41. Ann. ii.85, Comp. Suet. Tib. 36.
Still, the Jew was there in the midst of them. It is impossible to fix the date when the first Jewish
wanderers found their way to the capital of the world. We know, that in the wars under
Pompey, Cassius, and Antonius, many were brought captive to Rome, and sold as slaves. In
general, the Republican party was hostile, the Cęsars were friendly, to the Jews. The Jewish
slaves in Rome proved an unprofitable and troublesome acquisition. They clung so tenaciously
to their ancestral customs, that it was impossible to make them conform to the ways of heathen
households.42 How far they would carry their passive resistance, appears from a story told by
Josephus,43 about some Jewish priests of his acquaintance, who, during their captivity in Rome,
refused to eat anything but figs and nuts, so as to avoid the defilement of Gentile food.44 Their
Roman masters deemed it prudent to give their Jewish slaves their freedom, either at a small
ransom, or even without it. These freedmen (liberti) formed the nucleus of the Jewish
community in Rome, and in great measure determined its social character. Of course they were,
as always, industrious, sober, pushing. In course of time many of them acquired wealth. By-
and-by Jewish immigrants of greater distinction swelled their number. Still their social position
was inferior to that of their co-religionists in other lands. A Jewish population so large as 40,000
in the time of Augustus, and 60,000 in that of Tiberius, would naturally included all ranks -
merchants, bankers, literati, even actors.45 In a city which offered such temptations, they would
number among them those of every degree of religious profession; nay, some who would not
only imitate the habits of those around, but try to outdo their gross licentiousness.46 Yet, even
so, they would vainly endeavor to efface the hateful mark of being Jews.
42. Philo, Leg. ad Caj. ed. Frcf. p. 101.
43. Life 3.
44. Lutterbeck (Neutest. Lehrbegr. p. 119), following up the suggestions of Wieseler (Chron. d. Apost.
Zeitalt. pp. 384, 402, etc.), regards these priests as the accusers of St. Paul, who brought about his
martyrdom.
45. Comp., for example, Mart. xi. 94; Jos. Life 3.
46. Martialis, u. s. The `Anchialus' by whom the poet would have the Jew swear, is a corruption of
Anochi Elohim (`I am God') in Ex. xx. 2. Comp. Ewald, Gesch. Isr. vol. vii. p. 27.
Augustus had assigned to the Jews as their special quarter the `fourteenth region' across the
Tiber, which stretched from the slope of the Vatican onwards and across the Tiber-island,
where the boats from Ostia were wont to unload. This seems to have been their poor quarter,
chiefly inhabited by hawkers, sellers of matches,47 glass, old clothes and second-hand wares.
The Jewish burying-ground in that quarter48 gives evidence of their condition. The whole
appointments and the graves are mean. There is neither marble nor any trace of painting, unless
it be a rough representation of the seven-branched candlestick in red coloring. Another Jewish
quarter was by the Porta Capena, where the Appian Way entered the city. Close by, the
ancient sanctuary of Egeria was utilized at the time of Juvenal49 as a Jewish hawking place. But
there must have been richer Jews also in that neighborhood, since the burying-place there
discovered has paintings - some even of mythological figures, of which the meaning has not yet