140 CHAPTER FOURalone.Nevertheless,therecanbenodoubtthatinallothercitiesoftheRoman
Easttherewasatleastaroughcorrespondencebetweencointypesandpublic
cults; furthermore, according to the admittedly unreliable Palestinian church
fatherEpiphanius (writingshortly before377), therewas inTiberiasa temple
of the deified emperor Hadrian, of all people, which some scholars have sup-
posedisthesameasthetetrastyletempleofZeusdepictedonacoinofHadria-
nic date.^38 Though no structure definitely identified as a temple has yet been
discovered at Sepphoris, some evidence for cultic activity has (see below).
There may, in sum, be no reasonnotto think that the coins imply the exis-
tence of public pagan cults in the Jewish cities.
A common way of explaining the religious implications of the coinage of
the Palestinian Jewish cities has been to suppose that Hadrian removed the
city councils fro mJewish control and entrusted the mto Greeks, either in
reactiontoorinanticipationofthesecondJewishrevolt.^39 Thisisunlikelyfor
a number of reasons. Why, for instance, does rabbinic literature record not a
singlecomplaintaboutthepaganoppressorswhoruledtherabbis’townseven
though, if the common view is right, the pagan town councillors were more
religiously heavy-handed than the Herodian princes and Roman procurators
who had so catastrophically misruled the Jews in the first century? On the
contrary, the rabbismay have felt little affection fortheir cities’bouleutai, but
they see mto have regarded the m, at least by the early third century (the date
oftheearliestrabbinictext),asJews.^40 Furthermore,iftheappearanceofpagan
(^38) For example, A. H. M. Jones,Cities of the Eastern Roman Provinces, 2d ed. (Oxford:
Clarendon, 1971), p. 278; Meshorer,CityCoins, pp. 34–35; 112–13. Goodman,StateandSoci-
ety, p. 46, minimizes the importance of the Hadrianeum and of the coins.
(^39) This was suggested by Jones,Citiesofthe EasternRomanProvinces, p. 278. Isaac and Roll,
“Judaea in the Early Years of Hadrian’s Reign,” transformed Jones’s suggestion into a narrative:
Around the year 120, Hadrian reformed the province of Judaea in the aftermath of (conjectural)
disturbancesthereconnectedwiththeDiasporarevoltof115–117byintroducingasecondlegion
(this is evidently correct) and taking the city councils of Tiberias, Sepphoris, and Neapolis out
of Jewish and Samaritan hands. Isaac seems to have retracted this view; at any rate, there is no
trace of it inLimitsofEmpire, pp. 347–61. Goodman,StateandSociety, pp. 128–29, specifically
rejectsit,withsomewhatvaguearguments.Hehelpfullyobserves,though,thatthereisnoreason
to think Jews had ever been barred fro mserving on city councils. Si milarly equivocal is Lapin,
EarlyRabbinicCivilLaw, pp. 10–12.
(^40) E.g., thebouleutai(city councillors) of Sepphoris who paid court to the patriarch Judah I
(Y. Horayot 3:9 48c = Y.Shabbat 12:3, 13c); indeed, there are many references in the Palestinian
Talmud to Jewish city councilors in Sepphoris, collected by G. Stemberger,Judenund Christen
im Heiligen Land, p. 36; a lead weight (undated) fro mSepphoris inscribed with the na me of
theagoranomosSimon; the statement attributed to the third-century rabbi Yohanan, “If you are
appointed totheboule, letthe Jordan beyour boundary” (i.e.,run for it),obviously presupposing
thatrabbisarelikelytobeappointed(butthisprobablyreflectsconditionsofaslightlylaterperiod
than the one under discussion); the references to thekenishta deboule(boule- synagogue) at
Tiberias, perhaps, however, named for its location: Y. Sheqalim 7:3, 3c; Y. Taanit 1:2, 64a. Note
alsoSEG38 (1988): 1647, a lead weight fro mTiberias listing twoagoranomoi, one of whose
names is illegible; the other is called Iaesaias (or -os) son of Mathias. But the weight is dated to