424 Erich S. Gruen
repeatedly rehearsed, should be consigned to oblivion. The contest, such as it was,
ended quite some time ago. There is hardly a “primordialist” to be found in the academy
any longer. General agreement holds that ethnicity is largely a concocted notion,
probably not much older than the mid-twentieth century, subjective and contrived, a
social discourse rather than a historical reality (Smith 1986: 6–18; Hall 1997: 17–33;
Malkin 2001: 7–19; Hall 2002: 9–19). A painful irony adheres to the fact that, just as
scholars have demonstrated (to their own satisfaction) the fictive character of ethnicity,
the world is increasingly embroiled with real and ferocious friction over perceptions
of ethnicity.
Perceptions matter. And they mattered in antiquity as well as the present. For a subor-
dinate people dwelling in a society where a dominant power prevailed and governed, the
constructs could have potent force. Mutual perceptions could affect attitudes, mold poli-
cies, and determine actions (or justify them). The Jews of antiquity offer a compelling
instance. The diaspora dispersed them around the Mediterranean and well beyond it,
both east and west, into a wide array of lands, most of which would come under the
sway of the Roman Empire. Unlike the vast majority of peoples under Rome’s domin-
ion, however, Jews left a host of writings in a range of genres and a variety of voices that
articulated their impressions and framed their portraits of the imperial authority. Roman
writers in turn were hardly shy about characterizing this peculiar people in their midst
and scattered across their empire. Constructs multiplied and fluctuated on both sides.
We are fortunate in having a relatively rich corpus. How do we interpret this? More
particularly, to what degree do these perceptions and expressions constitute judgments
on ethnicity?
Resistance and Reaction
A Jewish uprising of major magnitude occurred in 66–70CE, roiling the land of the Jews
and enraging its Roman overseer. The consequences of this devastating war, as much
an internal as an external conflict, were calamitous: the destruction of the Temple, the
removal of Jewish leadership, the imposition of direct Roman rule, and the permanent
installation of a Roman legion in Jerusalem. Lingering bitterness and hostility could be
expected to endure, reflected in the representations conveyed by each people of the other.
Tacitus composed hisHistoriesa generation after the Jewish War, and he prefaced
his account of it with an ethnographic excursus on the Jews, or, at least, a facsimile
thereof. The presentation contains, on the face of it, considerable animus, contempt, and
denigration. Among other things, Tacitus brands Jewish customs as foul and depraved,
accuses Jews of fierce odium against all peoples other than themselves, and sums up their
alien character by asserting that they regard as profane everything that Romans consider
sacred, and vice-versa. As subjects of a long series of foreign rulers, they were the most
despised of dependents (Tac.Hist. 5.4.1, 5.5.1, 5.5.5, 5.8.2).
Jewish reactions to the loss of the Temple and subjugation of the people could be
equally ferocious. Upheaval surfaced only to be crushed in various places of the dias-
pora under Trajan, and a rebellion in Palestine was brutally repressed in the time of
Hadrian. Whatever the facts on the ground, however, voices of resistance were not stilled.
They emerge most dramatically in apocalyptic visions. The Sibylline Oracles, composed