Jews and Others
tity’’ than it might seem at first sight. Firstly, it is quite a profound ques-
tion whether the population of the Near Eastern provinces, all now Roman
citizens and subject to Roman private law, saw themselves as ‘‘Romans,’’ or
regarded Roman history and tradition, or Latin literature, as in any way
‘‘theirs.’’^4 Alternatively, they and others might have identified certain cities,
particularly some of those which had been made Roman colonies in the High
Empire, as being distinctive pockets of ‘‘Romanness.’’ The most obvious case
is Berytus, where the teaching of Roman law remained important through-
out late antiquity;^5 thus Jerome, for instance, in hisLetter, duly attaches
the label ‘‘colony’’ to Berytus.^6 At Heliopolis, always closely tied to Berytus,
and also in the ‘‘colonial’’ zone, Latin public inscriptions continue unusu-
ally late, until the s;^7 but after that the specifically ‘‘Roman’’ character of
the city is no longer evident. Jerome, the most important observer of the
area writing in Latin, is also well aware of the complex successive transfor-
mations of the city which we naturally call ‘‘Jerusalem,’’ but which, as he
knew well, had been made into the Roman colony of Aelia Capitolina by
Hadrian, and was now in the process of evolving from a pagan into a Chris-
tian city, and from a Latin- into a Greek-speaking one.^8 It is very significant
that when Jerome alludes in passing to the career of Hilarion, the important
ascetic from Gaza of the first half of the fourth century, he stresses that the
saint had deliberately avoided Aelia Capitolina, to keep himself away from
the taint of pagan customs.^9
. To my knowledge, the topic of the awareness of being citizens of the Roman Empire
on the part of the inhabitants of the Near Eastern provinces in the late Empire has not been
discussed in depth. For a starting point, G. Dagron, ‘‘Aux origines de la civilisation byzan-
tine: langue de culture et langue d’État,’’Revue Historique (): , reprinted in hisLa
romanité chrétienne en Orient: Héritages et mutations(), no. I. From a different perspective,
note J. Geiger, ‘‘How Much Latin in Greek Palestine?,’’ in Hannah Rosén, ed.,Aspects of
Latin(), .
. Note for instance the description of Berytus in the fourth-centuryExpositio totius
mundi et gentium, ed. J. Rougé (), , as ‘‘containing lecture-halls for the teaching of
the law.’’
. Jerome,Ep.,.
. See F. Millar, ‘‘The RomanColoniaeof the Near East: A Study of Cultural Relations,’’ in
H. Solin and M. Kajava, eds.,Roman Eastern Policyand Other Studies in Roman History(),
– ( chapter of the present volume).
. For Aelia Capitolina as acolonia, see Millar (n. ), –. For Jerome’s allusions to
the previous history of the city, see, for example,Com. in Danielem, , (CCLLXXVA,
–);Com. in Ieremiam, (CCLLXXIV, ).
. Jerome,Ep.,–.