Читать книгу A History of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ - Emil Schürer - Страница 19

We are not required here to take into consideration all the Greek and Roman writers who may have made any sort of contribution to our history, but only those who have contributed something of considerable and permanent value. The Greek and Roman historians whose works are still preserved, afford us only a few notices in regard to the special history of the Jewish people. Of much greater importance are the hints respecting the general characteristics of Judaism which we gather from contemporary authors, especially from satirists like Horace and Juvenal. But of yet higher value are the statements made by those historians who give special consideration to the history of Syria during the reign of the Seleucidae and the Roman period. For the history of Palestine during our period is most intimately linked with the general history of Syria. The historians who treat of the history of that country are therefore to be ranked among the authorities for our history. The most important of these are the following:—

1. Greek Writers

1. POLYBIUS of Megalopolis in Arcadia. He was one of the thousand distinguished Achaeans who in B.C. 167, under suspicion of being ill-affected toward Rome, were transported to Rome, and were detained there, or at least in Italy, for seventeen years. During his long residence in Rome, the conviction gained possession of him that there was a divine reason and need-be for the sovereignty of the Romans. He gave expression to this idea in his great historical work, which in forty books described the gradual upbuilding of the Roman Empire and universal supremacy from B.C. 220 to B.C. 146. Of these only the first five books are preserved in a complete form; of the rest we have only fragments, more or less extensive, contained for the most part in the collection of excerpts by Constantinus Porphyrogennetus. For the purposes of our history, only the best fifteen books, xxvi.–xl., come into consideration. In book xxvi. c. 10, Polybius enters first upon the history of Antiochus Epiphanes.

2. DIODORUS. This historian was born at Agyrium in Sicily, hence called Siculus, and lived during the reigns of Caesar and Augustus. He wrote a large universal history of all times and peoples, which he entitled βιβλιοθήκη. It consisted of forty books, covered a period of eleven hundred years, and reached down to the conquest of Gaul and Britain by Caesar. Of this work there still remain books i.–v., giving the early history of Egypt and Ethiopia, of the Assyrians and the other peoples of the East, as well as the Greeks; books xi.–xx., from the beginning of the second Persian war, B.C. 480, down to the history of the successors of Alexander the Great, B.C. 302; of the other books we have only fragments, for the most part preserved in the collection of excerpts by Constantinus Porphyrogennetus. Some of these fragments have been brought to light only in recent publications by Mai, Müller, and Feder.—For our purpose only the fragment from book xxix. 32, given in Müller, Fragmenta histor. graecor. ii., comes into consideration, where for the first time mention is made of Antiochus Epiphanes.

3. STRABO of Amasia in Pontus lived from about B.C. 60 to A.D. 20; but we cannot precisely determine the date either of his birth or of his death. Of his works we possess only the Γεωγραφικά, in seventeen books, written toward the end of his life, well known as a principal source of information in regard to ancient geography. Among the numerous historical notices interspersed in this great work, we meet with many which are of importance for the history of Syria. In his description of Palestine, xvi. 2. 25–46, Strabo has used, besides other authorities, one which treated of the state of affairs during the ante-Pompeian age, for he speaks of Gaza, which was destroyed by Alexander Jannaeus, as μένουσα ἔρημος (xvi. 2. 30), without mentioning that it had been rebuilt by Gabinius; see Div. ii. vol. i. p. 70. Also, according to the authority used by him, the forcible Judaizing of Joppa and Gazara (Gadara) are fresh in the memory (xvi. 2. 28–29). These statements were perhaps derived from Posidonius, from whom Strabo here frequently quotes.

4. PLUTARCH was born about A.D. 50 at Chaeronea in Boeotia. Trajan bestowed on him consular rank, and Hadrian appointed him Procurator of Greece. We also know that in his native city he filled the office of Archon, and repeatedly presided at the festival of the Pythian Apollo. He died about A.D. 120.—Of his works we have to do with the Biographies, βίοι παράλληλοι, of distinguished men of Greece and Rome, of whom generally two, the one a Greek, the other a Roman, are placed alongside of one another. Somewhere about fifty of these are preserved, among which those of Crassus, Pompey, Caesar, Brutus, and Antony are of special interest in connection with our history.

5. APPIAN. Of Appian’s life very little is known. He says of himself at the conclusion of his historical work: “I am Appian of Alexandria, who attained to the highest position of honour in my own land, and as a jurist conducted processes at Rome before the justiciary courts of the emperor, until the members of court deemed me fit to be made their procurator.” From various passages in his works, it appears that he lived under Trajan, Hadrian, and Antoninus Pius. The composition of his historical work falls in the time of Antoninus Pius, about A.D. 150. It treats of the history of Rome, in twenty-four books. Instead of the synchronistic method, Appian chose to follow rather the ethnographic, “because he wished to give the history of events in each separate country in an unbroken narrative down to the time of its union with Rome. Thus he gives also the history of Rome in a series of special histories of the various lands and people that had been combined with the Roman Empire, describing in detail the history of each from the period of its first contact with Rome down to the time of its absorption into the empire, and then sketching in a brief style the incidents of more recent times” (Bähr in Pauly’s Real-Encyclop.). Of the twenty-four books, the following are extant:—Of books i.–v. and ix., only fragments, but in a complete form; book vi. Ἰβηρική (scil. ἱστορία), vii. Ἀννιβαϊκή, viii. Λιβυκὴ καὶ Καρχηδονική, xi. Συριακὴ καὶ Παρθική (of which the part on the Parthian history is lost), xii. Μιθριδάτειος, xiii.–xvii. Ἐμφύλια (that is, the Civil War), xxiii. Δακική or Ἰλλυρική. The extant five books on the Civil War, xiii.–xvii., are usually cited as Appian. Civ. i. ii. iii. iv. v.; the other books being named according to their contents as Libyca (or Punica), Syriaca, etc.

6. DIO CASSIUS, or, more correctly, Cassius Dio, was born at Nicaea in Bithynia about A.D. 155. He spent the period of his public life in Rome, and occupied successively the positions of aedile, quaestor, praetor, and, about A.D. 221, Consul. He administered the province of Africa as Proconsul. In A.D. 229 he retired from official life. We have no information at all regarding his later days or about the date of his death.—His great work on Roman history was most probably composed about A.D. 211–222, but it was continued by him down to A.D. 229. It consisted of eighty books, and comprised the whole Roman history from the arrival of Aeneas at Latium down to the year 229 after Christ. The following portions are still preserved:—Of the first thirty-four books only short fragments; more considerable pieces of books xxxv. and xxxvi.; books xxxvii.–liv. inclusive are complete, treating of the wars of Lucullus and Pompey with Mithridates, down to the death of Agrippa in B.C. 12; of books lv.–lx. inclusive, we have considerable portions; but of the rest, books lxi.–lxxx., we have only an epitome made by Xiphilinus in the eleventh century; while for the first thirty-four books we have not even this.

2. Latin Writers

1. CICERO was born on 3rd January B.C. 106, at Arpinum, and died on 7th December B.C. 43, a victim of the proscriptions of Antony and Octavian. Cicero’s Orations and Epistles are generally recognised as a main source of information on the history of his times, and especially on the history of Syria during the years B.C. 57–43.

2. LIVY was born at Patavium (Padua) in B.C. 59, and died in the same place A.D. 17. His great historical work treated of the history of Rome from the founding of the city down to the death of Drusus, in 142 books. Of these, only thirty-five have been preserved, namely, the first, third, fourth decade, and the first half of the fifth. For the purpose of our history only the first half of the fifth decade comes into consideration. It comprises books xli.–xlv., dealing with the period B.C. 178–167. The summary of contents of the books that are lost, relating to more recent times, is still of some value to us.

3. MONUMENTUM ANCYRANUM. Augustus at his death left behind him, besides other writings, a review of the most important incidents in his reign, recorded on tablets of brass, and intended to be set up before his Mausoleum (Suetonius, Aug. 101: indicem rerum a se gestarum, quem vellet incidi in aeneis tabulus, quae ante Mausoleum statuerentur). This review has come down to us almost complete in consequence of its having been engraved, according to the Latin text, and in a Greek translation, on the marble walls of the temple of Augustus at Ancyra in Galatia. What is there wanting in the Latin text is so far supplied by the fragments of the Greek translation that only unimportant blanks remain. Another copy of the Greek text is found in a temple at Apollonia in Pisidia, whereof also extracts are still preserved.—This comprehensive documentary memorial is, together with the histories of Dio Cassius and Suetonius, our chief authority for the reign of Augustus.—The most recent and most correct editions are: 1. Perrot, Exploration archéologique de la Galatie et de la Bithynie, etc., 1862–1872, pl. 25–29; 2. Corpus Inscript. Lat. iii. 1873, pp. 769–799, 1054, 1064; 3. Bergk, Augusti rerum a se gestarum indicem, ed. 1873; 4. Mommsen, Res gestae divi Augusti, ex monumentis Ancyrano et Apolloniensi iterum edidit; accedunt tabulae undecim, Berol. 1883, with a thoroughly comprehensive and informing commentary.

4. TACITUS was born about A.D. 55, and was praetor in A.D. 88, and Consul in A.D. 98. The date of his death is unknown. He seems to have been still alive at the beginning of the reign of Hadrian, and may therefore have died somewhere about A.D. 120.—Of his historical works, the Annals, which in sixteen or eighteen books—their exact number is not certainly known—treated of the times of Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero, that is, of the period from A.D. 14 to A.D. 68, are admittedly the most important original authority for the history of these times, and so, too, for the history of Syria. They are arranged annalistically, so that they afford a sure determination of the chronology. A great piece is wanting in the middle. There are extant: books i–iv. complete, v. and vi. partly, and xi.–xvi. defective at the beginning and the end. The portions preserved embrace the period of Tiberius, the second half of the reign of Claudius and that of Nero, with the exception of its close.—Of his other great work, the History, which consisted of twelve or fourteen books, dealing with the reigns of Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian, that is, from A.D. 68 to A.D. 96, only a fragment remains, books i.–iv. and a part of book v., treating of A.D. 68–70. Of special interest for us is Book v. 1–13, where Tacitus, by means of a few graphic strokes, gives a sketch of the history of the Jewish people down to the war with Titus.

5. SUETONIUS. In regard to his life-course, we know that his youth synchronizes with the reign of Domitian, A.D. 81–96; that he had the rank of tribune conferred upon him during the reign of Trajan, A.D. 98–117; and that under Hadrian, A.D. 117–138, he was made magister epistolarum, but afterwards received his dismissal from that emperor. Among his writings only the Vitae XII. Imperatorum come into consideration in connection with our history. The twelve Imperatores are: Caesar, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian.

6. TROGUS POMPEIUS (JUSTINUS) wrote under Augustus a universal history from Ninus down to his own times, in forty-four books, with special reference to the history of Macedonia and the Diadochen dynasty, full of material, carefully compiled and resting on good Greek authorities.—The work itself is lost. Only the lists of contents or prologi of the forty-four books are preserved, and an epitome which a certain Justinus, probably in the age of the Antonines, drew up. Even this short epitome is itself so full of material, that it forms for us an important source of information regarding the Seleucid period.