Yet significant changes, both good and bad, occurred in other areas.
The abolition of Ptolemaic monopolies opened new possibilities in the
local economy, so that a few generations afterward we find wealthy Jews
living in Alexandria as shipowners, merchants, and moneylenders
(Philo,Flacc.57). This status may well have increased the competition
that already existed between the Jews and the upper strata of the Greek
population.
Not all Jews, however, benefited from the change in rule. Jews serving
in the Ptolemaic army, for example, lost their source of income when it
was disbanded. Jews working in the administration simply disappear from
the papyri of the Roman period, a fact that scholars relate to the preference
now accorded to Greeks.
Frustration on both sides may have exacerbated underlying competi-
tion. The Greeks resented the loss of their political freedom when Augus-
tus abolished their civic council, theboul 3 .They regarded this act as an in-
justice, especially in view of the confirmation of Jewish religious rights.
Other changes of policy were resented by the Jews, among them the special
status granted to the Greek cities(poleis),which allowed them a kind of
fictitious freedom. Alexandria, for example, was calledAlexandria ad
Aegyptum —“by Egypt,” not “in Egypt” — as if to underline its (obviously
fictitious) independent status. More significantly, the Greek cities received
economic privileges such as exemption from the poll tax(laographia),
which all Egyptians had to pay on the principle that a conquered people
should render tribute. Descendants of mixed marriages had to pay the tax
at reduced rates. To obtain an exemption, it was necessary to demonstrate
one’s right to citizenship in one of the country’s Greek cities.
No legal source tells us whether the Jews were considered Greeks or
Egyptians, but from the very beginning of the Roman period Jews began
lodging complaints. In a petition written to the prefect of Egypt under Au-
gustus (CPJ2:151), a Jew named Helenos son of Tryphon complains of an
injury done to him by a financial office of the government. Helenos con-
tested the decision, which evidently concerned payment of the poll tax,
and asserted his right to be exempt since his father was an Alexandrian cit-
izen and he himself had always lived in the city of Alexandria and received
“the appropriate education” as far as his father’s means allowed. Helenos
styled himself “an Alexandrian,” but the scribe who wrote the letter for
him struck out this word and in its place wrote “a Jew from Alexandria.”
This is an extremely significant change, since “Alexandrian” meant a citi-
zen of the Greek city, while “a Jew from Alexandria” meant a person who382miriam pucci ben zeevEERDMANS -- Early Judaism (Collins and Harlow) final text
Tuesday, October 09, 2012 12:04:16 PM