The Acta Hermaisci – whose formal document reference is ‘P. Oxy. 1242’ – is part of the collection of ancient Greek and Roman documents usually called the Acta Alexandrinorum that is in term often referred to as ‘The Acts of the Pagan Martyrs’ or ‘The Pagan Acts of the Martyrs’ in English. It is what we call several fragments of a – largely fictional – (1) dialogue between two delegations from the second city of the Roman Empire Alexandria – one Greek and one jewish – to the Emperor Trajan dating to c. 100-200 A.D. (2) and is one of several of the Acta Alexandrinorum that are ‘violently anti-Semitic’ (3) from the perspective of Greco-Roman paganism.
The events recounted in the Acta Hermaisci are believed to have occurred before 114 A.D. (4) but are interesting from an anti-Semitic perspective in part because they show both that conventional anti-Semitic thought – often claimed by jews to be a ‘Christian invention’ – (5) substantially predates Christianity becoming the main religion of Western Europe but also isn’t just religious in character but also ethnic and racial.
This is obvious enough by simply reading the Acta Hermaisci which is as follows:
‘Dionysius, who had held many procuratorships, and Salvius, Julius Slavius, Timagens, Pastor the gymnasiarch, Julius Phanias, Philoxenus the gymnasiarch-elect, Sotion the gymnasiarch, Theon, Athenodorus, and Paulus of Tyre, who offered his services as advocate for the Alexandrians. When the Jews learned this, they too elected envoys from their own group, and thus were chosen Simon, Glaucon, Theudes, Onias, Colon, Jacob, with Sopatros of Antioch as their advocate. They set sail, then, from the city, each party taking along its own gods, the Alexandrians (a bust of Serapis, the Jews…).
[…]
‘He conversed with their companions; and when the winter was over they arrived at Rome. The emperor learned that the Jewish and Alexandrian envoys had arrived, and appointed the day on which he would heard both parties. And Plotina approached the senators in order that they might oppose the Alexandrians and support the Jews. Now the Jews, who were the first to enter, greeted Emperor Trajan, and the emperor returned their greeting most cordially, having already been won over by Plotina. After them the Alexandrian envoy enter and greeted the emperor. He, however, did not go to meet them, but said:
‘You say “hail” to me as thought to deserved to receive a greeting – after what you have dared to do to the Jews!’
[…]
‘[Trajan:] ‘You must be eager to die, having such contempt for death as to answer even me with insolence.’
Hermaiscus said: ‘Why, it grieves us to see your Privacy Council filled with impious Jews.’
Caesar said: ‘This is the second time I am telling you, Hermaiscus: you are answering me insolently, taking advantage of your birth.’
Hermaiscus said: ‘What do you mean, I answer you insolently, greatest emperor? Explain this to me.’
Caesar said: ‘Pretending that my Council is filled with Jews.’
Hermaiscus said: ‘So, then, the word “Jew” is offensive to you? In that case you rather ought to help your own people and not play the advocate for the impious Jews.’
As Hermaiscus was saying this, the bust of Serapis that they carried suddenly broke into a sweat, and Trajan was astounded when he saw it. And soon tumultuous crowds gathered in Rome and numerous shouts rang forth, and everyone began to flee to the highest parts of the hills […].’ (6)
We can see here how the delegations of Greeks and jews from Alexandria are going to Rome to have their case heard by the Emperor Trajan. It seems the Greeks are the ones going to Rome because of their grievances against the jews in Alexandria, which occurred repeatedly with a similar delegation being recorded in the time of the Emperors Caligula and Claudius.
We know of the delegation to the Emperor Caligula because it is recorded by the jewish writer Philo of Alexandria in his ‘On the Embassy to Gaius’ (Gaius = Caligula) – which it is believed the Acta Hermaisci may have drawn upon as inspiration for their dialogue – (7) and the Emperor Claudius’ own response to an embassy of this kind circa 41 A.D. that I have previously commented on (8) and which I reproduce for context:
‘As for who were responsible for the outbreak and insurrection, or rather, if we must designate it correctly, for the wars against the Jews , although your envoys and especially Dionysius son of Theon distinguished themselves in argument with their (Jewish) adversaries, I nevertheless decided not to investigate the matter thoroughly, and I entered into the ledgers of my mind a ruthless indignation against whichever nation recommences hostilities; I now emphatically give warning that if the two peoples do not desist from their disastrous and contumacious hatred of one another, I shall be compelled to show what a benevolent ruler can be when is roused to righteous anger. Therefore I solemnly conjure the Alexandrians to behave with forbearance and kindness towards the Jews who have for a long time lived in the same city, and not to obstruct any of their customary rites in the cult of their god, but to permit them to observe the customs they followed in the time of the Divine Augustus, which I now sanction, after hearing both sides of the case. On the other hand, I now order the Jews not to agitate for more privileges than those they have long enjoyed, and not again to have the unprecedented insolence to send out their own ambassadors as though they were living in a separate state, and furthermore (I order them) not to force their way into games and contests held by the gymnasiarchs and cosmetae (officers who presided over the physical and intellectual education of the Greek youth in Alexandria) while they (the Jews) reap the profits of their own special privileges and, living in a city that is not their own, enjoy all the bountiful advantages of that city, furthermore (I order the Jews) not to import or bring in (i.e., into Alexandria) by ship Jews from Asia Minor or Egypt (from which Alexandria was administratively separated) , a procedure that must excite in me the gravest suspicions. Otherwise (i.e., if the Jews do not obey), I will by all means take vengeance on them as fomenters of what is a universal plague throughout the civilised world.
If both peoples, desisting from these practices, are willing to live together with tolerance and kindness toward one another, I, for my part, will show the utmost concern for the prosperity of the city (Alexandria) as being one joined to us by friendship from the time of our ancestors.
I assure you that my friend, (Tiberius Claudius) Barbillus (one of six Roman citizens among the twelve envoys from Alexandria), has always shown solicitude for your welfare whenever he appeared before me, and he now championed your cause with great zeal and distinction, and the same goes for my friend, Tiberius Claudius Archibius (another one of the envoys). Farewell.’ (9)
As you can see from Claudius’ rather exacerbated tone to both embassies – but particularly towards the jews – this had been an ongoing and repetitive problem for the Roman Emperors for some years and Claudius would have been aware of the similar spat that had occurred during his nephew Caligula’s rule that immediately preceded his own and was documented by Philo.
What is particularly notable in Claudius’ response is his injunction towards the jews to ‘not to agitate for more privileges than those they have long enjoyed, and not again to have the unprecedented insolence to send out their own ambassadors as though they were living in a separate state’, which suggests that the primary issue that the Alexandrians had was that the jews kept agitating for a superior status (‘more privileges’) than the other residents of Alexandria – they had been doing this against the Greeks and Egyptians in Alexandria since the time of its founding by Alexander the Great (10) and Rome itself against the Romans since at least the time of Julius Caesar – (11) and as such Claudius was ordering the jews to stop ‘causing trouble’ by demanding that they be treated as superior to the Greek and Egyptian residents of the city.
We can see that jews were not exactly ‘good citizens’ in the empires which followed Alexander the Great’s conquest or in the Roman Empire. This can also be seen in the fact that in the classical world the jews were the worst subversives and troublemakers in the entirety of Western Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.
The Acta Hermaisci’s references to a jewish conspiracy against the Romans are not without foundation either since they were expelled from the city of Rome in 139 B.C. for trying to subvert the Roman Republic via religion. (12)
As Valerius Maximus relates:
‘Story as recorded by Julius Paris: During the consulship of Marcus Popillius Laenas and Gnaeus Calpurnius, the praetor for foreigners, Gnaeus Cornelius Hispanus, issued an edict ordering the Chaldaeans to leave the city and Italy within ten days. The praetor felt that they deceived frivolous and silly people with their dishonest interpretation of the stars and cultivated a money-making air of obscurity with their lies. The Jews had tried to corrupt Roman values with their cult of Jupiter Sabazius, so the praetor forced them go to back to their home.
Story as recorded by Nepotianus: Cornelius Hispanus expelled the Chaldaeans from the city and ordered them to leave Italy within ten days to prevent them making money out of their foreign science. The Jews had tried to pass their religion on to Romans, so Hispanus expelled them from the city and demolished their private altars in all public places.’ (13)
While in the first century B.C. Cicero raged against the power of the ‘god-fearers’ (non-jews who couldn’t/wouldn’t convert to Judaism, but who swore to serve jews as agents of their agenda; this is precursor concept to the Noahide) and the jews in Rome in his famous speech ‘Pro-Flacco’, (14) while Juvenal, (15) Martial, (16) Tacitus, (17) Seneca the Younger (18) and Ovid (19) repeatedly attacked the jews, their religious practices and their subversive influence in the Roman Empire between the beginning the first century B.C. and the end of the first century A.D.
This is hardly surprising since jewry’s record at this time was truly atrocious since they had been expelled from Rome by the Emperor Tiberius for getting up to their old tricks again and trying to subvert the Roman state via converting Roman citizens into ‘god-fearers’ and then convincing them to act as a fifth column against the Roman Empire. (20)
As Suetonius relates:
‘He abolished foreign cults at Rome, particularly the Egyptian and Jewish, forcing all citizens who had embraced their superstitious faiths to burn their religious vestments and other accessories. Jews of military age were removed to unhealthy regions, on the pretext of drafting them into the army; the others of the same race or of similar beliefs were expelled from the city and threatened with slavery if they defied the order. Tiberius also banished all astrologers except such as asked for his forgiveness and undertook to make no more predictions.’ (21)
The reference to the expulsion of jews by Tiberius may well be an indirect reference to the power of Tiberius’ ruthless enforcer Aelius Sejanus during the latter part of his reign where he ruled Rome from the island of Capri. Since Sejanus had realized the growing power of the jews in Rome and sought to break it using the full force of the Roman state (22) of which part may well have been the appointment of the ruthless military man Pontius Pilate as governor of Judea. (23)
Following this Sejanus – who has been unfairly traduced by history – was toppled from Tiberius’ favour in unclear circumstances, but those behind it may well have been the very jews and ‘god-fearers’ he sought to cleanse from the corridors of power across the Roman Empire.
After the death of Tiberius, we see the rise of Caligula who – like Sejanus – has been unfairly traduced by history as a ‘mad man’ when in fact he was actually a pretty good ruler if an eccentric one at times. (24) Who by all accounts was a violent foe of the jews and to whom we know of a jewish embassy pleading for Caligula to stop his program of civilizing Judea by putting up statues of gods and himself across the jewish client state.
After Caligula was murdered and the praetorian guard gave his uncle Claudius the purple toga of the emperor of Rome; this program of romanization in Judea seems to have ceased or at least slowed down. Part of the reason for this can likely be found in the jewish embassy from Alexandria to Claudius of which we have a record and from which I have already quoted Claudius’ response to it above.
However, a much more important reason was the role of jews as allies of Claudius in establishing his position as Roman emperor. (25)
Thus, with advent of Claudius jews and their ‘god-fearer’ allies came back into power in Rome and across the empire with a vengeance. As Leon puts it:
‘Among the earliest official acts of Claudius’ regime was the issuance of edicts addressed to various parts of the Empire affirming the special rights and privileges of the Jews, disclaiming the oppressive acts of Gaius [= Caligula], and emphasizing the Emperor’s high regard for the brother kings, Agrippa and Herod, and his confidence in the loyalty and friendship of the Jews toward the Roman people. Because of renewed riots between Jews and Greeks in Alexandria – this time the Jews seem to have been the aggressors – Claudius dispatched sharp instructions to the government of that city to restore order and respect the rights of the Jews, at the same time warning both factions to keep the peace.’ (26)
Jews also caused a problem for Claudius in the city of Rome itself with Suetonius recording that:
‘It now became illegal for foreigners to adopt the names of Roman families, and any who usurped the rights of Roman citizens were executed in the Esquiline Field.
[…]
Because the Jews at Rome caused continuous disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, he expelled them from the city.’ (27)
Now ‘Chrestus’ is just the transliteration for the Greek term ‘Christus’ (aka ‘Messiah’) and does not reference Christianity at all (although that hasn’t stopped Christians trying to style it as a historical reference to many Christians being in Rome at this very early period) but rather it refers to a jewish Messiah type figure who arose in Rome (or whose followers were very influential in Rome) in the reign of Claudius and whose rebellion the Roman authorities proceeded to put down hard (28) just as they had done with jews behaving in a similar way during the Roman Republic in 136 B.C. and during the reign of Tiberius.
Jewish power via their network of ‘god-fearers’ continued to grow in the reign of Claudius and when his adopted son Nero – the son of his fourth wife Agrippina the Younger – married his second wife Poppaea Sabina – who is notorious among scholars of Roman history of being a ‘god-fearer’ and a willing agent of the jews – (29) whom promptly began interceding with Nero to protect jews as well as fellow ‘god-fearers’ from Roman justice in addition to promoting jewish interests in Nero’s court. (30)
There is an even a long-standing jewish rumour repeated in the Talmud that Nero did in fact convert to Judaism during this period. (31) Whether it is true or not is immaterial but it does indicate how close jewry got to subverting the Roman Empire from within during Nero’s reign.
The long-standing jewish plot to take the city of Rome via a palace coup combined with a general rising against the non-jews then began to fruition when Poppaea Sabina married the Emperor Nero between 59-62 A.D. – Tacitus says 59 A.D. but historians have backdated this to 62 A.D. – and in 64 A.D. that rising happened with it being signaled by the beginning of the Great Fire of Rome and for their crime of arson, mass murder and subversion thousands of ‘Chrestians’ (that’s what Tacitus actually states not ‘Christians’; remember the ‘Chrestus’ who was making trouble for Claudius in Rome just a few years earlier) were executed by being torn apart by dogs in the arena, being crucified along the roads leading into Rome and also being famously used as human torches to light up Nero’s gardens at night. (32)
Indeed, Seneca the Younger – Nero’s advisor and tutor – is quite clear that jews started the Great Fire of Rome and no one else. (31)
We can see this echoed in what happens next in that Nero promptly kicked Poppaea Sabina to death – for what reason we aren’t told other than he was ‘in a rage’ (presumably after he’d found out how deeply implicated she was in the jewish conspiracy to take control of the Roman Empire) – in 65 A.D. the year after the Great Fire of Rome in 64 A.D. and two years after the failure of the jewish scheme to take the city of Rome via a palace coup combined with a general rising against the non-jews and a year after Nero had murdered Poppaea Sabina as well as the fact that a mass purge of ‘god-fearers’ had begun throughout the Roman Empire at this point, which was wildly popular with the Roman citizenry who had groaned under an ever increasing jewish tyranny for decades at that point. (32)
What happened you ask?
The first jewish revolt in 66 A.D. which was to militarily occupy Rome and its legions until 73 A.D. but even Rome had not stamped out jewish influence as they brought large numbers of jews back to Rome as slaves and because the new emperor (Vespasian) was the general whom Nero had had destroy the rebellious jewish forces. It so happened that Vespasian brought back at least one jew to Rome with him – in the form of the famous jewish historian Flavius Josephus (and where one jew is there are at least several others) – while his son and successor to the purple Titus was also having a torrid love affair with Herod Aggripa’s daughter Berenice. So had a jewess in his bed whispering ‘advice’ into his ear in return for engaging in sexual favours for her erstwhile lord and master.
So jewish power in Rome was not broken by Nero’s purge in the wake of the Great Fire of Rome in 64 A.D. nor by Vespasian and Titus’ destruction of rebellious jews in Judea, but continued on because jews were allowed to exist in Rome albeit usually as slaves, but in time some of those slaves became freedmen and Roman citizens. Then they began to plot to bring about the downfall of Rome again resulting in multiple additional jewish revolts in Judea and elsewhere leading to another massive near simultaneous jewish revolt across the entire Mediterranean from North Africa (primarily Egypt and Libya) to Judea to Cyprus to Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq) from 115 to 117 A.D. during the Emperor Trajan’s reign with the Acta Hermaisci being written later to suggest that Trajan was insufficiently ruthless and violent enough towards the subversive and perfidious jews because his wife Pompeia Plotina was – like Poppaea Sabina – a ‘god-fearer’ and an agent of the jews.
There is no evidence that this was true or that wife Pompeia Plotina moderated Trajan’s conduct towards the jews, but it does seem that Trajan was insufficiently ruthless and violent in dealing with the eternally revolting jews as nearly two decades later his successor and adopted son Hadrian had to put down an even larger and more bloodthirsty jewish revolt led by another self-styled ‘jewish messiah’ Simon bar Kokhba between 132 to 136 A.D.
I mean can you blame the Romans after all their experience with the jews that they were suspicious of Pompeia Plotina and were almost seeing ‘god-fearers’ under their beds at that point, because they believed – with very real justification – that insufficiently ruthless and violent solutions to the jewish question in the Roman Empire simply did not work.
References
(1) Mary Beard, John North, Simon Price, 1998, ‘Religions of Rome’, Vol. 2, 1st Edition, Cambridge University Press: New York, p. 327
(2) Herbert Musurillo, 1949, ‘The Pagan Acts of the Martyrs’, Theological Studies, Vol. 10, No. 4, p. 555
(3) Ibid., p. 558
(4) Ibid., p. 559
(5) For example, see: Dan Cohn-Sherbok, 1997, ‘The Crucified Jew: Twenty Centuries of Christian Anti-Semitism’, 1st Edition, William B. Eerdmans: Grand Rapids
(6) Herbert Musurillo, 1988, [1954], ‘The Acts of the Pagan Martyrs: Acta Alexandrinorum’, 1st Edition, Ayer: Salem, pp. 47-48
(7) Beard, North, Price, Op. Cit., p. 327
(8) On this please see my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/the-emperor-claudius-on-the-jews
(9) Quoted in Revilo Oliver, 2006, ‘America’s Decline: The Education of a Conservative’, 2nd Edition, Historical Review Press: Uckfield, pp. 22-23
(10) Max Margolis, Alexander Marx, 1945, [1927], ‘A History of the Jewish People’, 1st Edition, The Jewish Publication Society of America: Philadelphia, p. 128
(11) On this please see my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/julius-caesar-and-the-jews
(12) On this please see my articles: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/valerius-maximus-on-the-expulsion and https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/dionysos-pater-liber-and-the-jews
(13) Val. Max. 1:3.3 (cf. Henry John Walker, 2004, ‘Valerius Maximus: Memorable Deeds and Sayings’, 1st Edition, Hackett: Indianapolis, p. 14)
(14) On this please see my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/cicero-on-the-jews
(15) On this please see my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/lampooning-the-jew-the-depiction
(16) On this please see my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/savage-poetry-martial-on-the-jews
(17) On this please see my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/tacitus-on-the-jews
(18) On this please see my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/the-younger-seneca-the-great-fire
(19) On this please see my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/ovid-on-the-jews
(20) On this please see my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/suetonius-on-the-jews
(21) Suet. Tib. 36
(22) Harry Leon, 1960, ‘The Jews of Ancient Rome’, 1st Edition, The Jewish Publication Society of America: Philadelphia, pp. 16-17
(23) Ibid., p. 17, n. 1
(24) Cf. Aloys Winterling, 2011, ‘Caligula: A Biography’, 1st Edition, University of California Press: Berkeley
(25) Leon, Op. Cit., p. 21
(26) Ibid., p. 22
(27) Suet. Claud. 25
(28) On this please see my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/suetonius-on-the-jews
(29) Leon, Op. Cit., p. 28
(30) Louis Feldman, 1993, ‘Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World: Interactions from Alexander to Justinian’, 1st Edition, Princeton University Press: Princeton, pp. 351-352
(31) Ibid., p. 331
(32) On this please see my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/how-jews-and-not-christians-started
(33) Martin Goodman, 2008, ‘Rome & Jerusalem: The Clash of Ancient Civilizations’, 1st Edition, Penguin: New York, p. 391
(34) Richard Bauman, 1996, ‘Crime and Punishment in Ancient Rome’, 1st Edition, Routledge: New York, p. 162; Richard Bauman, 2000, ‘Human Rights in Ancient Rome’, 1st Edition, Routledge: New York, p. 71
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