Romans and Jews 429Not necessarily. Tacitus’ remarks, even when most damaging, have a different orien-
tation. His most sweeping statement about Jews’ profound difference from Romans
declares that they consider profane all that we hold sacred, and everything that we find
sinful they permit (Hist. 5.4.1). Whatever the truth of that assertion, it refers to religious
observances (ritus), not to genetic contrasts. The same applies to Tacitus’ nasty com-
ment about Jewish practices (instituta) being perverse, loathsome, and enduring only
through their depravity (Hist. 5.5.1). It was the Jewish manner of life again (mos)that
the historian branded as ridiculous and sordid (Hist. 5.5.5). And his labeling of Jews
as the most despised and disgraceful of people (Hist. 5.8.2) also needs to be read in
context. Tacitus there gives a thumbnail sketch of the history of Jewish subjection to a
series of greater powers—Assyrians, Medes, Persians, and Hellenistic kings. The allusion
is to their political impotence, the most disdained of subordinates, and not to character
deficiencies. In short, the ostensibly harshest Roman critic of Jews fails to qualify as an
“anti-semite.”
Cicero once asserted that Jews were born for servitude. On the face of it, that might
seem to count as good evidence for Roman racial prejudice. Such a conclusion, however,
would be hasty. First of all, Cicero lumps Jews and Syrians together as nations born to
be slaves. Second, the statement served the orator’s rhetorical purposes in a political
speech designed in part to discredit his bitter foe, A. Gabinius, who, as governor of
Syria, had curbed the activities of Roman tax collectors, the interests of whom Cicero
had championed. As so often, context is all. Cicero represented the actions of Gabinius
with exaggerated rhetoric as enslaving the revenue collectors to Syrians and Jews who
were themselves born to be enslaved (Prov. Cons. 10). Even if one were to take such
bombast seriously, it resonates with Tacitus’ allusion to the Jews as repeatedly subordinate
to imperial powers—not as a built-in tendency for servitude (Isaac 2004: 463–4).
Perhaps the most troubling assessment of Jews by a Roman came from the philosopher
Seneca, who labeled them the most criminal of nations (sceleratissima gens). Just what
prompted the comment remains unknown. To employ it as a touchstone for Roman
perceptions of Jewish character, however, would be dubious methodology. It stands alone
in the vast extant corpus of Seneca who makes no other mention of Jews at all. And we
have it only in a secondhand version as cited in St. Augustine’sCity of God(CD, 6.11).
In that form, it lacks all context and can hardly provide a confident index of Roman
attitudes. If Jews were a criminalgens, we have no clue as to their crimes. One might
observe also that Quintilian once characterizes Jews as a pernicious people (perniciosa
gens), but never mentions them again. Such snippets, even if we had a handle on their
signification, hardly give a window on the Roman mentality.
The bulk of Roman utterances on Jews by far, as is well known, make reference to their
peculiar and (to Romans) often amusing customs and behavior that set them apart from
most peoples. Jews preferred to keep to themselves, a clannish group who enjoyed one
another’s company but shunned almost everyone else, a trait noticed by Roman writers
(Tac.Hist. 5.5.1–2; Juv. 14.103–104). Other modes of behavior too elicited mockery
or scorn. Romans did not fully understand (or try to understand) the institution of the
Sabbath—some took it to be a day of fasting, others saw it as a form of Dionysiac reveling,
still others stigmatized it as consigning a seventh of one’s life to idleness (e.g., Suet. Aug.
76.2; Petronius, fr. 37, Ernout; Martial, 4.4.7; Juv. 14.105–106). Additional miscon-
ceptions abound (Gruen 2002: 48–50). Dietary laws also drew amusement. Augustus