4 PHILO'S POLITICS
The Roman emperor, since Egypt was a proprietary colony of theemperor himself, had immediate and ultimate control of Egyptian af
fairs. For Alexandrian citizens in ordinary times he was but a shadow
behind the prefect, one of whom the Alexandrians were frequently re
minded, but with whom normally they would have had nothing to do.
Yet it was Philo's lot to live in a stormy period when both Jews and
gentiles of the city rushed to Rome to appeal a local matter to the em
peror in person. Philo's being a subject of the great Roman Empire, in
a province of the emperor himself, was then a highly important part of
this political setting.
The Romans on the whole scorned the Jews personally, but recog
nized them as good and profitable citizens, and encouraged them with
such great political privileges as that of living in Alexandria with a dis
tinct Jewish polity. Yet the Jews were a subject people, a tribute paying
race, and as such, in comparison with the Romans, immeasurably infe
rior. So long as a Jew minded his business and paid his taxes he was or
dinarily let alone; but he had any political rights at all only by Roman
condescension. They could be revoked instantly, and a pogrom begun,
if it suited Roman, especially imperial, pleasure to do so.
These were the four political units which Tracy has rightly described
as defining Philo's political status. It is clear that any serious crisis in
Jewish life at Alexandria would have been complicated by involving all
four of them. The local Jewish political unit would clash with the local
Alexandrian one of the gentiles, while the larger racial feeling of the
Jews, like the larger gentile empire, universalized the local issue. Every
thing in the situation made for uncertainty from the Jewish point of
view. It is obvious that, in a day when even Roman senators had to
guard every reference they made to imperial administration, a Jew in
Alexandria, especially a wealthy Jew and as such one worth crushing,
would have had to be extremely careful in what he said about his Ro
man governors. If he mentioned them at all, it must have been crypti
cally or rhetorically. The statement of James I of England was equally
true of a Jew in Philo's day: "It is atheism and blasphemy to dispute
what God can do;... so it is presumption and high contempt in a
subject to dispute what a king can do, or say that a king cannot do this
or that." In such a case people must express themselves largely in
speeches of flattery and idealism, turn matters as best they can now and
then to the advantage of themselves or of their people, and resist openly