Syrians with a certain justice, as the slave name Syrus testifies. From that standpoint, however, it was obviously absurd to assert that it was true of Jews. Cicero’s inclusion of them is due to the fact that, as governor of Syria, Gabinius would have had many occasions to favor Jewish litigants against the publicans, probably in pursuance of his party’s policy. Gabinius, we may recall, was a very obedient servant of his masters, the triumvirs, and the interest of the leading spirit of the coalition in the provinces has been previously pointed out.[[249]]
Allusions of this type made in the course of vehement advocacy or invective are really of little meaning even as an indication of personal feeling. It is true, however, that Cicero shows very little sympathy in general with the Roman masses or with the provincials, despite the Verrine prosecution. That he could have felt any interest or liking for Syrian barbarians in or out of the city is very improbable.
None the less, within Cicero’s own circle, the same elements in Jewish customs which had impressed Greeks, such as Theophrastus and Clearchus, could not fail to strike such Romans as made philosophic pretensions. The fame of the shrine at Jerusalem had reached Rome a century earlier, as we have seen from Polybius. Pompey’s capture of the city formed no inconsiderable item in his exploits. Cicero refers to him jestingly as noster Hierosolymarius, “Our Hero of Jerusalem.”[[250]] We can tell from Cicero’s own words the emphasis that Laelius had laid on the fame of the temple and its sanctity when he denounced Flaccus. As a matter of fact it was a constant practice of Romans to find, in those institutions of barbarians which could be called severe or simple, the image of their own golden age of simplicity, before the advent of Greek luxury. So Cicero’s learned friend and correspondent Varro is quoted by Augustine[[251]] as referring to the Jews among others as a people whose imageless cult still maintains what the Romans had abandoned. There may be very little sincerity in this regret of a simple-living past, but it is an indication that the exceptional character of Jewish religious customs might in Cicero’s own entourage be characterized in terms somewhat different from those of the Flacciana.