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Sabazius and the Jews in Valerius Maximus: a Re-examination

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

Eugene N. Lane
Affiliation:
University of Missouri—Columbia

Extract

There has long been accepted as a fact in the study of the cult of Sabazius an ostensible reference to Jews who, as early as 139 B.C., worshipped Sabazius, and were expelled from Rome by the praetor peregrinus Cornelius Hispalus. The source of this information is often given without qualification as Valerius Maximus, 1, 3, 2. Even Eisele's thorough and generally sceptical article, s.v. ‘Sabazius’, in Roscher's Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie (1909), accepts the statement and gives the usual indication of its source. The passage is generally cited as follows:

Cn. Cornelius Hispalus praetor peregrinus, M. Popilio Laenate, L. Calpurnio consulibus, edicto Chaldaeos citra decimum diem abire ex urbe atque Italia iussit, levibus et ineptis ingeniis fallaci siderum interpretatione quaestuosam mendaciis suis caliginem inicientes. Idem Iudaeos, qui Sabazi Iovis cultu Romanos inficere mores conati erant, repetere domos suas coegit.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright ©Eugene N. Lane 1979. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 More correctly Cn. Cornelius Scipio Hispanus, Broughton, T. R. S., The Magistrates of the Roman Republic 1 (1950), 482.Google Scholar

2 CRAI 1906, 63 f. Some of my criticisms are anticipated by E. Bickermann, RIDA 5 (1958), 146, n. 25 and 148, n. 32.

3 op. cit., 263–4.

4 Judaism and Hellenism 1 (1974), 263.

5 Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism 1 (1976), no. 147.

6 The Jews of Ancient Rome (1960), 3 f.

7 op. cit. (n. 5), 359.

8 Studies in Jewish Hellenism (1960), 166. Alessandrí, S., Stud. Class, e Or. 17 (1968), 187 f.Google Scholar, wishes altogether to deny the historicity of the expulsion of the Jews from Rome in 139 B.C. on the grounds that (1) it is not mentioned by any other source, (2) it is historically improbable that such an expulsion took place during a period of good diplomatic relations between Rome and the Jews, and (3) it is unlikely that there was any permanent community of Jews in Rome at so early a time. The author is also troubled by the association of Sabazius with the Jews in Paris' version, something which he attributes to the probable intrusion of a marginal gloss. Although the article does not directly address the problem which concerns us here, it is valuable in showing that the same passage presents no small number of difficulties when considered from other angles. Nonetheless, I find it hard to accept Alessandrí's conclusion that Valerius Maximus deliberately invented the expulsion-story, in order to find favour with Tiberius.

9 I bracket simulato, as it is an addition to the text repeated by Kappius from Torrenius' 1726 edition, but omitted by Kempf and more recent editors. I have also regularized Kappius' spelling and punctuation somewhat.

10 See Kempf's edition of Valerius Maximus (1854), 78.

11 Kempf, op. cit., 81–2. The Berlin MS appears to be dependent on the Bern MS, at least in this particular.

12 Kempf, op. cit., 78–9.

13 The dates given for Paris and Nepotianus are those given by Kempf, op. cit., 46.

14 The editio princeps of Paris' epitome is in vol. III, pt. iii of A. Mai, Scriptorum veterum nova collectio e vaticanis codicibus edita ab Angelo Maio (1825–38). I have followed D. M. Schullian, Studies in honour of Ullman (1960), 93, in referring to this manuscript as Vat. Lat. 4929, although Kempf refers to it as 4229. Billanovich, G., Aevum 30 (1956), 319 f.Google Scholar, wishes to date both Vat. Lat. 4929 and Bernensis 366 to the ninth century. He also wishes to ascribe to Lupus of Ferrières (d. 862) the insertion of material from Julius Paris into the lacuna in the text of Valerius Maximus. He is of the opinion that both the text of Julius Paris used by Lupus and that of Vat. Lat. 4929 are derived from an edition made at Ravenna by a certain Rusticus Helpidius in the second quarter of the sixth century, as part of an historical and geographical encyclopaedia, including also such authors as Pomponius Mela and Vibius Sequester. Vat. Lat. 4929, in Billanovich's opinion, was written by Heiric of Auxerre (d. 876–7), a pupil of Lupus, and contains the same work as Rusticus' encyclopaedia.

We do not need here to pass judgement on the rightness or wrongness of Billanovich's arguments, which, nonetheless, appear to me more enthusiastic than objective. Suffice it to say that Billanovich nowhere addresses himself to our question, namely divergences between the Julius Paris of Bernensis 366 and that of Vat. Lat. 4929. If one accepts his arguments, then on the basis of the hypothesis here advanced, one would have to add to them that Heiric had before him a text of Nepotianus (or the like), whereas his master Lupus for some reason did not.

15 Kempf, op. cit., 67–9.

16 For this inscription and the history of its readings, see most recently E. Schwertheim and S. Sahin, ZPE 24 (1977), 260–1.

17 Mihailov, , IG Bulg 11, 678.Google Scholar

18 I would like to thank Professors A. Thomas Kraabel and Sherman E. Johnson for their help and suggestions in correspondence, which aided me in defining the ideas presented in this paper. Valuable suggestions were also made by the Editorial Committee.

19 Numen 23 (1976), 40 f., especially 52–6.

20 op. cit., 55.

21 Wasps, 8–10; Birds, 876; Lysistrata, 388; Horae, frag. 566 (Edmonds). All these seem to indicate that Sabazius is an ecstatic divinity.

22 Charact. 16, 4.

23 L. Robert, CRAI 1975, 306–30.

24 Dittenberger, OGIS, no. 331 = Welles, C. B., Royal Correspondence (1934), nos. 65–6Google Scholar.

25 Dörner, F. K., Inschriften und Denkmäler aus Bithynien (1941), 62, no., 34Google Scholar.

26 RIDA 5 (1958), 137 f., especially 148–50. See n. 2 above.