Vespasian in Alexandria

[Vespasian] was welcomed with great solemnity and enthusiasm. After all, he was the first emperor in history to visit the proud capital of Egypt. Yes, in August of 30 BC, Octavian entered its gates, by then the absolute ruler of the entire Empire, but he was not yet an Emperor: he was to receive the title of Augustus only three years later. Moreover, Octavian appeared on Egyptian soil not as a welcome guest but as a conqueror and victor over Cleopatra, the last rightful ruler of the country.

Thereafter, for almost a hundred years, no emperor appeared in Alexandria. It is true that Nero had had such an intention. Some preparations were even made, and a special bathhouse was built in which Caecinus Tuscus dared to bathe, paying for it with dismissal from office. However, political disturbances thwarted Nero’s plans for the historical journey up the Nile. And although in the last days of his reign, he hoped to escape to Egypt, and even went to Ostia and spent the night of June 8-9 in the Servilian Gardens, it was all too late. Neither did the self-proclaimed Nero from the island of Kythnos ever reach the shores of the Nile.

But Vespasian arrived in Alexandria also as the first Roman Emperor hailed here. The inhabitants were well aware of the importance of the act that had taken place in their city just six months earlier, on July 1, 69. They proudly proclaimed that they had done the right thing then and that both Fate and the gods had since favored their decision. The recent victory at Bedriacum clearly proved this.

News about the wonderful victory caused genuine joy among the masses. Everyone knew well what terrible revenge Vitellius would have taken on Alexandria if he had won: he would have crushed the city that had initiated the rebellion mercilessly! There were many reasons for sincere joy. This one was the most important among them: their emperor, who owed so much to Alexandria, was expected to shower the city with privileges and favors—and many of its representatives especially. Therefore, huge crowds gathered in front of the eastern gate and at the hippodrome to see their chosen as soon as possible and give him a stormy ovation. It was the same hippodrome in which, several months earlier, their Prefect Tiberius Alexander announced their new emperor to the people. And now here they stood: city aldermen, councilors and advisors, priests of all legally recognized cults, scholars of the Museon, representatives of guilds and charitable associations, as well as delegations from all the administrative districts across the country.

We have already mentioned the preserved fragments of the papyrus describing the ceremony. The Prefect, turning to the people, thundered:

“All power and might to our emperor!”

And to the people, he presented him as a deity who finally deigned to reveal himself:

“Here is Vespasian, our savior and benefactor, the emerging sun!”[1]

Of course, all these Greek terms: soter—savior, euergetes— benefactor, helios anatellon—the rising sun, had their own ancient tradition in the Hellenistic religion. They were generously and easily showered on almost every ruler because… they cost nothing. Fifty years earlier, the residents of Alexandria welcomed with those same monickers someone who was only a member of the ruling family.

He was Germanicus, appointed by Emperor Tiberius as the governor of the East. Terrified by these exaggerated titles, which could arouse suspicion on the part of the always distrustful emperor, Germanicus immediately reprimanded the flatterers with a threatening edict:

I accept the kindness you show me at every meeting. However, I firmly reject such epithets. They arouse envy by putting me on equal standing with the gods. They befit only the benefactor of all mankind, my father, and his mother (Tiberius and Livia). Your acclamations are an insult to their divinity. I forbid them. And if you are disobedient in this matter, I will never visit you again![2]

These terms—savior, benefactor, rising sun—were soon to be appropriated by Christianity. They would enter the liturgical language of the Church and remain part of it down to the present. Few, beyond a handful of researchers, are aware of their lineage, the circumstances and political implications of their original meaning, and what factors contributed to their widespread dissemination in the Greco-Roman world.

Vespasian, as emperor, was fully entitled to these divine names, and for the reasons already indicated, the Prefect’s invocation met with a lively response from the people. Tens of thousands of citizens of the metropolis filling the huge hippodrome responded with loud cheers and applause, loudly chanting and repeating over and over the Greek words:

Kyrie hemon, Euerget, Sebaste, Serapis!

That is:

“Our Lord, Our Benefactor, Augustus, Serapis!”

And Serapis was the most revered deity of Alexandria. There were also cries here and there calling Vespasian the son of the god Ammon or simply—a god.

Next, various important guests delivered short speeches, probably in Latin, since protocol contains the Latin words of the Prefect: “The Emperor says that he wishes you health!”

This line, too, was greeted with a storm of applause.

[1] Papyrus Fouad, 1, 8

[2] A.S. Hunt, C.C. Edgar, Select Papyri, v I,  II no. 211

FROM Aleksander Krawczuk "Rome and Jerusalem" Out March 15, 2024

Preorder here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CQXD4HGK

WHITE JAGUAR 5 OUT TODAY

A labor of love. If you are following the series, tell me what you think. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CQXGPGQ4

A warm wave of feeling overcame my heart, and I picked up the child and raised it high over my head. And then, speaking in Arawak so that all my friends could understand me, I delivered the best speech of my life:

“My beloved son Meru,” I said. “I’m filled with so much emotion that I must speak to you now, for I cannot wait, or my heart will burst. I speak to you now even though you cannot understand me, and it will be years before others repeat these words to you.

“You have a half-brother, a little older than you, a son of your mother and of a great brave warrior who died in battle on Robinson’s Island, and this brother you will always love dearly and honor and respect. And when you grow up, my son, my Hummingbird, you too will have a son, and that son will have a son, and his son will have a son, and a grandson, and a great-grandson. And they will all know that they are the descendants of a man called White Jaguar. And one day, one of these descendants will visit the place your father has come from, Virginia; or maybe even the country of his mother—Poland. And when he does, he will tell the people there about his ancestor, the White Jaguar. And he will tell them that White Jaguar was a great warrior, but more importantly, that he was a great friend of the Arawak nation. For more than war, he loved peace and friendship and this land of the Orinoco and all its birds, and fish, and animals, and all the people who live in it.”

ONIAS'S TEMPLE

There was a town on the eastern branch of the Nile, a town with a temple in which not one but a pair of lions were worshipped. The lions symbolized the deities Shu and Tefnet, a brother-and-sister pair, who were also a husban-and-wife. They were the children of Atum, the great lord of nearby Heliopolis. As a couple, they were commonly referred to as ruti and piloted the Heavenly Barge of Morning and Evening—that barge with which the souls of the dead had to merge by the use of special prayers in order to soar freely above the mortal earth.

This is how things had stood in ancient times, under the old Egyptian pharaohs. In time, the temple fell into disuse and around 160 BC, the Macedonian King of Egypt, Ptolemy VI, gifted its grounds to a foreigner named Onias.

That Onias was a Jew, a descendant of an illustrious family of high priests. He fled from Judea when the Syrian king Antiochus, then the ruler of the whole of Palestine, gave custody of the Temple of Jerusalem to another family, one more submissive to his will. Long enemy of Antiochus, Ptolemy gave a warm welcome to the Judean exile. And the exile, in turn, wishing to repay the king for his hospitality, proposed an extraordinary plan:

Since Antiochus had desecrated the Temple of Jerusalem, it seemed right and proper to erect a new Jewish temple elsewhere, outside of that king’s reach. And if so, then why not do this on Egyptian soil? Thereby, Ptolemy would win over all the Jewish opponents of Antiochus: why, many would probably leave Palestine and settle on the Nile precisely because they here would be allowed to serve their Lord God in peace and in accordance with the Law.

Ptolemy decided that the plan made political sense and granted to Onias that unused plot of land in Leontopolis. Construction work began immediately, with the support of at least some members of the Jewish diaspora—a diaspora so numerous in Egypt. The temple itself was built in the shape of a tower, 60 cubits high. An altar was set up for the offering of animals, modeled on the altar of Jerusalem. Superb liturgical robes were prepared. Only the seven-branched candlestick that had stood in the Temple of Jerusalem was absent. In its place, a giant lamp, forged of pure gold, was suspended from the ceiling on a chain of wrought gold.

The temple grounds were surrounded by a wall of fired brick, and the gate was framed with stone pylons, modeled on those of Egyptian temples. The cost of the maintenance of the temple and of the daily offerings was covered by the income of a plot of arable land graciously granted by the king.

The very existence of the temple in Leontopolis went against the ancient Judean tradition which held that legitimate sacrifices to the God of the Jews could only be made in one place—in the Temple of Jerusalem on Temple Mount—and that only huses of prayer (synagogues) could exist outside the holy city. The political claim of Judea aside, many Jews of Judea were afraid that the new center of worship might cause religious division, dilute the sense of Jewish unity, and reduce the revenues of the Temple and of the city of Jerusalem—which both earned from the Jews of the diaspora.

As it happened, the hopes and ambitions of Onias and his king were not fulfilled and no mass migration from Judea took place: Judea soon gained full independence, the Temple of Jerusalem was reconsecrated and functioned successfully for several decades, well into the Roman times. And yet, the colony of Leontopolis lived on for many generations, and its memory has survived to this day in the Arabic name of the place: Tel-el-Yehudiyeh—Jews' Hill.

Numerous remains of the settlement persist in the form of inscribed tombstones. Today, they are chiefly housed in the museums of Cairo, Alexandria, Louvre, and Saint Petersburg.

The inscriptions are in Greek, and the names of the deceased are sometimes Greek (Aristobulus, Alexander, Onesimus, Glaukias, Theodora, Arsinoe, Demas, Nicanor, Hilarion, Philip, Dositheus, Nicomedes, Elpis); sometimes Hebrew (James, Joseph, Judas, Samuel, Jesus, Nathan, Onias, Barchias, Rachelis, Joannes, Eleazar (that is to say, Lazarus), Sabbataeus, Sambaios; and sometimes formally Greek, but really Judean: Salamis (Salome), Marin (Mary), Irene (a translation of Salome, meaning Peace).

Here are typical epitaphs from Leontopolis:

“Eleazar, noble and popular, aged thirty. (Died) year Two of Caesar, 20th Mehir”.

By our reckoning, then, Lazarus died on 14 February 28 BC. (The “Caesar” of the inscription, is Octavian, who later became Emperor Augustus).

Another inscription, missing its top, is more eloquent:

“You who loved your brothers, who loved your children, who was kind to all, goodbye! May the earth cradle you gently. She died aged about 45. Year 19, which some people reckon as Year 3, the 5th of Pachon.”

This double dating allows us to establish, that the woman whose name we do not know, died in 35 BC, on April 30, during the reign of the infamous Queen Cleopatra VII, the last ruler of independent Egypt, the beloved of Antony.

Several longer inscriptions remain:

“O passerby, cry for me, a mature girl. I lived a blissful life in luxurious chambers. I had my whole trousseau ready for my wedding, but I died prematurely. Instead of a marriage bed, this gloomy grave awaited me. When the clatter of wedding knockers rang out, it announced my death. Like a rose in a garden full of dew, Hades suddenly snatched me away. Passerby, I was only twenty.”

The opening and closing lines of the inscription are verisified. Other inscriptions are all in verse:

“Passenger, I am Jesus, son of Phameios. I descended to Hades at the age of 60. Mourn for me all of you, me, who has suddenly departed into the abyss of ages to dwell hereafter in the dark. Cry also you, o Dositheus! You, of all, should shed the most painful tears for you are now my successor since I have died without issue. All of you who gather here, weep for unfortunate Jesus!”

From Aleksander Krawczuk's "Rome and Jerusalem", the concluding volume of the Jewish Trilogy

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CQXD4HGK

Illustration by Jean-Claude Golvin, a French archaeologist and architect. He specializes in the history of Roman amphitheaters and has published hundreds of reconstruction drawings of ancient monuments. Golvin is a researcher with the CNRS at the Bordeaux Montaigne University.