132 CHAPTER FOUR
Lower Galilee is quite well attested for the high imperial period. Rabbinic
literature, especially the Tosefta and Palestinian Talmud, is filled with infor-
mation.Thisinformation aboveallconcernsTiberias,theplace oftheircom-
position, and curiously enough tends to confir mthe i mpression created by
the material evidence of the rabbis’ own marginality in their main city, as we
will see. Furthermore, though the city cannot be thoroughly excavated be-
cause it has been inhabited without substantial interruption since its founda-
tion, around 19C.E., enough small-scale excavation has been done, and
enoughinscriptionsandcoinshaveturned up,togivesomesenseofthecity’s
public life.
Jewish Cities?
In the second and third centuries the free population of Tiberias apparently
consistedmostly,oralmostentirely,ofpeoplewhowereinsomesenseJewish.
Josephus,whoknewthecitywell,washostiletoit,andconsidereditsJudaism
suspect, noted that at the outbreak of disturbances in Palestine in 66C.E., the
Tiberians massacred the “Greek” (i.e., non-Jewish) residents of the city (Life
67). Apparently they had not been numerous. Subsequently, there is little
evidence for the permanent presence of “Greeks” or “Syrians.” The rabbis
unquestionably regarded Tiberias, along with Sepphoris and Lydda, as “Jew-
ish,” in contrast to the mainly pagan Scythopolis and Ptolemais. Probably
in all these places there was a small Christian or Jewish-Christian presence,
notwithstanding Epiphanius’s clai m(Panarion30.11.9–10) that around 320
the cities and large villages of Galilee were entirely Jewish.^11 A single story in
thePalestinianTalmud(Shabbat16:7,15d)mentionsashuqade’arama’e(Syr-
ian market), which operated on the Sabbath, in the Tiberian district, or sub-
urb, of Kifra. The only other unambiguous pagans whom rabbinic literature
mentionsinconnectionwithTiberiasarespecialistprofessionals(aphysician,
interestinglyenoughfemale:Y.Shabbat14:4,14d)oritinerants(philosophers
and astrologers: T. Shevuot 3:6; Tanhuma Shofetim 10). To this list should
Roth-Gerson,Greek Inscriptions from the Synagogues in Eretz-Israel(Jerusalem: Yad Ben Zvi,
1987), no. 30.
(^11) The most useful collection of rabbinic sources for all these places remains S. Klein,Sefer
Hayishuv(Jerusalem: Dvir, 1939), sub vv. The Tiberian material has been discussed in greater
detail by J. Schwartz, “Hayei Yom-Yom Beteveryah Bitequfat Hamishnah Vehatalmud,” in Y.
Hirschfeld, ed.,Teveryah: MeYisudah ad Hakivush Hamuslemi: Meqorot, Sikumim, Parashiyot
NivharotVehomer-Ezer(Jerusalem:YadBenZvi,1988),pp.103–10.Ingeneral,Goodman,State
andSociety,pp.41–53.Forrabbiniccommentsaboutminim,perhapsChristians,inTiberiasand
Sepphoris, see A. Bu ̈chler,Studies in Jewish History, ed. I. Brodie and J. Rabbinowitz (London:
Oxford University Press, 1956), pp. 245–74. See also the Syriac version of Eusebius,TheMartyrs
of Palestine, ed. W. Cureton (London, 1861), p. 29, where either Sepphoris (Diocaesarea) or
Lydda (Diospolis) is described as entirely Jewish.