Epictetus and Tacitus, that this kind of conversion involves the complete
repudiation of one’s traditional piety. Elsewhere, Juvenal makes only pass-
ing references to Judeans begging in Rome (Sat.1.3.14; 2.6.543–547). Their
attraction of converts thus stands out as a noteworthy feature.
Other literary allusions to Judean attraction of proselytes—by Horace
(Sat.1.4.139–143), Seneca (Superst.,in Augustine, Civ.6.11), and Celsus
(True Word,in Origen, Cels.5.41.6)—could be discussed, but their interpre-
tation is more controversial. The three that I have introduced are valuable
because they show us independent Roman writers reflecting commonplace
assumptions about the Judeans: they commonly attract sympathizers and
also full converts, who renounce native traditions in order to join them.
Since these remarks are incidental, adduced as given in the service of some
other point, it is not likely that the authors invented or exaggerated the phe-
nomenon of conversion.
Particular Cases In addition to these observations by Roman authors con-
cerning the state of their society, we have several names of individuals in
Rome, from the first to third centuries CE, who either expressed strong
interest in Judean culture or actually made it their own. Some of these
appear on funerary inscriptions from Judean cemeteries. According to
Harry J. Leon, seven Jewish epitaphs are of “indubitable proselytes” (1960,
254); though one might have doubts about the three-and-a-half-year-old
Irene. These proselytes were sufficiently welcomed by the community to be
given proper Judean burials. Non-Judean sites have, in addition, turned up
the epitaphs of four “reverers” (metuentes), who apparently associated them-
selves in some way with Judaism but, to borrow Epictetus’s distinction, were
not considered proper Judeans.
In terms of social status, it is noteworthy that one of the metuenteswas
a Roman knight; that two of the proselyte inscriptions at Nomentana were
carved on marble, whereas most were simply painted on the grave clo-
sures; that five of the proselyte inscriptions are in Latin, although the vast
majority of the Judean inscriptions are in the Greek of newcomers to Rome;
and that at least one of the proselytes—Veturia Paulla, who was buried in
a sarcophagus and was the “mother” of two synagogues—seems to have
been a woman of substance. Although this evidence is hardly decisive, in
view of the small sample, it militates against Tacitus’s rhetorical charge
that converts to Judaism were of the basest sort.
That only five or seven of Leon’s 534 inscriptions—little more than
one per cent—certainly come from proselytes should not be taken as evi-
dence of their insignificant numbers. First, many of those buried may not
have wished to record for posterity their conversion. Even in a Judean