Journeys in the Roman East: Imagined and Real 3161551117, 9783161551116

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Culture, Religion, and Politics in the Greco-Roman World Editors Kendra Eshleman (Boston College), Teresa Morgan (University of Oxford), Laura Nasrallah (Harvard University), Maren R. Niehoff (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem), and Peter Van Nuffelen (Ghent University) Advisory Board Milette Gaifman (Yale University), Martha Himmelfarb (Princeton University), Hayim Lapin (University of Maryland), Duncan MacRae (University of California, Berkeley), Jörg Rüpke (Universität Erfurt), Lieve Van Hoof (Ghent University)

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Journeys in the Roman East: Imagined and Real Edited by Maren R. Niehoff

Mohr Siebeck

Maren R. Niehoff, born 1963; studied Jewish Studies, Literature and Philosophy in Berlin, Jerusalem and Oxford; 1989–91 Junior Fellow at the Society of Fellows at Harvard University; currently Max Cooper Professor of Jewish Thought at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

ISBN 978-3-16-155111-6 ISSN 2510-0785 (Culture, Religion, and Politics in the Greco-Roman World) Die Deutsche Bibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliographie; detailed bibliographic data is available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2017  by Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, Germany. www.mohr.de This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form (beyond that permitted by copyright law) without the publisher’s written permission. This applies particularly to reproductions, translations, microfilms and storage and processing in electronic systems. The book was typeset by Gulde-Druck in Tübingen, printed by Gulde-Druck in Tübingen on non-aging paper and bound by Buchbinderei Spinner in Ottersweier. Printed in Germany.

Acknowledgments I am delighted to acknowledge the institutions and people without whom this volume would never have emerged. The essays collected here are the fruits of a lively conference at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in June 2015. The ISRAEL SCIENCE FOUNDATION (grant no.  2178/15), the Center for the Study of Christianity at the Hebrew University, and the Niedersachsen-Israeli Research Cooperation Program, a grant which I received together with Reinhard Feldmeier, generously supported the conference. In addition I thank Amit Gvaryahu for organizing the logistics of the conference, Tali Banin for excellent copyediting, Jan Basczoc and some fellow students at Tübingen for adjusting the bibliographies, and Ayala Odenheimer for compiling the index. Maxine Anasthasias kindly prepared the special maps, which show the places we are discussing in this volume. Thanks also to the excellent editorial team of Mohr Siebeck, especially to Jana Trispel and Klaus Hermannstädter, who did much beyond their duty to produce this volume. Maren R. Niehoff

Table of Contents Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . V Maren R. Niehoff Journeys on the Way to this Volume . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Real and Imagined Geography Ewen Bowie The View from Aphrodisias and Hadrianoutherae . . . . . . . . . . 23 Janet Downie The Romance of Imperial Travel in Aelius Aristides’s Smyrna Orations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Nicola Zwingmann The Account of a Journey in the Erôtes of [Pseudo-]Lucian in the Context of Ancient Travel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 Benjamin Isaac Virtual Journeys in the Roman Near East: Maps and Geographical Texts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 Amit Gvaryahu There and Back Again: A Journey to Ashkelon and Its Intertexts in Yerushalmi Sanhedrin 4:6 (= Hagigah 2:2) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

Reconstructing Encounters in Distant Places Froma Zeitlin Apodêmia: The Adventure of Travel in the Greek Novel . . . . . . . 157 Kendra Eshleman Indian Travel and Cultural Self-Location in the Life of Apollonius and the Acts of Thomas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183 Maren R. Niehoff Parodies of Educational Journeys in Josephus, Justin Martyr, and Lucian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203

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Jonathan Price The Historiographical Vehicle of Lucian’s Journey in Verae Historiae . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225 Catherine Hezser Strangers on the Road: Otherness, Identification, and Disguise in Rabbinic Travel Tales of Late Roman Palestine . . . . . . . . . . . 239

Between the Bodily and the Holy Ian Rutherford Concord and Communitas: Greek Elements in Philo’s Account of Jewish Pilgrimage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257 Laura Nasrallah Imposing Travelers: An Inscription from Galatia and the Journeys of the Earliest Christians . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273 Sarit Kattan Gribetz “Lead Me Forth in Peace”: The Origins of the Wayfarer’s Prayer and Rabbinic Rituals of Travel in the Roman World . . . . . . . . . . . . 297 Georgia Frank Touching and Feeling in Late Antique Christian Pilgrims’ Narratives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329

Jesus’s Travels from Different Perspectives Reinhard Feldmeier The Wandering Jesus: Luke’s Travel Narrative as Part of His Hermeneutical Strategy of “Double Codification” . . . . . . 343 Richard Kalmin, Jesus’s Descent to the Underworld in the Babylonian Talmud and in Christian Literature of the Roman East . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355

Destination Rome Daniel Schwartz “Going up to Rome” in Josephus’s Antiquities . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373 Knut Backhaus From Disaster to Disclosure: The Shipwreck in the Book of Acts in Light of Greco-Roman Ideology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389

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Yonatan Moss “From Syria all the Way to Rome”: Ignatius of Antioch’s Pauline Journey to Christianity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 409 List of Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 423 Index of Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 429 General Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433

Journeys on the Way to This Volume Maren R. Niehoff Traveling has become so pervasive today that virtually all aspects of life are involved. The academy, too, is based to a considerable extent on traveling. As the Humboldt Kosmos 2016 summarizes: “researchers nowadays come from all over the world and go all over the world. … Internationalisation, globalization and flexibility – these are all terms that encapsulate the new academic landscape.” Given the atmosphere of our times, it is of special interest to study journeys in the Roman Empire, which provided for the first time an encompassing infrastructure covering the whole Mediterranean and much beyond. The Pax Romana moreover facilitated conditions and made journeys accessible on a new scale. Distant places were connected and traveling became affordable for private persons, traders seeking new markets, scholars and philosophers departing for famous centers of learning, pilgrims setting out for shrines, tourists exploring historical sites, and ethnographers inspecting exotic places. The present volume gathers the fruits of a conference in Jerusalem, a city which has since antiquity been flooded by pilgrims, especially during the Feast of Tabernacles, Easter, and Ramadan.1 Experts in different disciplines and religious traditions convened in order to discuss the intersection between physical travel and subjective experience in antiquity. We ask how various authors were affected by traveling and how they remembered or imagined their journeys. Emphasis is given to the interpretation of journeys as intellectual, emotional, rhetorical, and religious constructs. Archeological and epigraphic evidence is used to illuminate the literary products and their cultural significance. We pay special attention to a particular time and space, namely the Eastern Mediterranean under the Roman Empire, and hope to make a meaningful contribution by studying variety within a broadly shared cultural context. Our approach is interdisciplinary and gives equal weight to pagan, Jewish, and Christian authors as well as their interactions with each other. The rabbis, who are usually excluded from discussions of Hellenistic matters, are part of our project and throw further light on the complex relationship between center and periphery. We furthermore take into account that journeys, whether imagined or real, often bridge seemingly disconnected realms, such as the bodily and the spiritual, the political and the religious, the daily and the extraordinary. Journeys always involve re1 

For details, see Witztum and Kalian 2013.

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moval from a familiar environment and exposure to new situations, customs and people, which inevitably prompt comparison and re-evaluation of the familiar. The increase of traveling in the Roman Empire created an intellectual momentum which is reflected in numerous discussions and images in the literature of the time. Philo of Alexandria, Seneca, Plutarch, early Christians, the rabbis of the Land of Israel, and Lucian of Samosata – to name but a few – take traveling as a matter of fact and refer to concrete Roman infrastructures, while at the same time addressing the intellectual dimension of journeys. Traveling became a prominent topic of philosophy, literature, historiography, and religion. The Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria, for example, describes the different routes of crossing the Mediterranean and mentions how one goes to the harbor to locate a boat headed towards the desired destination (Legat. 250–51, Flacc. 26, 110). He also distinguishes different purposes of traveling, stressing that “some men go on voyages for trading purposes in their desire for making money or on embassies or in their love of paideia to see the sights of a foreign land” (Abr. 65). Journeys of Biblical heroes, such as Abraham’s migration from Chaldea to the Land of Israel, are interpreted allegorically as journeys of the soul (Migr. 217– 18). Philo likes to speak about the “journey of life” and compares human beings to captains who face unforeseen dangers (Agr. 169–73). The Roman philosopher Seneca describes the excitement of people waiting in the harbor of Puteoli near Rome for the arrival of the Alexandrian grain ships, which also delivered letters (Ep.  28.1–10). Familiar with the habit of the Roman aristocracy to change dwellings and move between villas in different spots, he devotes special epistles to The Trial of Traveling and Travel as a Cure for Discontent. Seneca encourages his readers to transcend the physical dimension of journeys and realize that a change of heart rather than of climate is called for.2 The Greek biographer and philosopher Plutarch humorously draws attention to the fact that his home-town Chaeronea is a backwater and explains that he continues to live there so “that it may not become smaller still” (Dem.  2.2). Despite the relatively isolated location of his residence, Plutarch radiates an atmosphere of easy traveling, mentioning in passing that he and his companions go back and forth from Greece to Italy, often prompted by letters from friends. He himself travels extensively to Athens and Rome, using his time there to gather materials for his biographies, to deliver lectures, and to engage in intellectual conversations. Plutarch also compares life to a sea voyage, the strong waves representing the emotions which need to be mastered (Tranq. 465e, 466b). Paul, a pivotal figure in the emergence of Christianity, is a quintessential traveler, famous for his letters to different communities. The author of Acts portrays his character by imagining his behavior during a sea storm on the way to Rome, when he 2 Sen., Ep.  55.1–11, 57.1–9, 77.1–5, 104.7–8; Tranquil. 1.17, 2.13–5; see also Marcus Aurelius, Med. 2.17, who speaks about life as a “pilgrim’s sojourn.”

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faced all the stereotypical dangers involved in crossing the Mediterranean. Of the belief in Jesus, the author of Acts simply speaks as “the way” (Acts 27–28, 24.14). The rabbis, who contributed to the Midrash Genesis Rabbah, were so familiar with traveling that they explain the notion of sin, mentioned in the Biblical story of Cain and Abel, by analogy to a “brigand who sat at the crossroads and ordered every passer-by to surrender his possessions.” The significance of Jewish festivals is moreover explained by stories from abroad: Rabbi Hiyya b. Abba recalls how he was once invited to Laodicea by a rich man, who honored the Shabbat, while R. Tanhuma speaks of a moving encounter in Rome between a servant of the governor and a Jewish tailor, who bought exceptionally expensive food in preparation for Yom Kippur. Rabbinic mobility is moreover reflected in the fact that some discussions in Genesis Rabbah are presented as taking place in cities outside the Land of Israel, “when the sages visited Rome” or were asked questions by the emperor “Hadrian – may his bones rot!”3 Lucian, the second-century satirist, indulges in mocking the atmosphere of trafficking characteristic of his time. In numerous treatises he exposes the negative effects of traveling and warns that, rather than significantly influencing the mind or the different professions involved, travel mainly inflates the ego. In A True Story, Lucian ridicules the tradition of travel accounts, ranging from the Odyssey to historiography in his own days, and provocatively states that he will write something completely imaginary, with no claim to truth and autopsy (Ver. hist. 1). The absence of travel in his writing has thus become an exceptional factor, which requires explanation. Lucian’s dialogue The Ship moreover criticizes the heroic ethos of sea-voyages and tourism as well as the cultural and philosophical expectations conventionally attached to them. Readers are challenged by sarcastic remarks such as: “well, please remember to bring us back some of those exquisite smoked fish from the Nile, or some myrrh from Canopus, or an ibis from Memphis – I suppose you would scarcely have room for a pyramid?!” (Nav. 15). The diversity of travel accounts in the Eastern Mediterranean is the subject of the present volume. The contributions are divided thematically into five sections, each of them devoted to a different aspect of the intersection between physical travel and subjective experience. Within each section the articles are arranged chronologically. The first section focuses on real and imagined geography, dealing with texts that refer to the concrete contours of places. The contributors ask how physical features are negotiated in the literature. Ewen Bowie opens the section by offering a comprehensive study of real and imagined journeys undertaken by the inhabitants of two backwater cities in Asia Minor, namely Aphrodisias and Hadrianoutherae. Recovering unexpected details from epigraphic and archeological sources, he provides a geographical profile of the 3 

Gen. Rab. 22.6, 20.4, 10.3, 11.4, 28.3.

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two cities and then addresses the tension between their relative isolation and the exceptionally broad aspirations of their inhabitants. Bowie argues that the location of the cities near, but not on main high-ways may well have prompted the inhabitants to aim higher and orient themselves towards important cultural centers stretching as far as Rome. He discusses a poet, a pipe-player, and a pancreatist from Aphrodisias, who competed far and wide, receiving prestigious honors. These are compared to four novelists, whose origins in the city Bowie has previously asserted. These authors developed extraordinarily rich stories, which involve traveling far beyond their own experience and engage Roman discourses sometimes mediated through art. The second city, Hadrianouthera, is studied through the example of Aelius Aristides, who describes his journey to Rome with remarkable detail and dramatic imagination. Janet Downie follows with a fresh analysis of Aelius Aristides’s Smyrna Orations, especially Oration 17 and 19, which strikingly focus on the physical landscape of the city rather than its history and citizens. Downie argues that this unusual focus on urban contours reflects Aristides’s conviction that evoking the physical and especially the feminine features of the city will foster a meaningful relationship between the implied readers, namely the governor and the Roman Emperor, and the city, which is in need of support after a serious earthquake. Aristides is shown to pay special attention to direct contact made possible by travel, reviving in his readers the memory of their previous visit to the city. Aristides speaks in erotic terms of imperial care, thus distinguishing himself from conventional rhetoricians, who regularly boast of their city’s past. Downie shows how Aristides invites his readers to renew their romance with the city and extend material help. Nicola Zwingmann offers an analysis of (Pseudo-?) Lucian’s Erôtes, which she reads in light of tourism in the imperial period. Focusing on the frame-story of the dialogue, Zwingmann provides rich textual and archeological evidence to illuminate the references in the text to Rhodes and Cnidos, where the company stops for a while. She reconstructs the context of numerous scenes, namely that of ‘Lycinos’ having his accommodation and meals prepared by his accompanying slaves, of the story of a visitor’s intercourse with the statue of Aphrodite, of the obscene ceramics in the salerooms of the temple and, finally, of the prostitution connected to tourism. Throughout the article Zwingmann discusses the relationship between the realia of tourism and the text of the Erôtes. A complex approach is offered, which takes into account multiple possibilities, including the one that oral and written traditions shaped the expectation of visitors and prompted the creation of specific architectural settings. Zwingmann integrates the archeological findings into her overall appreciation of the Erôtes as a literary text and stresses its importance as the most comprehensive and unique ancient text known to us, which gives serious attention to the concrete details of tourism.

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Benjamin Isaac discusses the tradition of geographical texts and travel accounts, comparing Greco-Roman examples of the genre to later Christian texts. His test case is Palestine, well suited not only to the location of our conference, but also to the religious interests of the Christian authors. Retrieving a wealth of information from lesser-known sources, Isaac points to a significant development in the relationship between factual information and subjective description. Pagan writers in the Roman Empire such as Strabo and Pliny, as well as anonymous authors, focused on facts useful for the traveler (e.g. measurements of distance between places). Christian authors, by contrast, tended to stress the ideological dimension, and depicted a Biblical landscape based on the Scriptures. This tendency is shown to reach a peak in the Middle Ages, when highly emotional and religious elements were added to travel accounts, pushing the description of actual places into the margins. Other features of travel literature so familiar to us today, namely pictorial illustrations and maps, also emerged in this context. Amit Gvaryahu provides a fresh analysis of a rabbinic story, which has perplexed numerous scholars. Keeping the overall harmony of the composition in mind, Gvaryahu peels off the work’s different layers and shows how the city of Ashkelon, a border land outside of rabbinic jurisdiction with a famous statue of Tyche, inspired the imagination of the storyteller. “Miriam of the Onion Leaves” is interpreted as an echo of Semiramis, standing at the entrance of hell, which is implicitly identified with the entrance to pagan territory. The rabbinic hero, Shimon ben Shetach, on the other hand, is shown to have been modeled on the Biblical figures of Moses and Gideon, both known for their crusades against pagan worship. The story thus emerges as being situated on a number of physical and literary crossroads. The second section of the volume explores the theme of reconstructing encounters in distant places and asks about the role of traveling in the formation of identity. Do real or imagined journeys offer genuine encounters with others, or do they instead mirror the author’s self and confirm the familiar? Froma Zeitlin opens this section with an analysis of the five extant prose romances, which share the background of the post-classical Hellenistic world. The main parts of these novels are taken up by travel adventures, which divide the loving partners until they reunite in the happy end. Zeitlin argues that while these novels are set in a polyglot and hybridized world, they echo a number of stereotypes and use traveling as a testing ground for resilience rather than as an opportunity to widen horizons and discover hitherto unknown aspects of the world. The new environments are experienced as threatening and dangerous, requiring the heroes’ courage and loyalty to their original cultural identity. Zeitlin examines the creative resources of prose fiction by pointing to Homeric paradigms, reminiscences of real geography, and the eroticization of landscapes. The novelist Achilles Tatius, who highlights erotic imagery, emerges as an au-

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thor with similar literary tendencies as Aelius Aristides discussed here by Downie. Kendra Eshleman compares two third-century accounts of journeys to India, the Life of Apollonius by the Greek essayist Philostratus and the Christian Acts of Thomas. She argues that India is presented as lying beyond the frontiers of the known world and serves to locate the heroes and the cultures they represent within the world they inhabit. India becomes a locus of negotiating Greek identity. Eshleman arranges her discussion around three main themes, namely the symposium, the notion of paideia, and historical awareness, showing that in each case the Greek and the Christian author assume opposite positions. Philostratus creates a perfectly Greek hero, who prompts his Indian acquaintances to strengthen their Greek qualities, while acknowledging that the Brahmins are the cradle of Greek wisdom. Thomas, on the other hand, emerges as a counterhero, who obstructs the symposium, appropriates Greek wisdom, and rejects the idea of influence on Christianity. In both cases “India” is a projection of the author, serving as a canvas on which to outline his own identity in the Hellenistic world. Maren Niehoff investigates three authors of different religious backgrounds who show awareness of the farcical nature of educational journeys. The Jewish historian Josephus Flavius, the Christian theologian Justin Martyr, and the pagan satirist Lucian of Samosata are studied with special attention to autobiographical passages, which feature journeys to philosophical teachers. Josephus is shown to offer a strikingly opaque description of his journey to the different Jewish sects, which does not provide any information about their intellectual influence on him. The real school of life turns out to be Josephus’s diplomatic trip to Rome, where he encounters theatrical circumstances and learns to side with the pro-Roman party back in Jerusalem. The story of traveling to Rome enables Josephus to construct himself as an author writing in Greek for a Roman audience. Justin Martyr emerges as an author well versed in discourses of parody, which he skillfully applies to his overall argument that Christianity is the only real philosophy congenial to Roman values. While his journeys to the different schools of philosophy turn out to be futile and even grotesque, the casual encounter with an old man prompts him to make the transition from Platonism to Christianity, from the Greek, effeminate East to the vigorous, Roman West. Lucian offers the most self-reflective discussion, which parodies the complete subordination of Greek paideia to Rome. He situates himself and other Greek intellectuals “on the way” to the capital of the Empire and highlights the lack of Greek authenticity. Traveling has become an end in itself, which barely hides the painful lack of ‘indigenous’ Greek identity. Niehoff concludes that Josephus, Justin, and Lucian construct themselves in the language of the Other by engaging Roman motifs to reflect on intellectual mobility in the Greek East.

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Jonathan Price follows with an original analysis of Lucian’s True History, and reads this treatise against the grain of current scholarship, which tends to highlight the satirical tendencies of this author. Price points to tensions between Lucian’s introduction of himself as a liar and his claims to tell the truth later in the narrative. In addition, sophisticated verbal reminiscences of Thucydides’s language are uncovered to show Lucian’s intended diligence and authenticity as a historian recounting his journeys. Price argues that Lucian’s narrator does most things a good historian would do, namely giving precise eyewitness descriptions, quoting important documents, and measuring the distances between places. Price concludes that the fantastic episodes reveal the deeper structures of recorded and verifiable history, teaching the reader a true lesson about human nature. Despite appearances and protestations to the contrary, Lucian emerges as a serious writer with an identifiable ethical message about his travels in a world which is recognizable in estranged mirror images. Catherine Hezser concludes this section by investigating rabbinic tales about encounters on the road. Initially, concrete images are provided: how does a rabbi travel and how does he introduce himself to a stranger on the road? Would the interaction be different if the Other were a gentile or a Jew? Hezser argues for a significant difference between encounters with Gentiles and encounters with other Jews. The rabbis in their travel accounts envision Roman strangers as a potential threat and often hide their Jewish identity in their presence. Representatives of Greco-Roman culture are not used as a source of information, but rather as a canvas on which to project one’s own superior learning. In this respect, the rabbis share the approach which Zeitlin and Eshleman have identified in the novels and in the Acts of Thomas. Hezser moreover discusses rabbinic encounters with other Jews, which show a remarkable tendency to reverse hierarchies and challenge the rabbis’ intellectual and moral superiority. Using travel accounts as a key to the construction of identity, Hezser suggests that the rabbis developed a dual identity, one with regard to Gentiles, the other with regard to non-rabbinic members of the Jewish community. The following section of the volume deals with the relationship between the bodily and the holy, asking how journeys negotiate these two realms. Ian Rutherford opens the section with an analysis of Philo of Alexandria, who illuminates the largest phenomenon of pilgrimage known in the ancient world, namely Jewish pilgrimage to the Jerusalem Temple. Rutherford distinguishes Philo’s discussion as exceptionally sophisticated in terms of theoretical insights. His notion of pilgrimage as a “process with the power of creating social cohesiveness” in fact anticipates modern anthropological approaches, such as Victor Turner’s. Rutherford moreover compares Philo’s language to that of pagan writers, noting that he often shares their terms, while adding a new emphasis on community as a reason for undertaking pilgrimage. Rutherford concludes by providing an overall historical setting for Philo’s discussion of pilgrimage,

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namely the policy of the Jerusalem establishment to encourage the ritual. Philo may have relied on some official publicity material, providing an intellectual framework for the political and economic promotion of the city as a holy place for Diaspora Jews. Laura Nasrallah offers a fresh interpretation of Paul’s Letter to the Galatians. Getting beyond the aura of Paul as an admired apostle, who would naturally prompt people in his environment to serve him, Nasrallah asks to what extent his reliance on local hosts was experienced within a larger culture of travelers who presented an unwelcome imposition. This question is studied in light of a Roman inscription from Sagalassos in Galatia, dating to 14–19 CE, as well as the Didache, a short early Christian manual on morals and Church practices. Both texts address the issue of abuse and regulate the extent to which locals can be asked to provide for travelers coming through their city. The Roman edict protects locals from abuse by limiting the services that may be demanded by representatives of Rome. The Didache discusses the terms of imposition in a distinctly Christian context. Certain services are identified as positive gifts rather than as cases of exploitation. Nasrallah reads Paul’s letter in this broader context and asks how those to whom Paul wrote might have negotiated such concerns. Sarit Kattan Gribetz analyzes rabbinic prayers for wayfaring in their Roman context. She traces the development of the prayer from its Palestinian beginnings to the full ritual in Babylonia, which survived into the Middle Ages and beyond. While early Palestinian rabbis were concerned with ritual markers of entering and exiting cities, especially Gentile ones, later rabbis, especially those in Babylonia, focused more broadly on the experiences of travel and the dangers on the roads for observant Jews. Kattan Gribetz adduces precise parallels from Roman practices, showing votive images of feet entering and exiting a place. Non-Jewish Roman material evidence is thus taken to illuminate rabbinic literature. The rabbis emerge as sharing Roman discourses even as they partly intended to protect their communities from the dangers associated with Roman cults. Kattan Gribetz moreover introduces the notion of imagined landscapes and shows how the rabbis envisioned a partly Biblical and partly Roman geography – thus complementing the Christian authors discussed by Isaac in this volume. Upon this imaginary landscape, the rabbis imposed their own prayers, thus seeking to exert spiritual control over their physical environment. Georgia Frank concludes this section by discussing the experience of Christian pilgrimage in the sixth century CE, when touching relics became a widespread practice with important implications for religious identity. Objects brought home from the Land of Israel not only evoked the memory of the sacred places, but assumed a remarkably active and spiritual role. Offering a detailed analysis of the Piacenza pilgrim’s report, Frank suggests that the material objects enabled the pilgrim to feel his way into the sacred past. Moreover, the reader of the report undergoes a similar process. The motif of picking up a

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stone, for example, which is believed to have been held by Jesus, enables the pilgrim and by implication also the reader to get a quasi firsthand experience of Jesus’s action and hear the sounds he would have heard. The imagined and the real, the literary and the physical are thus intertwined in an especially complex manner. The text presents a physical artifact, which arouses the imagination and creates a new bodily as well as emotional experience. The following section focuses on two competing perspectives on Jesus’s travels, one from within the Christian, the other from within the Jewish tradition. Reinhard Feldmeier discusses the known phenomenon of Jesus’s travel narratives in the Gospel of Luke and shows how it highlights his exemplary moral standing. Jesus is shown to be homeless on human roads, while preparing himself for his ultimate homecoming to God. Luke moreover applies a double-codification, appealing to both prophetic and philosophical motifs, in an attempt to make Jesus attractive to diverse audiences. In the Babylonian Talmud, on the other hand, Jesus’s travels play the opposite role. Investigating traveling traditions that link the Mesopotamian and Mediterranean worlds, Richard Kalmin offers a close reading of a story in Babylonian Talmud Gittin 56b–57a, arguing that it subverts early Christian traditions ranging from 1 Peter to Origen. While Christian authors presented Jesus as descending to the underworld and overcoming the powers of death by converting its prisoners to Christianity and taking them to heaven, the rabbinic narrator makes Jesus suffer horrible punishments in hell and advocate conversion to Judaism. The Talmud thus parodies Jesus’s journey and turns it into a tool of inter-religious polemic, which helps the rabbis to construct their own identity in a world turned Christian. Kalmin’s analysis supplies further support for his overall contention that Mesopotamia experienced a thorough Romanization following Shaper I’s incursions deep into Roman territory in the third century and his resettlement of thousands of pagan, Jewish, and Christians from that territory into Mesopotamia.4 The last section of the volume focuses on Rome as a destination of real and imagined journeys, asking to what extent ancient authors wrote themselves into imperial narratives and identified with Rome as the center of the Empire. Daniel Schwartz opens the section with a close analysis of the expression “going up to Rome” in Josephus Flavius’s writings, identifying the expression as a reflection of a Roman perspective comparable to the phrase “going up to Jerusalem” common among Jews. Schwartz examines Josephus’s use of the former expression and discovers curious differences between the different books of the Antiquities. Book 20 frequently speaks about Jews going up to Rome even though parallel material in Josephus’s other works lacks this vocabulary. This finding leads Schwartz to suggest a Roman source for book 20, arguing that Josephus himself 4 

For details, see Kalmin 2014.

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remained loyal throughout his career to the Jewish ethos of going up to Jerusalem rather than to Rome. Two subsequent Christian writers are shown to take the opposite approach and inscribe themselves into the texture of Rome. Luke, discussed by Knut Backhaus, imagines Paul’s shipwreck in dramatic details, which conform to Greco-Roman conventions and aim at placing the founder of Christianity in a distinctly Roman milieu. Adducing comparative material from Greco-Roman literature, Backhaus offers a literary analysis of the text and argues that Paul is constructed as a nautical hero, who fits the world stage of Empire. The journey with its adventures emerges as a key element in the author’s strategy to place Christianity in a Roman context. Similarly, Yonatan Moss shows that Ignatius, the second-century bishop from Antioch, portrays his trip to Rome as a journey which follows in Paul’s footsteps, while offering a radically different model of authority. Whereas Paul is an example of a decentralized, itinerant authority, Ignatius aims at a centralized, sedentary authority anchored in Rome. Moss suggests that Ignatius colonizes the image of Paul and anchors his own position in Roman discourses. His journey to Rome thus fulfills a complex literary, theological, and political role. These interpretations of Luke and Ignatius complement the picture drawn by Niehoff concerning Josephus, Justin, and Lucian. This volume engages a thriving discussion of traveling in the ancient world. Scholars have increasingly recognized mobility in the Roman Empire as a key to understanding political, cultural, philosophical, and religious developments. Fundamental to such inquiries remains Ludwig Friedländer’s Sittengeschichte Roms (1934), which contains two dense chapters on infrastructure and tourism in the empire. Friedländer has assembled a wealth of information on technology, geography, traveling habits, and touristic facilities. He illuminates pagan Roman culture by providing insights into the concrete life of the upper and lower classes. Friedländer’s broad study is complemented by numerous investigations into the realia of particular places or particular forms of travel. Samuel Krauss (1910–1912), Raphael Patai (1938), and Daniel Sperber (1986) offered pioneering studies of the infrastructures of traveling in rabbinic literature, while Lionel Casson has thrown new light on trading routes and accommodations on the road as well as on the technologies of sea-faring in both Classical Antiquity and the Roman Empire (1960; 1974). Pierre Fustier (1968), Colin O’Connor (1993), and Geoffrey Hindley (1971) moreover paid special attention to Roman conditions when investigating ancient roads and bridges. More recently, Roman roads in Palestine, Italy, and Egypt have been interpreted in larger cultural and economic contexts. Benjamin Isaac and Israel Roll have documented the Roman road system in Palestine and analyzed its significance in political, military, and cultural terms (1982). The facilitation of communication, mechanisms of governmental control, and the boom of urban development have become evident (Isaac 1978; 2010). Ray Laurence (1999) and Colin Adams

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(2007) have pointed to the importance of land transport in both Italy and Egypt, showing that it supplemented sea travel and contributed to the economy as well as the formation of nationwide networks. Finally, Nicola Zwingmann has offered an exhaustive study of tourism in Asia Minor, offering numerous new insights into physical infrastructures, tour-guiding, and the cultural construction of memory on the basis of concrete places, such as Troy and Pergamum (2012). Jean-Marie André and Marie-Françoise Baslez, in Voyager dans l’Antiquité (1993), laid a new foundation for the cultural and interdisciplinary study of traveling. These two French scholars assembled a large amount of literary, archeological, and epigraphic material, crossing disciplinary boundaries by comparing Greek, Roman, and Christian sources. They distinguished between Classical Greek culture and the Roman world, paying special attention to the Second Sophistic and the cultural dimension of traveling. The Second Sophists are credited with rendering culture in the Roman Empire “voyageuse” (p.  227). Missing in this account are Jewish authors, who also took an active part in Greco-Roman discourses. Questions of identity and literary constructions of authorial voices, which later became serious concerns of research, are also not yet anticipated here. Another milestone in the research of traveling is Jas´ Elsner’s and Ian Rutherford’s collection of articles, entitled Pilgrimage in Graeco-Roman and Early Christian Antiquity (2005).5 The editors make a strong argument for comparing pagan and Christian sources, assuming a broad continuity of phenomena, while not overlooking differences and diversity. Whereas the volume is ostensibly only about one form of traveling, namely pilgrimage, the editors stress that boundaries with other forms are fluid and thus have included articles on pilgrimage and tourism as well as pilgrimage and ethnography. The second and third sections of the collection are devoted to sources from the Roman Empire, mostly pagan and Christian, but also include one article on rabbinic literature. While some contributors seek to reconstruct concrete religious phenomena, such as the spread of pilgrimage to sites of Isis worship, others highlight the subjective experience of the ancient authors. Of special interest in our context are the essays on Aelius Aristides by Alexia Petsalis-Diomilis, on the habitat of the Second Sophists by Marco Galli, on Pausanias by William Hutton, and on Lucian by Jack Lightfoot. All of these essays investigate the intersection between physical travel and subjective experience, paying attention to the particular voice of the authors in their broader cultural context. These essays outline an approach which is embraced in this volume and taken beyond the limits of pilgrimage. 5  For other treatments of pilgrimage in more specific areas, see Frankfurter 1998b (focusing on Hellenistic Egypt), and Hunt 1984 (which contains a chapter on the Christianization of Roman infrastructures of traveling).

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An important collection of articles highlights the religious dimension of traveling, namely the volume Travel and Religion in Antiquity, edited by Philip A. Harland (2011). 6 This collection is both narrower and broader in scope than ours. It is narrower because it focuses only on religion, while we treat religion as one of many kinds of subjective experience attached to traveling. On the other hand, it is broader than ours in terms of its geographical and chronological scope, including articles on Classical Greece and Mesopotamia. Harland’s collection mostly seeks to reconstruct religious phenomena as experienced during travel. The first essay by Steven Muir on Ancient Greece traces, on the basis of archeological evidence, how travelers used shrines on the road, taking with them artifacts that would recreate a familiar religious atmosphere away from home. Susan Haber recovers the reality of pilgrimage during the Second Temple Period, reconstructing the historical Jesus and his purity requirements on the way to the Jerusalem Temple. Wayne O. McGready investigates the concrete phenomenon of pilgrimage among Jews, mostly to Elephantine in Egypt. Ian W. Scott discusses authors, also treated here, namely Philostratus and Lucian, inquiring into the historical life and religious aspirations of their heroes. Finally, Ryan Schellenberg reconstructs Paul’s authentic experience of traveling, independent of his heroic image in Acts. All of these contributions use literary texts in order to reveal the historical reality of lived religion reflected in them, usually by reference to large groups. Our volume, by contrast, focuses on the literary dimension and the creative imagination of the individual authors. Philostratus and Lucian are appreciated as writers who form their identity through a particular interpretation of their heroes; pilgrimage is examined as a phenomenon imagined by particular authors, namely Philo and the Piacenza pilgrim; religious rites on the road are analyzed in terms of the rabbis’ engagement with Greco-Roman discourses; and the travels of Jesus and Paul are reflected through the lens of Luke’s ideology. Our volume thus complements Harland’s by reading travel accounts as literary constructs which reflect how particular authors confront the experience of traveling, voice their identity, and creatively shape the reality around them. We have thus turned from historical reconstruction to literary and cultural analysis. The study of travel in antiquity has recently been enriched by sociological, feminist, and visual approaches. Three sociological studies have pointed to areas in the Roman Empire in which, due to the diffusion of power, networking was facilitated by travel. Catherine Hezser has stressed the decentralized nature of the rabbinic movement, which replaced the priestly leadership in the Jerusalem Temple and spread geographically within the Land of Israel and beyond. The rabbis established a more egalitarian and dynamic form of leadership, 6 

For another treatment of the connection between religion and travel, see Backhaus 2014.

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which required networking and traveling. Hezser’s monograph Jewish Travel in Antiquity (2011) collects rich material on both physical travel and travel narratives in rabbinic literature, which are compared to the Hellenistic world.7 Hezser argues that the rabbis, like other elite groups in the Empire, traveled extensively, not to foreign lands as their Christian colleagues but rather to fellow Jews either in the Land of Israel or in Babylonia. Such journeys established networks and confirmed authority, enabling the compilation of the rabbinic sources. A similar picture emerges from Kendra Eshleman’s study The Social World of Intellectuals in the Roman Empire (2012), which investigates the formation of identity in the context of the Second Sophistic and Christian orthodoxy. Eshleman argues for identity construction on the basis of social belonging, which is far more fluid and dynamic than categories of essence. While her research is not focused on traveling, she suggests that journeys were an important part of networking and positioning oneself. Furthermore, Claudia Moatti argues in a series of articles for the centrality and positive impact of traveling in the Roman Empire.8 Comparing the ancient situation to modern Europe, she speaks about the encompassing influence of mobility and even about its “specific laws and effects” (2006: 110). Traveling is shown to have improved communication, administration, and social connections. Most importantly for our purposes, Moatti argues for a link between mobility and identity, suggesting that a new dynamics of affiliation developed and enabled individuals to accumulate multiple, equally valued identities. While Moatti’s argument for pervasive mobility is convincing, her assumptions about its implications for identity formation may seem rather optimistic today, when the European community faces considerable difficulties from both within and without. Moreover, Benjamin Isaac has drawn attention to the limits of tolerance in antiquity, showing that new contacts did not necessarily prompt openness. Migrating intellectuals often faced stereotypes in their chosen places of residence and resorted to their original, ethnic identity.9 The present volume assumes the centrality of traveling in the Roman Empire and acknowledges the social networks which it requires and creates, but openly addresses the question of how this may have affected each individual traveler in terms of his or her identity, religion, and social affiliation. Gender studies have also illuminated ancient travel by asking to what extent women were able to go on journeys, and how they are depicted in the travel literature. Sigrid Lampe-Demsky (2002), Maribel Dietz (2005), and Catherine Hezser (2011), among others, have argued about the real possibilities of women 7  This research builds on her previous study, The Social Structure of the Rabbinic Movement. 8  Moatti 2006, 2014, 2012, 2000. See also Foubert and Breeze 2014. 9  Isaac 2013, 2011, 2014, 2004. See also Frankfurter 1998a, who has shown how Egyptian forms of worship continued despite the country’s formal integration into Roman and Mediterranean infrastructures.

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traveling in the Roman Empire. While the former two affirmed women’s freedom to embark on business trips and pilgrimage, the latter stressed their confinement to the domestic sphere. Moreover, the collection of articles Narrating Desire, edited by Marilia P. Futre Pinheiro, Marilyn Skinner, and Froma Zeitlin, offers readings of the Greek novel with emphasis on gender questions. The collection avoids binary oppositions and points to nuanced complexities of sexual identities, which show numerous points of overlap with other forms of self-positioning. In our volume gender issues are treated by Nicola Zwingmann and Froma Zeitlin. The study of travel in the Ancient world has considerably benefited from the perspective of art history with emphasis on vision. Jas´ Elsner’s and Joan-Pau Rubiés’s collection of articles Voyages and Visions (1999) outlines a cultural approach highly relevant to our project. Focusing on the Middle Ages and Modernity, the editors identify traveling and travel accounts as important agents of cultural negotiation. Traveling to sites of historical or religious significance reflects a longing for something lost or for a past that is officially transcended yet still idealized. Seeing the remains of a bygone culture helps the traveler connect to suppressed parts of his own culture and recover a sense of wholeness as well as authenticity not available in the present. Elsner and Rubiés furthermore argue that traveling plays a special role in periods of transition, when the past and the present are more intensively negotiated than at more stable times. This approach, which has been further illuminated by particular studies of Hellenistic texts by Jas´ Elsner and Simon Goldhill, throws fresh light on traveling and travel accounts in the Roman Empire.10 Following these studies, we are particularly aware of the fact that Rome served as a catalyst, which provided new, universal structures and challenged local identities and traditions. This period is a time of transition, which prompted intensive processes of re-interpretation and re-configuration of identity. From a cultural point of view it is thus not at all surprising that travel accounts dramatically increased and formed a central part of coming to terms with the implications of Empire. The present volume engages investigations into broader cultural encounters in the Roman Empire. Rome has come into focus in Hellenistic, Christian, and Jewish studies not only as a political factor, but as an influential cultural agent. Ewen Bowie has shown that Greek writers from the late first to the early third century CE were influenced by the political situation under Rome and reacted to their loss of autonomy by turning to Classical models for both style and content.11 Bowie emphasizes the literary dimension, while carefully contextualizing each author in his particular historical setting. Several scholars have continued this line of investigation and have drawn a complex picture of Greek culture 10  11 

Elsner 1992, 1997, 2001a, 2001b; Goldhill 2001. Bowie 1974; see also 1991, 2009.

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entangled in structures of Roman power, positioning a fragmented Self in the context of the Classical past. Simon Goldhill’s collection of articles Being Greek Under Rome (2001) and Tim Whitmarsh’s monograph Greek Literature and the Roman Empire (2001) are exemplary.12 These discussions are complemented by the work of Roman historians, such as Glen Bowersock, Christopher Jones, and Philip Stadter, who have investigated Second Sophists and stressed their Roman connections. Stadter has even exposed Plutarch’s sound Latin reading skills, which enabled him to use Roman sources for his biographies.13 Rome has recently begun to feature prominently in early Christian studies as well. Scholars have realized that long before Eusebius officially connected the Church to the Roman Empire, Christian authors writing in Greek were often acutely aware of Roman discourses and made efforts to integrate the new religion into up-to-date discussions. Among the Gospel writers, Luke has been identified as the author with the most conspicuous Roman orientation. Moreover, his pointed historical style in Acts has been appreciated in the context of Roman historiography, his approach to women has been interpreted in light of Roman politics, and his portrayal of Paul has been placed in the context of contemporaneous visions of Empire.14 Furthermore, Paul’s Letters, especially the Letter to the Romans, have been analyzed with a view to the realia and discursive structures in Rome, such as the epistolary style and the greater exposure of the individual Self.15 The second-century apologist Justin Martyr has moreover come into focus as a Greek writer in Rome, who engages Roman audiences and can be meaningfully compared to the Second Sophists.16 Broad religious phenomena, such as martyrdom and faith, have also been interpreted in a Roman context.17 The emergence of Christianity as a distinct religion is thus revealed as a phenomenon intricately connected to Rome. Two Jewish intellectuals writing in Greek have recently been interpreted in light of Rome, namely the historian Josephus, who permanently settled in the capital, and Philo of Alexandria, who spent several years in Rome as the head of a Jewish embassy to Gaius Caligula. The implications of Josephus’s Roman citizenship, his familiarity with Roman discourses, and the Roman characteristics of his vision of Judaism have been studied. His importance as a Roman historian has moreover been highlighted and his position among Roman intellectual circles has been uncovered.18 Philo came to Rome a generation earlier and engaged audiences similar to those of Josephus. His dramatic development from 12 

See also Gleason 1995; Swain 1996; Whitmarsh 2010; Faber and Lichtenberger 2015. Also Bowersock 1969; Jones 1986, 1971; Stadter 2015, 2014. 14  See Sterling 1992; Hägg 2012, 148–86; Harrill 2012; D’Angelo 1999; Cancik 2015. 15  See Watson 2007; Lampe 1989; Thorsteinsson 2010; Becker 2012, 2011. 16  See Nasrallah 2006, 2010. 17  See Bowersock 1995; Perkins 2009; Moss 2012; Morgan 2015. 18  See especially Goodman 1994, 1996; Mason 2016, 2003; den Hollander 2014; Barclay 2007, 362–69; Haaland 1999; Cohen 2011, 1979. 13 

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Bible interpreter in the Jewish community of Alexandria to advocate of Judaism in Rome has recently been described in an intellectual biography.19 The present volume aims at further illuminating these vibrant negotiations of cultures and identities in the Roman Empire. We hope to make a contribution to current debates by offering studies of individual authors from various Greek, Jewish, and Christian backgrounds, who positioned themselves via travel accounts in a hybrid and polyphone world governed by Rome. They engaged in journeys, real or imagined, and crossed geographical, cultural, as well as religious boundaries, defining themselves on the way. While pointing to similar strategies of constructing journeys among different communities, the volume also points to diversity, even contrast, and gives expression to various scholarly approaches.

Works Cited Adams, Colin. 2007. Land Transport in Roman Egypt: A Study of Economics and Administration in a Roman Province. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Adams, Colin, and Jim Roy, eds. 2007. Travel, Geography and Culture in Ancient Greece, Egypt and the Near East. Leicester Nottingham Studies in Ancient Society 10. Oxford: Oxbow. Ando, Clifford. 2000. Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire. Berkeley: University of California Press. –. 2010. “Imperial Identities.” In Local Knowledge and Microidentities in the Imperial Greek World, ed. Tim Whitmarsh. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.  17– 45. André, Jean-Marie, and Marie-Françoise Baslez. 1993. Voyager dans l’Antiquité. Paris: Fayard. Backhaus, Knut. 2014. Religion als Reise. Intellektuelle Lektüren in Antike und Christen­ tum. Tria Corda 8. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Barclay, John M. G. 2007. Flavius Josephus: Against Apion, Translation and Commentary. Leiden: Brill. Becker, Eve-Marie. 2011. “Die Tränen des Paulus (2 Kor. 2,4; Phil. 3,18) – Emotion oder Topos?” In Emotions from Ben Sira to Paul, ed. Renate Egger-Wenzel and Jeremy Corley. Berlin: de Gruyter, pp.  361–77. –. 2012. “Paulus als weinender Briefeschreiber (2 Kor. 2,4).” In Der Zweite Korintherbrief, ed. Dieter Sänger. Göttingen: Vandenhoek und Ruprecht, pp.  11–26. Bowersock, Glen W. 1965. Augustus and the Greek World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. –. 1969. Greek Sophists in the Roman Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press. –. 1995. Martyrdom and Rome. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bowie, Ewen. 1974. “The Greeks and their Past in the Second Sophistic.” Past and Present 46: 3–41.

19 

Niehoff 2017; see also Niehoff 2011, 2016.

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–. 1991. “Hellenes and Hellenism in Writers of the early Second Sophistic.” In Helle¯ nismos, ed. Suzanne Saïd. Leiden: Brill, pp.  183–204. –. 2009. “Philostratus: The Life of a Sophist.” In Philostratus, ed. Ewen Bowie and Jas´ Elsner. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.  19–32. Cancik, Hubert. 2015. “Das Mittelmeer im lukanischen Geschichtswerk.” In Ein pluriverses Universum: Zivilisationen und Religionen im antiken Mittelmeerraum, eds. Richard Faber and Achim Lichtenberger. Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh pp. 131– 52. Casson, Lionel. 1960. The Ancient Mariners. London: Victor Gollancz. –. 1974. Travel in the Ancient World. London: George Allen & Unwin. Cohen, Shaye J. D. 1979. Josephus in Galilee and Rome. Leiden: Brill. –. 2011. “Josephus.” In The Jewish Annotated New Testament, ed. Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp.  575–77. D’Angelo, Mary Rose. 1999. “(Re) Presentations of Women in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke-Acts.” In Women and Christian Origins, ed. Ross Shepard Kraemer and Mary Rose D’Angelo. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp.  171–98. den Hollander, William. 2014. Josephus, the Emperors, and the City of Rome. Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity 86. Leiden: Brill. Dietz, Maribel. 2005. Wandering Monks, Virgins, and Pilgrims: Ascetic Travel in the Mediterranean World, A.D. 300–800. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. Ellis, Linda, and Frank L. Kidner, eds. 2004. Travel, Communication and Geography in Late Antiquity: Sacred and Profane. Aldershot: Ashgate. Elsner, Jas´. 1992. “Pausanias: A Greek Pilgrim in the Roman World.” Past and Present 135: 3–29. –. 1997. “Hagiographic Geography: Travel and Allegory in The Life of Apollonius of Tyana.” Journal of Hellenic Studies 117: 22–37. –. 2001a. “Structuring ‘Greece’: Pausanias’ Periegesis as a Literary Construct.” In Pausanias: Travel and Memory in Roman Greece, ed. Susan E. Alock, John F. Cherry, and Jas´ Elsner. New York: Oxford University Press, pp.  3 –20. –. 2001b. “Describing Self in the Language of the Other: Pseudo (?) Lucian at the Temple of Hierapolis.” In Being Greek under Rome, ed. Simon Goldhill. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.  123–53. Elsner, Jas´, and Joan-Pau Rubiés. 1999. “Introduction.” In Voyages and Visions: Towards a Cultural History of Travel, ed. Jas´ Elsner and Joan-Pau Rubiés. London: Reaction Books, pp.  1–56. Elsner, Jas´, and Ian Rutherford, eds. 2005. Pilgrimage in Graeco-Roman and Early Christian Antiquity: Seeing the Gods. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Eshleman, Kendra. 2012. The Social World of Intellectuals in the Roman Empire: Sophists, Philosophers, and Christians. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Faber, Richard, and Achim Lichtenberger, eds. 2015. Ein pluriverses Universum: Zivilisationen und Religionen im antiken Mittelmeerraum. Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh. Foubert, Lien and David J. Breeze. 2014. “Mobility in the Roman Empire.” In Past Mobilities: Archaeological Approaches to Movement and Mobility, ed. Jim Leary. Farnham: Ashgate, pp.  175–186. Frankfurter, David. 1998a. Religion in Roman Egypt: Assimilation and Resistance. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

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–. ed. 1998b. Pilgrimage and Holy Space in Late Antique Egypt. Religions in the Graeco-Roman World 134. Leiden: Brill. Fustier, Pierre. 1968. La Route. Voies Antiques. Chemins Anciens. Chausées Modernes. Paris: Picard. Futre Pinheiro, Marilia, Marilyn B. Skinner, and Froma I. Zeitlin, eds. 2012. Narrating Desire: Eros, Sex, and Gender in the Ancient Novel. Trends in Classics, Supplementary Volumes 14. Berlin: de Gruyter. Friedländer, Ludwig. 1934 [1862/1864/1871]. Sittengeschichte Roms. Vienna: Phaidon Verlag. Gleason, Maud. 1995. Making Men: Sophists and Self-Presentation in Ancient Rome. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Goldhill, Simon, ed. 2001. Being Greek under Rome: Cultural Identity, the Second Sophistic and the Development of Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Goodman, Martin. 1994. “Josephus as Roman Citizen.” In Josephus and the History of the Greco-Roman Period, ed. Fausto Parente and Joseph Sievers. SPB 41. Leiden: Brill, pp.  329–38. –. 1996. “The Roman Identity of Roman Jews.” In The Jews in the Hellenistic-Roman World, ed. Isaiah Gafni et al. Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center, pp.  85–99. Haaland, Gunnar. 1999. “Jewish Laws for a Roman Audience: Toward an Understanding of Contra Apionem.” In Internationales Josephus-Kolloquium, Brussel, ed. Folker Siegert and Jürgen U. Kalms. Münster: LIT, pp.  282–304. Hägg, Tomas. 2012. The Art of Biography in Antiquity. New York: Cambridge University Press. Harland, Philip A., ed. 2011. Travel and Religion in Antiquity. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press. Harrill, J. Albert. 2012. Paul the Apostle: His Life and Legacy in their Roman Context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hezser, Catherine. 1997. The Social Structure of the Rabbinic Movement in Roman Palestine. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. –. 2011. Jewish Travel in Antiquity. TSAJ 144. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Hindley, Geoffrey. 1971. History of Roads. London: Peter Davies. Hunt, Edward D. 1984. Holy Land Pilgrimage in the Later Roman Empire, AD 312– 460. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Isaac, Benjamin. 1978. “Milestones in Judaea, from Vespasian to Constantine.” Palestine Exploration Quarterly 110: 47–60. –. 2004. The Invention of Racism. Princeton: Princeton University Press. –. 2010. “Infrastructure.” In The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Daily Life in Roman Palestine, ed. Catherine Hezser. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp.  145–64. –. 2011. “Attitudes towards Provincial Intellectuals in the Roman Empire.” In Cultural Identity and the Peoples of the Mediterranean, ed. Erich Gruen. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, pp.  491–518. Reprint in Isaac, Benjamin. 2017. Empire and Ideology in the Graeco-Roman World: Selected Papers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. –. 2013. “A Multicultural Mediterranean?” Scripta Classica Israelica 32: 243–54. –. 2014. “The Barbarian in Greek and Latin Literature.” Scripta Classica Israelica 34: 117–37. Reprint in Isaac, Benjamin. 2017. Empire and Ideology in the Graeco-Roman World: Selected Papers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Isaac, Benjamin, and Israel Roll. 1982. Roman Roads in Judaea I: The Legio Scythopolis Road. Oxford: BAR International. Jones, Christopher P. 1971. Plutarch and Rome. Oxford: Clarendon. –. 1986. Culture and Society in Lucian. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Kalmin, Richard. 2014. Migrating Tales: The Talmud’s Narratives and their Historical Context. Berkeley: University of California Press. Krauss, Samuel. 1910–12. Talmudische Archäologie. 3 vols. Leipzig: G. Fock. Lampe, Peter. 1989. Die stadtrömischen Christen der ersten beiden Jahrhunderte. WUNT 2.18. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Lampe-Densky, Sigrid. 2002. “Domitia, Marcia, and the Nameless Smuggler: Pearl Dealers in the Roman Empire.” In Transgressors: Toward a Feminist Biblical Theology, ed. Claudia Janssen et al. Collegeville: Liturgical Press, pp.  59–65. Laurence, Ray. 1999. The Roads of Roman Italy: Mobility and Cultural Change. London: Routledge. Levinson, Joshua. 2016. “The Language of Stones: Roman Milestones on Rabbinic Roads.” JSJ 47: 257–76. Mason, Steve. 2003. “Flavius Josephus in Flavian Rome: Reading On and Between the Lines.” In Flavian Rome: Culture, Image, Text, ed. A. J. Boyle and William J. Dominik. Leiden: Brill, pp.  559–89. –. 2016. “Josephus as a Roman Historian.” In A Companion to Josephus in his World, ed. Honora Chapman and Zuleika Rodgers. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, pp.  89–107. Moatti, Claudia. 2000. “Le contrôle de la mobilité des personnes dans l’empire romain.” MEFRA: 925–58. –. 2006. “Translation, Migration, and Communication in the Roman Empire: Three Aspects of Movement in History.” Classical Antiquity 25: 109–40. –. 2012. “Roman World, Mobility.” In Encyclopedia of Global Human Migration. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, pp.  1–14. –. 2014. “Mobility and Identity between the Second and the Fourth Centuries: The ‘Cosmopolitization’ of the Roman Empire.” In The City in the Classical and Post-Classical World: Changing Contexts of Power and Identity, ed. C. Rapp and H. A. Drake. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.  130–52. Morgan, Teresa. 2015. Roman Faith and Christian Faith. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Moss, Candida R. 2012. Ancient Christian Martyrdom: Diverse Practices, Theologies, and Traditions. New Haven: Yale University Press. Nasrallah, Laura Salah. 2006. “The Rhetoric of Conversion and the Construction of Experience: The Case of Justin Martyr.” SP 40: 467–74. –. 2010. Christian Responses to Roman Art and Architecture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Niehoff, Maren R. 2011. “Philo’s Exposition in a Roman Context.” Studia Philonica Annual 23: 1–21. –. 2016. “Josephus and Philo in Rome.” In A Companion to Josephus in his World, ed. Honora Chapman and Zuleika Rodgers. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, pp.  135–46. –. 2017. Philo of Alexandria: An Intellectual Biography. New Haven: Yale University Press. O’Connor, Colin. 1993. Roman Bridges. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Patai, Raphael. 1938. Jewish Seafaring in Ancient Times [Hebrew]. Jerusalem: Mossad Bialik.

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Perkins, Judith. 2009. Roman Imperial Identities in the Early Christian Era. London: Routledge. Sperber, Daniel. 1986. Nautica Talmudica. Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan University Press. Stadter, Philip A. 2014. “Plutarch and Rome.” In A Companion to Plutarch, ed. Mark Beck. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, pp.  13–31. –. 2015. Plutarch and His Roman Readers. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sterling, Gregory. 1992. Historiography and Self-Definition: Josephus, Luke-Acts, and Apologetic Historiography. Novum Testamentum Supplements 64. Leiden: Brill. Swain, Simon. 1996. Hellenism and Empire. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Thorsteinsson, Runar M. 2010. Roman Christianity and Roman Stoicism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Watson, Francis. 2007. Paul, Judaism, and the Gentiles. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. Whitmarsh, Tim. 2001. Greek Literature and the Roman Empire: The Politics of Imitation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. –. ed. 2010. Local Knowledge and Microidentities in the Imperial Greek World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. –. 2013. Beyond the Second Sophistic: Adventures in Greek Postclassicism. Berkeley: University of California Press. Witztum, Eliezer, and Moshe Kalian. 2013. Jerusalem of Holiness and Madness [Hebrew]. Ramot Hashavim: Aryeh Nir. Zwingmann, Nicola. 2012. Antiker Tourismus in Kleinasien und den vorgelagerten Inseln: Selbstvergewisserung in der Fremde. Antiquitas, Reihe 1, Bd. 59. Bonn: Habelt.

Real and Imagined Geography

The View from Aphrodisias and Hadrianoutherae Ewen Bowie My point of departure is Aphrodisias, a medium-sized Greek city in a valley from which the river Morsynus flows north into the Maeander.1 That Aphrodisias was situated in this valley in Caria and not in the great Maeander valley itself was important for its history and, I suggest, for some aspects of the mentality of its citizens. The Maeander valley was one of the main routes of east-west travel and its cities must have experienced passing or visiting travelers of all sorts, from emperors and governors to the traveling brothel Strabo tells us was once swallowed up by an earthquake at Carura, some thirty kilometres west of Laodicea: Ὅριον δέ ἐστι τῆς Φρυγίας καὶ τῆς Καρίας τὰ Κάρουρα· κώμη δ’ ἐστὶν αὕτη πανδοχεῖα ἔχουσα καὶ ζεστῶν ὑδάτων ἐκβολάς, τὰς μὲν ἐν τῷ ποταμῷ Μαιάνδρῳ τὰς δ’ ὑπὲρ τοῦ χείλους. καὶ δή ποτέ φασι πορνοβοσκὸν αὐλισθέντα ἐν τοῖς πανδοχείοις σὺν πολλῷ πλήθει γυναικῶν νύκτωρ γενομένου σεισμοῦ συναφανισθῆναι πάσαις The boundary of Phrygia and Caria is Carura: this is a village with inns and outpourings of hot water, some in the river Maeander and others above its banks. And they say that once a brothel-manager who had lodged in the inns with a large number of his women disappeared along with all of them when there was an earthquake during the night. (Strabo 12.8.17.578C) 2

Some of these cities in or near the Maeander valley produced sophists eminent enough to be selected for a biography by Philostratus in his Lives of the Sophists (written ca. AD 242) – e.g. Marcus Antonius Polemo, from Laodicea on the Lycus, who seems to have had no problem dividing his time between Laodicea and Smyrna (some 250 kilometres apart); and later his grandson Flavius Antipater from nearby Hierapolis. Aphrodisias, however, produced no sophist that Philostratus thought worthy of mention. The purposeful east-west traveler can rarely have gone there. Some may have passed through if they struck south from Antioch on the Maeander to get to Heraclea Salbace, but going south further east, up the valley of the river Lycus, would be a more rational and safer route.3 1  I am very grateful to Lucia Athanassaki, Daniel Jolowicz, Karen Ní-Mheallaigh, and Bert Smith for their helpful suggestions and for saving me from several errors, and to members of the audience of the oral version in Jerusalem for their comments. 2  My translation. For the longue durée of the Maeander valley’s historical geography see Thonemann 2011. 3  Heraclea Salbace was the origo of a family that supplied doctors to Trajan, Pius, and

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To some extent, then, Aphrodisias was a backwater. And although, like almost every Greek city in the East, Aphrodisias in the second and early third centuries established competitive festivals (ἀγῶνες γυμνικοί and ἀγῶνες μουσικοί), these came too late, and Aphrodisias was too peripheral, for them to be part of the established circuit.4 This circuit has been better understood since in 2006 Petzl and Schwertheim published three letters of Hadrian found at Alexandria Troas, in one of which Hadrian carried out a complete overhaul of the calendar of the main Greek contests, apparently on the basis of information provided to him in speeches and petitions at Naples during the celebration of the Σεβαστά in August or September 134 AD.5 The agones in question are chiefly those of mainland Greece and the western coast of provincia Asia, with three in Italy – the Capitolia in Rome, the Sebasta in Naples, and an agon in Tarentum. Aphrodisias does not, of course, figure, though that is true of many cities in provincia Asia, where only the agones of Ephesus, Smyrna and Pergamum are listed. Now that I have drawn attention to this important but difficult text, let me highlight one phenomenon to which I shall return. For journeys by land a tight timetable can be prescribed with some confidence: two days from Smyrna to Ephesus or to Pergamum, and hence four days from Ephesus to Pergamum – around 25 kilometers a day. For journeys by sea much more latitude was needed. From the Saronic gulf to Miletus or Ephesus could be a smooth two-day voyage, 6 but if the weather turned nasty that could become fourteen.7 Hadrian prudently programmed fifteen days between the last event at the Panathaenaea in Attica and the first in the agon at Smyrna.8 Let us return, then, to contemplating inhabitants of Aphrodisias, and let us ask who among them might have traveled. Quite a few will have left their CariMarcus, T. Statilius Crito and T. Statilius Attalus – doubtless the reason that it acquired the status of colonia Ulpia from Trajan, though there was also some veteran settlement. 4 For ἀγῶνες at Aphrodisias see Roueché 1993. 5  Petzl and Schwertheim, Hadrian und die dionysischen Künstler. Hadrian began his reformed cycle of agones with the Olympic Games (line 61) in Elis (? in AD 133: the edd.pr. reconstructed the entire cycle from the Olympia held in the summer of AD 133 to those of the summer of AD 137, but that reconstruction is not without problems, cf. Jones 2007, Slater 2008. 6 Cf. Chariton 1.11.8: ὑδρευσάμενοι δὲ καὶ λαβόντες ἀπὸ τῶν παρουσῶν ὁλκάδων ἐπισιτισμὸν ἔπλεον εὐθὺ Μιλήτου, τριταῖοι δὲ κατήχθησαν εἰς ὅρμον ἀπέχοντα τῆς πόλεως σταδίους ὀγδοήκοντα, εὐφυέστατον εἰς ὑποδοχήν (So after taking on water and procuring provisions from merchant ships nearby, they sailed straight for Miletus and two days later moored in an anchorage eighty stades from the city, a perfect natural harbour). 7  Cf. Aristides, Sacred Tale 2 = Oration 48.68: τέτταρες πάλιν αὗται πρὸς ταῖς δέκα ἡμέραι καὶ νύκτες χειμῶνος, κύκλῳ διὰ παντὸς τοῦ πελάγους φερομένων, κἀν ταύταις ἀσιτίαι οὐκ ὀλίγαι, καὶ μόλις Μιλήτῳ προσηνέχθημεν (… There were fourteen more days and nights of storm, in which we were carried round in a circle over the whole Aegean, and in these days we often went without food. At last we put in at Miletus …). See the fuller citation below pp.  18–19. 8  Petzl and Schwertheim 2006, line 68: μετὰ δὲ Παναθήναια Ζμυρναῖοι ἀγέτωσαν, ἐς μὲν πλοῦν τῶν ἀγωνιστῶν ἐχόντων πεντεκαίδεκα ἡμέρας ἀπὸ τοῦ Παναθηναίων ὅπλου.

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an backwater to travel for various reasons. Members of the city’s elite will have gone to Rome to seek confirmation of the city’s status as a civitas libera at the beginning of every emperor’s reign, and doubtless on other occasions for personal or civic objectives such as obtaining permission for setting up an imperial cult (an issue to which I shall return). Aphrodisias’s ties with Rome were already close in the early decades of the first century BC. In 85 BC envoys from Aphrodisias went to meet Roman praetor Q. Oppius in Cos, a meeting referred to in a text re-inscribed in the second century AD (IAph2007, 8.2), and the city’s close relations with Rome in the early imperial period are well documented (Reynolds 1982).9 Under Caesar and Augustus these ties were strengthened by the latter’s freedman Gaius Iulius Zoilus, who was responsible for an important monument attested by its dedication (found out of context in a modern water channel in the north-east of the city at the city wall), and also for financing the stage and the proscenium of the theatre.10 A little later the Julio-Claudian Sebasteion, as has been demonstrated by Bert Smith, was modelled on a building in Rome, the porticus ad nationes (Smith 1988 and 2013: 114–16). This building must have been seen and studied by members of the Aphrodisian families who financed it, or by their architects, or indeed by both. In a related sphere, Aphrodisian marble exporters and sculptors will have known and sometime moved to Rome.11 So although Aphrodisias was a backwater, it was not an isolated backwater. In the fields of literary culture and athletics, however, it was probably only occasionally, and not very far from home, that Aphrodisians made their mark. Thus the only poet I know from Aphrodisias, Gaius Iulius Longianus, gave performances in not very distant Halicarnassus, some 175 kilometres or perhaps four days away by road, performances that on 27 March AD 127 secured him public honors in that city, including statues erected next to those of Herodotus (IAph2007, 12.27).12 A decade later the pipe-player, Tiberius Claudius Callimorphus, son of Tiberius Claudius Agathangelus, who accompanied choral performance on the aulos (the technical description is κύκλιος αὐλητής), traveled much more widely in 9  With many examples both in Reynolds 1982 and re-edited in IAph2007, e.g. 8.27. For an excellent sketch see Smith 2013, 3–7. 10  Documented by texts found in the theater itself. Published by Reynolds 1982, doc.36b, now IAph2007, 8.5, cf. 8.1 i. Γάϊος Ἰο[ύλιο]ς Ζωΐ ̣λος [θε]οῦ Ἰουλίου υἱ[ο]|ῦ Καίσαρος ἀ[πελεύθερο] ς στεφανοφορήσας τὸ | έκατον ἑξῆς v. [τὸ] λ ̣ογ ̣[ήι]ον καὶ τ|ὸ προσκ ̣ήν[ι]ον̣ σὺν τοῖς | ἐν αὐ[τῶι π] ροσκοσμή|μ ̣α ̣σιν πᾶσιν, v. Ἀφροδίτ|ῃ καὶ τ[ῶι Δήμωι] (Gaius Julius Zoilus, freedman of the divine Iulius’ son Caesar, after being stephanephorus for the tenth time in succession (gave) the stage and the proscenium with all its applied ornaments on it to Aphrodite and the People). For full discussion of the monument of Zoilus see Smith 1993. 11  For sculptors from Aphrodisias see Squarciapino 1943. 12 Previously MAMA viii 418 = Roueché 1993, 88 (found high in the north wall of the stadium and first recorded by Waddington, using a ladder, in 1850).

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winning his victories, as documented in the inscription from Aphrodisias I print below: [(e.g.) ἡ βουλὴ καὶ ὁ δῆμος ἐτείμησαν [e.g. The council and the people honoured] [Τιβ(έριον) Κλαύδιον Τιβ(ερίου) Κλαυ]- [Tiberius Claudius, son of Tiberius Clau-] δίου Ἀγαθαγγέλου υἱὸν Καλ- dius Agathangelus, Calλίμορφον ἱερέα stop διὰ βίου θε- limorphus, priest - for life of the godᾶς Νίκης περιοδονίκην πρῶ- dess Nike, first and only circuitτον καὶ μόνον τῶν ἀπ’ αἰῶ- winner of all time νος κυκλίων αὐλητῶν νική- 5 of cyclic aulos-players, who won σαντα ἱεροὺς ἀγῶνας τοὺς the sacred competitions that leaf ὑπογεγραμμένους leaf are inscribed below vac. space Πύθια Ἄκτια τὴν ἐξ Ἄργους Pythia Actia the Argive ἀσπίδα δίς Βαρβίλληα ἐν Ἐ- Shield twice, the Barbilleia at Eφέσῳ τετράκις κατὰ τὸ ἑξῆς 10 phesus four times in succession καὶ τὸν κατὰ πάντων Πέργα- and was the overall victor, Pergaμον τρὶς κατὰ τὸ ἑξῆς καὶ τὸ amum three times in succession and κατὰ πάντων κοινὸν̣ Συρίας ἐν was the overall victor, the koinon Ἀντιοχείᾳ δὶς κατὰ τὸ ἑξῆς of Syria in Antioch twice in succession κοινὸν λικίας ἐν Ταρσῷ δὶς 15 the koinon of Cilicia in Tarsus twice κατὰ ἑξῆς Κύζικον Ὀλύμπια in succession the Olympia at Cyzicus καὶ τὸν κατὰ πάντων Ἀδριανὰ Ὀ- and was the overall victor the Hadriana λύμπια ἐν Ἐφέσῳ stop ταλαντιαί- Olympia at Ephesus – the talent-prize ους δὲ καὶ ἡμιταλαντιαους ἐνί- and half-talent prize competitions he κα ἅπαντας οὓς ἠγωνίσατο leaf 20 entered he won in every case. IAph2007, 12.716 = CIG 281013

Callimorphus traveled at least once as far west as the Actian agon at Nicopolis, once to Delphi for the Pythia, and twice to Argos for its internationally renowned agon, the Aspis (Shield). But most of his victories are in provincia Asia – once at Cyzicus and several times at Ephesus and Pergamum. He also competed twice in succession at agones further east, those of the Cilician koinon at Tarsus and the Syrian koinon at Antioch on the Orontes. Of course he may have competed in many other major agones, including ones in Italy, and not been successful, and his unlisted victories in lesser agones that were not ‘sacred’ but simply ‘talent’ or ‘half-talent’ may have been anywhere at all. But it is striking how provincia Asia stands out in his career as documented. This is not, admittedly, true of my next case, the pancratiast Aelius Aurelius Menander, a decade or two later.14 His career is too long to pursue in detail here, but it adds several agones in mainland Greece and Asia Minor, two agones in Italy – the Sebasta at Naples and the Capitolia at Rome – and a slew of contests in the eastern empire: at Beirut, Tyre, Caesarea Stratonos, Neapolis of Samaria, 13 

First copied by Sherard in 1705. Aelius Aurelius Menander, IAph2007, 12.920, mid/late second c. AD (138–169), but for discussion of the date see Farrington 2012, 152 n.  525. 14 

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Scythopolis, Gaza, Caesarea Panias, Hieropolis, Anazarbus, Mopsuestia, Syrian Tripolis, Philadelphia in Arabia, and even Zeugma on the Euphrates. That the pancratiast Menander is exceptional is shown by the several contests in which he can claim to be the first Aphrodisian victor.15 This exceptionality is given some confirmation by my second example from the world of athletic competition, a long-distance runner from around AD 200 whose name has not been preserved (but we know that his praenomen was Marcus and his gentilicium Aurelius, and that he was the son of a Timocles).16 Like the aulos-player Callimorphus, this competitor wins in the Actian agones at Nicopolis and in the Pythia at Delphi, but otherwise his concentration is in Bithynia and Pontus, with just one victory in provincia Asia, at Philadelphia. There are also at least two third-century victors from Aphrodisias documented at the Isthmia (Farrington 2012: 81, nos. 2.66, 2.67). The earliest of these texts, it must be noted, is that honoring the poet Longianus in AD 127, and we cannot tell if Aphrodisian competitors were already traveling in the first century AD – certainly none figure in the recently discovered victor lists of the Neapolitan Sebasta of the year 94. I would conclude, then, that Aphrodisias in the middle of the first century, despite its elite’s links with Rome, was a much quieter and more provincial place than coastal cities like Miletus, Ephesus and Smyrna (with boats putting in and out regularly), like the former Attalid capital Pergamum, also not far from the sea, or like cities on the great east-west valley routes such as Sardis, Nysa, or Tralles.

Imagined Journeys to the Edge of the World I would also suggest, albeit very hypothetically, that the quiet peripherality of Aphrodisias has something to do with the extraordinarily broad horizons imagined for the travels of the heroes and heroines of three of our four earliest novels, all arguably written by people from Aphrodisias: Chariton’s Callirhoe, Antonius Diogenes’s The Incredible Things beyond Thule (τὰ ὑπὲρ Θούλην ἄπιστα), and the Ninus romance (for which we know no ancient title). Admittedly the ascription of each of these novels to an author from Aphrodisias is in varying degrees precarious. The author of Callirhoe claims to be called Chari-

15  IAph2007, 12.920 b 25–30: Ὀλύμπεια ἐν Ἀθήναις ἀν|δρῶν πανκράτιν πρῶτον Ἀφροδεισι|έων stop Πύθια ἀνδρῶν πανκράτιν | Ῥώμην Καπετώλεια Ὀλύμπια stop ἀν|δρῶν πανκράτιν πρῶτον Ἀφροδεισι|έων (in the Olympia at Athens, the men’s pancration, the first Aphrodisian (to do so); in the Pythia, the men’s pancration; at Rome, in the Capitolia Olympia, the men’s pancration, the first Aphrodisian (to do so)). 16  MAMA viii 521 = Roueché 1993, no.  70 = IAph2007, 12.215.

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ton from Aphrodisias,17 but some have suggested this to be a nom de plume for an erotic novelist. In 1994 Bowersock pointed out that the names Antonius and Diogenes were hitherto found together only in the epigraphy of Aphrodisias – perhaps that these two names are found together only at Aphrodisias is simply the combination of chance and the very lacunose epigraphic record of most Greek cities of the Empire; but once one writer of fiction has been documented for a city (i.e. Chariton), the presence of a second (Antonius Diogenes) becomes more probable (Bowersock 1994: 38).18 That idea becomes even more attractive given the city’s links with the Babylonian king Ninus, known from Stephanus of Byzantium and confirmed by a relief from the Augustan basilica: might a third of our early novels, the Ninus, also be written in Aphrodisias?19 I suggested this constellation in 2002,20 and other evidence for the early novels all coming from south-western Asia Minor had previously been offered by Jan Bremmer (1998). It still seems to me a very plausible hypothesis, even if only a hypothesis. As to the date of this efflorescence, in 2002 I argued for the 50s or early 60s for Chariton, a date reinforced by the arguments of Stefan Tilg in 2010, and in 2007 I offered arguments for putting Antonius Diogenes, too, around the year 60. Supposing some of this is correct, what follows? One interesting consequence is that three writers from a quiet backwater city gave free rein to their literary imagination and took their principal characters on vast journeys that in diverse ways mapped onto or contrasted with the frontiers of the contemporary Roman Empire. Notoriously no Greek novel mentions either Rome or Romans in its main text, though in their peritexts Antonius Diogenes implied Roman culture by his dedication to a Faustinus, 21 and Iamblichus mentioned the Parthian wars of Trajan and of Lucius Verus.22 The imaginary world of the novelists is set in 17  Χαρίτων Ἀφροδισιεύς, Ἀθηναγόρου τοῦ ῥήτορος ὑπογραφεύς, πάθος ἐρωτικὸν ἐν Συρα­ κούσαις γενόμενον διηγήσομαι (I, Chariton of Aphrodisias, secretary to the rhetor Athenagoras, am going to relate a story of desire which took place in Syracuse), Chariton 1.1.1. 18  Bowersock’s assessment of Aphrodisias as “knowing what other peoples were like” (39) and “a place like this could have readily inspired a narrative of cultural exotica” (40) implies a more outward-looking Aphrodisias than I propose, but his conclusions are not dissimilar to mine. 19  So already Stephens and Winkler 1995, 28. For the reliefs from the basilica see Yildirim 2004, esp.  25–28 with a photograph at 51. 20  See Bowie 2002 and 2004. 21  Ὁ γοῦν Διογένης, ὁ καὶ Ἀντώνιος, ταῦτα πάντα Δεινίαν εἰσαγαγὼν πρὸς Κύμβαν τερατευ­ σάμενον, ὅμως γράφει Φαυστίνῳ ὅτι τε συντάττει περὶ τῶν ὑπὲρ Θούλην ἀπίστων, καὶ ὅτι τῇ ἀδελφῇ Ἰσιδώρᾳ φιλομαθῶς ἐχούσῃ τὰ δράματα προσφωνεῖ (now although Diogenes, also called Antonius, introduces Deinias delivering all this mumbo-jumbo to Cymbas, nevertheless he writes to Faustinus that he is the creator of The Incredible Things beyond Thule, and that he is dedicating his dramas to his sister Isidora, who has an appetite for learning), Antonius Diogenes cited by Phot., Cod. 166, 111a30–111b1. 22  λέγει δὲ καὶ ἑαυτὸν Βαβυλώνιον εἶναι ὁ συγγραφεύς … Ῥωμαίων δὲ διαλαμβάνει βασιλεύειν Ἀντωνῖνον, καὶ ὅτε Ἀντωνῖνός, φησιν, Οὐῆρον τὸν αὐτοκράτορα καὶ ἀδελφὸν καὶ κηδεστὴν ἔπεμψε

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the classical period – around the late sixth or early fifth centuries BC in the cases of Heliodorus and Antonius Diogenes, or around 400 BC in the case of Chariton – or (it seems) in the Hellenistic period in the cases of Xenophon, Achilles Tatius, and perhaps Longus. Thus Chariton of Roman imperial Aphrodisias starts his narrative in late fifth-century Sicily, at that time an island contested between Greeks and Carthaginians, and presented by Chariton as wholly Greek, though at the time he was writing it was almost wholly Roman. He sets much of the action of the novel’s first half in western Asia Minor, at Miletus and in adjacent Caria – very much home territory for an Aphrodisian. Then at the mid-point of the novel Callirhoe is taken across the Euphrates – in Chariton’s day the boundary between the Roman empire and Parthia – and her traumatic response might falsely suggest that Greek culture was bounded at the end of the fifth century BC by the same frontier that divided the Roman empire from Parthia: Καλλιρόη μὲν γὰρ μέχρι Συρίας καὶ Κιλικίας κούφως ἔφερε τὴν ἀποδημίαν· καὶ γὰρ Ἑλλάδος ἤκουε φωνῆς καὶ θάλασσαν ἔβλεπε τὴν ἄγουσαν εἰς Συρακούσας· ὡς δ᾿ ἧκεν ἐπὶ ποταμὸν Εὐφράτην, μεθ᾿ ὃν ἤπειρός ἐστι μεγάλη, ἀφετήριον εἰς τὴν βασιλέως γῆν τὴν πολλήν, τότε ἤδη πόθος αὐτὴν ὑπεδύετο πατρίδος τε καὶ συγγενῶν ἀπόγνωσις τῆς εἰς τοὔμπαλιν ὑποστροφῆς. στᾶσα δὲ ἐπὶ τῆς ἠϊόνος καὶ πάντας ἀναχωρῆσαι κελεύσασα πλὴν Πλαγγόνος τῆς μόνης πιστῆς, τοιούτων ἤρξατο λόγων· “Τύχη βάσκανε καὶ μιᾶς γυναικὸς προσφιλο­ νεικοῦσα πολέμῳ, σύ με κατέκλεισας ἐν τάφῳ ζῶσαν, κἀκεῖθεν ἐξήγαγες οὐ δι᾿ ἔλεον, ἀλλ᾿ ἵνα λῃσταῖς με παραδῷς. ἐμερίσαντό μου τὴν φυγὴν θάλασσα καὶ Θήρων· ἡ Ἑρμοκράτους θυγάτηρ ἐπράθην καί, τὸ τῆς ἀφιλίας μοι βαρύτερον, ἐφιλήθην, ἵνα ζῶντος Χαιρέου ἄλλῳ γαμηθῶ. σὺ δὲ καὶ τούτων ἤδη μοι φθονεῖς· οὐκέτι γὰρ εἰς Ἰωνίαν με φυγαδεύεις. ξένην μέν, πλὴν Ἑλληνικὴν ἐδίδους γῆν, ὅπου μεγάλην εἶχον παραμυθίαν, ὅτι θαλάσσῃ παρακάθημαι· νῦν δὲ ἔξω με τοῦ συνήθους ῥίπτεις ἀέρος καὶ τῆς πατρίδος ὅλῳ διορίζομαι κόσμῳ. Μίλητον ἀφείλω μου πάλιν, ὡς πρότερον Συρακούσας· ὑπὲρ τὸν Εὐφράτην ἀπάγομαι καὶ βαρβάροις ἐγκλείομαι μυχοῖς ἡ νησιῶτις, ὅπου μηκέτι θάλασσα. ποίαν ἔτ᾿ ἐλπίσω ναῦν ἐκ Σικελίας καταπλέουσαν; As far as Syria and Cilicia Callirhoe readily put up with the journey, for she still heard Greek spoken and could look upon the sea which led to Syracuse. But when she arrived at the River Euphrates, the starting point of the Great King’s empire, beyond which lies the vast continent, then she was filled with longing for her home and family and despaired of ever returning again. So standing on the river bank and telling all to withdraw save Plangon, her one loyal friend, she began to speak as follows: ‘Envious Fortune, happy to persecute a lone female, you immured me alive in a tomb, releasing me not from pity, but to place me in the clutches of pirates. Theron and the sea between them sent me into exile, and I, the daughter of Hermocrates, was sold into slavery! Then, a thing even harder to bear than being unloved, I aroused a man’s love and so, while Chaereas was still Βολογαίσῳ τῷ Παρθυαίῳ πολεμήσοντα, ὡς αὐτός τε προείποι καὶ τὸν πόλεμον, ὅτι γενήσεται, καὶ ὅποι τελευτήσοι (and the writer says that he himself is a Babylonian … and he specifies that the Roman emperor is Antoninus, and that, when Antoninus (he says) sent the emperor Verus, his brother and son-in-law, to conduct the war against the Parthian Vologeses, he himself predicted that the war would take place and how it would end), Iamblichus’s Babyloniaca, cited by Phot., Cod. 94, 75b25–29.

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alive, became the wife of another. But even this you now grudge me, for you no longer banish me to Ionia. There the land which you gave me, though foreign, was still Greek, and I had the great consolation of living by the sea. But now you cast me forth from familiar surroundings and I am separated from my home by a whole world. This time you take Miletus from me, as before you took Syracuse. Carried off beyond the Euphrates, I, an islander born, am enclosed in the depths of a barbarian continent where no sea exists. What ship searching for me from Sicily can I now expect?’ Chariton 5.1.3–6 (trans. Goold, Loeb Classical Library, adapted)

Two books later, when her husband Chaereas thinks (mistakenly) that she has been adjudicated to Dionysius by the Persian king (Chariton 7.1), he and his Greek friend Polycharmus manage to sneak across the Euphrates and join the forces of the Egyptian king, for whom Chaereas, commanding 300 Greeks whose literary ancestors are manifestly the Spartans who died at Thermopylae in 480 BC, captures Tyre (Chariton 7.2.1, 7.2.6–4.10). My whirlwind summary aims to bring out how Chariton may be playing with Roman imperial constructions of the East. Tyre was a city now safely within the empire, and indeed much Hellenized, but also a city whose capture by Alexander was a feat never forgotten by Greeks. The Euphrates was a frontier beyond which Rome had hitherto failed to impose its rule, but also beyond which both Chaereas of Syracuse and Dionysius of Miletus are imagined to exercise the power of Greek persuasive rhetoric, and beyond which, a Greek reader will recall, Alexander had marched as far as India. Finally, Egypt was an unstable and restless terrtitory, posing a risk to any imperial power attempting to control it. The counterpoise to Rome’s empire is even more striking in the 24 books of Antonius Diogenes’s τὰ ὑπὲρ Θούλην ἄπιστα, The Incredible Things beyond Thule. For this novel we are largely dependent on the summary made by the ninth-century churchman and scholar Photius (Phot., Cod. 166). Here I epitomize that summary. The chief narrator, an Arcadian Deinias, has traveled north to the sources of the river Tanais “in pursuit of knowledge,”23 then East to where the sun rises, then round the outer sea to Thule. There he was joined by and fell in love with a Tyrian Dercyllis. Her own travels, which she narrated to him on Thule, were initially undertaken with her brother Mantias and take place in the Mediterranean area and adjacent countries: Rhodes, Crete, Campania, north-west Spain, Aquitania, again Spain, back to Italy and Sicily. Then they had taken her north via Thrace and the Getae or Massagetae to Thule. From Thule all three, Deinias, Mantias, and Dercyllis are magically transported back to Tyre.

23  εἰσάγεται τοίνυν ὄνομα Δεινίας κατὰ ζήτησιν ἱστορίας ἅμα τῷ παιδὶ Δημοχάρῃ ἀποπλανηθεὶς τῆς πατρίδος (So a man is introduced, Deinas by name, who has wandered from his country with his slave (or ‘son’?) Demochares in a quest for knowledge), Phot., Cod. 166, 109a6–7.

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The idea that Tyre was so fully Hellenized in the early fifth century BC is unhistorical,24 but Antonius Diogenes’s presentation of the city may be partly due to the importance, in the Greek imaginaire, of Alexander’s later conquest of Tyre, which Antonius Diogenes makes responsible for the discovery of the cypress-wood tablets on which the whole 24-book narrative was allegedly written (Phot., Cod. 166, 111a41–b7). It is striking that the travel narratives cover not simply much of the Western Roman Empire, with perhaps surprising visits to north-west Spain and south-west Gaul, 25 but extend far beyond its boundaries. Is this simply the imagination run-riot of a learned writer who has read too many volumes of travel and paradoxography? Such books, whose contribution he claims in one of his introductory letters (Phot., Cod.166, 111a35–40), doubtless played their part; yet if Antonius Diogenes indeed belongs in the late 50s or very early 60s AD, before Petronius and at about the same time as Chariton (Bowie 2007), then another item must also be considered – the Sebasteion at Aphrodisias. I quote from the NYU website: 26 The Sebasteion, excavated in 1979–81, was a grandiose temple complex dedicated to Aphrodite and the Julio-Claudian emperors. Its construction stretched over two generations, from ca. A.D. 20 to 60, from the reign of Tiberius to that of Nero. The complex was paid for by two of the leading Aphrodisian families. Leading to a Corinthian temple, a narrow processional way (90 x 14 m) was flanked by two portico-like buildings, each three-storied (12 m high), with superimposed Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian orders, and decorated with a long series of figured marble reliefs. More than seventy of the 190 reliefs that the project required were recovered in the excavation. They featured Roman emperors, Greek myths, and a series of personified ethne or ‘nations’ of Augustus’ world empire, from the Ethiopians of Africa to the Callaeci of western Spain. This remarkable series of reliefs is unique in content, preservation, and extent.

The reliefs of the Sebasteion that are most relevant are those of the ethne (‘nations’), of which there were fifty decorating the lower storey of the north portico. Of these fifty only seven or eight have survived, though we have parts of twenty-eight bases. Inscribed names have survived on only seventeen of those twenty-eight bases27 – much less than what has survived of the south portico, which presented emperors and gods in the upper storey and scenes from Greek mythology in the lower. The least well-preserved portion is the upper storey of 24  I am grateful to Jo Quinn for discussing the issue of Tyre’s Hellenization. Our evidence for the city of Tyre in this period is minimal (by comparison with that for Sidon), but in the fourth century Tyre was already building connections with the Greek world. For the historical reality of Hellenization after Alexander see Bonnet 2015. 25  Stephens and Winkler 1995 wonder about an African narrative by-passed by Photius (104). 26 https://www.nyu.edu/projects/aphrodisias/seb.html. For a full and generously illustrated publication of its architecture, sculpture and epigraphic texts see Smith 2013. 27  Smith 1988, 71. For the texts see now IAph2007, 9.2–18, 20–24, with honors for many members of the imperial family, IAph2007, 9.26–40, and Smith 2013, 57–68 and 74–79.

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the north portico, where from a series of cosmic allegories only two, personifying Day, Ἡμέρα,28 and Ocean, Ὠκεανός,29 have survived. Smith noted how many of the ethne come from the edges of the empire, and argued that the Augustan monument in Rome, which was the Sebasteion’s model, “sum[med] up the victories and frontier advances of a whole reign” and “although they encompass conquest and victory, they also suggest peaceful incorporation.”30 However one interprets the lacunose evidence, the association of the ethne in the north portico with the reliefs depicting emperors in the south clearly represented Rome and its ruling family, the Julio-Claudians, as controlling most if not all of the inhabited world. Two reliefs from the south portico represented Claudius conquering Britain and Nero conquering Armenia.31 The construction of the Sebasteion seems to have started under Tiberius. This process was interrupted by an earthquake, later resumed under Claudius, and finished under Nero. Two families were involved. Epigraphy has established that the propylon and north portico were dedicated by the brothers Menander and Eusebes Philopatris, and by Eusebes’s wife Apphias. After an earthquake, they were restored by Apphias, her daughter Tata, and her grandsons, also called Menander and Eusebes.32 The imperial temple and south portico were promised by a Diogenes and by Attalis Apphion on behalf of her husband Attalus (Diogenes’s now dead brother), all perhaps related to Menander and Eusebes. They were restored by Diogenes’s son who, under Claudius, acquired the Roman citizenship his father clearly did not have: he is Tiberius Claudius Diogenes, with the unusual additional name or title Φιλοπολ(ε)ίτης.33 The Sebasteion complex was reaching completion in Nero’s reign when the novelist Antonius Diogenes was writing. The monument’s pretensions may make Antonius’s bloated 24-book narrative more intelligible. More intelligible too becomes Antonius Diogenes’s focus on the Spanish north-west – on the Artabrians (registered by Strabo as belonging to the Callaeci, an ethnos depicted on the reliefs) 34 and the Asturians; or on the distant reaches north of the Danube (an area repre-

28 

IAph2007, 9.6, Smith 2013, 79–80 A 2 with fig.  40 and Pl. 22. IAph2007, 9.7. Smith 2013, 79–80 A 3 with fig.  41 and Pl. 23 30  Smith 1988, 71. The ethne include (e.g.) Arabs (IAph2007, 9.4, Smith 213, 109–10 B-base 26), Egyptians (IAph2007, 9.5, Smith 2013, 109 B-base 25), the ἔθνος Ἰουδαίων (IAph2007, 9.12, Smith 2013, 103–4 B-base 10), and obscure nations like the Pirousti, (IAph2007, 9.18, Smith 2013, 89–91 B 1 with fig.  47 and Pls. 26–27). 31  Smith 1987, Plates xiv and xvi and for the texts IAph2007, 9.41, Smith 2013, 145–47 C 10 with fig.  9 0 and Pls. 61–62, 96 (Claudius and Britannia) and IAph2007, 9.14, Smith 2013, 140– 43 C 8 with fig.  88 and Pls. 58–59 (Nero and Armenia). 32  Reynolds 1981, IAph2007, 9.1, Smith 2013, 6–23 (drawing on texts not published by Joyce Reynolds) with stemmata of the two families 18 and 22. 33  IAph2007, 9.25, Smith 2013, 19 Ded 6. 34  Strabo 3.3.3.153, cf. Pomponius Mela 3.1.9, Ptolemy 2.6.22; the text for the relief of the Callaeci is IAph2007, 9.17, Smith 2013, 108 B-base 22: ἔθνο[υς] Καλλαικῶ[ν. 29 

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sented on the reliefs by Dacians and Bosporans).35 Is it pure chance that of the three islands preserved from the north portico both Crete and Sicily are on Dercyllis’s route? 36 Is there a link between the Sebasteion’s Trumpilini in southeast Gaul37 and Antonius Diogenes’s Aquitanians in southwest Gaul? Do the reliefs of Ocean, Ὠκεανός, and Day, Ἡμέρα, relate to Deinias’s travel to the distant Ocean and as far as the risings of the sun?38 Is Antonius Diogenes’s play with couples and siblings another spin-off from the circumstances of the monument’s erection? Is there any relation between his choice of the names Deinias and (it seems) Mantias, and the metrically similar name Hermias, borne by a priest of Antonia Augusta (mother of Claudius) at Aphrodisias? 39 A soft version of an explanation might be simply that as the Sebasteion went up there was much talk in symposia and barbers’ shops at Aphrodisias about the extent of the Roman Empire and the obscure races it had introduced to the civilized world. A bolder explanation would be that two philo-Roman families who had already benefited from their links with Rome and its ruling family,40 and that were hoping to do even better, had put up the Sebasteion, glorifying the imperial house and the conquests of Augustus and his successors, showing Rome spread all over the oikoumene (a message encapsulated in the relief showing Earth with her hand stretched out to Rome, both labelled on the base, Γῆ and Ῥώμη).41 Antonius Diogenes, whose name suggests that his family had got citizenship not from Octavian or from a Julio-Claudian but much earlier from the triumvir Antony,42 was less approving of this triumphalism, and wrote the τὰ ὑπὲρ Θούλην ἄπιστα, showing that a young man Deinias (a name that may 35 Dacians,

IAph2007, 9.20, Smith 2013, 91–93 B 2 with Pls. 28–29. IAph2007, 9.8, Smith 2013, 108 B 4 and Pls. 32–33; Sicily, IAph2007, 9.11, Smith 2013, 105 B-base 14. 37 Trumpilini, ἔθνους Τρουνπείλω[ν, IAph2007, 9.3, Smith 2013, 108–9 B-base 24; Bosporans, IAph2007, 9.21, Smith 2013, 104 B-base 12. 38  καὶ δὴ καὶ εἰς τὸν ἑῷον ἐμβαλόντες καὶ πρὸς ταῖς τοῦ ἡλίου ἀνατολαῖς γεγονότες, ἐντεῦθέν τε κύκλῳ τὴν ἐκτὸς περιελθόντες θάλασσαν ἐν χρόνοις μακροῖς καὶ ποικίλαις πλάναις (and indeed thrusting eastwards and arriving at the risings of the sun, and from there going round the exterior sea in a circle over a long period and involving various wanderings), Phot., Cod.166, 109a9–11. 39  Reynolds 1981, 322 no.  5 with Pl. XIc, IAph2007, 9.26, Smith 2013, 61–62 P-base 13. The name Mantias, not (as in Photius) Mantineas, is found in the fragments from Antonius Diogenes in P.Oxy. vol.  70 (2006) nos. 4760 and 4761, on which see Bowie 2009. The use of metrically equivalent names by Roman poets to hint at historical individuals has long been recognized, but so far as I know no work has been done on this question in relation to Greek prose fiction. 40  Witness the Roman citizenship of Tiberius Claudius Diogenes. For the possible mechanics (Diogenes on an embassy) see Reynolds 1981, 320 comparing Nero’s letter to Menophilus at Aezani, IGR 4.561. 41  Reynolds 1981, 323 no.  7 with Plate XIIb, IAph2007, 9.15, Smith 2013, 139 C 7 with Pls. 56–57. 42  A later grant from Antonia Augusta, mother of Claudius, is also a possibility: she too was honored at the Sebasteion, IAph2007, 9.26, Smith 2013, 61–62 P-base 13. 36 Crete,

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suggest δεινός, ‘clever’), from a place with the greatest claims to antique Greekness, Arcadia,43 and his beloved from a prematurely Hellenized Tyre had traveled to all these places (and beyond) even before Alexander’s conquests, to say nothing of those of Rome’s, driven not by an imperialistic lust for power and booty but by the traditional Hellenic desire for knowledge.44 We have much less of the Ninus romance to go on, and only a very much scantier account could be attempted of any play in which it might have engaged with the contemporary Roman world of Rome – e.g. Ninus presented as a conqueror of the same calibre as Roman imperatores, or his campaigns in Armenia perhaps evoking those of the reign of Nero. In 2002 I suggested that Ninus’s Armenian campaigns might have a link with those of Nero’s general Domitius Corbulo, narrated in Tacitus Annals Books 12–15 and Cassius Dio Books 60– 63, and with the publication of Corbulo’s memoirs, not earlier than AD 63. This suggestion has been taken further (in a modified form) by Stefan Tilg, who suggests that Nero’s crowning of Tiridates as king of Armenia in Rome in AD 66 may have had the most important impact on the author of the Ninus, and that the reliefs of the Sebasteion may have also played a part (2010: 112–18).45 Although it is of course possible that the author of the Ninus knew of the Roman campaign in Armenia by word of mouth or from literary sources like Corbulo’s memoirs (the war-narrative fever satirized by Lucian just a century later in How to Write History may well have had its analogy in the mid-60s AD), it is indeed tempting to think that the Sebasteion reliefs were an important stimulus. So much, then, for what the Sebasteion may have contributed to Aphrodisian visions of the distant places that bold travelers might reach.

The Experience of Travel I now turn to the question of how travel was experienced and how literary texts presented this experience. Here I suggest that the relatively quiet valley where travelers were fewer than along the Maeander valley, and out of which only 43  I am grateful to Karen Ní-Mheallaigh for reminding me of this aspect of Arcadia. For Arcadians as “older than the moon (προσέληνος)” see Arist. Frg. 591 Rose, A.R. 4.263–5 with scholion (p.265 lines 9–25) and, close to Antonius Diogenes’s time, Plu., Qu. Rom. 76 = mor. 262a. 44  κατὰ ζήτησιν ἱστορίας, cf. above n.  23. I am grateful to Karen Ní-Mheallaigh for drawing my attention to the place of Thule in the Augustan imperial imaginaire, as illustrated inter alia by Vergil, G. 1.30: for a good discussion see Romm 1992, 121–71. That a citizen of Aphrodisias like Antonius Diogenes might be familiar with ideas projected by Latin poetry is supported by the case for its being known to Chariton, cf. Tilg 2010, 242–97 and Jolowiciz 2015. For Antonius’s knowledge of Petronius and possibly Vergil see Bowie 2006, 126–28. 45  Noting (118) the possible parallel between the message of the reliefs and the phrase in the Ninus romance col. A II line 10 (Stephen and Winkler 1995, 34) τοσούτων δεσπόσας ἔθνῶν (after bringing so many peoples under my dominion).

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some of the citizens of Aphrodisias themselves traveled, may have encouraged in its writers a schematic idea of the perils of travel at sea and little careful thought about the realities of travel by land. The sea-travel of good and pious people may go well. Callirhoe’s journey to Miletus, albeit as the captive of stereotypically wicked pirates, is fast and smooth, and seems to take no account of the problems of rounding Cape Taenarum.46 The journey from the Saronic gulf to Miletus takes a mere two days.47 On arrival Callirhoe may be grimy to the point of needing a bath,48 but the bath is more to display the beauty of her body to Plangon and to the reader than a mark of realistic detail. The westward journey of Chaereas and Callirhoe first to Cyprus and then to Sicily also goes without a hitch thanks to following winds.49 By contrast, once the pirate Theron has disposed of Callirhoe in Milesian territory, he and his fellow criminals face divine wrath in the form of a mighty storm: 50 ὑπολαβὼν δὲ αὐτοὺς ἄνεμος σφοδρὸς εἰς τὸν Ἰόνιον ἐξέωσεν, κἀκεῖ λοιπὸν ἐπλανῶντο ἐν ἐρήμῳ θαλάσσῃ. βρονταὶ δὲ καὶ ἀστραπαὶ καὶ νὺξ μακρὰ κατελάμβανε τοὺς ἀνοσίους, ἐπιδεικνυμένης τῆς Προνοίας ὅτι τότε διὰ Καλλιρόην ηὐπλόουν. ἐγγὺς γινομένους ἑκάστοτε τοῦ θανάτου ταχέως οὐκ ἀπήλλαττεν ὁ θεὸς τοῦ φόβου, μακρὸν αὐτοῖς ποιῶν τὸ ναυάγιον. γῆ μὲν οὖν τοὺς ἀνοσίους οὐκ ἐδέχετο, θαλαττεύοντες δὲ πολὺν χρόνον ἐν ἀπορίᾳ κατέστησαν τῶν ἀναγκαίων, μάλιστα δὲ τοῦ ποτοῦ, καὶ οὐδὲν αὐτοὺς ὠφέλει πλοῦτος ἄδικος, ἀλλὰ διψῶντες ἀπέθνησκον ἐν χρυσῷ. But a violent wind caught them and drove them out into the Ionian Sea, where they drifted in deserted waters. Thunder and lightning and prolonged darkness overtook the vil46  ἀναχθεῖσα δὲ ἡ ναῦς ἐφέρετο λαμπρῶς. οὐδὲ γὰρ ἐβιάζοντο πρὸς κῦμα καὶ πνεῦμα τῷ μὴ προκεῖσθαί τινα πλοῦν ἴδιον αὐτοῖς, ἀλλ᾿ ἅπας ἄνεμος οὔριος αὐτοῖς ἐδόκει καὶ κατὰ πρύμναν εἱστήκε (When it put to sea, the ship moved splendidly, for they had not to fight against wind and waves, having set themselves no special course. Every wind seemed to favour them and stood at the stern), Chariton 1.11.1 (trans. Goold, Loeb Classical Library, adapted). 47  ὑδρευσάμενοι δὲ καὶ λαβόντες ἀπὸ τῶν παρουσῶν ὁλκάδων ἐπισιτισμὸν ἔπλεον εὐθὺ Μιλήτου, τριταῖοι δὲ κατήχθησαν εἰς ὅρμον ἀπέχοντα τῆς πόλεως σταδίους ὀγδοήκοντα, εὐφυέστατον εἰς ὑποδοχήν (So after taking on water and procuring provisions from merchant ships nearby, they sailed straight for Miletus and two days later moored in an anchorage eighty stades from the city, a perfect natural harbour), Chariton 1.11.8 (trans. Goold, Loeb Classical Library, adapted). 48 ‘ἐκ μακρᾶς οὖν θαλάσσης ἀπόλουσαι τὴν ἄσιν’ (‘Wash off the dirt from your long time at sea’), Chariton 2.2.2. 49  πνεύματι δὲ φορῷ χρησάμενοι τῆς ὑστεραίας κατήχθησαν εἰς Πάφον, ἔνθα ἐστὶν ἱερὸν Ἀφροδίτης (Exploiting a following wind, on the next day they put in at Paphos, where there is a sanctuary of Aphrodite), Chariton 8.2.7; ὁ δὲ Χαιρέας ἤνυσε τὸν πλοῦν εἰς Σικελίαν εὐτυχῶς (εἱστήκει γὰρ ἀεὶ κατὰ πρύμναν καὶ ναῦς ἔχων μεγάλας ἐπελαγίζετο) (Meanwhile, Chaereas safely completed the voyage to Sicily (for the wind stood behind him all the time, and since he had large ships he crossed the open sea)), Chariton 8.6.1. 50  For storm scenes in other Greek novels see the discussion of (?) Antonius Diogenes below and Xen., Eph. 2.11.10, Achilles Tatius 3.1–5, Heliodorus 1.22, 5.27. The topos is spoofed by Lucian, Verae Historiae 1.6 (eighty days!) and 9–10 (the ship is carried aloft by a whirlwind). For a discussion of the storm in Acts with much relevant and illuminating historical and rhetorical material, see Backhaus in this volume.

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lains, Providence revealing that they had enjoyed fair sailing earlier only through Callirhoe’s presence. Each time they came close to death God would not grant them a quick release from their fear of it, but prolonged their shipwreck. Dry land refused to accept such villains and so, long tossed on the sea, they were reduced to shortage of provisions, especially of water. Their ill-gotten gains availed them naught, and they began to die of thirst in the midst of gold. Chariton 3.3.10–11 (trans. Goold, Loeb Classical Library, adapted)

Chariton gives us little information about the overland journeys to Babylon of Mithridates from Caria or of Dionysius and Callirhoe from Miletus. In his narrative of the latter his focus is on the overpowering effect of Callirhoe’s beauty, though we discover later that Dionysius was accompanied by a substantial retinue.51 In Mithridates’s case we are merely told that he was accompanied by his household and went via Armenia; the rest we are left to imagine, perhaps working back from the description of how the king and other leading Persians travel: ἔθος ἐστὶν αὐτῷ τε βασιλεῖ καὶ Περσῶν τοῖς ἀρίστοις, ὅταν εἰς πόλεμον ἐξίωσιν, ἐπάγεσθαι καὶ γυναῖκας καὶ τέκνα καὶ χρυσὸν καὶ ἄργυρον καὶ ἐσθῆτα καὶ εὐνούχους καὶ παλλακίδας καὶ κύνας καὶ τραπέζας καὶ πλοῦτον πολυτελῆ καὶ τρυφήν. It is customary for the king himself and the Persian elite, when they set off for war, to bring with them their wives and children and gold and silver and clothes and eunuchs and concubines and dogs and tables and massive riches and luxuries. Chariton 6.9.652

Chariton, then, seems to find journeys by land uninspiring, and his imagination concerning journeys by sea is chiefly limited to rhetorical commonplaces. By contrast, a papyrus scrap of Antonius Diogenes gives us a vivid account of Mantias being hotly pursued by a group of women for reasons that to us are obscure (though doubtless they were quite obvious to a reader with a complete text):   διώκουσαι [δὲ   [but] pursuing (them?) ἡμέραν ὅλην καὶ νύκτα ἑπόμεν- for a whole day and following (them) ναι ἠνώχλουν. ἀλλ’ ὁ Μαντίας for a night they harassed them: but Mantias, ἄλλας καὶ ἄλλας σκολίας ὁδοὺς (by?) one set of twisting paths after another ὑπεξαγαγὼν ἔλαθεν αὐ[ leading them away to safety arrived undetected P.Oxy. vol.  70 (2006) no.  4761 col. ii 20–24

Another papyrus that may belong to Antonius Diogenes’s novel offers a much more nuanced storm-scene than Chariton’s: ε ̣[. .] ἐποχαῖς παραλίαις δ ̣[.]ξ ̣ … παρεκάλουν, δυσώρου τῆς καταστάσ[εως οὔσης] καὶ γὰρ ἐλάνθα[ν]εν ἐν ἐπισημασία[ις] ν ̣[… …] καθεστῶσα, μέν̣ ̣ε ̣ιν̣ αὐτόθι τὴν ἐπ[ιοῦσαν] ἡμέ ̣[ρ]αν,̣ ἐπιδοῦναί τ’ ε[ἰς] εὐφ ̣ροσύνην· […..]στατος δὲ εἰς κατοχὴν ἀπ ̣[ο]δη ̣μίας οἰωνὸ[ς] ἀν̣ ̣[δρὸς εὐ] 51  στῖφος οὐκ εὐκαταφρόνητον ἐκ τῶν μεθ’ ἑαυτοῦ (a not inconsiderable array of those who were with him), Chariton 6.9.2. 52  Cf. Xen., Cyr. 4.2.2.

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φροσύνου μετά[κ]λησις· κἀγὼ μὲν [ἐβ]ου[λόμη]ν μένειν· τῶν δὲ κ ̣υβερνητῶν στασι ̣[αζόντων, ὁ μὲν ἡ]μέτερος ἠπ ̣ε ̣ί ̣γετο πλεῖν, [ὁ δὲ τῆς μεγάλης νεὼς] σ ̣υνετεκμαίρετο χειμῶνα πλ ̣ε ̣ῖ ̣σ ̣[τον καὶ ἴσ]ως ἀνίκητον. ἔδοξεν οὖν πλεῖν· ἀσπασάμεν[οι] τοίνυν ἀλλήλ[ο]υς καὶ θρῆνον ἀλκυόνειον ἐγεί ̣[ροντ]ες, εἰς τὴν ο[ἰ]κ ̣ε ̣[ί]αν̣ ἑκάτερος ἐμβάντε[ς] να ̣ῦν̣ ὠ[λο]φυρόμεθα, [σκ] οποῦντες ἀλλήλους φι ̣[λή]μ ̣ατά τ ̣ε ̣ τ ̣α ̣ῖ ̣ς χερσὶ β[άλλο]ντες. ἡ μὲν οὖν με[γ]άλη ναῦς βραδύτερόν τι ἐ[ξ]ωπλίζετο, τάχιον δ’ ἡμεῖς ἐξ[επ]λεύσαμεν. ἡ ̣λ ̣ίου δ’ ὑπὸ μὲν τὸν ἔ ̣κ ̣π ̣λ ̣[ου] ν φ[α]ν ̣έν̣ ̣[τος, αὐτίκα] δὲ ζοφεραῖς ἐγκρυβέντος νεφέλ[αι]ς, α[ἰ]φνίδιον κο[ῖ]λόν τε καὶ βραχὺ βροντήσα[ν]τος, ἡμεῖς μὲν οὐκέτ’ ἀναστρέψαι μεταν ̣ο ̣οῦντες ἐδυνάμεθα, πυκνὸν γὰρ εἵπετο πνεῦ ̣ ̣μ ̣[α] κ ̣ατ̣ ̣ό ̣π ̣ιν̣ ·̣ ἡ δ ̣ὲ ̣ τῆς ..[.].υ ̣λλίδος ἄκατος οὐκέτ’ ἀν ̣ή ̣χ ̣θη, κατέστη δ’ ἀπὸ το ̣ῦ ̣ τείχους ἀνακαλουμέν[η]. πρὸς βραχὺ δ’̣ ὁ ̣ρῶντέ[ς σ]φας ἀφηρπαζόμεθα, πνε ̣ῦ ̣μα γὰρ ἄθρουν ἐγκ[ατέ] ρρηξεν ἀπηλι ̣ωτ̣ ̣ι ̣κ ̣ὸν̣ ̣ ἀπ’ αὐτοῦ τοῦ ἀ ̣κ ̣ρωτ ̣[ηρίου] καὶ τὴν μὲν κεραίαν οὐκ ἦν παραβαλεῖν, ἐ ̣[ναντ]ί ̣αν γὰρ οὐκ ἴσχυε φέρειν ἡ πορθμὶς τὴν [θάλα]τταν· …… δὲ τὸ κέρας οὔριον ἔχοντες τ ̣[ετα]μένοις τοῖς ἀκατίοις τοῦ προκειμένου μὲν.[..].τομεν δρόμου, παρὰ [δὲ] τὸν Λακτῆρα, χαλεπώ[τατον] ἀκρωτήριον, κατὰ τὸ Κ ̣ρητικὸν ἐσυρόμ[ε]θ ̣α πέλαγος, οὐδὲ τὴν Νίσυρον καθορᾶν ἔτι [δυν]άμενοι διὰ τὴν συννέφει ̣αν·̣ ἧς ἐφιέμε[νοι]……. βλ ̣έ ̣πειν̣ ̣ ἀ ̣π ̣ετ̣ ̣ύ ̣χομ ̣εν. μετὰ [δὲ] ν ̣ο ̣σ ̣ώ ̣δει παραδόντες πελάγει τῶν μὲν ε[ἰ]ς [σωτ]η ̣ρ ̣ί ̣αν οὐδ[ὲ]ν παρὸν ἑωρῶμεν, ὀλέθρου [δ’ οὐ] [προ]σδοκία μόνον̣ ἀλλὰ καὶ πόθος ἦν ἅπασιν.[ἤδη] γὰρ θ ̣[ά]λαττα ἄ ̣γ ̣αν ἐκ πολλοῦ διαστήματος συρ ̣[ομ]ένη, ̣ πυκνῷ μὲν οὐκ [ἐτ]ρ ̣αχύνετ[ο π]νεύματι, κοιλα[ι]νομένη δ’ εἰς ἄπειρον ἐ ̣ξ ̣ ἴ ̣σ ̣ο ̣υ ̣ [ὄρεσ]ιν̣ ̣ ἐκορυφοῦτο, μέλαινά τ’ ἦν ὑπὸ ζόφου τοῦ περ ̣[ιέχ]οντος ἐσκιασμένη· … coastal check-points … I was encouraging [them], since the state of the weather was unseasonable – and in fact he had not noticed the [cloud?] that had built up among the weather signs – to remain right there for the coming day and to spend time enjoying ourselves. [… most …] omen for the postponement of the journey was the invitation of a cheerful man. So my wish was to wait; but the steersmen took different views: ours was eager to sail, but [that of the big ship?] shared the inference that there would be a huge and perhaps unsustainable storm. So it was decided to sail, and bidding each other farewell and howling with grief like halcyons each group embarked on its own ship in lamentation, gazing at each other and blowing kisses with our hands. Now the big ship was slower in its preparations, and we sailed out sooner. The sun appeared at the point we set sail; but it was soon hidden by dark clouds, and suddenly there rang out a short, hollow peal of thunder. We changed our minds but were unable any longer to turn back, for an intense wind was blowing behind us. […]yllis’s vessel was no longer putting to sea, but had halted as it was summoned back from the sea-wall. For a short time we could see them, then we were snatched away, for a blast of east wind burst upon us in full force from the headland itself, and it was impossible to turn the yard-arm, for the boat was not strong enough to sustain the sea as it came against it [. … .] we had the yard-arm in the right position for full sail, and [ . … could not hold to] our intended course, and we were being swept past Lac(e)ter,53 a most dangerous headland, down into the Cretan sea, and we could no longer see Nisyros because of the thick cloud. The place we wanted to get to we did not even see. Abandoning ourselves to the pestilential sea we could see nothing at hand that might contribute to our survival, and everyone not simply expected to die but actually longed to. For by now the sea was being swept along from many different points, not simply roughened by repeated blasts but being hollowed out in bottomless gulfs and

53  The papyrus reads Λακτῆρα; Strabo 14.2.19.657 has the name three times, in the forms Λακητήρ/Λακητῆρα/Λακητῆρι. This is probably the correct form.

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forming crests as high as mountains, and its colour was black in the shadow of the surrounding darkness…. P.Dublin C3, second c. AD, column ii 1–42: (?) Antonius Diogenes54

This passage achieves much greater emotional effect than the shorter account of Chariton 3.3.10–11 quoted above. It does so partly, but not only, by its first-person narration, and at many points the writing invites the reader to compare its virtuosity with Greek literature’s archetypical storm scene, Odyssey 5.291–332. By having two ships and not one sailing at the risk of being overtaken by a storm the author augments the opportunity for emotional leave-taking, inviting readers to contemplate gaze and gestures (just as in the storm itself the victim’s emotions are hyperbolically described). The possibility that the harrowing experience of the storm might have been avoided is set tantalizingly before the reader’s mind. In a text-book ecphrasis, vividity (enargeia) is given to the description of the ship’s battering by the storm through the effectively selected detail of wind direction and strength, of the colour of clouds and sea, of the ship’s mast and tackle, and of the topography of the ordeal. Exaggeration too plays its part in the description – “bottomless gulfs and forming crests as high as mountains (κοιλα[ι]νομένη δ’ εἰς ἄπειρον ἐξ̣ ̣ ἴ ̣σ ̣ου̣ ̣ [ὄρεσ]ιν̣ ̣ ἐκορυφοῦτο).” The author succeeds in achieving the goal that imperial Greek handbooks of rhetoric identified as the purpose of ecphrasis. The Progymnasmata ascribed to the great second-century sophist Hermogenes of Tarsus, for example, offer its definition as “a descriptive account that is vivid and brings what is shown before one’s eyes.”55 As the same work puts it a little later: “your handling ought to create a visual image through what is heard.”56 These handbooks make recommendations for speeches delivered to live audiences, but the novelists exploit the same techniques to draw readers into their texts.57

54  See Stephens and Winkler 1995, 158–72 for text, commentary, and discussion of whether this fragment is from Antonius Diogenes (with his heroine Dercyllis) or from a novel with a female character Herpyllis. I am reminded by Dr. Helena Schmedt that in his discussion of P.Oxy. 4761 in The Oxyrhynchus Papyri 70, 17, Peter Parsons quoted Dirk Obbink as judging that reading ..[.].υ ̣λλίδος as Δε[ρ]κυ ̣λλίδος at line 13 of the text as printed above is impossible. 55  ἔκφρασίς ἐστι λόγος περιηγηματικός, ὥς φασιν, ἐναργὴς καὶ ὑπ’ ὄψιν ἄγων τὸ δηλούμενον, Hermogenes (?), Progymnasmata 10 (περὶ ἐκφράσεως) 1–2, cf. ἔκφρασίς ἐστὶ λόγος περιηγη­ ματικὸς ἐναργῶς ὑπ’ ὄψιν ἄγων τὸ δηλούμενον, Theon, Progymnasmata 118.6–7. 56  δεῖ γὰρ τὴν ἑρμήνειαν διὰ τῆς ἀκοῆς σχέδον τὴν ὄψιν μηχανᾶσθαι Hermogenes (?), Progymnasmata 10 (περὶ ἐκφράσεως) 25–26 = ii 16 Spengel. For an ecphrasis of a storm (χειμῶνος … ἔκφρασις) cf. Hermogenes, De ideis 1.6.51–6 Rabe, Theon, Progymnasmata 118.18 Spengel = 67.19 Patillon. For a wry comment on poets’ exploitation of the topos cf. Juvenal, Sat. 12.22– 24. 57  The issue was well discussed a quarter of a century ago by Bartsch 1989, ch. 4 (entitled “Spectacles”). The classic treatment is now Webb 2009, but see already her essay “Imagination” (1997).

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The third novel that might be written by an Aphrodisian, the Ninus, also has graphic accounts of travel. One, fragment B, narrates the crossing of snowbound mountain passes:   τὸ Ἑλληνικὸν καὶ Καρι-   the Greek and Carian κὸν ἅπαν σύνταγμα· καὶ μυρι- division in its entirety. And άδας Ἀσσυρίων ἐπιλέκτους 5 taking 70,000 elite ἑπτὰ πεζὰς καὶ τρεῖς ἱππέων Assyrian infantry and 30,000 ἀναλαβὼν ὁ Νίνος ἐλέφαντάς cavalry Ninus marched out, τε πεντήκοντα πρὸς τοῖς and also one hundred and fifty ἑκατὸν ἤλαυνε. καὶ φόβος elephants. And there was fear μὲν ἦν κρυμῶν καὶ χιόνων 10 of frosts and snows περὶ τὰς ὀρείους ὑπερβολάς· πα- around the passes over the mountains; ραλογώτατα δὲ θῆλυς καὶ πο- but most unexpectedly a soft southλὺ θερειότερος τῆς ὥρας ἐπι- wind, much more summery than was πεσὼν νότος λῦσαί τε ἐδυ- seasonal, blew upon them and was able νήθη τὰς χιόνας ̣ κ ̣αὶ το ̣ῖ ̣ς ̣ ὁδ[εύ-] 15 to melt the snows and to give the marchers ουσιν ἐπεικῆ πέ ̣[ρ]α ̣ πάσ ̣[ης ἐλ-] air that was reasonable beyond πίδος τὸν ἀέρα παρασχεῖν. all expectation. ἐμόχθησαν δὴ τ ̣αῖς διαβάσε- So their problems came in their crossings σι τῶν ποταμῶν μᾶλλον of rivers rather than in ἢ ταῖς διὰ τῶν ἀ ̣κ ̣ρ ̣ωρειῶν 20 their negotiating the high πορείαις· καὶ ὀλίγος μέν τις ridges. And there was some small ὑποζυγίων φθόρος καὶ τῆς loss of pack animals θεραπείας ἐγένετο· … and of attendants … Ninus, P.Berol. 6926 frag. B col. ii 3–2358

Here the provision of precise, albeit rather large, numbers creates a credible depiction of the events. Those familiar with Xenophon (of whom there were many in this period) may have noticed the reworking (with a deliberately different outcome) of a passage in the Anabasis where snows cause much more serious problems including the loss of animals, slaves, and even thirty soldiers.59 It has been suggested that the topos, found in later imperial panegyrics, of harsh weather turning mild as an emperor advances was already to be found in rheto58  Stephens and Winkler 1995, 50–51. The author may have in mind the Homeric simile of the west wind melting snow on mountains and consequently torrential rivers: ὡς δὲ χιὼν κατατήκετ’ ἐν ἀκροπόλοισιν ὄρεσσιν, | ἥν τ’ Εὖρος κατέτηξεν, ἐπὴν Ζέφυρος καταχεύῃ,| τηκομένης δ’ ἄρα τῆς ποταμοὶ πλήθουσι ῥέοντες (as snow melts away on the topmost mountains, snow which the East wind has melted, when the West wind has spread it, and when it melts the rivers are full as they flow), Od. 19.205–7. 59  ἐντεῦθεν ἐπορεύοντο διὰ χιόνος πολλῆς … ἦν δὲ τῆς χιόνος τὸ βάθος ὀργυιά· ὥστε καὶ τῶν ὑποζυγίων καὶ τῶν ἀνδραπόδων πολλὰ ἀπώλετο καὶ τῶν στρατιωτῶν ὡς τριάκοντα (from that point their journey proceeded through heavy snow … the snow’s depth was a cubit, so many pack-animals and slaves were lost, and about thirty soldiers), Xen., Anab. 4.5.3–5. Even worse were Antony’s losses – 8000 men – as narrated by Plutarch in his Antonius 51.1 (cf. Cassius Dio 49.31), probably written several decades after the Ninus. Yet the tradition was perhaps known to some Ninus readers from Plutarch’s source(s).

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ric associated with the imperial cult (Hopkins 1978: 199). 60 Given the presence of such cult at Aphrodisias, it is just conceivable that the Ninus’s presentation draws on this source too. The other account, fragment C, relates a near shipwreck that apparently followed some military success:   οὗ κατ’ [αὐ-]   in the very [τὸ] τὸ μέσον εἰς ῥεῖθρον 20 middle into a stream [ἐ]παρκοῦσα πηγὴ μέ- an adequate spring [χρι] τῆς κ ̣υματωγῆς κα- bubbled down as far [τε]ρ ̣ρ ̣ήγνυτο. τὸ μὲν οὖν as the edge of the sea. So the [σ]κάφος–ο ̣ὐ γὰρ ἀγχιβα- boat – for the beach was θ ̣ὴς ἦν ἡ ἀκτή–πρός τ[ι-] 25 not steep – ran aground on σιν ὑφάλοις ταινίαις ἐ ̣ξ ̣[ο-] some underwater shoals κεῖλαν διε[σ]αλεύετο κα[ὶ] and tossed about and was δῆ ̣λ ̣ον̣ ̣ ἦν̣ ̣ [ὡς] ταῖς ἐμβο- clearly going to be destroyed λαῖς κ ̣υ ̣[μάτω]ν ̣ ἀπολού- by the impact of the waves; μενον· ο ̣ἱ ̣ δ ̣[’ ἐ]ξ ̣έβαινον 30 and they got out of [α]ὐτὸν εἰς ἄκρους μαζοὺς it, wading in water up to κλυζόμενοι· καὶ πάντα their chests, and got everything τὰ ἐν τῇ νηὶ διασώσαν- in the boat to safety, τες, ἱδρύθησαν ἐπὶ τῆς and established themselves on ἠϊόνος. ἐν μὲν οὖν 35 the shore. Now when they τῷ̣ ̣ π ̣ελά ̣γ ̣ε ̣ι ̣ πάντ’ ἐ[π]ε- were at sea they gave all their attention [ν]όουν ὑπὲρ τῆς σωτηρ[ί-] to saving themselves, [α]ς, διασωθέντες δ’ ἐπ ̣[ε-] but once they had reached safety θύ ̣μ ̣ουν θανάτου. καὶ ο[ἱ] they wanted to die. And some μὲν ἄλλοι μετριώτε- 40 put up with their [ρο]ν τὴν μεταβολὴν change of fortune more moderately; [ἔφ]ερον· ὁ δὲ Νίνος ἀ- but Ninus [θλ]ί ̣ω ̣ς ̣ αὐτῆς ᾔσθετο· felt it with misery. Ninus, PSI 1305, 19–43 61

Again attention to small detail gives the otherwise potentially anti-climactic happy landing of the military force a strong narrative appeal, even if the writer does nothing to explain the glib paradox that once safely ashore they would rather die. In the peaceful and well-ordered streets, stoas and squares of landlocked Aphrodisias, then, writers of fiction who may well themselves never have traveled were able to conjure up visions of journeys to far distant places that could sometimes go smoothly, but could (with greater literary dividends) involve storms, snows, hostile potentates and savage peoples. There is no space here to discuss at greater length the sometimes complex literary and rhetorical ancestry of the writers’ treatment of these phenomena. I stress again, however, that an 60  61 

Cf. Stephens and Winkler 1995, 60. Stephens and Winkler 1995, 64–67.

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important catalyst of such depictions was surely their authors’ contemplation of the geography and history of the contemporary Roman world, a contemplation encouraged by the reliefs of the Sebasteion.

Aristides of Hadrianoutherae My discussion of Publius Aelius Aristides Theodorus of Hadrianoutherae is much shorter. I have chosen him as a second-century Greek writer who, like citizens of Aphrodisias, had his origins in a quiet backwater, but whose ambitions for a rhetorical career took him on one long overland journey and on at least three by sea. His accounts of these journeys are unquestionably influenced by the rhetorical traditions that we have seen operating in the writers of prose fiction; there is no doubt, however, that he actually undertook the journeys, and thus we have accounts in which the substratum of fact has been so manipulated by a skilled orator that the finished product is very hard to distinguish from fiction. Aristides is the only epideictic orator among those commemorated by Philostratus’s Lives of the Sophists of whose works a substantial corpus has survived (largely because of their importance as models in later antiquity and Byzantium). Probably born in AD 117, in the backwoods of Mysia,62Aristides was already suffering some illness63 when he decided to travel to Rome in the hope of making his rhetorical mark there, probably in AD 143/144. Instead his illness became critical, and the rigors of his overland travel to Rome in winter months induced him to return to the province Asia not by land but by sea. Much modern scholarship has concentrated on Aristides’s illnesses and his attempts to get remedies from doctors and from the god Asclepius at his healing sanctuary at Pergamum. This saga stretches over almost three decades and is confusingly narrated (with much analepsis) in his six books of Sacred Tales (ἱεροὶ λόγοι), written in the quiet of his estate at Laneion near Hadrianoutherae in the winter of AD 170/171. 64 Here I propose to focus only on Aristides’s journeys to and from Rome, with a glance at his trip to Egypt before the Roman debacle. 65 Like Aphrodisias, Hadrianoutherae (now Balıkesir) is far from the sea, so for whatever time the young Aristides spent in that city, or on his nearby estate at Laneion, boats and sea-voyages will have been known to him only at second 62  The city to which he is assigned, Hadrianoutherae, was only created to immortalize a hunting expedition of the emperor Hadrian in the 120s. 63  Cf. e.g. Or. 36.49 and 91 Keil. 64  For the date see Behr 1981 and 1994. For the location of the Laneion estate see Robert 1937, 217–20. 65  For a reconstruction of Aristides’s life see Behr 1968 and (with revisions) 1994. For a revision of Behr’s chronology see Jones 2013. For his ill health see Alexia Petsalis-Diomidis 2010, 116–21, with n.  220.

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hand. But that time may not have been long, and he surely went for his rhetorical education no later than his mid-teens to Pergamum, some 130 kilometres away, to study with Aristocles, and later to more distant, transmarine Athens to study with Herodes (Philostr., VS 2.9.581). 66 Later it was Smyrna, some 100 kilometres further south from Hadrianoutherae than Pergamum was, that he made his chief place of epideictic performance. In all three of these cities the sea was ever-present (albeit a few kilometres from the cities of Pergamum and Athens themselves), bringing travelers from many parts of the Greek and Roman world and offering Aristides the opportunity to travel himself. His two best documented trips are those to Egypt and Rome. Aristides’s outward journey to Egypt in AD 141–14267 seems to have been uneventful as far as actual travel was concerned. His decision to go there was not, it seems, to do with his illness or following a religious command, but was rather prompted by para-Herodotean curiosity, 68 and doubtless by the sense that the claims of a pepaideumenos to his audiences’ attention would be enhanced by the ability to offer them first-hand accounts of Egyptian wonders. Thus Aelius Aristides’s self-construction at the beginning of his Egyptian Oration presents him as an enquiring researcher more similar to his Pergamene contemporary Galen than to the many second-century tourists who, like Hadrian and Julia Balbilla, left commemorations of their superficial tourism inscribed on the leg of one of the Memnon colossi: 69 ἃ πρώην ἤρου με περὶ τοῦ Νείλου, ἐπειδή σοι διὰ βραχέων καὶ ἐπιπολῆς ἀπεκρινάμην καὶ ἅμα οἱ ἐπεισελθόντες ἀφείλοντο, ἐβουλήθην ἀναλαβὼν διελθεῖν σοι καὶ ὥσπερ ἄλλο τι χρέος ἀποδοῦναι πάντα τὸν λόγον· εἰρήσεται δὲ καὶ ταῦτα ὡς δυνατὸν ἐν βραχυτάτοις. ἐπειδὴ γὰρ καὶ μέχρι τῆς Αἰθιοπικῆς χώρας προελθὼν καὶ αὐτὴν διερευνησάμενος Αἴγυπτον τετράκις τὸ σύμπαν, καὶ παρεὶς οὐδὲν ἀνεξέταστον, οὐ πυραμίδας, οὐ λαβύρινθον, οὐχ ἱερὸν, οὐχὶ διώρυχας, ἀλλ’ ὧν μὲν ἐν ταῖς βίβλοις τὰ μέτρα ὑπῆρχεν ἐκεῖθεν πορισάμενος, ὧν δὲ μὴ ἐξ ἑτοίμου λαβεῖν ἦν ἐκμετρήσας αὐτὸς μετὰ τῶν παρ’ ἑκάστοις ἱερέων καὶ προφητῶν, εἶτ’ οὐκ ἠδυνήθην αὐτά σοι διασώσασθαι, τῶν ὑπομνημάτων διαφθαρέντων ἃ τοῖς παισὶ προσέταξα ποιεῖσθαι … As for what you asked me concerning the Nile, since I answered you briefly and superficially and the people who arrived interrupted me, I want to take it up again and go through the whole matter and repay it to you like any other debt. And even this will be told as briefly as possible. For although I even went as far as Ethiopia and investigated Egypt itself four times in all, and left nothing unchecked, not the pyramids, not the labyrinth, no temple, no canals, but getting measurements from books for those things for which they were to be found there, and, for those for which I could not find them already 66 It is not clear where he was taught by the grammaticus Alexander of Cotiaeum, for whom he wrote the funerary tribute Oration 32 Keil – perhaps the inland city of Cotiaeum itself. 67  For the date and circumstances see Behr 1968, 15–21, 62–63 and 1981, 402–3. 68  Like Antonius Diogenes’s character Deinias, cf. above p.  30 with n.  23. 69  For the visit of Hadrian and his entourage in November 130 AD see Bowie 1990, 60–63; Brennan 1998. For Balbilla see also Cirio 2011.

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written, measuring them myself with the priests and prophets on each location, then I was unable to save this information for you because the notebooks which I instructed my slaves to compile were destroyed. Aelius Aristides, Oration 36.1 Keil

Whether there ever were such notebooks we cannot tell – Aristides will surely have been familiar with the travel writer’s pseudo-documentary trope.70 That Aristides’s journey to Egypt was relatively routine and uneventful may perhaps be inferred from his silence.71 But another of his works may indicate that his return journey was far from plain sailing. A passage from his prose-hymn to Sarapis, if it is correctly dated to AD 142, seems to relate to a storm sustained in the Aegean during his return from Egypt, though its short and stereotypical ecphrasis of a storm at sea lacks any topographical detail (To Sarapis, Oration 45),72 and it may relate to a quite different journey: 73 ὦ τὴν καλλίστην ὧν ἐφορᾷς κατέχων πόλιν, ἥ σοι τὴν δι’ ἔτους πανήγυριν πληροῖ, ὦ κοινὸν ἅπασιν ἀνθρώποις φῶς, ἡμῖν τε δὴ πρώην περιφανῶς γενόμενος, ὅτ’ ἐπιρρεούσης τῆς θαλάττης καὶ πολλῆς πάντοθεν αἰρομένης καὶ οὐδενὸς ὁρωμένου πλὴν τοῦ μέλλοντος καὶ σχεδὸν ἤδη παρόντος ὀλέθρου, χεῖρα ἀντάρας, οὐρανόν τε κεκρυμμένον ἐξέφηνας καὶ γῆν ἔδωκας ἰδεῖν καὶ προσορμίσασθαι, τοσοῦτον παρ’ ἐλπίδα ὥστ’ οὐδ’ ἐπιβᾶσι πίστις ἦν. τούτων τε δή σοι πολλὴ χάρις, ὦ πολυτίμητε, καὶ τὰ νῦν μὴ πρόῃ με, ἀλλ’ ἀνάσωσον βεβαίως, τόν τε ὕμνον τόνδε ὡς ἐν τοιούτοις πεποιημένον προσοῦ φαιδρῶς, χαριστήριον μὲν ἐκείνων τῶν ἔμπροσθεν, ἱκετηρίαν δὲ καὶ παράκλησιν περὶ τῶν μελλόντων, ἡδίω καὶ βελτίω τῶν παρόντων γενέσθαι. O you who inhabit the most beautiful of the cities which you oversee, the city which fulfils every year a festival in your honour, o light shared by all mankind, and one who recently were made manifest to me, when the sea was crashing over me and rising to a great height on every side and nothing could be seen except imminent and virtually present annihilation, and you stretched out your hand and revealed the sky which had been concealed and allowed me to see land and to reach port, so far counter to our expectations that not even when we stepped ashore did we believe what had happened. For this I offer you many thanks, much-honoured one, and do not now abandon me, but bring me back to secure health, and graciously accept this hymn composed as it is in these circumstances, a thank-offering for those things that have happened, and a supplication and prayer for what is to come, that it may be more pleasant and better than what is happening now. Aelius Aristides, Oration 45.33–34 Keil

As an earlier passage in the oration made clear, the storm had prompted Aristides to react as storm-tossed travelers so often did, and to make a vow to a fa70 

See Ní-Mheallaigh 2008 and 2014, 144–70. Niehoff interestingly suggests that his ellipse of his outward journey is a paraHero­dotean move. If so, we cannot judge whether Aristides encountered foul weather or not. 72  On Behr’s chronology delivered in Smyrna AD 142 (perhaps at festival of Zeus Sarapis on 25th April), Behr 1968, 21 n.  72 and 1981, 419–20. For justified scepticism about that dating see Amann 1931, 35; Russell 1990, 200. 73  E.g. the storm between Clazomenae and Phocaea, perhaps of AD 149, Or. 48.12–14 Keil. 71  Maren

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vored divinity who might be hoped to intervene beneficently (Or. 45.13 Keil).74 Aristides’s rhetoric suggests that his choice of Sarapis was based on that god’s involvement with many aspects of human life, not only health, though the last sentence does make reference to the illness that dominated his thoughts for decades. As in some other texts discussed in this volume, safe escape from a real storm is associated with, and might be seen as metaphorically reinforcing, another mode of salvation. At a later point in his life Asclepius became Aristides’s chief protector, and an inscribed poem from Pergamum has been identified as related to the fulfilment of a vow to him on a different occasion of maritime crisis.75 That plain sailing could suddenly become near-disaster may have played a part in Aristides’s decision early in AD 144 to go to Rome not by sea, which could have been less arduous for somebody who already thought he was ill, but by land. That the chosen time was winter, outside the season when sailing was generally reckoned to be safer, may have been decisive. Only a scholar even more cynical than I would suggest he chose to go by land to give himself material for a different texture of narrative. But whatever the reason, the outcome did indeed give him material for a vivid and highly dramatic narration, one of our few accounts of travel by road in this period which brings out the practical issues of finding tolerable inns, crossing rivers where a bridge had not yet replaced a ferry, and coping with extremes of weather: τὸ δ’ ἐστὶ μὲν πέρα ἢ κατ’ Ἀλκίνου ἀπόλογον, πειράσομαι δέ πως ἐξ ἐπιδρομῆς εἰπεῖν. ἐξῆλθον εἰς Ῥώμην χειμῶνος μεσοῦντος, κάμνων οἴκοθεν εὐθέως ἐξ ὑδάτων καὶ ψύξεως οὐδεμίαν τῶν παρόντων ὤραν ποιησάμενος, τῇ δ’ ἀσκήσει τοῦ σώματος πιστεύων καὶ τῇ περὶ πάντα ἀγαθῇ τύχῃ. καὶ προελθὼν ἄχρι Ἑλλησπόντου τό τε οὖς ἔκαμνον καθ’ ὑπερβολὴν καὶ τἄλλα οὐχ ὡς ἔτυχε διεκείμην, καὶ μικρόν τι ῥαΐσας τὸ πέρα προῄειν. μετὰ ταῦτα ὑετοὶ, πάγοι, κρύσταλλοι, ἄνεμοι πάντες· Ἕβρος μὲν ἄρτι κεκομμένος, ὥστ’ εἶναι πλοίοις διαβατὸς, εἰ δὲ μὴ, πᾶς ἠπείρωτο ὑπὸ κρυστάλλου· πεδία δὲ λιμνάζοντα ὅσον ὀφθαλμὸς ἐπεῖχε· καταγωγίων δὲ ἀπορία, καὶ πλέον ἐκ τῶν ὀροφῶν τὸ ὕδωρ ἢ ἐκ Διὸς ἔξω ῥέον· καὶ τούτοις ἅπασιν ἔπειξις καὶ δρόμος παρὰ τὴν καθεστηκυῖαν ὥραν τε καὶ δύναμιν τοῦ σώματος. οὔτε γὰρ οἱ τὰς ἀγγελίας κομίζοντες τῶν στρατιωτῶν ἡμᾶς γε παρῆλθον, ἵνα μηδὲν εἴπω πλέον, τῶν τε οἰκετῶν ἐπὶ σχολῆς ὡδοιπόρουν οἱ πλείους. ἐγὼ δὲ καὶ τοὺς ἀγωγοὺς αὐτὸς ἀνεζήτουν, εἴ που δεήσειε, καὶ ἦν οὐδὲ τοῦτο ἀπὸ τοῦ ῥᾴστου γιγνόμενον. ἔδει γὰρ ὑποφεύγοντας οἷα βαρβάρους ἀνθρώπους ἕλκειν, τὰ μὲν πείθοντα, ἔστι δ’ ᾗ καὶ χειρούμενον. ἐκ δὴ τούτων ἁπάντων ἡ νόσος ᾔρετο. καὶ τοῦτο μὲν περὶ τῶν ὀδόντων ἐν παντὶ κατέστην, ὥσθ’ ὑπεῖχον τὰς χεῖρας, ὡς ἀεὶ δεξόμενος. τροφῆς δὲ καὶ παντάπασιν ἀπεκεκλείμην, ὅτι μὴ γάλακτος μόνου· τοῦ τε ἄσθματος περὶ τὸ στῆθος ᾐσθόμην τότε πρῶτον καὶ πυρετοὶ κατέλαβον ἰσχυροὶ καὶ ἄλλα ἀμύθητα· καὶ ἐκείμην ἐν Ἐδέσσῃ πρὸς τῷ καταρράκτῃ, καὶ μόλις ἡμέρᾳ ἑκατοστῇ ὕστερον ᾗ ἐκινήθην οἴκοθεν ἐν Ῥώμῃ γίγνομαι. καὶ μετ’ οὐ πολὺ τὰ σπλάγχνα ᾠδήκει καὶ τὰ νεῦρα κατέψυκτο καὶ φρίκη διέθει διὰ παντὸς τοῦ σώματος … 74  Interestingly one measure of the diluted version of reality offered by novelists is that even in such storms and in similar dire straits their characters almost never follow this standard religious procedure, see Bowie 2012. 75  Discussed by Bowie 2012, 218–20.

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It is beyond the story told to Alcinous, but I shall try somehow to summarise. I set out for Rome in the middle of winter, although I was sick right at the start after the waters and a chill. I paid no attention to my condition, but trusted in the training of my body and my general good fortune. When I got as far as the Hellespont, I had a tremendous ear-ache and in other respects my condition was abnormal. After a little improvement I continued. (61). After that there was rain, frost, ice, winds from every direction. The ice on Hebrus had just been broken, so that boats could sail on it, otherwise the ice would have made it all dry land. The plains were a swamp as far as the eye could see. There was a shortage of inns, and more water came in through their roofs than from the sky outside. And in all this my haste and speed was contrary to the season that prevailed and to the strength of my body. For not even the military couriers passed us, to give you an idea, and the majority of my servants were traveling at a leisurely pace. I myself sought out guides when they were needed, and this itself was not the easiest thing. For the men fled and I had to drag them as if they were barbarians, sometimes by persuasion, sometimes actually by force. As a result of all this my disease got worse, and I was very worried about my teeth falling out, so that I was always holding up my hands beneath my mouth as if to catch them. I abstained completely from consuming anything except milk. That was when I first noticed shortnesss of breath in my chest, and I was gripped by powerful fevers and other indescribable ailments. And at Edessa I lay down beside the cataract, and it was with difficulty that on the 100th day after leaving home I arrived in Rome. Soon after that my intestines swelled up, I shivered with cold, a trembling ran all through my body … Aristides, Sacred Tales 2 = Oration 48.60–62 Keil

That the land-trip from Mysia to Rome took as long as 100 days is remarkable given the speed that travelers using the cursus publicus could expect to achieve, a speed which Aristides is surely mendacious in claiming to have exceeded. Only brief glimpses of his numerous servants and abundant supply of pack animals allow an inference about how large his party was. As already remarked, nobody has doubted that this journey was actually made, and reference to it is not limited to the Sacred Tales; Aristides’s laudation of his grammaticus, Alexander of Cotiaeum, recalls how he got vital help from him during his illness in Rome (Or. 32.39 Keil). And as many cases in Philostratus’s Lives of the Sophists make clear, a journey to Rome where a Greek rhetor might acquire renown and perhaps even friends among the philhellenic elite could significantly advance a sophistic career.76 On the other hand, Aristides is among many Greek writers of the period whose preferred frame of reference is the Greek world, seen as a prolongation or renaissance of the glorious archaic and classical periods.77 Nowhere in the extant Greek novels is Rome named. Xenophon of Ephesus, whose story might be imagined to have a roughly contemporary setting, gets his hero as far as Nuceria, in Campania (Xen., Eph. 5.8.1, 10.1), but there is not a whisper of 76  See Bowersock 1969, but for a caveat concerning sophistic rhetoric as a route to power and influence see Bowie 1982. A grammaticus like Alexander could also benefit from location in Rome – in his case becoming the teacher of the future emperor Marcus, cf. Or. 32.13–14. 77  Many aspects of this Greek perception have been explored in the voluminous writing on the Greek world of this period, see Bowie 1970.

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Rome 250 kilometres further north. Achilles Tatius’s hard-to-date world offers many detailed images of Sidon, Egypt, Alexandria and Ephesus, but, again, nothing on Rome. Admittedly, Aristides himself refers to Roman power not only in his elaborate and flattering praise of it in his Roman Oration (Or. 26 Keil), but also in his speech to the cities of the province Asia on the importance of concord; in this context, however, he succeeds in avoiding entirely the terms Rome (Ῥώμη) or Roman (Ῥωμαῖος; Or. 23 Keil).78 Aristides’s account of his journey to Rome, therefore, together with his speech composed for delivery there (Or. 26 Keil), are exceptions to his presentation of himself in a largely self-sufficient world of Greek culture and religion, a world in which it is the prominent Romans he encounters in the Asclepieium at Pergamum, and not Aristides himself, who are the outsiders. Traveling to Rome takes Aristides outside this closed world in which the events of the Sacred Tales are otherwise set. His decision to include both his travel there and his return journey in these Sacred Tales can invite various explanations. They certainly offer a spectacular variation on the more humdrum journeys made within his own province and on the many exchanges with Asclepius, chiefly located at Pergamum, concerning his illness. Like many other educated Greeks, Aristides readily identified his own endurance and sagacity with those of Odysseus,79 and his comparison of his narrative with Odysseus’s account of his voyages to Alcinous (above, Oration 48.60, cf. below Oration 48.65) shows him slipping into this self-perception, just as in his Egyptian oration (Oration 36) he becomes Herodotus. But in Aristides’s case the year or less spent getting to and from Rome was a fraction of the time spent in the confined triangle Pergamum – Hadrianoutherae – Smyrna, waiting Penelope-like for healing (which, it seems, never came) and for rhetorical success (which did, but perhaps not on the very high level for which Aristides had hoped). The reference to Odysseus may also prompt us to see another function for the Roman journey in Aristides’s autobiography. That autobiography says almost nothing of the period before the journey to Rome – thus no mention is made of Aristides’s visit to Egypt. The journey to Rome seems to have been the beginning of Aristides’s serious illnesses: as noted above, there had been earlier illness, but not grave enough to deter Aristides from an overland winter journey, and the series of intractable and serious conditions begins at Rome. In a world where others saw travel to Rome as opening doors to success, does Aristides invite us to see

78  Note the elaborate description of Rome and Romans at 23.9–11 Keil that carefully avoids the terms Rome (Ῥώμη) or Roman (Ῥωμαῖος). On this and the other speeches delivered to cities in the province Asia see Bowie 2013. 79  For self-representation as Odysseus by Dio of Prusa, whose career and oratory must be known to Aristides, see Moles 1978. For a broad-ranging treatment of Odysseus as a model see Stanford 1954.

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his attempt to leave the Hellenic world of provincia Asia as a crime for which he is being punished by the gods, as Odysseus was punished by Poseidon? Aristides’s return by sea gave him the opportunity for virtuoso variatio from his account of his journey to Rome by land, in the rhetorical masterpiece I print here: ἐδόκει δὴ χρῆναι κομίζεσθαι οἴκαδε, εἴ πως εἴη διαρκέσαι. κατὰ γῆν μὲν οὖν ἄπορον ἦν, οὐ γὰρ ἔφερε τὸ σῶμα τὸν σεισμόν· πλῷ δὲ ἐπεχειροῦμεν. τῶν δ’ ὑποζυγίων τὰ μὲν ὑπὸ τῶν χειμώνων ἐτεθνήκει, τὰ δὲ περιόντα ἀπεδιδόμεθα. καὶ συμβαίνει τις Ὀδύσσεια, εὐθὺς μὲν ἐν τῷ Τυρρηνικῷ πελάγει ζάλη καὶ ζόφος καὶ λὶψ καὶ ταραχὴ τῆς θαλάττης ἀκατάσχετος, καὶ ὁ κυβερνήτης μεθῆκε τοὺς οἴακας, καὶ ὁ ναύκληρος καὶ οἱ ναῦται σποδὸν καταχεάμενοι σφᾶς τε αὐτοὺς ἀπῴμωζον καὶ τὸ πλοῖον. ἡ δὲ ἐπεισέρρει πολλὴ κατὰ πρῷραν καὶ κατὰ πρύμναν ἡ θάλαττα, καὶ κατεκλυζόμην τῷ τε ἀνέμῳ καὶ τοῖς κύμασι, καὶ ταῦτα ἐγίγνετο ἡμέραν καὶ νύκτα. μέσαι νύκτες σχεδὸν ἦσαν, ἡνίκα πρὸς τὴν Πελωρίδα ἄκραν τῆς Σικελίας προσηνέχθημεν. ἔπειτα ἐν πορθμῷ πλάναι καὶ δρόμοι, τὰ μὲν εἰς τὸ πρόσθεν, τὰ δὲ εἰς τοὐπίσω. τοῦ δὲ Ἀδρίου τὸ μὲν πέλαγος δυοῖν νυξὶ καὶ ἡμέρᾳ διήλθομεν, ἀψοφητὶ παραπέμποντος τοῦ ῥεύματος. ὡς δ’ ἔδει πρὸς τὴν Κεφαλληνίαν προσχεῖν, αὖθις αὖ κῦμα ὑψηλὸν, καὶ τὸ πνεῦμα οὐκ ἔφερεν, ἀλλ’ ἐπλανώμεθα ἄνω καὶ κάτω, κάματος παντοδαπὸς τοῦ σώματος καὶ λύσις. τὰ δ’ ἐν τῷ πορθμῷ τῷ Ἀχαϊκῷ πάλιν συμβάντα ὑπ’ αὐτὴν ἰσημερίαν ἀράντων τῶν χρηστῶν ναυτῶν ἐκ Πατρῶν ἄκοντος ἐμοῦ καὶ ἀντιλέγοντος ἐξ ἀρχῆς οὐδ’ ἂν λέγων εἴποις, ἐν οἷς ἅπασι τό τε στῆθος καὶ τἄλλα ἔτι μειζόνως ἐκακοῦτο. παραπλήσια δὲ καὶ τὰ ἐν τῷ Αἰγαίῳ, μοχθηρίᾳ κυβερνήτου καὶ ναυτῶν γενόμενα, ἐναντία τοῖς πνεύμασι πλεῖν ἀξιούντων καὶ μηδὲν ἀκούειν ἐθελόντων ἐμοῦ. τέτταρες πάλιν αὗται πρὸς ταῖς δέκα ἡμέραι καὶ νύκτες χειμῶνος, κύκλῳ διὰ παντὸς τοῦ πελάγους φερομένων, κἀν ταύταις ἀσιτίαι οὐκ ὀλίγαι, καὶ μόλις Μιλήτῳ προσηνέχθημεν. καὶ οὔτε ἵστασθαι δυνατὸς ἦν τά τε ὦτα ἐξεκεκώφητο, ἠνώχλει τε οὐδὲν ὅ τι οὔ. καὶ κατὰ μικρὸν προσιόντες οὕτω γιγνόμεθα ἐν τῇ Σμύρνῃ, πέρα πάσης ἐλπίδος. So it was decided I ought to be got home, if I could survive the journey. There was no way this could be by land, for my body could not take the shaking. We tried sailing. Some of the pack animals we had brought had died in the stormy weather, and we sold those that had survived. A sort of Odyssey ensued. Right at the outset in the Tyrrhenian Sea there was a storm, darkness, and a south-west wind, and an unmanageably rough sea, and the steersman let go of the steering-oars; the captain and sailors threw ashes on their heads and despaired of their own fate and that of the ship. The sea poured in at the bow and the stern, and I was soaked by the wind and the waves, and this went on day and night. (66) It was nearly midnight when we approached Cape Pelorus on Sicily, and then in the straits we were carried this way and that, now forwards, now back again. We crossed the Adriatic in two nights and a day, with the current carrying us along quietly. When we had to put in at Cephallenia there were again high waves, and the wind did not carry us forward, but we drifted up and down. My body suffered exhaustion from every quarter, and a collapse. (67) What happened in the Achaean straits, right at the equinox, when the idiot sailors put out to sea from Patras, though I was unwilling and against it right from the start, is something you could not describe, and in all this my chest and the rest of my body sustained even greater damage. (68) What happened in the Aegean was much the same, and came about because of the incompetence of the steersman and the sailors, who insisted on sailing against the wind and would not listen to me. There were fourteen more days and nights of storm, in which we were carried round in a circle over the whole Aegean, and in these days we often went without food. At last we put in at

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Miletus. I was unable to stand, my ears had gone deaf, and I suffered every manner of distress. Traveling by short stages we arrived in Smyrna, contrary to all my expectations. Aristides Sacred Tales 2 = Oration 48.65–68 Keil

Aristides could, of course, have written this even if he had never been to sea, and among the many features it shares with novelistic narratives is its flagging of the outcome as “contrary to all expectation.”80 But it does offer much topographical detail, and Aristides’s claim that his Aegean crossing took all of fourteen days is not to be rejected as absurd. Remember that Hadrian’s calculations for the movements of athletes and Dionysiac artists allowed for the possibility that fifteen days might be needed to get from Athens to Smyrna.81

Brief Conclusions Despite the range of well-crafted literary accounts, some conveying an impression of predictable ease, some glossing over practical details, some playing up the horrors of journeys from hell, it is perhaps the difference between the twoand four-day periods that Hadrian allowed for land-travel on the west coast of Asia Minor, and the fifteen days he allowed for crossing the Aegean that gives us the most telling insight into the realities of travel, namely the unpredictability of travel by sea, on which the view from Hadrian’s oval offices in Rome or Tivoli concurred with that from Aristides’s studies in Smyrna or Hadrianoutherae.

Works Cited Amann, Julius. 1931. Die Zeusrede des Ailios Aristides. Tübinger Beiträge zur Altertumswissenschaft 12. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. Bartsch, Shadi. 1989. Decoding the Ancient Novel. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Behr, Charles A. 1968. Aristides and the Sacred Tales. Amsterdam: Hakkert. –. 1981. Aristides: The Complete Works, vol. II. Trans. C. A. Behr. Leiden: Brill. –. 1994. “Studies on the Biography of Aelius Aristides.” ANRW 2.34.2, pp.  1140–233. 80  Or. 48.68: πέρα πάσης ἐλπίδος. Cf. ἐπεικῆ πέ ̣[ρ]α ̣ πάσ ̣[ης ἐλ-] πίδος τὸν ἀέρα παρασχεῖν (air that was reasonable beyond all expectation), Ninus, P.Berol. 6926 frag. B col. ii 16–17 (the passage is cited above p.  39) and Aristides’s own phrase τοσοῦτον παρ’ ἐλπίδα (so much contrary to expectation), Or. 45.34 (also cited above p.  43). Among Heliodorus’s many deployments of the παρ’ἐλπίδα trope see esp.  2.5.4 (σωθέντες), 7.8.2 (the couple are reunited παρ’ἐλπίδα πᾶσαν); Longus plays with the convention at 1.31.1, 3.8.1, 3.30.1. Chariton uses not παρ’ἐλπίδα but τὸ ἀνέλπιστον (2.7.4, 3.1.3), cf. Heliodorus 6.4.1 (also ἀνελπίστως 10.22.4, and more elaborately τὸ τῶν παρ’ ἐλπίδας ἄπιστον 10.13.8). Chariton uses ἀπροσδοκήτως (with a hint of self-­ reference) for his finale, 8.6.8. 81  Cf. above n.  8 .

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Bonnet, Corinne. 2015. Les enfants de Cadmos: le paysage religieux de la Phénicie hellénistique. Paris: Éditions de Boccard. Bowersock, Glen W. 1969. Greek Sophists in the Roman Empire. Oxford: Clarendon Press. –. 1994. Fiction as History: Nero to Julian. Berkeley: University of California Press. Bowie, Ewen L. 1970. “Greeks and Their Past in the Second Sophistic.” Past & Present 46: 3–41. Reprint in Moses I. Finley, ed. 1974. Studies in Ancient Society. London: Routledge, pp.  166–209. –. 1982. “The Importance of Sophists.” Yale Classical Studies 27: 29–59. –. 1989. “Greek Sophists and Greek Poetry in the Second Sophistic.” ANRW 2.33.1, pp.  209–58. –. 1990. “Greek Poetry in the Antonine Age.” In Antonine Literature, ed. Donald A. F. M. Russell. Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp.  53–90. –. 2002. “The Chronology of the Earlier Greek Novels since B. E. Perry: Revisions and Precisions.” Ancient Narrative 2: 47–63. –. 2004. “The Geography of the Second Sophistic: Cultural Variations.” In Paideia: The World of the Second Sophistic, ed. Barbara Borg. Millenium Studies 2. Berlin: de Gruyter, pp.  65–83. –. 2007. “Links between Antonius Diogenes and Petronius.” In The Greek and the Roman Novel: Parallel Readings. Ancient Narrative Supplementum 8, ed. Michael Paschalis, Stavros Frangoulidis, Stephen Harrison, and Maaike Zimmerman. Groningen: Barkhuis, pp.  121–32. –. 2009. “The Uses of Bookishness.” In Readers and Writers in the Ancient Novel. Ancient Narrative Supplementum 12, ed. Michael Paschalis, Stavros Frangoulidis, Stephen Harrison, and Maaike Zimmerman. Groningen: Barkhuis, pp.  115–26. –. 2012. “Socrates’ Cock and Daphnis’ Goats: The Rarity of Vows in the Religious Practice of the Greek Novels.” In Narrative, Culture and Genre in the Ancient Novel. Trends in Classics Supplement, ed. Stephen J. Harrison and Stavros Frangoulidis. Berlin: de Gruyter, pp.  225–73. –. 2013. “I discorsi civici di Elio Aristide.” In Elio Aristide e la legittimazione greca dell’impero di Roma, ed. Paolo Desideri and Francesca Fontanella. Bologna: Società editrice il Mulino, pp.  69–89. Bremmer, Jan N. 1998. “The Novel and the Apocryphal Acts: Place, Time and Readership.” GCN 9: 157–80. Brennan, T. Corey. 1998. “The Poets Julia Balbilla and Damo at the Colossus of Memnon.” CW 91: 215–34. Cirio, Amalia M. 2011. Gli epigrammi di Giulia Balbilla: ricordi di una dama di corte e altri testi al femminile sul Colosso di Memnone. Lecce: Pensa Multimedia. Farrington, Andrew. 2012. Isthmionikai: A Catalogue of Isthmian Victors. Nikephoros Beihefte. Hildesheim: Georg Olms. Hopkins, Keith. 1978. Conquerors and Slaves: Sociological Studies in Roman History, Vol. I. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Israelowich, Ido. 2012. Society, Medicine and Religion in the Sacred Tales of Aelius Aristides. Mnemosyne Supplements 341. Leiden: Brill. Jolowicz, Daniel. 2015. Latin Poetry and the Idea of Rome in the Greek Novel. Ph.D. diss., Oxford. Jones, Christopher P. 2007. “Three New Letters of the Emperor Hadrian.” ZPE 161: 145–56.

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–. 2013. “Elio Aristide e i primi anni di Antonino Pio.” In Elio Aristide e la legittimazione greca dell’impero di Roma, ed. Paolo Desideri and Francesca Fontanella. Bologna: Società editrice il Mulino, pp.  55–63. Moles, John L. 1978. “The Career and Conversion of Dio Chrysostom.” JHS 98: 79–100. Ní-Mheallaigh, Karen. 2008. “Pseudo-Documentarism and the Limits of Ancient Fiction.” AJP 129: 403–31. –. 2014. Reading Fiction with Lucian: Fakes, Freaks and Hyperreality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Parsons, Peter J. 2006. “P.Oxy. 4761: Novel (Antonius Diogenes?)” In The Oxyrhynchus Papyri vol.  70. London: The Egypt Exploration Fund, pp.  15–22. Petsalis-Diomidis, Alexia. 2010. Truly Beyond Wonders: Aelius Aristides and the Cult of Asklepios. Oxford Studies in Ancient Culture and Representation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Petzl, Georg, and Elmar Schwertheim. 2006. Hadrian und die dionysischen Künstler: drei in Alexandria Troas neugefundene Briefe des Kaisers an die Künstler-Vereinigung. Universität Münster. Asia Minor Studien 58. Bonn: Habelt. Reynolds, Joyce. 1981. “New Evidence for the Imperial Cult in Julio-Claudian Aphrodisias.” ZPE 43: 317–27. –. 1982. Aphrodisias & Rome: Documents from the Excavation of the Theatre at Aphrodisias Conducted by Professor Kenan T. Erim, Together with Some Related Texts. London: Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies. Reynolds, Joyce, Charlotte Roueché, and Gabriel Bodard. 2007. Inscriptions of Aphrodisias. http://insaph.kcl.ac.uk/iaph2007/ (accessed May 1, 2015). Robert, Louis. 1937. Études anatoliennes: recherches sur les inscriptions grecques de l’Asie Mineure. Paris: de Boccard. Romm, James S. 1992. The Edges of the Earth in Ancient Thought. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Roueché, Charlotte. 1993. Performers and Partisans at Aphrodisias in the Roman and Late Roman Periods: A Study Based on Inscriptions from the Current Excavations at Aphrodisias in Caria. London: Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies. Russell, Donald A. F. M., 1990. “Aristides and the Prose Hymn.” In Antonine Literature, ed. Donald. A. F. M. Russell. Oxford: Clarendon Press: pp.  199–219. Slater, William J. 2008. “Hadrian’s Letters to the Athletes and Dionysiac Artists Concerning Arrangements for the ‘Circuit’ of Games.” JRA 21: 610–20. Smith, Robert R. R. 1987. “The Imperial Reliefs from the Sebasteion at Aphrodisias.” JRS 77: 88–138. –. 1988. “Simulacra gentium: The Ethne from the Sebasteion at Aphrodisias.” JRS 78: 50–77. –. 1993. The Monument of C. Iulius Zoilos. New York University. Institute of Fine Arts. Mainz: P. von Zabern. –. 2013. The Marble Reliefs from the Julio-Claudian Sebasteion: Aphrodisias VI. Darmstadt: P. von Zabern. Squarciapino, Maria. 1943. La scuola di Afrodisia. Roma: Governatorato di Roma. Stanford, William B. 1954. The Ulysses Theme: A Study in the Adaptability of a Traditional Hero. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Stephens, Susan A., and John J. Winkler. 1995. Ancient Greek Novels: The Fragments. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

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Thonemann, Peter. 2011. The Maeander Valley: A Historical Geography from Antiquity to Byzantium. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tilg, Stefan. 2010. Chariton of Aphrodisias and the Invention of the Greek Love Novel. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Webb, Ruth. 1997. “Imagination and the Arousal of the Emotions in Greco-Roman Rhetoric.” In The Passions in Roman Thought and Literature, ed. Susanna M. Braund and Christopher Gill. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.  112–27. –. 2009. Ekphrasis, Imagination, and Persuasion in Ancient Rhetorical Theory and Practice. Farnham: Ashgate. Yildirim, Bahadir. 2004. “Identities and Empire: Local Mythology and the Self-Representation of Aphrodisias.” In Paideia: The World of the Second Sophistic, ed. Barbara Borg. Millenium Studies 2. Berlin: de Gruyter, 23–52.

The Romance of Imperial Travel in Aelius Aristides’s Smyrna Orations Janet Downie Like many of his elite peers in the high imperial period, the second century CE writer and orator Aelius Aristides traveled extensively for educational and professional purposes. At various points in his oeuvre, he refers to and describes these journeys, large and small, which included visits to Rome, Athens, and Alexandria, as well as excursions in and around his home region of Mysia for medical and cult engagements and for managing his political, social and household affairs.1 Aristides’s accounts of his own travel have attracted scholarly interest as evidence for what might be called “sacred tourism” – journeys undertaken by individuals to sites of historical and cult importance – as well as for what has recently been called “medical tourism” in the imperial context.2 Aristides’s first-person memoir of illness and divine therapy, the Hieroi Logoi, for example, offers prime material on both counts: he describes his search for divine healing at the temple of Asclepius at Pergamum and at other cult locations in Asia Minor.3 Besides offering glimpses of his own journeys, however, Aristides also reflects on the essence of travel as offering first-hand, physical experience of a place, and in a sequence of five orations concerned with the city of Smyrna (Orations 17–21), he explores the political and economic benefits that could ac1  I would like to thank Maren Niehoff for the invitation to contribute to the conference, and for coordinating an extraordinarily stimulating and collegial meeting in Jerusalem. For response and feedback on the paper in its original and revised versions, I would like to thank Kendra Eshleman, Georgia Frank, Laura Nasrallah, Maren Niehoff, Bill Race, and Aldo Tagliabue. Thanks also to Tali Banin for help in the editorial process. Charles Behr attempted a full reconstruction of Aristides’s activities and movements over the course of his life. See Behr 1968 and 1994. For a recently revised, brief chronology, see Jones 2013. For all his mobility, Aristides also frequently comments on his inability to travel on account of ill health. See Petsalis-Diomidis 2010, 116–21, with n.  220. 2  On “sacred tourism” see Rutherford 2001, 43, where he discusses imperial travel to sites of cult significance in the context of ancient theoria. On the language and concept of pilgrimage in pre-Christian and non-Christian contexts, see the “Introduction” in Elsner and Rutherford 2005, 1–38. On “medical tourism” in the Imperial context, see Israelowich 2015, 110–34. 3 See especially: Petsalis-Diomidis 2010, 101–21; Petsalis-Diomidis 2005; Israelowich 2012; Rutherford 1999 and 2001. See also Bowie in this volume.

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crue to a city as a result of offering this kind of experience to highly placed visitors.4 The Smyrna orations are striking for their focus on the physical landscape of the city – nearly to the exclusion of its cultural and political history, and the character of its citizens. This particular focus, I argue in this paper, reflects Aristides’s thinking about the process by which travel can foster lasting personal connections between visitor and landscape. In the two orations that are central to my discussion, Aristides addresses powerful imperial visitors to Smyrna: in the first Smyrna Oration (Or. 17), Aristides leads the visiting governor of Asia through the physical space of the city, dwelling on the attractive power of its visible and tangible features; in the later Letter to the Emperors Regarding Smyrna (Or. 19) he writes to the emperors Marcus Aurelius and Commodus at a moment of crisis, asking them to remember their recent visit and to assist the city in rebuilding after an earthquake. In both texts Aristides evokes the physical landscape of the city in a bid to foster political investment in Smyrna, and to that end, he characterizes the relationship between visitor and city in erotic terms. In what follows, I first offer a brief overview of the Smyrna Orations as a group, and of their political and rhetorical interest, before turning to what I argue is Aristides’s central concern in these texts: the dynamics of the interaction between visitor and city, through direct contact with the physical landscape. For Smyrna, as for many cities in the Greek east, imperial and proconsular support mattered substantially. Smyrna was famously beautiful, and an important urban center in the second century, but it naturally lacked the perfectly classical pedigree of Athens and other old cities of mainland Greece. For this city, Aristides proposes, the best way to secure lasting imperial support might be through building the kind of relationship that only physical presence – personal experience of the landscape through travel – could afford.

Political Choreography Aristides’s orations on Smyrna are overtly political: he advocates on the city’s behalf with members of the imperial and provincial administration, including the governors of Asia and the Roman emperors themselves. Aristides was well positioned for this diplomatic role: born to an aristocratic family from the region of Mysia, he held citizenship at Smyrna and made the city the center of his activities as a professional rhetor and teacher.5 The orations cover a range of 4  Laura Nasrallah’s contribution in this volume focuses on the elusive perspective of the host community. 5  Franco 2005, 368–71, notes that Smyrna was the center of Aristides’s public activity and presents the evidence for his relationship with the city. In his Monody for Smyrna, Aristides laments, notably, the destruction of “my bouleutêrion” (Or. 18.8), where he would have made

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rhetorical occasions. 6 Orations 17 and 21 are addressed as “speeches of arrival” (epibatêrioi logoi) to two different provincial governors, or proconsuls, who visited the city on administrative business perhaps some twenty years apart.7 The first of these arrival speeches Aristides appears to have delivered in person, while the second is a written text: here, he regrets not being personally present to greet the governor, but reminds him that they toured the city together about two decades previously on the occasion of his father’s earlier proconsular visit. 8 On this later occasion, Aristides writes, he hopes that the present governor will be able to follow the “trace” or “footstep” (ichnos) of his words in rediscovering the present day city.9 At the time of Or. 21, Smyrna is, in some respects, a new, or renewed city: shortly before this second proconsular visit, in 178, an earthquake had done considerable damage to the city’s architectural landscape.10 The three intervening speeches of the Smyrna group deal directly with that crisis – a Monody of lament (Or. 18), the previously mentioned Letter to the Emperors Concerning Smyrna (Or. 19), and a Palinode for Smyrna (Or. 20), addressed to the provincial assembly of Asia to celebrate the reconstructive work in progress. By the time Aristides addresses the governor in Or. 21, in 179 CE, it seems the city has returned to ordinary life. Taken together, these orations offer a glimpse of the life of an imperial city during a period of crisis and restoration.11 They depict a set of official, diplomatic interactions, and across the whole series, Aristides makes the in-person visits of traveling governors and emperors central.

a number of public speeches. See Robert 2012 for discussion of the evidence for Aristides’s oratorical activities beyond his extant oeuvre. 6  See Pernot 1993, 295–99. Behr 1981–1986, offers an English translation of all these texts, with brief commentary. 7  Burton 1992, 447, points out that these speeches are two rare examples of a type of diplomatic speech that must have been exceedingly widespread in the second century CE. For discussion of the category of epibatêrios logos in imperial theory and practice, see Pernot 1993, 96–97. 8  Burton 1992 proposes that Or. 17 was addressed to C. Pompeius Sosius Priscus who, based on the typical senatorial trajectory, was probably proconsul in the early 160s, while the second was addressed to his son who may have taken office in 184. The identification remains provisional, as Jones 2013, 58–59 points out. 9  The phrase ἴχνος γέ τι φωνῆς ἡμετέρας (“some trace of my voice”) is strikingly physical here, perhaps recalling the periegetic trope of the earlier oration. The image may also reflect a broader conception, in the ancient world, of texts as “deposits of voice,” analogous to the relationship of footprint to foot, as discussed by James Porter 2006, 314. 10  Franco 2005, 471–74, dates the earthquake to 178, with references to earlier scholarly discussion. Jones 2013, 58 accepts the dating as “virtually certain.” 11  Wilamowitz von Möllendorf 1925, 352–53 proposed that the series of orations was published together, at the end of Aristides’s life. Franco 2005, 352–53 comments on the unity of the series in terms of locale, authorial voice, and chronology. Boulanger 1923, 384–91 discusses the orations as a group, and Pernot 1993, 770, describes the series as “a tragedy in five acts,” of which Smyrna is the heroine.

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The Smyrna Orations have attracted attention from scholars with both historical and rhetorical interests. Together with other textual, epigraphic, numismatic, and archaeological sources, the Smyrna orations help to fill out the biography of Aristides and the biography of this important Asia Minor city in the second century CE. As Carlo Franco puts it in his monograph, Elio Aristide e Smirne, the texts offer “a portrait – direct and indirect – of Smyrna” (353).12 Franco’s is the most comprehensive study to date, and his detailed and carefully contextualized reading of the orations illuminates Smyrna’s relationship with Rome and with other cities of Asia Minor, the city’s image of itself as a Hellenic community, and also Aristides’s role as an orator enhancing its political and cultural status. From the rhetorical perspective, as Laurent Pernot has amply shown, this suite of orations offers richly creative examples of occasional speech in various genres – the address of welcome to a visiting dignitary, the letter of petition for imperial assistance, the monody of lament following an earthquake – all testament to the imperial triumph of epideictic and the importance of oratorical praise of cities (1993: 299). The Monody for Smyrna (Or. 18) has been studied in the context of the genre of lament, and Smyrna Oration 1 (Or. 17) has been singled out by Pernot and others as a unique ancient example of a city oration that uses the “periegetic” trope of the “guided visit.”13 Less attention has been paid, however, to the precise point at which rhetoric and politics intersect in these orations: the event of the imperial or proconsular visit. Ruth Webb notes, in her brief discussion of Aristides’s Letter to the Emperors Regarding Smyrna (Or. 19), that rhetoric had an important role to play in the “elaborate choreography” of the relationship between imperial cities and political figures, including governors and emperors (2009: 161). This is certainly true: Aristides’s Letter to the Emperors, and what we know of the reception and impact of this written document, bears witness to that fact.14 But what Aristides himself proposes in the Letter, and in this suite of orations more generally, I suggest, is that personal presence and personal experience – the kind of direct contact made possible by travel – played a crucial role in this diplomatic dance. In this paper, I am concerned not so much with what Aristides’s oratorical efforts accomplished politically, nor in the relationship, as Carlo Franco has traced it, between the real Smyrna and Aristides’s rhetorical Smyrna. Rather, I am concerned with Aristides’s own presentation of the importance of the activ12 “Ritratto, diretto e indiretto, di Smirne.” Older studies that take a biographical approach to Aristides include Behr 1968, Boulanger 1923, and Baumgart 1874. 13  Or. 18 in the monody tradition: Demoen 2001; Alexiou 1974, 85, 166, 179. On Or. 17 and the trope of periegesis: Pernot 1993, 199–200 (“la Seconde Sophistique a inventé l’‘éloge-visite’”); Webb, 2009, 50–51; Avlamis 2010, 137. 14  Franco 2005, 525–29 makes a case for the political efficacy of Aristides’s Smyrna speeches, countering Brunt, 1994, 34 who explicitly denies any political value to Aristides’s Letter to the Emperors. Franco points to Schmitz 1997 for a recent assessment of the role of rhetors, and educated elites in general, in imperial politics. See also Bowie 1982, and Bowersock 1969.

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ity of visiting. I argue that the experiential dynamics and political consequences of travel are the target of Aristides’s interest in his Smyrna Orations.

Periegesis and Erotic Encounter Given the political and diplomatic function of the Smyrna orations, it is surprising to find Aristides elaborating a portrait of the city that focuses almost entirely on its physical appearance and, more specifically, its beauty. Of course, Smyrna was famously beautiful: Aristides describes it in his Letter to the Emperors as “the watchword of beauty (kallous epônymos) among all men” (19.3), and this reputation is confirmed by Strabo, among others.15 However, Greek literary and rhetorical precedents suggest that physical beauty should be only one of several topoi invoked to showcase a city’s excellence. Here, instead, it is a persistent theme across the series of orations, all of which focus intensively on the visual impression made by the city – to the near-total exclusion of its history, its mythological past, its institutional and intellectual life, and the virtues of its citizens.16 Aristides writes in Or. 21 of the “beauty” (kallê) of the city’s temples and precincts, which the eye of the visitor may discover and interpret (exêgeito) better than any verbal account (21.5), and in Or. 19 he laments damage to the city in the earthquake of 178 as the loss of a beautiful object: “the ornament of Asia, the decoration of your [imperial] rule” (19.1). In Or. 17, Aristides makes a point of his focus on the physical city by using the trope of periegesis: he imagines himself leading the visiting governor through the streets of Smyrna, guiding him to views of the urban and extra-urban landscape.17 The trope of periegesis is appropriate to the occasion of the proconsular visit. Yet the choice is, I suggest, more than a matter of fitting form to occasion. The periegetic trope keeps 15 E.g. Strabo, Geography 14.1.37. Translations from Aristides’s orations are my own, based on the text of Keil. I have regularly consulted the translation and notes provided by Behr 1981–1986. 16  The cultural life of the city appears to have accelerated dramatically in the first and second centuries CE. Franco 2005, 361–84 describes second century Smyrna as a “Sophistopolis.” Cf. Hopwood 2000 for an overview of Smyrna’s life as a center of oratorical education and performance. Aristides refers briefly to the city’s theaters and other accommodations for intellectual endeavors (e.g. Or. 17.13). He also mentions the city’s claim to have been the birthplace of Homer (Or. 17.15) and surveys the city’s history in Or. 17.2–6 (other brief references include: 18.2; 19.11–12; 20.5, 20; 21.3–4). Yet, as Thomas 2007, 139 remarks in his discussion of the Smyrnaean landscape of these speeches, Aristides presents the city “as a source not so much of civic pride as of aesthetic pleasure.” Cf. Stambaugh 1974 who discusses the contrasting images of Athens offered by Thucydides, the Hellenistic writer Heraclides of Crete, and Pausanias. In Pericles’s funeral oration, he points out, Thucydides presents a view of Athens that is “organic, not material; political, not topographic” (312). The emphasis is reversed, he argues, in Pausanias’s second century CE account of the city. 17  Behr 1981–1986, 356 describes Or. 17 as “about the best description of ancient Smyrna which we possess.”

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the oration focused on the landscape of the city as a physical reality, in present time, and Aristides endows Smyrna with its own, embodied life. This in turn makes it possible to explore the dynamics of the relationship between visitor and city – a relationship Aristides characterizes in erotic terms. Near the beginning of Or. 17, following a brief proem, Aristides touches upon some of the requisite topoi of city encomia, briefly tracing Smyrna’s settlement history and the character of its people.18 The rest of the oration, however, is taken up with a sweeping panorama of the material landscape, as Aristides evokes a feast for the eyes and heightens the visual effect with a range of metaphors and comparisons: Smyrna “lies spread above the sea, continuously sending forth the flower (anthos) of its beauty (hôras)” (9).19 It is adorned “like an embroidered gown,” as attractive as a “variegated necklace” (10), as full of sweet-sounding breezes as a grove (12) – creating an effect that he describes as an “exquisite spectacle (theama habroteron)” superior to any painting or sculpture (12). Aristides invites his addressee to take in the sights of the city almost at one glance – public and private structures, natural and man-made features, all overwhelming in their radiant beauty: Everything as far as the seacoast is resplendent (katalampetai) with gymnasia, market places, theaters, temple precincts, harbors, beauties (kallesin) – both natural and manmade – competing with one another. (17.11)

Amid the throng of rival attractions, he singles out a few exceptional features: the temple dedicated to “the goddess allotted to the city” is “most beautiful” (kallistos), and one of the city’s main avenues is described as being “fairer (kallionos) than its name.”20 For the most part, however, the visual picture Aristides gives is generalized, almost to the point of abstraction.21 He offers no detailed 18  Present-day Smyrna, Aristides says, is the “third after the original city”: the first foundation was on Mount Sipylus, while the second and third foundations moved to the foot of the mountain and towards the coast. The most ancient inhabitants were “natives of the soil (autochthôn)” but the city soon exchanged settlers with mainland Greece, sending men to the Peloponnese, and receiving from Athens the “sons of Erechtheus” in turn. This double foundation accounts for the combination of “delicacy” in everyday life and boldness in war that, he says, are characteristic of “Smyrnaean behavior” (Or. 19.2–7). 19 Cf. Or. 17.12: ὡρᾴζεται “[the city] blooms with youthful beauty.” 20 Although there is a lacuna, and the text is unclear, Aristides seems to refer to the Metroon, dedicated either to Magna Mater or the Nemeseis (Behr 1981–1986, 356). Cf. the reference at Or. 18.6 to “streets named for gold and for sacred rites.” 21  Aristides’s perspective on Smyrna corresponds well to what Lynch 1960, 66 describes as the “imageability” of the city. Among Lynch’s categories of imageability the category of “edge” is especially important for Smyrna, where the built landscape creates a vista rather like Lynch’s “façade of Chicago on the Lake.” Others of Lynch’s spatial categories – paths, nodes, and even districts – help to structure Aristides’s picture; the category of landmarks is, however, less developed. Lynch expresses caution regarding the intercultural applicability of his reading of cityscapes, and its capacity to register diverse points of view (157).

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visual account of any of the monumental features he points out. Instead, Aristides conveys a sense of the total visual effect of the city – its geographical setting, the orientation, scale, and layout of its construction, and especially the harmony of the cityscape. He describes Smyrna as being, by nature, the “model (paradeigma)” and “the very image (eidôlon) of a city” (17.8).22 The roads that divide the landscape create “many cities in their compass, each an imitation of the whole” (11) – a kaleidoscopic reproduction in miniature of the city’s overall perfection. This view of the city as a composite, but unified, whole underpins Aristides’s comparison of the city to a human body. While this analogy is traditional in the rhetorical context, Aristides develops it with unconventional intensity in these orations. The image of the city as a human body was a standard topos in the Greek literary and rhetorical tradition partly because praise of cities generally followed the patterns of personal encomium: by a process of what Laurent Pernot has called “analogical transposition” (2015a: 42), 23 city orations typically combined topics pertaining to human individuals, such as origins, actions, and accomplishments, with a “spatial supplement” – topics of geographical position (thesis).24 As components of the encomium, such landscape features contributed to the praise of the city what physical details might contribute to the praise of a person: they functioned as signs of intangible ethical and intellectual qualities. In Or. 17 Aristides invokes the city-as-body topos to draw attention to the beauty and utility of certain aspects of the urban landscape. Ultimately, however, he is less interested in physical features as symbols of civic ethos, and more interested in developing an overall conception of the city as a human person. And when he describes Smyrna arising from the earth like a flower (see above, p.  58), his purpose, as he continues, is to meditate not simply on the beauty but also on the unity of the settlement, which appears to have been not so much constructed, as born. Smyrna appears: as if it had not been built gradually, but all at once emerged from the earth with a magnitude unforced and unhurried, abundant and consistent (paraplêsia) on every side. Its magnitude gives it a surplus of beauty (kallous periousia), and you would not say that it was many cities scattered about little by little, but a single city the equivalent of many, 22  This distilled and perfected “image” he describes as a kind of apotheosis for the city – comparing it to the crown of Ariadne and other constellations. 23  In Menander Rhetor’s later taxonomy of epideictic rhetoric, for example, “praise of cities” is a subdivision of the broader category of praise of “mortal objects” (Menander Rhetor, Treatise 1.332.8–9). 24  Menander Rhetor, Treatise 1.346.26–32: “Praises of cities, then, are combinations of the headings discussed in connection with countries and those which relate to individuals. Thus, we should select ‘position’ (thesis) from the topics relating to countries, and ‘origins, actions, accomplishments’ from those relating to individuals. These form the basis of encomia of cities” (Russell and Wilson 1981). The phrase “spatial supplement” is from Pernot 1981, 103. See Pernot 1993, 178–216 for full discussion of praise of cities in Greek rhetorical and literary context.

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and a single city all of one color (homokhroun), harmonious (sumphônon) with itself, furnished – like the body (sôma) of a person – with parts compatible (sumbainonta) with the whole. (9–10)

At the culmination of the passage, the human body offers the ultimate example of a harmonious and synergistic whole. Aristides pursues the city-as-body analogy in a more traditional mode later in the oration, when he describes Smyrna’s coastline in “poetic” terms: “Perhaps even a poet would say as much, charming us (psychagôgêseien): The harbor is the navel of the city, and the sea its eye” (19).25 Smyrna’s coastal “gulf” (kolpos) unwinding into many smaller gulfs “is a ‘bosom’ (kolpos) in its gentleness, utility, beauty, and form.”26 His self-conscious framing of the comparison here suggests that he stands at a certain distance from rhetorical convention, while recognizing its power to “charm.” Aristides’s Panathenaic oration offers an instructive contrast to Or. 17, because here Aristides takes a more traditional approach. This lengthy speech in praise of Athens begins with a brief presentation of the city’s geographical situation, before moving on to a discussion of the city’s early inhabitants and Athens’ military deeds (constituting the bulk of the oration).27 When he describes the “schema,” or “appearance” of the country in which Athens is located, Aristides praises the beauty of the region and the city, 28 and compares Athens, on the large scale, to a human body: the Acropolis rises like a peak (koruphê) in the center, “such that around it is all the rest of the body of the city (sôma tês poleôs)” (16).29 25  This comes at the end of a passage in which Aristides has compared the experience of the city’s beauty to a snake-bite and to mystery initiation, both of which involve sensations difficult to convey to those who have not had the same experience. The transmitted text also includes a comparison to “those overcome by eros for young boys” who are “reluctant to talk about it.” Keil excises this phrase without any explanation, and Behr omits it from his translation. It is certainly easy to explain the comment as an interpolated annotation. However, the image of the snake-bite may come from Plato’s Symposium (217e) where, as Yatromanolakis 2005, 280, n.  49 points out, it is an erotic metaphor: Alcibiades describes himself as “bitten (dêkhtheis)” by Socrates’s refusal of his sexual advances. If Aristides had the Symposium in mind, it is not impossible to imagine him mentioning homoerotic desire here, particularly since his understanding of eros, in this speech and elsewhere, is capacious (see n.  42). Still, such a direct reference would be out of character and somewhat out of place. If the phrase is a later interpolation, it would seem to reflect not only social censure of homoerotic desire, but also the reader’s appreciation of the erotic tenor of Aristides’s text. 26  He compares this feature, further, to “those many spouted bowls” (22), extending the image of unity-in-multiplicity that is suggested by the human body and its many parts. 27  The city’s cultural attainments occupy the final section of the speech, which is – surprisingly, perhaps, given the contemporary profile of Athens and Aristides’s own interests – briefer than the section on war. 28  He writes, for example, of the beauty (kallê) of the temples and fields, the charms (kharitas) of the suburbs and coastal regions, the brilliance (phaidrotêta) and grace (kharis) of the mountains (20–21). 29  The word koruphê (peak) may refer to the top of anything – either the top of a mountain, as Behr 1973 takes it, or the top of the head, as Pernot 1981, 104 takes it. The analogy of the

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In this description of the Athenian acropolis, however, the terrain is invested with political and cultural resonance. Geographical features may also stand for ethical values: It [Attica] is situated for Greece like a means of protection in preference to any other, holding the appropriate position as the first land toward the east, jutting into the sea, and making it vividly apparent (enargês) to comprehend that it is the rampart of Greece, formed by the gods, and alone possesses the natural leadership of the race (genos). Again, it displays a sort of sign of its generous kindness (philanthropia), in that it projects far into the sea, taming it (hêmerousa). (Or. 1.9–10) 30

Here, the headland of the Attic peninsula not only serves an actual, protective function in a material sense but also marks by its prominence Athens’ destiny as a natural leader in the Greek world. Aristides lingers for a moment on the connection between geographical characteristics and the moral and civic virtues they encode: the projecting peninsula, imagined as “taming” the currents of the sea by its intervention, is made into a “sign” of the cardinal civic value of philanthrôpia.31 It is an underlying premise of the geographical section of this speech that “the nature of our country will appear to agree with the nature of its people” (8). It is the people and their deeds, ultimately, who matter. In Or. 17, by contrast, Aristides draws virtually no connection between geography and civic ethos. This is all the more remarkable in light of the occasion for the speech: the purpose of the governor’s visit to the city was to preside over legal cases at the annual assizes.32 In spite of this, Or. 17 is oriented towards acquainting him with Smyrna in its physical, not its moral dimensions, and the physical landscape is not presented as symbolic of civic virtues. Instead, when he describes the city’s physical beauty and likens it to a human body, the effect

human body continues in this passage, as Pernot points out, with the image of a belt and shield protecting the body. 30  Translation slightly adapted from Behr 1973. 31  In his analysis of this passage Pernot 1981, 105 notes that space “n’est qu’une projection des valeurs humaines.” See also the discussion by Oudot 2002, 186–89, who points out that “ὄψις et μνήμη se renforcent” in Aristides’s presentation of the city. 32  The reason for the governor’s visit can be deduced from indications within the text itself. At the beginning of the speech, Aristides ends his brief evocation of Smyrna’s foundation history by directing the governor’s attention to the ritual celebration about to take place in the city – the procession of a sacred trireme at the spring Dionysia. This reference to the Dionysia, which regularly took place around the 3rd of March, suggests that the governor was arriving for the assizes. (Franco 2005, 374–75). Indeed, at the end of the speech, Aristides writes that the governor has been summoned there in spring and that he will himself “judge” (krineis) the people (dêmos) and “make them even better by leading them towards what is most beautiful (kalliston).” This phrase from the end of the oration is the only place in the text where Aristides plays on the double sense of kalos as meaning both “beautiful” and “morally good.” The double meaning perfectly suits Aristides’s presentation of an encomium on Smyrna’s beauty for what is essentially a judicial occasion. On the meaning of kalos (adj. “fine, excellent, beautiful”) and its relationship to kallos (noun “beauty”) in Greek culture, see Konstan 2014.

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is to make the city virtually a person in its own right. Aristides aims to endow the city with a life of its own, to give it substance as a living being in the present. Aristides’s use of the trope of the city-as-body supports his central interest in this oration, which is to create a relationship between the traveling visitor and the city-as-person by imagining a guided visit: he aims to put the visitor directly in touch with the city itself, by leading him into its physical landscape. So, after his brief evocation of the city’s settlement history and the character of its people (17.2–7), Aristides dramatically proclaims that there is no need to waste time on myth and history because Smyrna, unlike other cities, makes an immediate, visual impression upon any visitor. More important than the past is the physical landscape of the present: a city which triumphs at first sight and does not leave time for the investigation of its antiquities, why should I draw on the past to honor this city instead of guiding the visitor about it (periêgeisthai), [as if I were holding him by the hand and] making him a witness (martys) to my words? (17.7)

The city’s glory lies in its physical appearance, and this gives it not merely visibility, but even power over the visitor – it “triumphs at first sight.”33 The governor is imagined as a spectator, drawn into direct, compelling visual contact with the city through a guided walking tour (periêgeisthai). Aristides proclaims that his speech must necessarily be overshadowed by the brilliance of Smyrna itself – a city that, he implies, has “attained perfect beauty” (akribôsai to kallos; 17.2). Whereas sometimes, he suggests, cities and their sights fall short of the claims made by orators who praise them, in the present case Aristides can say “nowhere near as much as it is possible to show (deixai)” 17.1).34 Aristides’s rhetorical effort is intended to complement and extend that experience: both the governor and ultimately the reader of the written text are imagined as “witness[es]” of his words. The language of the text, whether spoken or read, is meant to promote, recall, or enable an encounter with the city that is as direct as possible.35 This trope of the periegetic tour is familiar, in the imperial context, from Pausanias. Pausanias uses the perspective of the traveler as the frame for an ex33  The expression in Greek is slightly paradoxical, pairing a passive participle with an active verb: literally, “as soon as it is glimpsed, it exerts power” (εὐθὺς ὀφθεῖσα χειροῦται). In the quoted passage, Keil has bracketed the phrase “as if I were holding him by the hand” as a later gloss on periêgeisthai. 34  Ultimately, Aristides turns Smyrna’s beauty to his rhetorical advantage, noting that “the more beautiful (kalliô) the sights, the more reasonably will he [an orator] seem to experience failure” (17.1). 35  Considering the paradox, or the embarrassment, of making a rhetorical speech about a building or space that is physically present, Webb 2009, 172–75 suggests that we should think of Aristides’s oration as a “supplement.” Aristides does not present it as a supplement, however, because he believes he cannot add to the city’s material perfection. He presents it rather as something different in kind from the physical space of the city. The intervention the speech makes is, in a sense, temporal: it creates time for the governor’s encounter with the city.

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tensive Periegesis of Greece, in which he guides his reader through hundreds of urban and cult sites of mainland Greece, offering a detailed report on the buildings, artworks, votive and commemorative objects at each place. Aristides and Pausanias share an interest in urban landscapes and familiarity with the phenomenon of local tourist guides, yet they diverge significantly in their sense of what it means to visit a city. Pausanias is drawn to the physical landscape of Greece because it preserves traces of the Hellenic past. Aristides, on the other hand, is interested in Smyrna’s material present (and future) and, above all, in imagining the visitor’s engagement with that material landscape. Virtually every landmark or physical object Pausanias describes is valued because it offers a connection to the past: “antiques” on the Acropolis of Athens are “notable” because they can be connected with famous leaders or craftsmen; 36 architectural, artistic and natural features are “worth seeing” because of their cultural and historical value. Aristides, by contrast, is concerned with the nature of the traveler’s experience. The visitor (or reader) taking in the spectacle of the city is imagined “proceeding from west to east … from temple to temple, and from hill to hill” (10) to the city’s highest point, from which he has a prospect view: “As you stand on the acropolis, the sea flows beneath and the suburbs ride at anchor.” The tour continues – “Descending from the Acropolis, you come to the east side of the city” (10) – and moves out beyond the gates of the city: “As you cross the Meles [River] a region confronts you, a gift, it seems to me, from Poseidon to the city” (16). In all these phrases, verbs and participles place the listener or reader in the scene, within the physical space of the city. Ultimately, Aristides characterizes the interaction between the traveler and the present-day city as a dynamic of erotic attraction. For this reason, throughout Or. 17 he pays deliberate attention to questions of perspective, complicating and puzzling over the visitor’s perception of the landscape. This is most marked in a peculiar passage in which the reader is invited to look through the traveler’s eyes as he crosses the Meles river beyond the city: And when you have proceeded a little ways, the city is again visible, as if it were escorting you, and here its beauty can be more precisely calculated and measured. And no one is in such a hurry that he stares straight ahead at the road and does not change his view, shifting what was before his eyes to his right, and what was to his left to the center his gaze. For the city draws him to herself as a magnet draws bits of iron and masters him with a willing compulsion. And the city experiences the same thing in regard to its environs as 36  Each item has a history: “In the shrine of Athene of the City is a wooden Hermes which they say was dedicated by Kekrops, invisible among myrtle branches. Some of the dedications are notable, among the antiques, a folding stool by Daidalos and a piece of Persian spoils, the breastplate of Masistios, who commanded the cavalry at Plataia, and a Persian sword they say belonged to Mardonios” (Pausanias, Periegesis 1.27.1). On Pausanias’s antiquarian approach to periegesis and the connections between place and cultural memory, see for example Arafat 1996; Pretzler 2007; Alcock, Cherry, and Elsner 2001, especially Porter, “Ideals and Ruins,” 63–92.

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its environs do in regard to the city. There is no satiety for a person gazing on the suburbs from the town, and if one should view the town from without, there is always, equally, an absence of full satisfaction. (17.16)

This is a complex – even contorted – passage. The juxtaposition of “beauty” with “calculation” and “measurement” is surprising, and sets the tone for what seems a rather dense, quasi-scientific analysis of the effects of beauty – its attractive force and the insatiability of the desire it occasions in the viewer. The image of the magnet and the paradoxical notion of “willing compulsion” are appropriate to Greek notions of the unsettling power of eros,37 and the passage, focused as it is on the traveler’s visual impressions, is consistent with the traditional centrality of vision in Greek accounts of the erotic encounter.38 The passage as a whole has the feel of a meticulous analysis of erotic experience – examined not, however, as a negative pathology, but, more neutrally (perhaps even positively), as an affective process.39 As Yiorgos Yatromanolakis (2005) has pointed out in a perceptive article, there is a romance in the Smyrna orations.40 Yet, it is not precisely the one he envisions. Yatromanolakis argues that Aristides creates an idealized romance, on the pattern of contemporary Greek fiction – with himself as hero. For Aristides, he proposes, the city as erotic object is gendered female, and her lover is “the bedazzled writer himself” (2005: 269).41 Yatromanolakis captures the en37  See, for example, Achilles Tatius’s Leucippe and Cleitophon (1.171), where a character includes the attraction between magnet and iron as one of a series of examples from the natural world that illustrate the power of eros. He speaks of a “kiss (philêma) between desirous stone and beloved iron.” 38  As Konstan 2015b puts it in his discussion of Sappho 16, “[b]eauty and erôs are coordinate” (“Sappho 16,” 25). The Greek understanding of the mechanics of vision made seeing a fully embodied experience: according to the ancient theory of “extramission,” beams proceeded from the eyes of the person looking at another object or person, establishing physical contact. Achilles Tatius uses this materialist account to make vision a conduit of eros in his Leucippe and Cleitophon (1.4 and 6.7). See Goldhill 2001, 167–72 and 178 for discussion of this “erotics of the gaze” in the broader cultural context of imperial self-positioning and display. 39  Aristides similarly describes the erotic dynamic between Corinth and that city’s admirers and visitors in his Isthmian Oration: To Poseidon (46.25). There he writes that the city’s beauty (kallos), longings (himeroi), and desires (erôtes) are so great that everyone is “bound” (anadêsasthai) to her pleasure and “inflamed” (phlegesthai) by her. He goes on to describe the charms of the “city of Aphrodite” in language drawn from Homeric accounts of that goddess’ powers (Iliad 14.214–17; Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite 2.10 ff.). 40  The article tracks changes over time in the Greek personification of cities and conceptions of the erotic relationship between the city and its citizens. Yatromanolakis argues that there was a shift from a romantic conception of this relationship (in Homer and Aeschylus), to one more focused on erotic passion and erotic rivalry (in Plato and Aristophanes). For Yatromanolakis, Aristides’s description of Smyrna reflects “the idealism and romanticism that characterize Aristides’s views on the past, and particularly the Attic past” (279). 41  “He [Aristides] is drawn to her [Smyrna’s] attractions and cannot take his eyes off her. He views the city as an ideal lover and praises her beautiful body as if it is a woman’s body, and

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ergy of Or. 17 very well, and surely Aristides is, in some fashion, a lover of Smyrna.42 If this speech implies a narrative trajectory, however, it is a narrative about the governor. It is the governor and, by extension, other visitors of high status who are invited to embark upon a romance with the city – an adventure narrative of separation, reunification, and shared destiny.43 Aristides elaborates the periegesis of this speech as a way to establish the connection and spin out the erotic encounter, inviting the traveler to spend time in company with the city and to know it at first hand.

Epithumia and Political Symbiosis As the image of the magnet most strongly suggests, Aristides imagines the visitor drawn into the force-field of Smyrna’s attractions. Summing up his periegesis, Aristides stresses the point that the city can best be appreciated not through merely hearing about it, nor even through enquiry into its stories (historia), but simply by spending much time in it.44 The praise of the city that the visitor will be moved to offer, to perpetuate, and perhaps even to profit from, is based on direct contact – and not just fleeting contact, but contact that leads to an ongoing relationship of mutual benefit, so that the result is a symbiosis, or shared life. The task of the periegetic speech is to make the visit a real occasion, to create a “space in time” in the present for a first-hand impression strong enough to sustain an ongoing relationship between the governor and the city, even after the governor has returned home. mourns for her destruction in the same way as the heroes of Hellenistic romances grieve for their lost lovers” (Yatromanolakis 2005, 279). Emotions, including eros, were understood to have a central place in civic oratory. See Pernot 1993, 286–87 and 280–82. Among the variety of rhetorical contexts in which Menander Rhetor suggests that expressions of eros were appropriate, the most interesting for the Smyrna orations is the propemptic speech for a departing governor. There, Menander writes, it is appropriate to express the eros and the pothos (desire) that the whole city feels for the departing official (Spengel 395.31–32). Chaniotis 2015 examines inscriptional evidence for the “emotional scripts” of diplomatic interactions in the Hellenistic period. 42  When Aristides describes his own passions elsewhere, oratory is at the center: he compares oratory with both familial and erotic relationships, invoking Aphrodite (Or. 33.20). Since his literary and professional life was closely bound up with Smyrna, it makes sense that he could characterize his relationship to the city in similar terms. Swain 1996 is cynical about Aristides’s political aims in the Smyrna orations, but Carlo Franco (2005) offers a more nuanced picture of Aristides’s investments in the city. Wilamowitz 1925, 352–53 claims that Aristides’s “active advocacy for his beloved Smyrna is the crowning achievement of his life.” 43  In his “Chance et destin,” (Pernot 1983) Pernot reads the Smyrna orations primarily in the tradition of Greek tragedy, but the guiding motif of chance and destiny (tuchê) also points towards the adventure plots of the contemporary romance. Cf. Pernot 1993, 770. 44  Aristides says that a fair appreciation of the city requires “continual presence” (diaita) and “association” (homilia, 17.21).

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We know nothing about the lasting impact of his visit on the governor addressed in Or. 17.45 However, in Orations 18 and 19, written after the earthquake that struck the city in 178, Aristides does explore the potential political pay-off of offering imperial travelers a first-hand experience of Smyrna’s urban landscape: the connection established through physical presence, he suggests, constitutes the basis for an ongoing relationship of support. In Or. 19, I argue, Aristides imagines the emperors stepping into the role of the city’s lover and carrying on the kind of romance begun by the governor in Or. 17. Or. 19, Aristides’s letter of appeal to the emperors Marcus Aurelius and Commodus, is an example of the presbeutikos logos, a speech addressed to the emperor on behalf of a disaster-stricken city, usually by highly placed individuals in close communication with the imperial bureaucracy.46 When Aristides writes following the earthquake, however, he does so not as a representative of the city in any official capacity, but on his own initiative. The authority he claims for addressing the emperors, as Carlo Franco has pointed out, is based on personal contact (2005: 479): according to Philostratus, Aristides had made a favorable impression when he had declaimed before Marcus and Commodus at the time of their visit to Smyrna the previous year.47 That visit, therefore, provides the “necessary premise” for Aristides’s epistolary appeal (Franco 479). More than this, however, the imperial visit to Smyrna provides the rhetorical leitmotif for the letter. When he asks for their help, Aristides reminds Marcus and Commodus of their imperial powers, and of Smyrna’s record as a supporter of Roman interests. Fundamentally, however, he fosters their sense of personal connection to the city. At the outset of his address, Aristides proclaims, with dramatic asyndeton, that the emperors’ first-hand experience of Smyrna furnishes “a guarantee, as it were, of salvation”48 : “you saw the city; you know the loss” (19.1). On one level, Aristides appears to be invoking one of the standard topoi of lament and disaster orations: the contrast between Smyrna as the emperors saw it in the past, and Smyrna in its present, ruined condition. What Aristides develops, however, is not the motif of temporal contrast, but the sense of personal presence and ongoing connection.49 By implying a fundamental connection between “seeing” the 45 In Or. 21, however, Aristides does suggest that the visit to Smyrna recorded in Or. 17 made an impact on the then-governor’s son, to whom he addresses this later text, writing: “you remember … you saw …” (Or. 21.3, 5). 46  See Pernot 1993, 435–37. 47 Philostratus, VS 2.9 reports the encounter and Aristides refers to the meeting elsewhere in his oeuvre as a success (Or. 42.14). See Gasco 1989. Weiss 1998 proposes that Aristides may have aimed at a position as imperial tutor. 48  Aristides’s phrase echoes Demosthenes’s speech For the Liberty of the Rhodians (15.4). While it is not likely an allusion the emperors could be expected to pick up, Aristides may have intended it for later readers of the published letter (or for his own satisfaction). 49  The relational dimension is reinforced by the Demosthenic reference (see above), since

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city and “knowing” it, he makes the city’s destruction a matter of personal importance for the emperors: they will “know” or understand Smyrna’s devastation because they have been in the city themselves. Focusing on the notion of “seeing,” and taking Aristides literally here, Ruth Webb has argued that Aristides invites the emperors to conjure up a visual image of the city as a way of comprehending the destruction (1997: 112–27). I propose, however, that Aristides is not primarily concerned with a visual image, but rather with recollecting an experience of first-hand presence – an experience of the sort described in his earlier periegetic oration for the governor. As in the other Smyrna orations, in his Epistle to the Emperors Aristides develops the idea that “seeing” the city is a multi-faceted experience.50 So, here, he prompts the emperors to recall not simply the visual landscape of Smyrna, but rather their presence in, and engagement with, that living city. It is this sense of ongoing relationship and shared life that makes Smyrna’s loss one that the emperors can know and understand as well. To be sure, the visual dimension is not entirely absent when Aristides asks the emperors to recall their connection to Smyrna. He does enumerate briefly the features of the urban landscape that have disappeared: harbor, marketplace, streets, temples, gymnasiums – landmarks the emperors would have seen (19.3). As in the other Smyrna orations, he acknowledges the city’s beauty, describing it as the “decoration of your rule” (19.1), and gestures towards personification: the city’s harbor is described, for example, as “closing its eye.”51 But when he contemplates the sort of image the emperors might have of the city, visual beauty merges with a sense of personhood and relationship, at least in an abstract sense: “let the city be all and in every detail yours. Whether you thought of it as a veil of empresses or as a crown of emperors or however you wish, save the city” (19.4). The images Aristides proposes are symbolic objects, essentially insignia of power, but they suggest several ways of claiming a relationship with the city – as bride and imperial consort, as prize or emblem of authority – all of which figure the city as complement to the imperial body. Most crucially, however, Aristides asks the emperors to recall their visit to the city as an experience of full engagement. The injunction to “remember” launches the main body of the speech: Remember what you said when you viewed it on your visit, remember what you said when you entered, how you were affected, what you did. The Theoxenia were being celebrated, while you rested, as in the most civilized (hêmerôtatos) of your possessions. What prospect view did not make you more cheerful? What sight did you behold in si-

Demosthenes (15.4) writes that it is the “friendship” of the Athenians that will be the salvation of Rhodes. 50  See Purves and Butler 2013, 2–3 on the way in which ancient texts blur “any single, simple ‘opticentric’ focus (even with respect to vision…).” 51 19.3: μέμυκε …

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lence and not praise as befits you? These are things which even after your departure you did not forget. (19.2)

Visual impressions, this passage suggests, were an important part of the emperors’ experience of the city – but only part. In retrospect, Aristides directs their attention not so much to what they saw, as to the emotional response and engagement these visual stimuli provoked: a “view” of the city leads to “cheer,” and its “sight” to “praise.” In this protreptic passage the emperors are asked to recollect their own movements and gestures: how they arrived, entered, spoke – all in the context of a festival celebration that would have engaged all their senses.52 Aristides hints at the interactive, reciprocal nature of the experience by using active and passive forms of the same verb – ὡς διετέθητε, ὡς διεθήκατε: “how you were affected, what you did” – in the first sentence. The emperors’ ongoing tie to the city is then underscored by its description as one of their “possessions,” but as Aristides portrays it here, this is not imperial power imagined as distant or formal. Rather, the emperors are at home in the city: they “rested” and actively engaged with its everyday life. The description of Smyrna as “civilized,” or perhaps even “tamed,” is ambiguous, but whatever it may communicate about the city’s position with respect to Roman power, it draws attention to the interactive nature of that relationship.53 What Aristides invites the emperors to recollect in this speech is not so much a visual image, although visual dynamics are certainly part of it, but an engaged relationship. In Or. 17, as we saw, Aristides imagined the relationship between visitor and landscape in terms of erotic attraction, desire born of physical presence. Some twenty years later, after the earthquake, Aristides appeals to the same sort of attraction, now on the part of the emperors, whom he identifies – explicitly – as “lovers” of the city. In his Palinode on Smyrna, delivered to the Council of Asia, he celebrates the emperors’ commitment to rebuilding as a consequence of their “love” (erôti) for Smyrna in its present incarnation. Here the feeling is mutual and pervasive: the city is said to have been “longing” (epothei) for its new imperial “founders” (oikistas), and its harbors to be “welcoming (komizontai) the embrace (agkalas) of their most beloved city” (20.20– 21).54 In this speech to the provincial assembly, Aristides draws the emperors explicitly into the erotic motif, and by this time it is a conception he has examined more closely, in his Monody for Smyrna (Or. 18). There, writing in the 52  On the Theoxenia in the Greek world see Jameson 1994. On the ancient experience of ritual as an “emotionally loaded act” and a “dynamic phenomenon” see Chaniotis 2006, 211 and 234. See also Franco 2005, 374. Cf. Aristides’s anticipation of the Dionysia procession that would mark the governor’s visit to Smyrna in Or. 17.7. 53  hêmeros properly means “tamed” in reference to animals, with “civilized,” and “subdued” as extended meanings. 54 Cf. Or. 20.14, where he refers again to the city’s lovers (erastai) and 18.6 for the embrace of harbors and city.

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immediate aftermath of the earthquake, Aristides attempts to identify the precise effect Smyrna has on those who visit. He settles on epithumia – longing or attraction – which, he says, involves direct, personal, engaged experience that goes beyond either visual impression or verbal expression. Aristides’s Monody for Smyrna is an emotional speech of lament, written in an exuberant oratorical mode with short, rhythmical cola, quite different from Aristides’s usual, sober, Attic style.55 The monody features topoi of the lament tradition in general, and more specifically of the lament for cities, including the contrast between past and present – a trope that Aristides indulges, when he recalls the beauty of the city and exclaims: “How different is everything from its former state!” (18.2) However, Aristides digs deeper, trying to explain why and how Smyrna’s former splendor affected those who encountered it. He suggests the city provoked desire, epithumia, in the observer: There was that which cannot be expressed in words or firmly grasped by seeing it, but is somehow elusive, yet always provoked the desire (epithumia) to comprehend it – the splendor (ganos), which stood over the whole city, not destroying our vision, as Sappho said, but increasing, nurturing, and refreshing it with delight, not at all like the hyacinth, but a thing such as earth and sun never before revealed to mankind. (18.4)

The city’s power rests in its elusive ability to spark desire (epithumia), a dynamic force that exceeds both words and the simple faculty of sight (opsis). Aristides refers to Sappho – the acknowledged touchstone of erotic experience in imperial Greek rhetoric – and seems to be both invoking her as a poetic precedent and striving to outdo her.56 Sappho famously depicts the effects of eros as physically disruptive, or even destructive (e.g. fr. 31); Aristides seems to transform such effects into a positive and constructive force of nurture and refreshment. His poetic word for the city’s “splendor” (ganos) suggests brightness, sheen, gladness, joy, and is therefore only partly a visual term. Its semantic range gives it an emotional resonance reminiscent of Sapphic poetry, underscoring Aristides’s central point that while neither vision nor language is completely destroyed by Smyrna’s splendor, neither can truly capture the experience he is describing: an encounter of desire that involves the seat of emotion, the thumos (epithumia). This epithumia creates the symbiotic dynamic between visitor and city that Aristides seeks to rekindle when he addresses the emperors in Or. 19. It appears 55  For the tone and topoi of monody, compare the Rhodian Oration (Or. 25) attributed to Aristides, with comments by Webb 2009, 159. Scholars have debated the attribution to Aristides, but Jones 1990 makes a convincing case for its authenticity, relating it to the Smyrna Orations in general and the Monody for Smyrna in particular (520–21). Avlamis 2010 connects Aristides’s monodies to what he sees as a contemporary mood of retrospection. 56  The reference to Sappho is unclear. Aristides may be recollecting fr. 31.11 Voigt, but without sure knowledge of the passage he had in mind, it is impossible to know either what Sappho herself may have said about the erotic gaze, or what contrast – or intensification – Aristides intends. See Bowie 2008, 10. On Sappho’s characteristically multi-sensory imagery, see Purves and Butler 2013, 4–5.

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he succeeded. In his brief, anecdotal biography of Aristides in the Lives of the Sophists, written some fifty years later, Philostratus suggests that Aristides’s intervention not only secured imperial assistance, but also the letter itself provoked the desired emotional response: 57 To call Aristides the founder of Smyrna is no mere boastful praise but most just and true. For when this city had been made invisible by earthquakes and chasms, he presented such a lament to Marcus that the Emperor repeatedly groaned at other passages in the monody, but when he came to the words: “winds blow through the deserted city” he actually shed tears upon the pages, and at Aristides’s cue, he consented to rebuild the city. (Olearius 582)

As scholars have pointed out, the image of Smyrna as a wind-swept desert is conventional for an oration of this sort. Attempting to account for the fact that Philostratus singles it out as a particularly moving phrase, Ruth Webb has argued that in the context of Aristides’s letter, it vividly evokes devastation by setting a visual image of the wind-blown wasteland next to “the images already stored in the emperors’ memories” of the city as it was when they visited it (1997: 116). For Webb what Philostratus’s account reveals is the power of a single, terse expression to evoke pity – a sign of the suggestive power of epideictic rhetoric. In my view, however, his description of the emperors’ response returns us to the central point of the letter, which is not to trigger mental images of the city per se, but to rekindle a relationship. In the context of Aristides’s speech, the phrase that Philostratus quotes forms a bridge between the passage in which he describes the physical features of the city, now in ruins, and a passage in which he develops a picture of the emperors engaging with the city in the future. No sooner has he described the city as “deserted,” than he writes: All that is left looks to you [the emperors], and with it all the rest of Asia looks to you, praying for benefactions now and always, and for pity from you for Smyrna – if this bare ground (edaphos) is indeed Smyrna. (19.3)

Aristides asks the emperors to reanimate the city in their minds, to restore their relationship with it. As they contemplate a mental image of the city, Smyrna looks back at them, and in the passage that follows, Aristides asks them to write themselves into the story of the city’s future, to “reveal it new from the beginning” (19.4), and to fill its “bare ground” (19.3: edaphos), as founders greater than Lysimachus and Alexander before them. 57  As Webb 2009, 161, points out, this passage seems to offer rare evidence for audience response to epideictic oratory – if not on the part of the emperors themselves, then on the part of Philostratus who, by reporting Marcus Aurelius’s reaction, suggests that it illustrates what he considers an appropriate response to the words of the letter (Webb 1997, 114–15). Cortés 2013, 141, points out that we do not have the return letter from the emperors, and it is possible they would have intervened anyway, even without Aristides’s appeal.

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Aristides pictures the emperors’ relationship with Smyrna as a symbiosis between two living beings – hierarchical, to be sure, but one from which both parties have something to gain. Characterizing the disaster of the earthquake as a kind of death, he asks the emperors to help the city “live again,” and to regard it not as a dispensable, inanimate object but as a living being: “Do not judge the city as useless, like a worn out tool (skeuos), but let it live again (anabiôsai) through you” (19.7). Indeed, the emperors themselves are already part of the material life of Smyrna, which includes “many old and new monuments (hypomnêmata)” that are “testimony to our mutual honor” (19.8).58 The cityscape thus encodes a relationship of exchange and reciprocity between Smyrna and Rome, preserving a physical record of the kind of coexistence they experienced during their attendance in person at the time of the Theoxenia. This epistolary oration, like the periegetic Or. 17, is fairly consistently focused on Smyrna’s physical landscape. Near the end, however, Aristides gestures dramatically away from the physical city. After expressing hope that the emperors will save the “whole form” of the city, he breaks off: “But the city is worthy of being saved not only for the sake of its appearance (opsis), but also on account of the goodwill which it has shown to you at all times” (19.11). In the two paragraphs that follow, he recalls Smyrna’s support for Rome in conflicts with the Attalid kings of the second century BC and the city’s support for its Asian neighbors on other occasions of natural disaster. For a moment, then, he emphatically separates aesthetic considerations from political ones. Yet, he returns quickly to an aspect of the physical landscape in which these political relationships are embedded: among the casualties of the earthquake, the temple of the imperial cult has slipped into oblivion, and it too needs rebuilding (19.13).59 Part of the effect of this brief departure and return is to remind the reader of the connection Aristides has been forging, throughout the oration, between the setting and political relationships. Indeed, even Smyrna’s long-ago engagements on the side of Rome against the Attalids Antiochus and Aristonichus are recorded in memorials (hypomnêmata; cf. 19.8) within the city gates (19.11). Aristides’s epistolary intervention with the emperors on Smyrna’s behalf appears to have been a political and diplomatic coup – one that he must have been happy to commemorate by giving the speech a lasting place in his literary oeuvre. To some extent, certainly, its rhetorical success must have rested on Aristides’s ability to craft for his imperial audience, as Simon Swain puts it, a 58  Speaking of the emperors to the assembly of Asia, in Or. 21, he imagines this relationship from the opposite direction, describing the emperors as an “ornament” for the city (21.12). 59  On the lengthy process by which Smyrna acquired the imperial cult (to which Aristides refers in this section), see Price 1984, 64–67. He describes the imperial cult as a “channel of communication between the ruled and their rulers” that Aristides deliberately exploits in this passage. See also Swain 1996, 295–96.

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“complimentary integration of Roman power and local Greek history” (1996: 295). From a literary standpoint, however, what is intriguing is the way Aristides fleshes out that relationship. He makes Smyrna a living entity, constructs a romance between the emperors and the city based on the erotic dynamic of epithumia, and encourages the emperors towards an ongoing relationship with the city in perpetuity. All this is based on a conception of the unique value of the first-hand experience afforded by travel and the in-person visit, a concept Aristides broaches in his first Smyrnaean oration for the visiting governor and develops over the course of this suite of orations.

Conclusion Considering the Smyrna orations from the perspective of travel makes it possible to discern Aristides’s literary interest in these texts: to explore the dynamic interaction between visitor and city. In a departure from Greek literary and rhetorical tradition, Aristides sets myth, history, and cultural life almost entirely to one side. His personified Smyrna does not represent citizen virtues, but stands as a living being in its own right, in symbiotic relationship with the emperors. This relationship, figured as erotic desire, depends upon the imperial visitors’ connection to the contemporary landscape. The trope of periegesis that frames Or. 17 underlies the epistolary Or. 19 as well, and the two orations should be read together as reflections on the experience, and the political value, of travel. For several reasons, Smyrna offered Aristides an ideal canvas for exploring the erotic power of the urban landscape in its material dimensions. First, Smyrna was famous for its beauty; second, the earthquake furnished an occasion for thinking about the physical landscape of the city; and third, the in-person visits of governors and emperors were crucial to the city’s place within the network of provincial and imperial politics. In addition, as an Asia Minor city, Smyrna lacked the deep and resonant Hellenic heritage of a mainland Greek center like Athens. Athens in this period was an established destination of cultural pilgrimage, drawing the educated elite and Roman emperors alike on a search for physical traces of the literary memory of classical Hellenism. This was not the case for Smyrna: here, motivated by the need to cultivate and sustain political interest in a Hellenic center at arm’s length from Old Greece, Aristides explores the power of the contemporary urban landscape in its purely material dimensions. He locates that power in the city’s capacity to spark desire in its imperial visitors and to create a dynamic relationship in the long term.

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–. 2015. “Affective Diplomacy: Emotional Scripts between Greek Communities and Roman Authorities during the Republic.” In Emotions Between Greece and Rome, ed. Douglas Cairns and Laurel Fulkerson. BICS Supplement 125. London: Institute of Classical Studies, pp.  87–103. Cortés, Juan M. 2013. “Città, dèi e parole. La formazione di un’identità politica greca per l’impero romano.” In Elio Aristide e la legittimazione greca dell’impero di Roma, ed. Paolo Desideri and Francesca Fontanella. Bologna: Società editrice il Mulino, pp.  117– 45. Demoen, Kristoffel. 2001. “‘Où est ta beauté qu’admiraient tous les yeux?’ La ville détruite dans les traditions poétique et rhétorique.” In The Greek City from Antiquity to the Present: Historical Reality, Ideological Construction, Literary Representation, ed. Kristoffel Demoen. Leuven: Peeters, pp.  103–26. Desideri, Paolo, and Francesca Fontanella, eds. 2013. Elio Aristide e la legittimazione greca dell’impero di Roma. Bologna: Società editrice il Mulino. Elsner, Jas´ , and Ian Rutherford. 2005. Pilgrimage in Graeco-Roman and Early Christian Antiquity: Seeing the Gods. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Favro, Diane. 1996. The Urban Image of Augustan Rome. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Franco, Carlo. 2005. Elio Aristide e Smirne. Rome: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. Galli, Marco. 2008. “Pilgrimage as Elite Habitus: Educated Pilgrims in Sacred Landscape During the Second Sophistic.” In Pilgrimage in Graeco-Roman and Early Christian Antiquity: Seeing the Gods, ed. Jas´ Elsner and Ian Rutherford. Oxford: ­Oxford University Press, pp.  253–90. Gasco, Fernando. 1989. “The Meeting between Aelius Aristides and Marcus Aurelius in Smyrna.” American Journal of Philology 110: 471–78. Goldhill, Simon. 2001. “The Erotic Eye: Visual Stimulation and Cultural Conflict.” In Being Greek Under Rome: Cultural Identity, the Second Sophistic, and the Development of Empire, ed. Simon Goldhill. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.  154–94. Hägg, Robin, ed. 1994. Ancient Greek Cult Practice from the Epigraphical Evidence. Proceedings of the Second International Seminar on Ancient Greek Cult, Organized by the Swedish Institute at Athens, 22–24 November 1991. Stockholm: Svenska Institutet i Athen. Hopwood, Keith. 2000. “Smyrna between Greece and Rome.” In Athenaeus and his World: Reading Greek Culture in the Roman Empire, ed. David Braund and John Wilkins. Exeter: University of Exeter Press, pp.  231–40. Israelowich, Ido. 2012. Society, Medicine and Religion in the Sacred Tales of Aelius Aristides. Mnemosyne Supplements 341. Leiden: Brill. –. 2015. Patients and Healers in the High Roman Empire. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Jameson, Michael H. 1994. “Theoxenia.” In Ancient Greek Cult Practice from the Epigraphical Evidence: Proceedings of the Second International Seminar on Ancient Greek Cult, Organized by the Swedish Institute at Athens, 22–24 November 1991, ed. R. Hägg. Stockholm: Svenska Institutet i Athen, pp.  35–57. Jones, Christopher P. 1990. “The Rhodian Oration Ascribed to Aelius Aristides.” CQ 40.2: 514–22.

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The Account of a Journey in the Erôtes of [Pseudo-]Lucian in the Context of Ancient Travel Nicola Zwingmann* The main focus of the Erôtes or Affairs of the Heart of [Pseudo-] Lucian1 (for the authorship see below) is a disputation on a theme familiar in ancient Greek literature – at least in the classical period and in the age of the Second Sophistic. This theme is the two types of love, or better desire (ero¯s). More specifically, the Erôtes deals with the two types of desire socially accepted for well-placed adult males in ancient Greece, which are heterosexuality and pederasty.2 The long introduction to this topic consists essentially in the description of an easygoing journey. The protagonist of the Erôtes, one Lycinos, represented as an itinerant sophist,3 wants to travel from an undisclosed seaport in the Eastern Mediterranean area, probably that of Tarsos or the Syrian Antioch with its port Seleucia Pieria,4 to Italy (fig.  1).

*  Sincere thanks to Nikolai Fischer for accompanying me to Jerusalem and taking care of my two little children during the conference, to Monika Heider for looking after my children and our physical well-being at home in the crucial phase of the preparation of this article, to Andreas Abele, Hartmut Blum, James Jope, Frank Kolb, Jan Stenger, and Werner Tietz for specialist advice, Jörg Kallinich for image editing, and Carola Bernasconi and Graham Shipley for helping me to put this article into correct English! 1  Editions and translations (with commentaries): cf. my bibliography. Several classic translations of Lucian’s works did not include the Erôtes because of its salacious contents: e.g. Wieland and Floerke 1911 [Trans. Wieland 1788–1789], 372f; Fowler and Fowler 1949 [1905]. Numerous partial translations, esp. of the part concerning the Aphrodite of Cnidos: e.g. Dubel 2014, 133–44 (French translation of Talbot revised after Macleod, cf. ibid. 16); Blinkenberg 1933, 15–19 (German); Corso 1988, 128–30, no.  56 (Italian); Söldner et al. 2014, no.  1871– 873 (German). 2  For this subject in the classical period (with Plato, Pseudo-Demosthenes, and others) and its Sophistic renaissance in the second to the fourth century (with Plutarch, Pseudo-Lucian, Maximus of Tyrus, Favorinus, Apuleius, Fronto, and Themistios): Degani 1991, 24f; Fleury 2007, esp.  775–77, 780 with n.  14, 782f; Görgemanns 2011, esp.  24; Dubel 2014, 135 n.  2. Other literary references and quotations in the Erôtes: Macleod 1967, 147 f., 150–235 passim in the notes; Jope 2011, 105–7. 3 Lucian, Am. 6 (escorted by his pupils to the harbor). Cf. Jones 1984, 181; Jope 2011, 115. 4  Cf. n.  104 and 106.

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Fig.  1:  Map with the itinerary of the Amores

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He passes the Lycian coast and comes to Rhodes where, after some sightseeing, he meets by chance two friends of his, Charicles of Corinth and the Athenian orator Callicratidas. The three friends decide to sail on to Cnidos to visit together the famous statue of Aphrodite made by Praxiteles. Affected by the visit to this naked statue of the goddess of love, the woman-mad Charicles and the boy-crazy Callicratidas start to debate about the superiority of their respective sexual preferences. Lycinos, in contrast, finally arbitrates whose arguments have been more convincing for rhetorical and philosophical reasons (and votes for pederasty). Here the travel account ends, and the ensuing part of the journey to Italy is not reported. The debate, which is instructive for the history of sexuality, has attracted the interest of various scholars ever since Michel Foucault examined it for this purpose in 1984.5 In recent years the Erôtes has received further attention for its “generic complexity … and its value as a significant witness for the viewing context of a lost sculptural masterwork” (Melissa Haynes 2013: 71). 6 But the frame story with its travel report rich in detail has been largely neglected so far, apart from the elaborate ekphrasis of the Aphrodite of Cnidos and her sanctuary, and the question of the starting point of the trip.7 This is amazing for, as far as I know, the Erôtes is unique among all the literature of antiquity since it treats all the different aspects of travel and touristic infrastructure, even doing so in a very concentrated form: transfer to the harbor, seafaring, accommodation, food, sightseeing, tourist guides, votive offerings, devotionals and souvenirs, cultural heritage preservation, and prostitution. Information on any of these subjects usually is – though to different degrees – very rare in the ancient texts. Lucian’s Erôtes is closely based on Plato. First, it picks up the topic of the erotic discourse as presented in the Symposium and in Phaedrus. Second, the writing is structured as a narrated dialogue which follows the Platonic model. 8 In an external dialogue set at a festival of Heracles, Lycinos recounts to his friend Theomnestos an earlier conversation, namely the above-mentioned debate on the two types of desire. This internal narrated dialogue between two opponents in the presence of their judge is introduced by the frame narrative on the journey, which consists of two very unequal parts: the 13 chapters at the beginning depicting the journey and two short references to it at the end.9 The travel account fulfils the function of creating a coherent, ever more eroticizing 5  See Foucault 1984, 243–61. Further literature e.g. Goldhill 1995, 102–11; Fleury 2007; Hubbard 2009; Jope 2011; Klabunde 2001 (not accessible to me). 6  Haynes 2013, 71 (with n.  3 on p.  93). Cf. Kindt 2012, 162–70. 7  Ekphrasis of the statue and the sanctuary: Haynes 2013; Zimmer 2014, 27–29. Starting point of the trip: cf. below with n.  104 and 106. Popular scientific essay: Perrottet 2003, 32–35: “Lucian Takes a Sex Tour.” 8  Jones 1984, 177; Degani 1991, 21, 23; Trapp 1990, 156f, 164 with n.  51; Goldhill 1995, 102f; Fleury 2007, 777, cf. 783; Dubel 2014, 138 n.  12, 144 n.  32. Cf. n.  2. 9 Lucian, Am. 6–18. 53.

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setting for the central theme of the treatise, the eponymous debate on the Erôtes. It may seem impossible to find out about the reality of travel through this work given (1) its elaborate composition leading to the main topic; (2) its intertextual references, typical of the Second Sophistic; and (3) its humorous tenor,10 which may be sometimes difficult for us to recognize and understand. But the Erôtes aims at presenting an accurate potential reality, and Lycinos’s description of the journey is allegedly an eye-witness account. The author of the Erôtes very likely had good knowledge of the sites and was a skilled traveler, which is hardly surprising as traveling was part of the lifestyle of pepaideumenoi and their self-fashioning (to use the term introduced by Stephen Greenblatt) at the time of the Second Sophistic. Lucian himself, for example, claims to have traveled to Asia Minor, Greece, Italy (including Rome), Gaul, and Egypt.11 The Erôtes incorporates multifaceted references to Lucian’s work, e.g. in the choice of the name “Lycinos,” the Hellenized form of his own name employed by Lucian to the protagonist of several of his dialogues, his leading literary genre.12 But traditionally most scholars have doubted the authenticity of Lucian’s authorship. The author of the Erôtes, which was transmitted among the Lucianic works, mostly used to be named Pseudolucian by modern scholars and dated to the second century AD like Lucian, or to the third or even fourth century AD. Later I will come back to the problem of the dating of the Erôtes from an archaeological point of view, which is linked to the disputed question of its authenticity. After Wilhelm Lauer’s very detailed stylistic and lexicographic study from 1899, unjustly neglected by modern research, which argues against the authorship of Lucian (proposing that the author of the Erôtes deliberately imitated Lucian because of the numerous formal and linguistic congruencies with his work), in 2011 James Jope was the next to seriously investigate this question regarding content, style, and vocabulary. He votes for the identification of the author with Lucian.13 My goal is to concentrate on the different aspects of the touristic infrastructure according to the Erôtes – transportation and accommodation, tourist guides, devotionals and souvenirs, cultural heritage preservation, and prostitution – and to put them into context with the realities of travel in imperial times. 10  Different aspects of humor and irony in the Erôtes: Mossmann 2007; Goldhill 1995, 102–11, esp.  110f; Jope 2011, 104–10, passim; 117; Haynes 2013, 90f; Dubel 2014, 136. 11  Helm 1927, 1725–727; Schwartz 1965, 11–21; Degani 1991, 17 f. with n.  7 on p.  26. Cf. Billault 2011. Lucian’s travel to Rome: Nigr. 2 (the speakers of this dialogue are not named but, due to the introduction, one of them, the ‘proselyte,’ is often identified with Lucian). 12 References to Lucian: cf. this article, passim (e.g. below with n.   51), and Lauer 1899, esp.  37; Jope 2011. Lycinos as “the most common mask worn by Lucian”: Branham 1989, 105. Cf. ibid. 105–8; Mossmann 2007, 146 f. 13  Lauer 1899, esp.  36 f (37: ut dubium mihi non sit, quin scriptor Am. consulto L. imitatus suum opusculum pro L. libro haberi voluerit … fortasse enim etiam in his L. ei ob oculos versabatur); Jope 2011, esp.  111–16; further cf. Degani 1991, 18–21.

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Transportation and Accommodation Lycinos obviously slept on the ship at the beginning of his journey. There was no special passenger transport in ancient seafaring. Travelers had to go to the harbor looking for a cargo ship leaving in a direction they could use. The ships were only very rudimentarily equipped for the needs of passengers (I will return to this issue later in the matters of food and provisions). There were presumably no passenger cabins (except on big ships, and then only for a few travelers of high birth), and the travelers had to lie on deck or in the steerage, directly on the planks, setting up a place to sleep with the belongings they brought with them, such as a matt.14 Lycinos specifies that he took his seat at the stern near the helmsman, i.e. his cabin on the afterdeck. Perhaps as a privileged traveler he could use this cabin or an adjacent one; alternatively, like the majority of the travelers, he, his slaves, and their luggage were in the open. In any case, his slaves prepared the place for him and he only drove down to the harbor with a pair of mules when everything was ready.15 The ship Lycinos is traveling with is described in detail, which is quite unusual. It was a swift ship of a type particularly used by the Liburnians from the Ionian Gulf, with two superimposed ranks of thwarts on both longsides of the vessel (ταχυναυτοῦν σκάφος εὐτρέπιστο τούτων τῶν δικρότων).16 Lycinos emphasizes that they recovered at Rhodes from their uninterrupted voyaging (τὸ συνεχὲς τοῦ μεταξὺ πλοῦ), which began presumably at Tarsos or Seleucia Pieria17, the port of Syrian Antioch, and must have lasted several days. From there they sailed directly to Rhodes along the southern coast of the Eastern Mediterranean. At most they made short stopovers in one or two of the many Lycian ports.18 14  Breusing 1886, 185f; Rougé 1966, 236; Höckmann 1985, 87–90, 173; André and Baslez 1993, 420, 423–25; Casson 1995 [1986], 177–81; id. 1994b, 152–54 with addenda on p.  347; id. 1994a, 124 f; Zwingmann 2017, AIIa. 15 Lucian, Am. 6. 16 Lucian, Am. 6. 17  Cf. n. 104 and 106. 18 Lucian, Am. 6 f. Lycinos reports that ἑκάστῃ τῶν Λυκιακῶν πόλεων ἐπεξενούμεθα. LSJ, 649 s.v. ἐπιξενόομαι refers to Lucian, Am. 7 and translates by “to be on a visit.” Cf. Passow 1847, 1092 s.v. ἐπιξενόομαι. Correspondingly, e.g. Macleod 1967, 160 translated “we visited each of the Lycian cities.” But this cannot be the meaning here because of the “uninterrupted voyaging” as far as Rhodes with a swift type of ship. This excludes stops long enough for sightseeing in “each” of the seaside cities, even in each of the poleis in a narrower, classical sense which are Phaselis, Olympos, Myra-Andriake, Antiphellos, Patara, and Telmessos. In any case, at best the passengers could influence details as where or how long to have a stopover: Gal., De simpl. Med. temp.  9.2 (= Kühn XII, 171–73); Aristid., Or. 50.34–36, but confer id. 48.67. Licht 1920, 64 with n.  118 on p.  134 who obviously betrayed discomfort with this text passage suggested that the ship landed at each of the ports but that the passengers did not leave it. In my opinion the travelers contented themselves with rejoicing in “the tales told” about the Lycian cities while the ship passed by as in any case there were “no vestiges of prosperity … visible.” For similar conversations of passengers on a moving ship cf. Xen., An. 6.2.2; Arr., Peripl. M. Eux. passim; Philostr., Vit. Apoll. 4.15; Zwingmann 2012, 279.

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As for Cnidos, Lycinos and his two friends only day-tripped there and spent the following night on the ship, which appears to have continued her journey.19 To Rhodes, however, the Erôtes refers in some detail. This city was an important travel destination, playing a key role in the seafaring of the whole Eastern Mediterranean as it remained indispensable for the supply of water and provisions throughout antiquity, especially when sailing across the open sea from the West to the Syrian or Egyptian area or vice versa.20 Aside from being a travel destination in its own right (especially as an intellectual center in the fields of philosophy, rhetoric, and grammar), Rhodes was thus a favored spot for occasional travelers. In the words of Jean-Marie André and Marie-Françoise Baslez, Rhodes was a place of “un tourisme de passage” (1993: 51, 72), as in the case of Lycinos on his travel from presumably Tarsos or Syrian Antioch to Rome.21 It is therefore hardly surprising that we have a relatively large body of information on accommodation in Rhodes. Nor is it surprising that the Ephesiaka of Xenophon of Ephesos22 and the Erôtes, two fictional texts – a novel and a novel-like text section, respectively – are our main sources on this topic. This literary genre generally contains more information on travel conditions than others. According to the Erôtes, the oarsmen of the ship on which Lycinos traveled pitched a tent next to the place where the ship was beached, which must be one of the four (civil) harbors of Rhodes.23 Less well-off travelers frequently chose to sleep either in a tent which they brought with them or on the ship herself lying in the harbor.24 But in the case of the mariners, they surely chose this accommodation not only for financial reasons but also because they had to guard the ship and its cargo.25 For a high-ranking person such as Lycinos, however, somebody prepared the accommodation while he was strolling around the town (fig.  2), admiring the paintings in the temple of Dionysos, which has yet to be archaeologically located.26 19 Lucian,

Am. 11; 53. Concerning the importance of Rhodes: cf. Arnaud 2005, passim. Stopover to take water and provisions: Xen. Eph., 1.11.6 (on the way from Ephesos to Alexandria); 1.12.3. 21  André and Baslez 1993, 51; 72. Lucian, Am. 7. E.g. apart from the evidence mentioned in n.  19: Philostr., Vit. Apoll. 5.20–24 (Apollonios on his travel from Athens to Egypt); Hier., Epist. 108.7 (Paula on her travel from Rome to the Holy Land); Cic., Att. 6.8.4 (Cicero on his travel from Cilicia to Rome). 22 The Ephesiaka on accommodation: Xen. Eph., 5.10.3; 5.11.2. 23 Lucian, Am. 8. Five harbors in Rhodes, among them the naval port (as Rhodes even in the imperial times had its own naval force: Zwingmann 2012, 127 f.): Strab., 14.2.5 C. 652; D. Chr., 31.146; 31.163; Aristid., Or. 25.3. Literature to these harbors cf. Zwingmann 2012, 127 n.  97. 24  Tents built with oars: Rut. Nam. 1.347 f. Sleeping on the anchored ship: Philostr., Vit. Apoll. 4.11. 25  But see Apul., Metam. 7.7.1–7. 26 Lucian, Am. 8. The present participle indicates that the preparation of the guest room and the stroll through the town were simultaneous. For the temple of Dionysos and the many works of art exhibited there, cf. below with n.  52 and 55. 20 

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Fig.  2 :  Map of Rhodes

As we are told, for example, in the Hieroi Logoi of Aelius Aristides, the travelers’ slaves usually took care of this duty.27 Lycinos lodged for “three or four days” in a ξενών just in front of one of the main attractions of the city, namely the temple of Dionysos.28 The term ξενών is used almost exclusively for guest 27 Aristid., 28 Lucian,

Or. 51.28, cf. 48.61; 51.3; 51.5. Am. 8 f.

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rooms in private households which were not run as a business but were provided as an euergetic duty without charge, together with entertainment. It can also designate lodgings placed free of charge at the disposal of office-holders, and moreover for private travelers but probably against payment.29 Charicles’s lodging is denominated as δῶμα which may mean “house,” “chamber,” or “men’s hall”; that is, the room where the symposium took place.30 Both Charicles and Callicratidas travel with a substantial retinue, and this also may be the case with Lycinos who is accompanied by his slaves who are in charge of the preparation of the accommodation and the supply of water and food (his pupils, however, stay behind at the point of departure, as reported at the beginning of the treatise).31 Callicratidas is surrounded by beardless slave-boys and Charicles by so many female dancers and musicians, obviously also his slaves, that Lycinos jokes that it looks as though in his “whole men’s hall” (πᾶν δῶμα) the Thesmophoria will take place (the festival in honor of Demeter, strictly forbidden to men and celebrated exclusively by women).32 It is clearly due to the main subject of the Erôtes that the retinues consisted of male teenagers on the one hand and women on the other (both being slaves carrying out sexual services for their masters), but the size of these retinues may be realistic all the same. The three accommodations, therefore, must have been quite spacious, even more so as the three friends receive each other at their places – doubtless with at least a part of their retinue – and entertain each other in the course of symposia. Their lodgings must have thus consisted of at least several bedrooms and a room for festivities, and included or granted access to a kitchen for the preparation of food.33 High-ranking personalities enjoyed widespread customs of hospitality. To lodge free of charge at a “friend’s” place was the most prestigious form of accommodation during travel. But even privileged travelers often had to resort to commercial hospitality, as for example the Hieroi Logoi of Aelius Aristides and ancient novels show.34 In frequently visited places like Rhodes, rich locals were not always willing to lodge travelers because each visit posed a major financial burden; moreover, they already had to provide free accommodation and entertainment to all Roman officials authorized to use the cursus publicus together with their retinue of usually a few dozen to around on hundred.35 It should be 29  Private guest rooms for distinguished guests with their retinue: Eur., Alc. 543, 547; Plat., Tim. 20c; Diod. Sic., 13.83.1f; Jos., B.J. 5.4.4, 177; Ath., 5 p.  193C; Com. Adesp.,  1211 ap. Ath., 2 p.  48A. ξενών as a lodging for office-holders financed from public funds: Zucker 1949, 1675. Hiltbrunner 1967, 1488 f. Kolb 2000, 211. For both cf. Zwingmann 2012, 130 f. with n.  112. 30  δῶμα: Lucian, Am. 10. 31 Lucian, Am. 6 (παιδείας λιπαρὴς ὄχλος); 8; 11. Cf. n.  26 and 38. 32  In Callicratidas’s retinue there are no men, “except an old cook and a young child, both beyond suspicion of masculine urges” (Goldhill 1995, 103 related to Lucian, Am. 10). 33 Lucian, Am. 9 f. Cf. Vitr., 6.7.4. 34  For example: Aristid., Or. 48.61; 51.2f; 51.5f; 51.15; Xen. Eph., 5.1.2; 5.11.2. 35  Eck 2013, 100–102.

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remembered that Rhodes was a place where an important part of the Roman male elite spent time at some point in their career, either as young men on educational tours or as officials somewhere in the Greek East.36 In some other cities in the Eastern Mediterranean, including another important seaport, Ephesos, inscriptions preserve a privilege granted by the Roman emperor in person. These so-called Sacrae litterae were erected in front of the private houses of senators, and forbade officials to take quarters there.37 The inscriptions of the Sacrae litterae highlight the difficulty which high-ranking persons might experience in well-frequented cities, in obtaining accommodation befitting their rank (i.e. free). The Erôtes does not mention whether the three friends had to pay for their accommodation and how each of them had obtained it, but the treatise attests the coexistence of different types of accommodation existing in antiquity: sleeping on the sailing ship, in a tent near the beached ship38 , in the spacious guest rooms of a “friend,” or in commercially-run accommodation.

Food and Provisions Whereas information on accommodation is already quite rare, ancient authors hardly ever mention another substantial aspect of the daily routine of travel: food (and as a result of this modern researchers ignore this topic to a large extent, too).39 In the Erôtes, as already mentioned, Lycinos and his friends invite each other to symposia in their guest rooms at Rhodes. Either their slaves traveling with them prepare the food, as does the old cook in the retinue of Charicles (and then possibly the food they were used to) or, if the travelers are lodging at a “friend’s,” their host entertains them with the food he would consider suitable.40 Later in Cnidos, while Lycinos, Charicles, and Callicratidas are visiting the city, “the others (τοῖς … ἄλλοις) occupied themselves with the usual preparations” (αἱ συνήθεις παρασκευαί).41 By these “others” Lycinos probably refers 36 

Zwingmann 2012, 108 f. Ephesos: Börker and Merkelbach 1979, no.  207 f; Knibbe and Merkelbach 1978. Further evidence: Zwingmann 2012, 176 f. with n.  106. 38  Sailing ship: Lucian, Am. 7 (“uninterrupted travel” as far as Rhodes). Cf. above withn. 18. Tents: Lucian, Am. 8. Cf. Guest rooms: Lucian, Am. 8 f. Cf. sleeping on the anchored ship: Philostr., Vit. Apoll. 4.11. 39  E.g. André and Baslez 1993, 449–51, 454–63, 466; Casson 1994b, 176–218 passim, with addenda on p.  371 f; Zwingmann 2012, 382 with n.  102; 390 Zwingmann 2017, AII. 40 Lucian, Am. 10. Cato Minor took a baker and a cook with him, when traveling to Asia Minor: Plut., Cat. Mi. 12.2. Banquet arranged by a hospis, e.g. the one in Lampsakos for a companion of Verres: Cic., Verr. 2.1.65; Zwingmann 2012, 381. 41 Lucian, Am. 11. Travel novels and romance novels of the imperial period refer relatively often to provisions for a ship journey bought in seaports: Xen. Eph., 1.11.6; 1.12.3; cf id. 5.10.3; Chariton, 1.11.8. 37 

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to his own servants and those of his friends, but also the servants of other travelers on the ship or members of the crew, and perhaps moreover poor travelers with no servants. “The usual preparations” surely refers to the fact that ancient travelers had to provide themselves with provisions during stops in seaports, as the cargo ships on which they traveled offered in return for payment nothing but transport and a supply of drinking water. The travelers had to provide all equipment for sleeping and for preparing food, and the food itself.42 On the one hand, it is a bare necessity for travelers to provide their own food. On the other, one can hardly experience a foreign region more directly than by shopping for groceries and by discovering its regional cuisine. By eating, one literally incorporates the foreign region. But ancient authors – and modern researchers – to my knowledge totally ignore the aspect of the personal experience of tasting the strangeness of the cooking in foreign regions43 (apart from the late antique medical writer Oribasius who deals with foreign food as a cause of troubles for travelers).44 This is curious as we know, first, that non-perishable regional specialties like onions, salted fish, hard cheese, and dry fruits served as souvenir gifts for friends or relatives – and we know this especially for the Eastern Mediterranean and specifically by Lucian.45 Second, we know that food is an important part of the self-definition of groups, which is put into question when traveling, and therefore it is a familiar theme in ethnographic discourses on identity and otherness.46 Accordingly, in the Acts of Thomas, in the so-called Hymn of the Pearl, the eastern prince sent to Egypt by his parents forgets his mission and his identity when eating the local diet, though the food is not specified in any way.47 One very detailed list of food on traveling has come down to us. Shortly after AD 320 a certain Theophanes went with his party on a journey from the Egyptian Hermopolis Magna to Syrian Antioch, returning after a stay of almost three months. The papyri with the inventory of his expenses, among them the costs of the food for him and his party, show a varied and enjoyable diet: bread and rolls, spelt-grits, fine meal, striking quantities of different kinds of meat 42  Höckmann 1985, 90; André and Baslez 1993, 424; Casson 1994a, 124. All three of them without indication of the evidence, but cf. Geront., Vit. Mel. iun. 19 (SChr 90, p.  168); Gr. Naz., Carm. 2.1.11 (De vita sua), 144–47 (= Jung 1974, 60 / PG 37, 1039 f.); Rougé 1984, 224 f. 43  For example Philostratos, when describing Apollonios’s stay in India, is only interested in the ingredients of the meals, but not in the way of their preparation: different kinds of meat – lion, gazelle, pig, tiger – which were in Greek eyes mostly unusual (Philostr., Vit. Apoll. 2.28). Indian veganism (Philostr., Vit. Apoll. 3.36 f.). Cf. the article of Kendra Eshleman in this volume. 44  Orib., Collect. med. 1.1; Horden 2005, 183; cf. ibid. 190 for unaccustomed drinking water. 45 Lucian, Dial. meretr. 14.2f; Lucian, Nav. 15; Sel. Pap. no.  170, 22–27. Cf. Casson 1994b, 290. 46  Tietz 2013, 237–54. Cf. Foreign food at Rome and the debate on moral decline by oriental luxury: ibid. 52 f. 174, 177; Gowers 1993, 19–22, 61 f. 47  ATh 108–13. Cf. the article of Kendra Eshleman in this volume.

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(beef, veal, goat, pork, snails) and sausages, fresh and pickled fish, cheese, eggs, fresh fruit (apples, grapes, figs, plums, peaches, apricots, melons, dates, mulberries), dried figs, nuts, vegetables (green vegetables, artichokes, lettuces, cucumbers, gourds, leeks, carrots, nettles, beet, olives, onions, garlic), condiments (coriander seed, cumin), vermouth and pot-herbs, olive oil, vinegar, the flavoring sauce garum, relish, salt, honey, wine, water, and syrup. Evidently the travelers prepared their meals themselves, since the daily expenses included not only the costs of the food but also that of the firewood for cooking.48

Tourist Guides, Doorkeepers, and Entrance Fees Tourist guides are comparatively well attested in ancient texts.49 More precisely, two different types of guides can be distinguished, and both appear in the Erôtes. At Cnidos, in the sanctuary of Aphrodite, a woman temple attendant serves as tourist guide to the three friends. She unlocks the back door of the temple, in order that the visitors may look at the back of the statue. Later she tells, on her own initiative, a salacious aetiological anecdote, attested elsewhere, about the back of the statue of Aphrodite (cf. fig.  3 –4): There was a young man who fell in love with the statue and succeeded in having himself locked in the temple one evening. A stain testified to his attempt to have anal or intercrural intercourse with the statue (it should be mentioned in passing that the posture of her right hand before her genitals would have made an approach from the front substantially more difficult). “According to the popular story” the young man committed suicide.50 This aetion explained the existence of a stain on her thigh (or a color change in that spot in the otherwise immaculate marble). It is a rough variant of the motif of Pygmalion which is found with regard to a series of statues.51 The Cnidian Aphrodite was an erotic classic and, to use the expression of Danielle Gourevitch, “the big star of agalmatophilia” (1982: 830).52 Incidentally, when in Lucian’s Eikônes the conversation of Lycinos (alias Lucian) and his dialogue partner Polystratos shifts to the Cnidian Aphrodite (which Lucian mentions in other writings53), Lycinos states that he 48 

Matthews 2006, passim, esp.  203–24; 138–79; Casson 1994b, 191 f. Reinach 1877; Bischoff 1937; Jones 2001; Zwingmann 2012, 375 f. 50 Lucian, Am. 15 f. 51  E.g. Ath., 13 p.  605F. For this motif cf. the literature in Zwingmann 2012, 200 n.  32. 52  “la grande vedette de l’agalmatophilie.” Agalmatophilia with the Cnidian Aphrodite: Posidipp. ap. Clem. Al., Protr. 4.57.3 (= FGH 447 F 1); Posidipp. ap. Arnob., Nat. 6.22 (= FGH 447 F 2); Val. Max., 8.11.4; Plin., Nat. 7.127; 36.21; Lucian, Im. 4; Lucian, Am. 13–16; Clem. Al., Protr. 4.57.4; Philostr., Vit. Apoll. 6.40; Ptol. Chenn. ap. Tzetz., Hist. var. Chil. 8.195.375– 87 (= 368–80 Leone). For this and further examples cf. Gourevitch 1982, 828–35, 839f; Zwingmann 2012, 198–200. 53  Cf. n. 51. 49 

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Fig.  3 :  Cnidian Aphrodite of Praxiteles

Fig.  4 :  Cnidian bronze of 202/205 AD

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will come back to his anecdote on another occasion. The Erôtes obviously seizes on this announcement.54 The text designates the woman temple attendant by the term ζάκορος and states that she is guarding the keys. This ζάκορος refers in her anecdote to further ζάκοροι, so there are at least two attendants who lock the temple. Priests and temple servants fulfilled tasks of cult and custody and also of tourist guiding. In contrast to the well-attested male priests and temple servants operating as tourist guides, to my knowledge the temple attendant of the Erôtes is the only woman who is explicitly portrayed as such in ancient texts. But in all sanctuaries with women priests and female temple servants, they may have fulfilled that function. The second type of tourist guides in antiquity is also attested by the Erôtes. When Lycinos walks around in the stoai of the temple of Dionysos at Rhodes55 (fig.  2), he is immediately approached by “two or three” fellows offering to explain for a small fee the myths represented on the paintings which are exhibited there.56 Since there are several of these fellows, and since they rush to the visitor and take money, they may be locals57 waiting at this place to hire themselves out. The ancient authors describe the Dionysion as one of the touristic highlights of Rhodes because of the art exhibited there, especially the paintings, among them two very famous works by Protogenes: his Ialysos, which was brought to Rome in the 70’s of the first century AD (that is before the composition of the Erôtes), and his satyr leaning on a column.58 It was obviously fre54 Lucian, Im. 4: τοῦτο μέντοι: ἄλλως ἱστορείσθω. The Cnidian Aphrodite of Praxiteles occurs a number of times in Lucian’s writings: – Lucian, Im. 4 and 6 (the statue as a touristic curiosity as well as the anecdote of the man who fell in love with her and let himself be locked in the temple to have sexual intercourse with it; ekphrasis of the face), – Lucian, Jupp. trag. 10 (the Cnidian Aphrodite made from Pentelic marble, not from Parian marble as in Lucian, Am. 13, a contradiction which some scholars see as evidence against Lucian being the author of the Erôtes, cf. Jope 2011, 112. Ptolemaius Chennus also indicates Pentelic marble: Ptol. Chenn. ap. Tzetz., Hist.var.Chil. 8.195.378 [= 371 Leone]. Another very famous statue of Praxiteles, the Thespian Eros, was made of it, too (Paus., 9.27.3). Cf. Degani 1991, 20 f. with n.  18 f. on p.  27 f., – Lucian, Pro Imag. 23 (statue of Aphrodite made by Praxiteles in Cnidos), – and the two epigrams in the Anthologia Palatina though attributed supposedly wrongly to Lucian (AP 16.163 f. [= DNO III, no.  1879 f]). For further intertextual references in the Erôtes to Lucian’s works cf. below with n.  121. 55  The temple was obviously located in the lower part of the city, not far from the sea: Diod. Sic., 19.45.4. As for the considerations on its archaeological localization: Zwingmann 2012, 123 n.  77. 56 Lucian, Am. 8. 57 Licht 1920, 65 completed “Kustoden” and distanced himself from this in n.   119 on p.  134 f. 58  Numerous votive offerings, among them the Ialysos and the satyr of Protogenes: Strab., 14.2.5 C. 652. “Paintings of Protogenes”: Constantin. Porphyr., De them. 1.14, p.  37; Suid. s.v. Πρωτογένης; cf. Zwingmann 2012, 123 n.  76. For further evidence on these paintings cf. ibid., 122 with n.  69. Silver cups: Plin., Nat. 33.155. Tripods: Aristid., Or. 24.

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quented by so many visitors that several locals deemed it profitable to wait for persons (more or less) interested in such a service. Around the middle of the second century AD, as a remark of Aelius Aristides suggests, Rhodian tourist guides could live off their income, which means that this was their regular occupation. It is perhaps no accident that Aristides talks specifically of Rhodes, this much-frequented city.59 At less important travel destinations, locals guiding travelers may have only made a little extra money. To my knowledge, among the locals offering their service women are not attested at all. Because they acted within the sanctuary, these guides surely had to get the permission or at least the approval of the temple administration. If temple servants also served as tourist guides at the Dionysion, the locals were no competition for them, either economically or in terms of content. They surely did not compete with the sanctuary itself, nor probably with its priests and temple servants. Sanctuaries financed themselves by other sorts of revenues.60 The only fees imposed by the sanctuaries upon their visitors were cult taxes, which were usually obligatory and had to be paid in cash or in kind. Mainly mystery cults, healing cults, and oracles charged cult taxes, and we do not know whether the Dionysion at Rhodes or the sanctuary of Aphrodite in Cnidos did so. But we know, for example, from inscriptions at the Asclepieion at Cos in its period of prosperity, that already in Hellenistic times the cult taxes could be substantial in frequented sanctuaries. Entrance fees, however, which are so common for us modern visitors, are not attested in antiquity (with one very special exception, the entrance fee for seeing the painting of Helen in the workshop of the famous painter Zeuxis).61 Concerning the priests or temple servants as possible competi­tors of the simple locals, the ancient texts do not indicate (to my knowledge at least) that they took money for guiding. The priests indirectly profited from a large amount of visitors, because a certain percentage of cult taxes was diverted to pay their salaries.62 Of course, it is conceivable that in addition to this salary they took money from visitors they showed around, but we cannot automatically assume it. 63 Lycinos remarks that he already knew most of what the guides told him about the paintings in the Dionysion of Rhodes, but he admits that he has renewed his “acquaintance with the tales of the heroes.” Indeed, well-educated persons like Lycinos were familiar with the myths common to the Greco-Roman cultural space. Authors of the Second Sophistic, showing off their culture, sometimes 59 Aristid., Or. 25.10. Cf. Lucian, Philops. 4; Zwingmann 2012, 385 f. However, in the ancient texts there are no indications to municipal guides as sometimes has been claimed: Zwingmann 2012, 96 n.  397. 60  Cf. below with n.  78. 61 Ael., Ver. Hist. 4.12. For the question of entrance fees in general: Zwingmann 2012, 387–89. 62 Debord 1982, 68f; Meier 2012, 89–92. Concerning the Asklepieion ibid. 89–92 with no.  31 on p.  286–88; no.  33 on p.  293f; Zwingmann 2012, 387. Cf. Plin., Epist. 10.96, to this Castritius 1969, 58–60. 63  As does Hinz 1989, 136: “die Wärterin in Erwartung eines Trinkgelds.”

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mocked tourist guides with their modest background. 64 Their superiority in education is hardly surprising since the tourist guides did not belong to the cultural elite of the empire but either to the local elite, as in the case of the priests, or even to no elite at all, as in the case of some temple servants and of locals offering their services at frequented places. But the opinion that tourist guides generally had a poor background is surely wrong, as Christopher Jones has shown (2001, esp.  38). In any case, the educated travelers obviously turned to the tourist guides, too.

Votive Offerings, Devotional Objects, and Souvenirs Apart from tourist guides, the production and sale of objects serving as votive offerings, devotionals, and souvenirs (different possible functions of one and the same object which often are not distinguishable for us) is an important aspect of the touristic infrastructure and the economic implications of travel. When Lycinos and his travel companions move from the Cnidian harbor to the sanctuary of Aphrodite (fig. 6–7), the potteries offered there on sale – in the words of Lycinos, the κεραμευτικὴ ἀκολασία, “the wanton product of potters“ (Macleod) or “pottery pornography” (Goldhill) 65 – arouse their laughter. He remarks that (because of their salaciousness and bawdiness) these ceramics befitted the city of Aphrodite. 66 Indeed, the Cnidian fabrics are known for their erotic, obscene, and often grotesque motifs, with a vehement presence of the phallos, that could decorate their mould-made relief ceramics. These ceramics either have such motifs in relief or are partly or entirely shaped as three-dimensional phalloi. 67 Inscriptions and representations of masks emphasize the apot64 Lucian,

Am. 8. Cf. Plut., Moralia p.  397E (De Pyth. orac. 8). Am. 11. Translations: Macleod 1967, 167; Goldhill 1995, 103. Other types of Cnidian ceramics were also mentioned: Eub. ap. Ath., 1 p.  28C (= CAF II, 211, fr. 132): Cni­dian cups of the classical period. Lucian, Lex. 7: particularly thin-walled ceramics from Cnidos. 66 Lucian, Am. 11. In fact the motifs of the ceramics show Aphrodisian and Dionysiac topics. In Cnidos there was a large temple of Dionysos with an adjacent portico where these ceramics obviously on the one hand were used in banquets and on the other were sold (see below). Zwingmann 2012, 227–30. 67  Mandel 1988, passim esp.  168–71, 179, 182, with pl. 26, 29, 32; id. 2000, with fig.  1.1–7, 2.11–13a, 4.16a, 5.16–19; Slane and Dickie 1993, 483–505 with pl. 85f; Happel 1996, 68 f. with pl. 23. Id. and Ursula Mandel, Knidische Figurenlampen, Knidos-Studien 2 (Möhnesee: Bibliopolis, 1999) never appeared, but the book is occasionally included in library catalogues and bibliographical catalogues. Bruns-Özgan 2002a, 46 with fig.  53–55; Kögler 2010, 287, 318–23 with KN 287–89 and G 172 f. These ceramics were found in Cnidian excavations next to the round temple, which in my opinion is one candidate for identification as that of Aphrodite Euploia, and in the stoai next to the temple of Dionysos. Unfortunately, the vast majority of them are not published: Love 1974, 420; Bruns-Özgan 2002a, 173; Doksanaltı 2000, 80 n.  33. Ramazan Özgan and Deniz Pastutmaz-Sevmen are preparing a publication on Cnidian relief ceramics with erotic motifs. 65 Lucian,

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ropaic function characteristic of phalloi. Most of these ceramics are drinking vessels and lamps. They were destined to be used at symposia where they contributed to creating a specific atmosphere and perhaps even provoking certain topics of conversation like the main topic of the Erôtes. Many of these ceramics (fig.  5.1–9b) are decorated with a rich repertoire of symplegma-scenes, as on the lagynos and the lamp shown here (fig.  5.1–5.2). 68 Even more impressive are the plastic vessels. Plastic phallic vases, due to their elongated shape, probably served as unguent containers. One example, found in Corinth and dating to the second half of the second century AD, is shaped as a winged phallos with a grotesque bust above representing the personification of envy (fig.  5.3). 69 Furthermore there are (ithy)phallic figure lamps where the phallos contains the wick-hole so that when they are alight the flame suggests sperm coming out. To borrow the title of an article dealing with such lamps, you could therefore “read in the light of the phallos” (Ilgner 2004). Perhaps etymological ideas about φαλλός relating to φάω (to shine) / φαλός (shining) contri-

Fig.  5 :  Cnidian relief ceramics

Fig.  5.2:  Lamp with symplegma-scene

Fig.  5.1: Lagynos 68  Lagynos: Mandel 1988, 250 K 198 with pl. 29 (= our fig.  5.1), without measures. Lamp: Bruns-Özgan 2002a, 46 with fig.  54; Deniz Pastutmaz-Sevmen 2013, 205 fig.  186d (= our fig.  5.2), without measures. Finding place: stoa north of the temple of Dionysos. Datation: second half of the first century until middle Hadrianic times, Cnidian ceramic workshop of Romanesis: Bruns-Özgan 2013, 208. 69  Slane and Dickie 1993, 483–505 with pl. 85 (= our fig.  5.3): length: 23.8 cm, max. diameter: 8.6 cm. Cnidian origin: ibid. 484 with n.  501. Dating: ibid. 502; Mandel 1988, 121, 256 K 288 f. with pl. 32. Function of the vessel: ibid. 501. Slane and Dickie list further comparable ceramics originating possibly from Cnidos: Slane and Dickie 1993, esp.  498 with n.  103–7. Cf. the phallos vessels in Mandel 1988, 120 f. 256–58, K 288–300.

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buted to the wit of these lamps, at least in circles of erudites.70 Among them are seated men or apes (fig.  5.4) holding scrolls whose penises, mostly phalloi, stick out from under their himation between their feet, and who are caricatures of erudites or pseudo-erudites – some of them bearing name inscriptions like Homer and Socrates on their backs.71 On the opened scroll of one of those spec-

Fig.  5.3:  Phallic vase

Fig.  5.4:  Lamp of an ape

70  Hesych. s.v. φα[λ]λός. Etym. Magn. p.  787.8; Schol. Hom. Il., 13.799; Passow 1857, 2206 s.v. φαλός; Thesaurus Graecae linguae VIII, 617 s.v Φαλός. It shall be mentioned in passing that these etymological ideas also occur in the analytical psychology of C.G. Jung: 1996, 279–82 §  321–24. 71  Erudites and pseudo-erudites: Mandel 1988, 115, 262, K 352; Ilgner 2004, 255, 258f; Doksanaltı 2000, 76–78 with literature in n.  22 and fig.  7f; Happel 1996, 68 f. with pl. 23, 1f; Bailey 1988, 339 Q 2719 with fig. on pl. 79 (height: 11.5 cm); Klein 2012, 10–38, 95–111= cat. no. A.1–A.5.39 with pl. 2–30. Apes: Ilgner 2004, esp.  258f, 262; Doksanaltı 2000, 80 with fig.  16a–b on p.  81; Klein 2012, 31–36, 103–5 = cat.no. A.4.1–7 with pl. 19. 21c–23 (many thanks to Yvonne Böll for providing me with a PDF of her until now unpublished master’s thesis). The best conserved lamp of this type, unfortunately now lost, is shown in the engraving by Thomas Graves: L1571 shelf Rh, Hydrographic survey fair-sheet, Ports at Cape Krio and the Remains of the ancient Cnidus with view of C. Krio and illustrations of specimens of pottery found at Cnidus (1838) = our fig.  5.4.

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imens (fig.  5.5) is written ΥΠΟΣΤΥΩΝ, which might be translated as “undercover hard-on.” The inscription at the same time renders the title of the book and refers to the reaction of the reader depicted with a penis with exposed glans (and therefore erect).72 Other lamps are shaped as a dancing satyr with a greatly oversized veined phallos with exposed glans, which is more than half as big as the figure itself and so heavy that it hangs down (fig.  5.6).73 In addition there is a grotesque naked dwarf lying on his stomach with a fat bottom stretched up into the air and a head shaped like a phallos, with wisps of beard also shaped as phalloi (fig.  5.7).74 Finally there are pan grips ending in a phallos,75 which means that when using this vessel you hold the phallos in your hand; jugs with a spout in the form of a phallos,76 implying that, as it were, you pour out sperm; and cups with a surprise effect: a spectacular drinking cup is shaped as a recumbent mask of a comedian decorated with several phalloi (Fig.  5.8). As long as you do not

Fig.  5.5:  Lamp of a (pseudo-)erudite

Fig.  5.6:  Lamp of a dancing satyr

72  Reinach 1888, 124 with pl. 150 above (= our fig 5.5), without measures; Klein 2012, 20– 28, esp.  24.99 = cat. no. A.2.8 with pl. 14. As prefix ὑπο- can mean “clandestinely”: LSJ, 1875 s.v. ὑπό F. Vorberg 1988 [1928–1932], 618 s.v. στύειν (“make stiff”). I thank James Jope and Werner Tietz for their support with the English translation of υc ποστύων. 73  Mandel 1988, 121, 262, K 355. Grant and Mulas 1975, fig. on p.  133 (height: 20 cm) = our fig.  5.6. Klein 2012, 38–50, 111–23 = cat. no. B.1–B.63 with pl. 31–50b. 74  Bruns-Özgan 2002a, 46, fig.  53 (= our fig.  5.7.) Id. 2013, 196–98 with fig.  178a–b (both without indication of size). Pastutmaz-Sevmen 2005, 288, fig.  7 (according to the scale length: 11.47 cm, width: 5.59 cm). Klein, 2012, 55 f. 78 (dating). 127 = cat. no. E.1 (height: 7.3 cm, length: 13.2 cm, width: 6.0 cm) with pl. 57. 75  Mandel 1988, 110, 243, K 119. 76  Love 1974, 91 (without figure); Salomonson 1980, 80 with n.  85.

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use it, you can hang it up on a ring like some of the previous examples, perhaps for apotropaic reasons. When the cup is held by the projecting ears that serve as handles during a banquet, it surely provided fodder for conversation and laughter: the base of the cup is decorated with winged phalloi in relief. The chief attraction, however, is a fully plastic hollow phallos placed in the mask’s mouth where one would expect a tongue, and so constructed as to be mobile. It becomes erect when one fills the vessel! 77 A related mechanism is seen in narrow cups with a vertically movable phallos set in the center of their base, which could float upwards and project above the rim of the vessel (fig.  5.9a–b).78 Apart from exports, these ceramics were produced as votive offerings79 and probably as devotional objects and souvenirs, too, even if Lycinos does not report that he and his friends bought some of them, but only that they looked and laughed at them. In any case they suited this function very well because of their apotropaic character and their bizarre humorous decorations. They belong to a type of ceramics of mediocre quality. The factories producing such bulk goods were located exclusively at highly frequented places, namely Cnidos and Pergamon with its famous Asclepieion.

Fig.  5.7:  Lamp of a dwarf

Fig.  5.8:  Phallos drinking cup

77  Mandel 1988, 121, 254 f., K 247 f; Grant and Mulas 1975, 128 f. with fig. (length x width: 11 x 8 cm and 9.5 x 9 cm) with other examples of this type (= our fig.  5.8). Mask drinking cup with a phallos in relief on the vessel bottom: Mandel 1988, 255, K 249; Grant and Mulas 1975, 129 with fig. 78  Doksanaltı 2000, 78–80 with fig.  2.9a–13 (fig.  2.11 and 2.13 = our fig.  5.9a–b), H 8.7 cm, entire vessel: max. 11.5 cm. 79  Mandel 1988, 184 (with reference in n.  1298 on p.  101 instead of p.  103).

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The high level of travel activity in the imperial times thus promoted the local production of ceramics (whereas, as regards valuable votive statuettes of precious metal at some much-frequented sanctuaries, local production apparently could not satisfy the demand of the numerous visitors so that they had to be imported).80 The large quantity of Cnidian pottery found on the terrace of the round temple may indicate the existence of hawkers selling their goods within the sanctuary or nearby, or of kiosks hired to traders by the sanctuary (as we know them from Oropos in northern Attica).81 Salerooms for these ceramics were evidently located in the portico to the north of the temple of Dionysos, which excavator Christine Bruns-Özgan identifies with the stoai of Sostrates mentioned in the Erôtes. If her assumption is correct, the ceramics were sold at one important touristic site in Cnidos. 82 The obscene Cnidian ceramics, therefore, count among the very rare, fortunate, accidental cases of how literary tradition and archaeological transmission about touristic infrastructure can certify and complete each other: we know this type of pottery and even the salerooms through excavations, and both are testified by the Erôtes, that is by a literary report, the alleged eye-witness account of Lycinos on his visit in Cnidos.83

Fig.  5.9a–b:  Cup with vertically movable phallos 80 

Mandel 1988, 43, 103, 184. Import to Ionia: Philostr., Vit. Apoll. 5.20. 1974, 91 with fig.  98–102. Income of sanctuaries from leases: Petrakos 1997, 290, Z.6–25; Meier 2012, 59 f. with quotation and translation in n.  149, 91. 82 Plin., Nat. 36.83 (Pensilis ambulatio); Lucian, Am. 11; Zwingmann 2012, 223f; Bruns-Özgan 2013, 119–70, esp.  128, 132–34, 197f; id. 2014, 27 f. Bruns-Özgan interprets the rooms in the stoa as rooms for feasts of Dionysos and acts on the assumption of “Verkaufs­ stände,” that is “stalls,” somehow connected to the stoa, but in my opinion at least some of these rooms served as salerooms. 83  It is striking however, that the Cnidian potters did not have the local masterpiece of the Cnidian Aphrodite in their repertoire of vessel decoration: Mandel 1988, 164; Zwingmann 2012, 230 with n.  198–200. It may be assumed, that they reproduced her as statuettes, but this has not been researched as far as I know: Zwingmann 2012, 197 f. (to n.  23 add Zimmer 2014, 17, 19, 32–45). 81  Love

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Fig.  6 :  Map of Cnidos

The Cnidian ceramics lead me to return to the until now disputed issues of the date of the Erôtes and of their author. Apart from dating criteria related to literary studies, the relation between the treatise and certain historic events, namely the Gothic invasion in the third century and the major earthquakes of AD 142 and in the middle of the fourth century, has been discussed.84 The archaeological evidence of the Cnidian ceramics, however, which gives a terminus ante quem, has not yet been taken into account other than by archaeological research literature. 85 According to the studies published so far – unfortunately no comprehensive publication concerning the numerous ceramics found in the stoa next to the temple of Dionysos has yet appeared – the production of the Cnidian plastic and relief ware seems to break off in the first half of the third century, or at the latest at its end.86 84  Invasion of the Goths: Macleod 1967, 147; Dubel 2014, 137 n.  9. Earthquakes: Bloch 1907, 53–57; Macleod 1967, 147; Jones 1984, 180; Jope 2011, 112. Cf. Franco 2008, 230 and Degani 1991, 19 f. 85  Mentioned by Mandel 1988, 103; Slane and Dickie 1993, 483 f. with n.  2. 86  Between shortly after the middle of the first century AD to the end of the third century AD: Mandel 1988, 103 n.  731; 126–33, esp.  126; id. 2000, esp.  65 f. From the last quarter of the

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Fig.  7:  Virtual model of the sanctuaries at the western border of Cnidos with the terrace of the round temple (a proposed identification for the temple of Aphrodite Euploia), from the southeast

Cultural Heritage Preservation Having seen the “wanton products of the potters,” Lycinos and his friends are in a mood to visit the Cnidian Aphrodite and they go to her sanctuary, revealed to be an architectural frame designed especially for her. The Cnidian Aphrodite of Praxiteles (fig.  3) counted among the most famous statues of antiquity,87 largely because she was the first life-sized artistic representation of a naked woman in Greek art (365/330 BC). The city stamped this statue on its coins, one of the most important mediums of municipal self-representation (fig.  4). To quote Kirsten Seaman, she was a “valuable promoter of ‘tourism” (2004: 532), attracting travelers for centuries, among them, according to Lucian’s Eikônes,

first century AD until the first half of the third century AD: Slane and Dickie 1993, 483 f. with n.  2 (who apparently do not know the book of Mandel). Ca. 70–200 AD: Ilgner 2004, 255 f. with n.  8. Cf. Happel 1996, 68. In the stoa next to the temple of Dionysos such ceramics were found among the – unpublished – material which dates from the early third century BC to the second cent AD: Bruns-Özgan 2006, 173. Destruction of this stoa “around” or “immediately after” 250 AD, that is the terminus ante quem for the ceramics found there: Bruns-Özgan 2013, 121, 166, 170. Doksanaltı 2000, 75 dates the destruction in the first century AD. Dating of the lamps: Klein 2012, 69–82. 87  Zimmer 2014, 17–122; Söldner et al. 2014, 51–79 no.  1855–888.

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his friend Polystratos mentioned above.88 Thanks to this statue, Cnidos was one of the most important touristic destinations of the whole Roman Empire, at least from the first to the third century AD.89 The statue stood in the temple of Aphrodite Euploia, the protectress of seafaring. Pliny the Elder (probably reproducing C. Licinius Mucianus), in what is to a certain extent an epigram from the Anthologia Palatina, and especially the Erôtes, describe in a totally unique way the relation between her and her temple.90 Obviously the touristic interest of Lycinos and his friends encompasses not only the statue but also the temple.91 I will disregard the complicated question of what the temple looked like according to the varying literary evidence, and will also disregard the question of the possible archaeological evidence.92 I would simply like to point out the following idea: since the descriptions of the temple of the Cnidian Aphrodite in the Erôtes and other texts clearly relate to the literary intentions of the particular texts, some scholars have doubt that they can be exploited for the archaeological reconstruction of the building, stressing that they fictionalize aspects of the real world for their purpose.93 In my opinion one can also take an opposite view on this question (which lastly alludes to a very general problem, the often difficult relationship between literary evidence and archaeological remains): the written and oral tradition about the Cnidian Aphrodite may have been so strong that the architectonical frame was adapted to meet the expectations of the visitors. As we can observe in other highly frequented touristic places – in particular Troy and, in late antiquity and medieval times, Ephesos and Palestine – demand creates supply, seen both by the quantity and the type of the objects of interest.94 In the case of the Erôtes the effort made to depict a realistic, or one could say mimetic, setting for the account of the journey which purports to be an eye-witness report is obvious. Moreover, we can presume that the treatise was addressed to well-informed receivers and that a not inconsiderable proportion of them may even have been acquainted with the local situation from their own experience. Beyond the literary function fulfilled by the description of the statue and its temple in the respective texts, it was obviously the distinctive feature of the 88 Lucian,

Im. 4. artwork as travel destination in general and the case of the Cnidian Aphrodite in particular: Zwingmann 2012, 215–22. Plin., Nat. 36, 20 f. 34.69; Lucian, Im. 4; AP 16.160 (Plat. Jun.); 16.162 (Anon.); 16.169 (Anon.); 16.167 (Antip. Sid.?); Arnob., 6.22. 90  Sanctuary of Aphrodite Euploia: Paus., 1.1.3. Cf. Haynes 2013, 94 n.  15. Installation site of the statue: Lucian, Am. 13 f. 16; Plin., Nat. 36.21. Mucianus as Plinius’s source for Cnidos: Lic. Muc. Plin., Nat. 9.80. Cf. Blinkenberg 1993, 191f; Borbein 1973, 193 n.  638; AP 16.160 (Plat. Jun.) with Haynes 2013, 72. 91  Interest in the temple: Lucian, Am. 11; Haynes 2013, 79 f. 92  Haynes 2013. Summary: Zimmer 2014, 27–32. 93  Cf. Haynes 2013, 73, 77, 91; Zimmer, ibid., esp.  29. 94  Zwingmann 2012, 70 f. 80f; id. 2016, 390f, 399. 89  For

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presentation of the Cnidian Aphrodite that one could (and should) look at it from its rear side. Usually an image of a god or a goddess was erected just in front of the wall of the cella of their temple. The epigrammist Straton (first century BC / second century AD) accordingly wrote that one should not turn young men around in order to look at them from the back. After all, one would also look at the statues of the gods exclusively from the front.95 The rear view of the Cnidian Aphrodite aroused interest because of the etiological anecdote (discussed earlier) concerning a stain or color change in the marble on her thigh, allegedly caused by the semen of a man having intercrural intercourse with her. Therefore, according to the Erôtes, the temple (1) had some kind of lateral barriers preventing visitors from simply walking around the Cnidian Aphrodite, and (2) had a back door, usually closed, which had to be unlocked by a temple servant.96 This door provided visitors with access to the statue, in staging the exclusivity of its rear view and assuring the illumination of its reverse side. To sum up: it seems possible that the citizens of Cnidos constructed a temple-museum97 especially designed for its main attraction – a real showroom which is one example of the very different kinds of cultural heritage preservation in antiquity.98

Prostitution According to the Erôtes, the rabble among the citizens pour into the sanctuary on festive days for the purpose of ἀφροδισιάζοντες, that is having sexual intercourse, and Lycinos specifies that this takes place on the “happy couches” under shady trees within the holy precinct.99 This recalls symplegma-scenes on couches under vine bowers pictured in the Cnidian relief ceramics, but they seem to 95 

AP 12.223 (Strat.). Cf. Zwingmann 2012, 203 n.  54. Am. 13 f. For archaeological comparative examples for the door: Zwingmann 2012, 203–5. 97  Roux 1984, 170 (concerning the development of the high-classical temple). Zwingmann 2012, 204 f. with n.  55 and 61. 98  For these different kinds cf. Zwingmann 2012, 383 f; Schnapp 2013, esp. 162–6, 170–7. 99 Lucian, Am. 12: ἱλαραὶ κλισίαι, cf. ibid. 17. LSJ, 293 s.v. ἀφροδισιάζω. Cf. Lucian, Icar. 30; Theopomp. Hist. ap. Ath. 12 p.  517E–F (= FGH 115 F 204). Philetaer. ap. Ath. 14 p.  633F (= CAF II, 235, fr. 17). Apart from Corso 1988, 128 (“in realtà facendo l’amore”) the translations of this term are reticent, e.g.: Licht 1920, 69: “erfreute sich an allerlei Liebesgetändel”; Blin­ kenberg 1933, 16: “die Verehrung der Aphrodite in der That bezeugte”; Macleod 1967, 169: “paid true hommage to Aphrodite”; Maréchaux 1998, 77: “pour y rendre d’intimes hommages à Aphrodite.” The lush garden of the sanctuary where the debate about the two types of desire takes place picks up the bucolic setting of the Phaedrus, the Platonic model of this type of dialogue: Fleury 2007, 783, 785. Cf. also Plat., Leg. 1 p.  625b; Goldhill 1995, 103; Goldhill, ibid., points to the eroticized description of the garden. For this garden cf. Zwingmann 2012, 210, 213 f. with n.  110. 96 Lucian,

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owe more to a Dionysiac setting (originally located indoors) than to some incident mentioned in Lycinos’s account.100 Because of this indication and the one mentioned hereafter, Antonio Corso concludes that there was one more reason to visit the sanctuary of the Cnidian Aphrodite, at least for male travelers: sacred prostitution. The Byzantine erudite John Tzetzes, who reproduces the mythographer Ptolemaios Chennos of the second century AD, refers to a “Cnidian prostitute” sent by Aphrodite herself to heal a man called Macareus from Perinthos, 80 km west of Byzantium, who became mad because he had fallen in love with the statue of the Cnidian Aphrodite.101 Corso suggests that Cnidos was a center of sacred prostitution, just as Comana in southern Cappacocia and Corinth have been interpreted by scholars on the basis of Strabo.102 But in spite of Lycinos’s statement, sexual intercourse in sanctuaries was prohibited by a strict taboo in antiquity, and “sacred prostitution” seems not to have existed.103 It is, however, quite possible that Cnidos was some center of prostitution due to its role as a seaport and travel destination, and its specific ambience “befitting the city of Aphrodite” (to adopt an expression from the Erôtes).104 Indirectly, therefore, the Cnidian Aphrodite may have attracted not only art connoisseurs but also “sex tourists.” To conclude, the Erôtes is a unique text within ancient literature because it treats in a very concentrated form – one could say, like a showpiece – all important aspects of traveling. In a few chapters it provides us with information which is usually rare and scattered. The extensive description of the journey of the Erôtes is of course no documentary reportage, but has to be seen in the context of the complete work, which is marked by the increasing eroticization of the framing story.105 The settings of the story constitute markers pointing to the subject of the treatise. The course of travel from a city somewhere east of Lycia on the coast, presumably Tarsos or Syrian Antioch, via Rhodes to Cnidos and further to Rome clearly corresponds to literary considerations.106 The city of departure is in any case not only a suitable origin for the itinerant speaker Lycinos, but also the place 100 Lucian,

Am. 12; Mandel 1988, 168 f. Chenn. ap. Tzetz., Hist. var. Chil. 8.195.379–87 (= 372–80 Leone); Bloch 1907, 44 f; Corso 1991, 147–56 (no.  95). 102  Strab., 12.3.36 C. 559. Sacred prostitution in Asia Minor: Debord 1982, 96f; Fauth 1988, 37 f. Corso’s interpretation: Corso 1991, 152; Budin 2008; Scheer and Lindner 2009, esp. Scheer, “Einführung,” 17 and id. “Tempelprostitution in Korinth?” 221–66. For the question of sacred prostitution in Corinth see also our n.  108. 103  Paus., 7.19.3. Scheer, “Einführung,” 17; Parker 1983, 74–81. 104  Cf. above with n.  63. 105  Goldhill 1995, 103. 106  Mossmann 2007, 153 suggests that Lycinos travels from east to west by boat as a new Dionysos. 101  Ptol.

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where the external dialogue between Lycinos and Theomnestos takes place at the local feast of Heracles. Tarsos (as suggested by Christopher P. Jones) was an intellectual center in the eastern part of the Roman Empire and the setting of a festival of Heracles, its city founder with, as a central ritual, a pyre in the god’s honor which the Erôtes also mentions.107 Antioch was, together with Rome, Alexandria, and Carthage, one of the most important metropolises of the Roman Empire and almost certainly already before the times of Libanios a center of rhetoric. A cult of Heracles is, albeit rudimentarily, attested.108 An identification with Antioch would fit the attractive thesis of Wilhelm Lauer that Lycinos’s itinerary is based on the model of a real journey of Lucian himself traveling from his Syrian hometown via Ionia and Athens to Italy and Rome.109 Heracles, as an embodiment of a dissipated sexual life and an intermediate character between (ultra-)male and female (in service of the queen Omphale), already refers at the very beginning of the Erôtes to the main theme of the treatise.110 At the same time he is known from the famous allegory parable for his choice in favor of Virtue and against Lust, personified by a hetaera, which is an amusing contradistinction to the general erotic tenor of Lycinos’s travel account in particular and the treatise in general. Rhodes, the hub for shipping in the Eastern Mediterranean, is a coherent meeting point for men coming from Tarsos or Antioch, from Athens (as befits a prototypical boy-lover like Callicratidas, considering the role of pederasty in the context of its philosophical schools and gymnasia), and from Corinth (famous for its female prostitutes and therefore a suitable place of origin for a prototypical woman-lover like Charicles).111 The prominent role of the Rhodian temple of Dionysos, this orgiastic god with his retinue of sileni and satyrs, further leads to the debate about the different kinds of desire.112 The sanctuary of Aphrodite at Cnidos is the perfect setting for the debate. Not only that but the goddess of love herself presides, as it were, over the debate. Her famous statue of Praxiteles visited by the three friends Lycinos, Charicles, and Callicratidas characterizes her as “the goddess of love

107 

Jones 1984, 179–81; Mossmann 2007, esp.  147; Cf. Lucian; Am. 54. Center of rhetoric in the third / fourth century: Fatouros and Krischer 1992, 213. Cult of Heracles in Syrian Antioch: Lib., Or. 11.125; Jo. Mal., Chron. 10.23 (= CFHB 35, 186); Norris 1990, 2350f; Downey 1961, 196. 109  Antioch / Seleuceia: Bloch 1907, 8; Jones 1984, 178–80 with n.  7 and 10; Lauer 1899, 37; Lehmann 1825, 575 ad pag. 252 1.4 and Andò 1975, 17 also assume Antioch or Syria as starting point of the trip. 110 Lucian, Am. 1. Mossmann 2007, 147. 111  For the literary function of the sojourn in Rhodes: ibid. 153. The loci classici for female prostitutes in Corinth are Pind., Fr. 122; Strab, 8.6.2 C. 369; 12.3.36 C. 559. Cf. Degani 1991, 28 n.  20. Cf. generally Budin 2008. Concerning the choice of the names Charicles and Callicratidas as appropriate names for a women- and a boy-lover: Degani 1991, 28 n.  20; Dubel 2014, 138 n.  12. 112  Ibid. 152 f. Cf. n.  103. 108 

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par excellence.”113 They investigate the hermaphroditic irresistibility of her “bigendered body” (Haynes 2013: 87) with a front side attracting the heterosexual man and a rear view attracting the pederast. In her Cnidian and particularly in her Lucinnic representation, Aphrodite, “this archetype of femininity,”114 incites pederastic sexual arousal virtually through the back door, as her rear aspect is only accessible after the back door of the temple has been unlocked. Accordingly, the detail of the well-known etiological anecdote that one of the young men desiring her took her from behind “like a boy” occurs only in the version of the Erôtes.115 Finally, Italy (standing here probably more precisely for Rome) is a plausible travel destination for Lycinos: in imperial times, for various reasons, and not least for an itinerant speaker, “all roads led to Rome.” The topic of a journey probably suited well as a subject of the frame narrative, not only because of the Platonic model of the Erôtes116 but also because of the erotic of traveling, especially at sea, and sightseeing.117 In the external dialogue Theomnestos refers to his innumerable amorous adventures, both with boys and women – his “circumnavigation through Aphrodite’s empire” as Lycinos denominates it.118 This metaphorical circumnavigation incites Lycinos to report his real voyage, which constitutes the framework for the debate on the two types of desire. Achilleus Tatius depicts Cleitophon, the male protagonist of his romance novel, as being seduced by the beauty of the visited city (here Alexandria), even as its lover. For this purpose he feminizes the city, which corresponds to the conventional representation of cities in Greek and Roman arts.119 Concerning Syrian Antioch, one possible place of departure of the journey narrated in the Erôtes, Libanios in the fourth century AD describes the virtually erotic appeal of this city, his hometown, to gods and men.120 The main part of the Erôtes, dealing with the disputation on the two types of desire, models itself upon the Athenian literature of the classical period concerning philosophy and comedy. In this part, “the richness of [the] web of allusions is almost bewildering,”121 which fits the literary habit in the Second So113 

Borbein 1973, 192: “Göttin der Liebe schlechthin.” Cf. Zwingmann 2012, 200. Dubel 2014, 136: “cet archétype de la féminité.” 115 Lucian, Am. 17; cf. n.  50. Real homosexual agalmatophilia by a man: Plin., Nat. 36.22 (agalmatophilia with the Eros of Parion, also an artwork by Praxiteles); Polem. Hist. ap. Ath; 13 p.  606B. According to another anecdote, a famous courtesan, Phryne or Cratine, posed nude for the Cnidian Aphrodite: Ath; 13 p.  591A; Posidipp. ap. Clem. Al., Protr. 4.53.5 (= FGH 447 F 1); Posidipp. ap. Arnob., Nat. 6.13 (= FGH 447 F 1). 116  Cf. above with n.  8 . 117  Cf. Murgatroyd 1995, esp. 23 referring to Lucian, Am. 3; Russell 2012, 157 n.  16. 118 Lucian, Am. 1–3; Am. 3: κατὰ τὴν Ἀφροδίτην περίπλους. 119  Ach. Tat., 5.1 f., esp.  5.1.5: the visitor as luckless lover (δυσερωτιῶν). Cf. Beirut as desired bride of Poseidon: Nonn., Dionys. 41.14.28–37. 120 Lib., Or. 11.117; 11.271. For the motif of the beloved home town: Yatromanolakis 2005. 121  Mossmann 2007, 155 (regarding the speech of Callicratidas, but valuable in general as her article and numerous others works show). 114 

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phistic. We can, however, observe a striking contrast between the subtle, comic and allusive literary composition of the dialogues on the types of desire on the one side, and the realistic and unsophisticated description of the travel account on the other – as long as it concerns the real world of travel, more precisely the touristic infrastructure. The part of the Erôtes describing the journey of Lycinos and his friends does not refer to classical models, as there are none. It can rather be connected with the contemporary travel novel or romance novel of the imperial period (which Lycinos explicitly mentions at the very beginning of the treatise122), “the ecphrastic accounts of the rhetorical masters … [and] the country-side as reinvented by Hellenistic bucolic verse.”123 Among the many intertextual references in the Erôtes, several are made to Lucian’s works.124 In particular it fits well into the (sub-)genre of the rhetorical introductory piece in which Lucian presents unusual subjects, ekphraseis of artwork, legends (including some about artwork), and autobiographical information about Lycinos.125 For at the same time, the travel account of the Erôtes pretends to be an eyewitness account. In travel accounts it is very rare that authors reveal themselves as eyewitnesses, the purpose of such eyewitness accounts being always to confirm the verisimilitude of the narrative. Lycinos’s travel account, of course, must be seen within a literary tradition, but at the same time it presents an accurate potential reality. The Erôtes not only ranges within an intertextual web but also within a web of material culture which was familiar to the (reading or listening) audience of this treatise by education and often by personal travel experience too: Lycinos addresses the issue of Rhodes as a traffic hub and a center of tourism with its temple of Dionysos and the distinguished paintings exhibited there. He presents Cnidos with the stoai of Sostratos126 (a famous Cnidian architect who also created one of the Seven Wonders of the World, the Pharos in Alexandria), the sanctuary of Aphrodite (Euploia) with its temple, its surrounding garden, and the celebrated and frequently visited statue of Praxiteles. Finally, as the Erôtes suggests, the Cnidian ceramics seem to have been well known in the ancient world because of their obscene motifs. Numerous specimens have been found in the range of rooms in the stoa just above the temple of Dionysos, which probably served as salerooms.127 When Lycinos reports that he laughed at the 122 Lucian,

Am. 1; Soler 2005, 157. Goldhill 1995, 104. 124  Reference to the architect Sostratos and his famous buildings: cf. below with n.  123. Furthermore the Erôtes satirizes pederastic philosophers like Lucian, Dial. meretr. 10; cf. Jope 2011, 106. The sea voyage in Lucian, Am. 6 f. 11 recalls that in Lucian, Nav. 7–9; cf. Jope 2011, 113. Cf. above with n.  51. There might be more of those references. 125  Nesselrath 1990, esp.  113–15. Cf. Dubel 2014. 126 Lucian, Am. 11. Lucian probably refers to stoai in the plural because there were two stories: Plin., Nat. 36.83. For this stoai cf. n.  124 and Zwingmann 2012, 223 f. Lucian’s references to Sostratos of Cnidos: Lucian, Hist. Conscr. 62; Lucian, Hipp.  2. 127  Bruns-Özgan 2002a, 42f; id. 2002b, 251f; id. 2006, 173; id. 2013, 119–70. For the ceram123 

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bawdy ceramics of Cnidos while walking about in the city he is referring to these rooms or to similar places. By mentioning the Cnidian ceramics the treatise gives clear evidence for the disputed question of the date of the treatise and therefore indirectly for its author, because this ware was produced not later than the first half of the third century AD or, at the latest, at its end. This article does not focus on an analysis of the stylistic arguments concerning the authenticity of the Erôtes. But at least from a historical point of view nothing argues against Lucian’s authorship. The condensed description of the different aspects of travel and touristic infrastructure – seafaring, accommodation, tourist guides, votive offerings or devotionals and souvenirs, cultural heritage preservation, and perhaps prostitution – represents a deeply original feature of the Erôtes.

Works Cited Editions of Lucian’s Erôtes Lucian, vol.  8 , ed. Matthew D. Macleod. 1967. The Loeb Classical Library 432. London: Heinemann / Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, pp.  147–235. Luciani opera, ed. Matthew D. Macleod. 1980. Scriptorum classicorum bibliotheca Oxoniensis, vol.  3. Libelli 44–68. Oxford: Clarendon, pp.  85–117 (= libellus 49). (For the older editions cf. Lauer 1899, 3 f.; Cavallini and Degani 1991, 151; and Settembrini and Fusaro 2007, 2053.)

Translations of Lucian’s Erôtes (with Annotations) in Chronological Order (The older translations often omit and attenuate passages considered to be too salacious) Ioannis Bourdelotius (ed., trans., and comm.). 1615. Lvciani Samosatensis philosophi opera omnia quae extant. Cum Latina doctiss. virorum interpretatione, vol.  1. Paris: Febvrier, pp.  557–86, with annotations at the end of the volume on p.  25, 36, 48. Ioannis Benedictus (ed. and trans.). 1619. Luciani Samosatensis opera omnia in duos tomos divisas, vol.  1. Saumur: Piededius, pp.  1018–72. Nicolas Perrot d’Ablancourt (trans. and comm.). 1683. Lucien, vol.  2. Paris: Trabouillet, pp.  156–79, with annotations on p.  373–76. Ioannes Petrus Schmidius (ed. and trans.). 1778. Luciani Samosatensis opera. Graece. Latine. Cum notis selectis, vol.  5. Mitau: Hinz, pp.  38–132. Jacques Nicolas Belin de Ballu (ed., trans., and comm.). 1789. Oeuvres de Lucien. Traduites du grec, avec des remarques historiques et critiques sur le texte de cet auteur, et la collation de six manuscrits de la Bibliothèque du Roi. Paris: Bastien, vol.  3, pp.  539– 602 (translation and commentary) / vol.  6 , XX–XXV (annotations). ics found there: ibid. 194–98, 207–9; Doksanaltı 2000; Deniz Pastutmaz-Sevmen 2013. Concerning the interpretation as salerooms cf. above n.  79. Bruns-Özgan 2013, 134 concludes from Lucian, Am. 11 that the stoai of Sostratos were “unmittelbar am Hafen liegend […]” (cf. id. 2014, 29) which this passage does not constrain.

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Guglielmo Manzi (trans.). 1819. Le opere di Luciano, vol.  2. Lausanne: sine nomine, pp.  297–342. Johann Gottlob Lehmann (trans.). 1825. Luciani Samosatensis opera. Graece et Latine. Post Tiberium Hemsterhusium et Joh. Fredericum Reitzium denuo castigata cum varietate lectionis, scholiis Graecis, adnotationibus et indicibus. Leipzig: Weidmann, pp.  244–312, with notes on pp.  566–630. Eugène Talbot (introd., trans. and comm.). 1866. Oeuvres complètes de Lucien de Samosate, vol.  1. Paris: Hachette, pp.  536–64. Hans Licht (introd., trans., and comm.). 1920. “Erôtes: ein Gespräch über die Liebe von Lukian.” In Die Werkstatt der Liebe, vol.  1, ed. Hanns Floerke and Renatus Kuno. Munich: Müller, pp.  59–106, with notes on pp.  125–85. Rafael Cansinos Assens (introd. and trans.). 1921 (?). El parásito, el eunuco, los amores y otros diálogos. Versión castellana y prólogo. Obra inédita en castellano. Biblioteca de autores celebres. Madrid: Martin de los Heros. Luigi Settembrini (trans. and comm.) and Aldo Mieli (introd. and comm.). 1925. Luciano. Erotes (Gli amori). Lucio o l‘asino. Universitas scriptorum 8. Rome: Leonardo da Vinci, pp.  5 –46. Émile Chambry (trans. and comm.). 1934. Lucien de Samosate. Oeuvres complètes, vol.  2. Classiques Garnier. Paris: Classique Garnier, pp.  218–50, with n.  323–78 on p.  495–98. Luigi Settembrini (trans.) and Danilo Baccini (comm.). 1962. Luciano. I dialoghi e gli epigrammi. Rome: Casini, pp.  487–511. Matthew D. Macleod (ed., trans. and comm.). 1967. Lucian, vol.  8. The Loeb Classical Library 432. London: Heinemann / Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, pp.  147–235. Vincenzo Longo (ed., trans., and comm.). 1986. Luciano. Dialoghi, vol.  2. Classici greci. Turin: Unione Tipografico Editrice Torinese, pp.  487–547 (no.  38 [49]: ΕΡΩΤΗΣ [?]. Gli amori [?]). Eleonora Cavallini (trans. and comm.) and Enzo Degani (introduct.). 1991. Luciano. Questioni d’amore. Venice: Marsilio. Pierre Maréchaux (introd., trans., and comm.). 1998. Lucien de Samosate. Dialogues des courtisanes: suivi des Amours et de Toxaris. Arléa 31. Paris: Arléa, pp.  69–109, with notes on pp.  162–67. George Hinge (introd. and trans.). 2000. Lukian, Drengekærligheden over for kvindekærligheden. http://trad.glossa.dk/erotes.html (accessed June 7, 2017). Luigi Settembrini (trans.) and Diego Fusaro (introd., comm.). 2014. Luciano di Samosata, Tutti gli scritti. Testo greco a fronte, Il pensiero occidentale. Milan: Bompiani, no.  37: Gli Amori, pp.  997–1043.

Further Literature Andò, Valeria. 1975. Luciano critico d’arte. Quaderni dell’Istituto di filologia greca della Università di Palermo 7. Palermo: Istituto di filologia greca della Università di Palermo. André, Jean-Marie, and Marie-Françoise Baslez. 1999 [1993]. Voyager dans l’Antiquité. Paris: Fayard. Arnaud, Pascal. 2005. Les routes de la navigation antique: itinéraires en Méditerranée. Paris: Éd. Errance.

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Bailey, Donald M. 1988. A Catalogue of the Lamps in the British Museum, vol. III: Roman Provincial Lamps. London: British Museum Press. Billault, Alain. 2011. “Lucien voyageur et les cultures de son temps.” In Médiateurs culturels et politiques dans l’Empire romain: voyages, conflits, identités, ed. Anne Gang­ loff. Paris: de Boccard, pp.  11–22. Bischoff, Heinrich. 1937. “Perieget.” RE 19.1, pp.  725–42 Blinkenberg, Christian. 1933. Knidia: Beiträge zur Kenntnis der praxitelischen Aphrodite. Copenhagen: Levin & Munksgaard. Bloch, Robert. 1907. De Pseudo-Luciani Amoribus. Strasbourg: Trübner. Borbein. Adolf H. 1973. “Die griechische Statue des 4. Jahrhunderts v. Chr. Formanalytische Untersuchungen zur Kunst der Nachklassik.” JDAI 88: 43–212. Börker, Christoph, Reinhold Merkelbach, et al. (ed.). 1979. Die Inschriften von Ephesos 2, Nr.  101–599 (Repertorium). Die Inschriften griechischer Städte aus Kleinasien 12. Bonn: Habelt. Branham, Robert Bracht. 1989. Unruly Eloquence: Lucian and the Comedy of Traditions. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Breusing, Artur. 1886. Die Nautik der Alten. Bremen: Schünemann. Bruns-Özgan, Christine. 2002a. Knidos: ein Führer durch die Ruinen. Konya: Selcֽ uk Üniversitesi Fen-Edebiyat Fakültesi Klasik Arkeoloji Bölümü. –. 2002b. “Eine frühkaiserzeitliche Stoa in Knidos und ihre Funde.” In Patris und Imperium. Kulturelle und politische Identität in den Städten der römischen Provinzen Kleinasiens in der frühen Kaiserzeit, Kolloquium Köln, November 1998, ed. Christof Berns, Henner von Hesberg, Lutgarde Vandeput, and Marc Waelkens. BABesch ­Suppl. Leuven: Peeters, pp.  247–56. –. 2006. “Knidos.” In Stadtgrabungen und Stadtforschungen im westlichen Kleinasien. Geplantes und Erreichtes, ed. Wolfgang Radt. Internationales Symposion 6/7. August 2004 in Bergama (Türkei), BYZAS 3. Istanbul: Ege Yayınlar, pp.  161–78. –. 2013. Die Ergebnisse der Ausgrabungen von 1996–2006. Mit Beiträgen von Gabriella Lini, Ramazan Özgan, Deniz Pastutmaz. Knidos-Studien 4. Istanbul: Ege Yayınlar. –. 2014. Knidos. Reiseführer. Istanbul: Aktüel Arkeolojı Basım Yayıncılık. Budin, Stephanie Lynn. 2008. The Myth of Sacred Prostitution in Antiquity. New York: Cambridge University Press. Cansinos-Asséns, Rafael (introduct. and trans.). 1921 (?). El parásito, el eunuco, los amores y otros diálogos. Versión castellana y prólogo. Obra inédita en castellano. Biblioteca de autores celebres. Madrid: Martin de los Heros. Casson, Lionel. 1994a. Ships and Seafaring in Ancient Times. London: British Museum Press. –. 1994b. Travel in the Ancient World. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. –. 1995 [1986]. Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Castritius, Helmut. 1969. Studien zu Maximinus Daia. Frankfurter Althistorische Studien 2. Kallmünz: Lassleben. Chambry, Émile (trans. and comm.). 1934. Lucien de Samosate: oeuvres complètes, vol.  2. Classiques Garnier. Paris: Classique Garnier, pp.  218–50, with n.  323–78 on pp.  495–98. Corso, Antonio. 1988. Prassitele. Fonti epigrafiche e letterarie. Vita e opere. Xenia, Quaderni 10, vol.  1: Fonti epigrafiche; fonti letterarie dall’età dello scultore al medio impero (IV sec. a.c.–circa 175 d.c.). Rome: De Luca.

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–. 1974. “Excavations at Knidos 1972.” Türk arkeoloji dergisi 21/2: 85–129. Macleod, Matthew D. (ed. and trans.). 1967. Lucian, vol.  8. The Loeb Classical Library 432. London: Heinemann / Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Mandel, Ursula. 1988. Kleinasiatische Reliefkeramik der mittleren Kaiserzeit: die “Oinophorengruppe und Verwandtes.” Pergamenische Forschungen 5. Berlin: de Gruyter. –. 2000. “Die frühe Produktion der sog. Oinophorenware-Werkstätten von Knidos.” Rei Cretariae Romanae Fautorum Acta 36: 57–68. Maréchaux, Pierre (introd., trans. and comm.). 1998. Lucien de Samosate. Dialogues des courtisanes: suivi des Amours et de Toxaris. Arléa 31. Paris: Arléa. Matthews, John. 2006. The Journey of Theophanes: Travel, Business and Daily Life in the Roman East. New Haven: Yale University Press. Meier, Ludwig. 2012. Die Finanzierung öffentlicher Bauten in der hellenistischen Polis. Die hellenistische Polis als Lebensform 3. Mainz: Verlag Antike. Murgatroyd, Paul. 1995. “The Sea of Love.” CQ 45, 1:9–25. Mossmann, Judith. 2007. “Heracles, Prometheus, and the Play of Genres in [Lucian]’s Amores.” In Severan Culture, ed. Simon Swain, Stephen Harrison, and Jas´ Elsner. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.  146–59. Nesselrath, Heinz-Günther. 1990. “Lucian’s Introductions.” In Antonine Literature, ed. Donald Andrew Russell. Oxford: Clarendon, pp.  111–40. Norris, Frederick W. 1990. “Antioch as a Religious Center. I: Paganism before Constantine.” ANRW 2.18.4, pp.  2322–379. Parker, Robert. 1983. Miasma: Pollution and Purification in Early Greek Religion. Oxford: Clarendon. Passow, Franz. 1970a [1847]. Handwörterbuch der griechischen Sprache. Neu bearbeitet und zeitgemäß umgestaltet von Valentin Christian Friedrich Rost et al., vol. I.2: Ε–Κ. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. –. 1970b [1857]. Handwörterbuch der griechischen Sprache. Neu bearbeitet und zeitgemäß umgestaltet von Valentin Christian Friedrich Rost et al., vol. II.2: Ρ–Ω. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. Pastutmaz-Sevmen, Deniz. 2005. “Knidos Dionysos Terası stoasında bulunan bir grup kandil ıs¸ ıg˘ında Romanesis atölyesi ve özellikleri.” In Ramazan Özgan’a armag˘an, ed. Mustafa S¸ahin and Ibrahin Hakan Mert. Istanbul: Ege Yayınları, pp.  283–89. –. 2013. “Stoa‘da bulunan kandiller.” In Die Ergebnisse der Ausgrabungen von 1996– 2006. Mit Beiträgen von Gabriella Lini, Ramazan Özgan, Deniz Pastutmaz. KnidosStu­dien 4. Istanbul: Ege Yayınları, pp.  198–209. Perrottet, Tony. 2003. Pagan Holidays: On the Trail of Ancient Roman Tourists. New York: Random House. ¯ ro¯pou. Bibliothe¯ ke¯ te¯ s en Athe¯ nais Petrakos, Basileios (ed.). 1997. Hoi epigraphe¯s tou O Archaiologike¯ s Hetaireias 170. Athens: Athe¯ nais Archaiologike¯ Hetaireia. Reinach, Salomon, 1877. “Exegetae.” Daremberg-Saglio II 1: 883–86. –. (ed. and comm.). 1888. Planches de topographie, de sculpture et d’architecture. Voyage archéologique en Grèce et en Asie Mineure, Bibliothèque des monuments figurés grecs et romains, Philippe Le Bas, vol.  1. Paris: Firmin-Didot. Rougé, Jean. 1966. Recherches sur l’organisation du commerce maritime en Méditerranée sous l’empire Romain. Ports, Routes, Trafics 21. Paris: Éditions de l’École Pratique des Hautes Études des Sciences Sociales. –. 1984. “Le comfort des passagers à bord des navires antiques”, Archaeonautica 4: 223– 42.

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Roux, George. 1984. “Trésor, temples, tholos.” In Temples et sanctuaires. Séminaire de recherche 1981–1983, ed. George Roux. Travaux de la Maison de l’Orient 7. Lyon: Maison de l’Orient méditerranéen, pp.  153–71. Russell, Amy. 2012. “Aemilius Paullus Sees Greece: Travel, Vision, and Power in Polybios.” In Imperialism, Cultural Politics, and Polybius, ed. Christopher Smith and Liv Mariah Yarrow. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp.  152–67. Salomonson, Jan Willem. 1980. “Der Trunkenbold und die Trunkene Alte. Untersuchun­ gen zur Herkunft, Bedeutung und Wanderung einiger plastischer Gefäßtypen der römischen Kaiserzeit.” BABesch 55: 65–133. Scheer, Tanja S., unter Mitarbeit von Martin Lindner (eds.). 2009. Tempelprostitution im Altertum: Fakten und Fiktionen. Oikumene 6. Berlin: Verlag Antike. Schnapp, Alain. 2013. “Conservation of Objects and Monuments and the Sense of the Past in Greco-Roman Era.” In World Antiquarianism: Comparative Perspectives, ed. Alain Schnapp et al., Issues & Debates, Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 159– 175. Schwartz, Jacques. 1965. Biographie de Lucien de Samosate. Latomus 83. Brussels: Latomus. Seaman, Kristen. 2004. “Retrieving the Original Aphrodite of Knidos.” RAL 15: 531– 94. Söldner, Magdalene, Klaus Hallof, and Bernd Seidensticker. 2014. “Praxiteles Nr.  2. Knidos: Aphrodite von Knidos.” In Der neue Overbeck. Die antiken Schriftquellen zu den bildenden Künsten der Griechen, vol.  3 : Spätklassik. Bildhauer des 4. Jhs. v. Chr. DNO 1799–2677, ed. Sascha Kantsteiner, Lauri Lehmann, Klaus Hallof, Bernd Seidensticker, and Magdalena Söldner. Berlin: de Gruyter, pp.  51–79 (= DNO 1855– 1888). Slane, Kathleen Warner, and Matthew W. Dickie. 1993. “A Knidian Phallic Vase from Corinth.” Hesperia 62: 483–505, with pl. 85 f. Soler, Joëlle. 2005. Ecritures du voyage. Héritages et inventions dans la littérature latine tardive. Collection des Études Augustiniennes, série antiquité 177. Paris: Institut d’études augustiniennes. Talbot, Eugène (introd., trans. and comm.). 1866. Oeuvres complètes de Lucien de Samosate, vol.  1. Paris: Hachette. Tietz, Werner. 2013. Dilectus ciborum. Essen im Diskurs der römischen Antike. Hypo­ mnemata 193. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Trapp, Michael B. 1990. “Plato’s Phaedrus in the Second Century.” In Antonine Literature, ed. Donald Andrew Russell. Oxford: Clarendon, pp.  149–73. Vedder, Ursula. 2015. Der Koloss von Rhodos. Archäologie, Herstellung und Rezeptionsgeschichte eines antiken Weltwunders. Mainz: Nünnerich-Asmus Verlag. Vorberg, Gaston (ed.). 1988 [1928–1932]. Glossarium eroticum. Main: Müller & Kiepenheuer. Wieland, Christoph Martin, and Hanns Floerke (trans. and comm.). 1911. Lukian: Sämtliche Werke. Klassiker des Altertums 1.7–1.11. Munich: Müller. Yatromanolakis, Yorgis. 2005. “Poleos Erastes: The Greek City as the Beloved.” In Personification in the Greek World: From Antiquity to Byzantium, ed. Emma Stafford and Judith Herrin. Publications for the Center for Hellenic Studies, King’s College London 7. Aldershot: Ashgate, pp.  267–84. Zimmer, Kathrin Barbara. 2014. Im Zeichen der Schönheit. Form, Funktion und Stellenwert klassischer Skulpturen im Hellenismus am Beispiel der Göttin Aphrodite. Tübinger Archäologische Forschungen 9. Rahden: Leidorf.

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Zucker, Friedrich, 1949. “Πάροχος.” RE XVIII 3, pp.  1670–684. Zwingmann, Nicola. 2012. Antiker Tourismus in Kleinasien und auf den vorgelagerten Inseln: Selbstvergewisserung in der Fremde. Antiquitas, Reihe 1, Bd. 59. Bonn: Habelt. –. 2016. “Tumuli as Points of Interest in Greek and Latin Sources.” In Tumulus as Sema: Space, Politics, Culture and Religion in the First Millenium BC, vol.  1, ed. Olivier Henry and Ute Kelp. Berlin Studies of the Ancient World 27. Berlin: de Gruyter, pp.  387– 406, with fig.  1–4 on pl. 178–82 in vol.  2. –. 2017. “Reise.” RAC 28, 2017.

Figures Fig.  1:  Map with the itinerary of the Amores. From: Arnaud, Pascal. 2012. “La mer, vecteur de la diaspora grecque.” In Mobilités grecques: mouvements, réseaux, contacts en Méditerranée de l’époque archaïque à l’époque hellénistique, ed. Laurent Capdetrey and Julien Zurbach. Scripta antiqua 46. Bordeaux: Ausonius / Paris: de Boccard, pp.  89–135, 120 fig.  23 (= Arnaud 2005, 56 f.). Highlighting on the map by N. Zwingmann. Fig.  2 :  Map of Rhodes. From: Rodos 2400 chronia: he¯ pole¯ te¯s Rodu apo te¯n hidryse¯ te¯s mechri te¯n katale¯pse¯ apo tus Turkus (1523), diethnes episte¯ moniko synedrio, Rodos, 24–29 Okto¯ briu 1993. Praktika vol.  1. 1999. Athens: Ypourgeio Politismou, 18 fig. A (detail). Fig.  3 :  Cnidian Aphrodite of Praxiteles (“Venus Colonna,” marble, H 2,04 m, Rome, Musei Vaticani, inv. no 812, heavily restored). From: Jenkins, Ian (ed.). 2015. Defining Beauty: The Body in Ancient Greek Art. Published to accompany the exhibition “Defining Beauty: The Body in Ancient Greek Art” at the British Museum, 26 March – 5 July 2015. London: British Museum Press, fig.  15 on p.  34 (detail). Fig.  4 :  Cnidian bronze of 202/205 AD. From: Blinkenberg 1933, 196 fig.  79 f. Fig.  5 :  Cnidian relief ceramics. Fig.  5.1:  Lagynos with symplegma-scenes, clay, without measures or dating, found in Toroni, possibly from Cnidos, Thessaloniki, museum. From: Mandel 1988, pl. 29, K 198. Fig.  5.2:  Lamp with symplegma-scene, clay, without measures, first half of the first cent. AD – middle Hadrianic times, Cnidian ceramic workshop of Romanesis, Cnidos, excavation depot, inv. no unknown. From: Pastutmaz-Sevmen 2013, 205 fig.  186d. Fig.  5.3:  Phallic vase, clay, H 23,8 cm, max. diameter 8,6 cm, found in Corinth, possibly from Cnidos, second century AD, American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Corinth Excavations, inv. no C–27–37. From: Slane and Dickie 1993, pl. 85a. Fig.  5.4:  Lamp of an ape, clay, without measures and dating, from Cnidus, from: L1571 shelf Rh, Hydrographic survey fair-sheet, Ports at Cape Krio and the Remains of the ancient Cnidus with view of C. Krio and illustrations of specimens of pottery found at Cnidus (1838), Sources from the UK Hydrographic Office (www.ukho.gov.uk). Fig.  5.5:  Lamp of a (pseudo-) erudite, clay, without measures, dating or finding place. From: Reinach 1888, pl. 150 above. Fig.  5.6:  Lamp of a dancing satyr, clay, H 20 cm, first cent. AD, before 79 AD, found in Pompeii, possibly from Cnidos, Naples, Museo Nazionale, inv. no 27869. From: Grant and Mulas 1975, 133.

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Fig.  5.7:  Lamp of a dwarf, clay, measures cf. our n.  71, first / second century AD, Cnidos, excavation depot, inv. no unknown. From: Bruns-Özgan 2002a, 46 fig.  53. Fig.  5.8:  Phallos drinking cup, clay, 9.5 x 9 cm, found in Pompeii, possibly from Cnidos, first century AD, before 79 AD, Naples, Museo Nazionale, inv. no 27859. From: Grant and Mulas 1975, 128. Fig.  5.9 a–b:  Cup with vertically movable phallos, clay, phallos with rod: H 8.7 cm, entire vessel: max. 11.5 cm, found in the stoa of Dionysos in Cnidos, 60–80 AD, Cnidos, excavation depot, inv. no unknown. From: Doksanaltı 2000, 79 fig.  2.11 and 2.13 (cf. ibid. p.  75 for the date and p.  80 for the measures). Fig.  6 :  Map of Cnidos. From: Bruns-Özgan 2013, 32 plan 1. Fig.  7:  Virtual model of the sanctuaries at the western border of Cnidos with the terrace of the round temple (a proposed identification for the temple of Aphrodite Euploia) from the southeast. From: Bankel, Hansgeorg. 2009. “Versatzmarken am Propylon im Heiligtum des Apollon Karneios in Knidos.” In Bautechnik im antiken und voranti­ ken Kleinasien, ed. Martin Bachmann. Byzas 9. Istanbul: Ege Yayınları, pp.  323–41, 324 fig.  1.

Virtual Journeys in the Roman Near East: Maps and Geographical Texts Benjamin Isaac Ancient travel accounts, geographical texts, maps, and illustrations have survived in sufficient numbers for us to formulate observations concerning some general characteristics that distinguish the ancient material from later documents. It is the aim of this paper to bring out a number of salient features present or absent in the ancient works. I will focus on a specific area, namely Palestine, as a test-case, making limited reference to other areas and material as needed. We are concerned with factual information provided by geographical authors and travelers, as well as illustrators and map-makers. Purely literary productions, such as epic poetry and ancient novels, as well as public rhetoric and satire, are not included in this investigation. Such works had different aims and are therefore not relevant for the present topic. Four different types of material will be discussed: ancient Greek and Latin geographical texts concerning Palestine, travel accounts concerning Palestine, ancient illustrations, and maps. Remarkably different characteristics may be found in late mediaeval and early modern texts. Post-classical illustrations also have an essentially distinct character. The interest in comparing these subjects in classical and later periods is two-fold: an investigation may help us better understand how ancient Greeks and Romans experienced traveling in a different and strange environment, and it will clarify what kind of information was regarded as relevant and important to travelers. The earliest Greek text relevant for our purposes, the fourth century BC “periplous” written by an anonymous author known as Pseudo-Skylax,1 is an early example of a very specific genre. A periplous is a text that lists places along the coast and provides basic geographic and historical information.2 It is essentially a list, a linear outline of place names, very popular in antiquity. Pseudo-Skylax adds references to legend. He provides ethnographical detail, partly repeating stereotypes.

1 

Counillon 2004; Shipley 2011. a short description of the nature of periploi: Dueck with a chapter by K. Brodersen 2012, 6–7. 2  For

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This is an important fourth-century text, but one that is clearly limited in scope – something that cannot be said of the extensive work of Strabo (64/3 BC–c.AD 24). Strabo’s text is not a travel account, but the type of information he provides and his perspective are relevant for the present paper.3 Albeit one of the very best and most informative works of ancient geography, printing here a few brief citations from Strabo’s easily accessible text and summarizing some of the information in it, particularly as concerning our focus of ancient Palestine, should suffice. Next to Ace is the Tower of Strato, with a station for [175] vessels. Between these places is Mount Carmel, and cities of which nothing but the names remain, as Sycaminopolis, Bucolopolis, Crocodeilopolis, and others of this kind; next is a large forest. Then Joppa, where the coast of Egypt, which at first stretches towards the east, makes a remarkable bend towards the north. In this place, according to some writers, Andromeda was exposed to the sea-monster. It is sufficiently elevated; it is said to command a view of Jerusalem, the capital of the Jews, who, when they descended to the sea, used this place as a naval arsenal. But the arsenals of robbers are the haunts of robbers. Carmel, and the forest, belonged to the Jews. The district was so populous that the neighbouring village Iamneia, and the settlements around, could furnish forty thousand soldiers. (Strabo 16.2.27–28 (758f); 16.2.34–46 (760–765))

Strabo essentially gives a list of places and the lay of the land. He includes information about settlements no longer inhabited. A large forest is mentioned. He records Jope’s association with the Andromeda legend and erroneously claims that Jerusalem is visible from there.4 When he mentions robbers, suggesting that the Palestinian coast had better be incorporated in a regular Roman province, he presumably gives the Roman imperial perspective. He provides demographic information, sometimes of dubious quality as in the case of Iamneia and its vicinity, said to furnish the equivalent of eight Roman legions – about 15% of the entire Roman army. However, he accurately points out later that the population of Palestine consists of Idumaeans, Egyptians, Arabs, Phoenicians, and Jews.5 We are next presented with an interesting mix of economic and cultural facts: the city of Ascalon is small, but produces excellent onions, and is also the birthplace of the philosopher Antiochus; and Gadaris (Gadara) is the town of origin of the epicurean philosopher and poet Philodemus, of the poet Meleager, of Menippus the satirist, and of Theodorus the rhetorician.6 He is mistaken in asserting that Gaza had been uninhabited since it was razed by Alexander, but accurately notes that there was a road from Gaza to Aela.7 The name of Rhino3 

See Clarke 1999; Dueck 2000; Prontera 2016, 239–58. Strabo repeats this in 16.2.34 5  16.2.34–46 (760–65) = Stern 1974, no.  115, and pp.  294–304: the population was mixed. Strabo discusses the origin of the Jews, Moses, the Exodus, and subsequent history until Pompey. He mentions Jericho, its palms and balsam, as well as the Dead Sea and asphalt, Sodom. 6  Strabo confuses two separate towns, cf. Stern 1974, 293. 7  Strabo 16.2.30, with Stern’s comments, p.  293. 4 

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colura is explained by false etymology.8 Strabo includes much historical information not reproduced here that is very important in itself, but not relevant to the topic of this paper. For the present study it is to be noted that Strabo represents as much Greek scholars working in a Hellenistic tradition as he does loyal subjects of the Roman Empire, whose massive study will have been intended to provide a service to the Roman authorities – a service which was, however, insufficiently appreciated.9 Finally, it is essential to note that the works of Strabo and other ancient geographers were not accompanied by maps, as far as can be ascertained.10 Although Strabo’s text is not a travel account, Strabo himself is one of the most significant ancient geographers. As there are no other citable contemporary travel accounts from Strabo’s time, it is useful to consider his work here. While Strabo was essentially a Hellenistic author who fully identified with the reality of the Roman Empire in which he lived, the Elder Pliny, born about the year Strabo died (AD 23/24–79), was very much a Roman author. Pliny provides a collection of geographical and other facts which, although admittedly peculiar, represent the sort of information the author’s readers wanted to receive.11 The fifth book of his Naturalis Historia contains his treatment of the region under consideration here.12 Pliny gives topographical information and provides some relevant, up-to-date facts such as that Ascalon is a free city (Ascalo liberum), and that Iope (Joppa) is a Phoenician city,13 “said to have existed before the flood,14 and situated on a hill.” Like Pseudo-Scylax and Strabo, Pliny tells of Iope’s association with the Andromeda legend and with Ceto. He refers to the very recent transformation of Vespasian of Caesarea into a Roman citizen colony named Prima Flavia, and to the renaming of “Mamortha,” (i.e. Sichem) 8  Strabo 2.31: “Rhinocolura, so called from the colonists, whose noses had been mutilated.” 9  See Prontera 2016, 255–56 for the reasons for the poor reception of Strabo’s work by his contemporaries and subsequent generations. 10  On the limitations of ancient geography: Isaac 1992, 401–8. It has been argued that the work of Solinus inspired later readers to introduce not only illustrations but also maps; see Brodersen 2016, 298–312, at 309. It is, however, not clear when such illustrations and maps began to be produced and there is no proof this happened as early as Late Antiquity. For Solinus’s description of what he calls Judaea: C. Julius Solinus, ed. Agnant, ch. 36. On the existence of maps in antiquity, see now Rathmann 2016, 327–62, at 338–39; at 348–52. Rathmann returns to the hypothesis that there were indeed maps that have not survived. Weingarten 2005, chapter 4, esp. “Mental Maps and Real Maps,” pp.  201–6, collects information to show that Jerome knew strip maps. 11  Marchetti 1991; Beagon 1992; Murphy 2004, for the geographical section, see ch. 4; see pp.  130–31 for the lack of maps; Brodersen, op.cit. 12 Pliny, NH 5.66–73 (Stern, vol.  1, no.  204). 13  For the Phoenician presence in Jaffa, mentioned also by Pseudo-Scylax, above, and by other ancient authors, see Corpus Inscriptionum Iudaeae/Palaestinae vol.  3, pp.  22–23. 14  Similarly: Pomponius Mela, Chronographia 1.11.64: est Iope ante diluvium ut ferunt condita.

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to “Neapolis.” Often cited is his reference to the district of Orine, “that formerly contained Jerusalem, by far the most famous city of the East and not of Judaea only” (NH 5.70) 15 Orine is listed as one of the ten “toparchies” of Judaea, a parallel of which is found in Josephus.16 Also frequently discussed is Pliny’s short account of the Essenes (NH 5.73).17 Pliny mentions natural features such as the palm-groves and springs at Jericho and Ein Gedi, which he describes as “once famous, second only to Jerusalem in the fertility of its soil and its groves of palm-trees, but now yet another pile of ash.” Other natural features mentioned are the sources of the river Jordan, and the peculiarities of the Dead Sea. Like Strabo’s work, this is not a travel account and therefore not immediately comparable with the first two texts, but it is a condensed description of the land containing information deemed relevant by a first-century author. Importantly, it is factual, featuring no analysis or subjective components. The first text cited above was a periplous, a linear document listing places along the coast. There are related ancient texts, itineraria, that list names and distances along roads. This is an explicitly Roman type of document and it very clearly represents the sort of information appreciated by Roman readers.18 Two such texts will be cited here. The first, the anonymous Antonine Itinerary, is dated to the early third century. The selection of routes and locations it connects is not easy to explain. The central part of the text is probably connected with Caracalla’s eastern campaign.19 One example will give an impression: From Tyre to Ptolemais 32 m.; Sycamina 23 m.; Caesarea 20 m.; Betar 18 m.; Diospolis 22 m.; Iamnia 12 m.; Ascalon 20 m.; Gaza 16 m.; Rafia 22 m.; Rinocorura 1 m. 20 From Caesarea to Eleut[h]eropolis 77 m.; Betar 31 m.; Diospolis 28 m.; Eleut[h]eropolis 18 m. 21 (Cuntz 1990: 21)

In this text, then, we have routes marked only by the names of towns and the distances between them. There is no reason to assume that maps originally accompanied the written text. More importantly, as mentioned earlier, there is no evidence that any of the ancient works mentioned here provided maps.22 The 15  Orinen, in qua fuere Hierosolyma, longe clarissima urbium Orientis non Iudaeae modo. For instance, Stern 1991, 518–30. 16  Cf. Isaac 1998b, 159–81, at 167; 178; and Isaac forthcoming. 17  The other mention in a Graeco-Roman source is by Dio Chrysostom, Stern 1974, vol.  1, no.  251. 18 For itineraria, see Brodersen 1995; id., 2002, 7–21; Salway 2001, 22–66; Talbert 2007, 256–70. 19  As argued persuasively by van Berchem 1934, 172 ff.; id. 1973, 123–27. 20  Cuntz 1990, 21: Tyro – Ptolomaidam m.p. XXXII; Sycamina m.p. XXIIII; Caesarea m.p. XX; Betaro m.p. XVIII; Diospoli m.p. XXII; Iamnia m.p. XII; Ascalona m.p. XX; Gaza m.p. XVI; Rafia m.p. XXII; Rinocorura m.p. See also Cuntz 27 for further Palestinian sections. 21  Item A Caesarea Eleuteropoli m.p. LXXVII: Betaro m.p. XXXI; Diospoli m.p. XXVIII; Eleuteropoli m.p. XVIII. 22  As pointed out, for instance, by Brodersen 1995.

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maps that were produced in antiquity were not part of an integrated form of geographical publications.23 This is a topic much discussed. It will suffice here to note that the reproduction and distribution of maps would, in antiquity, have posed difficult technical problems. Though texts can be manually copied fairly easily, maps and images cannot. The tradition that produced such lists continued for centuries and it can be found in various parts of the Empire. From the early fourth century we have the unique record in Greek of Theophanes’s journey from Hermopolis in Egypt to Antioch in Syria and back. It gives a day-to-day report, listing distances traveled as well as food purchases and other expenses. Part of the text is a regular itinerary, providing locations and distances like the Itinerarium Antonini: From Raphia to Gaza, m. 24; From Gaza to Ascalon, m.15; From Ascalon to Iamnia, m. 20; From Iamnia to Lydda, m. 12; From Lydda to Antipatris, m. 11; From Antipatris to Allage, m. 17; From Allage to Caesarea, m. 16; From Caesarea to Ptolemais, m. 44. (Matthews 2006: 56; 59) 24

What the texts above all have in common is the dry, factual nature of their style and their selection of facts. Remarkably, several (though few) authors wrote about geography in a different manner. The Expositio Totius Mundi et Gentium, for example, shows a far more lively approach to the material at hand. It is an anonymous geographical treatise of the middle of the fourth century with a particular interest in commercial matters. The surviving versions are in Latin, but the lost original was written in Greek. 26: Next there is also Caesarea. This is also a quite charming city with an abundance of everything, very remarkable because of its plan. Its Tetrapylon is famous everywhere, a unique and novel sight. 29: Then there are all the other cities. Ascalon and Gaza are distinguished cities seething with commercial activity and an abundance of everything. They send to all of Syria and Egypt an excellent wine. 30: Neapolis is also a famous and very noble city. … But there are also the cities of Sidon, Sarepta, Ptolemais, Eleutheropolis which are very good, just like Damascus. 31 E.: Similarly Sarepta, Caesarea and Neapolis, as also Lydda export their fine coloured purple. 32: … Caesarea sends to the other cities pantomimes. … Finally Gaza has also good orators. They say it has also pancratists; Ascalon has athletes. (Rougé 1966: 25–26; 29–32)

The treatise mentions cities, making very brief notes about remarkable buildings (Caesarea); the economy or certain products (Ascalon and Gaza); beautiful women (Heliopolis); the quality of textiles (Scythopolis and others); and wheat, wine, and oil. Gaza was famous once, but was razed by Alexander and (erroneously said to be) uninhabited. A remarkable difference between this text and the earlier ancient sources is the frequent use of adjectives like charming, famous, 23  Recent decades have seen a multitude of publications about ancient maps: Dilke 1985; Harley and Woodward 1987; Brodersen 1995; Talbert and Brodersen 2004; Talbert and Unger 2008; Talbert 2012; Dueck 2012; Rathman 2016. 24  Discussion: Matthews 66–77. For the expenses, see 130–37.

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unique, distinguished, excellent, and noble. Every single sentence contains such adjectives and appeals to the emotions. Yet it is a fourth-century text, like the itineraria mentioned above and like some other works listed below. We should now consider some Christian texts and see whether these are different in nature. The Itinerarium Burdigalense, dated AD 333–334, describes a journey from Bordeaux to the Near East.25 Part of the journey from Ptolemais to Jerusalem is cited here to gain an impression of the nature of the text: City of Ptolemais [Accho, Akka, St. Jean d’Acre] – 9 miles; Change at Calamon – 12 miles; Halt at Sycaminos [Haifa] – 3 miles; Here is the Mount Carmel, where Helias [Elijah] offered sacrifice [1Kings 18:19–40]; Change at Certa – 8 miles; Frontier of Syria, Phoenicia, and Palestine; City of Caesarea Palaestina, that is, Judaea – 8 miles; Total from Tyre to Caesarea Palaestina 73 miles, 2 changes, 3 halts. From Caesarea to Jerusalem: City of Caesarea Palaestinae, that is, Judaea – 8 miles; Total from Tyre to Caesarea Palaestina 73 miles, 2 changes, 3 halts. Here is the bath [balneus] of Cornelius the centurion who gave many alms [Acts 10:2; 47–48]. [–] Twenty-eight miles from thence [i.e. Sichar] on the left hand, as one goes towards Jerusalem, is a village [villa] named Bethar [Bethel, Beitin]. A mile from thence is the place where Jacob slept when he was journeying into Mesopotamia [Gen 28:11–12], and here is the almond tree; here Jacob saw the vision and the angel wrestled with him [Gen 32:24–33]. Here was King Jeroboam when the prophet was sent to him, that he should turn himself to the Most High God; and the prophet was ordered not to eat bread with the false prophet whom the king had with him, and because he was beguiled by the false prophet and ate bread with him, as he was returning a lion fell upon the prophet on the way and slew him [1Kings 1–34]. Thence to Jerusalem – 12 miles. Total from Caesarea Palaestina to Jerusalem 116 miles, 4 halts, 4 changes. (Cuntz 1990: 94–95; Geyer and Cuntz 1965: 1–26)

The route followed is clear throughout. The work has the familiar structure of an itinerarium. However, from 585.1, as he enters Palaestina, the author adds Christian content: historical comments, identifying contemporary locations with those mentioned in the Old and New Testament, and short references to geographical locations like the Dead Sea. At the same time, the text contains not a single description of the land and its monuments. The contents are purely informative, and remain impersonal throughout. In other words, the Christian nature of the text did not have an impact on the style and approach of the account, and it is similar to the earlier non-Christian earlier texts. This impression is reinforced by another Christian text: Eusebius’s Onomasticon. This is an unusual work, a first version of what we now call a “gazetteer” – a directory of biblical place names. It combines geographical, historical information with lexicography.26 Its originality lies in the application of a typically 25  The text: Cuntz 1990, 86–102. Cf. Bowman 1998, 163–87. For early Christian pilgrimage: Hunt 1980, chapter 3: “The Journey.” 26  The work is used extensively in the modern literature about the historical geography of

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Roman genre of documents to the biblical geography of Palestine. In this sense it continues the Hellenistic, and to a larger extent Roman, tradition of texts that are essentially lists, summing up useful knowledge in a systematic and learned fashion – like the itineraria mentioned above. No analysis is featured, and there are no efforts at understanding, describing, or entertaining the reader. We observed earlier that there was at least one text with a very different approach, the Expositio Totius Mundi, which was seen to be lively and to some extent emotional. Another such work is the anonymous travel account ascribed to Egeria (381–84), which contains a description of services in Jerusalem. The work provides much information on liturgy in Jerusalem at the time. However, as a travel account it is not helpful for this particular region, unlike other sections of the journey.27 The account is different in tone from almost all that preceded it. “In the meanwhile, we were walking along between the mountains, and came to a spot where they opened out to form an endless valley – a huge plain and very beautiful – across which we could see Sinai, the holy Mount of God. … The valley lies under the flank of the Mount of God, and it really is huge.” (Trans. Wilkinson 1971: 91). 28 Searching for the grave of Job in the land of Uz (Ausitis): “I saw a valley running down to the river Jordan, remarkably beautiful and very well kept, and it was full of vines and trees because there was plenty of good water there above the bank of the river Jordan, a very fair and pleasant valley, abounding with vines and trees, for many very good streams were there.” (Wilkinson: 108) 29 “If you wish to see the water which flowed out of the rock, which Moses gave to the children of Israel when they were athirst, you can see it if you like to impose on yourselves the fatigue of going about six miles out of your way. When he said this we eagerly wished to go, and immediately diverging from our road, we followed the priest who led us.” (Trans. John Bernard 1896)

Like the Expositio, not far in date, this text contains more explicit terms of appreciation than previous (and later) geographical texts: the plain is “huge and very beautiful,” and the valley is “very fair and pleasant.” Emotion is not only the Holy Land. Specific studies: Klostermann 1966 [1904], vii–xxxiv; Noth 1943, 32–63; Barnes 1975, 412–15. See also my own contributions: 1996, 153–67; 1998a, 65–74; review article: Freeman-Grenville, Chapman, and Taylor 2003; Notley and Safrai 2005, Henoch 29/1 (2007), 167–72. See now Stenger 2016, 381–98. For Origen’s preceding work of a similar type, see references there on p.  393. 27  Text: Franceschini and Weber 1965, 37–103; English trans.: Wilkinson 1971; cf. Vikan 1991, 679. 28  CCSL 175, 37, I: Interea ambulantes pervenimus ad quondam locum, ubi se tamen montes illi, inter quos ibamus, aperiebant vallem infinitam, ingens, planissima et valde pulchram, et trans vallem apparetbat mons sanctus Dei Syna … II Vallis autem ipsa ingens est valde, iacens subter latus montis Dei. 29  With notes on pp.  2 20–21 and 281. CCSL 175, 54, XIII 2: in quo itinere hiens vidi super ripam fluminis Iordanis vallem pulchram satis et amenam, habundantem vineis et arboribus, quoniam aquae multe ibi errant et optimae satis.

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applied to scenery, but also to the traveler herself who remarks, for example, that “we eagerly wished to go.” The holy monks who received the pilgrims invariably did so “very kindly.” Wherever they travel, the pilgrims are satisfied that they found the biblical spots they are looking for (with the exception of the pillar that was Lot’s wife: “Believe me, venerable ladies, the pillar itself is not visible, only the place is shown”).30 The fourth century, then, first saw personal expressions of appreciation. The Expositio applies them to towns and their products, and the Itinerarium Egeriae contains explicit, personal emotions regarding nature and the writer’s own religious experience. This is by no means common in this period. The uniqueness of these two texts is confirmed by two final Late Roman texts to be presented here, of the fourth and early sixth centuries. Jerome’s work stands in no need of an introduction. Mention may be made of his Latin translation of Eusebius’s Onomasticon. The fact that he produced and updated the Onomasticon shows the degree to which he identified with its approach. Another work of his is a curious combination of a travel account with a hagiography. This is his Ep.  108, “The Pilgrimage of Paula,” 385–86.31 Susan Weingarten suggests that, in the form of an actual journey, Jerome “completes his Christian re-writing of the land by adding the spiritual aspects seen through the eyes of the saintly Paula – and the saintly Jerome” (2005: 251–59).32 And then she [sc. Paula] came to Joppa, the harbour from which Jonah had fled and also (if I may be permitted to mention a story from one of the poets) the place which witnessed Andromeda bound to the rock. Then, turning back along the way she had come, she reached Nicopolis (formerly called Emmaus), where the Lord made himself known to Cleophas in the breaking of bread, thus consecrating his House as a church.

Traditional reference to mythology is here combined with information of biblical interest.33 However we read these documents, it is a definite fact that the geographical texts and travel accounts related to Palestine changed in character when they became Christian. The biblical background, of both the Old and New Testament, is an essential frame of reference. Whereas we previously encountered historical facts, economical information, and references to myth, the Christian texts discuss distances but also focus on the religious significance of the sites. However, they represent no essential change in style, emotional content, or intellectual approach. We may cite one further source of later date in 30  CCSL 175, 53, XII 6: Sed mihi credite domine venerabiles, quia columna ipsa iam non paret, locus autem ipse tantum ostenditur. 31 Jerome, Ep.  108, ed. Hilberg, CSEL 55, p.31, for which see Weingarten 2005, chapter 4, esp. “Mental Maps and Real Maps,” pp.197–208. 32  Weingarten compares the realia in Jerome’s translation of the Onomasticon of Eusebius with those in Ep.  108. 33  Weingarten 231–35 argues that in this text there are elements of satire in the tradition of Lucilius and Horace, and she finds rhetorical construct in the description of ruined non-Christian cities (237–40).

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order to conclude that this aspect of geographical texts and travel accounts did not change until the seventh century. The following text shows the same characteristics as earlier Christian geographic descriptions, indicating locations and associated biblical information without featuring any subjective or personal elements like the ones we encountered in the pilgrimage of Egeria. From Jerusalem to Silo where the Ark of the Testament was, is nine miles. From Silo to Emmaus, which is now called Nicopolis is nine miles (from Jerusalem to Emmaus sixty-five stades), where Saint Cleophas recognized the Lord in the breaking of the bread; there too he suffered martyrdom. From Emmaus to Diospolis is twelve miles, there Saint George was martyred. His body is there too and many miracles take place there. From Diospolis to Ioppe is twelve miles; there St. Peter raised Tabitha and the whale cast up Jonah. From Joppe to Caesarea Palaestinae is thirty miles. … (6) From Jerusalem to Ramatha, where Samuel lies is five miles. (Theodosius, De Situ Terrae Sanctae 4 (early sixth century), CCSL 175; 116)

Thus far the texts examined dealt with the Near East and, more specifically, with Palestine. While a number of conclusions have been formulated, these are relevant only for travelers to this region. This is not meaningless for, clearly, it is significant to learn how Christian texts relate to the Holy Land. If, however, we want to gain an impression of Hellenistic and Roman geographical literature in a broader sense, then this is not enough. We need to ascertain, however briefly, whether the characteristics described so far apply to other regions as well. In Description of Greece, Pausanias (c. AD 110–c. 180) writes about ancient Greece based on first-hand observation. This is not just a topographical work; it represents cultural geography. Pausanias describes architectural and artistic objects and reviews the mythological and historical foundation of the society that produced them. Generally speaking, he passes historical judgement all throughout his extensive review of events in Greek history, religion, cult, and myth.34 When it comes to the objects he describes, he gives exhaustive historical information about them, yet hardly ever says more than that something is well worth seeing. The account is therefore almost exclusively factual. Sometimes he provides information about geography or nature, giving praise where he feels it is due. For instance: “The most noteworthy sight in the Peiraeus is a precinct of Athena and Zeus” (Attica 1.3).35 For obvious reasons he pays much attention to the works of Hadrian.36 34  E.g. 1.18.8 about the person of Isocrates, “whose memory is remarkable for three things: his diligence in continuing to teach to the end of his ninety-eight years, his self-restraint in keeping aloof from politics and from interfering with public affairs, and his love of liberty in dying a voluntary death, distressed at the news of the battle at Chaeronea.” 35  Cf. 5.4: “There is another statue, well worth seeing, of Pandion on the Acropolis.” Also: 18.8: the statue of Artemis Agrotera in Agrae; 28.2: Pheidias’s statue of Athena the Lemnian; 42.3: Memnon in Egypt. 36  E.g. 1.18.6; 18.9; 20.7; 18.9; 36.3.

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In Latin literature, a number of travel accounts appeared in verse form. The first was the journey to Sicily, the Iter Siculum, written by Lucilius (119–116 BC).37 To our knowledge, this verse-diary had no precedent in Greek or Latin literature (Niall Rudd 1986: 10). Only fragments are extant and the text is too far gone to give any clear impression of its content. It presumably represents a real journey and, like the genuine, non-literary itineraria, it systematically mentions distances (Frg. 4, 15, 16, 20). It is clear that Lucilius made the journey alone with his slaves (Frg. 23). Reference needs to be made to Horace’s satirical poem about his journey to Brindisi in 37 BC, the Iter Brundisinum, which clearly was related to – and inspired by – Lucilius’s poem.38 One difference is that Horace, unlike Lucilius, travels with others besides slaves. When approaching Terracina, Horace inserts a brief but surprisingly novel description of the site: “Then, having dined, we crawled on three miles; and arrived under Anxur, which is built upon rocks that look white to a great distance.”39 As Fraenkel notes, “This is not an entry in an itinerary; it is a colourful picture of the lovely town perched on its bright rocks and greeting from afar the travelers as they emerge from the swamps below. Perhaps it was the first time in the history of European poetry that so faithful and so suggestive a picture of a definite piece of landscape was given in a few words” (1957: 110). Fraenkel regards it as an innovation of Latin poetry, found also in Vergil (Georg. 3.14f). In other words, we have here an innovation within an innovative poem. The transformation of a traditional travel account into a satirical poem was Lucilius’s invention; the faithful description of nature in a poem was a novelty in Augustan poetry. On another level, the poem is full of well-known details about Horace’s physical problems and discomfort, such as his weak eyes and feeble constitution.40 This, then, is an exception proving the rule that geographic and travel description in this period would not contain suggestive descriptions of specific landscapes, which would have added a human dimension, and subjective comments or qualifications. Horace, after all, wrote a satirical poem, not a traditional travel account. Another satirical author who might be mentioned if there were space is Lucian, but again, his work is satire, not geography.

37  See Lucilius, Satires I (Charpin 1978, book 3, pp.  117–31); cf. Coffey 1976. See in general Gowers 2005. 38  See Horace, Satires I (Gowers 2012); cf. Fraenkel 1957, 105–12; Gowers’s earlier article, 1993, 48–66; Cucchiarelli 2002, 842–51. 39 5.25–6 (trans. Smart): subimus/impositum saxis late candentibus Anxur. Fraenkel, p.110. Gowers 2012, 192–93, agrees, but adds in her comments: “the scene’s human dimension is just as important.” 40  5.48–9 with Gowers’s comments, p.  199. Also: 5.7–8; 14–15; 30; 82–85. The next instance when a traveler mentions being ill is, as far as I know, Seusenius in the early seventeenth century (see above).

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A different genre, namely rhetoric, should also be mentioned briefly, again as providing an exception that proves the rule just stated. In 177 Aelius Aristides addressed to Marcus Aurelius a moving appeal requesting help in the reconstruction of the city of Smyrna, destroyed by an earthquake. The oration was instrumental in securing imperial funds for rebuilding. Proceeding from west to east, you go from temple to temple and from hill to hill, along a single avenue which is fairer than its name. As you stand on the Acropolis, beneath flows the sea and the suburbs ride at anchor. The city itself, interwoven with both, takes one’s breath away through three spectacles most fair, nor can one find a place where he might rest his eyes. …41 And when you have proceeded a little ways, the city is again visible as if it were escorting you, and here its beauty can more closely be counted and measured. (Smyrnean Orations 17.10; 17.17)

Aelius Aristides’s words moved the Emperor to tears42 and achieved the desired result of obtaining financial support. Obviously, such a text had different aims from those of works produced to convey factual geographic and historical information, either at home or for the traveler, who definitely had no wish to be moved to tears. In a treatise on epideictic rhetoric ascribed to Menander Rhetor (late third century), it is explicitly stated that praises of cities are actually a well-defined sub-genre in the rhetoric of his time: Praises of cities, then, are combinations of the headings discussed in connection with countries and those which relate to individuals. Thus we should select “position” from the topics relating to countries, and “origins, actions, accomplishments” from those relating to individuals. These form the basis of encomia of cities.43 (Treatise I. 346–47, trans. Russell and Wilson)

There is obviously no reason to discuss here yet another genre, that of the ancient novel which, by definition, is full of subjective observation.44 One final category which does not belong in the present discussion is the treatment of geography in historical works. There is a long-standing tradition in antiquity of inserting geographical excursus in historical treatises. A few famous examples 41  ἀπὸ ἑσπέρας μὲν πρὸς ἕω βαδίζων ἐκ νεώ τε εἰς νεὼν ἥξεις καὶ ἐκ κολωνοῦ πρὸς κολωνὸν δι᾽ ἑνὸς στενωποῦ καλλίονος ἢ κατὰ τοὔνομα. στάντι δὲ ἐπὶ τῆς ἀκροπόλεως ἡ μὲν θάλαττα ὑπορρεῖ, τὰ δὲ προάστεια ὑφορμεῖ· καταμιγνυμένη δὲ ἀμφοτέροις ἡ πόλις διὰ τριῶν τῶν ἡδίστων θεαμάτων ἐκχεῖ τὴν ψυχὴν, οὐδὲ ἔστιν εὑρεῖν οὗ τις ἐρείσει τὸν ὀφθαλμόν· ἕλκει γὰρ ἐφ᾽ ἑαυτὸ ἕκαστον ὥσπερ ἐν ὅρμῳ ποικίλῳ. 42 Philostratus, Lives of the Sophists 582. Cf. Demoen 2001, 103–26; Franco 2005. 43  Οἱ τοίνυν περὶ τὰς πόλεις ἔπαινοι μικτοί εἰσιν ἀπὸ κεφαλαίων τῶν περὶ χώρας εἰρημένων καὶ τῶν περὶ ἀνθρώπους. ἐκ μὲν γὰρ τῶν περὶ χώρας τὴν θέσιν ληπτέον, ἐκ δὲ τῶν περὶ ἀνθρώπους τὸ γένος, τὰς πράξεις, τὰς ἐπιτηδεύσεις· ἀπὸ γὰρ τούτων τὰς πόλεις ἐγκωμιάζομεν. See also Dio Chrysostom, “To the People of Alexandria,” Or. 32.37–38. 44  An obvious example is the description of Alexandria by Achilles Tatius, Leucippe and Cleitophon 5.1–2: “the splendid beauty of the city, which filled my eyes with delight.” For another encomium on Alexander and the foundation of Alexandria: Diodorus Siculus 17.52.

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include Herodotus on the Scythians (4.5–82); Sallust about Africa (BJ 17–18); Caesar about the Suebi (BG 4, 1–3); Josephus about Lake Gennesar (BJ 3.506– 21); Tacitus on the Jews (Hist. 5.1–13); and Ammianus about the Gauls, the Huns, and the Saracens (15.9; 31.2; 14.4). Such pieces are integrated into historical works and focus more on peoples than on physical setting. They may contain geographical information, but should not be considered geographical texts. We have seen that Greek and Roman geographical literature in its various forms – both in a broader framework, such as that provided by Strabo and Pliny, and in the narrower one that we encounter in the periploi or in the itineraries – focuses on factual information. Pausanias too is almost exclusively factual. This remains true in Christian texts which, in addition to providing distances, emphasize the religious significance of the sites. Eusebius’s Onomasticon is a work of scholarship and documentation, not an expression of religious devotion. We have encountered subjective, personal, and emotional elements, as distinct from other genres such as poetry, rhetoric, and historical treatises, in only two geographical texts. These exceptions are the Expositio Totius Mundi et Gentium and the itinerary of Egeria, both of the fourth century. The least this shows is that it was highly unusual, but not unthinkable, in the fourth century to insert aesthetics, the subjective, and the emotional into such texts, whether religious or secular.

Maps and Images We now move on to a very brief discussion of ancient maps and illustrations which, of course, unlike sixteenth-century works, were never printed. Ancient maps have been the topic of a multitude of discussions over the past decades.45 We may here limit ourselves to a brief mention of what we have: first and foremost the Tabula Peutingeriana.46 This is an illustrated itinerarium (road map) showing the road network in the Roman Empire and beyond – the only extant specimen of its kind. The map shows settlements, the roads connecting them, rivers, mountains, forests, and seas. The distances between the settlements are also given. The three most important cities of the Roman Empire, Rome, Constantinople, and Antioch, are represented with special vignettes. The table conveys the information contained in the itineraries described above. In other words, it is a visual variant of the textual itineraria. The map is based on extensive and genuine geographic and carthographic knowledge, but its shape – a long scroll – distorted topographic reality. When it was produced, Ptolemaic geo45 

See above, nn. 10, 22, 23. 2010 and the older work by Annalina and Mario Levi 1967; see now Rathmann 2016, 327–62, with additional bibliography on p.  342, n.  17. 46 Talbert

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graphical principles were available to carthographers: each point on a map is related to every other point in space in its correct relationship. This is the principle of a grid, still upheld. There are very few ancient maps apart from this unique specimen.47 The Madaba Mosaic Map contains the oldest surviving original cartographic depiction of Palestine and especially Jerusalem. It dates to the sixth century (542–70).48 It depicts the land as seen from the West, through a bird’s-eye view. We see some geographic features like water and hills, as well as important sites, villages, and towns, accompanied by explanatory text. Unlike the Peutinger Table, the map does not show roads. The settlements and towns are depicted in a manner resembling that of the Peutinger Table and, no less significantly, look like small-scale variants of the towns that appear on Byzantine mosaics in churches in the region.49 They show major identifiable buildings or groups of buildings, often looking down from above, at an angle. Such architectural features are never combined with representations of human beings, animals, or plants. This clearly represents an ancient tradition, for similar views are found in the illustrations inserted in the treatises of Roman land surveyors.50 Another genre that needs to be mentioned here is Roman wall painting, best known from Pompeii, which formed an integral part of architecture. These wall paintings depicted yet more architectural facades, through or over which distant vistas, mythological scenes, or even more depictions of architecture are displayed. Only very rarely do they include any identifiable features or representations of actual events. A unique exception is the portrayal, in the Casa di Actius Anicetus, of the riot that took place in the amphitheatre of Pompeii around 59AD, where the Pompeians and the Nucerians clashed. It shows the building, again from an upper angle. The most obvious natural feature in Pompeii, Mount Vesuvius, is hardly ever depicted; nor are the city fortifications and gates frequently represented. What we have here, in other words, are virtual façades and fantasy landscapes (Second and Fourth Style). Vignettes depicting grave monuments lining streets are amongst the very few local features to ap47  One early Greek map that has survived is found on the famous Artemidorus papyrus, for which, see Gallazzi, Kramer, and Settis 2008. This represents a map of Spain, dating to the first century BC. It is an important discovery because it proves that such maps existed at the time. If one is now known to have existed, it is possible, even likely, that there were more. From the mid-third century dates the well-known Dura-Europos Shield with a highly simplified map of the Euxine coast from Odessos to Pantikapaion; see Cumont 1925, 1–15 and pl. I; id. 1926, 323–27, Pls. CIX f.; Dilke 1985, 120–22; extensive treatment by Rebuffat 1986, 85– 105; cf. Brodersen 1995, 145–48. 48  Donner 1992; Donner and Cüppers 1977; Piccirillo 1989. Various internet sites show online all of what remains. 49  See Bowersock 2006. 50  Compiled in the fifth century. See Dilke 1971, opp. p.  152: Minturnae; opp.  155: Hispellum; cf. Dilke 1961, 417–26; Campbell 2000, illustrations on pp.  280–316.

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pear in the wall paintings, but it is quite likely that these images represent generic rather than actual, existing structures.51 Here we end our survey of the ancient material. We have seen that travel accounts and geographic texts concerning specific regions are remarkably free of personal and emotional elements, and do not normally contain individual observations on the nature of the land. Many of them are simple lists, giving place names and distances in a linear form. Others contain a wealth of information on topography, history, myth, imperial perspective, demography, ethnography, economy, religion (pagan or Christian), and culture. There was no tradition of adding maps to such texts. Missing altogether, furthermore, is any form of pictorial rendering accompanying Greek and Roman geographical descriptions or travel accounts. Since we, in our times, regard the features missing in antiquity as a matter of course in travel literature, it will be useful to trace the first appearance of those elements. The questions are then, first, when do we begin observing these missing elements in later literature and, second, when do we see pictorial additions appearing in combination with texts?

Travel Accounts, Maps, and Images after the Greeks and Romans Personal impressions and emotions first became part of travel accounts in the later Middle Ages. One of the earliest examples gives a good impression of what was then clearly a new style. [Leaving Jaffa] we traveled through a land truly flowing with milk and honey and we passed through Rama, a ruined city inhabited by Saracens, from where Saint George came in the time of the Greeks who then ruled the country. … The same day we came to Bettenobele [Beit Nuba], a village, the walls of which are destroyed, inhabited by Saracens. It is seven Gallic miles from Iopea or Iaf. The next day, which will be counted the happiest of my life, we climbed the mountains to Jerusalem. These are rather high, stony and very rough and, a remarkable thing, they produce much vine, olive and grain. There we saw many destroyed and abandoned villages and monasteries whose names I have forgotten, where religious men lived near their mother. (Wilbrandus de Oldenburg (1211–1212), ii 3, Peregrinatores Medii Aevi Quattuor, 184)

This is taken from an early thirteenth-century account of a pilgrim on his way from Jaffa to Jerusalem. The first point to note is the expression of strong personal emotions, for instance in the pilgrim’s comment on the fertility of the land, “flowing with milk and honey.” The ascent to Jerusalem is, for the author, “the happiest day of his life.” He describes the sad state of some villages and 51  Cartwright 2013: http://www.ancient.eu/article/597/, with limited bibliographical references; for extensive bibliography: M. Owen, “The False-Door: Dissolution and Becoming in Roman Wall-Painting”: http://creadm.solent.ac.uk/custom/rwpainting/cover/contentspage.html.

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monasteries, but also notes the productive cultivation of vine, olive, and grain. He describes natural features and the land as he actually saw it on his way to Jerusalem.52 This is not unique, as may be shown by a citation from another account, more than a century later. Going on from Assur [Arsuf], one comes to a very fair city, tolerably full of people even at this day, called Ascalon. Going on from Ascalon one comes to Joppa, an exceeding ancient and beauteous city standing on the sea-shore. … It is about two days’ journey distant from Jerusalem, but pilgrims are not able to land at the port. Inland, not far from Joppa, there stands a fair city, once called Ruma, but now called Bael [i.e. Ramle], situated in a most beauteous, pleasant, and delectable place, and inhabited by Christians alone. It is believed that no Jew or Saracen could live or dwell therein for more than a year. All the wine drunk by the Christians in Jerusalem and the other places is brought from hence. On the left hand side of this Ruma, or Bael, there stands a fair city, still well peopled, called Diospolis, or by another name, Lydda. In this city the glorious martyr St. George suffered martyrdom and was beheaded. There is an exceeding fair church, well adorned with mosaic work and marble, wherein, in the choir, the place of his beheading is shown.53

As in the previous passage, we notice a marked subjective, aesthetic appreciation of the character of the towns and their buildings. The author marks places as “pleasant” and enjoyable. The emphasis is on the nature of the towns and the churches, and there is, obviously, an interest in Christian history. Both passages are marked by a personal and emotional response to the land and its towns. Martinus Seusenius (1602/3), a Dutchman (from Leeuwarden in Friesland) provides personal details and facts not encountered in the works of earlier pilgrims.54 As we arrived in Iaffa … we had to enter caves of which there are about five … and where we spent our time until the evening, when many Turks and Moors came to see us, bringing water and eggs that we bought. … Iaffa, it seems, was in the past a splendid city [a note mentions Jona, Petrus’s visit, Lazarus, and Godfrey of Bouillon] … but nowadays it is not more than four or five open caves which, it seems, were at the time warehouses belonging to the merchants. On the cliff-like and stony hill are two square watchtowers, the one in the direction of Egypt is thicker and taller. (Seusenius 22–24)

These are Seusenius’s words about Jaffa. Later he mentions being ill – like Horace in an earlier period. He passes the “Temple of Jeremiah” (the crusader church of Abu Ghosh), where there was a clash with local people who demand52  At another level, there is an error: he confuses Ramle with Lydda in naming the former as the place of origin of St. George. 53  Ludolph de Suchem (1336–1350), Ludolphi de Itinere Terrae Sanctae Liber, ed. Deycks 1851, 92–93; English trans.: PPTS 1895, 122. 54  “Martinus Seusenius’ Reise in das heilige Land im Jahre 1602/3”, Mühlau 1903, 1–92, at 20–25. The title of the publication is in German, but the text is Dutch interspersed with Germanisms. The translations are mine.

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ed payment of toll. They were protected by archers who accompanied them from Ramle. Furthermore, he describes crossing a stone bridge under which “there was no water,” where David defeated Goliath. This clearly is the old Roman bridge near Motza.

Illustrations The sixteenth-century work of Zuallart is the first publication to combine the description of a journey with illustrations that are, definitively, the first published drawings made on the spot, faithfully rendering topographical and architectural features as well as people moving through the landscape.

Fig.  1:  The first illustration is a view of Jaffa from the sea. It is the work of Zuallart, who visited the country in 1586, fifteen years before Seusenius, while he actually was mayor of the town of Ath in Hainaut, in modern Belgium.55 In the foreground, a ship is seen at 55  G. Zuallardo, Il devotissimo viaggio de Gerusalemme (Rome 1587), p.107 = Jean Zuallart, Le Tresdevot Voyage de Jerusalem (Antwerpen 1608), no page numbers. Zuallart’s images are often reproduced in books of the seventeenth century, e.g. by Cotovicus (Kootwijk), who also copied large sections of Zuallart’s text (without acknowledgment): J. Cotovicus, Itinerarium Hierosolymitanum et Syriacum (Antwerpen 1619), and by George Sandys, A Relation of a Journey Begun Anno Dom. 1610 (London 1615), who reproduced them second-hand from Cotovicus.

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anchor, too large to enter the small port with its breakwater. In the port smaller ships are visible. Near the shore are caves, ancient warehouses in fact, accurately rendered, described by Seusenius as the location where he and his companions were kept imprisoned until they were allowed to continue their journey. The town is totally ruined and depicted correctly as lying on a cliff. On the hill two square towers are visible, the remains of a crusader fortress. These towers fit Seusenius’s description, which also notes that the town is ruined.

Fig.  2 :  Even today it is easy to recognize in this sixteenth-century illustration the village now called Abu Ghosh with its crusader church, as seen from the north-west. The road is shown curving around the church, which is called S.Hieremia (as was usual in this period, before the construction of the modern monastery). Pilgrims are riding past, and archers are seen shooting at them, precisely as textually described by Seusenius (Zuallardo 1587: 120).

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Fig.  3 :  Vallis Terebinthi is again easily recognizable as the valley of Motza, seen from the south-east. The topography is well rendered, depicting the point where Nahal Soreq, Nahal Arzah, and Nahal Loz converge. The hilltop covered by the village named “Colonia” is shown. The old Roman bridge crosses the Soreq56 and behind it we see the little Crusader fort, its masonry faithfully rendered. To the right, the spring is marked as “fons” (Zuallardo 1587: 121).

These three drawings all give recognizable and reasonably accurate representations of what a traveler to the Holy Land would see upon arrival and in the course of the journey from Jaffa to Jerusalem. They may not look remarkable to a modern critic, but there is good reason to pay respectful attention to them, for they are, to my knowledge, the first published drawings made on the spot, faithfully rendering topographical and architectural features – an achievement frequently overlooked by those who compare Zuallart’s work with that of later, more accomplished illustrators.57

56 

Cf. Seusenius, p.  26: “Danach sijn wij gereden over eine steinen brugge.” instance, Robinson states: “though having little merit, they became very popular” (1841, Appendix I, p.  15). More recently the French Wikipedia entry still says of Zuallart’s illustrations: “Elles n’ont rien de remarquable et ne peuvent donner une idée des objets qu’elles représentent.” Both miss the essential novelty of the publication. Mention should also be made honoris causa of the map of Jerusalem of the late fifteenth century by Bern. de Breydenbach (1483–1484), Sancta peregrinatio in montem Syon (Spira 1502), no page numbers. Cf. Harvey 1980, 82f; Rohricht 1901, 129–35; Oehme 1951, 70–83. 57  For

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Interestingly, a similar development took place in Japan much later with Hiroshige’s work, notably his woodcut series The Fifty-Three Stations of the To¯kaido¯ (1833–1834). The designs were drawn at least in large part from Hiroshige’s actual travels, including details of date and location. They immediately became immensely popular. The prints depict travelers along famous routes, during all seasons, passing through the various stops along the way.58

Conclusions There is no tradition antedating the sixteenth century portraying reality as seen on the spot by a traveler, which would include buildings, their environment, animals, and human beings. By the same token, in geographical texts and travel accounts we do not encounter subjective, personal, and emotional elements apart from a few exceptional texts of the fourth century. These moreover have very little in common with each other. Finally, there is no proof that there existed any ancient texts with integrated maps or even sketch maps.59 Is there a lesson to be learned from this? It is clear from other genres mentioned above – poetry, satire, rhetoric, and fiction – that Greek and Latin literature might include subjective, personal, and emotional elements in the description of journeys and foreign places. Apparently, travel accounts and geographical documentation were not regarded as suitable instruments for entertainment or for conveying personal impressions of foreign peoples in their environment; they were only expected to make facts and useful knowledge available. The limitations of ancient illustrations, maps, and images will in part be due to the absence of printing technology or other means of easy mass-distribution, and to the lack of modern cartographical expertise, but that can only be part of the reason. Anyone who has ever looked at Pompeian wall paintings knows that Romans could paint landscapes; those paintings, however, were apparently not an art regarded as useful or desirable for the depiction of visual reality in a foreign environment, where facts and practical information were required. Traveling in foreign lands was for Greeks and Romans an earnest undertaking, requiring serious, factual documentation.

58 

See e.g. van Gulik 1994, 111; Forrer 1997, 17–19. treatises of the Roman land surveyors form an exception, easily explained by the purpose of these works. 59  The

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Works Cited Barnes, Timothy. 1975. “The Composition of Eusebius’ Onomasticon” JTS n.s. 26: 412– 15. Beagon, Mary. 1992. Roman Nature: The Thought of Pliny the Elder. Oxford: Clarendon. van Berchem, Denis. 1934. “Les origines de l’Itinéraire d’Antonin et ses rapports avec les édits relatifs à la perception de l’ annone.” BSAF: 172 ff. –. 1973. “L’Itinéraire Antonin et le voyage en Orient de Caracalla (214–215).” CRAI 117: 123–27. Bowersock, Glen W. 2006. Mosaics as History: The Near East from Late Antiquity to Islam. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bowman, Glen. 1998. “Mapping History’s Redemption: Eschatology and Topography in the Itinerarium Burdigalense.” In Jerusalem: Its Sanctity and Centrality to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, ed. Lee I. Levine. New York: Continuum, pp.  163–87. Brodersen Kai. 1995. Terra Cognita. Studien zur römischen Raumerfassung. Spudasmata 59. Hildesheim: Georg Olms. –. 2002. “Geographical Knowledge in the Roman World.” In Travel and Geography in the Roman Empire, ed. Colin Adams and Ray Laurence. London: Routledge, pp.  7–21. –. 2016. “The Geography of Pliny and his ‘Ape’ Solinus.” In Brill’s Companion to Ancient Geography (online source), ed. Serena Bianchetti, Michele. R. Cataudella, and Hans-Joachim Gehrke. Leiden: Brill, pp.  298–312. Campbell, Brian. 2000. The Writings of the Roman Land Surveyors. London: Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies. Cartwright, Mark. 2013. “Roman Wall Painting.” In Ancient History Encyclopedia. Last modified August 11, 2013. http://www.ancient.eu /article/597, with limited bibliographical references. For extensive bibliography: M. Owen, “The False-Door: Dissolution and Becoming in Roman Wall-Painting”: http://creadm.solent.ac.uk/custom/ rwpainting/cover/contentspage.html Clarke, Katherine. 1999. Between Geography and History: Hellenistic Constructions of the Roman World. Oxford: Clarendon. Coffey, Michael. 1976. Roman Satire. London: Methuen. Corpus Inscriptionum Iudaeae/Palaestinae vol.  3 : The South Coast, ed. Walter Ameling et al. Berlin: de Gruyter. Cotovicus, Johannes. 1619. Itinerarium Hierosolymitanum et Syriacum. Antwerp: Hieronymus Verdussius. Counillon, Patrick. 2004. Pseudo-Skylax: le Périple du Pont-Euxin. Texte, traduction, commentaire philologique et historique. Scripta Antiqua 8. Bordeaux: Ausonius. Cucchiarelli, Andrea. 2002. “Iter satriricum: le voyage à Brindes et la satire d’Horace.” Latomus 61: 842–51. Cumont, Franz. 1925. Syria: revue d’art Oriental et d’archéologie, VI. Paris: Geuthner. –. 1926. Fouilles de Doura Europos, 1922–1923. Paris: Geuthner. Cuntz, O., ed. 1990 [1929]. Itineraria Romana, Vol. I. Leipzig: Teubner. de Breydenbach, Bernhard. 1502. Sancta peregrinatio in Montem Syon. Spira: Petrus Drach. Demoen, Kristoffel. 2001. “‘Où est ta beauté qu’admiraient tous les yeux?’ La ville détruite dans les traditions poétique et rhétorique.” In The Greek City from Antiquity

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to the Present: Historical Reality, Ideological Construction, Literary Representation, ed. Kristoffel Demoen. Leuven: Peeters, pp.  103–26. Deycks, Ferdinand, ed. 1851. De Itinere Terrae Sanctae Liber. Stuttgart: Harvard College Library. Dilke, Oswald Ashton Wentworth. 1961. “Maps in the Treatises of the Roman Land Surveyors.” The Geographical Journal 127: 417–26. –. 1971. The Roman Land Surveyors: An Introduction to the Agrimensores. Newton Abbot: David and Charles. –. 1985. Greek and Roman Maps. London: Thames and Hudson. Donner, Herbert. 1992. The Mosaic Map of Madaba: An Introductory Guide. Kampen: Kok Pharos. –, and Heinz Cüppers. 1977. Die Mosaikkarte von Madeba. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz. Dueck, Daniela, with a chapter by K. Brodersen. 2012. Geography in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. –. 2000. Strabo of Amaseia: A Greek Man of Letters in Augustan Rome. London: Routledge. Forrer, Matthi. 1997. Hiroshige: Prints and Drawings. Munich: Prestel. Fraenkel, Eduard. 1957. Horace. Oxford: Clarendon. Franceschini, E., and R. Weber (eds.). 1965. Itineraria et alia geographica. Corpus Christianorum: Series Latina vol.  175–6. Turnhout: Brepols, pp.  29–103: Itinerarium Egeriae. Franco, Carlo. 2005. Elio Aristide e Smirne. Rome: Bardi. Freeman-Grenville, G. S. P., Rupert L. Chapman III, and Joan E. Taylor. 2003. The Onomasticon by Eusebius of Caesarea. Jerusalem: Carta. Gallazzi, Claudio, B. Kramer and Salvatore Settis, eds. 2008. Il papiro di Artemidoro (P. Artemid.). Milan: Teubner. Geyer, Paul, and O. Cuntz, eds. 1965. Itineraria et alia geographica. Corpus Christianorum: Series Latina, vol.  175–6. Turnhout: Brepols, pp.  1–26: Itinerarium Burdigalense. Gowers, Emily. 1993. “Horace Satires 1.5: An Inconsequential Journey.” PCPS 39: 48– 66. –. 2005. “The Restless Companion: Horace Satires 1 and 2.” In The Cambridge Companion to Roman Satire, ed. Kirk Freudenberg. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. –, ed. 2012. Horace: Satires Book I. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. van Gulik, W. R. 1994. Japanse prenten, een handleiding voor verzamelaars. Lochem. Harley, J. Brian, and David Woodward. 1987. The History of Cartography, vol. I. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Harvey, Paul D. A. 1980. The History of Topographical Maps: Symbols, Pictures and Surveys. London: Thames and Hudson. Hunt, Edward David. 1980. Holy Land Pilgrimage in the Later Roman Empire, AD 312–460. Oxford: Clarendon. Isaac, Benjamin. 1992. The Limits of Empire: The Roman Army in the East. Oxford: Clarendon. –. 1996. “Eusebius’ Onomasticon and the Geography of Roman Provinces.” In The Roman Army in the East, ed. D. Kennedy. Ann Arbor: Journal of Roman Archaeology, Supplementary Series 18, pp.  153–67.

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–. 1998a. “Jews, Christians and Others in Palestine: The Evidence from Eusebius.” In Jews in a Graeco-Roman World, ed. Martin Goodman. Oxford: Clarendon, pp.  65–74. –. 1998b. “The Babatha Archive.” Reprint in Isaac, Benjamin. The Near East under Roman Rule: Selected Papers. Mnemosyne Supplements 177. Leiden: Brill, pp.  159–81. –. Forthcoming. “Judaea after 70: Delegation of Authority?” In Yavne Revisited, ed. P. Tomson and J. Schwartz. Compendia Rerum Iudaicarum ad Novum Testamentum. Leiden: Brill. Klostermann, Erich, ed. 1966 [1904]. Das Onomastikon der biblischen Ortsnamen. Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur 152. Hildesheim: Georg Olms. Levi, Annalina, and Mario. 1967. Itineraria picta: contributo allo studio della tabula Peutingeriana. Rome: L’erma di Bretschneider. Lucilius. 1978. Satires I, ed. F. Charpin. Paris: Les Belles Lettres. Marchetti, Sandra C. 1991. Plinio il Vecchio e la tradizione del moralismo romano. Biblioteca materiali analisti test clas 9. Pisa: Giardini. Matthews, John. 2006. The Journey of Theophanes: Travel, Business, and Daily Life in the Roman East. New Haven: Yale University Press. Murphy, Trevor. 2004. Pliny the Elder’s Natural History: The Empire in the Encyclopedia. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mühlau, Ferdinand, ed. 1903. “Martinus Seusenius’ Reise in das heilige Land im Jahre 1602/3.” ZDPV 26: 1–92. Noth, Martin. 1943. “Die topographischen Angaben im Onomasticon des Eusebius.” ZDPV 66: 32–63. Notley, R. Steven, and Ze’ev Safrai. 2005. Eusebius, Onomasticon: A Triglott Edition with Notes and Commentary. Jewish and Christian Perspectives Series 9. Leiden: Brill. Oehme, Ruthardt. 1951. “Die Palästinakarte aus Bernhard von Breitenbachs Reise in das Heilige Land.” Aus der Welt des Buches 75: 70–83. Piccirillo, Michele. 1989. Chiese e mosaici di Madaba. Studium Biblicum Franciscanum. Collectio Maior 34. Jerusalem: Franciscan Printing Press. Prontera, Francesco. 2016. “Strabo’s Geography.” In Brill’s Companion to Ancient Geography: The Inhabited World in Greek and Roman Tradition, ed. Serena Bianchetti, Michele. R. Cataudella, and Hans-Joachim Gehrke. Leiden: Brill (online), pp.  239–58. Rathmann, Michael. 2016. “The Tabula Peutingeriana and Antique Geography.” In Brill’s Companion to Ancient Geography. ed. Serena Bianchetti, Michele R. Cataudella and Hans-Joachim Gehrke. Leiden: Brill (online), pp.  327–62. Rebuffat, René. 1986. “Le bouclier de Doura.” Syria 63: 85–105. Rohricht, Reinhold. 1901. “Die Palästinakarte Bernhaard von Breitenbachs.” ZDPV 24: 129–35. Rudd, Niall. 1986. Themes in Roman Satire. London: Duckworth. Salway, Benet. 2001. “Travel, itineraria and tabellaria.” In Travel and Geography in the Roman Empire, ed. Ray Adams and Colin Laurence. London: Routledge, pp.  22–66. Sandys, George. 1615. A Relation of a Journey Begun Anno Dom. 1610. London: W. Barrett. Shipley, Graham. 2011. Pseudo-Skylax’s Periplous: The Circumnavigation of the Inhabited World. Exeter: Bristol Phoenix. Stenger, Jan R. 2016. “Eusebius and the Reproduction of the Holy Land.” Brill’s Companion to Ancient Geography: The Inhabited World in Greek and Roman Tradition,

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There and Back Again: A Journey to Ashkelon and Its Intertexts in Yerushalmi Sanhedrin 4:6 (=Hagigah 2:2)* Amit Gvaryahu Every place is accompanied by its own set of etiologies, origin-stories, local histories, urban myths, folklore, rumors, and gossip. A story about a journey is also about transitioning between different narratives and modes of being. In this essay I discuss one such story, about a lonely disciple from Ashkelon, a rabbinic figure named Shimʿon b. Shatah ̣, and forty witches. It is a strange story, found only in the Palestinian Talmud. Its textual tradition is complex, it contains a host of obscure characters, and for rabbinic literature it is uncharacteristically long.1 The story is significantly comprised of both a one-way journey and roundtrip one, each drawing on a different travel narrative in the Hebrew scriptures.2 This essay will explore the nexus of the rabbinic journey narrative with the scriptural one, and discuss the ways in which the rabbinic story uses and reshapes the scriptural accounts to tell the story of the patriarchy of one of the founding fathers of the rabbinic movement. The authors of this rabbinic story, I claim, used biblical motifs and characters as models for tales about their own, and drew on a large repository of traditions relating to their characters, which can and should be reconstructed from else*  This article is an extensive reworking of a paper presented at Prof. Marc Hirshman’s seminar on biographies in Jewish and Christian literatures of late antiquity in 2009. I thank Prof. Hirshman for his encouragement and feedback, and Prof. Maren Niehoff for inviting me to present at Journeys in the Roman East. I discussed this story in 2010 with Prof. Dina Stein in Stockholm, when we were both at Paideia: the European Institute for Jewish Studies in Stockholm. She also graciously read a draft of this article and provided valuable input, which I am grateful for. Yedidah Koren also read a draft and, as usual, provided invaluable comments and insights. 1  The Bavli likely alludes to a version of this story in b. San. 44b, calling it        . ‫מעשה דבעיא מוכסא‬ Both Rashi ad loc. and R. Paltoi Gaon (Roth 1955–1956) have versions of the story clearly based on the Yerushalmi version but simplified and condensed. 2  The story also bears interesting similarities to the narrative flow of Vergil’s Aeneid book 6. Both stories feature a calamity and descent to the underworld, after which the protagonist is equipped with knowledge and conviction for battle against women. Both give legitimacy and context to the current order by casting a mythical forbearer at their center (I intend to expand on this parallel in an extended version of this paper).

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where in rabbinic literature. To read this story with both its biblical and its rabbinic intertexts in mind is to not only provide a richer reading of it but also to remain more faithful to the intentions of its creators who thus portrayed themselves and their own as heirs of Moses, the “elders,” and the “prophets” (m. Avot 1:1) not only in name but in deed.3 I begin with a translation of the story in full: Yerushalmi Sanhedrin 6:44 [a] There are those who recite [in the Mishnah, m. Hag. 2:2]: “Judah b. Tabai was patriarch.” There are those who recite “Shimʿon b. Shatah ̣ was patriarch.” […] He who says Shimʿon b. Shatah ̣ was patriarch is aided by the story of Ashkelon: [b] There were two students [h: pious men] in Ashkelon, they ate together, and drank together, and labored in Torah together. One of them died and no respects were paid to him. The fat tax-collector died, and the entire city ceased work to pay their respects. [c] The student cried and said: woe, perhaps there is nothing for the haters of Israel [i.e. for Israel].5 [A vision] was shown in his dream, and said: son, do not slander your Master. This one performed one righteous act (lit: credit) and “went” by it, and this one performed one sin (lit: debt) and “went” by it. And what was his debt? God forbid, he performed no sins in his life, but one time he put on the head-phylactery before the hand-phylactery. And what was the credit of the fat tax-collector? God forbid, he performed no commandments in his life. But one time he hosted ariston for the bouleutai [i.e. breakfast for the council] and they did not come. He said: let the poor come and eat it, so it does not spoil [h: so it does not go to waste]. There are those who say: he was walking along the way and there was a loaf of dried figs under his arm. It fell and a poor man took it, but he said nothing – so as not to redden his face [i.e. to shame him]. [d] And he saw the other student in gardens, and orchards, and springs of water. And he saw the fat tax-collector standing on the riverbank, trying to bring in water but not succeeding. [e] And he saw Miriam of the onion leaves hanging by the nipples of her breasts, and some say the [h adds: hinges of ] the gate of hell placed in her ear. He said [h adds: why is this so? They said to him: because she would fast and tell her neighbors. And some say she would fast one day and deduct two from her vow. He said]: 6 until when will she be like this? [f] They said to him: until Shim‘on b. Shatah. will come, and they will lift it from her ear and put it in his ear. He said to them: and what is his sin? They said to him: for he 3  In this I follow in the footsteps of contemporary scholars of Aggadah. For a survey of scholarship and discussion see Rubenstein 1999, 8–15; Rubenstein 2009. 4  With variants from Yerushalmi Ḥagigah 2:2, marked h and italicized, both from MS Leiden, Scaliger 3. The end of the story in h diverges widely from the Sanhedrin version and I presented both versions side by side in two columns. The beginning of the story also appears in a fragmented copy of Yerushalmi Sanhedrin, published by Assis 1976. For a short discussion of the textual tradition of this story see Moscovitz 1991, 535–38. The beginning of the sugiya is a discussion of the text of m. Hag. 2:2, and it ends by pointing out that the story is an etiology for the law in m. San. 6:4. 5  This is a euphemistic substitution, common in rabbinic literature. 6  This omission is likely due to homoioteleuton. It is found in the fragment published by Assis 1976.

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took a vow and said: “If I become patriarch, I will kill all the witches. And now he has become patriarch and has not killed them, and there are eighty women in the cave of Ashkelon destroying the world.” Go and tell him. [g] He said: he is a great man [h: a patriarch] and will not believe me. They said to him: he is very humble and will believe you. But if he does not believe you, take your eye out and put it in your hand. He took his eye out and put it in his hand. They said: it returned and was equal to the other eye. [h] He went and told him. He wanted to perform the sign before him. [But] he said to him: you do not need to. I know you are a pious man. However, I thought it in my heart, but did not say it with my mouth. [i] [h adds: immediately Shim‘on b. Shatah. stood] and it was a cloudy day. He took eighty young men wearing clean clothes, and took with them eighty new pots. He said: when I whistle, wear your clothes. And when I whistle again, enter. [h adds: and when you enter each one of you will push one and lift her from the ground. For the deeds of these witches when you lift them off the ground can do nothing]. [j] When he came to the cave of Ashkelon, he said: Ave, ave (i.e. Hail, hail), open up for me, I am one of you. [h adds: they said to him: how did you come here on a day like this? He said: I walked between the raindrops. They said to him: And what have you come to do here? He said: learn and teach. Each one of us will do what they know.] When he came in, one said what she said and brought bread. One said what she said and brought a stew. One said what she said and brought wine. [k] They said to him: what can you do? He said: I can whistle two times and bring here eighty choice men wearing clean clothes, they will be happy and make you happy. They said to him: We want them. [l] When he whistled, they wore clean clothes. When he whistled again, they all entered at once. h: he said: each He signaled to them: each one of you will take one (of the witches) one who comes and lift her off the ground, and what she does will not succeed. in will recognize [m] And he said to the one who brought bread: bring bread! But she his partner, and did not. And he said: take her to be hung. And he said to the one they raised them who brought stew: bring stew! But she did not. And he said: take up and went and her to be hung. And he said to the one who brought wine: bring wine! But she did not. And he said: take her to be hung. This is crucified them. what he did to all of them. [n] And this is what we recite [in the Mishnah, m. San. 6:4]: “Shim‘on b. Shatah. hung eighty witches in Ashkelon, although we do not judge two on one day, but the hour required it.”

The story begins in Ashkelon, with two pious students. One of them dies but is not paid proper funereal honors, and those are paid instead to a “fat tax-collector.”7 This seems unfair to the surviving student, whose complaints are quelled first by a theodicizing explanation of the nature of divine rewards and punish7  This is Lieberman’s reading of the obscure ‫בר מועין מוכסא‬. It is definitely not a proper name (Lieberman 1974). A plausible speculation might be to read the “death of the tax collector” as a figurative allusion to a civic festival of some kind, perhaps commemorating a remission of taxes for Roman Ashkelon. (A. H. M. Jones states that Ascalon was made a colony with Gaza, in the late third century [1971, 464 n.  73]. Fergus Millar contends that Ascalon was likely never made a colony because no colonial coins have been found [1993, vol.  3, pp.  218–19, n.  211]).

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ments in this world, and then by a vision of the resting-place of the souls in which the student is happy and the tax collector is not. 8 However, in this resting-place, the student sees another character, Miriam of the Onion Leaves. There are diverging traditions on the exact torturous position she was found in and the reasons she was placed where she was. According to one opinion, she was standing at the gate of Hell. The student inquires as to the length of her stay, and the authorities tell him that she is waiting for Shimʿon b. Shatah ̣ who promised, if appointed patriarch, to kill all the witches – yet failed to do so. There are, in fact, eighty witches in a cave in Ashkelon “destroying the world.” The student is instructed to reach out to Shimʿon. To enhance his trustworthiness, he is given a sign to perform in front of Shimʿon as a token of his veracity. He is given the ability to extract his eyeball and hold it in his hand – and then to return it, fully functioning, to its socket. When the student reaches Shimʿon and tells him all of this, Shimʿon says he does not need the sign, and that although he did not take a real oath – he thought about it but did not say it out loud – he is willing to kill the witches. He then goes to the aforementioned cave, where he defeats the witches by tricking them into thinking he is one of them: when they conjure up food and wine for a party, he summons eighty young men whom he had planted outside of the cave in clay pots. These men, whom the witches explicitly ask for, are their demise: they pick up the witches, severing them from their chthonic source of power, and take them away to be hanged. The Talmud connects this story with the tradition in the Mishnah (m. San. 6:4) that Shimʿon b. Shatah ̣ “hanged women in Ashkelon … he hung eighty women, although we do not hang two on one day, but the hour required it.” The last four words, italicized, are not found in the Mishnah, but are added to it, in various permutations, in some traditions, the earliest of which is the Tannaitic Sifre Deuteronomy.9 Shimʿon b. Shatah ̣ is a rabbi associated with several decrees that the rabbinic movement chose to situate in a not-too-distant past: the impurity of metalware or glassware, for example, or the deferred payment of the dowry.10 Elsewhere in the Talmudic tradition Shimʿon is cast as a representative of the rabbinic norma8  For the death of a Ḥasid see Micha 7:1–2: “The good man (‫ )חסיד‬is perished out of the earth: and there is none upright (‫ )ישר‬among men.” The image of summer as a time of death in that verse might be contrasted with the rainy day on which Shimʿon took the witches to task. This verse is also cited in m. Sot. 9:9, in connection with the death of two rabbis roughly contemporaneous with Shimʿon. 9  The addition is found in Sifre Deut. 121, ed. Finkestein, 253, y. Hag. 2:2 (but not in the base text of MS Leiden, Scaliger 3), and the “hybrid” text of Meg. Taan., ed. Noam, 93. It is also alluded to in b. San. 56a. 10  Deferred dowry payments: t. Ket. 12:1 and parallels. See Epstein 1927, 19–24. Impurity of metalware: y. Shab. 1:4, 3d = y. Pes. 1:6, 27d, b. Shab. 14b. Impurity of Glassware: y. Ket. 8:8, 32c, which adds that Shimʿon also instituted mandatory school attendance for boys.

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tive tradition, standing up to figures who wield power in other spheres, like the Hasmonean King Yannai in the political realm, and Ḥoni the Roofer, a holy man who demands that God bring rain.11 In the rabbinic memory, Shimʿon is a founding figure, and reading our story in light of this aspect of his character suggests that it, too, could be read as an origin narrative.12 The successful battle of Shimʿon against practitioners of magic and Miriam of the Onion Leaves are a foundational moment of his patriarchy. In claiming this I follow Dina Stein in a recent article (2014) on this story. The context of the story is also significant in reading it as an origin story. The tale is presented as a comment on the Mishnah (m. Hag. 2:1), which lists pairs of early Tannaim who disputed the question of laying hands on sacrifices on festivals. This rather obscure dispute is an opportunity for the Talmuds to aggregate traditions about the founding fathers of the rabbinic movement. The story is about the first moments of Shimʿon’s tenure as patriarch (nasiʾ) which, the story tells us, might have been very short. The success of his patriarchy hinges on the outcome of this story.13 Gideon Bohak quoted this story in his Jewish Magic in Antiquity simply to show how different it was from all other rabbinic stories on encounters between Rabbis and practitioners of magic (2008: 394–95). Stein also strongly distinguishes this story from the other agonistic stories of Rabbis and magicians in rabbinic literature. In that corpus, studied by Joshua Levinson (2010), Rabbis are simply good magicians, besting the evil magicians at their own game. But in our story, Shim‘on eschews magic, opting, instead, for trickery. Most readers of this story assumed that its two parts were originally separate stories, and that they were artificially connected. They were thus content in discussing only one story or the other. The first story – a moralistic tale explaining that things in this world are only illusions compared to the truth of the next world – was included in many collections of Jewish moral tales in the middle ages. It was also intensively discussed in the context of retribution, the afterlife, and theodicy, compared with works such as The Apocalypse of Peter, the Lukan parable of Dives and Lazarus, and an Egyptian parable of Setme and Si-Osiris.14 11  On Yannai and Shimʿon see Josephus A.J. 14.171–76 and b. San. 19a–b with Schwartz 1990, 174–75; Kahana 2003, 283–84. On Shimʿon and Honi see m. Taan. 4:3 with Goldin 1963, Ben-Pazi 2003, Simon-Shoshan 2013. “The roofer” is the proper translation of ha-meʿagel: cf. m. Mak. 2:1. 12  For this term, see e.g. Jacqueline Simpson and Steve Roud. “Origin stories.” In A Dictionary of English Folklore: http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/97801986 07663.001.0001/acref-9780198607663-e-770. 13  And a successful patriarchy it was, at least in the rabbinic memory. See e.g. Sifra, behukotai 1:2, ed. Weiss, 110b. 14  For the story of Setme and Si-Osiris, ostensibly the oldest version of these stories, see Lichtheim 2006, vol. III, 138–51. The earliest comparative treatment of our story is Gressmann 1918. For the Lukan parable of Lazarus and the rich man see Hock 1987; Bauckham 1991; Genz 2015. For the apocalypse of Peter see Lieberman 1974; Himmelfarb 1985; Brem-

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The second story, which presents itself as a historical narrative with a touch of fantasy, has been discussed by historians and scholars of Jewish magic.15 Few have attempted to read the story as one literary artifact.16 Dina Stein convincingly shows that two parts of the story – before and after the appearance of Miriam of the Onion Leaves – are paralleled in reverse: the student and the tax collector go into the earth, but Shimʿon brings the witches out of the earth and suspends them above it. Divine justice is muddled at the beginning of the story, but everything is set straight at the end. “The story of Shimʿon ben Shatah ̣ situates its protorabbinic protagonist in proximity to a biblical forefather,” writes Stein (435). But who are Shimʿon’s biblical forefathers?17 I suggest that two biblical parallels can illuminate this baffling story, and also strengthen the arguments for the essential unity of this entire narrative. Both these intertexts are journey narratives, and they highlight the importance of the journey as a literary device in the story. They will make the case for reading it as an origin story focused on the intersection of two journeys. In order to explain the relevance of these biblical parallels, however, I must first make some sense of the geography of the story. It begins, clearly, in Ashkelon.18 The people of this city care little for accompanying sages or pious men to their graves, but are highly respectful of the tax collectors. It ends in Ashkelon as well: the witches are in a cave or burial chamber “of Ashkelon.” The figure of Miriam of the Onion Leaves, situated in the netherworld, is puzzling. The fact that the student/pious man recognizes her, and that the audience is meant to as well, indicates that this was a name with some significance. Miriam is not, however, found anywhere else in rabbinic literature and her identity is a quandary. Unravelling the meaning of this name begins with the onion leaves. Ashkelon was famous for its onions from classical times.19 But they were not just any onions. As Theophrastus notes, Cepa Ascalonium – “the Ashkelon onion” or scallion, is the only kind of onion which does not grow from its bulb, but merely grows leaves and is harvested quickly.20 Miriam of the Onion Leaves, i.e. “of the mer 1998; Bremmer 2003; Tigchelaar 2003; Bremmer 2009. For a recent comparative discussion, see Genz 2015, 226–27. For a short discussion of this story in the context of Jewish magic, see Bohak 2008, 394–95; Harari 2010, 292–94. For a discussion of later versions of this part of the story in medieval Jewish literature, see Kushelevsky 2010, 53. 15  See Efron 1970; Safrai 2001; Ilan 2001; Fuks 2000. 16  Stein notes two other studies which discuss the story as a whole: Amir 1992; Folder 2007. See Stein 2014, 415, n.  8. 17  Stein, following Efron, offers Phineas as a possible parallel. I think the links to Phineas are weak and uncharacteristic of Shimʿon’s character as a judge. 18  For an introduction on the geography and history of ancient Ashkelon, and a collection of the inscriptions found there, see Ameling et al. 2014, 237–52. 19 Theophrastus Historia Plantarum 7.4.6–8. See also Strabo 16.2.29. 20  See Theophrastus ibid, and Löw 1967, s.v. BS ̣L; Löw 1973, s.v. BS ̣L. Thanks to Prof.

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scallions,” is an allusion to a woman intimately associated with Ashkelon.21 I suggest that the name Miriam may well be a pun on or corruption of the name of one illustrious woman said to have been born in Ashkelon, the mythical figure Semiramis, daughter of the goddess Derceto.22 Ashkelon was a cultic center for a composite female diety, Derceto-Atargatis-Aphrodite-Isis, identified as the mother of Semiramis.23 The Tyche of the city, depicted on many coins minted in Ashkelon, might also be a portrayal of Semiramis: she is often accompanied by a dove, a bird associated with the mythical figure.24 “Miriam of the Onion Leaves” is, I contend, a typological character representative of Ashkelon, “Semiramis of Ashkelon.” For this reason, we should not be thinking of a bulbous onion with many layers, perhaps indicating hypocrisy – as Saul Lieberman (1974) did when trying to make sense of this name – but rather of a leafy plant with a very local look, flavor, and even smell, like the palm-trees of Judaea, or the cedar of Lebanon. It is a geographic marker, situating Miriam in Ashkelon, and the netherworld as “Ashkelon” as well. Ashkelon is a border-zone, on the road from Egypt to Judaea.25 Joshua Ephron focused on the liminal status of Ashkelon already in the 1960s when comparing Shimʿon to modern Israeli commandos, leading bands of merry men into highly populated areas of nearby enemy territory to do away with evildoers.26 A second-century rabbinic text known as baraita di-teh ̣umin, which describes the area of “the land of Israel,” where the agricultural commandments of the Torah apply, marks the border quite carefully around Ashkelon. This baraita is embedded in three rabbinic works,27 and was also found in a large mosaic on the floor of a synagogue in Tel Rehov ̣ in the Jordan Valley, near Beth-Shean.28 At one point in this document the border is marked by a ‫גנייא דאשקלון‬, genayyʾa dʾashqelon, usually translated “gardens of Ashkelon.” But as Mordechai Akiva Friedman pointed out, genayyʾa is not the Palestinian Aramaic cognate of Hebrew ginah, “garden,” but rather the Aramaic form of Greek gynē , “woman.”29 Joshua Klein of the Volcani Center – Agricultural Research Organization for his help on the subject of onions. 21  See also Stein 2014, 426. 22  For Semiramis, see the description in the anonymous Tractatis de mulieribus and the discussion in Gera 1997, 65–83. See also Strabo 2.1.26; 31; 15.1.5 f.; 16.1.2; Pliny, Historia Naturalis 6.49; 7.207; 19.49; Juvenal, 2.108; Lucian, De Syria dea 14. 23  See the very early testimony of Herodotus, Histories 1.105 with Teixidor 2015, 96; Fuks 2000; Friedheim 2003. 24 Lucian, de Dea Syria 14. Meshorer 1985; Weinfeld 1991. 25  This is the “Philistine road” or “way of the land of the Philistines,” of Exodus 13:17. 26  Efron 1970. 27 Tosefta Sheviʿit 4, Sifre Deuteronomy 51, and Yerushalmi Sheviʿit 6:1. 28  For a recent English survey of scholarship, see Ben David 2011. On the Ashkelon border see Fredkin 1981; Baruchi 2003; Dvorjetski 1993. 29  Friedman, “GYNYY GYNYYH.”

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We could speculate that the “Lady of Ashkelon,” a geographic marker in this context, is a reference to a statue of Tyche standing at the city gates, used by this source to mark the borders of the city. This might explain why this figure had a derogatory rabbinic nickname – and also why, in the netherworld, she stands at the gates of Hell. The netherworld, then, is Ashkelon through the looking glass: the dead student and tax-collector are both there, and so is Miriam, who represents the city. In that world, with its springs, streams and gardens, Miriam is naked and humiliated, powerless and tortured. The reason cited in the story for her punishment is cryptic and does not accord with any other detail in the story. But perhaps it is connected with the participation of women in the cult of Isis, a deity associated by this time with Aphrodite.30 This would explain why, according to one opinion, Miriam was strung up by her nipples: in Tosefta Avodah Zara (6:1) a “nursing figure” is mentioned as an example of an idol which must be destroyed.31 Ashkelon’s specifically pagan identity in rabbinic literature and Miriam’s portrayal as Isis mark this story as a battle against paganism in a pre-Christian era, in which a leader of the Jews emerges victorious.32 The student is taken into the netherworld and back but, as we see, he never really leaves Ashkelon. Instead, he sees it as it should be. This accords with an understanding of the netherworld found in the Babylonian Talmud: “an upside-down world, the higher ones are below and those below are above.”33 Ashkelon, on the margins of the Jewish area of settlement in the first centuries before and during the common era (and clearly afterwards, when the Jews mostly moved north to Galilee), was a city which – in the rabbinic imagination – was a locus of pagan worship well into the third century of the common era.34 It is a perfect setting for a story about a rabbi who receives a sign from heaven to battle women who practice sacred rites, or in his words, “witches.”35 30 

See Apuleius, Metamorphoses 11.5–6. 2003. Friedheim disputes the identification of this figure with Isis lactans, very common in Egypt but not in Palestine, and chooses an identification with Nysa, the nursemaid of Dionysus. On the other hand, in this story, “Egyptian” motifs might have been deliberately employed. I am also not convinced that in the rabbinic imagination the precise identity of the nursing image mattered. See also Hagan 2013. 32  Cf. Stein 2014, 435, n.  83. While Jews did consider Christianity “idolatry,” rabbinic narratives and nomenclature for the two groups are different. See e.g. Schremer 2013 and 2014. 33  B. Pes. 50a, b. Bab. Bat. 10b. Notice that there are not different realms of existence for the righteous and the wicked, but one realm only. Also notice that the world represented in our story is a refrigerium in that it is a pleasant place, but one in which judgement already occurs and in which people suffer the consequences of their deeds in this life. Cf. Brown 2015, 29–31. The existence of a separate area called gehynom indicates that it is not the only site of judgment after death. (The situation in that world could be called “punishment,” but it might simply be the rectification of the wrongs in this world, with no atonement promised for the suffering party). On rabbinic ideas of the afterlife see Milikowsky 1986. 34 See b. Av. Zar. 11b with Friedheim 2001, 413. 35  Cf. the journey of the rabbis to Rome in y. San. 7:13, 25d, and the discussion of Levinson 31  Friedheim

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The two parts of the story each feature a different protagonist who goes on a different transformative and redemptive journey. In the first part, it is the pious man who is taken to the underworld. There he understands that God is just and that the world is in order. In the second, it is Shimʿon b. Shatah ̣, the rabbi, who goes to Ashkelon on his own initiative, to fulfill what amounts to a campaign promise. Each of these characters is modelled on a different biblical character. The pious man is a Moses of sorts. Like Moses, he is given a glimpse into a world beyond, from which he returns with divine knowledge (Exodus 20). Like Moses, he is one of two individuals privileged to journey into the beyond. The most significant parallel between our story and the Moses narrative is Exodus 3–4. God tells Moses that He has come to take the children of Israel out of Egypt, and he sends Moses to assemble the elders of Israel, take them to Pharaoh, and demand the release of the Israelites. Moses is less than enthusiastic (4:1), and says: “But they will not believe me or listen to me, but say, ‘The Lord did not appear to you.’”36 God replies with three signs by which Moses can prove his trustworthiness to the Elders of Israel: his staff will turn into a snake, his hand will contract leprosy at will, and he will be able to turn water into blood. These signs will prove that Moses is in fact an emissary of God, and that God will make good on his word to take the Israelites out of Egypt. This, in fact, did happen (Ex 4:29–31). “Aaron spoke all the words that the Lord had spoken to Moses, and performed the signs in the sight of the people. The people believed.” The student, like Moses, is given a sign to take to Shimʿon, an “elder of Israel.” He is able to remove his eye from its socket, hold it in his hands, and place it back unscathed. This sign is almost identical to the sign of leprosy. Rabbinic tradition equates both lepers and blind people with the dead, considering them as similar to each other.37 The ability to remove and return an eye is a sign for the veracity of a tradition found elsewhere in rabbinic literature. In the following story – featured in the Babylonian Talmud but marked as an early tradition – a rabbi uses the sign to demonstrate that a law that the other rabbis had voted on was in fact a tradition handed down “to Moses from Sinai”: It is taught in a Mishnah: 38 a story of R. Jose the Damascene who went to greet R. Eleazar in Lod. He said: what new thing was there at the study house today? He said: they voted and decided that Ammon and Moab give the poor-tithe on the seventh year.39 2010, 64–69. This journey involves many magical techniques, for which see Bohak 2008, 396– 97. Thanks to Dina Stein for this connection. 36  Hen in NRSV is translated (like the Aramaic hen) as a conditional. Similar translations are found in LXX and Neophyti. But in Targum Onqelos and Ps. Jonathan, hen is a demonstrative, translated by Aramaic haʾ. 37 See Gen. Rab. 71:4, Lam. Rab. 3:2 and b. Ned. 64b, b. Av. Zar. 5a. 38  This is the reading of MS Munich 6. The Mishnah in question is m. Yad. 4:3, on which see Kahana 2004. 39  There is no tithing within the borders of the Land of Israel on the seventh year, when

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He said: Jose, put out your hand and take your eye. He put out his hand and took his eye. R. Eleazar cried and said: “the secret of the Lord is for those who fear him, and he makes his covenant known to them.”40 Thus I have it from Rabban Johanan ben Zakkai, who heard from his master and his master from his master, a teaching to Moses at Sinai: Ammon and Moab give the poor tithe on the seventh year. (b. Hag. 3b) 41

With the exception of the sign, this tradition is found in the Mishnah (m. Yad. 4:3). The sign, however, is found in the version of the story quoted above, and in the late Palestinian Midrash on Psalms (25:13). R. Eleazar’s use of the sign bolsters his tradition, “from Moses at Sinai,” and gives it the strength of prophecy.42 Deuteronomy explicitly says that prophets use signs (13:2), and the greatest signs were those used by Moses.43 So, too, in our story, the literary motif of the sign can be read as marking a connection between the student and Moses: both have knowledge from the beyond to convey to Elders, a sign with which to bolster their claim, and a promise of deliverance. Importantly, like Moses, part of the student’s mission is to go “back” to the elders and transmit the knowledge. For Moses, the performance of the signs constitutes the critical moment of the mission, but for the student the signs are not necessary. Shimʿon replies: “I know that you are a pious man, you can do [even] more than that.” The student’s doubts about being believed are dispelled without recourse to the sign. Shimʿon acknowledges that there are individuals who can exercise numinous powers, but he does not use these powers himself. Instead, he chooses to battle the witches who are “destroying the world” by using trickery and deception. Shimʿon hides eighty men in new clay pots outside of “the cave of Ashkelon” on a rainy day, and clothes them in new garments. He tells them to take off the pots when he signals once, and then to enter the cave when he signals again.44 (The pots are new, thus unfired, so perhaps they do not make noise when they hit the ground). Shimʿon tells the witches in the cave that he is performing magic, when he is in fact doing nothing of the sort. In this part of the story, centered agriculture is forbidden. However, outside these borders, but in the environs of the Land, tithing continues, and the rabbis at the study house decided the tithe for that year would be the poor tithe and not the “second tithe.” On the poor tithe, see Wilfand 2015. 40  Ps 25:14. This entire psalm is a fitting quote for the figure of R. Eliezer ben Hyrcanus (Schremer 2015, 289–95, and the literature on 291, n.  15) but 25:15 is especially poignant: “My eyes are ever toward the Lord, for he will pluck my feet out of the net.” 41  The translation is my own, from the version in MS Munich 6. On this story and its parallels, both Tannaitic and in later midrash see Kahana 2004, 62, n.  48. Kahana prefers to interpret the sign as a kind of punishment, but the parallel with our story is striking. The parallel in Mid. Psalms 25:13 might attest to the Palestinian provenance of this tradition. 42 In t. Yad. 2:16, R. Eliezer adds Amos 3:7 to his quote: “Surely the Lord God does nothing, without revealing his secret to his servants the prophets.” 43  Ex 7:3, Deut 4:34, 6:22, 7:19, 26:8, 29:2 34:11. See also John 2:18; 1 Cor 1:20. 44  The precise meaning of the rare Aramaic verb s ̣afar is unknown. See Sokoloff 1990, 496b and the literature cited there.

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on Shimʿon, the story draws on the figure of Gideon (Judg 6–7). Gideon is charged with fighting the Midianites, who harassed Israel’s southern areas as a punishment for worshipping false gods. God tells him to release the large army that flocked to his call, and says “I will deliver you … through the three hundred ‘lappers,’” the men who did not stoop to their knees to drink water (Judg 7:7). God sends Gideon to the Midianite camp “to hear what they are talking,” and tells him that “then [his] hands will grow strong” (7:11). Gideon hears a Midianite speaking of a dream foretelling his victory (7:13), but the Judge does not rely on God. He plans a diversionary strategy that will drive fear into the hearts of the Midianites. He divides the three hundred men into three companies and places trumpets and empty jars with torches inside in the hands of all of them (7:15–16). At the sound of a trumpet the men should all begin the attack (7:18).45 Shimʿon and Gideon both make use of auditory signals and empty jars to reveal at once what must remain hidden throughout (men outside the cave; torches in the jars). This leads to commotion and to a resounding defeat for the enemy. Deliverance is assured – with no miracles involved. Additionally, both Gideon and Shimʿon are notified of their predicament by a sign from beyond: a Midianite with a dream and a pious man from Ashkelon, respectively. The messages come from heaven, beyond the boundaries of the human world, but also from behind enemy lines. Both figures are instructed by an emissary: Gideon by a “prophet man” (ʾyš nabiʾ, Judg 6:8) and Shimʿon by a “pious man” (gebar h ̣asid). Both fight polytheism: Gideon is told that the Midianites were unleashed against the Israelites because they worshipped the gods of the Amorites; the image of Miriam, caricature of a syncretic Goddess Cult in Ashkelon, symbolizes Shimʿon’s sin: letting the “witches” live. Gideon must save Israel; Shimʿon, on the other hand, merely needs to save himself.46 That Shimʿon chooses to eschew the model of Moses presented by the pious man and adopt the Gideon one instead is telling. The Gideon story is alluded to in an early rabbinic source, when coming to terms with the absence of divine action in their world: Ishay Rosen-Zvi reads chapter 9 of Mishnah Berakhot, which discusses liturgical responses to occurrences in the world, as the rabbis’ way of bringing the divine into a world where it is less manifest.47 Great miracles, to be commemorated in their geographic locations, belong to the past, and in the present God deserves praise for quotidian actions like thunder, the building of a new house, and both good and bad events. The chapter ends with the proper way to invoke God in everyday conversations:

45 

Judg 7:13–18. Cf. Moses who is also in danger “on the way” (Ex 4:24–26). 47  Rosen-Zvi 2007 and 2008. 46 

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And the [Rabbis] decreed that a man salute his fellow with the Name. As it says Presently Boaz arrived from Bethlehem. He greeted the reapers: the Lord be with you. And they responded: the Lord bless you (Ruth 2:4). And it says The Lord is with you, you mighty warrior. (Judg 6:12) 48

In these two examples, we see the name of God invoked in biblical conversation, indicating that this is the proper way to use it. But as Rosen-Zvi notes, Gideon is highly doubtful that the Lord is in fact with him: But sir, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all his wonderful deeds that our ancestors recounted to us, saying, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has cast us off, and given us into the hand of Midian (Judg 6:13).

Gideon explicitly contrasts his own time with the mythical past of the Exodus. In the biblical narrative, Gideon is given the same answer as Moses: “for I will be with you” (Ex 3:12). But no “wonderful deeds” ensue. Rather, Gideon saves Israel “in this strength of yours.” Moses is a model and a counterpoint for Gideon, much as both Moses and Gideon are models and counterpoints for our story. For the rabbis of the Mishnah, Gideon’s question itself was mistaken: God is everywhere his name is invoked. God is felt to be absent not because God’s self is scarce but rather because people are not invoking his name. The story uses Gideon as a model for Shimʿon, adding him and his deeds to this succession. God is not absent from the narrative, but Shimʿon does not want to use his miracles (unlike Moses) or even see the signs (unlike Gideon; Judg 17:17–18). There is no “angel of God” sent to Shimʿon, but only a “pious man.” Shimon knows that the message is true and asks for no sign. He fights “clean,” using no magic, even though pious people can perform magic in many forms (and so can later rabbis, as Joshua Levinson (2010) has shown). The Mishnah ends with a citation of Ps 119:126, commonly read in rabbinic literature as a license to bend or break the law when necessary: “at a time to act for the Lord, break your law.” The Tannaitic tradition about Simon hanging witches in Ashkelon is that it was in contravention of the law, but “that the hour required it,” bringing the same verse to mind. For the rabbis Gideon, too, breaks the law by erecting an altar outside of the Jerusalem temple and sacrificing on it.49 Our story casts Shimʿon as an heir to two biblical forefathers: Moses and Gideon. It ushers in the last stage of the fight against pagan worship, in which God is not active at all. God’s work is done by Shimʿon, playing the role of Gideon, compelled by his own “Moses” to make good on his promise to do away with the witches. In that syncretistic age envisioned by the Yerushalmi story as characteristic of Shimʿon’s world, all the female deities of the area are 48  49 

M. Ber. 9:9, my translation; italics indicate biblical quotations. See e.g. Lev. Rab. 22:9 (ed. Margulies 518) and Deut. Rab. Ekev (ed. Lieberman 72).

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joined together in Ashkelon. There, female practitioners of “sorcery” are defeated by a rabbi, heir to Gideon (“the judge”; Shimʿon traditions, too, are mainly about his role as a judge).50 Though information still comes from the beyond, it is not in prophecy but in visions, and nothing more than that comes through. Significantly, this information cannot provide salvation for the entire nation, but only for individuals: the pious man is made to understand the fate of his comrade and of the fat tax collector, and is charged with a message for Shimʿon. While the witches “destroy the world,” they are each judged individually (although all on the same day), and Shimʿon avoids the fate worse than death that awaited him alone. This personal focus also affects the way journeys are employed in this story. People in the story travel alone, conveying messages from faraway cities and worlds beyond which are relevant for only one person, after which they can return to their lives. This is a far cry from the monumental journeys of Gideon towards battle, or the travels of Moses who goes back to Egypt to take on a completely new role in life. The changes that the journeys effect in the lives of the protagonists are mild and minor compared to changes of their scriptural models. The ease of travel in the Eastern Roman Empire, and the ability to convey messages across great distances in a relatively smooth manner perhaps had an impact not only on the lives but also on the imaginations of the inhabitants of this part of the world. In this case, these new technologies eased and abetted their focus on the individual, his person and his fate, at the expense of the communal and the national. Thus, a cosmic struggle against witchcraft and idolatry ends with a whimper. Aided by quick travel and a cosmic postal system, a judicial process saves one person from being forever tethered to the gates of hell, leaving the Goddess there alone.

50 Shimʿon is also the last rabbi to have lived during the reign of a Jewish king, recalling the statement of Judges: “in those days, there was no king in Israel.” (Judg 17:6, 18:1, 21:25). For judicial Shimʿon traditions see e.g. m. Taan. 3:8 (Shimʿon threatens to ban Ḥoni), m. Hag. 2:2 (Shimʿon is identified as ʾav beit din), m. Avot 1:9 (Shimʿon offers advice on examining witnesses). Mek. RI kaspa 20, ed. Horowitz-Rabin 327 (Shimʿon kills a contriving witness). T. Ket. 12:1 (Shimʿon makes a decree regarding a legal document). T. San. 8:3 (Shimʿon refrains from judging a murderer). B. San. 19a (Shimʿon presides over the trial of the slave of king Jannaeus).

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Works Cited Ameling, Walter, Hannah M. Cotton, Werner Eck, Benjamin Isaac, Alla Kushnir-Stein, Haggai Misgav, Jonathan Price, and Ada Yardeni, eds. 2014. South Coast: 2161–2648: A Multi-Lingual Corpus of the Inscriptions from Alexander to Muhammad. Corpus Inscriptionum Iudaeae/Palaestinae 3. Berlin: De Gruyter. Amir, Avraham. 1992. “Shimʿon ben Shatah ̣ vehamekhashefot.” Sinai 112: 143–61. Assis, Moshe. 1976. “Keta shel Yerushalmi Sanhedrin (5:1, 22c-6:9, 23c)”. Tarbiz 46/1–2: 29–90. Baruchi, Yossi. 2003. “Tehum Ashkelon batkufa haromit.” Tarbiz 72/3: 329–44. Bauckham, Richard. 1991. “The Rich Man and Lazarus: The Parable and the Parallels.” New Testament Studies 37/2: 225–46. Ben David, Chaim. 2011. “The Rehov Inscription: A Galilean Halakhic Text Formula?” In Halakhah in Light of Epigraphy, ed. Albert I. Baumgarten, Hanan Eshel, Ranon Katzoff, and Shani Tzoref. Journal of Ancient Judaism Supplement 3. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Ben-Pazi, Yeshaya. 2003. “Even toʿim umaʿase Honi Hameʿagel.” Sidra: A Journal for the Study of Rabbinic Literature 18: 5–26. Bohak, Gideon. 2008. Ancient Jewish Magic: A History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bremmer, Jan N. 1998. “Jews and Jewish Christians in the Land of Israel at the Time of the Bar Kochba War, with Special Reference to the Apocalypse of Peter.” In Tolerance and Intolerance in Early Judaism and Christianity, ed. Graham Stanton and Guy G. Stroumsa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.  228–38. –. 2003. “The Apocalypse of Peter: Greek or Jewish.” In The Apocalypse of Peter, ed. Jan N. Bremmer and István Czachesz. Studies on Early Christian Apocrypha 7. Leuven: Peeters, pp.  1–14. –. 2009. “Christian Hell: From the Apocalypse of Peter to the Apocalypse of Paul.” Numen 56/2–3: 298–325. Brown, Peter. 2015. The Ransom of the Soul : Afterlife and Wealth in Early Western Christianity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Dvorjetski, Esti. 1993. “Tsrifa shebeAshkelon: realia talmudit beumanut hatsorfut be’erets Israel bitkufat hamishnah vehatalmud”. Tarbiz 63/1: 27–40. Efron, Joshua. 1970. “Shimʿon ben Shatah ̣ veyannai hamelekh”. In Mehkarim betoldot Israel uvalashon haivrit: sefer zikaron liGedalyahu Alon, ed. Menahem Dorman. Tel Aviv: HaKibbuts Hameuhad, pp.  69–132. Epstein, Louis M. 1927. The Jewish Marriage Contract: A Study in the Status of the Woman in Jewish Law. Harvard College Library Preservation Microfilm Program; 02434. New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America. Folder, Rachel. 2007. “Ha’im Tala Shimʿon ben Shatah ̣ shmonim nashim kashfaniyot beAshkelon?’” In To Be a Jewish Woman: Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference: Woman and Her Judaism, June 2005, ed. Tovah Cohen. Jerusalem: Kolech, pp.  21–38. Fredkin, Efrat. 1981. “Ashkelon uthumei erets Israel bitkufat hamishnah.” Cathedra 19: 3–10. Friedheim, Emmanuel. 2001. “Lemashma’uto hare’alit-historit shel habituy ‘kilor shel avoda zara.’” Tarbiz 70/3–4: 403–15.

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–. 2003. “Who Are the Deities Concealed Behind the Rabbinic Expression ‘a Nursing Female Image’” Harvard Theological Review 96/2: 239–50. Friedman, Mordechai Akiva. N.d. “GYNYY GYNYYH, GNTH GNNH, GNWNYT GNWNYYH”. In Mas’at Aharon: Mehkarim Belashon mugashim le’Aharon Dotan, ed. Chaim Cohen and Moshe Bar-Asher, 196–200. Jerusalem: Mossad Bialik. Fuks, Gideon. 2000. “Antagonistic Neighbours: Ashkelon, Judaea, and the Jews.” Journal of Jewish Studies 51/1 (2000): 42–62. Genz, Rouven. 2015. “Reversal of Fate after Death? Reflections on the Account of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31).” In Evil and Death: Conceptions of the Human in Biblical, Early Jewish, Greco-Roman and Egyptian Literature, ed. Beate Ego and Ulrike Mittmann. DCLS 18. Berlin: de Gruyter, pp.  221–58. Gera, Deborah L. 1997. Warrior Women: The Anonymous Tractatus de Mulieribus. Mnemosyne Supplement 162. Leiden: Brill. Goldin, Judah. 1963. “On Honi the Circle-Maker: A Demanding Prayer.” The Harvard Theological Review 56/3: 233–37. Gressmann, Hugo. 1918. Vom reichen Mann und armen Lazarus. Abhandlungen der Königlich Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-historische Klasse. Jahrg. 1918, Nr.  7. Berlin: Berlin Verlag der Königl Akademie der Wissenschaften. Hagan, Stephanie. 2013. “Death and Eternal Life at Beth Shean.” Expedition 55/1: 33–36. Harari, Yuval. 2010. Hakishuf hayehudi hakadum. Jerusalem: Mossad Bialik. Himmelfarb, Martha. 1985. Tours of Hell: An Apocalyptic Form in Jewish and Christian Literature. Philadelphia: Fortress Press. Hock, Ronald F. 1987. “Lazarus and Micyllus: Greco-Roman Backgrounds to Luke 16:19–31.” Journal of Biblical Literature 106/3: 447–63. Ilan, Tal. 2001. “Tseid mekhashefot beAshkelon.” In Ashkelon: Ir le’hof yamim, ed. Avi Sasson. Ashkelon: Ashkelon Academic College, pp.  135–46. Jones, A. H. M. 1971. The Cities of the Eastern Roman Provinces. 2d ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Kahana, Menahem, ed. 2003. Sifre zuṭa dvarim. Jerusalem: Magnes. –. 2004. “Iyunim be’itsuvah shel hamahaloket bamishnah u’vemegamoteia”. Tarbiz 53: 51–81. Kushelevsky, Rella. 2010. Sigufim ufituyyim: hasipur haivri be’ashkenaz, ktav yad parma 2295. Magnes-Sifrut. Jerusalem: Magnes. Levinson, Joshua. 2010. “Enchanting Rabbis: Contest Narratives between Rabbis and Magicians in Late Antiquity.” The Jewish Quarterly Review 100/1: 54–94. Lichtheim, Miriam, ed. 2006. Ancient Egyptian Literature: A Book of Readings. Berkeley: University of California Press. Lieberman, Saul. 1974. “Sins and Their Punishments.” In Texts and Studies. New York: Ktav. Löw, Immanuel. 1967. Die Flora der Juden. Hildesheim: Georg Olms. –. 1973. Aramäische Pflanzennamen. Hildesheim: Georg Olms. Meshorer, Yaʻaḳov. 1985. City-Coins of Eretz-Israel and the Decapolis in the Roman Period. Jerusalem: The Israel Museum. Milikowsky, Chaim. 1986. “Gehinom ufoshei Israel al pi seder olam.” Tarbiz 55/3: 311– 43. Millar, Fergus. 1993. The Roman Near East, 31 BC–AD 337. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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Moscovitz, Leib. 1991. “Sugiyot makbilot umassoret nosah hayerushalmi.” Tarbiz 60/4: 523–50. Rosen-Zvi, Ishay. 2007. “Brakhot kemipuy: mivneh vetokhen bemishnah berakhot perek 9.” Hebrew Union College Annual 78: 25–46. –. 2008. “Birkot hare’iyyah vehofaat hamaarekhet haliturgit basifrut hatannait.” JSIJ 7. Roth, A.N.Z. 1955–1956. “Mibeit midrasham shel hageonim be ‘Ginzei Kaufmann.’” Sura 2: 312–576. Rubenstein, Jeffrey L. 1999. Talmudic Stories: Narrative Art, Composition, and Culture. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. –. 2009. “The Exegetical Narrative: New Directions.” Jewish Quarterly Review 99/1: 88–106. Safrai, Zeev. 2001. “Ashkelon – muvla’at nokhrit: Ashkelon ve’arei hahof leahar hakibush haromi”. In Ashkelon: Ir le’hof yamim, ed. Avi Sasson. Ashkelon: Ashkelon Academic College. Schremer, Adiel. 2013. “Wayward Jews: ‘Minim’ in Early Rabbinic Literature.” Journal of Jewish Studies 64/2: 242–63. –. 2014. “Beyond Naming: Laws of the Minim in Tannaitic Literature.” In Jews and Christians in the First and Second Centuries: How to Write Their History, ed. Peter J. Tomson and Joshua J. Schwartz. Compendia Rerum Iudaicarum Ad Novum Testamentum 13. Leiden: Brill, pp.  383–97. –. 2015. “Avot Reconsidered: Rethinking Rabbinic Judaism.” Jewish Quarterly Review 105/3: 287–311. Schwartz, Seth. 1990. Josephus and Judaean Politics. Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition 18. Leiden: Brill. Simon-Shoshan, Moshe. 2013. “Sipur Honi Hameʿagel bemishnah ta’anit 3:8, mikreh mivhan shel melekhet hasipur bamishnah.” Jerusalem Studies in Hebrew Literature 26: 1–20. Sokoloff, Michael. 1990. A Dictionary of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic of the Byzantine Period. Dictionaries of Talmud, Midrash, and Targum. Ramat-Gan: Bar Ilan University Press. Stein, Dina. 2014. “Framing Witches, Measure for Measure, and the Appointment of Shim‘on Ben Shataḥ.” Jewish Quarterly Review 104/3: 413–37. Teixidor, Javier. 2015. The Pagan God: Popular Religion in the Greco-Roman Near East. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Tigchelaar, Eibert J. C. 2003. “Is the Liar Bar-Kokhba? Considering the Date and Provenance of the Greek (Ethiopic) Apocalypse of Peter.” In The Apocalypse of Peter, ed. Jan N. Bremmer and István Czachesz. Studies on Early Christian Apocrypha 7. Leuven: Peeters, pp.  63–77. Weinfeld, Moshe. 1991. “Semiramis: Her Name and Her Origin.” Scripta Hierosolymitana 33: 99–103. Wilfand, Yael. 2015. “From the School of Shammai to Rabbi Yehuda the Patriarch’s Student: The Evolution of the Poor Man’s Tithe.” Jewish Studies Quarterly 22/1: 36–61.

Reconstructing Encounters in Distant Places

Apodêmia: The Adventure of Travel in the Greek Novel Froma Zeitlin Five so-called ‘ideal’ prose romances have come down to us. As far as we can surmise from existing evidence, the genre flourished from the late Hellenistic or early Empire (Chariton, Xenophon of Ephesus) to the so-called Second Sophistic in the second century CE (Achilles Tatius, Longus), with the last (Heliodorus), the longest and most complex, dated somewhere between the late third to the fourth century CE.1 Despite a few historical settings in earlier times (Chariton, Heliodorus), the environment is firmly that of a post-classical Hellenized world that yet overtly seems to ignore the Roman imperium and its geopolitics.2 The central activities of these novels (with the exception of Longus) comprise what has been called “adventure time.” That is, the time (and space) in the middle of the work that intervenes from the first flush of infatuation of two young elite lovers until a happy re-unification and socially-sanctioned matrimony eventually bring the story to a close.3 During this adventure time – this in-between period – the lovers, whether separated or together, at varying intervals, find themselves abroad in unfamiliar places, never by choice. They are far from home, family, and social ties, and are often estranged, even from their own identities, as they undergo a series of harrowing ordeals, unexpected vicissitudes, and near-tragic outcomes as well as unexpected rescues and lucky coincidences. In this world of uncertainty, of flight and exile, they may undergo sea voyages and shipwrecks, kidnapping by pirates at sea or attacks by bandits on land, or find themselves caught in the midst of armed hostilities. They may also 1 

The five ‘ideal’ Greek romances [dates approximate] are as follows: Chariton, Chaereas and Callirhoe (mid first century CE) 8 books. Xenophon of Ephesus, Anthia and Habrocomes a.k.a Ephesiaka (late first century CE) 8 books. Achilles Tatius, Leucippe and Cleitophon (early second century CE) 8 books. [Longus, Daphnis and Chloe a.k.a Lesbiaka or Poimenika (mid to late second century CE) 4 books]. Heliodorus, Charicleia and Theagenes a.k.a Ethiopiaka (late third to fourth century CE) 10 books. See Appendix I.1, I.2, and I.3 for brief synopses of Chariton, Heliodorus, and Achilles Tatius. 2  For suggestions of subterranean references to Rome and its empire, see most recently Tim Whitmarsh 2011, 25–32, especially regarding the early romances (Chariton, Xenophon of Ephesus). 3  The phrase is attributed to Mikhail Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination (1981) and his theory of the chronotope (time-space continuum.)

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experience or witness false deaths (Scheintode), be brought into court, typically on a false accusation, often physically assaulted, and sometimes imprisoned or enslaved, along with a host of other predations. Most often because of their outstanding beauty, they are subject to unwelcome erotic suitors, often of higher social status (their chief danger), in various locales. Throughout they are buffeted (or so they think) by a malevolent fortune (tuchê) as they wander, mostly (but not exclusively) in well-known sites around the Mediterranean, such as the cities of Asia Minor (Miletus, Ephesus, Rhodes, Sidon, Tyre, Byzantium) or Egypt (Memphis, Thebes, Alexandria), Persia (Babylon) but also Meroe in Ethiopia (as in Heliodorus). Syracuse is the home base for one (Chariton) but Greece proper itself is generally avoided, although in Heliodorus a secondary character (Cnemon) is an exiled Athenian and, more centrally, Delphi is an important point of departure on the couple’s linear journey to their destination (albeit with many detours) but it is not a place of origin.4 If we match descriptions of these sites to reports of other, more scientific travelers, such as Diodorus, Strabo, Arrian, or Dionysus of Halicarnassus (not to forget Herodotus), we find a general accuracy, although they are often infused with elements of myth and folktale or items of local color. They are also studded with literary allusions to earlier classical sources, and at times, owe more than not a good deal to the progymnasmata, the exercises of the rhetorical schools, which advocated ways and means of producing vivid topographies and paradoxographical exempla to delight their audiences.5 Our authors are nothing if not showy, well-educated pepaideumenoi and whatever their ethnic origins, they are thoroughly Hellenized. Confronted with other cultures in this polyglot and hybridized world, these stranded travelers echo a number of ethnic stereotypes, especially about socalled barbarians. 6 They consort with folks high and low – generals, satraps, monarchs and their entourages, priests, merchants, landowners, fishermen, pirates, and bandits. On the road they meet other exiles and wanderers, who are occasionally in search of wisdom, and incidentally they play the tourist. The lovers visit temples and shrines, attend local festivals, witness (or are subject to) bizarre rites, end up in strange landscapes of caves and marshes, and learn about the thaumata of unfamiliar flora and fauna as well as of peculiar topographical features in a given locale. All these details, however, are subsumed under the 4  Mention should also be made of Zakynthos in Heliodorus, where the couple pass the winter after their elopement. Only Longus, Daphnis and Chloe, is set in Greece proper, but since this pastoral romance is the only extant example of fiction that does not include travel, it is omitted in any case from the present discussion. The best account of narrative topographies in the novel is Lowe 2000, 227–39. 5  On the influence of rhetorical training on the novel, see e.g. Ronald Hock 1997, 445–65, and Ruth Webb 2009. 6  See Kuch, 1996, 417–56, but for a more nuanced view, especially for Heliodorus, see Perkins 1999, 197–214.

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basic erotic plot of our star-crossed lovers. Travel as such is not so much an education into foreign ways and a cosmopolitan enlargement of vision that leaves a lasting mark on its characters as it is a testing ground for resilience, fortitude, quick-wittedness, and constancy to one’s beloved, maintained in the face of adversity, and always (or almost always) inflected by Hellenocentric attitudes (and presumed superiority).7 From a narrative point of view, however, it is travel, finally, that structures the plot. As John R. Morgan remarks, travel is “essentially narratological, providing opening and closure, on micro and macro levels, and articulating characteristically episodic structures” (2007: 141). In the earlier novels (Chariton, Xenophon of Ephesus), he argues, “travel provides form rather than content” by comparison with Heliodorus, where “travel also coheres with the entire system of ethical metaphor [and utopian thinking] that underlines it” (157). Oddly enough, however, Morgan omits Achilles Tatius’s Leucippe and Cleitophon, which, as we shall see, is perhaps the work that most engages with topographical details in vividness of exposition, along with a touristic interest in exotic sights along the way that are indebted to prescriptions of rhetoric handbooks, but framed in symbolic terms that are consonant with the erotic preoccupations of the narrator.8 Given the constraints of space in this essay, I have chosen a few significant features for discussion. In what follows, we will first look at Homer’s Odyssey as the Ur-text that provides the underlying plot of wandering and adventure in the context of exile and return, but one that undergoes a series of variations in the transition from epic to novel, especially regarding Chariton and Heliodorus, both of which, each in its own way, is directed to the goal of a successful nostos. Next, we will turn to descriptions of Egypt and the Nile (Heliodorus, Achilles Tatius) and the very different ways in which these two authors reconfigure geographical and historical markers, with a long literary tradition, to suit their own ends. To anticipate in advance, for Heliodorus, Egypt and the Nile function in the service of a quasi-religious mission that imbues the destiny of the young lovers with a sacred meaning. For Achilles Tatius, on the other hand, the sexiest and most sophistic representative of the genre (and the most avid sightseer), they serve as a point of departure to examine other landscapes, both natural and artificial, that flourish in an entirely eroticized environment. Finally, we will take a closer look at Achilles Tatius’s extended ekphrasis of the city of Alexandria in the fifth book to demonstrate the range of possible interpretative strategies available to the genre of the novel for its own literary and narrative ends. 7  For other studies of travel in the Greek novel, see Morgan 2007, 139–60, and Romm 2008, 109–26; Alvares 1996, 803–14; Montiglio 2005, 221–60. The standard works, e.g. Casson 1974 and André and Baslez 1993, offer little analysis that is relevant to our topic. 8  See the excellent study of Koen De Temmerman, “Achilles Tatius” (2012), 517–35, to which I am especially indebted.

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Homeric Intertexts The generic plot of the novel, as has repeatedly been observed, owes much to Homer’s Odyssey. As King Alcinous says to Odysseus on the island of Phaeacia: “Come, tell me the following and relate it precisely: where you have wandered, and to what lands of men you have traveled, the peoples themselves and their inhabited cities, how many were rough, wild, and unjust, and who were hospitable and mindful of the gods” (Od. 8.572–76). This epic is the standard underpinning of all travel narratives in which an internal audience is present, one that looks forward to the pleasures of storytelling and the vicarious excitement of listening to others’ adventures. At the level of the plot, however, we can be more specific: “Odysseus’s long wanderings between Troy and Ithaca,” as Thomas Hägg remarks, “his fantastic adventures, the women he meets and is tempted by, and above all, his loyalty to his wife, all have their counterparts in prose fiction” (1983: 110). The novels are themselves replete with direct Homeric quotations, multiple and often subtle allusions, as well as bold rewritings. Callirhoe, the heroine in Chariton, for example, is an amalgam of both Helen and Penelope; Calasiris, the Hellenized Egyptian priest of Isis in Heliodorus, is visited in a dream by Odysseus himself, who predicts the future at a critical turning point of the narrative (Hld., 5.22.1–3), and yet the principal journey home belongs to Charicleia, the girl born in Ethiopia of royal stock but exposed at birth and raised elsewhere.9 There are two significant differences, however, between the epic and the novel. First, is the issue of gender. Instead of the stay-at-home Penelope, undergoing trials of her own at the hands of her unruly suitors, the often remarked upon novelty of these romances is the equal roles given to both sexes in their adventures, with the heroine, in fact, most often given priority in facing her ordeals.10 Second, and more pertinent to this essay, is the theme of nostos or homecoming that is the sustaining goal of Homer’s entire epic. Yet this apparently iron-clad prerequisite of return to one’s home is not necessarily followed in all our extant works.11 Even though all consistently affirm (and reinforce) the typical social requirements for legitimate marriage as the endpoint of the plot, lovers may not always be from the same city; their reunion may take place elsewhere, while a text, like that of Achilles Tatius, goes so far as to end inconclusively without a 9  To complicate matters further, Calasiris himself is depicted as an Odyssean character and even goes so far as to claim that Homer was an Egyptian. On the “rampant intertextuality” of Heliodorus and the Odyssey, which extends far beyond these few examples, to include other Odyssean characters as well as narrative techniques, see, especially, Whitmarsh 1999, 16–40, Morgan 2014, 267–68, and Morgan and Harrison 2008, 224–25. Whitmarsh 2011, 114–15, goes as far as to claim that Heliodorus “can be read as the Odyssey that Homer would have written had he lived his days on the fertile banks of the Nile.” 10  See, e.g., Haynes 2003. 11  See Montiglio 2005, and Konstan 2009, 108–9.

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return to its initial frame story. But there are two works in which the nostos is of paramount significance. These are, perhaps ironically, the first of our group (Chariton) and the last (Heliodorus).12 In Chariton, the journey from Syracuse to Miletus to Babylon and eventually back home, takes a circular route to end where it began. It thereby, as Tim Whitmarsh remarks, obeys “the Odyssey’s paradigm of the center–periphery structure that is associated with the ephebic romance. Heliodorus’ romance, by way of contrast,” he rightly observes, “is shaped around a linear north–south axis” (2011: 115). While this most convoluted of plots also ends up where it began (in Ethiopia) where the heroine, Charicleia, was born before being exposed by her mother at birth, neither she nor her Greek beloved, Theagenes, whom she met at Delphi, clearly know their foreordained destination (although we, the readers do) in the riddle of a white heroine’s rediscovery and recovery of her biologically black Ethiopian identity.13 But, as Whitmarsh continues, “In another sense … the work does remain a center–periphery text: from the Ethiopians’ vantage, this is precisely a story about expatriation into an unfamiliar foreign space, and subsequent home-coming” (ibid.).14 Yet for Theagenes, on the other hand, the text is a strictly linear narrative, one that takes him from his birthplace in Thessaly to Delphi and in company with Charicleia, finally to Ethiopia where he will remain as her consort. Charicleia’s Greek male partner (a distant descendant of none other than the Homeric Achilles), thus opts to remain permanently with his beloved, far from his native land. As Bryan Reardon noted long ago, the plot therefore offers a “compromise between the two structures” (1971: 385). But matters are still more complex. After all, Charicleia was raised as a Greek, does not know her native language, and the question that vexes critics is whether we are witnessing a new cosmopolitanism that upends a Hellenocentric world view or, whether Heliodorus resolves the problem, as John Morgan observes, not by replacing one hierarchical view of the world with another, but by assimilation and identification (2007: 155), or perhaps, in the absence of any clear directive, the truth lies somewhere in between. The erotic plots of both Chariton and Heliodorus, as it happens, are essentially organized around three geographical nodal points (although these are not the only stopping points in their respective travels). For Chariton, it is Syracuse (in Italy), Miletus (in Ionia), and Babylon (the seat of the Persian king).15 For Heliodorus, following the organization of the narrative (but not the sequence of 12 

For summaries of Chariton and Heliodorus, see Appendix I.1 and I.2. On this much discussed topic, see, e.g., Perkins, “An Ancient ‘Passing’ Novel.” 14  “Charicleia is the girl whom [the gods] exiled from her homeland to the ultimate limits of the earth (Hel., 10.16.6),” thus reversing, as Whitmarsh suggests, the Greek notion of Delphi as the navel of the world. 15  Egypt figures, as in all our novels, but in Chariton it is an offstage conflict between the Egyptian pharaoh and his revolt against the Persian king in which both Chaereas and Dionysius (Callirhoe’s first and second husbands) are engaged, but on opposite sides. 13 

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actual events), it is Egypt, Greece (Delphi), and Ethiopia, although Egypt, both the Delta and several of its cities, gets the lion’s share of attention – not once but several times in the course of events.16 In this geography it is the Nile that is “the unchanging landmark of the narrative” (N. J. Lowe 2000: 237) with the Mediterranean at the other end, and Egypt as the place of transition to Ethiopia, a topic to which we will return.17 Chariton’s heroine, Callirhoe, is acutely aware of her circumstances as an exile, especially marked at the turning point of the novel in book 5, when, at the Persian king’s command, she is on her way from Miletus to Babylon. “As far as Syria and Cilicia, then, Callirhoe found her away-ness (apodêmian) easy to bear: she heard Greek spoken; she could see the sea that led to Syracuse. But when she reached the Euphrates, beyond which there is a vast stretch of unending land – it is the threshold of the King’s great empire – then longing for country and family welled up in her and she despaired of ever returning.” Crying aloud to “resentful fortune, so insistent on persecuting a lone female,” she laments: “I am being taken beyond the Euphrates, shut up in barbarian lands where the sea is far away – I a girl of the islands! What ship can I hope will come sailing after me from Sicily now? … I am separated from the world I know by an entire kosmos” (Chariton 5.1.3).18 The novel ends, however, after many vicissitudes, with the triumphant return of Callirhoe, recently reunited on the island of Adrados with Chaereas, who has earned success (and redeemed his manhood) in naval battles on the side of the Great King against the Egyptians. Laden with a vast quantity of Persian wealth – gold, silver, ivory, amber, rich clothing, and more – their ship sails into the harbor of Syracuse to the astonishment of its citizens, “when beyond all expectation they saw an indescribable sight” (8.6.8). The setting of the work ostensibly takes place after Syracuse’s victory over Athens in the fifth century BC and Hermocrates, the famous admiral of that engagement, is none other than the father of Callirhoe. Now in the light of all this bounty, “the whole city was filled, not, as previously, after the Sicilian war, with the poverty of Attica, but – a real novelty – with Persian spoils, in time of peace” (8.6.12). Truly a memorable nostos, which ends in the place where it 16  Leaving aside the interludes in other stopping points that are given over to subsidiary characters. 17  Whitmarsh 1999 calls it the “spine of the narrative” (24). For travel maps of Chariton and Heliodorus, see Appendix II.1 and II.2. 18  Καλλιρόη μὲν γὰρ μέχρι Συρίας καὶ Κιλικίας κούφως ἔφερε τὴν ἀποδημίαν· καὶ γὰρ Ἑλλάδος ἤκουε φωνῆς καὶ θάλασσαν ἔβλεπε τὴν ἄγουσαν εἰς Συρακούσας· ὡς δ’ ἧκεν ἐπὶ ποταμὸν Εὐφράτην, μεθ’ ὃν ἤπειρός ἐστι μεγάλη, ἀφετήριον εἰς τὴν βασιλέως γῆν τὴν πολλήν, τότε ἤδη πόθος αὐτὴν ὑπεδύετο πατρίδος τε καὶ συγγενῶν ἀπόγνωσις τῆς εἰς τοὔμπαλιν ὑποστροφῆς. … νῦν δὲ ἔξω με τοῦ συνήθους ῥίπτεις ἀέρος καὶ τῆς πατρίδος ὅλῳ διορίζομαι κόσμῳ. (6) Μίλητον ἀφείλω μου πάλιν,ὡς πρότερον Συρακούσας· ὑπὲρ τὸν Εὐφράτην ἀπάγομαι καὶ βαρβάροις ἐγκλείομαι μυχοῖς ἡ νησιῶτις, ὅπου μηκέτι θάλασσα. ποίαν ἔτ’ ἐλπίσω ναῦν ἐκ Σικελίας καταπλέουσαν;

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began, a happy ending as the author promised at the beginning of the eighth and last book. “There will be no more pirates or slavery or lawsuits or fighting or suicides or wars or captivity; now there will be lawful love (dikaioi erôtes) and sanctioned marriage (nomimoi gamoi), when I tell you how the goddess brought the truth to light” (8.1.4–5). And in a pure example of ring composition, the novel indeed returns to its opening scene, at the temple of Aphrodite where the couple first met and fell in love. “I beg of you” prays Callirhoe to the goddess, “grant us a happy life together, and let us die together” (8.8.16). By contrast to Chariton’s paradigmatic plot, in Heliodorus, a previous, if riddling oracle of Apollo at Delphi, at the end of the second book, establishes the pathway for the couple towards a remote destination (and destiny) that is not fully resolved until the very last sentence of the novel, some eight books later. One who starts in grace and ends in glory, another goddess born [punning on the names of Charicleia and Theagenes] Of these I bid you have regard, O Delphi! Leaving my temple here and cleaving Ocean’s swelling tides, To the Black Land of the Sun will they travel, Where they will reap the reward of those whose lives are passed in virtue A crown of white on brows of black. (Hld., 2.35.4) 19

The recipient of the oracle is the Egyptian priest, Calasiris, who hears it upon his arrival in Delphi in exile from Egypt, as he relates it in his long flashback of previous events (books 2–7) and it was he who subsequently engineers the elopement of Charicleia and Theagenes from Delphi, once they have fallen in love, henceforth serving as the father figure, who nurtures the two until his death at the beginning of book 8. He is also the figure, in fact, who, as previously mentioned, most resembles Odysseus – both as a first person narrator and master storyteller and as a traveler in exile whose nostos eventually leads him back home (to Memphis in book 7).20 But after his death in book 8 the heroine’s wanderings eventually conclude with a nostos to her ancestral home, one that takes the form of a voyage initiatique, a quasi-mystic pilgrimage to discover a place of origins and a lost identity at the margins of the Hellenic world.21 It is one that is fraught with dangers on every side, as she and Theagenes eventually make the transition now from captives at the Persian court in Egypt, at the mercy of the satrap’s lascivious wife, Arsace, to prisoners of Hydaspes, King of Τὴν χάριν ἐν πρώτοις αὐτὰρ κλέος ὕστατ’ ἔχουσαν φράζεσθ’, ὦ Δελφοί, τόν τε θεᾶς γενέτην· οἳ νηὸν προλιπόντες ἐμὸν καὶ κῦμα τεμόντες ἵξοντ’ ἠελίου πρὸς χθόνα κυανέην, τῇ περ ἀριστοβίων μέγ’ ἀέθλιον ἐξάψονται λευκὸν ἐπὶ κροτάφων στέμμα μελαινομένων. 20  His identification with Odysseus leads him in fact to claim that Homer himself was actually an Egyptian (Hld., 3.14.1–2). 21  See, e.g., Dowden 1996, 267–86 and Whitmarsh 1999, n.  28 (with relevant bibliography). 19 

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Ethiopia, where in the last book an elaborate recognition scene between father (and mother) and daughter takes place and Theagenes is finally accepted as Charicleia’s spouse.22 But the long and uncertain route provokes an acute awareness of their precarious status: “foreigners and suppliants without a city, alienated from everything” (4.18.2) – a refrain we hear more than once as they continually hesitate between expressions of despair when things look worst and a conviction that providence is somehow guiding their steps (cf. 7.12.2). Geographically speaking, as Tim Whitmarsh observes, “Charicleia and Theagenes travel away from Greece, from the ‘familiar’ center of religious inspiration in Delphi through the relative familiarity of Egypt to the unknown,” to Ethiopia and its utopian kingdom and college of wise gymnosophist priests – a progression, however, each time, it seems, to a higher level of sagacity and virtue. But we only learn about Delphi as a flashback in Calasiris’s internal story. Instead, the “text opens in Egypt at the southernmost shores of the Mediterranean at the Heracleotic mouth of the Nile and thence progresses down through Egypt to Ethiopia,” whose boundary between them is in fact contested by the battle that takes place for possession of the emerald mines that lay on the border. “The Nile,” Whitmarsh concludes, therefore “constitutes the spine of the narrative” (1999: 20, 24).

The Nile and Its Delta: Heliodorus and Achilles Tatius The Nile and its wonders (thaumata) never ceased to fascinate ancient writers, both Greeks and Romans, from Herodotus on, especially the reasons for its annual flooding in the Delta and the mystery surrounding its sources, along with other of its curious features such as the unnatural purity of its water.23 Egypt, in general, always enjoyed a double and contradictory reputation. It was thought to constitute the foundation of ancient and hallowed wisdom, even while it was also represented as a locus of uncivilized barbarians, such as the boukoloi, or bandits, who inhabited the marshes of the Delta (as we learn from the very beginning of Heliodorus’s narrative).24 In the novel, however, it is Calasiris, who, having arrived as an exile in Delphi, imbues both Egypt and the 22  Their elopement from Delphi on a Phoenician ship had led them to winter in Zakynthos, but they are eventually captured by pirates. Storm and shipwreck land them at the mouth of the Heracleotic Nile, where they are captured once again, this time by Boukoloi, or local bandits, who are defeated by Persian troops. Charicleia escapes, but Theagenes is taken captive. 23  See, e.g., 19 Hdt., 2.34.1; Ar., De inund. Nil.= frr. 246–48 Rose; Nearchus apud Strab., 15.1.25, 17.1.4, 17.3; Diod. Sic., 1.36.7; 1.38.1–41.10; Strab., 17.1.5, 17.3.1; Luc., Bell. Civ. 10.219–331; Philostr., VA 2.18; 6.1. Verg., Georg. 4.291–93; Sen., Quaest. Nat. 4a; Plut., Mor. 897f; Arr., Anab. 6.1; Ael. Ar., 48 passim. Herodotus sets the agenda and raises the questions that influence the later authors. 24  The bibliography is copious. In addition to Whitmarsh 1999, see Elmer 2008, 411–50;

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unusual nature of the Nile with a religious aura, claiming to his Greek interlocutors to have gotten his information “from sacred texts, things of which none but members of the priestly caste may read and learn” (2.27–28).25 Later in book 9.22.4 after the Ethiopian victory at Syene, we hear of the famous festival of the Neiloa that celebrated the divinity of the river (given the name of “Horos, Giver of Grain and Giver of Life, Lord of all Egypt, Savior of the South, Father and Creator of the North”) along with its many other wonders. Ethiopia too from Homer on attracted a similar kind of duality (a matter I cannot discuss in any detail here), but only Heliodorus situates it both geographically and spiritually above its neighbor.26 As the king Hydaspes says, in fact, to the local Egyptian priests showing him the sights, such as the Nilometer that measured the annual rise and fall of the water (9.22.7): 27 But all these things … of which you speak so proudly belong not to Egypt but to Ethiopia. For this river, this god as you call it, and every creature in it, comes to you from the land of Ethiopia, which thus in fairness should be the object of your worship, for it is the mother of your gods. 28

This sacralization of the Nile, first in Egypt and now claimed by Ethiopia, transforms the geographical journey into a quasi-mystic quest, endorsed by oracles and dreams, one that leads towards a new and more remote destination. Again, to quote Whitmarsh, “The Aethiopica is not just a tale of Egypt, the land which was traditionally perceived by Greeks as the origin of philosophical wisdom. It goes beyond an Aegyptia: it is an Aethiopica, the ultimate philosophical narrative” (1999: 27).29 Caudelier 1992, 221–31; Manolaraki 2012; Morgan 2012b, 557–77; Morgan 2012a, 255–67; Nimis 2004, 34–67; and Plazenet 1995: 5–22. 25  The Greeks at Delphi, we are told, also inquire about the “worship of native Egyptian gods, or why different races venerate different animals and what myths are associated with each, or the construction of the pyramids, or the underground maze (the burial vaults of the pharaohs near Egyptian Thebes). In short, their questions covered everything there is in Egypt, for Greeks find all Egyptian lore and legend irresistibly attractive” (2.27.3). 26  Heliodorus’s Ethiopia is drawn primarily from a range of older Greek literary sources (in addition to Herodotus), but these are supplemented by later ethnographical details and his own inventions to offer a patchwork of contemporary, historical, and mythical data. See, e.g., Hägg 2004 [1999–2000], 195–219 (reprt. 141–61); Lonis 1992, 232–41; Morgan 1982, 221–65; and Zeitlin 2009, 140–66. 27  There are numerous representations of the Nilometer in ancient mosaics, including the recently discovered example in Sepphoris, but others discovered in Israel are the ‘House of Leontis’ in Beit Shean and the Nile Mosaic in the Church of the Multiplying of the Loaves and Fish as at Tabgha, on the northwestern shore of the Sea of Gallilee. 28  ἀλλ’ οὐκ Αἰγύπτια ταῦτα … ἀλλ’ Αἰθιοπικὰ τὰ σεμνολογήματα· τὸν γοῦν ποταμὸν τοῦτον, εἴτε καὶ καθ’ ὑμᾶς θεόν, καὶ κῆτος ἅπαν ποτάμιον ἡ Αἰθιόπων δεῦρο παραπέμπουσα δικαίως ἂν παρ’ ὑμῶν τυγχάνοι σεβάσματος, μήτηρ ὑμῖν γινομένη θεῶν. 29  He goes still further to compare the text itself to the river, as a geographic template representing narrative structure, to conclude “not with the discovery of the origin not of the Nile but of Charicleia,” 28–29.

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Egypt and the Nile also figure prominently in Achilles Tatius’s novel, Leucippe and Cleitophon, mostly clustered in the narrative from book 3 until the first part of book 5.30 But they do so in entirely different ways from Heliodorus, as we shall see, in keeping with this author’s conspicuous manipulation of space, whether topographies of cities, countryside, landscapes or seascapes, along with his characters’ interest in sightseeing and visiting of touristic attractions. Moreover, most of these references are not mere descriptions of an observant traveler, but are themselves evidence of the first person narrator’s preoccupations and outlook on the world. As Koen De Temmerman in his astute analysis of space in this author remarks: “Achilles Tatius was the first of the novelists to draw emphatic attention to the elaborate representation of space. His pervasive use of synoptic descriptions was innovative, as was the extent to which different spatial realms were playfully and ambiguously associated with or dissociated from each other” (2012: 534). Additionally, the author’s (and narrator’s) rhetorical training as a pepaideumenos is obvious in his love of antitheses and paradoxes as well as in his ekphrastic excurses, whether these are works of art glimpsed in situ (temples or ateliers) or specific descriptions of exotic animals such as the hippopotamus and the crocodile. The latter, as Ruth Webb observes, may be “‘textbook’ examples of such descriptions, such as we find in Theon’s use of Herodotus’ animal descriptions as examples” (2009: 180). Yet, as we will shortly see, such descriptions are conditioned by the speaker, the internal audience, and the circumstances of viewing as well as giving evidence of the first-person narrator’s obsession with the inquisitive gaze. Most of all, as befits a love story, “space is eroticized not only by the narrator, but also by characters in the story as a rhetorical strategy. The novel reconfigures spatial configurations from the literary tradition in an erotic way” (De Temmerman 535).31 Like Chariton and Heliodorus, Achilles Tatius’s work is also organized around three nodal points, both geographically (and also erotically), all interconnected by sea voyages (2.32–3.5. 5.15–17). The novel moves from Phoenicia (where the couple meet (1.3–2.31); especially Tyre) to Egypt, first the Delta and then the city of Alexandria, where they are cruelly separated (3.5–5.15), and, finally, from the middle of book 5 to the end, the scene shifts to the city of Ephesus (5.17–8.19).32 There both Leucippe and Cleitophon turn up, unbeknownst to one another, and the erotic and other complications multiply until the final resolution and the reunion of the couple takes place at the famed temple of Artemis.33 30 

For a summary of the plot of Achilles Tatius, see Appendix I.3. Oddly enough, as previously mentioned, Achilles Tatius is the one novel that is omitted from John Morgan’s otherwise excellent discussion, “Travel in the Greek Novel.” 32  For the travel map of Achilles Tatius, see Appendix II.3. 33  After Leucippe’s presumed death at sea in Alexandria by pirates, Cleitophon marries Melite, a rich widow from Ephesus, whose husband, Thersandros, was thought to have per31 

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But to return now to Egypt and the Nile. There, too, Boukoloi menace the travelers in the Delta when the vessel bound for Alexandria on which the couple had embarked in eloping from Tyre is shipwrecked in that very location. There, too, the peculiarities of the Nile are a source of fascination, from its bandit-infested marshes to its open waterways, allowing the first-person narrator (Cleitophon), with his passion for viewing and delight in florid description, to indulge in the pleasures of paradoxography in language saturated with metaphor and innuendo. In this context, as previously mentioned, we meet some exotic flora and fauna (hippopotamus: 4.2–3; crocodile: 4.19.1–6), hear the story of the brilliantly colored phoenix that makes a marvelous journey from Ethiopia to Egypt bearing its dead father (3.25.1–7), and attend to an anecdote about the elephant and the sweetness of his breath (4.4–6). While such descriptions are staples of the rhetorical schools, as earlier observed, they are more than showy bits of learning, but are rather incorporated into scenes of attempted seduction or, as in the case of the phoenix, they emphasize parallels between the bird and the body of the nubile maiden.34 At the same time, our narrator also gives vivid details of riverine scenes, many of which are familiar from Roman Nilotic mosaics, such as the famous one in Praeneste (c. 100 BC).35 Here is Achilles Tatius’s version: After such a long period when sailing had been difficult [due to the Boukoloi], there were travelers everywhere on the river, and there was much pleasure (hêdonê) to be had in watching: sailors sang, passengers clapped, the very ships danced (choreia). The whole river was a festival (heortê), and the river seemed to be reveling (komazô) as we sailed upon it. (4.18.3) 36

We note here how this description is animated by the language of metaphor that translates the scene into a theatrical spectacle of delight that is tinged with anthropomorphic elements. The previous description of the marshes of the Nile in the Delta, for its part, exploits the paradoxes of the river’s annual flooding to the full and resorts to the all too human language of competition in the personification of its activities.37 The mighty Nile is everything to the locals: river, land, sea, and lake. What a novel spectacle (theama kainon)! A ship serves as a mattock, an oar as a plough, a rudder as a sickished in a shipwreck. Leucippe, sold to Thersandros’s estate as a slave, meets Cleitophon, the nominal ‘husband’ of Melite, but Thersandros, having returned alive, is now both the jealous husband and the would-be lover of Leucippe. 34  On the latter, see especially Morales 1995, 39–50. 35  The Roman passion for Egyptiana is well known. On these mosaics, which are popular in Italy until around 200 CE, but widespread in other parts of the empire, see Versluys 2002 and Manoloraki 2012. 36 Translations with some adjustments by Whitmarsh 2001. ἦν οὖν ἐξ ἀπλοίας μακρᾶς πλεόντων πάντα μεστὰ καὶ πολλή τις ὄψεως ἡδονή· ναυτῶν ᾠδή, πλωτήρων κρότος, χορεία νεῶν· καὶ ἦν ἅπας ὁ ποταμὸς ἑορτή, ἐῴκει δὲ ὁ πλοῦς κωμάζοντι ποταμῷ. 37  See De Temmerman 2012, 523.

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le! It is the habitat of sailors and farmers alike, of sheep and oxen alike. You sow where once you sailed, and the land you sow is cultivated sea, for the river comes and goes. The Egyptians sit and wait for it, counting the number of days. The Nile never cheats; the river observes the due period and measures out its water scrupulously, a river unwilling to be convicted of late payment. It is also possible to see river and land competing (philoneikian): the one strives (erizeton) with the other, the water to deluge such an area of land and the land to absorb such an expanse of sweet sea. The two share victory between them (nikôsi … nikên); the vanquished party (nikômenon) is nowhere to be seen, and the water merges into the land. (Ach. Tat., 4.12.1–3) 38

This is not the first time that a landscape lures Achilles Tatius into rhetorical flights of language in the description of a paradoxical topography. Previously, the depiction of Tyre as a solution to a riddling oracle (2.14. 2) follows along some of the same lines: The land and the sea compete for the city: the sea drags her one way, and the land the other, but she is rooted to both for she sits on the sea without renouncing the land. A narrow neck binds her to the mainland, as if were the island’s throat. … It is a novel spectacle, a city in the sea, and an island on the lake. (2.14.2) 39

Moreover, we are told that this is a place where other opposites meet: Hephaestus (fire) and Athena (olive) are in loving proximity: for it is the soot of the fire that fertilizes the olive. This we learn is the “love” philia between them. (2.14.6) Note the language of the body in this description and the series of double entendres that eroticize the landscape, while maintaining the paradoxes of a hybrid formation.

Achilles Tatius: Erotic Functions of Space This eroticism is present from the very beginning. The opening of the work describes an unnamed traveler who meets with our narrator in the city of Sidon

38  4 (1) Νεῖλος ὁ πολὺς πάντα αὐτοῖς γίνεται, καὶ ποταμὸς καὶ γῆ καὶ θάλασσα καὶ λίμνη. καὶ ἔστι τὸ θέαμα καινόν, ναῦς ὁμοῦ καὶ δίκελλα, κώπη καὶ ἄροτρον, πηδάλιον καὶ δρέπανον, ναυτῶν ὁμοῦ καὶ γεωργῶν καταγωγή, ἰχθύων ὁμοῦ καὶ βοῶν. ὃ πέπλευκας, φυτεύεις, καὶ ὃ φυτεύεις, τοῦτο πέλαγος γεωργούμενον. (2) ἔχει γὰρ ὁ ποταμὸς ἐπιδημίας· κάθηται δὲ αὐτὸν Αἰγύπτιος ἀναμένων καὶ ἀριθμῶν αὐτοῦ τὰς ἡμέρας. καὶ ὁ Νεῖλος οὐ ψεύδεται, ἀλλ’ ἔστι ποταμὸς μετὰ προθεσμίας τὸν χρόνον τηρῶν καὶ τὸ ὕδωρ μετρῶν, ποταμὸς ἁλῶναι μὴ θέλων ὑπερήμερος. (3) ἔστι δὲ ἰδεῖν ποταμοῦ καὶ γῆς φιλονεικίαν. ἐρίζετον ἀλλήλοις ἑκάτερος, τὸ μὲν ὕδωρ τοσαύτην γῆν πελαγῶσαι, ἡ δὲ γῆ τοσαύτην χωρῆσαι γλυκεῖαν θάλασσαν. καὶ νικῶσι μὲν τὴν ἴσην νίκην οἱ δύο, οὐδαμοῦ δὲ φαίνεται τὸ νικώμενον· 39  2.14. ἐρίζει δὲ περὶ ταύτης γῆ καὶ θάλασσα. ἕλκει δὲ ἡ γῆ, ἡ δὲ εἰς ἀμφότερα αὑτὴν ἥρμοσε. (3) καὶ γὰρ ἐν θαλάσσῃ κάθηται καὶ οὐκ ἀφῆκε τὴν γῆν· συνδεῖ γὰρ αὐτὴν πρὸς τὴν ἤπειρον στενὸς αὐχήν, καὶ ἔστιν ὥσπερ τῆς νήσου τράχηλος. (4) οὐκ ἐρρίζωται δὲ κατὰ τῆς θαλάσσης, ἀλλὰ τὸ ὕδωρ ὑπορρεῖ κάτωθεν. ὑπόκειται δὲ πορθμὸς κάτωθεν ἰσθμῷ· καὶ γίνεται τὸ θέαμα καινόν, πόλις ἐν θαλάσσῃ καὶ νῆσος ἐν γῇ.

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and it too follows similar lines, with the addition of familial relationships to the contours of the landscape that invoke the feminine body and its enclosed spaces. Sidon is a city on the sea. The sea is Assyrian, the city is the Phoenicians’ mother city, and its people fathered the Thebans. In the folds of the bay lies a twin harbor, broad and gently enclosing the sea; where the bay bellies out down the flank of the coast on the right, another mouth has been carved out [italics mine], an alternative channel for the influx of the tide. Thus a second harbor is born from the first, so that trading vessels can winter there in the calm, while they can pass the summer in the outer part of the bay. (1.1) 40

Moreover, this first unnamed traveler, who has survived a shipwreck, undertakes, as he says, a tour of the city after he had made his thank offerings to the Phoenicians’ goddess, whom they call Astarte, and as he was browsing among the sacred dedications, he saw: a votive picture, a landscape and seascape in one. The picture was of Europa, the sea was Phoenician, and the land Sidon. On the side of the land was a meadow and a troupe of maidens; in the sea a bull was gliding over the surface and a beautiful maiden was seated on his back, sailing on the bull towards Crete. (1.1.2) 41

Space does not permit me to quote the rest of this remarkable description, which includes maidens on the shore in a state of both joy and fear, their garments hitched up to show their ankles, the beautiful meadow at the water’s edge, with its gardener who irrigates it to make the flowers bloom, and of course, the detailed inventory of Europa’s suggestive posture and revealing dress. What most attracts this viewer, however, is the little figure of Eros, to which he paid particular attention, himself being under the influence of Eros, as he says. It is here that he meets Cleitophon, a stranger to him, who comments on his own experience with Eros in a conversation that leads to the primary narration which launches the entire story. Many have commented, as might be expected, on a number of these elements: the slide from the natural (the cityscape) to a painted artifact; the paradoxical tensions between sea and land, and the suggestivity of Sidon’s feminized folds, flanks, mouth, and belly. This slide between the real and the artificial is a technique that occurs more than once in Achilles’s penchant for the visual uncanny.42 And, at least for the first five books of this work, the author draws upon all 40  1.1 Σιδὼν ἐπὶ θαλάττῃ πόλις· Συρίων ἡ θάλασσα· μήτηρ Φοινίκων ἡ πόλις· Θηβαίων ὁ δῆμος πατήρ. δίδυμος λιμὴν ἐν κόλπῳ πλατύς, ἠρέμα κλείων τὸ πέλαγος· ᾗ γὰρ ὁ κόλπος κατὰ πλευρὰν ἐπὶ δεξιὰ κοιλαίνεται, στόμα δεύτερον ὀρώρυκται, καὶ τὸ ὕδωρ αὖθις εἰσρεῖ, καὶ γίνεται τοῦ λιμένος ἄλλος λιμήν, ὡς χειμάζειν μὲν ταύτῃ τὰς ὁλκάδας ἐν γαλήνῃ, θερίζειν δὲ τοῦ λιμένος εἰς τὸ προκόλπιον. 41  1.1.2. περιϊὼν οὖν καὶ τὴν ἄλλην πόλιν καὶ περισκοπῶν τὰ ἀναθήματα ὁρῶ γραφὴν ἀνα­ κειμένην γῆς ἅμα καὶ θαλάττης. Εὐρώπης ἡ γραφή· Φοινίκων ἡ θάλασσα· Σιδῶνος ἡ γῆ. (3) ἐν τῇ γῇ λειμὼν καὶ χορὸς παρθένων. ἐν τῇ θαλάττῃ ταῦρος ἐπενήχετο, καὶ τοῖς νώτοις καλὴ παρθένος ἐπεκάθητο, ἐπὶ Κρήτην τῷ ταύρῳ πλέουσα. 42 See, e.g., Martin, 143–60; Guez 2012, 137–57; De Temmerman 2012, 525–34; Zeitlin 2013, 61–87; Ciocani 2013, 176–92.

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his rhetorical skills in the vividness of his baroque descriptions, the Tyrian aetiology of wine (2.2.1–5) and the color purple (2.11.5), the love life of plants and animals (1.17–18), the marvel of crystal wine cups (2.3.2), the colors of precious jewels (2.11.10–2.11.14), along with descriptions of other lurid paintings,43 together with those exotic beasts – hippopotami, crocodiles, and phoenixes – that inhabit the Egyptian landscape. In the precocious role of a pepaideumenos, he shows off his school education at every turn with a spectatorial eye that contributes to the sense of an exact rendering of a material world, down to the last detail of color and shade, all with erotic innuendo.44

Ekphrasis of Alexandria This brief discussion can hardly do justice to this challenging work. I will close, however, with one more glance at the ekphrasis of a city, this time of Alexandria. This passage comes in the beginning of the fifth book, which is the turning point of the novel; it will lead to Cleitophon’s separation from his beloved when she is abducted by an unscrupulous suitor (who had posed as their friend) and taken on shipboard with pirates where she is ostensibly beheaded as he looks on in horror from afar. This event, in turn, will lead to a change of venue in another sea voyage, this time to Ephesus, in company with the rich (presumed) widow, Melite. But first, the city of Alexandria. We follow in the footsteps of Cleitophon as he walks through the city; hence, as De Temmerman points out, “the organization is both temporal (as it follows Cleitophon’s movement through the city) and spatial (as it discusses various aspects of the setting from each vantage point)” (2012: 521). We sailed into Alexandria three days later. As I was coming up to the city entrance whose gates are dedicated to Helios, suddenly the beauty (to kallos) of the city struck me like a flash of lightning, and my eyes were filled to the brim with pleasure (hêdonê). There was a row of columns, upright, on both sides from the gates of Helios (Sun) to the gates of Selene (Moon). For these are the two divinities who are the gatekeepers of the city. Between the columns in the middle there lay the city’s open area. Many a road crisscrossed this part: you would think you were going abroad, though you are staying home (endêmos apodêmia). Proceeding a little distance into the city, I came to the quarter named for Alexander himself, where I saw a whole other city, whose beauty was split up in separate sections: for a row of columns went in one direction, and another just as long crossed it at right angles. Dividing my gaze (merizôn tous ophthalmous) to travel along every street, I was left an unsatisfied spectator (theatês akorestos). I could not grasp all the beauty of the spot at once; some parts I saw, some I was on the point of seeing, some 43 Diptych of Andromeda and Prometheus in the temple of Zeus Casius in Pelusium, Egypt (3.6–8); Procne, Philomela, Tereus (5.3.4–6) viewed in the window of an atelier in Alexandria. Lurid dreams of sexual violence also contribute to this visual uncanny. 44  On Cleitophon’s passion for viewing, see, above all, Morales 2005.

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I eagerly desired to see, some I was reluctant to pass by. The things to see outstripped my sight (ekratei tên thean ta horômena); the prospects drew me on. Turning round and round to face all the streets, I grew faint at the sight and at last exclaimed, like a luckless lover (duserôtiôn), “Eyes we have been conquered (ophthalmoi, nenikêmetha)” (5.1.1–5)

Cleitophon is not the first traveler to have been overwhelmed by the sight of this extraordinary city, built by Alexander in 333 BC. Its magnificent site and harbor, its sheer size and scale, the throngs of its inhabitants, and its many other attractions were described with admiration by geographers (Strabo, Geogr. 17.1–10), historians (Diodorus Siculus, Bibl. hist. 52.1–7), and architects (Vitruvius, De architect. 2).45 Like others, Cleitophon was struck by the “distinctive gridiron town plan, constructed on the Milesian model, which consisted of two broad thoroughfares,” as Daniel Selden informed me, “intersecting each other at right angles and the remaining streets drawn parallel to them, with the result that the main avenues offered a uniform cross section of the city on a single plane.”46 But unlike these more sober visitors, who would have been impressed by the orderliness of the layout, which was neatly divided into five sectors and labeled by the first five letters of the alphabet, and by its famous public and sacred buildings and distinctive harbor, Cleitophon is wholly dazzled by the expansion of his sight field and his gaze is bewildered by the geometry of space that extends out into so many different angles. Lacking the panoptic resources that would allow him to grasp this complex design in toto, but desiring to see everything, the expert master of the erotic gaze admits he is vanquished – an unsatisfied spectator (theatês akorestos) – and like a disappointed lover (duserôtiôn), he is deprived, for once, of what he so much longs to see. This is not the first time, however, that he has been mesmerized by a wondrous sight. He had likewise been struck as by lightning at the first sight of Leucippe’s face in the beginning of his story. Much as he tried, he could not take his eyes off her. “My eyes defied me. I tried to force them away from the girl, but they refused and drew themselves back there where they were drawn by the persuasive allure of her beauty, and finally they were victorious (enikêsan)” (1.4.4).47 Alexandria, as Helen Morales observes, is feminized and sexualized. “Luring his gaze to ever more enticing sights, the city seduces Cleitophon. Like Leucippe, she conquers his eyes. … Even sightseeing is ineluctably imbued with erotic yearning and a city tour becomes a romantic encounter” (2005: 106).48 The eyes of this lover, which were victors in the first instance, are now van45 

See map of Alexandria, Appendix II.4. In private written communication. 47  1.4.4. τοὺς δὲ ὀφθαλμοὺς ἀφέλκειν μὲν ἀπὸ τῆς κόρης ἐβιαζόμην· οἱ δὲ οὐκ ἤθελον, ἀλλ’ ἀνθεῖλκον ἑαυτοὺς ἐκεῖ τῷ τοῦ κάλλους ἑλκόμενοι πείσματι, καὶ τέλος ἐνίκησαν. 48  Morales compares Achilles Tatius’s ekphrasis with that of Strabo’s description (Geogr. 17.1–6). The fourth century rhetorician Aphthonius in his Progymnasmata 12 gives an extended ekphrasis of the citadel and the acropolis of the city, closing his piece with admiration of their wonders. 46 

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quished in the second, but the correspondences in diction and action between the two scenes suggest they are meant to be symmetrical, and even more, that the antiphonal echo is a way of linking the first half of the plot with the second, through a network of similarity and difference. On the one hand, the experience of the sightseer who is a luckless lover corresponds to the frustrations of Cleitophon, prevented from consummating his passion by Leucippe’s recounting of a dream she just had before her sacrificial ordeal in the Delta, where the goddess Artemis appeared to her and enjoined her to remain a virgin until she could legitimately wed (4.1.4). But on the other hand, the complexities of viewing Alexandria are well suited to signify the coming complications of the story, which will begin just after the second Scheintod of Leucippe on shipboard, shortly to come, a death which Cleitophon will again behold with his own eyes, as he had the first one (when she was ritually ‘sacrificed’ by the Boukoloi). But unlike the revelation of the theatrical trick that disguised her ‘faux’ slaughter, this time there is no immediate answer to the riddle at hand, the solution to which he will not find out from Leucippe until the very end of the work. The impasse to the processes of vision presented in the ekphrasis of the city is perhaps then a portent in abstracto of the confusing reversals to come, when the eyewitness will be most misled by the spectacle he will see, and now separated from his beloved, each of the pair will be given over to the gaze of another – Cleitophon to that of the widow, Melite, shortly, in Alexandria, and Leucippe, subsequently, in Ephesus with Thersandros, Melite’s brutal husband, the latter two returning alive from their respective ordeals as ghostly apparitions from the dead. But there is more to come in this opening passage, as Cleitophon continues his advance into the city on foot and once again we note the typical fondness for the rhetoric of paradox and antithesis in a competitive context. I saw two extraordinary novelties (kaina kai paraloga), grandeur competing with beauty (kallos) and the population striving to exceed their city. Both sides won: the city was bigger than a continent and the people more numerous than an entire race [italics mine]. When I considered the city, I could not believe that it could be filled with people; when I beheld the people, I was amazed (ethaumazon) that a city could hold them. The scales were that finely balanced. (5.1.6) 49

The third section of this ekphrasis, however, now moves from a spatial to a temporal dimension, once again observing the strange paradox of what the viewer sees, now in terms of light and dark, of day and night: from the abstract mapping of the city’s design to the author’s typical love of paradox and competing 49  5.1.6. εἶδον δὲ δύο καινὰ καὶ παράλογα, μεγέθους πρὸς κάλλος ἅμιλλαν καὶ δήμου πρὸς πόλιν φιλονεικίαν, καὶ ἀμφότερα νικῶντα. ἡμὲν γὰρ ἠπείρου μείζων ἦν, ὁ δὲ πλείων ἔθνους· καὶ εἰ μὲν εἰς τὴν πόλιν ἀπεῖδον, ἠπίστουν εἰ πληρώσει τις δῆμος αὐτὴν ἀνδρῶν, εἰ δὲ εἰς τὸν δῆμον ἐθεασάμην, ἐθαύμαζον εἰ χωρήσει τις αὐτὸν πόλις. τοιαύτη τις ἦν ἰσότητος τρυτάνη.

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claims, this flâneur moves now to a temporal pause (the time of day) and to another paradox (this time, between day and night), irradiated by the divine. As it happened, this was the holy month of the high god whose Greek name is Zeus, but who in Egypt is known as Serapis. For this celebration, there was a torchlight procession, a sight to surpass any other in my experience (touto megiston etheasamên) -- for evening had come, and the sun was set, yet night was nowhere, only a second sunrise of light (allos anetellen hêlios) in shimmering fragments, for then I saw the city vying in beauty (erizousan peri kallous) with the heavens. (5.1–2.2).50

We are reminded here of the scene at the very opening of the first book, when the unnamed traveler arrives in Sidon and takes a tour of the city, and like Cleitophon drinks in the lavish sights before him describing them in erotic terms. “What is more,” as Tim Whitmarsh observes, “both visit the temple of and pray to a culturally sylleptic god: Cleitophon that of ‘the great god, whom the Greeks call Zeus, the Egyptians Sarapis’ (5.2.1); the unnamed narrator that of ‘the Phoenicians’ goddess; the Sidonians call her Astarte’ (1.1.2)” (2009: 44–45).51 How to interpret this scene? Erotic frustration at Leucippe’s determination to remain a virgin (the past)? A sign of confusion and complications to come after her abduction and Scheintod that cast doubt on the primacy of visual experience (the future)? Or perhaps, as Helen Morales argues, the ekphrasis is a replication of the reader’s experience in the narrative tease of unsatisfied desire as a metaliterary device (2005: 100–106), while Stephen Nimis, for his part, sees the lover’s disorientation as a kind of Freudian unheimlich (1998: 112–13). A further possibility, not unrelated to Morales’s and Nimis’s observations, hinges on the peculiar phrase, endêmos apodêmia. In this context, we may note that our ancient (and only biographical) source, the Suda, claims that Achilles Tatius was a native of Alexandria. On the one hand, this ekphrasis itself may be the only evidence for this later assumption.52 But, on the other, Tim Whitmarsh goes as far as to suggest that behind the strange phrase (again a paradox) endêmos apodêmia (“you would think you were going abroad, though you are staying home” or “you could be a tourist at home”) lurks a double identity: Cleitophon, the first person narrator and Achilles Tatius, the author himself. “This is a curious word for the Tyrian Cleitophon to use,” he observes. “Elsewhere his time abroad is referred to as an apodêmia, a ‘tour abroad’ (2.27.2; 33.3; 5.10.3; 8.5.7); endêmos apodêmia brings together, in a single, giddyingly metaleptic phrase, 50  5.2.1. ἦν δέ πως κατὰ δαίμονα ἱερομηνία τοῦ μεγάλου θεοῦ, ὃν Δία μὲν Ἕλληνες, Σέραπιν δὲ καλοῦσιν Αἰγύπτιοι. ἦν δὲ καὶ πυρὸς δᾳδουχία· καὶ τοῦτο μέγιστον ἐθεασάμην. [2] ἑσπέρα μὲν γὰρ ἦν καὶ ὁ ἥλιος κατεδύετο καὶ νὺξ ἦν οὐδαμοῦ, ἀλλὰ ἄλλος ἀνέτελλεν ἥλιος κατακερματίζων. τότε γὰρ εἶδον πόλιν ἐρίζουσαν περὶ κάλλους οὐρανῷ. ἐθεασάμην δὲ καὶ τὸν Μειλίχιον Δία καὶ τὸν Διὸς Οὐρανίου νεών. 51  See also Whitmarsh 2011, 83–85. 52  Even as Longus is thought to be a native of Lesbos by reason of the setting of Daphnis and Chloe.

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both Cleitophon’s and Achilles’ perspectives” (2009: 45). I am not entirely convinced by this ingenious solution, but another of Whitmarsh’s suggestions is more appealing: “If the description of the city served as an allegory of authorial control [in its geometrical precision], then this description of ecphrastic overload represents the failure of narratorial power (‘we are defeated …’). Where the city is ‘dissected’ (σχιζόμενον) in orderly fashion, Cleitophon’s gaze is ‘divided’ (cf. μερίζων) by its wild, unconstrained yearning,” with no secure way to adjudicate between the two alternatives (46–47). The reference to apodêmia, however, brings me back to the beginning of this essay and the title I chose to characterize the journeys of a lovelorn couple outside of their familiar environments during the period Bakhtin called “adventure time.” As we have followed these travels in the Roman East through the novels of Chariton, Heliodorus, and finally in Achilles Tatius, through some selected themes as deployed through literary and rhetorical strategies to suit their own narrative emplotments, I hope to have shed some light on the creative resources of prose fiction to articulate both the real and metaphorical aspects of the lovers’ journeys that take place under the Roman empire.53

Appendix I: Summaries of Chariton, Heliodorus, and Achilles Tatius I.1  Chariton: Summary54 The story (8 books) is set against a historical background of ca 400 BC. In Syracuse, Chaereas falls passionately in love with the supernaturally beautiful Callirhoe and she with him. She is the daughter of the general, Hermocrates, a hero of the Peloponnesian War and the most important political figure of Syracuse, thus setting the narrative in time and social milieu. Her beauty (kallos) overawes crowds, like an earthly counterpart of Aphrodite. They are married, but when her many disappointed suitors successfully conspire to trick Chaereas into thinking she is unfaithful, he kicks her so hard that she falls over as if dead. There is a funeral; she is shut up in a tomb, but it turns out she was only in a coma, and wakes up in time to find pirates who have opened the tomb to rob it. They take her on board to sell as a slave in Miletus, where her new master, Dionysius, a wealthy widowed landowner, falls in love with her. She reluctantly consents to the marriage, since she is already pregnant by Chaereas and decides 53  My gratitude to Maren Niehoff for the splendid conference on Travel in the Roman East and for her general help to me throughout. I also thank Robert Cioffi, who generously shared his current work on travel, topography, and the Greek novel, and Jean Alvares, who supplied the maps. 54  Adapted from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chariton.

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to carry the child, if only as an image of his father. As a result, Dionysius believes Callirhoe’s son to be his own. Meanwhile the despondent Chaereas has heard she is alive, and with his friend, Polycharmus, has gone looking for her in Miletus, but is himself captured and enslaved by the satrap Mitrhidates, but on the basis of a dream she misinterprets, she believes that he is dead. The story eventually takes them both (unbeknownst to one another) all the way for a trial at the court of the Great King of Persia, Artaxerxes, who also falls in love with her, and further complications ensue: the trial, initially brought by Dionysius against Mithridates, who having fallen in love with Callirhoe, is suspected of adulterous intentions himself, turns into an adjudication of the competing claims of two husbands, when Mithridates produces his former slave. A war between Egypt and Persia providentially interrupts the proceedings; the couple is parted once again, but are finally reunited by a lucky coincidence. Callirhoe writes to a heart-broken Dionysius, telling him to bring up her son and send him to Syracuse when he grows up. Chaereas and Callirhoe return in triumph to Syracuse, where Chaereas relates the entire sequence of events to the assembled citizens and Callirhoe offers prayers to Aphrodite, who, it seems, has guided the intrigues of the narrative all along. I.2  Heliodorus, Aithiopika: Summary55 The Aithiopika is a long and highly sophisticated tale (10 books) of a girl born white to black parents, the king (Hydaspes) and queen (Persinna) of Ethiopia. Fearing suspicion of adultery, the queen tells her husband that the baby died at birth, but instructs one of the gymnosophists to hide the infant. This sage, Sisimithres, eventually travels to Egypt and passes on the child, now seven years old, together with her birth tokens, to a Greek priest, Charicles, who himself is wandering in Egypt. Charicles rears the child as his own at Delphi. Time passes, and the girl, now named Charicleia, of surpassing beauty, dedicates herself at adolescence to Artemis and virginity. An Egyptian priest of Isis, Calasiris, arrives at the same time as a deputation from Thessaly, led by the handsome Theagenes, descendant of Achilles, to participate in the Pythian games. The two young people fall in love at first sight, and the wily Calasiris, divining Charicleia’s destiny, engineers their elopement on a Phoenician ship and accompanies them on their further journeys until he dies towards the end of book 7. Calasiris had previously deciphered the girl’s infant swaddling band, which was exposed with Charicleia. The text revealed her origins and explained the phenomenon of her gleaming white complexion as a result of her mother’s having gazed upon a painting of fair-skinned Andromeda, one of the ancestors of the royal family, at the moment of her conception. After a series of mishaps, trials and separations 55 

Some text borrowed from Whitmarsh 1999, 18.

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(including Calasiris’s death from old age), the pair eventually make their way to Ethiopia, as directed by a previous, if riddling, oracle of Apollo at Delphi (book 2). They are, now, however, prisoners of the Ethiopian king, who in book 9 had captured them in the war against the Persians on the Egyptian border. The couple’s situation is precarious: Ethiopian law dictates that human sacrifice be offered to the deities, Helios (Sun) and Selene (Moon), as a thanksgiving offering for military victory, and the two captives are the designated victims. But the law also decrees that they be chaste as well. Accordingly, both are tested for their virginity on a fiery grid, and their success in this ordeal leads finally to the recognition of Charicleia by the royal couple as their legitimate daughter. Theagenes at the end wins consent to marry her and the work concludes with the marriage of the young couple and their investiture as priest and priestess of the Sun and Moon respectively. I.3  Achilles Tatius, Leucippe and Cleitophon: Summary56 The work is notable for its unusual first person narrator, its high degree of sophistic rhetoric, its many vivid descriptions, and its impudent play with novelistic conventions, introducing comic and parodistic elements and much besides, including a problematic ending. At the novel’s start, the unnamed narrator is approached by a young man called Cleitophon who is induced to talk of his erotic adventures. In Cleitophon’s story, his cousin Leucippe travels to his home in Tyre; he falls in love with her, despite his already being promised in marriage to his half-sister Calligone. He seeks the advice of another cousin (Cleinias), already experienced in love (this latter’s young male lover dies shortly after). After a number of attempts to woo her, Cleitophon wins Leucippe’s love, but his marriage to Calligone is fast approaching. However, the marriage is averted when Callisthenes, a young man from Byzantium who has heard of Leucippe’s beauty, comes to Tyre to kidnap her, but by mistake kidnaps Calligone. Cleitophon attempts to visit Leucippe at night in her room, but her mother is awakened by an ominous dream. Fearing reprisals, Cleitophon and Leucippe elope together and leave Tyre on a ship (where they meet another unhappy lover, Menelaos, responsible for his own boyfriend’s death). Unfortunately, their ship is wrecked during a storm. They arrive in Egypt and are captured by Nile delta bandits. Cleitophon is rescued, but the bandits sentence Leucippe to be sacrificed in their barbarian rites. Cleitophon witnesses this supposed sacrifice, but it turns out that she is still alive, the sacrifice having been staged by his captured friends using theatrical props. In the aftermath, Leucippe relates a dream of 56  Some of this text is adapted from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leucippe_and_Cleitophon.

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Artemis she had had the previous night, enjoining her to remain a virgin, until the goddess gives her to Cleitophon in lawful marriage. The Egyptian army soon rescues the group, but their general, Charmides, falls in love with Leucippe. She, however, is stricken by a fit of madness, the effect of a strange love potion gone wrong given her by another rival, but is saved by an antidote given by a helpful stranger Chaireas. The bandits’ camp is destroyed and the lovers and their friends make for Alexandria (book 5) but are again betrayed: Chaireas kidnaps Leucippe, taking her away on his ship. As Cleitophon pursues them, Chaireas’s men apparently chop off her head and throw her overboard. Cleitophon, distraught, returns to Alexandria. Melite, a widowed lady from Ephesus, falls in love with him and convinces him to marry her. Cleitophon refuses to consummate the marriage before they arrive in Ephesus. Once there, he discovers Leucippe, who is still alive and now a slave on Melite’s estate, another woman having been decapitated in her stead (a fact we find out only at the end). It also turns out that Melite’s brutish husband Thersandros is alive as well, having survived a shipwreck; he returns home and attempts to both rape Leucippe and frame Cleitophon for adultery and murder. Eventually, Cleitophon’s innocence is proven; Leucippe proves her virginity by entering the temple of Artemis and publicly passing a test of her virtue; Leucippe’s father (Sostratos) comes to Ephesus and reveals that Cleitophon’s father gives the lovers his blessing. Callisthenes, Calligone’s kidnapper, is also shown to have become a true and honest husband. The lovers can finally marry in Byzantium, Leucippe’s town. But the end of the novel, curiously, does not return to the beginning and we do not know why Cleitophon is now alone.

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Appendix II: Travel Maps

Courtesy of Jean Alvares

II.1  Map of Chariton

Courtesy of Jean Alvares

II.2  Map of Heliodorus

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Courtesy of Jean Alvares

II.3  Map of Achilles Tatius

Appendix II.4

Courtesy of Christopher Haas

Courtesy of Jean Alvares

II.4  Map of Alexandria

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Kuch, Heinrich. 1996. “A Study on the Margin of the Ancient Novel: ‘Barbarians’ and Others.” In The Novel in the Ancient World, ed. Gareth Schmeling. Mnemosyne Supplements, The Classical Tradition 159. Leiden: Brill, pp.  417–56.
 Lonis, Raoul. 1992. “Les Éthiopiens sous le regard d’Héliodore.” In Le monde du roman grec, ed. Marie-Françoise Baslez, Philippe Hoffman, and Monique Trédé. ELA 4/ Paris: Presses de ENS. Lowe, Nick J. 2000. The Classical Plot and the Invention of Western Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Manolaraki, Elena. 2012. Noscendi Nilum Cupido: Imagining Egypt from Lucan to Philostratus. Trends in Classics, Supplementary Volumes 18. Berlin: de Gruyter. Martin, Richard. 2002. “A Good Place to Talk: Discourse and Topos in Achilles Tatius and Philostratus.” In Space in the Ancient Novel, Ancient Narrative Supplementum I, ed. Michael Paschalis and Stavros Frangoulidis. Groningen: Barkhuis, pp.  143–60. Montiglio, Silvia. 2005. “Wandering in the Greek Novel.” In Wandering in Ancient Greek Culture, by Silvia Montiglio. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp.  221– 60. Morales, Helen. 1995. “The Taming of the View: Natural Curiosities in Leucippe and Kleitophon.” Groningen Colloquia on the Novel 6: 39–50. –. 2005. Vision and Narrative in Achilles Tatius’ Leucippe and Cleitophon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Morgan, John R. 1982. “History, Romance, and Realism in the Aithiopika of Heliodoros.” Classical Antiquity 1: 221–65. –. 2007. “Travel in the Greek Novels: Function and Interpretation.” In Travel, Geography and Culture in Ancient Greece and the Near East, ed. Colin Adams and Jim Roy. Leicester Nottingham Studies in Ancient Society Series 10. Oakville: David Brown, pp.  139–60. –. 2012a. “Le culte du Nil chez Héliodore.” In Les hommes et les dieux dans l’ancien roman, ed. Cécile Post-Pouderon and Bernard Pouderon. Lyon: Maison de l’Orient méditerraneén, pp.  255–67. –. 2012b. “Heliodorus.” In Irene de Jong (ed.), Space in Ancient Greek Literature. Mnemosyne Supplements 339. Brill: Leiden, pp.  557–77. –. 2014. “Heliodorus the Hellene.” In Defining Greek Narrative, ed. Douglas Cairns and Ruth Scodel. ELS 7. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp.  260–76. –, and Stephen Harrison. 2008. “Intertextuality.” In The Cambridge Companion to the Greek and Roman Novel, ed. Tim Whitmarsh. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.  218–36. Nimis, Stephen. 1998. “Memory and Description in the Ancient Novel.” Aretheusa 31: 99–122. –. 2004. “Egypt in Greco-Roman History and Fiction.” Alif 4: 34–67. Perkins, Judith. 1999. “An Ancient ‘Passing’ Novel: Heliodorus Aithiopika.” Arethusa 32: 197–214. Plazenet, Laurence. 1995. “Le Nil et son delta dans les romans grecs.” Phoenix 49: 5–22. Reardon, Bryan P. 1971. Courants littéraires grecs des IIe et IIIe siècles après J.-C. Paris: Les Belles Lettres. Romm, James. 2008. “Travel.” In The Cambridge Companion to the Greek and Roman Novel, ed. Tim Whitmarsh. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.  109–26. Schmeling, Gareth, ed. 1996. The Novel in the Ancient World. Mnemosyne Supplements, The Classical Tradition 159. Leiden: Brill.

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Versluys, Miguel J. 2002. Aegyptiaca Romana: Nilotic Scenes and the Roman Views of Egypt. Religions in the Graeco-Roman World 144. Leiden: Brill. Webb, Ruth. 2009. Ekphrasis, Imagination and Persuasion in Ancient Rhetorical Theory and Practice. Farnham: Ashgate. Whitmarsh, Tim. 1999. “The Writes of Passage: Cultural Initiation in Heliodorus.” In Constructing Identities in Late Antiquity, ed. Richard Miles. London: Routledge, pp.  16–40. –, trans. 2001. Achilles Tatius: Leucippe and Cleitophon. Oxford: Oxford University Press. –. 2008. ed. The Cambridge Companion to the Greek and Roman Novel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. –. 2009. “Divide and Rule: Segmenting Callirhoe and Related Works.” In Readers and Writers in the Ancient Novel, ed. Michael Paschalis, Stelios Panayotakis, and Gareth Schmeling. Ancient Narrative Supplementum 12. Groningen: Barkhuis, pp.  36–50. –. 2011. Narrative and Identity in the Ancient Greek Novel: Returning Romance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Zeitlin, Froma. 2009. “Retour au pays du Soleil: en hommage à Jean-Pierre Vernant.” Trans. B. Mezzadri. L’Europe 964–65: 140–66. –. 2013. “Landscapes and Portraits: Signs of the Uncanny and Illusions of the Real.” In The Construction of the Real and the Ideal in the Ancient Novel, ed. Michael Paschalis and Stelios Panayotakis. Ancient Narrative Supplementum 17. Gronningen: Barkhuis, pp.  61–87.

Indian Travel and Cultural Self-Location in the Life of Apollonius and the Acts of Thomas Kendra Eshleman In the middle of the first century CE, two miracle-working purveyors of wisdom set out for India – or so the early third-century writers who record their adventures want us to believe.1 One is Apollonius of Tyana, who spends much of the first three books of Philostratus’s Life of Apollonius (VA) travelling to India.2 The other is the apostle Judas Thomas, the twin brother of Jesus, whose mission to India and martyrdom are dramatized in the Acts of Thomas (ATh).3 The VA has much in common with the ATh and with the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles (AAA) in general. The heroes of each travel around or beyond the Roman empire, performing wonders, reforming morals, and correcting religious practice. They preach asceticism, intervene in novelistic dramas, are accused of sorcery, confront political authority, and miraculously escape, but ultimately face martyrdom. (Apollonius alone survives.) Apollonius and Thomas both become objects of pilgrimage themselves.4 Yet although these texts have frequently been placed in the same generic web – one that includes the Greek and Latin novels,5 Christian gospels,6 the canonical Acts,7 philosophical bio­ 1  Despite attempts to defend the historicity of the Indian travels of both Apollonius and Thomas, most scholars now accept that these narratives are largely fictional – which does not mean frivolous. See esp. Bowie 1978; Jones 2001; van den Bosch 2001; and Francis 1998. In this paper, translations of Greek and Latin are my own. For translation of the Syriac text of ATh, I rely on Klijn 2003. 2  On the date of the VA (between 217 and 238 CE), see now Kemezis 2014, 294–97. 3  Current consensus holds that ATh was written in eastern Syria in the early third century, probably in Syriac, but that the Greek text is superior to the extant Syriac versions. New challenges to that consensus have been raised by Myers 2010, 34–54, who pushes the redaction farther east (from Edessa to Nisibis) and later in the third century, and Roig Lanzillotta (2015) who argues for a second-century Greek original, but neither argument yet seems conclusive. 4 Apollonius: VA 8.15.2–3, 31.3. Thomas: ATh 170; cf. Itin. Eger. 17.1; Ephrem, Carm. Nis. 42. 5  Söder 1932 remains fundamental; König 2009 argues for conscious, self-reflexive generic subversion on the part of the AAA. For VA and the novels, see Bowie 1994, 187–99; and Billault 2000, 105–13. 6  Comparisons between VA and the gospels began within decades of the former’s composition (Eus., Adv. Hier.). Koskenniemi 1994 reviews the modern scholarship. For the gospels and AAA as “Christian narrative fiction,” see Pervo 1996. 7  Pervo 1987; Bovon 2003; and Reimer 2002.

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graphy,8 hagiography,9 apologetic and martyr acts10 – only rarely have they been brought directly into dialogue.11 In this paper, I explore how the Life of Apollonius and Acts of Thomas use travel to India, a place represented as lying beyond the frontiers of the known world, to locate their heroes and the culture they represent within the world they inhabit. The VA is a narrative argument for the universal supremacy of the classicizing Hellenism embodied by Apollonius. Everywhere he goes, Apollonius exhibits flawless cultural and ethical mastery of Greek paideia. As he famously asserts, “for the wise man, Greece is everywhere” (VA 1.35). His pilgrimage to the Brahmans of India – farther than any Greek had ever gone (2.33, 43; 3.13) – tracks his model of Hellenism back to its ultimate source and purest instantiation (3.19.1; 6.11.8–12; 8.7.14). That trip maps a cultural-historical relationship between Greece and India, authorizes Apollonius’s Hellenism, and establishes the unique authority of Apollonius himself. The ATh, too, may be read as a narrative argument for the universal supremacy of a particular culture, the ascetic Christianity proclaimed by Thomas. Thomas and Apollonius share a number of hallmarks of true philosophy, including disdain for payment, fearless opposition to tyrants, and a Socratic refusal to evade death, as well as superhuman abilities such as raising the dead, reappearing after death, or unmasking and defeating demons.12 At the same time, however, the ATh valorizes its hero by violating or conspicuously ignoring important cultural markers that Philostratus uses to legitimize Apollonius. This paper will examine the two texts’ divergent handling of a linked set of topoi: correct conduct at a feast, command of Greek paideia, relationship to the classical Greek past and to India as a source of wisdom, and the depiction of India itself. I will not suggest that either text is responding to the other; if nothing else, uncertainty about their dates precludes that thesis.13 Rather, I argue that they exploit a set of common tropes, and that reading ATh alongside the VA reveals creative resistance and provocative silences in the former.

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Junod 1981. Van Uytfanghe 2001, 1165–167; and 2009. 10  Swain 1999; and Rhee 2005. Kemezis 2014, 182–84 compares the VA to martyr literature. 11 Exceptions include Dihle 1964, 57–58; Koskenniemi 1991, 62, 72–73 and 1994, 206; Parker 2008, 288–301; Reed 2009; Reger 2009; and Perkins 2015. Klijn 2003 occasionally cites VA as a comparandum for details in ATh. 12  Disdain for payment: ATh 62; VA 6.17, 8.7.9–12. Opposition to tyrants: ATh 16, 20–21, 101–8, 125–28, 139–68; VA 4.35–47, bks. 7–8. Refusal to evade death: ATh 151; VA 8.12.5. Raising the dead: ATh 33, 41, 53–54; VA 4.45. Reappearing after death: ATh 169–70; VA 8.12. Unmasking and defeating demons: ATh 44–46, 76–78; VA 4.10, 20, 25. 13  Interaction between the earlier oral and written sources underlying both works cannot be excluded, but that is not a possibility I wish to pursue here. 9 

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The Sage at the Symposium A defining moment for each hero’s experience of India comes at a banquet, a privileged site for the display of character and culture.14 In India, Apollonius stops first at Taxila, where the king Phraotes invites him to a symposium – or rather, asks Apollonius to invite him to be his συμπότης (VA 2.27.1). The king is a secret Greek speaker, in need of Greek company in which to express his Greekness; he needs Apollonius to enable him to participate in this “distinctively Greek cultural practice that cannot be enacted by one person alone” (Kemezis 178). Apollonius thus takes his place as both guest of honor and symposiarch at a feast that is transformed into a symposium by his Hellenizing presence. Thomas, meanwhile, is being transported to India as a slave. Stopping at the royal city of Andrapolis, he and his master are swept up into the wedding of the king’s daughter (ATh 3). Each text uses this resonant setting to illuminate its hero’s mastery of or resistance to civilized behavior, and to measure the distance between the protagonist and local culture. The feast at Taxila is a fair approximation of a Greek symposium, with enough exotic coloring to remind us that we are in India. For example, the menu consists of fish, birds, whole lions, venison, pork, and tiger loins, and the guests drink animal-style, bending over large shared kraters (VA 2.28). And like most symposia, it falls short of philosophical ideal. The seating is assigned and hierarchical, the guests (at least thirty) too numerous for shared conversation, the entertainment acrobatic and musical, and the menu heavy on meat and wine – even though the guest of honor is a teetotalling vegan (e.g. 1.8.1, 32.2; 2.7). The more exemplary Brahman symposium in book 3 (3.26–33) shares none of these flaws.15 Yet these imperfections highlight the perfection of Apollonius himself. Usually an unsparing critic, on this occasion he refrains from censure. While he abstains from drinking and presumably from the meat (2.36; 3.32.2), he does not object to the menu or oblige his host to find extra food to accommodate his dietary restrictions, as a Pythagorean friend of Plutarch once did (Quaest. conv. 4.1, 660D–F). Rather than protest the entertainment, he simply ignores it and steers the conversation in a philosophical direction (2.29.1). This is correct conduct: as Plutarch advises, the gracious philosopher accommodates his fellow symposiasts, adjusting to their aptitudes and tastes as far as decency allows, 14 

See now König 2012. The Brahmans are praised for avoiding assigned, hierarchical seating (VA 3.27.3), a practice criticized in Plutarch for reinforcing worldly vanities (Quaest. conv. 1.2, 616C–F). Plutarch also cautions against large parties (Quaest. conv. 5.5). The Brahmans serve only dried fruit, bread, and seasonal local produce, even to a visiting king with a large appetite (3.26.2, 27.2). The propriety of musical and other entertainments at a symposium was debated since Plato (Symp.  176e; cf. Plut., Quaest. conv. 2 pr., 629C; 5 pr.; 7.5, 7–8; cf. 1.4, 621C–F; Clem. Al., Paed. 2.4). Plutarch cautiously accepts music (Quaest. conv. 7.8, 713D–E), but no other entertainment; the Brahmans admit no such distractions. 15 

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without making a fuss,16 but guiding the conversation in ways that bring out “the best and most cultured part of their soul” (Quaest. conv. 3 pr., 645C).17 Apollonius, then, emerges as a consummate symposiast and as a catalyst whose presence draws out the sympotic character of the feast and the Greekness of Phraotes himself. Their conversation, meanwhile, delicately maps the relationship between Greece and India. While Phraotes hails Apollonius’s wisdom as “kinglier” than his own (2.27.2), he insists on the superiority of India itself to Greece. Although he practices Greek philosophy and reads Greek literature (2.32.1), Phraotes did not learn his Hellenism from Greek agents, but from the Brahmans (2.30–32) – not, he insists, the ones Alexander met, but a superior group (2.33.1). Their philosophy is much purer than the Greek kind, thanks to their rigorous screening of prospective philosophy students (2.29–30). Similar claims are made by the Brahmans themselves in book 3, and illustrated by the Brahman symposium, which is a cross between an ideal Greek philosophical symposium and the otherworldly banquets of the Homeric gods. These claims anchor Apollonius’s authority for the rest of the work: his unique blend of Greek paideia with esoteric Indian wisdom equips him to correct the teachings, customs, and religious practices of everyone else he encounters, whether Greek, Roman, or barbarian.18 At the same time, the idealized Brahman alternative to Greek philosophy is itself “recognisably Greek in origin” (Whitmarsh 2007: 41).19 Brahman methods of philosophical quality control are based on Plato’s recommendations in the Republic (Pl., Rep.  484d–487a, 521c–541b), their sympotic practices match Greek ideals, and their doctrines are a mix of Stoic, Cynic, and Platonic elements. The centrality of Hellenism is thus confirmed, rather than challenged. Thomas’s experience is quite different.20 Like Apollonius, he enhances his hosts’ virtue, but he does so not as a considerate cultural insider, but as a marginalized, dissenting outsider. The banquet he attends is unremarkable; nothing distinguishes it as specially Indian or particularly flawed. The entire city is invited, “rich and poor, slave and free, aliens and citizens” (ATh 4), a gesture that evokes the inclusivity of sacrificial feasting and the ideal symposium, as well as biblical images of the kingdom of heaven (Matt 22:2–10; cf. Gal 3:28).21 Yet 16 

Quaest. conv. 1.1, 613D–615C; 1.2, 616F–617C; 6.7, 692B–E; 7.5, 706C; 7.7, 710C–F. Quaest. conv. 1.4, 622A; 2.1, 630A–D. Clement of Alexandria similarly advises Christians at dinners hosted by non-Christians to eat whatever is set before them politely but moderately, setting a virtuous example by their self-restraint (Paed. 2.1.10). 18  VA 5.25.1; 6.18; 8.7.11, 14, 16, 22. On this habit, see Elsner 1997; Parker 2008, 292–94; Kemezis 2014, 179. 19  Cf. Swain 1999, 187. The Greekness of Philostratus’s India has been much discussed, e.g. Flinterman 1995, 101–6; Bowie 2009, 62–63; Abraham 2014, 469–73. 20  This paragraph is indebted to König 2012, 307–14. 21  König 2009, 309 draws the comparisons to sacrificial commensality. Sympotic inclusivity: Plut., Quaest. conv. 1.2, cf. 1.1, 613D–615A; 4 pr., 673A; 7.7, 710D. The similarity to Matt 17 Cf.

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Thomas resists at every step. He attends only under threat (4) and fails – or refuses – to follow sympotic etiquette, until his presence nullifies the wedding itself. He neither eats nor drinks nor pays attention to the flute girl, a fellow Hebrew who plays beside him for an hour, but rather stares fixedly at the ground (5–6). When garlands and perfumed oil are distributed, he turns sympotic self-perfuming into a sacramental anointing, while also evoking the Passion narrative (5). His main verbal contribution is a long hymn in Hebrew, which the other guests do not understand (6–8). Where Apollonius unobtrusively modulates his participation so that he upholds philosophical standards without disturbing others, Thomas’s unsociable behavior disrupts the party. It attracts puzzlement from the other guests (5) and violence from a wine-pourer, who slaps Thomas (6). The violence turns grisly when the wine-pourer, cursed by Thomas, is mauled by a lion and his severed hand is carried back into the banquet hall (8). Yet it is this gruesome rupture of conviviality which allows Thomas to achieve the friend-making, virtue-enhancing purpose of a symposium.22 For the Hebrew flute girl, the only person to understand Thomas’s curse, now hails him as “either a god or the apostle of a god” (9). As a result, Thomas is invited to pray with the bridal couple, whom he converts to lifelong celibacy (9–15); the king himself eventually follows suit (16). Paradoxically, then, Thomas accomplishes the aims of a philosophical symposium, but by breaking its rules. Like Apollonius’s Greekness, Thomas’s Hebrewness is thematized in this passage. For Apollonius, Greek language and culture open doors on his eastward journey: he is welcomed by a series of Hellenophilic, Greek-speaking rulers for whom Greek paideia is the mark of virtue.23 Not so for Thomas. He had initially resisted going to India, wondering, “How can I, a Hebrew person, go among the Indians and proclaim the truth?” (ATh 1). The banquet scene emphasizes his foreignness and isolation, repeatedly calling him a “stranger” and an “alien,” and stressing the guests’ incomprehension of his speech and actions.24 Hebrew opens no doors and confers no prestige among the Indians. After this scene, the language barrier disappears, but Hebrew ethnicity continues to signify alienness and novelty (23, 101). At a later stop, king Misdaeus is advised to execute the “Hebrew magician” who “is teaching a new God and new, previously unheard-of laws,” “so that all those of our race not perish” (101). Thomas’s success in India 22 has been universally noticed by commentators. With Attridge 1997, 119, I take the point to be that such earthly celebrations are pale imitations of the heavenly wedding. LaFargue 1985, 73–80, 131–53, proposes a more ambivalent reading, in which the banquet is simultaneously worldly and heavenly, and Thomas evolves from anti-cosmic alienation to recognition of the divine presence in the world. 22 Plut., Quaest. conv. 1.1, 613E–614E; 1.4, 621C; 4 pr., 659E–660C. 23  VA 1.31.2–32.1; 2.27.1–2; 3.12, 36. 24 Klijn 2003, 25–26, surveys the appearance of Greek terms for “foreigner” (ξένος, ἀλλότριος) and the Syriac words they translate throughout ATh.

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comes as locals recognize the power of the Hebrew language and God,25 not through discovering affinities between Hebrew and Indian culture. Like Apollonius, at this first stop Thomas meets a speaker of his native language, who provides him with an access point into local society.26 Yet his contact is not a king but a Hebrew flute girl, a character triply marginalized by occupation, ethnicity, and gender.27 That a flute girl is the first to embrace Thomas reflects the Christian rhetoric of inverting social hierarchies. It also subverts the codes of the Platonic symposium, where flute girls signify the sensual pleasures that must be excluded to make room for cultured conversation (Pl., Symp.  176e). (To be sure, she cannot enter Christian fellowship as a flute girl, either; she signals her conversion by smashing her flutes.) Here, too, Thomas outflanks Greek philosophical norms. While flagrantly breaching sympotic etiquette, he not only meets but exceeds the ideal of indifference to sensual pleasures: his refusal to eat and drink, discussed above, is capped by resistance to erotic temptation. Like the artless barbarian writings that taught Tatian the truth he did not learn from philosophy (Orat. 29.2), the Hebrew Thomas both rejects and surpasses the standards of Greek paideia.

Display of paideia: Know Thyself Greek paideia itself occupies a sharply different place in our two texts. In the VA, as in imperial Greek literature in general, displays of erudition feature pervasively. The ATh, too, bears the imprint of classical learning. Scholars of early Syrian Christianity have shown that Tatian, Bardaisan, and even the Gospel of Thomas are deeply informed by Greek philosophy, especially Middle Platonism, and the same is true of the ATh.28 Janet Spittler has argued for the author’s familiarity with Greek and Roman zoological knowledge: in episodes involving animals, ATh “synthesizes biblical allusion … with current natural historical information.”29 Its engagement with paideia, however, remains largely subterranean. The narrative is studded with quotations of scripture, rather than Greek literature,30 and allusions to classical learning are deeply buried. In this way, ATh foregoes the prestige that would accrue – at least with a certain readership 25 

Perkins 2015, 292. Reger 2009, 251–54, notes both the parallel and the larger contrast in the two characters’ linguistic reception. 27  Glancy 2012, 8–11. 28  E.g. Drijvers 2003, 334–37 and 1996; Hunt 2003, esp.  155–63 on ATh; Possekel 2006; Patterson 2013, 15–17, 33–59. This view is in tension with readings of ATh as low, popular literature, e.g. Warren 1999, 114; Perkins 2015. 29  Spittler 2008, 190–223, at 222. 30  Attridge 1997. 26 

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– from open display of Greek paideia, while silently claiming the resources of the classical archive for Christianity. The different ways that these texts position themselves within and against Greek tradition can be illustrated by the use that each makes of the Delphic maxim, “Know thyself” (γνῶθι σαυτόν). In the VA, “know thyself” is the foundation of Brahman omniscience, and another sign of Indian superiority. As the Brahman Iarchas explains to Apollonius, while Greeks consider it difficult to know oneself, “we know everything because we know ourselves first (πρώτους ἑαυτοὺς γιγνώσκομεν), for no one would approach this philosophy of ours without first knowing himself” (VA 3.18; cf. 2.27.1). Apollonius adopts this position for himself (e.g. 4.44.2) and identifies it as the cornerstone of Pythagoreanism. He later recalls that he had been drawn to that doctrine because Pythagoras “not only knew himself (γιγνώσκοι ἑαυτόν), who he was, but who he had been” (6.11.3). In this regard the Brahmans – and, by extension, Apollonius – surpass the Greeks, since the difficult pinnacle of Greek wisdom is for the Brahmans merely the starting point.31 The Delphic maxim appears as well in the ATh, as the foundation of Christian self-discovery and salvation. Like Philostratus, ATh follows the Platonic interpretation that to know oneself is to know one’s soul, and hence to know the divine.32 In the aftermath of the wedding banquet discussed above, the newly converted bridegroom thanks Jesus because, “You showed me how to seek myself and to know who I was (ζητῆσαι ἐμαυτὸν καὶ γνῶναι τίς ἤμην), who I am, and how I exist now, so that I might become again who I was” (ATh 15).33 Similarly, the prince in the inset Hymn of the Pearl, when reunited with the robe that represents his true identity, looks at the garment and proclaims, “I saw my whole self in it, and I knew and I saw myself by means of it (ἔγνων καὶ εἶδον δι’ αὐτῆς ἐμαυτόν)” (112).34 He dons the robe and returns home (113). In both cases, self-knowledge produces enlightenment and enables the recovery of identity. Like Pythagoras, both characters realize not only who they are, but who they were, although for them that means not recalling past lives, but remembering their true, heavenly selves. Finally, Queen Tertia repeats the maxim while urging the convert Mygdonia to resume sexual relations with her husband: “Know yourself (γνοῦσα οὖν σαυτήν) and return to your own (upward) path; approach your own large family, spare your true husband, Charisius, and do nothing alien to your freedom” (135). This is richly ironic advice, which Mygdonia fol31 

Abraham 2014, 472–73. Alc. Maj. 130e, 132c–33d. Betz 1970 reviews the development of this interpretation. 33  The Syriac reads instead “[you] did show me how to seek for myself and to put away from me the things that are not mine” (trans. Klijn, who regards the Greek wording as original). 34  “I knew … myself” is missing from the Syriac version (“I saw it all in all, and I too received all in it,” trans. Klijn). 32 Pl.,

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lows precisely, although not as intended. Again, self-knowledge leads to spiritual ascent and union with one’s true family. Both texts, I suggest, appropriate an emblematic piece of Greek wisdom to position their protagonists in relation to Greek philosophy. In the case of ATh, we cannot be sure that the author had Delphi or Plato directly in mind. The premise that salvation starts in self-knowledge is widely attested in Jewish and Christian literature. In the Gospel of Thomas, for example, Jesus proclaims that “when you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living father” (Gos. Thom. 3, trans. Lambdin).35 Still, the Delphic maxim was famous enough that some readers could have heard not only a Christian formula, but also a classical Greek one. Clement of Alexandria quotes the saying repeatedly, attributing it to Delphi or the Sages, while maintaining its ultimate origin in scripture. He is not alone.36 For such readers, these passages would be a hall of echoes – an example of “double codification”37 – in which Christian tradition resonates with and against the Greek. On the one hand, ATh could appear to equate the two, capitalizing on the prestige of Greek paideia. On the other hand, claiming this philosophical catchphrase for Christianity, as Philostratus does for the Brahmans, asserts the superiority of Christianity. Some theory about the historical relationship between Christianity and Greek philosophy could be implied: either Greek philosophy descends from Hebrew wisdom, or it contains fragments of truth glimpsed through the operation of the Logos. Mouthed with unwitting irony by the pre-convert Tertia, the Delphic maxim becomes an uncomprehending echo of Christian truth.

History of Culture: Greek, Indian, Hebrew Philostratus’s efforts to link Greek and Indian philosophy point up a pregnant silence in ATh, namely its apparent lack of interest in the history of culture. That was an urgent question for early imperial thinkers,38 and Philostratus uses Apollonius’s travels on the far periphery of the Roman world – India, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Spain – to chart the relationship between Greek and barbarian 35 Other examples include Clem. Al., Exc. 78.2; Thom. Cont. 138.8–16; Testim. Truth 35.25–36.3; Teach. Silv. 92.10–14. Hartin 1999 regards the call to self-knowledge as central to Thomasine spirituality. Commentators have noticed the parallels between ATh 15 and 112 and Gos. Thom. 3 (e.g. Riley 1991, 536; Hartin, 1015–16; Klijn 2003, 60), and between Gos. Thom. 3 and the Delphic maxim (Patterson 2013, 16, 37–40; Gathercole 2014, 212), but to my knowledge no one has connected the ATh passages themselves to the Delphic maxim. 36  Strom. 1.14.60.3; 2.15.70–71; 4.6.28.1; 5.4.22–23, 8.45.4; 7.3.20.7. Wilkins 1917, 89–99, surveys patristic allusions. 37  Cf. Feldmeier and Backhaus, this volume. 38  See esp. Momigliano 1975; Boys-Stones 2001.

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cultures. He accepts the majority view of his day, that Greece was a relative latecomer to the cultural scene, and that Greek philosophy descended from an older, purer barbarian wisdom. Against those who consider Egyptian wisdom the oldest and most prestigious, however, Philostratus insists that Indian Brahmanism is the ultimate source of Greek philosophy, with Egypt as a mere conduit: Brahman teaching about the soul is “the same [doctrine] that Pythagoras transmitted to you Greeks, and we [Brahmans] transmitted to the Egyptians” (VA 3.19.1; cf. 3.32.1; 6.11.12). Again, these assertions of Indian primacy dovetail with Philostratus’s Hellenist agenda, for India is measured strictly against Greek yardsticks, and serves only to comment on Greek practice and enhance the superlative Greekness of Apollonius.39 The relationship between Greek and barbarian wisdom was also of absorbing interest to second- and third-century Christian authors, who built on Jewish apologetic to identify Hebrew (and therefore Christian) wisdom as the oldest and truest philosophy.40 Clement in particular argues at length that Greek philosophy is entirely derived from barbarians, and hence ultimately from Hebrew wisdom (Strom. 1.14–16, 21–25; 6.3–4). India plays a multivalent role here. On the one hand, Clement, like Philostratus, includes Brahmans and Gymnosophists among the ancestors of Greek philosophy (1.15.71.5–6; 6.4.38), enrolling Indian sages alongside Hebrew prophets as barbarian wise men whose antiquity proves the late, derivative nature of Greek philosophy. On the other hand, he stresses that Indian wisdom is younger than and inferior to Hebrew (6.7.57.2–59.1; 3.7.60.2–4), reversing Clearchus of Soli’s assertion that Jews were descended from Indian Gymnosophists (fr. 6 Wehrli; cf. D.L. 1.9). That is, where Philostratus promotes the genealogy India-Egypt-Greece (with the Jews out of contention: VA 5.33.4), Clement demotes India at best to second place behind Israel. Against this background, ATh seems remarkably uninterested in locating Christianity on the map of culture; this narrative about a Hebrew mission to India says nothing about the relationship between Hebrew and Indian wisdom. In part, this is a matter of genre: cultural history is not a major theme of the AAA, which focus instead on demonstrating the superior power of apostolic Christianity to its rivals.41 Still, those rivals are concretely identified in other Acts. Andrew, John, Peter, and Paul debate, defeat, and/or convert Greek philosophers (AAn GE 17 MacDonald) and priests (AJ 42–47; perhaps APl VI), Jewish teachers (APt 1), and competing wonder-workers (APt 4–32). In the Acts of Andrew, a convert abandons the study of Greek philosophy for the true paideia of Andrew’s gospel (AAn 1, 7; cf. 59). By contrast, Thomas does not encoun39 

Kemezis 2014, 170, 177. See esp. Droge 1989; Stroumsa 1999, 60–72; Nasrallah 2010, 65–70, 150–52. 41  Rhee 2005, 71–79. 40 

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ter a single priest or holy man on his travels through India. Although the Brahmans are a staple of Greco-Roman Indography from Alexander on42 – and although they are inserted into later retellings of Thomas’s mission43 – not one Brahman, Gymnosophist, or Buddhist appears in the ATh. Thomas’s religious opponents are demonic, not human. In that sense, the contest is not between Hebrew and Indian wisdom or religion, but between divine truth and earthly falsehood. On the explicit level, the ATh asserts Christianity’s place in the history of culture by simply bypassing the question. If the ATh addresses this question at all, it does so obliquely, through echoes of biblical stories concerned with the relationship between Israel and the nations: those of Jonah, Daniel, and especially Balaam.44 In Act 4, Thomas meets a donkey colt that claims descent from Balaam’s ass, as well as from the colt that carried Jesus into Jerusalem (ATh 40). The main goal of this episode is to write Thomas into the recursive longue durée of salvation history, flowing from Israel through the gospel to the present church. It balances the previous act, where Thomas encounters a snake whose lineage recapitulates the history of evil (30– 38). Mention of Balaam – a prophet hired by a Moabite king to curse the Israelites, but compelled by God to bless them instead (Num 22–24; cf. Josh 24:9–10) – summons further associations, though. Balaam enjoyed a complex afterlife in Jewish and Christian tradition. For the rabbis, he is often a foil to Moses, cited to demonstrate the superiority of Hebrew prophecy, to explain how Gentiles lost their access to divine revelation, and/or to figure Gentile immorality.45 A third-century Christian reader could know him both as a villainous enemy of Israel and as a Gentile prophet of the Messiah and ancestor of Magi.46 In both guises, he was used to probe the relationship between Jews – and then Christians – and others, stressing either the hostility, falsity, and inferiority of Gentile religion, or its openness to and anticipation of divine truth. Even at his best, though, Balaam represents a subordinate form of wisdom, one that points toward and corroborates Christian truth, but is not a source for it. And although he rides a descendant of Balaam’s ass, Thomas is no Balaam: this donkey does not upstage him, as its ancestor did Balaam.47 This brief allusion to Balaam, then, could perhaps hint at the superiority of Christianity to Gentile culture. If 42 

Parker 2008, 251. E.g. Nikephoros Kallistos, Hist. Eccl. 2.40 = PG 145, col.  864. 44  Thomas’s initial rejection of his mission mirrors Jonah’s (Drijvers 2003, 326), while his refusal to eat at the royal banquet in Andrapolis recalls Daniel 3 (LaFargue 1985, 74–75). 45  Baskin 1983, 75–113, reviews the Jewish and Christian traditions; cf. Kalmin, this volume. 46  Identification of Balaam as founder/ancestor of the Magi appears first in Origen (Hom. Num. 13.7, 15.4; cf. Cels. 1.60), although the link is suggested already by Justin (Dial. 106.4) and perhaps the Matthean pericope itself; so Hegedus 2003, 87–89. 47  Czachesz 2008, 278. This colt is itself upstaged by the wild asses of ATh 68–81, as Spittler 2008, 199–221, shows. 43 

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so, engagement with that debate remains deeply submerged, and without specific connection to India.

Greek Past, Indian Marvels ATh’s indifference to Indian wisdom raises a final pair of issues in our texts: their portrait of India, and the ways in which travel to India plots the hero’s relationship to the past. For Philostratus, the two are intertwined. The India that Apollonius visits is the fabulous India of Greek literary tradition,48 and he travels there through space pervaded by, and in some ways frozen in, classical Greek history.49 Apollonius retraces the steps of previous Greek heroes and conquerers, above all Alexander, and outstrips them all (a crucial moment comes when he passes a bronze stele that reads, “Alexander stopped here”; VA 2.43). For the third-century reader, the Philostratean Apollonius becomes a linchpin joining the present to the prestigious past: he revives classical Greece while helping to launch the Antonine Golden Age.50 In the ATh, by contrast, the classical Greek past is as invisible as the Roman present is to Pausanias. Unlike Apollonius, who follows Alexander’s land route, Thomas sails to India, presumably by the commercial sea route from Mesopotamia down the Persian Gulf.51 His journey does not emulate or compete with Alexander’s, nor anyone else’s as far as we are told.52 Neither does Thomas encounter any sites of memory along the way; the landscape through which he moves seems devoid of history. The past with which ATh is concerned is the scriptural past, which is not mapped onto physical space, but onto individual bodies: the serpent and donkey colt whose genealogies recapitulate salvation history (32, 40), the Indian believers exhorted to out-perform the Israelites (66), and above all Thomas himself, whose body frequently mirrors events from Hebrew scripture and the life of his twin, Jesus. For the reader, Thomas connects the past of Hebrew scripture, revived and remade in the person of Jesus, to the narrative present: his converts become the founding leaders of the Indian church (65–66, 169), while his bones are carried back to the West (170), where his tomb in Edessa became a pilgrimage destination.53 ATh’s lack of interest in Greek history or the physical imprint of the past is matched by its lack of interest in Thomas’s destination, India. Although Thom48 

Dihle 1964, 16–17, 20–23; Jones 2001. Whitmarsh 2012, 464–69; Kemezis 2014, 170–72. 50  Kemezis 2014, 173–79, 184–95. 51  Dihle 1963, 58–60; van den Bosch 2001, 130–31. 52  Swain 1999, 187, makes this point in reverse. LaFargue 1985, 67, assumes implicit comparisons with Alexander and Dionysus; cf. Reed 2009, 65–66. Myers 2010, 53–54 regards Mani’s missionary journey to India as an unstated target. 53  See n.  4 above. 49 

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as and Apollonius appear to visit roughly the same area, northwest India,54 their portraits of that region have nothing in common. Apollonius traverses a land abounding in marvelous creatures, races, and natural wonders, stock elements of Greek and Roman ethnographies of India.55 Between Taxila and the Brahman mountain, he encounters unicorn wild asses (VA 3.2), a bicolored woman (3.3), and enormous bearded snakes with magic gems in their heads (3.8), to name only a few. The lifestyle, omniscience, and superhuman powers of the Brahmans themselves are extensively detailed (3.13–18, 27, 38–42). Nothing comparable appears in the ATh. Thomas does meet some fabulous animals, most notably a giant amorous snake (ATh 30–33) and a pack of miraculously tractable and articulate wild asses (68–81), both species appropriate to India, with rough equivalents in the VA.56 Yet those animals receive almost no physical description, and it is left to the reader to identify them as specifically Indian – just the opposite of Philostratus’s lavish zoological digressions. The exotic topoi of Greek Indography have no place in the ATh. If ATh ignores classical Greek ethnography, it also disregards what contemporary Christian texts had to say about India, which combine tradition with up-to-date knowledge.57 Early third-century Christian authors found India good to think with, useful in defining normative Christianity and triangulating its relationship to Greco-Roman culture. We have noted how Clement uses India to promote barbarian wisdom at the expense of Greek philosophy. For Tertullian, Indian sages are “forest dwelling drop-outs” (silvicolae et exules vitae), exotic foils who make Christians look normal (Apol. 42.1). For Hippolytus, they are one more source of Christian heresy (Haer. 1.24; 8.7; 10.34.1). Bardaisan, who was present when an Indian embassy to Elagabalus passed through Edessa, takes a particularly keen interest in Indian customs (BNJ 719 F1–2; BLC 42 Drijvers). Bardaisan, Hippolytus, and Clement58 all discuss the habits of Indian holy men: their lifestyle, diet, sexual abstinence, worship, judicial procedures, and attitudes toward death. Those are topics of interest to Thomas, but none of that information finds its way into the ATh.59 Instead, Thomas’s India is a neutral canvas for the apostle’s activities. 60 It features a ruler with the name of a historical first-century Indo-Parthian king (ATh 17–29) 61 54 

van den Bosch 2001, 125–37; Parker 2008, 295–99. Parker 2008, esp.  69–143. 56  Spittler 2008, 190–99, 213–16. 57  Reed 2009, 66–68, analyzes this combination in Bardaisan’s report (BNJ 719 F1–2). 58  Strom. 1.15.71.5–6; 3.7.60; 4.4.17.3, 4.7.7.50.1. 59  Again, silence need not indicate ignorance. We cannot know if the author/redactors of ATh knew Bardaisan’s work, but a parallel between ATh 83 and BLC 16.20 suggest proximity, if not direct consultation. 60  van den Bosch 2001, 128–29; McGrath 2008, 306; Parker 2008, 299. 61  van den Bosch 2001, 132–43, reviews the historical evidence for king Gundaphoros/ Gûdnaphar and his brother Gad. 55 

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and broadly Near Eastern political structures,62 but otherwise its customs could belong to any Mediterranean city: chattel slavery (passim), public baths (89), morning salutations (92–93), wealthy elites traversing crowded streets in litters (82–83; cf. 137), bridal gifts (124), marriages arranged by fathers for pubescent children (150), and a generic polytheism marked by sacrifice, prayer, and libations (36, 76–77, 114–15, 126). In short, there is not much “Indian” about Thomas’s India. 63 The question to ask here is not which text’s version of India is more accurate, but why they are unrealistic in such different ways. What does Philostratus gain by filling his Indian narrative with ethnographic topoi, and what does ATh gain by omitting them? Philostratus was not just blindly recycling classical tradition. Indeed, he brackets book 3 of the VA with moments of “staged scepticism” that raise programmatic questions about the credibility of the narrative as a whole. 64 Rather, reusing that material is a purposeful narrative strategy: the recording of wonders serves the hagiographic aims of Apollonius’s Indian travels. For the Philostratean Apollonius, as for so many others, travel to distant lands is a source of wisdom, spiritual purity, and authority. 65 The extraordinariness of the landscapes through which Apollonius travels underscores both the extraordinariness of Apollonius himself and the universality of his message, which is at home anywhere. Under Apollonius’s eye, moreover, the traditional marvels of India take on a philosophical cast; 66 like Phraotes’s symposium, the Indian thaumata need Apollonius to uncover their true nature. At the same time, they highlight the paradoxical inversion that structures the text’s critique of early imperial Hellenism: the farther Apollonius travels from the Greek center, the stranger and more numinous, yet the more Greek his environment becomes. 67 The VA’s fantastical portrait of India, then, works to authorize Apollonius and the model of Hellenism that he represents for Philostratus. The ATh also seeks to establish Thomas’s authority and the universality of his message, but it does not do so by playing up the extraordinariness of his envi62  Bremmer 2001, 76; Poirier 1981, 21–48, identifies the royal titles in the Hymn of the Pearl as Parthian/Persian. 63  Defenders of the historicity of Thomas’s Indian travels have attempted to find authentic Hindu customs in ATh, but on thin grounds, as McGrath 2008, 304–6, shows. Myers 2010, 41–43, 52, identifies the local religion as Zoroastrian, equating king Mizdai with Ahura Mazda, but these practices are too vaguely characterized to support that identification. More to the point, whereas Philostratus identifies the rituals he records as peculiarly Indian (VA 3.15.1–2, 17, 33.1), ATh does not. 64  Gyselinck and Demoen 2009, 108–14; Whitmarsh 2004, 433–35. The Indian travels as a whole are introduced by another such scene: see Miles 2009, 139–44. 65  Elsner 1998; Montiglio 2005, 213–20. 66  Romm 1992, 116–20. 67  Abraham 2014; cf. Hanus 1995. Downie 2016 improves on Abraham’s assessment that the VA inverts center and periphery: the Greek world remains central, but India offers a corrective perspective, which in turn informs Apollonius’s reforms of Greek practice.

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ronment. 68 Unlike Apollonius, Thomas learns nothing from the Indians; his journey is one of mission, not pilgrimage. 69 India is not a source of purity for him, but the home of “people who have gone astray” (39), a country that blasphemes Christ through its ignorance (72), a land of error, sickness, weariness, and pollution (156). Even its sins are nothing special. Despite Thomas’s plea to be sent anywhere but India (1), his experience there differs little from the plots of AAA set in the Mediterranean core. His message is universal not in the sense that it is welcomed in the most alien locales, but that the world is essentially homogeneous, equally in need of and accessible to his preaching. Rather than assuming a distinct ethnographic profile, faraway India represents the distance between ordinary society and the life of the celibate Jesus-follower. That ethnographic silence is ideologically charged. Jason König reads it as a form of cultural self-positioning, asserting the centrality of Christian identity by “proclaiming a lack of interest in scrutinizing and learning from the society [Thomas] encounters.”70 On another level, it fits ATh’s vision of life in the world, in which foreign travel is a metaphor for the soul’s estranged wandering in the material realm.71 That is one way to read the Hymn of the Pearl (108–13), in which an eastern prince is sent by his parents to Egypt to retrieve a pearl of great price, but forgets who he is after he adopts Egyptian dress and diet.72 In the hymn, Egyptian customs represent the worldly practices that lull the embodied soul into forgetfulness of its divine origin. In the larger narrative, India plays that role, but it could be anywhere on earth. In the ATh, the alienness of particular foreign places is deliberately occluded by a stark polarization of Christian and pagan, and the more fundamental alienness of the physical world to the divine soul.

Conclusion Reading the Acts of Thomas alongside the Life of Apollonius shows both authors employing a shared set of resources to define and authorize their hero and his culture in contrasting ways. For Philostratus, travel to India cements Apollonius’s authority by sending him back to the pristine source of Greek tradition. At the same time, it allows Apollonius to demonstrate his mastery of that tradition in the valorized space of the symposium and in sites marked by memory of the 68  As the catalogue of teratological material in Söder 1932, 103–12, shows, that strategy is employed by later Acts, but not common in the early AAA. 69  Parker 2008, 295–301. 70  König 2009, 137–39, at 139. 71  LaFargue 1985, esp.  53–90, also reads Thomas’s travels allegorically, but argues that this anti-cosmic orientation is gradually questioned and subverted. Spittler 2008, 218–21, understands Thomas’s two donkey rides as metaphors for human life in the body. For Plato’s view of incarnate life as wandering, see Montiglio 2005, 163–71. 72  Klijn 1960. Other interpretations are surveyed by Ferreira 2002, 9–25.

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prestigious Greek past. The Acts of Thomas, operating within cultural frameworks that overlap Philostratus’s, plays against such expectations to position Thomas and Christianity athwart the codes of elite Greek paideia. ATh authorizes its apostle in part through resisting the same signifiers that legitimize Apollonius – violating some, silently absorbing and out-performing others, and pointedly ignoring still others. Thomas achieves the ideals of the philosophical symposium by breaking its rules. He evinces no interest in the classical Greek past, and where glimpses of Greek paideia appear, they are tacitly claimed as Christian. Hebrew wisdom is not vindicated through connection to India, as either descendant or ancestor, nor is India used to position Christianity in relation to the Greek tradition, nor is any ethnographic attention lavished on India itself. The Hebrew Thomas is an alien among the Indians, not because India is specially exotic, but because the Christian is an alien in the world at large. The cultural debates and self-positioning often bound up with descriptions of India recede to the margins, to highlight instead the sojourn of the redeemed soul in the corporeal world.

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–. 1996. “The Ancient Novel Becomes Christian.” In The Novel in the Ancient World, ed. Gareth Schmeling. Mnemosyne Supplements, The Classical Tradition 159. Leiden: Brill, pp.  685–711. Philostratus. 2005. Life of Apollonius of Tyana. Trans. C. P. Jones. 2 vols. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Poirier, Paul-Hubert. 1981. L’Hymne de la Perle des Actes de Thomas. Introduction, texte, traduction, commentaire. Louvain-la-Neuve: Centre d’histoire des religions. Possekel, Ute. 2006. “Bardaisan of Edessa: Philosopher or Theologian?” ZAC 10: 442– 61. Reed, Annette Yoshiko. 2009. “Beyond the Land of Nod: Syriac Images of Asia and the Historiography of ‘The West.’” HR 49: 48–87. Reger, Gary. 2009. “On the Road to India with Apollonius of Tyana and Thomas the Apostle.” In Greek and Roman Networks in the Mediterranean, ed. Irad Malkin, Christy Constantakopoulou and Katerina Panagopoulou. London: Routledge, pp.  249–63. Reimer, Andy M. 2002. Miracle and Magic: A Study in the Acts of the Apostles and the Life of Apollonius of Tyana. JSNTSup 235. London: Sheffield Academic. Rhee, Helen. 2005. Early Christian Literature: Christ and Culture in the Second and Third Centuries. London: Routledge. Ridings, Daniel. 1995. The Attic Moses: The Dependency Theme in Some Early Christian Writers. Studia Greaca et Latina Gothoburgensia 59. Gothenburg: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis. Riley, Gregory J. 1991. “Thomas Tradition and the Acts of Thomas.” In SBL Seminar Papers 1991. Society of Biblical Literature Seminar Papers 30. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, pp.  533–42. Roig Lanzillotta, Lautaro. 2015. “A Syriac Original for the Acts of Thomas? The Hypothesis of Syriac Priority Revisited.” In Early Christian and Jewish Narrative: The Role of Religion in Shaping Narrative Forms, ed. Ilaria Ramelli and Judith Perkins. WUNT 348. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, pp.  105–34. Romm, James S. 1992. The Edges of the Earth in Ancient Thought: Geography, Exploration, and Fiction. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Söder, Rosa. 1932. Die apokryphen Apostelgeschichten und die romanhafte Literatur der Antike. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. Spittler, Janet E. 2008. Animals in the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles: The Wild Kingdom of Early Christian Literature. WUNT 2.247. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Stroumsa, Guy. 1999. Barbarian Philosophy: The Religious Revolution of Early Christianity. WUNT 112. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Swain, Simon. 1999. “Defending Hellenism: Philostratus, In Honour of Apollonius.” In Apologetics in the Roman Empire: Pagans, Jews, and Christians, ed. Mark Edwards, Martin Goodman, and Simon Price. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp.  157–96. van den Bosch, Lourens P. 2001. “India and the Apostolate of St. Thomas.” In The Apocryphal Acts of Thomas, ed. Jan Bremmer. Studies on Early Christian Apocrypha 6. Leuven: Peeters, pp.  125–48. Van Uytfanghe, Marc. 2001. “Biographie II (spirituelle).” RAC Suppl. 1: 1088–364. –. 2009. “La vie d’Apollonius de Tyane et le discours hagiographique.” In Theios Sophistes: Essays on Flavius Philostratus’ Life of Apollonius of Tyana, ed. Kristoffel Demoen and Danny Praet. Mnemosyne Supplements 305. Leiden: Brill, pp.  335–74.

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Warren, David H. 1999. “The Greek Language of the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles: A Study in Style.” In The Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles: Harvard Divinity School Studies, ed. François Bovon, Ann G. Brock, and Christopher R. Matthews. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, pp.  101–24. Wehrli, Fritz, ed. 1969. Klearchos. Die Schule des Aristotles, Texte und Kommentar, Vol. III. Basel: Schwabe. Whitmarsh, Tim. 2004. “Philostratus.” In Narrators, Narratees, and Narratives in Ancient Greek Literature: Studies in Ancient Greek Narrative, ed. Irene J. F. de Jong, René Nünlist, and Angus Bowie. Mnemosyne Supplements 257. Leiden: Brill, pp.  423– 39. –. 2007. “Prose Literature and the Severan Dynasty.” In Severan Culture, ed. Simon Swain, Stepen Harrison and Jas Elsner. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.  29–51. –. 2012. “Philostratus.” In Studies in Ancient Greek Narrative, Vol. III: Space in Ancient Greek Literature, ed. Irene J. F. de Jong. Mnemosyne Supplements 339. Leiden: Brill, pp.  463–79. Wilkins, Eliza Gregory. 1917. “Know Thyself” in Greek and Latin Literature. Menasha: G. Banta.

Parodies of Educational Journeys in Josephus, Justin Martyr, and Lucian1 Maren R. Niehoff Traveling to distant centers of learning and acquainting oneself with different philosophical schools was a typically Roman concern. Roman intellectuals lived in a bi-lingual world and were keenly aware of the intellectual treasures Athens had to offer. Cicero, for example, opens his treatise On Duties with an address to his son Marcus, whom he is happy to have sent to Athens for philosophical instruction. He speaks of the “authority” (“auctoritas”) of the city and its teachers, who offer “knowledge” or “learning” (“scientia”), while Rome provides “exempla” (Off. 1.1).2 The journey to Athens is a significant step in the training of a young man, who is to become familiar not only with practical ethics, but also with theoretical paideia. Educational journeys could obviously be afforded only by the elite, who thus asserted its social status and international flair. Traveling to Athens offered an opportunity not only to locate oneself within Roman society, but also to reflect upon the relationship between Rome and Greece. Leaving one’s native country and immersing oneself in Greek learning challenged traditional boundaries and prompted new definitions of identity. Such travels raised concrete questions about the place of Greece in Roman life. Cicero famously locates himself on the axis between Rome and Athens. When his voice has become so feeble that it threatens his career as a lawyer, it is time to travel to Greek orators, who will improve his rhetorical performance. Cicero recalls how he studied philosophy in Athens and spent six months with Antiochus, “the wise and famous philosopher of the Old Academy,” who became his “guide and teacher.” He then travels throughout Asia Minor and spends time with “the most distinguished orators.” “Not content,” however, he continues to Rhodes and studies with Molon, whom he recognizes as a highly effective pedagogue. Cicero admits that his stay abroad has rendered him “not only better trained, but almost transformed” (Brut. 316).3 At the same time, however, he becomes a choosing and judging 1  I thank Ja´s Elsner and Simon Goldhill for their valuable comments on a draft of this article and the Niedersachsen-Israeli Research Cooperation Program for supporting the research on which it is based. 2  See also André and Baslez 1993, 301–3. All translations mine. 3  “Non modo exercitatior sed prope mutatus”; see also Kurczyk 2006, 304–26.

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subject on this journey. While starting as a rather passive disciple of Antiochus, Cicero increasingly forms his own view of the different schools, expressing his discontent with some. As a visitor to the Greek-speaking world, he values his own mobility and selects from the cultural repertoire with a view to its usefulness in Rome. Greece, the ancient center of learning, has been subordinated to Roman agendas. Cicero’s reflection on his journey indicates that the encounter of Roman intellectuals with Greece was a complex matter, which involved imitation and admiration as well as competition.4 Cicero does not hide his sense of intellectual superiority and prides himself in having written both philosophy and oratory, a combination which has not, he asserts, “been the good fortune of any one of the Greeks so far” (Off. 1.3). He moreover insists that he offers his “own criticism and arrangement” (Fin. 1.6) and in the court room even mocks Marcus Cato for taking Stoic philosophy too seriously, using it not just as a topic of discussion “as do most people,” but actually turning it into a way of life (Mur. 62–65). Appealing to local sentiments, Cicero suggests that exaggerated immersion in Greek thought has negative consequences for Roman virtue. Horace expresses similar ambivalence and parodies engagement with Greek philosophy which, he complains, starts already in childhood with the study of Homer. Full immersion follows in Athens. Horace does not explain how his journey came about and the reader is left to assume that it was a convention. “Dear Athens” is then exposed as a place that neither deepens one’s education nor teaches how to distinguish between right and wrong. Such traditional expectations turn out to be mistaken. Horace’s irony is visible in his remark that he searched “for the truth in the forests of the Academy,” which associates the center of Platonic philosophy with brutish nature (Hor., Ep.  2.2.45).5 True inspiration and insight come to Horace from life in Rome. While the trip to Athens has proven a futile farce, Rome emerges as a cultural center, which prompts literary creativity. In this essay I examine three Greek-speaking authors from different religious backgrounds and their attitudes to educational journeys.6 The Jewish historian Josephus Flavius, the Christian theologian Justin Martyr, and the pagan satirist Lucian of Samosata inscribe themselves into the Greek tradition, while living in a world governed by Rome. Similar to the Second Sophists they negotiate multiple discourses and divergent identities, while also offering intriguing innovations.7 One aspect of Greek literary activity deserves further attention, namely 4  On parody as a central aspect of Roman culture, see Habinek 2005b, 191; Habinek 2005a (with an analysis of the playfulness of literature in light of psychoanalytic notions); more generally, see also Backhaus 2013, who reflects on the nature of ancient humor using the example of Luke. 5  See also Mayer 2005. 6  For the realia of such journeys, see Adkins and Adkins 1994, 167–200; André and Baslez 1993, 224–29, 309–12; Casson 1974, 149–62; Pretzler 2007. 7  On the Second Sophistic, see esp. Gleason 1995; Swain 1996; Swain 1997; Branham 1989,

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engagement with Roman discourses. Greek authors of the Imperial Age were not only generally aware of Roman power, but often also familiar with Roman culture and even Roman literature. Plutarch became fluent in Latin and collected himself material for the Roman heroes of his Parallel Lives. He quotes Seneca and Musonius, the “Roman Socrates.” Philostratus introduces himself in the Life of Apollonius as a member of Julia Domna’s literary circle. The Empress has provided him with crucial materials for his biography and encouraged him to apply himself to the task. Literary concerns and fashions in the capital of the Empire thus had a visible impact on the Greek East, especially as intellectuals often visited Rome.8 Josephus, Justin, and Lucian insert the motif of educational journeys in autobiographical passages, using it to define their identity and shape their authorial voice. They playfully engage the topic, adding varying degrees of irony and mockery. I shall argue that their discussions engage Roman discourses and reflect a tendency to describe “Self in the language of the Other” (to borrow Jas´ Elsner’s title).9 I shall moreover suggest that their irony is a function of their geographical displacement. Unlike Philo and Plutarch who traveled and then happily returned to their home town, Josephus, Justin, and Lucian migrated and permanently settled in another city, questioning their indigenous identity.10 Josephus, a priest from Jerusalem, arrived in Rome after the violent crush of the Jewish revolt in 70 CE and published his first book on the Jewish War in Aramaic. He translated it into Greek, which became his language of writing for a primarily Roman audience.11 In the second century CE Justin Martyr, born and raised as a pagan in the Greek environment of Neapolis (modern Nablus), converted to Christianity and moved to Rome, where he founded a Christian school and was later executed by the Roman authorities on account of his faith.12 Lucian of Samosata was born around 120 CE in Syria, probably in an Aramaic environment, and quickly became so proficient in Greek that he played a decisive role in the revival of Greek culture in the Roman Empire. Traveling perva-

9–123; Goldhill 2002, 60–107; Goldhill 2001; Whitmarsh 2001; Whitmarsh 2013; Eshleman 2012, 125–48. 8 Plut. Dem.  2.1–4; Ira 13, 2, 6, 10 (= Mor. 461f, 453d, 456a, 458c); Philostr., Vit. Apoll. 1.3; see also De Rosalia 1991; Stadter 2014, 130–48. On the relationship between center and periphery, see Whitmarsh 2010. 9  Elsner 2001. 10  Regarding Philo and Plutarch, see Philo, Legat. 250–51, Flacc. 26, 110, Abr. 65, Prov. 2.64; Plut. Dem.  2.2, Mor. 645d, 736c–740f; see also Jones 1966; Jones 1971; Stadter 2015, 70– 82, 149–87; Stadter 2014. 11  For Josephus’s engagement in Roman life and discourses, see esp. Mason 2016; Mason 2003; den Hollander 2014; Goodman 1994; Goodman 1996; Cohen 1979. 12  1 Apol. 1.1; Dial. 141.5; the Roman context of Justin’s work has been stressed by Nasrallah 2006; Nasrallah 2010, 71–76; Lampe 1989, 219–45; regarding Justin’s school, see esp. Ullrich 2012; Georges 2012b.

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sively and lecturing as far afield as Gaul, he moved to Athens and later to Egypt where he accepted a post in the Roman administration.13

Josephus’s Journeys to the Jewish Sects and Rome Josephus is among the pioneering historians of Antiquity, who concludes his work with autobiographical reflections and even adds a separate account of his life, mostly the period of his involvement in the Jewish Revolt. Looking back with satisfaction on his achievement, Josephus locates himself on the axis between Jerusalem, Rome, and Greece. While Jews, he laments, generally lack knowledge of foreign languages and “smooth style,” appreciating instead expertise in their own law, he is proud to have “worked very hard to share also in the learning of Greek letters and poetry, having already acquired experience in Greek grammar” (Ant. 20.264). His accent, however, has remained. Josephus’s choice to mention his accent at this point alerts us to the complexity of his physical and literary voice. We are made aware of the fact that Josephus is not a plain Greek speaker, but rather an author with a fractured voice. His language is Greek, but it still echoes his ancestral tongue, which he, however, no longer uses in his public writings. The reader is invited to appreciate the complexity of Josephus’s position and pay attention to underlying currents. Josephus’s autobiography quickly moves from his illustrious ancestry to his educational journeys. He recalls how he was initially trained at home together with his brother Matthias, then moved at the age of 14 into the public domain, engaged in discussions with priests and was “praised by everyone on account of his love of letters.” Josephus says that he gained fame thanks to his “memory and understanding” as well as his legal expertise, which was sought even by the “chief priests and leading men of the city” (Life 7–8). At the age of 16 he started his course among the different philosophical schools: When I was about sixteen years old, I chose to gain acquaintance of the philosophical schools among us. There are three of these: the first that of the Pharisees, the second that of the Sadducees, and the third that of the Essenes, as we have often said. Thus I thought to choose the best one, if I closely examine them all (οὕτως γὰρ ᾠόμην αἱρήσεσθαι τὴν ἀρίστην εἰ πάσας καταμάθοι). After disciplining myself and working hard I passed through the three of them. However, considering none of the experiences gained there as being sufficient for me, I heard of a certain man by the name of Bannus, who lived in the desert, wearing clothes made from trees, feeding on such things as grow by themselves, and washing frequently for purification – with frigid water, day and night – and became his devotee (ζηλωτὴς ἐγενόμην αὐτοῦ). When I had lived with him for three years and so satisfied my desire (τὴν ἐπιθυμίαν), I began to return to the city. Being now in my nineteenth year, I began to involve myself in public life (ἠρξάμην πολιτεύεσθαι), follow13 

Swain 1996, 298–312; Whitmarsh 2001, 247–94.

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ing the school of the Pharisees, which is like the one called Stoic among the Greeks. (Jos., Life 10–12)

In this passage Josephus positions himself in a way similar to Cicero, stressing the efforts he made to study philosophy and evaluating the different schools. Some expressions are strikingly familiar. While Josephus says that “after disciplining myself and working hard I passed through the three of them,” Cicero recalls how “during all this time I spent my days and nights in study of every kind” (Brut. 308). Josephus’s conclusion, namely that he considers “none of the experiences gained there as being sufficient,” resembles Cicero’s explanation that he moved to Rhodes because he was “not content” with his previous teachers (Brut. 316). Josephus’s self-presentation as a student visiting the different schools of philosophy and coming of age to judge them follows a known autobiographical pattern in Roman literature. Yet we also note differences between Josephus and Cicero. While the Roman rhetorician briefly mentions the distinct qualities of his teachers, suggesting what he learnt from each of them, Josephus remains remarkably silent on the educational value of his journey. The promise that he will “closely examine them all” does not lead to a discussion of the characteristics of the different schools. This is all the more remarkable as Josephus had offered detailed descriptions of the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes in his earlier work, as he reminds his readers in the above-quoted passage. It would thus have been easy for him to use this material and show the reader which aspects of each school he found appealing or objectionable.14 Given this lacuna, the reader begins to wonder why Josephus mentions his journey to the different schools, if he does not trace his intellectual development and explain his ultimate preference of the Pharisees. Josephus’s account of his stay with Bannus is especially intriguing. While the desert is in Stoic philosophy a space of contemplation and symbolizes return to a natural life-style, not much is made of the motif here. Most conspicuously, no information is given about the philosophy of Bannus, who is merely described by his external appearance, namely by wearing clothes made of leaves, eating natural food and taking frequent cold baths. Josephus’s reticence is surprising in comparison to his description of John the Baptist, another spiritual leader in the desert. John is portrayed as someone who appeals to people “to practice justice towards their fellows and piety towards God” as a precondition for baptism (Jos., Ant. 18.117).15 The religious values of Bannus, by contrast, remain unknown and thus his appeal to Josephus is not transparent, except for the general 14  J.W. 2.119–66, Ant. 13.171–3, 13.297–98 (the latter only treating the Pharisees and the Sadducees); see also Baumgarten 2016. 15  See also Taylor 1997. Thanks to Knut Backhaus for drawing my attention to John the Baptist.

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attraction of asceticism. Furthermore, does his remark “when I had lived with him for three years and so satisfied my desire” (Life 12) imply some ironic double entendre? While Josephus’s material desires can hardly have been satisfied in the desert, his intellectual satisfaction remains an enigma. His return to the city moreover suggests that he was looking for enjoyment elsewhere. While going through the conventional motions of recording the steps of education, Josephus may be insinuating their ultimate irrelevance. The impression of irony is supported by Josephus’s introduction to his autobiography. After carefully listing his illustrious ancestors, he turns to the reader with a wink: “I am sending a greeting to those who try to malign us” (Life 6). He thus engages a biographical convention and provides a genealogical list, but then subverts genre and withdraws from the scene with a mocking smile. Similarly, at the opening of the Jewish War, Josephus subverts the conventions of historiography. After accusing other historians of inaccuracy, he confesses his own sympathy with the Jews and asserts that he will bemoan the fall of his city and express anger at the rebels, who caused the downfall of Jerusalem. He concludes on a provocative note, stressing that such expressions of partiality are “against the law of history” (παρὰ τὸν τῆς ἱστορίας νόμον; J. W. 1.11). Josephus is remarkably proud of his deviation from the literary norm and indulges in his fault, implying that it is historiography at its best. His parody anticipates Lucian’s famous mockery of historiography: “my lying is far more honest than theirs, for though I tell the truth in nothing else, I shall at least be truthful in saying that I am a liar” (Luc., Ver. hist. 1.4).16 Returning to Josephus’s curriculum vitae, we discover that real learning derives from life and political involvement rather than from philosophical instruction. Josephus mentions his decision to follow the Pharisees in the same breath as his return to the city and “becoming involved in public life” (Life 12). Politics and philosophy are clearly connected. Josephus moreover draws attention to the similarity between the theology of the Pharisees and Stoicism, which is the most dominant philosophical school in Rome. Is he suggesting to his Roman readers that he aligned himself already in his youth with the school, which boasts of highly influential representatives in their city, such as Arius Dydimus, Augustus’s friend, and Seneca, Nero’s advisor?17 Josephus may have constructed his educational journeys with a view to his subsequent career in Rome. This impression is supported by the fact that Josephus immediately proceeds to tell the story of his first diplomatic trip to Rome. Disembarking from the boat after surviving a shipwreck, Josephus immediately makes connections in Rome, initially with “Aliturus, an actor, who was a special favorite of Nero and of Jewish origin” (Life 16). Nero was famous for his love of the theater, ancient 16 

17 

For details on Lucian’s notion of historiography, see Jonathan Price in this volume. On Roman Stoicism, see Reydams-Schils 2005; Morford 2002; Inwood 2005.

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authors often criticizing his excessive involvement on the stage, which prompted him to forget his imperial role and join the actors.18 Josephus identifies this apparent aberration from the norm as the essence of Rome, where spectacles loom large and conventional values are turned upside down. Nothing seems more natural in this context than to be introduced to the royal house by a Jewish actor. Moreover, it is not the emperor who receives Josephus but his wife. To complete the picture, Josephus not only succeeds in liberating his fellow priests, as planned, but also receives “large gifts” from Poppea, Nero’s wife. This is obviously another subversion of conventions, which Josephus is eager to record, drawing an image of Rome as a bewildering and amusing theater. His own role as a diplomat fits the stage script. Josephus presents himself as acutely aware of Rome’s paradoxes. His turn to a Jewish actor for help to make connections shows that he knows his way on the central stage of the Empire. Steve Mason has suggested that there may be something humorous about Josephus’s story. “One may wonder,” he says, “whether Josephus tells his story of gaining access to Nero’s notorious wife Poppea through one of the emperor’s infamous actor-friends in part as a humorous story” (2003: xxi).19 Following this approach, I propose to read the story as an ironic construction of Rome, through which Josephus positions himself as an author. His image of Rome as the quintessential city of spectacles, ever turning to the unexpected and unacceptable, closely resembles Lucian’s view of her as a city of pervert extravagance, trickery and vice (Nigr. 13–17). As Tim Whitmarsh has shown, Lucian’s position cannot be reduced to a simple anti-Roman stance. He rather inscribes himself in the theatricality of Rome, his own satire and parody playing a significant part in the construction of the capital (Whitmarsh 2001: 265–78). Josephus anticipates Lucian in this regard, too, and constructs his own authorial voice in the midst of Rome’s theatricality. Josephus returns from Rome to Jerusalem with many insights into life. Encountering widespread sedition in his home-city, he alerts his compatriots to Rome’s power and urges them to remember that “they are inferior to the Romans not only in military skill, but in good fortune” (Life 17). Declaring war on Rome is reckless in his eyes, even mad, and will certainly lead to catastrophe. Josephus finds political allies in the Pharisees, whom he has previously introduced as his preferred philosophical school. His visit to Rome may have taught him to appreciate them. Josephus, a Greek-speaking Jew living in Rome, engages Ciceronian conventions of tracing one’s educational course through the different philosophical schools. Yet he also adds an ironic twist. Rather than explaining the effect of such journeys on his intellectual development, Josephus suggests that his exposure to different philosophies may be nothing more than 18  19 

See Edwards 1994. On the role of social reversals in Roman humor, see also Beard 2014.

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a motion one has to go through as a member of the elite. Like Aliturus and Poppea in his story, he plays his part on the stage and uses conventions of writing, while playing with different roles and never taking any too seriously. Everything turns out to be political game, with hardly any philosophical implications.

Justin Martyr Mocks the Course of the Philosophical Schools Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho is staged as a casual meeting, which ends with the prospect of Justin’s departure for a sea journey. Both men regret that Justin goes abroad as they would have enjoyed continuing their discussion (Dial. 142.1–3). This dialogue “on the way” offers in the opening sections two reflections on the value of educational journeys, one from Trypho’s perspective and the other from Justin’s. Scholars have often asked whether these reports of educational journeys reflect historical reality, some using them to reconstruct Justin’s early life.20 Given that Justin tells the story of his youth very differently in the Apology (2 Apol. 12.1–13), I address both accounts as literary creations. The Dialogue opens with Justin’s philosophical posture, which is immediately recognized by Trypho: “while I was walking about one morning (περιπατοῦντί μοι ἕωθεν) in the walk of the covered colonnade, a certain man, with others in his company, approached me and said, ‘Hail, O philosopher!’” (Dial. 1.1). While Justin evokes a seemingly familiar image of the philosopher, we realize on closer inspection that he creates a thought-provoking mixture. The casual encounter with a philosopher characterizes the opening of many Platonic dialogues, yet there the interlocutors know each other and require no external sign of recognition. The motif of “walking” is typical of the Peripatetic school, while the colonnade gave the Stoic school its name.21 The reader thus encounters Justin in a position which raises many questions. Upon meeting Justin and identifying him as a philosopher, Trypho the Jew expresses doubts about the value of philosophical encounters: I learnt in Argos from Corinthus, a Socratic, that I ought not to despise or treat with indifference those who array themselves in this cloak (τὸ σχῆμα), but to show them all kindness, and to associate with them, as perhaps some advantage would spring from the intercourse either to some such man or to myself (εἴ τι ὄφελος ἐκ τῆς συνουσίας γένοιτο ἢ αὐτῷ ἐκείνῳ ἢ ἐμοί). It is good, moreover, for both, if either the one or the other be benefited. On this account, therefore, whenever I see anyone in such costume, I gladly approach him, and now, for the same reason, I have happily addressed you. And these, who accompany me, expect to hear for themselves something profitable from you. (Dial. 1.2) 20  The historical reliability of the account is assumed by Barnard 1967, 7–11; Skarsaune 1976, 67–71; Lampe 1989, 219–45; while Hyldahl 1966; Goodenough 1932, 57–61; Nasrallah 2006; Thorsteinsson 2012; and Georges 2012a point to the literary dimension. 21  See also Lucian’s reference to the Stoic philosopher as a “fellow from the Porch” (Vit. auct. 20).

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Trypho has traveled to Argos – no known center of learning – in order to acquire a philosophical training, but all he has apparently learnt from his Socratic teacher is to respect external appearances. Justin suggests that the philosophical gown makes the person, while the intellectual benefit of the conversation is not evident. In an earlier treatise he has already pointed to the possible discrepancy between appearance and essence, complaining that “some assume the name and gown of philosophy, without doing anything worthy of the profession” (1 Apol. 4.8). In the Dialogue Justin assumes the emptiness of the philosophical gesture and uses it for mockery, thus anticipating Lucian’s ridicule of Menippus, the Cynic, who wears a “strange thing of a costume” consisting of a lion’s skin and a felt cap (Men. 1).22 Trypho mocks the expectation of students regarding their teachers, suggesting that it is “good if either one or the other be benefited” (Dial. 1.2). The implied benefit of the teacher is his salary, while the student profits from socializing with someone publically recognized as a philosopher. The name of the city Argos is intriguing: while the city played a role in the Iliad, it is no longer significant in the Hellenistic period (Il. 9.141).23 Moreover, the word ἀργός means “idle” and may convey a double entendre. Does Justin imply that Trypho traveled to a place of idleness to learn useless ideas? The name of the philosopher, “Corinthos,” is the name of another city or its eponymous founder – not a name suited for a philosopher. Trypho’s personal itinerary thus conveys a sense of displacement, every aspect of his route imitating, but ultimately missing standard motifs. The Jew emerges as a fragmented and marginal figure aspiring to paideia, but not attaining it. Justin, by contrast, plays the philosopher’s role. His cloak identifies him, yet also implies mockery and points in the direction of Roman discourses.24 It is significant that the Roman poet Martial mocks the “wax colored cloak” of someone pretending to be a Cynic. His empty posture is further highlighted by a filthy beard, which hides the fact that he is in reality a dog (Ep.  4.53). This play on the word Cynic, which derives from κύων, dog, mocks Greek manners.25 The Roman, who imitates Greek philosophers, is a ridiculous figure at the bottom of society. In the early third century CE the Christian theologian Tertulτὸ ἀλλόκοτον τοῦ σχήματος. See also Hyldahl 1966, 93, who suggests that Argos may be identified with a place near Corinth. 24  The motif of the philosophical cloak has thus far been most thoroughly analyzed by Hyldahl 1966, 102–12, who, however, offers a curious mixture of literary and historical considerations. While criticizing previous scholarship for taking Justin’s cloak as historical evidence of his dressing habits, Hyldahl concludes his literary analysis with an emphatic statement that, given the fictive nature of the motif, there is no evidence of Justin’s wearing the philosopher’s cloak; van Winden 1971, 23–25, rightly criticizes Hyldahl, but then altogether dismisses the significance of the motif. 25  For a similar play on the word Cynic, see Lucian, Vit. auct. 7. 22 

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lian takes up the motif and identifies the philosophical cloak with Greek self-indulgence. Devoting a whole tractate in Latin to the issue, Tertullian contrasts the Greek “pallium” to the Roman toga and presents the former as a symbol of seclusion from public life. Instead of taking up social responsibilities, its wearer is a hypocrite, who is excessively occupied with criticizing society and engaging in eloquence for its own sake. The philosopher takes pleasure in “having no care” except for his own self. This rhetoric relies on old Roman stereotypes against Greek culture, which Cato already expressed in Republican times.26 The motif of Greek talkativeness and recklessness is now identified with the philosopher’s cloak, a visual representation of Greek Otherness. Tertullian concludes his treatise with a triumphant note on Christianity, which renders the “pallium” respectable.27 In light of this Roman rhetoric it becomes clear that Justin evokes a loaded image. Trypho identifies Justin by his philosophical cloak, probably taking him to be a Greek. Trypho’s comment that those in his company “expect to hear for themselves something profitable” raises the question whether Justin will turn out to be a ridiculous imitator of Greek philosophers or a serious thinker. Justin further investigates the philosopher’s role by responding to Trypho with a quote from the Iliad: “who are you, mighty one, among mortal men?” (Il. 6.123). The image of Diomedes, facing either a human hero or a god, is thus evoked. Applying this verse to himself in the encounter with Trypho, Justin pokes fun at the expectations attached to philosophers, as if they could provide divine insights. Justin directly refers to this dimension of mockery by qualifying his quotation as a gesture of “joking” (προσπαίζων). Similar irony resurfaces in Lucian’s treatise Philosophies for Sale, where a prospective buyer of philosophers is so excited about the bodily features of the Pythagorean that he exclaims: “his thigh is of gold, he seems to be a god and not a mortal, so I shall certainly buy him!” (Vit. auct. 6). While Trypho the Jew has been characterized as clinging to Greek wisdom on the margins of the empire without truly acquiring it, Justin presents himself as a critical judge of paideia. His trip to various philosophers, who are not located in any particular place, conveys a sense of universalism and introduces him to the heart of each school. This experience allows him to detect numerous weaknesses: Being at first desirous of conversing with one of these men, I surrendered myself to a certain Stoic; and having spent a considerable time with him, when I had not acquired any further knowledge of God (for he did not know himself, and said such instruction

26 Tert., Pall. 4.4.2–3, 5.5.1–5.7.2; on Roman stereotypes, see Plut., Cat. Mai. 2.4, 12.4–5, 22.1–23.2, 24.1; Isaac 2004, 381–405; for similar criticism of Greek talkativeness, see also Philo, Lib. 93–6. 27 Tert., Pall. 5.4.3, 6.1.5.

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was unnecessary), 28 I left him and went to another, who was called a Peripatetic, and as he fancied, sharp. And this man, after having sustained me for the first few days, requested me to settle the fee, in order that our exchange may not be unprofitable (ὡς μὴ ἀνωφελὴς ἡ συνουσία γίνοιτο ἡμῖν). For this reason I left him, too, believing him to be no philosopher at all. (Dial. 2.3)

This caricature of the Stoic and the Peripatetic school anticipates themes in Lucian’s Philosophies for Sale, which is generally based on the idea of paying for philosophical creeds.29 Lucian exposes the hypocrisy of the Stoics, who pretend to disregard material values, while engaging more than others in business and calculations of personal benefit. The prospective buyer concludes: “obviously none but the scholar will get paid for his virtue” (Luc., Vit. auct. 24).30 Moreover, the Peripatetic is ridiculed by Lucian on account of his pretense to be most knowledgeable. The potential buyer exclaims: “Heracles! What insight!” (Vit. auct. 26). In Justin’s Dialogue it is the Peripatetic who immediately asks for money, thus answering Trypho’s initial question regarding who will benefit from philosophical conversations. Obviously, neither the Peripatetic nor the Stoic is interested in investigating the truth and teaching a way of life conducive to virtue. Justin even has the Stoic deny any interest in the “search about the Divine,” the main topic of philosophy, as he earlier stressed (Dial. 1.3). This criticism ignores the fact that the Stoics were known to base their ethics on theology and cosmology (D.L. 7.134–40). Justin probably subverts their avowed position because he is highly critical of their cosmology, and has earlier dismissed the Stoics because they assume recurrent world conflagrations and regenerations.31 While they confess a theology, Justin rejects it as null and void. The Pythagorean school is next up for mockery in Justin’s Dialogue: As my soul longed to hear the particular and special thing of philosophy, I went to a Pythagorean, who enjoyed the best reputation and was very prudent in wisdom. And as I talked to him, wishing to become his disciple and companion, he said to me: “Why? Have you not consorted with music and astronomy and geometry? Or do you think you will behold the things conducive to happiness, if you do not initially study the things which strip the soul of sense-perceptible things and prepare her for those perceived by the mind, so that she can grasp the beautiful and the good as they are for themselves? And after he very much praised these sciences and stressed their necessity, he sent me off, as I had confessed before him that I do not know them. I was thus vexed, seeing, as it seemed, that I failed in my aspiration, especially in so far as I thought that this one knows something. As I considered again the time, I was to spend with these sciences, I could not bear to be deferred for so long (Dial. 3.4–5). 28  ἐπεὶ οὐδὲν πλέον ἐγίνετό μοι περὶ θεοῦ οὐδὲ γὰρ αὐτὸς ἠπίστατο οὐδὲ ἀναγκαίαν ἔλεγε ταύτην εἶναι τὴν μάθησιν. 29  Contra Thorsteinsson 2012, 497, who argues that Justin does not criticize any school as such, but only some of its (bad) teachers. 30  See also Luc., Men. 5, where the hypocrisy of the philosophers is exposed: those who preach modesty are most greedy, especially in financial matters. 31  1 Apol. 20.2–4, 2 Apol. 7.3–9.

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While being the only competent philosopher, the Pythagorean is not willing to teach Justin because he does not fulfill the prerequisites. Justin presents himself as an ardent searcher of the soul, who yearns for paideia. He paradoxically gives up the idea of studying with the Pythagorean, because he dearly wants philosophical insight and cannot “bear to be deferred for so long.” In this passage, too, Justin anticipates Lucian, who insists that philosophers generally lack insight, as he has “found ignorance and perplexity [among them] more than elsewhere” (Men. 4). In Philosophies for Sale the Pythagorean moreover demands excessive prerequisites, whereupon the prospective buyer exclaims: “that is delightful, I will have to become a fiddler before being wise!” (Vit. auct. 3). Justin’s educational journey culminates in an encounter with two serious schools, namely Platonism and Christianity. The Platonic teacher is located “in our city,” where he has recently arrived (Dial. 2.6). Whether or not Justin’s hometown Neapolis is implied, a local setting is suggested for the Platonic school, which emerges as a natural option, close to home and the Greek world. The Platonic philosopher is described as wise and offering real instruction. Justin makes progress every day and appreciates the ethereal notion of the Ideas. He finds the spiritual approach of this school highly congenial and believes that it prepares him for a vision of God. At this critical point of expectation an old man is introduced, who turns out to be a Christian teacher who will lead Justin from Plato to Jesus. Justin carefully describes the setting of this encounter in a remote and quiet place, “not far from the sea,” where he has withdrawn to be with himself and engage in philosophical contemplation (Dial. 3.1–2). This typically Greek scene of individual contemplation radically changes with the arrival of the stranger, who immediately impresses Justin as “gentle and dignified.” He is the only teacher who is given an opportunity to present his views, which is done in Socratic style. Instead of lecturing he raises questions, which lead Justin in the right direction.32 The first question put to Justin reflects a distinctly Roman perspective: “Are you then some philologian, not at all a lover of deeds nor a lover of truth? Do you not endeavor to be a practical man rather than a sophist?” (Dial. 3.3).33 This snide remark presupposes a sharp contrast between truth and philology, which is identified with self-centered contemplation. Pursuing the truth, by contrast, is associated with engagement in the practical world and concrete deeds. The old man’s question echoes Cicero’s distinction, quoted at the beginning of this article, between Greek theory and Roman exemplars. While Cicero was eager to learn theoretical Greek philosophy, provided it ultimately serves Roman pur32  Edwards 1991, 17–24, argues for Justin’s education in a Platonic school and first-hand knowledge of Plato’s works, which enabled him to write this scene with the old man in a distinctly Platonic style. For more nuanced views, see Niehoff 2016. 33  Φιλόλογος οὖν τις εἶ σύ, … φιλεργὸς δὲ οὐδαμῶς οὐδὲ φιλαλήθης, οὐδὲ πειρᾷ πρακτικὸς εἶναι μᾶλλον ἤ σοφιστής.

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poses, Justin’s old man criticizes the Platonic approach as disconnected from practical ethics. Latin values thus triumph over Greek philosophy. Justin’s portrait of the old man engages imperial Roman discourses. Seneca, for example, recommends that we should “learn them [moral precepts] so that words may become deeds” (Sen., Ep.  108.35).34 He also dismisses merely philosophical talk not followed by action as “hunting out archaic and far-fetched words and eccentric metaphors and figures of speech” (ibid.). Epictetus, a Roman Stoic active around the turn of the first to second century, writes a special treatise Against Those Who Embrace Philosophical Opinions Only in Words (Discourse 19). He accuses such philosophy students of boasting in school and decorating themselves with names and words of others, while missing the true point. More importantly, the addressee of Justin’s Apology, Marcus Aurelius, expresses similar views. He repeatedly demands “away with books!” and criticizes philosophical ostentation, urging his readers to be concerned with practical ethics (Marc. Aur., Med. 2.2–3, 3.1–6, 3.14). His own autobiography starts with a list of practical insights he learnt from his family and teachers. His mother, for example, taught him the fear of God, generosity, abstention from evil intention, and simplicity in life style (Med. 1.3). His teacher Rusticus taught him “to become aware of the fact that I needed amendment and training for my character, and not to be led aside into the zeal of sophistry” (Med. 1.7).35 These Roman thinkers recommend a philosophy of life which no longer focuses on theory and scholarship, notions explicitly associated with Greek culture, but instead orients the students towards practical ethics in a Roman mode. None of them positions himself any longer on the trajectory between Athens and Rome. No need any more to travel abroad for education, as home-nurtured teachers provide the best training. The old man in Justin’s Dialogue echoes such themes and introduces a typically Roman perspective, which locates Christianity in the capital of the Empire. Justin’s turn from Platonism to Christianity marks a transition from effeminate Greek ways to Roman vigor. The ambiguous costume of the Greek philosopher, which characterizes him at the beginning of the Dialogue, is replaced now by an emphatic declaration: “thus and for these reasons am I a philosopher” (Dial. 8.1).36 Justin’s autobiographical reminiscences about his educational journeys anchor him firmly in Imperial Roman discourses. Having traveled to various teachers, who turn out to be caricatures of Greek philosophers, he has arrived at the Christian truth, which is highly congenial to the philosophy of the Ro34 

“ut quae fuerint verba, sint opera.” Παρὰ Ῥουστίκου τὀ λαβεῖν φαντασίαν τοῦ χρῄζειν διορθώσεως καὶ θεραπείας τοῦ ἤθους καὶ τὸ μὴ ἐκτραπῆναι εἰς ζῆλον σοφιστικόν. 36  οὕτως δὴ καἰ διὰ ταῦτα φιλόσοφος ἐγώ. Justin’s identification of Christian theology with philosophy has implications for his attitude to other interpretations of Christianity, such as Marcion’s, which he vehemently rejects (1 Apol. 58.2, 26.6–8); see also Lieu 2015, 15–25. 35 

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man Emperor. While Justin positions himself in Rome and adopts a manly posture, Trypho the Jew remains attached to Plato, behaving in an undignified Greek manner (Dial. 8.3).

Lucian’s Parody of Journeys for Philosophical Instruction Lucian is a paradigmatic traveler, who mocks the very idea of attachment to one’s fatherland. Assuming for a moment the perspective of a native committed to the soil, he points to the problem of newcomers, who are like “bastards,” ever willing to change places and adopt new, equally temporary loyalties (My Native Land 10). He then adds: “and if someone has received by fate a fatherland so small that he requires another country for higher education, he should still be grateful for his early education at home” (NL 6). Lucian may well be mocking Plutarch, who confesses loyalty to his home town, even though it is “a small city,” but travels to Athens and Rome to consult libraries and meet with intellectually stimulating friends (Plut., Dem.  2.1–4).37 His attachment to Chaeronea may have provoked Lucian to his cynical remark. In the treatise The Wisdom of Nigrinus Lucian addresses the topic of journeys for philosophical instruction from a remarkably sophisticated perspective and elevates the discussion to a new level of ironic self-reflection. Whereas Josephus and Justin inscribed themselves into Roman discourses and took pride in their allegiance, Lucian exposes the problems of defining one’s identity by reference to Rome. The treatise opens with a short letter from Lucian to Nigrinus, a philosopher in Rome. The name Nigrinus is a pun on the Latin word “niger,” black, and indicates his Oriental, probably Greek background.38 Lucian disavows any ambition to compete with the philosopher in Rome, admitting that sending him a book he has written would be like “importing owls to Athens.” This proverb subtly suggests that Rome has assumed the place formerly held by Athens as the center of learning. Sending new books to Rome would be superfluous and ridiculous. Lucian furthermore asserts that far from wishing to “show his power of words,” he merely exposes his feelings, namely “my state of mind, how I am right now and how deeply I have been moved by your words.” Intellectual prowess, which traditionally led to the composition of philosophical treatises, has thus been replaced by a posture of adulation towards an immigrant philosopher in Rome. Moreover, “power of words” or eloquence has since Cato been a marker of Greek culture, which was juxtaposed to Roman practicality (Plut., 37 

On Plutarch’s Greek learning, see Russel 1972, 42–62; Bowie 2014. indication of Nigrinus’s Eastern origins is the description of his impressions when “first coming back from Greece” to Rome. These impressions are typical of a Greek coming for the first time to Rome (Nigr. 17). 38  Another

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Cat. Mai. 12.5, 22.1–23.1).39 Withholding his eloquence, Lucian gives up a significant aspect of his Greek identity and subordinates himself to someone naturalized in Rome. Rome emerges as the “Athens” of Greek intellectuals seeking inspiration and models of writing. The treatise properly starts with an exclamation by an unidentified speaker, who defines the topic at stake and sets the overall tone: How very majestic and lifted up you are since you have come back again! You no longer consider us worthy of regard and association, you no longer share and join in our conversations, but you suddenly seem to have changed and generally look arrogant. I should be glad to learn from you why you are so strange and what the cause of all this is. (Nigr. 1)

Lucian here mocks the idea that journeys have a beneficial intellectual effect on the traveler. While Cicero felt “almost transformed” (Brut. 316) by his encounters with Greek teachers and Philo said that “someone who has not traveled is among travelers as the blind are among the sharp-sighted” (Abr. 65), Lucian exposes the utterly artificial. Journeys abroad, he suggests, inflate the ego of the traveler and render him a nuisance to his former friends. Another play on words is significant in this context. The Greek word for “strange” is ἄτοπος, literally “being out of place.” Instead of gaining spiritual benefit the traveler loses his familiar habits and set of mind, becoming a stranger in his native place. A sense of displacement also engulfs the reader, who remains ignorant about the speakers. They appear as nameless and uprooted persons, who let the reader in on their conversation and expose a culture without an inner frame of reference. The anonymous traveler, however, insists that his journey has made him happy and transformed him from a poor, blind slave into a free, rich, and clear-sighted man (Nigr. 1). Lucian has put into the mouth of the traveler keyterms of Stoic and Platonic philosophy, which suggest freedom from the emotions, a reversal of material values, and perception of ethereal truth. Throwing these philosophical slogans into the conversation, the traveler appears excited about fads and fashions rather than understanding the respective philosophical ideas. The reader cannot help feeling amused about his remark: “does it not seem wonderful to you, by Zeus, that I am a free person rather than a slave?” Lucian’s traveler has obviously enslaved himself to new masters without even being aware of it. The traveler moreover recalls how he “set out for the city” in search for an oculist and on that occasion also sought “to address Nigrinus, the Platonic philosopher” (Nigr. 2). Rome is self-evident and does not need to be named. Ironically, the traveler is concerned about a physical ailment of his eye, but also seeks a Platonist, representative of the school most concerned with spiritual eyesight. Exposure to philosophical discourse thus happens rather accidentally. Intellec39 

See also Isaac 2004, 381–405.

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tual insight is not the traveler’s main concern, but rather a side-product of his other business in the capital. He plans to “address” the philosopher, thus behaving like the poor in Rome, who are used to getting up early in the morning to address their patron in the hopes for some material gain. The Greek encounters in Rome two assets traditionally located in Greece, namely medicine and Platonic philosophy. As we have already seen, Justin identifies his move from Platonism to Christianity as a transfer from effeminate Greece to vigorous Rome. Lucian confronts a situation in which Greece has lost her centrality to the extent that even the teaching of Platonic philosophy is done in Rome. The student, who travels to Rome, is ignorant about the tradition, which should be his own. His behavior is artificial and he collects philosophical experiences like touristic souvenirs. Medicine, too, is located in Rome even though traditionally Greece excelled in this area, boasting of Hippocrates and the Alexandrian doctors in the Hellenistic period. Lucian suggests that Nigrinus healed the traveler’s eye-impediment by enrapturing him in a philosophical discourse. The traveler exclaims: “most strange, I forgot my eye and all about its disease, and increasingly also became sharper-sighted in my soul” (Nigr. 4). Nigrinus may well be a cipher for Galen, the famous philosopher doctor from Asia Minor, who was trained in Alexandria and then permanently settled in Rome, where he practiced medicine and taught Platonic philosophy. Being a court physician from 169 until his death in 199, he represented a thoroughly assimilated Greek. Whether or not hinting at a specific Platonist in Rome, Lucian mocks the idea of Greeks traveling to Rome and imitating her ways. His narrative distinguishes three types of Greeks, who differ from each other on account of their respective travel experience. One type has traveled to Rome and naturalized there; another type has remained in the Greek East, but regularly travels to Rome; while the third type is initially critical of the Greek traveler to Rome and exposes his hypocrisy, but at the end of the treatise expresses approval and promises to “speak in your style” (Nigr. 38). Lucian suggests that nothing authentic is left of Greece, all aspects of culture having been adapted to Rome. Nobody has remained unaffected by the journeys to Rome, whether by firsthand experience or second-hand report. Lucian includes himself among these Romanized Greeks, parading his subordination to Nigrinus in his opening letter to the treatise. The influence of Rome on Greek culture is visible in Nigrinus, who lives like a Roman patron in a villa with servants checking the credentials of visitors, much like the rich ridiculed in Salaried Posts. The reader then perceives Nigrinus through the eyes of the approaching student: Upon entering, I found him with a book in his hands and many busts of ancient philosophers standing round about (πολλὰς δὲ εἰκόνας παλαιῶν φιλοσόφων ἐν κύκλῳ κειμένας). Besides him there had been placed a small tablet filled with figures in geometry and a reed globe made, it seems to me, as an imitation (μίμημα) of the universe. Then he greeted

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me very affectionately and asked me how I was doing (ὅ τι πράττοιμι). I told him everything and of course in my turn wanted to know how he was doing and whether he had already decided to set out for Greece again (Nigr. 3)

Nigrinus has carefully designed the décor of his room, everything being calculated with a view to the best effect on the visitor. He himself holds a book in his hands rather than leaning over a table and studying. The book has become a professional symbol to be shown as a kind of business card, much like the philosopher’s gown. Moreover, the busts of the ancient philosophers provide a physical presence that replaces their spiritual impact. While Nigrinus is eager to show that he associates with the illustrious forefathers of his guild, it is less clear how well he knows their work or implements their ideas. Lucian uses the term εἰκών rather than ἄγαλμα – undoubtedly an ironic reference to Nigrinus’s pretension to be a Platonic philosopher. While Plato classified the eikon as an inferior medium distant from the truth (Rep.  588b), Nigrinus poses in the midst of busts and takes them to be serious expressions of his expertise. They identify him as part of a venerable tradition. Nigrinus’s posture turns out to be a reversal of Plato’s philosophy and shows his distance from the founder of the school. A similar word-play is inserted in the context of the globe, which is said to be an “imitation” (μίμημα) of the whole cosmos. Once more Nigrinus is happy with the inferior material copy, which Plato held to be secondary, and invests it with utmost value in his scheme of ostentation. Lucian’s Nigrinus resonates well with Seneca’s image of the rich man, who decorates his private house not only with hot and cold baths, but also with a library in order to make an impression (Tranq. 9.7). Lucian further exposes the futility of journeys for philosophical instruction by parodying the conversation between Nigrinus and the newly arrived student. Nigrinus asks him how he was doing (Nigr. 3). This opening playfully references the beginnings of Plato’s dialogues, where the conversation partners are typically known to each other and take a concrete incident as a starting point to contemplate the essence of things. Plato’s Phaedrus, for example, opens with a distinction between daily “business” (πρᾶγμα) and intellectual pursuit, which needs to transcend mundane distractions (Phaedr. 227b). Lucian’s Nigrinus, by contrast, is interested precisely in the “affairs” of his student, who in turn asks about his affairs. No attempt is made to sublimate daily life and reach a higher realm. On the contrary, the conversation immediately leads to the question of traveling to Greece. The journey has become an end in itself and substitutes serious engagement with philosophy. Instead of elevating the student to higher insights, philosophy amounts to another business in Roman style, contributing to the city’s theatrical and narcissistic atmosphere. Nigrinus praises “Greece and the men of Athens” (Nigr. 12), thus seemingly assuming a traditional position vis-à-vis the ancient center of learning. Unlike Cicero, however, he does not express admiration for their ideas, but rather sug-

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gests that their poverty has led them to lead a more frugal life. The “men of Athens” are regular citizens rather than philosophers, who teach vulgar foreigners in the market place. Schools of philosophy are not mentioned. The paideia available in Athens consists of down-to-earth remarks to an odd millionaire, who makes himself a nuisance at the athletic clubs and the bath-houses. Such a ludicrous character goes away “much improved by the public education” he received (Nigr. 13). Nigrinus praises the quiet and leisure of Athens, declaring the Athenian life style “to be congenial to philosophy,” because it keeps “the character pure, so that life there is most suited to an earnest person, who has been trained to despise wealth and chooses to live according to the good things of Nature” (Nigr. 14). Ironically, a Greek visitor to Rome requires instruction about Athens, supposedly the capital of his own culture and a source of pride. The image conveyed to him is thoroughly Roman and reflects the self-confidence of the new world power. Athens is interpreted from an economic point of view, implying that the Athenians’ rejection of wealth has been prompted by their poverty. Philosophy being a by-product of hardship, it does not arouse admiration in its own right. Moreover, Lucian’s Nigrinus suggests that no serious and vibrant ideas are taught any longer in Athens. Greek identity is thus in a sorry state: a Greek naturalized in Rome teaches another Greek, who visits him, that Athens is nothing more than a cute icon, suitable for salon discussions in the capital of the Empire. Its main purpose is to provide a significant mirror image for Rome as the new capital of civilization. Nigrinus’s impressions of Rome are no less significant. Upon arrival in the capital he initially has to deal with his own stereotypes, stressing that this city suits anybody who loves wealth, flattery, servility and trickery. Every street and every square, he adds, are filled with things that tricksters cherish most, namely vice and material goods (Nigr. 15). The city flows with adultery, avarice, and perjury. Nigrinus confesses that he was shocked at first sight, wondering why he has come. He then describes an existential dilemma, which informs the whole treatise: “what have you decided to do as you can neither free yourself nor behave like the locals” (Nigr. 17).40 Rome is both unavoidable and unattainable. Even Nigrinus, who has settled in Rome and adopted her manners, remains a “niger,” someone marked as foreign and deeply aware of being different. His chosen way of life as a Platonic philosopher in Rome is regarded as “womanish” and by implication Greek (Nigr. 18). The Greek visitor to Rome meets such a naturalized Greek rather than a born Roman. His exposure to the capital is secondary, but nonetheless Romanizes his Greek identity. He becomes convinced that there is no better school for virtue than this city, which inevitably confronts everybody with the theatricality of life and thus prompts to phil-

40 

ἢ τί καὶ πράξειν διέγνωκας μήτ’ ἀπαλλάττεσθαι μήτε χρῆσθαι τοῖς καθεστῶσι δυνάμενος.

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osophical contemplation. The very emptiness of Rome turns out to be her strength, much superior to the quiet of elderly Athens.

Conclusion Lucian’s parody of journeys for educational purposes exposes Rome’s pervasive influence on Greek culture, which is no longer located in Athens, but rather on the road to Rome. Greek intellectuals are alienated from their own tradition and are oriented towards Rome. Incapable of isolating their identity from the structures of Empire, they construct their own selves in the language of the Roman Other. Lucian himself assumes the posture of one who has renounced his “power of words” and is instead satisfied with admiring a philosopher in Rome. His authorial voice is secondary, modeled on Nigrinus at the center of the stage. Lucian moreover suggests that Greeks cannot become fully Roman and are destined to play the role of the Greek with its insinuations of femininity. Greek culture and Platonic philosophy are negotiated by two Greeks in Rome, who use the language and the values of their host city, producing an utterly Romanized form of Greekness, which is the only form left. Lucian’s interpretation also illuminates the perspectives of Josephus and Justin, two authors belonging to religious minorities. Eager to inscribe themselves and the cultures they represent into Roman discourses, Josephus and Justin tell the story of their intellectual journeys with an acute awareness of Rome. Writing in the first century CE, Josephus marks the beginning of a process, which Lucian openly mocks: he uses Roman images and values, portraying himself among the different schools of Jewish philosophy and choosing the one most suitable to Rome. His real teacher in life is Rome herself, whose sheer power leaves a deep impression on his mind. Josephus’s journey to Rome also enables him to construct his voice as a diplomat and author well versed in the theatricality of the city and able to manage in unconventional ways. In his case, too, indigenous identity is inextricably mingled with Roman voices, written as it were from the center back into the province. Justin’s discussion of journeys in the Dialogue is also illuminated by Lucian. The Christian author emerges as familiar with discourses of parody, anticipating Lucian to a surprising extent. Justin inscribes himself into Roman discourses, using parodies of Greek philosophers common in the capital of the Empire. He is thus able to construct Christianity as a quintessentially Roman philosophy, which he distinguishes from Eastern Greek thought and Judaism. While Lucian considered it impossible to become fully Roman, Justin was optimistic that his interpretation of Christianity would be accepted as “natural.”

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Works Cited Adkins, Lesley, and Roy A. Adkins. 1994. Handbook of Life in Ancient Rome. New York: Oxford University Press. André, Jean Marie, and Marie Françoise Baslez. 1993. Voyager dans l’Antiquité. Paris: Fayard. Backhaus, Knut. 2013. “Transformation durch Humor. Die Komödisierung von Tradition in der Apostelgeschichte.” In Aneignng durch Transformation: Beiträge zur Analyse von Überlieferungsprozessen im frühen Christentum. Festschrift für Michael Theobold, ed. Wilfried Eisele, Christoph Schaefer, and Hans-Ulrich Weidemann. HBS 74. Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, pp.  209–37. Barnard. L.W. 1967. Justin Martyr: His Life and Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Baumgarten, Albert I. 2016. “Josephus and the Jewish Sects.” In A Companion to Josephus in His World, ed. Honora Howell Chapman and Zuleika Rodgers. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, pp.  261–72. Beard, Mary. 2014. Laughter in Ancient Rome: On Joking, Tickling, and Cracking Up. Sather Classical Lectures 71. Berkeley: University of California Press. Bowie, Ewen. 2014. “Poetry and Education.” In A Companion to Plutarch, ed. Mark Beck. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, pp.  177–90. Branham Bracht R. 1989. Unruly Eloquence: Lucian and the Comedy of Traditions. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Casson, Lionel. 1974. Travel in the Ancient World. Baltimore: Hakkert. Cohen, Shaye J. D. 1979. Josephus in Galilee and Rome: His Vita and Development as a Historian. Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition 8. Leiden: Brill. De Rosalia, A. 1991. “Il latino de Plutarco.” In Strutture formali dei “Moralia” di Plutarco, ed. Gennaro D’Ippolito and Italo Gallo. Naples: M. D’Auria Editore, pp.  445–59. den Hollander, William. 2014. Josephus, the Emperors, and the City of Rome: From Hostage to Historian. Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity 86. Leiden: Brill. Edwards, Catherine. 1994. “Beware of Imitations: Theatre and the Subversion of Imperial Identity.” In Reflections of Nero: Culture, History, and Representation, ed. Jas´ Elsner and Jamie Masters. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, pp.  83– 97. Edwards, Mark J. 1991. “On the Platonic Schooling of Justin Martyr.” JThS 42: 17–34. Elsner, Jas´. 2001. “Describing Self in the Language of Other: Pseudo (?) Lucian at the Temple of Hierapolis.” In Being Greek under Rome: Cultural Identity, the Second Sophistic and the Development of Empire, ed. Simon Goldhill. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.  123–53. Eshleman, Kendra. 2012. The Social World of Intellectuals in the Roman Empire: Sophists, Philosophers and Christians. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Georges, Tobias. 2012a. “Die christlichen Apologeten des 2. Jahrhunderts und ihr Verhältnis zur antiken Philosophie – Justin und Tertullian als Exponenten unterschiedlicher Grundorientierungen?” Early Christianity 3: 321–49. –. 2012b. “Justin’s School in Rome: Reflections on Christian ‘Schools.’” ZAC 16: 75–87. Gleason, Maud W. 1995. Making Men: Sophists and Self-Representation in Ancient Rome. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Goldhill, Simon, ed. 2001. Being Greek under Rome: Cultural Identity, the Second Sophistic and the Development of Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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–. 2002. Who Needs Greek? Contests in the Cultural History of Hellenism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Goodenough, Erwin R. 1923. The Theology of Justin Martyr. Jena: Verlag Frommansche Buchhandlung. Goodman, Martin. 1994. “Josephus as Roman Citizen.” In Josephus and the History of the Greco-Roman Period: Essays in Memory of Morton Smith, ed. Fausto Parente and Joseph Sievers. SPB 41. Leiden: Brill, pp.  329–38. –. 1996. “The Roman Identity of Roman Jews.” In The Jews in the Hellenistic Roman World: Studies in Memory of Menahem Stern, ed. Isaiah Gafni et al. Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center, pp.  85–99. Habinek, Thomas. 2005a. The World of Roman Song: From Ritualized Speech to Social Order. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. –. 2005b. “Satire as Aristocratic Play.” In The Cambridge Companion to Roman Satire, ed. K. Freudenberg. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.  177–91. Hyldahl, Niels. 1966. Philosophie und Christentum. Eine Interpretation der Einleitung zum Dialog Justins. ATD 9. Copenhagen: Munksgaard. Inwood, Brad. 2005. Reading Seneca: Stoic Philosophy at Rome. Oxford: Clarendon. Isaac, Benjamin. 2004. The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Jones, Christopher P. 1966. “The Teacher of Plutarch.” HSP 71: 205–13. –. 1971. Plutarch and Rome. Oxford: Oxford University Press. –. 1986. Culture and Society in Lucian. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Kurczyk, Stephanie. 2006. Cicero und die Inszenierung der eigenen Vergangenheit. Autobiographisches Schreiben in der späten Römischen Republik. Europäische Ge­ schichtsdarstellungen 8. Cologne: Böhlau. Lampe, Peter. 1989. Die stadtrömischen Christen der ersten beiden Jahrhunderte. WUNT 2.18. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Laurand, Valéry. 2014. Stoicisme et lien social. Enquete autour de Musonius Rufus. LALM 14. Paris: Classique Garnier. Lieu, Judith M. 2015. Marcion and the Making of a Heretic: God and Scripture in the Second Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lyman, Rebecca. 2007. “Justin and Hellenism: Some Postcolonial Perspectives.” In Justin Martyr and His Worlds, ed. Sarah Parvis and Paul Foster. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, pp.  160–68. Mason, Steve. 2003. Flavius Josephus: Life of Josephus, Translation and Commentary. Leiden: Brill. –. 2016. “Josephus as a Roman Historian.” In A Companion to Josephus in His World, ed. Honora Howell Chapman and Zuleika Rodgers. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, pp.  89–107. Mayer, Roland. 2005. “Sleeping with the Enemy.” In The Cambridge Companion to Roman Satire, ed. K. Freudenberg. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.  146– 59. Moll, Sebastian. 2010. The Arch-Heretic Marcion. WUNT 250. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Morford, Mark. 2002. The Roman Philosophers: From the Time of Cato the Censor to the Death of Marcus Aurelius. London: Routledge. Nasrallah, Laura S. 2006. “The Rhetoric of Conversion and the Construction of Experience: The Case of Justin Martyr.” SP 40: 467–74.

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–. 2010. Christian Responses to Roman Art and Architecture: The Second-Century Church Amid the Spaces of Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Niehoff, Maren. 2016. “Justin’s Timaeus in light of Philo’s.” SPhA 28: 375–92. –. 2017. Philo of Alexandria: An Intellectual Biography. New Haven: Yale University Press. Pretzler, Marie. 2007. “Greek Intellectuals on the Move: Travel and Paideia in the Roman Empire.” In Travel, Geography and Culture in Ancient Greece, Egypt and the Near East, ed. Adams Colin and Jim Roy. Oxford: Oxbow, pp.  123–38. Reydams-Schils, Gretchen. 2005. The Roman Stoics: Self, Responsibility, and Affection. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Rokeah, David. 2004. Justin Martyr. Dialogue with Trypho the Jew. Translated from the Greek with Introduction and Commentary [in Hebrew]. Jerusalem: Magnes Press. Russel, Donald A. 1972. Plutarch. London: Duckworth. Skarsaune, Oskar. 1976. “The Conversion of Justin Martyr.” STh 30: 65–76. Stadter, Philip A. 2014. “Plutarch and Rome.” In A Companion to Plutarch, ed. Mark Beck. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, pp.  13–31. –. 2015. Plutarch and His Roman Readers. Oxford: Oxford University Press. –, and Luc Van der Stockt, eds. 2002. Sage and Emperor: Plutarch, Greek Intellectuals, and Roman Power in the Time of Trajan (98–117A.D.). Leuven: Leuven University Press. Swain, Simon. 1990. “Hellenic Culture and the Roman Heroes of Plutarch.” JHS 119: 126–45. –. 1996. Hellenism and Empire: Language, Classicism, and Power in the Greek World, AD 50–250. Oxford: Clarendon. –. 1997. “Biography and Biographic in the Literature of the Roman Empire.” In Portraits: Biographical Representations in the Greek and Latin Literatures of the Roman Empire, ed. Mark J. Edwards and Simon Swain. Oxford: Clarendon, pp.  1–37. Taylor, Joan E. 1997. The Immerser: John the Baptist within Second Temple Judaism. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. Thorsteinsson, Runar M. 2012. “By Philosophy Alone: Reassessing Justin’s Christianity and His Turn from Platonism.” Early Christianity 3: 492–517. Ulrich, Jörg. 2012. “What can we know about Justin’s ‘school’ in Rome?” ZAC 16: 62– 74. van Winden, J. M. J. 1971. An Early Christian Philosopher: Justin’s Dialogue with Trypho. Chapters One to Nine. Introduction, Text and Commentary. Leiden: Brill. Whitmarsh, Tim. 2001. Greek Literature and the Roman Empire: The Politics of Imitation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. –. 2010. Local Knowledge and Microidentities in the Imperial Greek World.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. –. 2013. Beyond the Second Sophistic: Adventures in Greek Postclassicism. Berkeley: University of California Press.

The Historiographical Vehicle of Lucian’s Journey in Verae Historiae Jonathan J. Price Lucian presents his “true stories” as a fantastic journey and a parodic wandering through different literary genres. The occasion of the conference on “journeys” has prompted more focused attention on the terrain and worlds Lucian the narrator traverses and explores. The composition Verae Historiae (VH) 1 has been aptly categorized inter alia as a parody of travel accounts as well as of epic, comic romance, philosophical wisdom-seeking journeys and historiography, as “philosophical science fiction,” and as a grand trans-generic and meta-literary journey for literati.2 It has been variously interpreted as an allegory of paideia, as serious philosophical exploration, a reflection of Lachkultur, and recently as a sophisticated treatment of reversals between reality and fiction as a lesson in reading imperial fiction and an attempt to break free from the stifling constraints of mimetic literature.3 Lucian’s enigmatic work is at once both more and less than these interpretations and generic classifications. It has proven to be one of those works of literature which, having gained serious notice, is interpreted by successive generations and claimed in their own image. The purpose of this brief essay is not to speak for a generation but, in reflection of my own interests, to illuminate the contours of Lucian’s narrator’s journey through falsehood by emphasizing what I believe to be his most prominent and, in a sense, trustwor1  The earliest mss (10c) and witnesses of the title (Photius) call the books A’/B’ Ἀληθῶν (Ἀληθινῶν) διηγημάτων, cf. Macleod 1972, 82. It is not certain that that is the title which Lucian himself gave the work – if he gave a title at all – but if he did, then this adds one more layer of irony, i.e. part of the Lucianic joke and not the wit of an anonymous scribe somewhere along the chain of transmission from the second to the tenth centuries. 2  See Georgiadou 2001, summarizing the interpretations to that time. Of the stream of Luciana which have come out since then, one should note, aside from the books and articles cited in the following notes, von Möllendorff 2000 (with a good review by M. Fusillo in Gnomon 75, 2003, 63–65); Camerotto 1998. The theory that that the VH is a conscious parody of Antonius Diogenes’s τὰ ὑπὲρ Θούλην ἄπιστα, offered by Photius and adopted by some modern readers, shall not be discussed here; cf. Fusillo 1999; Ní-Mheallaigh 2014, 183–85. 3  Ní-Mheallaigh 2014, 206–60; on the dialogic nature of reception, using Lucian VH as the main text, see Whitmarsh 2006. J. Bompaire’s extensive study of mimesis in connection to Lucian is under-appreciated (Bompaire 1958), cf. his discussion on VH at 658 ff.; he viewed the work as “une parodie de la littérature Romanesque, même colorée de philosophie ou d’histoire” (660).

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thy vehicle, namely historiographical narrative, which is, in characteristic Lucianic form, affirmed through devastating parody.4 In reflection of its title and premise of an utterly false narrative – pure falsehood being in itself an impossibility! – the work can be read, to a useful extent, as a journey through untruth to a form of truth, or instructive aporia. There is no doubt that historiography is the literary genre to which Lucian draws the reader’s attention at the outset of the work. The introduction to VH is written loosely but deliberately as a historiographical preface, covering in one form or another many themes in that developed topos.5 Moreover, to anchor the intention of the author, he specifically names historical writers (of a sort) as his targets. 6 Lucian opens the VH in a manner similar to that of historians who explain the purpose and usefulness of historical study, and the purpose of their work in particular.7 He states that in addition to diversion (ψυχαγωγία) he intends to provide “not inelegant insight, just the kind of thing that I assume they will think about the present composition (θεωρίαν οὐκ ἄμουσον …, οἷόν τι καὶ περὶ τῶνδε τῶν συγγραμμάτων αὐτοὺς φρονήσειν ὑπολαμβάνω)” (1.2). He continues: For it will be alluring to them not only because of the uncommon nature of its subject and its grace of style, and the fact that I have expressed the most artful lies persuasively and even with an element of truth, but also because each of the things narrated makes a riddling, not uncomic allusion to one or another of the ancient poets and historians and philosophers who have written many miraculous and fabulous things. οὐ γὰρ μόνον τὸ ξένον τῆς ὑποθέσεως οὐδὲ τὸ χαρίεν τῆς προαιρέσεως ἐπαγωγὸν ἔσται αὐτοῖς οὐδ᾽ ὅτι ψεύσματα ποικίλα πιθανῶς τε καὶ ἐναλήθως ἐξενηνόχαμεν, ἀλλ᾽ ὅτι καὶ τῶν ἱστορουμένων ἕκαστον οὐκ ἀκωμῳδήτως ᾔνικται πρός τινας τῶν παλαιῶν ποιητῶν τε καὶ συγγραφέων καὶ φιλοσόφων πολλὰ τεράστια καὶ μυθώδη συγγεγραφότων …

After asserting that such rascally authors of outlandish travel-accounts of faraway places are well-known to the reader and do not need to be named, he waives 4  Georgiadou and Larmour 1994 is still the most thorough treatment of some of the issues discussed in this article; I fully subscribe to their assertion that “the ‘Ver. Hist.’ serves as an outstanding example of the kind of historiography which Lucian criticizes in his treatise” (1481), but wish to make a different claim here. See also their edition and commentary of VH, Georgiadou and Larmour 1998. And on Lucian and history-writing, Jones 1986, 52–55. 5  Prefaces are a much-studied but hardly exhausted topic: Herkommer 1968; Earl 1972; Janson 1964; Nikolaidis 1988. See also Avenarius 1956, 113–18; Homeyer 1965, 269–72. 6  The pioneering work on intertextuality in Lucian’s VH, even though the word was not then in use, is Stengel 1911 (most Thucydidean references discussed here were not noted by Stengel); and now in extenso, Ní-Mheallaigh 2014. Despite the systematic study of historiographical allusions in VH by Georgiadou-Larmour 1998, much work in this area can still be done. 7  On History as a profession, see e.g. Polyb. 1.4; Diod. Sic. 1.1.1–3.1. On the usefulness of history, e.g.: Thucydides 1.22.4, 3.82.1; most extensively, Diod. Sic. 1.1–2 and passim in his preface, see Burton 1972, 35–38; Duris FGH 76 F 1; Polyb. 1.1.1–4, 2.8, 4; Dion. Hal. 1.2.1; Josephus, A.J. 1.1.5; Appian, Bell. civ. Praef. 24. Marincola 1997, 20–26, 43 n.  28.

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restraint by naming Ctesias of Cnidos, son of Ctesiochus, Iamblichos, and Homer as particularly reprehensible liars; then he continues: Having read all of these, I didn’t blame the authors so much for lying, seeing that this was routine even among those professing to philosophize; what I found remarkable is that they thought they could get away with not writing the truth. Thus I myself, from vanity, was anxious to leave something to posterity, so that I may not be the only one without any share in the freedom to make up stories; since I had nothing true to report – for I had experienced nothing worthy of note – I resorted to lying, but lying which is much more candid than that of the others; for I should be telling the truth when I say this, that I am lying. In this way it seems to me that I might escape others’ censure by myself admitting that I am saying nothing true. Indeed I am writing about things that I have neither seen nor experienced nor learned from anybody else, moreover things which neither actually exist nor could ever exist at all. Therefore my readers must in no way believe them. τούτοις οὖν ἐντυχὼν ἅπασιν, τοῦ ψεύσασθαι μὲν οὐ σφόδρα τοὺς ἄνδρας ἐμεμψάμην, ὁρῶν ἤδη σύνηθες ὂν τοῦτο καὶ τοῖς φιλοσοφεῖν ὑπισχνουμένοις· ἐκεῖνο δὲ αὐτῶν ἐθαύμασα, εἰ ἐνόμιζον λήσειν οὐκ ἀληθῆ συγγράφοντες. διόπερ καὶ αὐτὸς ὑπὸ κενοδοξίας ἀπολιπεῖν τι σπουδάσας τοῖς μεθ᾿ ἡμᾶς, ἵνα μὴ μόνος ἄμοιρος ὦ τῆς ἐν τῷ μυθολογεῖν ἐλευθερίας, ἐπεὶ μηδὲν ἀληθὲς ἱστορεῖν εἶχον οὐδὲν γὰρ ἐπεπόνθειν ἀξιόλογον ἐπὶ τὸ ψεῦδος ἐτραπόμην πολὺ τῶν ἄλλων εὐγνωμονέστερον· κἂν ἓν γὰρ δὴ τοῦτο ἀληθεύσω λέγων ὅτι ψεύδομαι. οὕτω δ᾿ ἄν μοι δοκῶ καὶ τὴν παρὰ τῶν ἄλλων κατηγορίαν ἐκφυγεῖν αὐτὸς ὁμολογῶν μηδὲν ἀληθὲς λέγειν. γράφω τοίνυν περὶ ὧν μήτε εἶδον μήτε ἔπαθον μήτε παρ᾿ ἄλλων ἐπυθόμην, ἔτι δὲ μήτε ὅλως ὄντων μήτε τὴν ἀρχὴν γενέσθαι δυναμένων. διὸ δεῖ τοὺς ἐντυγχάνοντας μηδαμῶς πιστεύειν αὐτοῖς.

This passage contains either positive affirmation or affirmation by denial of what a historian was expected to say at the outset. Lucian justifies his theme and subject8 by saying that he made it up because he had no good subject or theme: μηδὲν ἀληθὲς ἱστορεῖν means that he has nothing true to tell or that he will relate in historical narrative nothing true. He critiques his predecessors, both by name and categorically,9 but then, instead of promising the expected corrective, he comically boasts that he will outdo them in their mistakes and excesses. His sources and methods10 require no exposition or defense, since he proposes to make everything up. Lucian absolves himself of having to defend his credentials

8  Thuc. 1.1–3, 21; Theopompus FGH 115 F 27; Polyb. 1.1.5–2.8, 4; Berossos FGH 680 F 1; Dion. Hal. 1.2–3; Diod. Sic. 1.3; Josephus, B.J. 1.1; A.J. 1.1–5; Appian, Bell. civ. Praef. 1–44; Herodian 1.1.4–6. Marincola 1997, 32–43. 9  Compare Thucydides 1.22.4; Hecat. FGH 1 F 1a; Duris FGH 76 F 1; Manetho FGH 609 F 1; Dion. Hal. 1.5.4–6.2 (Dion. Hal. 1.1.1 mentions that critique of other historians, such as in the works of Anaximenes and Theopompus, is one of the things he intends to avoid, but he subsequently indulges in it); Diod. Sic. 1.3, 1.4.1; Josephus, B.J. 1.1; Herodian 1.1.1–3. 10  Compare Thuc. 1.22; Ephorus FGH 70 F 9; Antiochus FGH 555 F 2; Manetho FGH 609 F 1; Dion. Hal. 1.7; Diod. Sic. 1.4.1–5, 5.1; Arrian, Proem.; Appian, Bell. civ. Praef. 45–48; Cassius Dio 1.2; Herodian 1.1.3.

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and impartiality,11 or asserting the truth of his account,12 by promising lies, all lies, and assuring his readers that nothing in his narrative happened or could have happened, thus drifting from Preface to Anti-Preface and beginning the story beyond the confines of the reasonable and plausible. Lucian mimics the historians’ repeated claim of having witnessed and experienced the narrated events themselves, or having heard about them from first-hand witnesses or the historical actors.13 He has not the best motives for writing but the worst, i.e. a self-acknowledged vanity and vain desire for immortality. Once the narrative begins (VH 1.5), Lucian immediately notes “the cause of my trip abroad and my proposed purpose (αἰτία δέ μοι τῆς ἀποδημίας καὶ ὑπόθεσις ἡ τῆς διανοίας),” an implied distinction between the real and the offered cause, and recalling the first historiographical prefaces of Herodotus and Thucydides, as well as Polybius’s more elaborate explanation of aitia as a historian’s duty to explain. In fact, causality and explicit statement of cause is one of the most distinguishing characteristics of ancient historical prose.14 A further nod to Polybius may perhaps be seen in Lucian’s use of the word ὑπόθεσις, for in his preface Polybius attempts to explain “how unexpected and huge is our proposed subject of investigation (ὡς δ᾽ ἔστι παράδοξον καὶ μέγα τὸ περὶ τὴν ἡμετέραν ὑπόθεσιν θεώρημα),” where the word ὑπόθεσιν means more or less the same thing as in Lucian, and is connected with the unexpected, παράδοξον.15 Lucian’s own advice in Quomodo Historia Conscribenda Sit (QHCS) 53, on historiographical prefaces, had been as follows: When he comes to write a preface, he will consider two premises only, not three as in Rhetoric: he will omit trying to capture the goodwill of the listeners and try to awake their attention and interest in learning. For they will give him their attention if he demonstrates that he will speak of great, necessary, personal or useful things. ὁπόταν δὲ καὶ φροιμιάζηται, ἀπὸ δυοῖν μόνον ἄρξεται, οὐχ ὥσπερ οἱ ῥήτορες ἀπὸ τριῶν, ἀλλὰ τὸ τῆς εὐνοίας παρεὶς προσοχὴν καὶ εὐμάθειαν εὐπορήσει τοῖς ἀκούουσι. προσέξουσι μὲν γὰρ αὐτῷ, ἢν δείξῃ ὡς περὶ μεγάλων ἢ ἀναγκαίων ἢ οἰκείων ἢ χρησίμων ἐρεῖ.

In “True Stories,” Lucian violates his own advice. Not only has he pleaded for a favorable hearing, but by claiming to tell only falsehoods he has eliminated all four benefits of writing history mentioned in QHCS, for false stories cannot be 11 

Luce 1989; Marincola 1997, 128–74. essential element of both prefaces and narratives in historiography, see Avenarius 1956, 40–45; Marincola 2007. 13  Most famously Thucydides 1.22, which served as the model – or at least as lip-service – in later historians; and note the parody of this in QHCS 28–29. 14 Herodotus 1.1, Thucydides 1.23, Polybius 1.5, 2.38.5, 2.56.16, 3.32.6–7, 6.2.8–10, 12.25b.1–2; Lucian, QHCS 53 with Avenarius 1956, 116–17. Research on causality in ancient philosophy is more developed than that in ancient historiography, but see e.g. Walbank 1957, 358–61; Pédech 1964, 54–98; Derow 1994; Reinhold 1985; and now a compelling investigation of cause in Livy, in both historiographical and philosophical contexts, Levene 2010, chapter 5. 15  Note also Polyb. 3.5: perhaps Lucian felt a challenge? 12  An

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“great” or important or necessary if not anchored in truth, nor can they be personal (the things narrated in VH never happened to him), or, consequently, useful. Finally, while Lucian promises to parody “poets, historians and philosophers,” in his preface to VH he mentions no philosophers and, aside from Homer, only two other authors, one, Ctesias of Cnidos (5/4c.), classified as a historian (Jacoby, FGH 688), and the other, Iamboulos, who is difficult to categorize (he is not in Jacoby). Ctesias’s monograph on India appears to be the first ever written in the west,16 and for that reason is important in the history of ancient Greek ethnography of eastern lands and peoples, but what Lucian says about him appears to be true: Ctesias claimed that his stories were “completely truthful, adding that he personally saw some of the things he wrote about while others he heard from firsthand witnesses,”17 but alas, he neither visited the place himself nor had good first-hand sources who told him the truth: μήτε ἄλλου ἀληθεύοντος ἤκουσεν (“he never heard from anyone who was telling the truth”) means that he could very well have spoken to people who had actually been to India or come from there, but that they did not tell him the truth; and indeed, although some mundane information is preserved in the fragments,18 Ctesias’s sources seem to have played on his taste for the sensational and wondrous, and his belief, common among the Greeks, in increasingly fantastic creatures living at the farthest edges of the earth. Ctesias makes another appearance in the VH, where Lucian reports witnessing him being punished in the afterlife among liars and “those who did write the truth (οἱ μὴ τὰ ἀληθῆ συγγεγραφότες)” (2.31). Lucian’s singling him out, in the second century CE, must reflect Ctesias’s continuing influence in Lucian’s day, both on common beliefs and on writers who continued to report fantastic things about India as if true. The last writer mentioned in the preface is Iamboulos, another ancient author for whom we are entirely indebted to a reader in antiquity who liked his book and wrote a summary of it (Diod. Sic., Bibl. hist. 2.55–60). Iamboulos told a wild tale of being carried by Ethiopian kidnappers to a distant Island of the Sun, a place of perfect climate and fertility, whose inhabitants live communistically and after 150 years die in peace.19 Modern readers routinely classify this lost work as “utopian,” which was neither a word in ancient Greek nor a fortiori a separate category or literary genre in antiquity. Ancient “utopias” can been seen as philosophical parables or even didactic tales, but Lucian will credit Iambou16  For the fragments and explication of all information known about them, see Nichols 2011. 17  So Photius’s summary: Phot., Bibl. 72.45a21–50a4 (FGH 688, T10), see Nichols 2011, 59. 18  Nichols 2011, 19–21. 19  VH and utopia: Fusillo 1999; Futre 2006; Peterson 2001 (non vidi); Winiarczyk 1997; and see D. Clay’s elegant treatment of the first “utopia” in Homer, Clay 2011.

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los with none of this: he pairs Iamboulos with Ctesias, two irresponsible writers who had no license to invent and falsify. Historiographical prefaces were written not only to introduce the historian, define and justify the chosen topic, explain causality, criticize other historians, profess impartiality and adherence to truth, and adumbrate methods and sources, but also as a kind of captatio benevolentiae. The historian implies to readers that they (the readers) are equipped to understand the level of writing and seriousness of purpose they are about to encounter, and lets them participate in the dismissal of previous inferior, mendacious, or dishonorable writers. Lucian accomplishes the same by assuming the opposite posture: he assures his readers that he expects no credibility or labor from them at all in reading his account, since it will be entirely false and will not tax their intellect or judgment; and while implicitly critiquing anyone who has read with benefit the ridiculous tales (βωμολοχία) told by Ctesias, Iamboulos, Homer, and the others (implicitly dismissing any reader who could not tell the difference), he winks at their guilty pleasure (Iamboulos is οὐκ ἀτερπῆ, “not unpleasing” ). Yet Lucian’s statement of purpose presents the reader with a paradox which will indeed require great effort to penetrate. Historians who embellish their narratives with fiction but pretend to truth through personal experience lie in both places, i.e. both in their claims of truth and in their embellished accounts. Lucian promises lies in his preface but peppers his narrative with conventional assurances to the reader of the truth and accuracy of his account (VH 1.18, 1.25, 1.26 [but here the challenge is impossible], 1.40); on the Isle of Blest, he asserts, “I have never knowingly told a lie” (2.31). Despite the outlandish nature of creatures and events in the narrative of VH, there is nothing intrinsic to either claim – of untruth in the preface or truth in the narrative – which privileges one over the other.20 When assured by the author that everything coming is false, the reader does not know whether to feel conspiratorial, suspicious, flattered, or insulted. The journey begins on the edge of the Roman world, at the Pillars of Hercules, and proceeds outward and upward from there: the journey will be through Greek culture and literature, ever-distant from Rome’s center. Lucian’s imaginative journey through the heavens and the belly of a whale, across the distant ocean and past mythical islands, and his encounters with fantastic creatures in each place, is confined within a solid historiographical framework. In the course of the story, Lucian’s narrator does most things a good historical writer of personally witnessed events is expected to do: he gives precise eyewitness descriptions of places, buildings, cultures, geography, natural and unusual phenomena; 20  Cf. Ní-Mheallaigh 2014, 159–60, 206–7. The inability to trust Lucian, i.e. take him at face value, even in his introduction, is what Tim Whitmarsh means (I think) by Lucian’s “palimpsestic evanescence of the author’s voice as a guarantee of truth and narrative guidance,” Whitmarsh 2001, 252.

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he provides accurate numbers of troops, distances between places, etc.; he reads an inscription, conveys the verbatim text of a treaty, reports personal conversations, reads a letter; he gives clear chronological markers; he corrects other written narratives; he quotes speeches in direct discourse; he speculates logically about the causes of witnessed phenomena.21 The prose is sober and matter-of-fact, in plain historiographical style.22 Lucian’s tone is restrained, his sentences straightforward, with no extravagant periods, just as he recommends for the historian in QHCS 43–45, e.g.: “Let his thought be coherent and concise, his language clear and statesmanlike, as required to exhibit the subject most distinctly (καὶ ὁ μὲν νοῦς σύστοιχος ἔστω καὶ πυκνός, ἡ λέξις δὲ σαφὴς καὶ πολιτική, οἵα ἐπισημότατα δηλοῦν τὸ ὑποκείμενον)” (43). The unadorned, unostentatious style contrasts brilliantly with the colorful, inventive creatures and stories, drawing attention to both. Not only does Lucian’s narrator avoid excessive rhetorical flourishes, crass mimesis, tragic language, and pose, 23 but the master Thucydides is clearly invoked in vocabulary and syntax. Thucydidean language is used in an allusive, unobtrusive, even respectful way; it has, as Bartley has rightly noted, “a function beyond the simply comic” (2003: 223).24 For example, in VH 1.17, Lucian writes, ἐπειδὴ τὰ σημεῖα ἤρθη … ἐμάχοντο (“they joined battle once the signals were raised”), in direct imitation of Thuc. 1.49.1, ἐπειδὴ τὰ σημεῖα ἑκατέροις ἤρθη, ἐναυμάχουν (“they started the naval battle once the signals were raised on each side”). In the same section of VH, καὶ ἐπεξῆλθον οἱ Ἀεροκώνωπες διώκοντες ἄχρι πρὸς τοὺς πεζούς (“the air-gnats followed in pursuit up to the infantry”) is a clear echo of Thuc. 1.62.6, καὶ ἐπεξῆλθον διώκοντες ἐπὶ πολύ (“followed in pursuit for a considerable distance”). Indeed, Lucian even invokes the authority of Thucydidean language to avoid relating a certain fact of battle, lest he be disbelieved: compare VH 1.13 διόπερ οὐδὲ γράψαι τὰς φύσεις αὐτῶν ἐτόλμησα· τεράστια γὰρ καὶ ἄπιστα περὶ αὐτῶν ἐλέγετο (“therefore I have not dared to record their natures, because the things said about them are monstrous and unbelievable”), with Thuc. 3.113.6: καὶ ἀριθμὸν οὐκ ἔγραψα τῶν ἀποθανόντων, διότι ἄπιστον τὸ πλῆθος λέγεται (“I have not recorded the number of the dead, because the huge number stated is unbelievable”). Lucian quotes a treaty verbatim, which Thucy21 

See, in detail, Georgiadou-Larmour 1998. So straightforward and simple, in fact, that the editors of the Dickinson College Commentaries found it suitable for Greek students: “Lucian’s A True Story is an ideal text for intermediate readers. Its breathless narrative does not involve many complex sentences or constructions; there is some unusual vocabulary and a few departures from Attic Greek, but for the most part it is a straightforward narrative that is fun and interesting” (http://dcc.dickinson.edu/lucian-true/about-the-work). 23  Cf. Marincola 2013. On what follows, see Stengel 1911, 22–25, 44–47; and now Bartley 2003, offering a close analysis of VH 1.13–21 and 1.35–39. 24  See this article for many other collected allusions to Thucydides not dealt with here; Bartley’s main concern, however, is to explain those allusions as veiled praise. 22 

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dides was the first historian to do; the treaty uses Thucydidean terms, requiring the Sun-people (Ἡλιῶται) inter alia to pull down their walls (compare Thuc. 5.18) and providing the two sides συμμαχεῖν δὲ τῇ ἀλλήλων, ἤν τις ἐπίῃ (“they will fight alongside each other, in the case of attack”) (VH 1.20), as in Thuc. 1.44 and 5.27.2, τῇ ἀλλήλων ἐπιμαχεῖν (“they will fight [attack] alongside each other”). The same sort of Thucydidean echoes are found in Lucian’s naumachia (or what he calls nesomachia), e.g. his use of the word ἀντίπρῳροι (“bow against bow”) in VH 1.41, which occurs in Thucydides 10 times, including in his descriptions of naumachiai in 7.34, 7.36, 7.40, 8.53, 8.75; and the term τὰ μακρὰ τῶν πλοίων, employed in VH 1.40, a variation of πλοῖα μακρά, the regular term for war ships used by both Herodotus and Thucydides. Finally, as has been noticed before, Lucian’s closing sentence of the sea battle in VH 1.42, ταῦτα μὲν τὰ κατὰ τὴν νησομαχίαν γενόμενα (“these were the events concerning the island-battle”), invokes Thuc. 7.87.6, ταῦτα μὲν τὰ περὶ Σικελίαν γενόμενα (“these were the events concerning Sicily”).25 This low-key mimesis of Thucydides, and the use of plain historiographical narrative style, permeates the composition. The imitations of Thucydidean phrases and words are not exact copies of sentences or extensive quotations – that would be the kind of vulgar imitation that Lucian parodies so ruthlessly in QHCS, where he quotes examples of historians of his time (perhaps not real) who copy Thucydidean sentences verbatim and plug in different names. Sometimes more than sentences are copied, such as accounts of the plague, in which only the names are changed.26 Lucian’s quotations of Thucydides in VH, by contrast, are respectful, and on the mimetic level strengthen the narrative’s claim of accuracy and diligence. In an outlandish narrative, he shows how proper mimesis is done; in fact, his attack on crass imitation is made more bitter, and more memorable, by the absurdity of Lucian’s own literary material. The “knowledge” gained in his feigned personal journey violates common sense and experience, a disharmony unalleviated by the conventional historian’s assurances of the accuracy of his information grounded in personal experience. Lucian’s effective deployment of most weapons in the historian’s arsenal for establishing credibility shifts the reader’s attention to those very techniques. Resorting to Thucydides was among the most effective of those techniques, and many writers tried it.27 As Lucian wrote in QHCS 42: “Thucydides laid down this law very well: he distinguished virtue and vice in historical writing (ὁ δ᾽ οὖν Θουκυδίδης εὖ μάλα τοῦτ᾽ ἐνομοθέτησε καὶ διέκρινεν ἀρετὴν καὶ κακίαν συγγραφικήν).” Lucian’s explanation of Thucydides’s ἀρετή seems to go deeper than surface technique: 25  Whitmarsh 2011, 185 suggested a parallel between the ending of VH and the ending of Thucydides’s text. 26  QHCS 15, 18, 26. 27  See Price 2011.

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For he says that he is writing a possession for all time rather than an entry in a present competition, and that he is not embracing the fabulous but transmitting to posterity the truth of what happened. And he introduces the principle of utility and what could surely be thought to be the aim of history, namely that if ever similar circumstances were to recur, people would be able, he says, by looking at past occurrences to deal with the problem at hand. κτῆμα γάρ φησι μᾶλλον ἐς ἀεὶ συγγράφειν ἤπερ ἐς τὸ παρὸν ἀγώνισμα, καὶ μὴ τὸ μυθῶδες ἀσπάζεσθαι, ἀλλὰ τὴν ἀλήθειαν τῶν γεγενημένων ἀπολείπειν τοῖς ὕστερον. καὶ ἐπάγει τὸ χρήσιμον καὶ ὃ τέλος ἄν τις εὖ φρονῶν ὑπόθοιτο ἱστορίας, ὡς εἴ ποτε καὶ αὖθις τὰ ὅμοια καταλάβοι, ἔχοιεν, φησί, πρὸς τὰ προγεγραμμένα ἀποβλέποντες εὖ χρῆσθαι τοῖς ἐν ποσί.

Here Lucian is relating to Thucydides’s perceived patterns of human behavior, which occur and will occur in similar situations, so long as human nature stays the same. Thucydides says this in the preface to his own work, referring to “things which have happened and similar things which are likely to happen again, given human condition (τῶν τε γενομένων … καὶ τῶν μελλόντων ποτὲ αὖθις κατὰ τὸ ἀνθρώπινον τοιούτων καὶ παραπλησίων ἔσεσθαι)” (1.22); his history will be useful for those who wish to understand. Thucydides repeats this idea when relating a particularly instructive or poignant historical model or patterned human behavior. In his model of stasis or internal war, he justifies describing abstract forms of behavior, referring to calamities “such as occur and will always occur so long as human nature remains the same, although they will be more intense or milder and varying in form, according to vicissitudes of circumstance prevailing in each instance (γιγνόμενα μὲν καὶ αἰεὶ ἐσόμενα, ἕως ἂν ἡ αὐτὴ φύσις ἀνθρώπων ᾖ, μᾶλλον δὲ καὶ ἡσυχαίτερα καὶ τοῖς εἴδεσι διηλλαγμένα, ὡς ἂν ἕκασται αἱ μεταβολαὶ τῶν ξυντυχιῶν ἐφιστῶνται)” (3.82.2).28 This must be the passage which Lucian has in mind,29 as it is the clearest and most memorable such statement, and the most influential in later Greek historiography. As Lucian correctly notes, Thucydides’s main purpose is instructive, not only “useful” but intended to lead to understanding and insight. The fantastic creatures and cultures Lucian discovers on his journey – as distant from our empirical lived reality as the mythological characters of tragedy and epic poetry – are unreal and cannot exist, as Lucian explains in his preface. Yet they act in typically human fashion. With surface appearances stripped, the fantastic creatures in VH, most of whom are portrayed in conflict, follow typical human patterns of behavior. In contrast to Iamboulos’s utopic landscape, which Lucian dismisses at the outset as false and overly imaginative, his dysto28 

See Price 2001. Assuming it is not the plague, which is written very much like the stasis model, see Price 2011. It is to be noted that this invocation of Thucydides immediately follows a definition of the requirements for truth in historiography (QHCS 41), mainly truth means freedom from bias, influence, flattery or dispraise, love of applause, in short the character and integrity of the historian, who should be devoid of any personal motive for distorting the facts; see Luce 1989. 29 

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pias display the established patterns of human history. Most of the places Lucian reaches on his disjunctive journey are violent and oppressive, hierarchical and regimented (Lynochopolis being the outstanding example), engaged in external or internal wars, dysfunctional in familiar ways: the conflicts are motivated by jealousy, anger, fear, greed; the cause of the dispute between the Moon and the Sun is ancient and irrelevant. We arrive at each new place with our narrator, both curious and cringing: what familiar comic horror awaits here? Even in the Isle of the Blest, the utopia for dead people where everything is like the Golden Age, all luxury and ease and cheer (εὐφροσύνη, 2.16), comes under attack by the shades from the opposite island of punishment (2.23); the Greek heroes from Troy, now residing on the Isle of the Blest, win. But soon the tranquility is broken by – stasis! Even in paradise. Cinyras, the son of Scintharus falls in love with Helen and determines to carry her off; after a brief battle the criminals are apprehended and sent to the place of punishment. Peace is restored and Lucian is required to leave the island, his time ended there (perhaps his purpose accomplished) after having witnessed that the most malignant but pervasive human behavior, stasis, can affect even the most far-flung paradise. Thucydides was right about the universality of that historical model: human behavior did not change even after death, when humans were converted to shades. The historical models describe the behavior even of strange hybrid creatures. The creatures and societies Lucian’s narrator encounters are a kind of dark mirror of human reality. The worlds through which he journeys are composed according to the laws of nature and the laws of history.30 Thus the fantastic episodes of Lucian’s story reveal the deeper structures of recorded and verifiable history, and are narrated according to the forms and tropes of exemplary and accurate historical writing. In this special sense, Lucian’s statement in the preface that the events in his story “could never have happened” is not in itself, on a certain level, true, for such things have already happened, and will continue to happen, as Thucydides stated, “so long as human nature remains unchanged.” The shades of the dead retained their human natures, and the hybrid creatures all seem to be endowed with human nature. Their behaviors and emotions are all too human. Thus one can recognize higher truths – typicality, motivation, causality – from Lucian’s narrative of unreality: unreality, which is not the same as falsehood. The narrative is not thoroughly false, after all, but familiar, for all its strangeness. We return to the epistemological quandary presented in the preface: where is Lucian lying, in the preface where he says he is lying, or in the narrative where he pledges he is not? By adopting – in a way in which an educated reader (but not overly educated: a literate Greek would recognize the quoted Thucydides, 30 

On this phrase and concept, see Price 2016.

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and respond instinctively to certain famous passages) 31 – models of events and behavior, Lucian has in fact imitated a historian’s narrative of true events, minus verifiable facts, which turn out not to be the most important element. His journey through falsehood reveals a kind of immutable truth of patterned human behavior: a truth immutable by falsehood. Thus whatever else it is – and it is many things – VH is a parody of Greek historical writing, but also a searching comment and critique on historical narrative and its relation to truth. Lucian sails through falsehoods and fantasies on the immediate experiential level, discovering deeper and widely known abstract truths which he knew both from his own reading and his own personal experience. Lucian has avoided the bother of verifiable fact to write, in a way, “true history.”

Works Cited Avenarius, Gert. 1956. Lukians Schrift zur Geschichtsschreibung. Meisenheim: Verlag A. Hein. Bartley, Adam. 2003. “The Implications of the Reception of Thucydides within Lucian’s ‘Vera Historia.’” Hermes 11: 222–34. Bompaire, Jacques. 1958. Lucien écrivain: imitation et création. Paris: Les Belles Lettres. Burton, Anne. 1972. Diodorus Siculus, Book I: A Commentary. Leiden: Brill. Camerotto, Alberto. 1998. Le metamorfosi della parola. Studi sulla parodia in Luciano di Samosata. Pisa: Istituti editoriali e poligrafici internazionali. Clay, Diskin. 2011. “Utopias.” In The Homer Encyclopedia, ed. Margalit Finkelberg. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781444350302.wbhe149 (accessed July 12, 2017). Derow, Peter. 1994. “Historical Explanation: Polybius and his Predecessors.” In Greek Historiography, ed. Simon Hornblower. Oxford: Clarendon, pp.  73–90. Earl, Donald. 1972. “Prologue-Form in Ancient Historiography.” ANRW 1.22, pp.  842– 56. Fusillo, Massimo. 1999. “The Mirror of the Moon: Lucian’s A True Story – From Satire to Utopia.” In Oxford Readings in the Greek Novel, ed. Simon Swain. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp.  351–81. Futre, Marilia P. 2006. “Utopia and Utopias: A Study on a Literary Genre in Antiquity.” In Authors, Authority and Interpreters in the Ancient Novel: Essays in Honor of Gareth L. Schmeling, ed. Shannon N. Byrne, Edmund P. Cueva, and Jean Alvares. Ancient Narrative Supplementum 5. Groningen: Barkhuis, pp.  147–71. 31  Thus, contrary to a prominent trend in Lucianic scholarship, I do not think that Lucian’s purpose in VH is solely, or even primarily, a game of “catch me if you can,” which would be a game of diminishing benefits. Whitmarsh 2006 rightly underplays the necessity of trying to follow Lucian’s hypotexts – that is, in the introduction to VH, there is not a straightforward challenge, as some scholars have assumed, to follow the leads and track down sources and allusions: “When an author highly practiced elsewhere in the dissimulation of identities scripts a narrator claiming deliberately to have withheld the identities of the authors of his hypotexts, it would be naïve in the extreme to expect transparency” (113).

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Georgiadou, Aristoula. 2001. “Review of Rütten 1997.” In International Journal of the Classical Tradition 8: 288–93. –, and David Larmour. 1994. “Lucian and Historiography: ‘De Historia Conscribenda’ and ‘Verae Historiae.’” ANRW 2.34.2, pp.  1422–510. –. 1998. Lucian’s Science Fiction Novel “True Histories”: Interpretation and Commentary. Mnemosyne Supplements 179. Leiden: Brill. Herkommer, Elmar. 1968. Die Topoi in den Proömien der römischen Geschichtswerke. Ph.D diss., Eberhard-Karls-University, Tübingen. Homeyer, Helene. 1965. Lukian. Wie man Geschichte schreiben soll. Munich: Fink. Janson, Tore. 1964. Latin Prose Prefaces: Studies in Literary Conventions. SLS 13. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell. Jones, Christopher P. 1986. Culture and Society in Lucian. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Levene, D. S. 2010. Livy on the Hannibalic War. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Luce, T. J. 1989. “Ancient Views on the Causes of Bias in Historical Writing.” CP 84: 16–31. Macleod, Matthew D. 1972. Luciani Opera I. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Marincola, John. 1997. Authority and Tradition in Ancient Historiography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. –. 2007. “ἀλήθεια (Dor. ἀλάθεια, Ion. ἀληθείη), truth, the truth, the real situation, the actual circumstances, reality; truthfulness.” In Lexicon Historiographicum Graecum et Latinum, ed. Giuseppe Nenci and G. Porciani. Pisa: Edizioni della Normale, pp.  7–29. –. 2013. “Polybius, Phylarchus, and ‘Tragic History’: A Reconsideration.” In Polybius and his World: Essays in memory of F. W. Walbank, ed. Bruce Gibson and Thomas Harrison. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp.  73–90. Ní-Mheallaigh, Karen. 2014. Reading Fiction with Lucian: Fakes, Freaks and Hyperreality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nichols, Andrew. 2011. Ctesias on India and Fragments of his Minor Works. London: Bristol Classical. Nikolaidis, Anastasios. 1988. “Comparative Remarks on the Prologues of Roman Historians.” Ariadne 4: 31–60. Pédech, Paul. 1964. La méthode historique de Polybe. Collection d’études anciennes 26. Paris: Les Belles Lettres. Peterson, Kimberly. 2001. Living on the Edge: The Travel Narratives of Euhemeros, Iamboulos, and Lucian. Ph.D. diss., Duke University. Price, Jonathan J. 2001. Thucydides and Internal War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. –. 2011. “Josephus’ Reading of Thucydides: A Test Case.” In Thucydides – A Violent Teacher? History and its Representations, ed. Georg Rechenauer and Vassiliki Pothou. Göttingen: V&R Unipress, pp.  79–98. –. 2016. “Josephus and the ‘Law of History’: A Note.” In When West Met East: The Encounter of Greece and Rome with the Jews, Egyptians, and Others. Studies Presented to Ranon Katzoff in Honor of his 75th Birthday, ed. David M. Schaps, Uri Yiftach, and Daniela Dueck. Trieste: EUT Edizioni Università di Trieste. Reinhold, Meyer. 1985. “Human Nature as Cause in Ancient Historiography.” The Craft of the Ancient Historian: Essays in Honor of Chester G. Starr, ed. John W. Eadie and Josiah Ober. Lanham: University Press of America, pp.  21–40.

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Rütten, Ulrich. 1997. Phantasie und Lachkultur. Lukians “Wahre Geschichten.” Tübingen: Narr. Stengel, Albert. 1911. De Luciani veris historiis. Berlin: A. Ebering. von Möllendorff, Peter. 2000. Auf der Suche nach der verlogenen Wahrheit: Lukians Wahre Geschichten. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag. Walbank, Frank. W. 1957. A Historical Commentary on Polybius I. Oxford: Clarendon. Whitmarsh, Tim. 2001. Greek Literature and the Roman Empire: The Politics of Imitation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. –. 2006. “Lucian, Bakhtin, and the Pragmatics of Reception.” In Classics and the Uses of Reception, ed. Charles Martindale and Richard F. Thomas. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp.  104–16. –. 2011. Narrative and Identity in the Ancient Greek Novel: Returning Romance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Winiarczyk, Marek. 1997. “Das Werk des Jambulos. Forschungsgeschichte (1550–1988) und Interpretationsversuch.” Rhein. Mus. 140: 128–53.

Strangers on the Road: Otherness, Identification, and Disguise in Rabbinic Travel Tales of Late Roman Palestine Catherine Hezser In antiquity as nowadays, journeys served to widen one’s horizons and challenged one’s identity. The road and way station provided opportunities for a variety of encounters with strangers, places, and objects that were different from what one was familiar with back home, within one’s more or less narrowly defined social circles.1 In late antique Palestine, roads that passed through uninhabited areas would be relatively neutral spaces, distant from “pagan” Graeco-Roman and Byzantine-Christian culture.2 They could therefore serve as ideal stages for fictional encounters between rabbis and “others,” directing one’s focus on the travelers’ ethnic, cultural, and religious differences. While traveling on roads and sojourning at places more or less distant from one’s hometown, the traveler would have been unknown to those he or she encountered and exposed to dangers such as robbery, kidnapping, and even murder.3 Confrontation with “strangers” and “strangeness” could be perceived as threatening to one’s own identity. On the other hand, openness for what the “other” had to offer might lead to a reevaluation of established norms and values. Travel is potentially life-changing. As Tim Whitmarsh has suggested in connection with Greek romantic novels: “the travels are the location for what Derrida would call différance: a deviation, both temporal and spatial, from the linearity that constitutes identity (in its root sense of sameness)” (2011: 20). The encounter with the unfamiliar and unknown could challenge and change but also enforce one’s own identity. In ancient Greek travel narratives, from the Odyssey onwards, travelers are presented as heroes who prove their strength of character under duress: “They prove themselves in all situations and keep their whole identity. … Nearly always they pass all examinations and temptations in

1 

On “cultural encounters” on the road see also Harland 2011, 18. On the road system in Roman Palestine see Hezser 2011, 54–88. 3  The potential loss of identity and exposure to dangers is especially evident in the Greek romantic novels, where the hero and heroine undergo various adventures away from home before they are reunited and marry. For these novels see Reardon 2008. On these novels see Whitmarsh 2008. 2 

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a brilliant and honourable way. They do not have identity crises like the main figures of the modern middle-class novel” (Johne 1996: 175). Palestinian rabbinic sources transmit a number of stories about rabbis’ encounters on the road. Such stories are particularly prevalent in late antique sources, namely the Talmud Yerushalmi and amoraic Midrashim. In the following, we shall investigate how these encounters are depicted. What and whom do rabbis encounter and what impact does that encounter have on their own views and identity? Do the meetings with strangers merely serve to confirm rabbis’ assumptions about the world they live in? Or do they lead to actual changes of mind? Do the stories serve to highlight rabbinic identity in contrast to Graeco-Roman culture and society? Or are there at least traces of the transformative possibilities of culture “clashes”? 4 Finally, how do the rabbinic travel narratives fit into the context of Graeco-Roman and Christian travel stories in terms of both style and content?

Self-Identification and Disguise People who met on the road would be strangers to each other. They would not know each other’s hometown, family, occupation, and travel route, unless they identified themselves accordingly. The way they identified themselves would affirm their group- and community-membership and, at the same time, serve as a boundary marker to exclude others they did not want to affiliate with. Éric Rebillard has pointed out that North African Christians of the third to fifth centuries CE commonly used the kiss in greetings and the sign of the cross on their foreheads to make themselves known to one another (2012: 17–18). These gestures and signs served as visual markers of identity in contexts in which non-Christians did not use them in the same way (ibid).5 Clothes, accessories, and demeanor could also serve to indicate a traveler’s background and status, although these signs were more vague and ambiguous in their meanings. According to a text in Sifre Deuteronomy, some Torah scholars assumed that they were recognizable in public by the way they walked, talked, and dressed themselves: Just as whoever uses fire makes a mark on his body, whoever uses the words of the Torah makes a mark on his body. Just as those who work with fire are recognizable among people, so disciples of sages are recognizable in the market by their walking, their talk-

4  On Romanization and the possible “clash” between Roman and local ethnic cultures see Whittaker 2009, 199–200. 5  Rebillard 2012, 17–18, writes: “Though a public greeting kiss was quite common among non-Christians, it was restricted mostly to family and friends … the extension of the practice to non-religionists would therefore have distinguished the Christians.”

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ing, and their [way of] wrapping [themselves in their cloaks] (Sifre Deut. 343:11; Finkelstein ed. p.  400).

Since the tallit/pallium and beard were fashionable among wider circles of the male population of the Near East, they did not allow one to easily recognize the intellectual and the rabbi in an undefined public context. The Sifre Deuteronomy text seems to express Torah scholars’ assumed distinction from other male Jews within a Jewish environment. The claim that Torah learning visibly changed a man and made him discernable to other Jews forms part of rabbis’ self-fashioning. 6 In the neutral environment of the roadside such visual markers of identity would have been ambiguous and insufficient. It was therefore customary for travelers to verbally introduce themselves to those they met. The Odyssey already transmits a version of the questions which strangers addressed to each other on the road: “What men are you from? Where are your city and your parents?” (15.264). According to Steven Muir, one’s “identity was built up over the course of many social interactions, and is constantly needed to be maintained through these interactions” (2011: 32). During travel, separated from one’s hometown and family, it was difficult to maintain one’s identity. Yet the confrontation with strangers also provided the opportunity to refashion oneself. A story in Genesis Rabbah addresses the issue of verbal self-identification among strangers: Rabbi and R. Yose bar Yehudah were walking on the road. They saw a gentile coming toward them. They said: Three things will he ask us: Who are you? and: What is your occupation? and: Where are you going? Who are you? Jews. And what is your occupation? Traveling merchants.7 Where are you going? To buy wheat from the store-house of Yavneh (Gen. Rab. 76:8; p.906 in the Theodor-Albeck ed.).

One way of preserving one’s identity was to travel with a companion who knew one well: “Fellow travelers might be actual family members or co-citizens of the hometown, or they might act as surrogates of those roles” (Muir 2011: 32–33). In our story, two rabbis are said to have traveled together and could confirm each other’s Jewish and rabbinic identity. The meeting with the stranger puts their identities to question. The text implies that the traveling rabbis were able to visually ascertain the non-Jewishness of the stranger when he approached them. The criteria that led to such an assumption are not explicated here. The factual non-Jewishness of the stranger, which does not need further explanation, serves the literary purpose of focusing the reader’s attention on the rabbis’ own self-identification. The rabbis are also assumed to have anticipated the stranger’s questions (“Three 6 

For more on this issue see Hezser 2017, 24–68. For the term ‫פרגמטווטין‬, see Jastrow 1985, 1214: πραγματευτής, “trader, esp. traveling merchant.” 7 

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things will he ask us”) already, that is, both his identity and his questions are projected onto him. The quotation of Gen 32:18 preceding the story indicates that the latter is modeled on the biblical text. Gen 32 deals with the relationship between Jacob and Esau and Jacob’s fearful anticipation of a meeting with his brother, whom he believes to be murderously inclined toward him and his family (cf. Jacob’s prayer in Gen 32:12). Jacob is said to have sent his slaves with presents to Esau, instructing the leading man as follows: “When my brother Esau meets you and asks you: ‘Whose man are you? Where are you going? And whose [animals] are these in front of you?’ you shall answer: ‘Your servant Jacob’s; they are a gift sent to my lord Esau; and [Jacob] himself is right behind us’” (Gen 32:18–19).8 Two of these questions reappear in almost the same form in the Genesis Rabbah story and all three questions head in the same direction. The first question is about the travelers’ affiliation, that is, their household or ethnic identity (see also the Odyssey above). What matters is the slave’s membership in the household of Jacob and the rabbinic travelers’ ethnically defined Jewishness. Second, the travel destination and purpose of the journey are considered noteworthy. Esau is informed that the caravan with the gifts from his brother Jacob is heading towards him. The rabbis identify themselves as traveling merchants on their way to purchase wheat from a particular store-house. What is significant here is that in confrontation with a non-Jewish stranger or Roman (Esau often stands for Rome) the rabbis do not reveal their rabbinic, scholarly, or intellectual status; they present themselves as ordinary merchants with common business pursuits. In analogy to the biblical narrative, this self-identification may serve to indicate their harmlessness and to invoke a friendly reaction in the interlocutor. Business was one of the main purposes of travel in antiquity; 9 identifying themselves as merchants would have made rabbis unexceptional in the eyes of their acquaintance and could initiate talk about business- and travel-related matters. In the context of rabbinic literature, where rabbis are eager to stress their rabbinic identity, this fictional self-identification stands out as unusual. Did the storyteller assume that a non-Jew would not have understood who rabbis or Torah scholars were, that such titles and occupations were intelligible in Jewish contexts only? Or did he think that such an identification would have made the stranger less well-inclined toward them? In the biblical narrative Jacob fears Esau’s resentment toward him and his family. Should we assume that rabbis (or the storyteller) perceived any non-Jew or Roman as potentially dangerous and therefore decided to disguise themselves? Or did these rabbis’ worldly occupation simply fit the context of road travel better?

8  9 

Translation with Berlin and Brettler 2004, 67. See Rosenfeld and Menirav 2005, 127–36.

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A tradition in the Gospel of Matthew provides an interesting contrast to the rabbinic story. Matthew 23:1–7 consists of a list of polemical statements against “scribes and Pharisees.” One of the allegations is that these scholars love “the greetings in the markets, and to be called by men, ‘Rabbi’” (Matt 23:7). Since Matthew composed his gospel after 70 CE, when rabbis emerged as self-styled religious leaders in Roman Palestine, we can assume that he was familiar with the use of the title within the Near Eastern environment of his community.10 Early Christian leaders are warned against letting themselves be called “Rabbi” (ibid. v. 8), allegedly to avoid hierarchical thinking. It is also possible that Matthew advised against the (Jewish-) Christian use of the title to distinguish Christian from Jewish leaders. If we read this passage in connection with the (much later) rabbinic story in Genesis Rabbah, we may perhaps assume that it refers to greetings by Jews in local contexts in contrast to the midrashic story’s neutral setting and non-Jewish interlocutor. In the local context of the market place, rabbis would have liked to be known and recognized as Torah scholars by their fellow-Jews and greeted with the title “Rabbi.” On the road and in meetings with Romans, on the other hand, they preferred to remain inconspicuous. In the midrashic story rabbis pretend to assume an outsider’s perspective: an outsider may be able to perceive some general distinctions between ethnic groups and professional associations. Subtle differences of affiliation and status, however, are noticeable by insiders only, such as the fellow-Jews by whom rabbis allegedly expected to be called “Rabbi,” according to Matthew’s tradition.11 Nevertheless, the audience and readers of the rabbinic story would have known what was going on: the insistence on rabbinic travelers’ “normalcy” served to underline the assumed boundary between these Jewish intellectuals and ordinary merchants, and rabbis’ claimed superiority. In the continuation of the Genesis Rabbah story R. Yose b. Yehudah is said to have hid himself, whereas Rabbi allegedly stood up to face the non-Jew. The storyteller seems to have assumed that the non-Jew was potentially dangerous or threatening. A story about a roadside meeting between a sage and Romans, transmitted in the Talmud Yerushalmi, can highlight the threatening nature of such encounters: R. Pinchas said: There was a case concerning a sage12 who was coming up from the hot baths of Tiberias. Romans met him. They said to him: From where are you? He said to them: From those of Vespasian [or: Severus].13 And they let him go. In the evening they 10  The Gospel of Matthew is commonly dated to around 90 CE. On this scholarly “consensus” see Claussen 2002, 69. 11  On such subtle clues to status and group membership see Wilkins et al. 2014, 125. 12  According to Lieberman 1991, 193–94, the term rav refers to a generic (Palestinian) sage here rather than to the Babylonian scholar Rav. 13 Hebr.: ‫מן דסופיינוס‬. According to Jastrow 1985, 968, the Roman emperor Vespasian is

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came to him [to Vespasian or Severus]. They said to him: Until when will you sustain these Jews? He said to them: Why? They said to him: We met one Jew and said to him: From where are you? He said to us: From Vespasian [or: Severus]. He said to them: And what did you do to him? They said to him: [It should be] enough to him that we let him go. He said to them: You did well. And if someone who relies on [a person of] flesh and blood is saved, all the more so one who relies on the Holy One, Blessed Be He. This is what is written: “Whoever calls the name of God will be saved [Job 3:5]” (y. Ber. 9:1, 13a).

Rather than identifying himself as a Jew, the rabbi is said to have identified himself as a subject of Vespasian (or Severus) in the first part of this story. The assumption is that the ethnic self-identification as a Jew was avoided to prevent possible hostile reactions from the Romans. The rabbi’s alleged answer, “From those of Vespasian [or: Severus],” resembles the answer Jacob’s slave was supposed to give to Esau in Gen 32:18 (“Jacob’s”). The Romans might have assumed that he belonged to Vespasian’s [or: Severus’s] household, that he was one of the distinguished Roman’s slaves or freedmen, who formed part of his entourage. If a Roman emperor is alluded to here, the reference may be to a member of the so-called familia Caesaris, the cohort of privileged royal slaves.14 By associating himself with the household and entourage of a distinguished Roman official or even emperor, the rabbi aspired to enjoy the dignitary’s special protection, especially when he was confronted by one of his lower officials. The statement “and they let him go” seems to imply that, otherwise, the Romans (soldiers?) might have impeded the rabbi’s journey and possibly even detained him. The encounter was probably envisioned as occurring on a Roman road, where travelers were occasionally checked by Roman military patrols. According to Benjamin Isaac, the so-called limitanei were soldiers in charge of road security, who could be stationed anywhere, not only in the frontier districts, and who “controlled movement” (1998: 379).15 Their activity would have been familiar to the ancient audience of the story. What rabbis or Jews might have feared when encountering such troops remains uncertain. Were the Romans expected to harass Jewish travelers? Or would they prevent them from moving on or using particular roads? Or perhaps they would subject their baggage to special scrutiny for tax purposes? In any case, the narrative suggests that the rabbi’s clever answer convinced the Romans of his legitimacy. And the an-

meant here. Because Vespasian was emperor from 69 to 79 CE and Rab was a first-generation amora, Neusner 2010, 23, translates the name to “[the governor] Severus,” who lived at the end of the second century, instead. The name “Vespasian” matches the Hebrew consonants better, however, and can be considered the lectio difficilior. 14  On the familia Caesaris see Weaver 1972. 15  See also ibid. 418: “The essence of control focused therefore on trade routes, lines of communication, way-stations and ports, rather than a specific territory, zone or group of settlements.”

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swer was not a lie: in Roman Palestine Jews were Roman subjects and subjected nations were generally associated with a servile status.16 In the second part of the story the setting is different. The Romans meet their superior at his own quarters. They report to him that they met a Jew on the road, indicating that they were aware of his “real” affiliation. In the dialogue among the Romans, the lower-rank Romans are portrayed as generally ill-disposed toward Jews, whereas the higher-rank Roman appears to be more tolerant, praising them for letting the travelers move on.17 It remains unclear whether the lesson drawn from the encounter (“And if someone who relies on [a person of] flesh and blood is saved, all the more so one who relies on the Holy One, Blessed Be He. This is what is written: ‘Whoever calls the name of God will be saved [Job 3:5]’”) is meant to be a continuation of Vespasian’s [or Severus’s] speech. If so, the Roman emperor or dignitary would be presented as a believer in the salvific power of the Jewish God. If the acknowledgment of the salvific power of God is attributed to the Roman dignitary himself, the impact would be all the more forceful. The narrative would then stand in line with other stories with an apologetic function in which Roman emperors and officials are said to have blessed the Jewish God.18 This application (nimshal), which may have been added secondarily, turns the story into a parable (mashal) to give theological significance to a story about an encounter between a rabbi and Romans. The notion that a Roman emperor, if actually alluded to here, was a person “of flesh and blood” could also be considered critical of emperor worship.19

Suspicious Romans Chance encounters with Romans, in which the Romans are assumed to pose a threat, also appear elsewhere in the Talmud Yerushalmi and amoraic Midrashim. The following story is an example of such tales:

16 

On this association and ancient Jewish texts which express it see Hezser 2005, 223–27. Vespasian is meant here, a positive image of Vespasian is also presented in the story about R. Yohanan b. Zakkai’s escape from Jerusalem and prediction of Vespasian’s rule (ARNA 4, Schechter ed. p.  22–23, ARNB 6, p.  19, with parallels in b. Git. and Lam. R.). For discussions of the story and its parallels see Saldarini 1975, 189–204; Schäfer 1979, 43–101. 18  For further examples of such stories see y. B.M. 2:5, 8c. The story about R. Gamliel and Roman officials who allegedly came to study with him (y. B.Q. 4:3, 4b) also contains such apologetic elements (“your whole Torah is beautiful and praiseworthy”). Some of the Antoninus stories also present the imaginary emperor by that name as a worshipper of the Jewish God. On these stories see Cohen 2010, 329–60. 19  Cf. Schremer 2009, 106: “the rabbis did not tolerate any form of emperor worship and its expressions. This was because the imperial cult implied acknowledgment of the emperor’s power, which for the rabbis meant … an expression of doubt concerning God’s sovereignty.” 17  If

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R. Yizhaq b. Eleazar was walking on the sea cliffs of Caesarea. He saw there a thigh bone [or: a ball] and hid it and it [nevertheless] rolled about. He hid it [again] and it rolled about. He said: This is designated to carry out its commission. A courier [‫ ]בילרד‬20 passed by, and he stumbled on it and fell and died. They went and examined him and found him carrying bad decrees against the Jews of Caesarea (Gen. Rab. 10:7, Theodor Albeck ed. p.  81–82). 21

The rabbi is imagined to have been walking on an official courier route, used by the cursus publicus.22 He sees a circular object that he first considers to be a dangerous obstacle that could cause other travelers to fall and suffer injuries. It turns out, however, to be a magic device able to protect Caesarean Jews from the harsh realities of Roman imperialism. Impossible to hide, the bone or ball is said to have caused the death of an official Roman courier, thus preventing the delivery of anti-Jewish decrees. The fantastical story probably served to express God’s protection of Jews in a Roman environment fraught with difficulties. It is entirely unrealistic and at odds with actual practice: not only the assumption that an object could move about by itself (or was moved by God) but also the notion that the courier’s death would prevent the decrees from being delivered is hard to believe. If a courier suffered an injury, another would surely replace him and the decrees would be delivered with a delay. According to Suetonius’s description, Augustus already replaced the runners, who were stationed at intervals along the routes, with messengers in carriages covering the entire way.23 For urgent messages riders on horses would be used.24 The figure of the runner, envisioned by the storyteller, would not have existed anymore in late antiquity. The presentation of the Roman courier service would be based on long-outdated practices then. In all likelihood, the storyteller and tradents did not care about such details and were only interested in the courier’s death by higher force. The only realistic aspect of the story is the notion that certain types of stones or objects could obstruct travel and cause injuries. The negative view of Romans also applied to traveling companions. The Tosefta already advises travelers: “[When] an Israelite goes along with a nonJew, he puts him at his right hand side, and he does not put him at his left hand side. R. Yishmael b. R. Yohanan b. Beroqah says: [The non-Jew walks] with a sword in his right hand [and] with a staff in his left hand” (T. A. Z. 3:4). The anonymous rule does not provide a reason for the suggestion that one should walk at the left hand side of a non-Jewish travel companion but implies that veredarius, βερεδάριος, see Jastrow 1985, 171. The story has a parallel in Lev. R. 22:4 (Margulies ed. p.506) 22  On the cursus publicus see esp. Riepl 1972 [1913]. 23 Suetonius, The Lives of the Caesars: Life of Augustus 49.3, explained by Wardle 2014, 362. On this passage see also Silverstein 2007, 30–31. See also Adkins and Adkins 1994, 184. 24  See van Tilburg 2007, 57. 20 From 21 

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walking at his right hand side might be dangerous. The following explanation associates the gentile with carrying a sword in his right hand, in addition to a walking stick in his left. The sword could be used to injure or kill the Jew, even if the gentile functions as his companion or guard. Carrying swords on journeys was probably common practice, especially if valuable goods were carried through bandit-ridden territories. The possibility that Roman travel companions could turn against the rabbi and rob him is explicitly stated in Genesis Rabbah 78:15. The midrash refers to Gen 33:15–16 (Jacob traveling without the travel companions offered to him by Esau) and then continues: Our Rabbi, when he went to the government, would pay attention to this passage and did not take Romans [‫ ]רומאין‬with him. Once he did not pay attention to it and took Romans with him. He had not reached Acco [yet] before he had to sell his traveling cloak [having lost everything to them] (Gen. Rab. 78:15, Theodor-Albeck ed. p.  935).

The story suggests that to avoid the potential danger that Roman travel companions presented, it is preferable to travel without them. The traditions indicate that rabbis were deeply suspicious of non-Jews and Romans, especially in contexts in which they felt vulnerable, such as journeys away from home. On the open road and in desolate areas without (Jewish) settlements they would be exposed to the Romans’ potentially harmful attitudes and actions. It would therefore be better to avoid such situations altogether and travel with wellknown Jewish companions only.

Learning Experiences In some stories, road-side encounters with gentiles are presented as learning experiences: they serve to reveal something about the rabbi involved or are used as the basis of halakhic knowledge. This is the case with the tannaitic story about R. Gamliel’s travels with his slave Tabi on the coastal road: [A] An event [maaseh] concerning R. Gamliel who was going from Akko to Kezib. He found a loaf of bread on the road. He said to his slave, Tabi: Take the bread. He saw a gentile. He said to him: Mabegai, take this bread. R. Lei ran after him [the gentile]. He said to him: What is your business [‫ ?]מה טובך‬He said to him: I am from these stationkeepers’ villages [‫]מעיירות הללו שׁל בורגנין‬. He said to him: What is your name? He said to him: Mabegai. He said to him: Did you ever know R. Gamliel? He said to him: No. From here we learn that R. Gamliel was possessed by the holy spirit. [B] And from his words we learn three things: we learn that the leaven of a gentile is permitted after Passover; and one does not pass by food [on the road]; and one goes according to the majority of those who walk on the roads [with regard to determining the character of the food]” (t. Pes. 2:15). 25 25 

The story has parallels in Lev. R. 37:3 and y. A.Z. 1:9, 40a.

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The fantastic element of the story is R. Gamliel’s ability to address the stranger by his name, although he has never met him before. The identity of the stranger is confirmed by R. Gamliel’s rabbinic travel companion who directly asks him for his name and business, in accordance with the customs of such encounters. The reference to the station keepers’ villages adds local color to the story, but the emphasis is clearly on R. Gamliel’s superhuman ability that is traced back to the “holy spirit.” For the storyteller, the encounter with the stranger is relevant only in as far as it helps to reveal certain aspects of the rabbi’s spiritual power. At some stage in the story’s transmission and redaction history halakhic conclusions were added [B]. These conclusions place the focus on the rabbi’s instruction to his slave to collect bread found on the road. They impose halakhic issues from other contexts onto a story about a prominent sage. Those who added these rules were more concerned about R. Gamliel’s behavior than about his alleged possession of the holy spirit. They used the story as the basis of and as support for certain halakhic instructions, part of which were relevant in the context of Passover practice.26 The rules are not directly derived from the narrated encounter, that is, the meeting with the gentile did not teach rabbis new things. The gentile himself remains colorless. If anyone is said to have changed in encounters between rabbis and non-Jews it is the non-Jew, influenced by the rabbi’s words and actions. A story about R. Meir and an innkeeper, transmitted in Genesis Rabbah 92:6 (Theodor-Albeck ed. p.  114), suggests that the innkeeper collaborated with bandits eager to steal the travelers’ property during the night. Being lured out of the safe haven of the inn by the host himself, the travelers would not encounter the promised caravan to continue their journey but rather the robbers, taking everything they had. R. Meir is said to have outwitted the innkeeper by making him call out the name of his alleged brother ki tov, “For He is Good,” in front of the synagogue, that is, praising the Jewish God. On the next morning, when the bandits had departed, R. Meir emerged from the building and revealed the real meaning of his actions to his host. Travel stories in which the road-side encounter with Romans or non-Jews leads to an actual change of rabbis’ views and norms are absent from Palestinian rabbinic documents. The narratives merely serve to confirm the rabbinic world views, norms, and practices. Jenny Labendz’s claim that dialogues between rabbis and non-Jews express rabbis’ “appreciation of and engagement with non-Jewish ways of thinking” (2013: 15) is therefore not supported by these narratives. Labendz admits, however, that “We have not yet seen an example of a non-Jew depicted as teaching the rabbi something he did not know before” (161).

26 

See the discussion in Hezser 2011, 125.

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Travel Tales and Otherness From a historical perspective, the possibility to widen one’s horizons through travel is a modern concept that did not develop before European travelers’ Bildungsreisen in early modern times.27 Although people from many different ethnic, religious, and cultural backgrounds co-existed in the ancient world and met each other on the roads, multi-culturalism became a moral value in Western societies in the last fifty years only. In antiquity people always traveled for well-defined purposes, whether for business or in search of physical or spiritual healing (travel to healing sanctuaries and pilgrimages to “holy men”). The actual travel experience “on the road” was an intermediary stage between one’s home town and destination, a necessary undertaking which is not a value in and of itself. Since the travelers shared this experience of travel through uninhabited and unfamiliar territories with strangers, this commonality could lead to mutual support when encountering shared problems and dangers. But rather than engage in congenial interactions, we may assume that strangers from different ethnic and religious backgrounds would have kept their distance. The stories’ Sitz im Leben and Sitz in der Literatur would have determined the ways in which they were formulated and transmitted: the rabbinic narratives functioned within internal rabbinic contexts, whether they were transmitted orally or as part of edited documents.28 They were meant to illustrate and enforce rabbinic practices and values rather than pronounce sages’ openness for the surrounding non-Jewish culture. In fact, sameness could be best expressed in confrontation with the other. The roadside settings were therefore such potent stages for expressing possibly dangerous “clashes” between rabbis and Romans. Beneficial encounters, which could lead to the change of a rabbi’s views and practices, were mentioned in stories only if they concerned meetings with fellow Jewish strangers. For example, R. Shimon b. Eleazar’s encounter with an ugly man in Avot de Rabbi Nathan (version A) 41:3 eventually threatens his identity as a rabbi: An event [maaseh] concerning R. Shimon b. Eleazar who came from Migdal Eder from the house of his master, and he was riding on an ass and passing along the sea shore. He saw a man who was extremely ugly. He said to him: Empty head! How ugly you are! Perhaps all people of your town are as ugly as you? He said to him: And what can I do? Go to the craftsman who made me and say to him: How ugly is this vessel which you made! When R. Shimon realized that he had sinned, he descended from the ass and prostrated himself before him. 27  On these journeys for educational purposes see Stannek 2001; Hlavin-Schulze 1998, esp.  40–41: “Bürgerliche Bildungsreise,” who argues that bourgeois travel to explore the difference of neighboring or more distant nations began in the eighteenth century. See also Warneke 1995, esp.  17–101 (part 1: “The Background”). 28  On the scholarly nature of rabbinic texts which were composed by rabbis for later generations of rabbis see especially Kraemer 1993, 125–40.

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The ugly man’s Jewishness is indicated by his reaction to the rabbi’s insult. This reaction suggests that the man is more pious than the rabbi himself. It reveals the rabbi’s attitude as an insult against God as the creator of all humankind. Confrontation with the man serves to expose the rabbi’s own sinfulness which is subsequently expressed non-verbally, by his dismounting from the ass and prostration before the man. Instead of solving the issue and concluding the story, the plot continues in a more urgent manner when the man refuses to forgive the rabbi: “He ran after him three mils. People of the town came out towards him. They said to him: Peace be to you, Rabbi. He said to them: Whom do you call Rabbi? They said to him: The one who walks behind you. He said to them: If that one is a rabbi, let those like him not be many in Israel!” (ibid.). In this dramatization of the plot Shimon b. Eleazar is stripped of the public’s acknowledgement of him as a rabbi. A reversal of the hierarchical relationship between the two main characters has taken place: based on his clever theological answer, the ugly man is honored with the title “Rabbi,” that is, seen as a Torah scholar, whereas the rabbi has become an ordinary man. When the public is informed about what happened, they ask the man to forgive the rabbi. The final sentence indicates that the encounter served as a learning experience for the rabbi: “On that day R. Shimon entered his great study house and expounded: Let a person always be as soft [bendable] as a reed and not as hard as a cedar.” The readiness to apologize and to forgive others is presented as a major rabbinic value here. Another, albeit different, example of a learning encounter is transmitted in a story tradition in Tosefta Hagigah 3:36: An event [maaseh] concerning R. Tarfon who was walking on the way. An old man met him [cf. T. Yoma 2:7]. He said to him: Why do people complain about you? And are not all your words truthful and righteous? But you accept heave offering on the rest of the days of the year [outside the harvest season] from everybody. R. Tarfon said: May I bury my sons, if I do not have a halakhah in my hands from R. Yohanan b. Zakkai who told me: You are permitted to accept heave offering on the rest of the days of the year from everybody. Now [that] people complain about me I decree upon myself that I shall not accept heave offering on the rest of the days of the year from everybody unless he tells me: I have in it a quarter [in the status of] holy [things].

This encounter between R. Tarfon and an old man focuses on a specific halakhic issue. The man acknowledges the rabbi’s general expertise but alerts him to an allegedly wrong halakhic view concerning heave offering that people are said to complain about. Despite remembering a supporting tradition by R. Yohanan b. Zakkai, R. Tarfon is said to have given in to the complaints and to have accepted the stricter view. The roadside setting merely serves as the background for the halakhic discussion here. What is striking, again, is that the encounter is said to have led to a change of the rabbi’s view on the matter. Such changes of attitude do not appear in stories about rabbis’ travel encounters with non-Jewish

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strangers. It seems that the storytellers assumed that only meetings with fellow-Jews could change rabbis’ views and practices, whereas meetings with nonJews merely served to confirm their pre-existing identity. In a study of travel and “liminal landscapes” Simon Ward has pointed to the opportunities which roads and similar spaces present: “To enter a liminal landscape is to open up a space of free play, but also to open up oneself to experiences beyond the boundaries normally set by society, to confrontations with what that society has placed beyond its boundaries, with the abject that ‘disturbs identity, system, order [and] does not respect borders, positions, rules’” (2012: 186). In modern road movies chance encounters that happen in such spaces liberate the protagonists from conventional identities and behaviors and allow them to reconfigure themselves: “These encounters form a key element in the ‘testing’ of the protagonist” (ibid.). The setting of the road and the unfamiliar surroundings are also used in the Greek novels to experiment with issues of identity. Concerning these novels, Tim Whitmarsh defines identity as “the set of categories of selfhood presumed, legitimised or questioned in the romances themselves” (2011: 3). In scenes of self-identification to strangers, various types of identity markers are used. In Xenophon of Ephesus’s novel Anthia and Habrocomes, dated to the first century CE, for example, Aegialeus the fisherman introduces himself to Habrocomes as “not a settler or a native Sicilian but an elite Spartan, from one of the powerful families there, and very prosperous” (5.1.4). Aegialeus here presents himself as an outsider, a member of the elite and wealthy. Whitmarsh notes: “These identities are provisional, strategic, and designedly false; they will be shed when their usefulness is outlived” (ibid.). This observation is also very important for the rabbinic stories discussed here. The rabbinic self-identifications serve the settings in which they are expressed. Rav presents himself as a member of the household of Vespasian in front of a Roman (y. Ber. 9:1, 13a); Rabbi and R. Yose bar Yehudah tell a gentile that they are traveling merchants (Gen. Rab. 76:8). They all adopt the identity that is most useful in the situations in which they find themselves. Just as Aegialeus disguises himself as a member of the elite when talking to Habrocomes, Rav disguises himself as a close associate of the emperor when meeting Romans. In both cases the reader knows these characters’ “true” identity and becomes curious to know the reasons for and consequences of the disguise. Whitmarsh stresses that “narrative creates identities” in as far as identities are “configured within a particular body of literature” rather than being essential aspects of a personality (ibid. 4). In narrative, a prominent rabbi can assume the “cover-up” of an imperial slave if it suits his purposes. The aspect of travel, of being “on the road”, is important as well: “the travels introduce the difference into the identity narrative” (ibid. 20). Away from the local surroundings the protagonists are blank slates regarding their self-pres-

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entation and others’ projections. The storytellers present rabbis as harmless ordinary travelers; yet they project danger and suspicion onto the Romans. Altogether, however, the stories can be considered narratives of accommodation: rabbis are willing to accommodate themselves to the Roman image of a loyal subject (traveling merchants; subjects of Vespasian/Severus) and are “rewarded” by the Romans’ laissez fare attitude (“they let him go”). By showcasing how rabbis might have moved about in their Roman imperial surroundings, the stories reveal the broader realities of their time. The preservation of one’s identity required accommodation and accommodation involved strategic thinking.

Works Cited Adkins, Lesley, and Roy A. Adkins. 1994. Handbook of Life in Ancient Rome. New York: Oxford University Press. Berlin, Adele, and Marc Zvi Brettler, eds. 2004. The Jewish Study Bible: Featuring The Jewish Publication Society Tanakh Translation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Claussen, Carsten. 2002. Versammlung, Gemeinde, Synagoge. Das heidnisch-jüdische Umfeld der frühchristlichen Gemeinden. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Cohen, Shaye J. D. 2010. “The Conversion of Antoninus.” In The Significance of Yavneh and Other Essays in Jewish Hellenism, ed. Shaye J. D. Cohen. TSAJ 136. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, pp.  329–60. Harland, Philip A. 2011. “Pausing at the Intersection of Religion and Travel.” In Travel and Religion in Antiquity, ed. Philip A. Harland. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, pp.  1–26. Hezser, Catherine. 2005. Jewish Slavery in Antiquity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. –. 2011. Jewish Travel in Antiquity. TSAJ 144. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. –. 2017. Rabbinic Body Language: Non-Verbal Communication in Palestinian Rabbinic Literature of Late Antiquity. Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 179. Leiden: Brill. Hlavin-Schulze, Karin. 1998. “Man reist ja nicht, um anzukommen”: Reisen als kulturelle Praxis. Campus Forschung 771. Frankfurt: Campus Verlag. Isaac, Benjamin. 1998. The Near East Under Roman Rule: Selected Papers. Mnemosyne Supplements 177. Leiden: Brill. Jastrow, Marcus. 1985. Sefer hamilim: Dictionary of the Targumim, Talmud Bavli, Talmud Yerushalmi, and Midrashic Literature. New York: The Judaica Press. Johne, Renate. 1996 “Women in the Ancient Novel.” In The Novel in the Ancient World, ed. Gareth Schmeling. Mnemosyne Supplements, The Classical Tradition 159. Leiden: Brill, pp.  151–208. Kraemer, David. 1993. “The Intended Reader as a Key to Interpreting the Bavli.” Prooftexts 13: 125–40. Labendz, Jenny. 2013. Socratic Torah: Non-Jews in Rabbinic Intellectual Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lieberman, Saul. 1991. “Corrections to the Yerushalmi.” In Studies in the Torah of the Land of Israel [Hebr.], ed. David Rosenfeld. Jerusalem: Magnes, pp.  193–94.

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Muir, Steven. 2011. “Religion on the Road in Ancient Greece and Rome.” In Travel and Religion in Antiquity, ed. Philip A. Harland. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, pp.  29–47. Neusner, Jacob. 2010. Narrative and Document in the Rabbinic Canon: The Two Talmuds, vol. II. Lanham: University Press of America. Reardon, Bryan P., ed. 2008. Collected Ancient Greek Novels. Berkeley: University of California Press. Rebillard, Éric. 2012. Christians and Their Many Identities in Late Antiquity, North Africa, 200 to 450 C.E. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Riepl, Wolfgang. 1972 [1913]. Das Nachrichtenwesen des Altertums, mit besonderer Rücksicht auf die Römer. Hildesheim: Georg Olms. Rosenfeld, Ben-Zion, and Joseph Menirav. 2005. Markets and Marketing in Roman Palestine. Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 99. Leiden: Brill. Saldarini, Anthony J. 1975. “Johanan Ben Zakkai’s Escape from Jerusalem: Origin and Development of a Rabbinic Story.” Journal for the Study of Judaism 6/2: 189–204. Schäfer, Peter. 1979. “Die Flucht Johanan b. Zakkais aus Jerusalem und die Gründung des ‘Lehrhauses’ in Jabne.” ANRW 2.19.2, pp.  43–101. Schremer, Adiel. 2009. Brothers Estranged: Heresy, Christianity, and Jewish Identity in Late Antiquity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Silverstein, Adam J. 2007. Postal Systems in the Pre-Modern Islamic World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stannek, Antje. 2001. Telemachs Brüder. Die höfische Bildungsreise des 17. Jahrhunderts. Frankfurt: Campus Verlag. van Tilburg, Cornelis. 2007. Traffic and Congestion in the Roman Empire. London: Routledge. Ward, Simon. 2012. “‘Danger Zones’: The British ‘Road Movie’ and the Liminal Landscape.” In Liminal Landscapes: Travel, Experience and Spaces In-Between, ed. Hazel Andrews and Les Roberts. Contemporary Geographies of Leisure, Tourism and Mobility 30. London: Routledge, pp.  185–99. Wardle, D. 2014. Suetonius: Life of Augustus. Translated With Introduction and Historical Commentary. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Warneke, Sara. 1995. Images of the Educational Traveler in Early Modern England. Brill Studies in Intellectual History 58. Leiden: Brill. Weaver, Paul R.C. 1972. Familia Caesaris: A Social Study of the Emperor’s Freedmen and Slaves. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Whitmarsh, Tim, ed. 2008. The Cambridge Companion to the Greek and Roman Novel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. –. 2011. Narrative and Identity in the Ancient Greek Novel: Returning Romance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Whittaker, Dick. 2009. “Ethnic Discourses on the Frontiers of Roman Africa.” In Ethnic Constructs in Antiquity: The Role of Power and Tradition, ed. Ton Derks and Nico Roymans. AAS 13. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, pp.  189–206. Wilkins, Amy C. et al. 2014. “Constructing Difference.” In Handbook of the Social Psychology of Inequality, ed. Jane McLeod et al. Dordrecht: Springer, pp.  125–54.

Between the Bodily and the Holy

Concord and Communitas: Greek Elements in Philo’s Account of Jewish Pilgrimage* Ian Rutherford I. Even before Christianity, a common form of journey in the Roman East, as in all ancient societies, must have been pilgrimage of various sorts.1 The surviving sources probably massively underestimate the volume and variety. Festivals at major Greco-Roman centers such as those of Artemis of Ephesos and Artemis of Perge in Pamphylia must have drawn large numbers.2 The oracles of Apollo at Didyma and above all Claros continue to flourish in this period; Claros in particular was still attracting sacred delegations accompanied by choirs of young singers which resembled the official delegations (“theoriai”) of earlier periods in Greece.3 Lucian tells us about the rise of a fake oracle of the snake-deity Glycon set up by Alexander of Abonouteikhos with a broad catchment area including initially N. Anatolia and ultimately the whole known world.4 Healing sanctuaries continued to be popular as well, such as those of Asclepius at Epidauros, Pergamum (immortalized in the writings of Aelius Aristides), and Aegeai in Cilicia.5 Thanks to Lucian, we are reasonably well informed about pilgrimage to the sanctuary of Atargatis-Derketo at Hierapolis-Membig in North Syria, which he says attracted dedications from all over the Middle East and Turkey, including Arabia, Phoenicia, Babylon, Cappadocia, Cilicia, and Assyria. 6 Pilgrimage to healing sanctuaries and oracles is also attested in Roman Egypt, e.g. in relation to the so-called Memnonion at Abydos which functioned as a temple of Sarapis and Bes.7 On the Southern border of Egypt the

* 

Thanks to Maren Niehoff and Amit Gvaryahu. For pilgrimage in Rome, see Petsalis-Diomidis 2011, etc. 2  Ephesos: Elsner 1997; Perge: Polemon Physiogno. apud Swain 2007, 457. 3  Didyma: Fontenrose 1988; Claros: see now Ferrary 2014. 4  Petsalis-Diomedis 2011; Lucian, Alexander Pseudomantis 15–30. 5  Pergamum: Petsalis-Diomidis 2011, 167–220; Aelius Aristides: Rutherford 1999. Aigeai: see Eusebius of Caesarea, De Vita Constantini 3.56. 6  De Dea Syria c.10 with Lightfoot 2003. 7  See Rutherford 2002. 1 

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temple of Isis at Philai drew pilgrims and tourists from Egypt and sacred delegations from the kingdom of Meroe in Ethiopia.8 This brief survey leaves out what in terms of sheer numbers may be the greatest pilgrimage tradition in the early Roman Empire, namely Jewish pilgrimage to Jerusalem.9 Until the practice was brought to an end or at least seriously curtailed by the destruction of the Second Temple in 70AD, thousands of pilgrims from Judea, Babylon, and all over the Jewish Diaspora visited Jerusalem every year to celebrate the three main Jewish festivals: Passover (Pesach) in Nisan (April), the Feast of Weeks (Shavuot) in Sivan (June), roughly corresponding to Christian Pentecost, and Sukkot (Tabernacles) in Tishri (October). Attendance at these festivals is already prescribed in the Torah (although that was presumably intended to cover only pilgrimage from within Judea and Samaria); 10 moreover some of the Psalms, the “Songs of Ascent,” are generally interpreted as being intended for performance in the context of these pilgrimages.11 Alongside this was the payment of temple tax (Exodus 30:13), which communities were supposed to send to Jerusalem, even if the individuals making the payments did not themselves attend. In the early Roman period, the pilgrimage seems to have become enormous, in part because it attracted Jews of the Diaspora living abroad. Martin Goodman (1999) has suggested that the practice was encouraged by Herod the Great for economic reasons. Josephus, in his discussion of the casualties in the siege of Jerusalem in 70AD, says that 2,700,000 people attended the Passover in that year; some Hebrew sources give even higher numbers.12 Josephus’s figure is no doubt exaggerated, but even if he overestimated the true number by a factor of twenty, it was still a huge gathering, quite possibly greater than any pilgrimage-gathering in antiquity.13

8 

See Rutherford 1998. On Jewish pilgrimage see Safrai 1969, id. 1981; Iancu 1987; Feldman 2006; Amir 1983. 10  Deut 16:16; Exodus 23:17. Some sort of pilgrimage to Jerusalem as having taken place in the period after Solomon. The historical account in 1 Kings 12:26–28 where Jeroboam takes steps to discourage Israelites of the Northern kingdom from making the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, believing that this will lead to them uniting again with Judah. 11 Psalms 120–34. 12 Josephus, J.W. 6.420–27; t. Pes. 4.3. 13  On the number of pilgrims, see Jeremias 1969, 77–84; Kerkeslager 1998, 106 n.18. Niehoff forthcoming (chapter 8) urges caution about the scale of the pilgrimage. The only case in the ancient world where a number anything like that is reported is the festival of Bastet at Bubastis in the Egyptian Delta which Herodotus (2.59–60) claims was attended by 700,000. See Rutherford 2006. 9 

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II. The fullest discussion of pilgrimage to Jerusalem, at least in a Greek writer, is by the Jewish Alexandrian author Philo of Alexandria. For Philo both the city and the Temple of Jerusalem were unique. The Temple was the only place in which it was legitimate to worship Yahweh, and Jerusalem was the mother-city (metropolis) of world Jewry (Flacc. 46), contrasting with the “fatherlands” (patrides) where Jews actually lived. The term metropolis implies that individual diasporic communities are colonies.14 Philo himself made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem at least once, but his brief reference to that journey in On Providence provides no insight into the significance of the experience; he mentions it simply in order to explain why he once visited Ascalon (“When I was on my way to our ancestral temple to offer up prayers and sacrifices”), where he observed birds that had over a period of generations become accustomed to gather in full view of humans, because the local inhabitants were forbidden to eat them (De Prov. 2.64). His most elaborate account is in the Special Laws (1.67–70), an elaboration of the prescription regarding pilgrimage in the Torah. Since God provides that there is only one Temple (a principle that may not have been strictly observed since Jewish temples are occasionally attested elsewhere),15 it is incumbent on people to go there to sacrifice, which is also a test of piety: “Further, he does not consent to those who wish to perform the rites in their houses, but bids them rise up from the ends of the earth and come to this temple. In this way he also applies the severest test to their dispositions. For one who is not going to sacrifice in a religious spirit would never bring himself to leave his country and friends and kinsfolk and sojourn in a strange land (xeniteuein), but clearly it must be the stronger attraction of piety which leads him to endure separation from his most familiar and dearest friends who form as it were a single whole with himself (henomenon meron). And we have the surest proof of this in what actually happens. Countless multitudes from countless cities come, some over land, others over sea, from east and west and north and south at every feast. They take the temple for their port as a general haven and safe refuge from the bustle and great turmoil of life, and there they seek to find calm weather, and, released from cares whose yoke has been heavy upon them from their earliest years, to enjoy a brief breathing space in scenes of general cheerfulness. Thus filled with comfortable hopes, they devote the leisure, as is their bounden duty, to holiness and the honouring of god. Friendships are formed between those who hitherto did not know each other and the sacrifices and libations are the occasion of reciprocity of feeling [literally a mixing 14 Philo, Flacc. 46; see Amir 1983. On the role of the “mother city” in Philo, see Niehoff 2001, 34–44, who argues that Philo developed this idea (which has no correspondence in Jewish thought) in response to the crisis of 39–42AD, when he wanted to present the idea of the importance of Judaism to a Roman audience in terms that would be familiar to them. See also Horst 2003, 142 with further references. 15  On Jewish pilgrimage within Egypt to Elephantine and Leontopolis near Heliopolis, see Kersklager 1998, 109–23; McCreedy 2011.

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(krasis) of ethe] 16 and constitute the surest pledge of concord (homonoia).”17 [Literally: “creating the mixing of ethe on the occasion of sacrifices and libations for the purpose of the surest pledge of concord.”]

We have here a profound analysis of the sociology of pilgrimage. There are three components: i. first, leaving one’s own community, as from a set of unified parts, so as to become a stranger (in a strange land; xeniteuein).18 ii. calm, cheerfulness, leisure-devoted-to-religion; and iii. becoming part of another community in Jerusalem: getting to know fellow Jews you did not know before, the mixing of ethe, and the creation of homonoia. Those new ties presumably survive even after you return home, to be revived again on the next pilgrimage. Notice in particular how religious and sociological motivations are coordinated in this passage. The first part talks about the religious motivations which lead people to leave home; then the achievement of calm, which seems to be an end in itself; then a period of leisure, which is devoted to religion; then, in the final sentence, the performance of libations and sacrifices, which have as their outcome the creation of a “mixing of feelings” and a pledge of concord. It sounds a little like a libation or sacrifice performed on the occasion of the ratification of a treaty between two sides.19 A few decades later, after the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, Josephus gives an account very similar to Philo’s (Ant. 4.203–4): 20 16 

The meaning of ethe is uncertain here; it could be “feelings” or “customs.” εἶτα τοῖς βουλομένοις ἐν ταῖς οἰκίαις αὐτῶν ἱερουργεῖν οὐκ ἐφίησιν, ἀλλ᾿ ἀνισταμένους ἀπὸ περάτων γῆς εἰς τοῦτ᾿ ἀφικνεῖσθαι κελεύει, ἅμα καὶ τῶν τρόπων ἀναγκαιοτάτην λαμβάνων βάσανον· ὁ γὰρ μὴ μέλλων θύειν εὐαγῶς οὐκ ἂν ὑπομείναι ποτὲ πατρίδα καὶ φίλους καὶ συγγενεῖς ἀπολιπὼν ξενιτεύειν, ἀλλ᾿ ἔοικεν ὑπὸ δυνατωτέρας ὁλκῆς ἀγόμενος τῆς πρὸς εὐσέβειαν ὑπομένειν τῶν συνηθεστάτων καὶ φιλτάτων ὥσπερ τινῶν ἡνωμένων μερῶν ἀπαρτᾶσθαι. καὶ τοῦδε σαφεστάτη πίστις τὰ γινόμενα· μυρίοι γὰρ ἀπὸ μυρίων ὅσων πόλεων, οἱ μὲν διὰ γῆς, οἱ δὲ διὰ θαλάττης, ἐξ ἀνατολῆς καὶ δύσεως καὶ ἄρκτου καὶ μεσημβρίας καθ’ ἑκάστην ἑορτὴν εἰς τὸ ἱερὸν καταίρουσιν οἷά τινα κοινὸν ὑπόδρομον καὶ καταγωγὴν ἀσφαλῆ πολυπράγμονος καὶ ταραχωδεστάτου βίου, ζητοῦντες εὐδίαν εὑρεῖν καὶ φροντίδων ἀνεθέντες, αἷς ἐκ πρώτης ἡλικίας καταζεύγνυνται καὶ πιέζονται, βραχύν τινα διαπνεύσαντες χρόνον ἐν ἱλαραῖς διάγειν εὐθυμίαις· ἐλπίδων τε χρηστῶν γεμισθέντες σχολάζουσι τὴν ἀναγκαιοτάτην σχολὴν ὁσιότητι καὶ τιμῇ θεοῦ, φιλίαν καὶ πρὸς τοὺς τέως ἀγνοουμένους συντιθέμενοι καὶ κρᾶσιν ἠθῶν ἐπὶ θυσιῶν καὶ σπονδῶν εἰς βεβαιοτάτην πίστιν ὁμονοίας ποιούμενοι. Translations are based on the Loeb versions. 18  The word xeniteia is later used of the alienated life of monks: see Bitton-Ashkelony 2005, 147–51 on the role of xeniteia and its Syrian equivalent askaniutha in early Christian pilgrimage; for the idea of the Christian pilgrim as an alien see also Pullan 2005, 394–95. Amir 1983, 58 suggested an allusion to the “Call of Abraham” at Genesis 12:1: καὶ εἶπεν κύριος τῷ Αβραμ ἔξελθε ἐκ τῆς γῆς σου καὶ ἐκ τῆς συγγενείας σου καὶ ἐκ τοῦ οἴκου τοῦ πατρός σου εἰς τὴν γῆν ἣν ἄν σοι δείξω … 19  A sacrifice guarantees a covenant at Exodus 24:5–8; for the practice in general see Giorgieri 2001, 435; Faraone 1993, 65 ff. and 76 ff. 20  Συνερχέσθωσαν δὲ εἰς ἣν ἀποφήνωσι πόλιν τὸν νεὼν τρὶς τοῦ ἔτους οἱ ἐκ τῶν περάτων τῆς γῆς, ἧς ἂν Ἑβραῖοι κρατῶσιν, ὅπως τῷ θεῷ τῶν μὲν ὑπηργμένων εὐχαριστῶσι καὶ περὶ τῶν εἰς τὸ μέλλον παρακαλῶσι καὶ συνιόντες ἀλλήλοις καὶ συνευωχούμενοι προσφιλεῖς ὦσι· καλὸν γὰρ εἶναι 17 

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Let them assemble in that city in which they shall establish the temple, three times in the year, from the ends of the land which the Hebrews shall conquer, in order to render thanks to God for benefits received, to intercede for future mercies, and to promote by thus meeting and feasting together feelings of mutual affection. For it is good that they should not be ignorant of one another, being members of the same race (homophulos) and partners in the same institutions; and this end will be attained by such intercourse (epimixis), when through sight and speech they recall those ties to mind, whereas if they remain without ever coming into contact (anepimiktos) they will be regarded by each other as absolute strangers.

The basic argument is: since they already have ties of race and institution, it is good that they get to know each other, and this is achieved through pilgrimage to Jerusalem. This is so similar to Philo’s account that it may be borrowed from it (see below). There is, however, one significant difference: while Philo says that the pilgrims are to come “from the ends of the earth,” Josephus specifies that they come “from the ends of the land which the Hebrews shall conquer (kratosin).” If this is meant to refer to the territory of the Diaspora, it is an odd way of saying it, since the Jews had not conquered these territories. On the other hand, this text is meant to be a paraphrase of Deuteronomy 16:16 (“Three times a year all your men must appear before the Lord your God at the place he will choose”), which presupposes a context before the Diaspora, so perhaps Josephus has modified Philo’s cosmopolitan perspective to suit this new context. The implication should be spelled out: in this case Josephus refers to pilgrimage from a much more limited area, namely the territories surrounding Jerusalem. Philo adds some further remarks about pilgrimage a few paragraphs later, when he is discussing the financing of the Temple, and paraphrases Exodus 30:13: “When you take a census of the Israelites to count them, each one must pay the Lord a ransom (kofer) for his life at the time he is counted.” Philo calls this offering “first fruits” (Greek aparkhai), and he says that people make it in the expectation that it will bring “release from slavery, healing of diseases, secure enjoyment of liberty and complete preservation from danger” (1.77). In this case, people’s participation in the ritual comes about not by visiting Jerusalem themselves, but by making offerings in their own cities, from where they are conveyed to Jerusalem by others who thus carry out a sort of proxy-pilgrimage on their behalf (1.78): 21 And at stated times there are appointed to carry the sacred tribute envoys (hieropompoi) selected on their merits, from every city those of the highest repute, under whose con-

μὴ ἀγνοεῖν ἀλλήλους ὁμοφύλους τε ὄντας καὶ τῶν αὐτῶν κοινωνοῦντας ἐπιτηδευμάτων, τοῦτο δὲ ἐκ μὲν τῆς αὐτῆς ἐπιμιξίας αὐτοῖς ὑπάρξειν, τῇ τε ὄψει καὶ τῇ ὁμιλίᾳ μνήμην αὐτῶν ἐντιθέντας· ἀνεπιμίκτους γὰρ ἀλλήλοις μένοντας ἀλλοτριωτάτους αὑτοῖς νομισθήσεσθαι. 21  καὶ χρόνοις ὡρισμένοις ἱεροπομποὶ τῶν χρημάτων ἀριστίνδην ἐπικριθέντες, ἐξ ἑκάστης οἱ δοκιμώτατοι, χειροτονοῦνται, σώους τὰς ἐλπίδας ἑκάστων παραπέμψοντες· ἐν γὰρ ταῖς νομίμοις ἀπαρχαῖς αἱ τῶν εὐσεβούντων ἐλπίδες εἰσίν.

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duct the hopes of each and all will travel safely. For it is on these first-fruits, as prescribed by the law (tais nomimois aparkhais), that the hopes of the pious rest.

The word hieropompoi which Philo uses for those envoys who bring the temple tax looks like a technical term of Greek religion, though in fact it only occurs in Philo.22 The emphasis on them being excellent men is reminiscent of things said about sacred delegates (theoroi) in Greek religion.23 More broadly, the idea of an obligation to send aparkhai to a major religious center sounds similar to earlier Greek practice: for example, in the late fifth century Athens required its allies to send first fruits to Eleusis; in the Hellenistic period delegates called hieropoioi brought aparkhai to Didyma; and in the late second century Athens sent a sacred delegation called the Puthais to take aparkhai to Delphi.24 The hieropompoi are also mentioned in a passage from the Legatio ad Gaium, written in 43AD after the crisis caused by the proposed dedication of a statue of the emperor in the Temple at Jerusalem. Philo imagines the Roman general P. Petronius assessing the danger of the Jewish military threat on the basis of the nature of the envoys bringing offerings from the East.25 He was frightened also by the forces beyond the Euphrates, since that Babylon and many other satrapies were occupied by Jews was known to him not only by report but by experience. For every year envoys (hieropompoi) were dispatched for the sacred purpose of conveying to the temple a great quantity of gold and silver amassed from the first-fruits, and these envoys travel over the pathless, trackless, endless routes which seem to them good highroads because they feel that they lead them to piety. So he was naturally much alarmed lest hearing of this unprecedented dedication the Jews of those parts might suddenly take to raiding, and coming from different quarters might encircle his troops and joining hands attack them now isolated in their midst with terrible effect. While following this line of reasoning he shrank from action. (Legat. 215–18)

Here he is most concerned with sacred delegates coming from Babylon and the East (i.e. the territory of the Parthians, beyond the Roman Empire).26 As in Special Laws, he sees pilgrimage as a process with the power to generate social cohesiveness, but here this is turned to military purpose as a force that defends 22  Some Greek inscriptions have the related term “hieragogoi” in a similar context. Obligatory offerings: for hieropompoi see Philo Spec. Laws 1.78; Leg. Ad Gaium 312; hieragogoi: Rutherford 2013, 157. 23 Aristotle, EE 3.6, 1233b10–12; Rutherford 2013, 162. 24  Rutherford 2013, 114–16. 25  Petronius senses that pilgrimage poses a threat: … ᾔδει γὰρ Βαβυλῶνα καὶ πολλὰς ἄλλας τῶν σατραπειῶν ὑπὸ Ἰουδαίων κατεχομένας, οὐκ ἀκοῇ μόνον ἀλλὰ καὶ πείρᾳ· καθ’ ἕκαστον γὰρ ἐνιαυτὸν ἱεροπομποὶ στέλλονται χρυσὸν καὶ ἄργυρον πλεῖστον κομίζοντες εἰς τὸ ἱερὸν τὸν ἀθροισθέντα ἐκ τῶν ἀπαρχῶν, δυσβάτους καὶ ἀτριβεῖς καὶ ἀνηνύτους ὁδοὺς περαιούμενοι, ἃς λεωφόρους εἶναι νομίζουσιν, ὅτι πρὸς εὐσέβειαν ἄγειν δοκοῦσι. περιδεὴς οὖν ὡς εἰκὸς ἦν, μὴ πυθόμενοι τὴν καινουργουμένην ἀνάθεσιν ἐπιφοιτήσωσιν ἐξαίφνης καὶ περίσχωσιν, οἱ μὲν ἔνθεν οἱ δὲ ἔνθεν, κύκλος γενόμενοι, καὶ συνάψαντες ἀλλήλοις τοὺς ἐναποληφθέντας μέσους δεινὰ ἐργάσωνται. τοιούτοις μὲν λογισμοῖς χρώμενος ἀπώκνει. For the context, see Smallwood 1961. 26  For the journey of pilgrims from Babylon, see Josephus, Ant. 17.2.2; Safrai 1981, 128.

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Jerusalem against an external religious threat.27 Pilgrims are particularly dangerous because they work together (“encircle … joining hands”) and because their religious faith makes them travel easily over difficult roads – a rare observation in an ancient source about the pilgrims’ experience of the journey.28

III. In both Special Laws and the Legatio ad Gaium, then, Philo sees pilgrimage as a means of facilitating the creation of an ideal community, either peaceful or military. These accounts are no doubt idealized to some extent: Philo is giving us a picture of how he ideally sees the pilgrimage operating rather than how it is actually was at any one time.29 In reality, participation was probably less common than he suggests and perhaps varied depending on proximity to Jerusalem, but it seems to me unlikely that he is simply inventing something which did not happen at all. This approach finds an echo in that of modern anthropologists and historians of religion who have studied pilgrimage. By definition, the main purpose of a pilgrimage is the religious one of visiting a religious center and performing a religious activity of some sort there, but it is usually a multi-faceted activity with the religious frame supporting social practices such as bringing a group of people together and helping communities to form. Analysis of this was dominated for a long time by the anthropologist Victor Turner, who in 1972 argued that the key effect of pilgrimage is what he called “communitas,” a perceived leveling of differences between participants, resulting in a new social order

27  Cf. Isocrates, Paneg. 182: a panhellenic expedition against the Persians will resemble a theoria (religious delegation) rather than an army. Another occasion when a pilgrimage threatened the Roman Empire was at Abydos in 359AD when the Roman Emperor intervened on the grounds that it was becoming a focus for anti-imperial sentiment (Ammianus Marcellinus 19.12). These examples are interesting and should be discussed in the main text in comparison to Philo. 28  It is hard to find a parallel in Greco-Roman sources for the idea that the journey is easier for pilgrims than for other people. See, however, Aelius Aristides, Sacred Tale 5 (50.4) who describes his exaltation on making a journey to a healing sanctuary; see Rutherford 1999, 142–43. 29  For the view that Philo’s account of pilgrimage is to some extent a literary construct see Niehoff forthcoming, chapter 8. It is also worth bearing in mind that Philo may have been interested in the idea of a permanent ideal community in Israel in the context of Jewish Messianic prophecy (see Wolfson 1947, 2, 407–10). At the end of De praemiis et poenis 165–68, he seems to imagine a future moment of national deliverance when all Jews will be restored to the “appointed place” and “the cities that now lie in ruins will be restored,” so the possibility arises that he thought of pilgrimage to Jerusalem as a sort of prefiguration of this apocalyptic moment. See Lieber 2007, 200. For Jerusalem as a site of transcendental, metaphysical significance in Philo see Klauck 1986, 135–37.

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which he called “antistructure.”30 Turner’s approach was challenged by scholars who saw the effect of pilgrimage as to confirm hierarchies and differences among participants.31 Another common effect of pilgrimage that anthropologists have identified is the facilitation of communication and the creation and reinforcement of communities. In modern India, for example, great pilgrimage networks have been shown to be a medium which allowed the free dissemination of information between participants, something which the British in India became aware of and exploited.32 And in S. Arabia it has been argued that traditions of pilgrimage to common sanctuaries and festivals stretching back millennia played a critical role in the development of social groups in the region.33 It probably worked much the same way in the ancient Mediterranean.34 It has been argued that participation in common sanctuaries like Olympia and Delphi played a major role in establishing the idea of a community of Greeks (or if you like, “in creating Greek identity”) in eighth–seventh centuries BC, for example, perhaps earlier; and, once the idea of a community was established (whether as the result of participation in the sanctuaries or in some other way), continued participation in common festivals was a way of maintaining it.35 Common participation in festivals also facilitated communication between Greek states, and for that reason major festivals were good places to make a major political announcement. It worked the same way for subgroups of Greeks, as members of 30  Communitas: Turner 1974 (an adapted version of Turner 1972); Feldman 2006 explores elements of Jewish pilgrimage in the Second Temple period that suggest Turnerian communitas. 31  See Eade and Sallnow 1991. 32  Maclean 2008, 144–45 (citing Bayly 1996, 2): “The capacity of the pilgrimage network to carry information was also understood by the East India Company and later the administration of the Raj. The government, as we have seen, sought to positively influence the messages carried back to village India. It was the ultimate strength of the pilgrimage communication network to influence Indian opinion that forced the British, despite their dislike of the “heathen practices” carried out at the mela and the overwhelming costs involved in providing adequate infrastructure, to patronise the melas as they did. Inevitably, with the rise of nationalist mobilization in the early twentieth century, the Allahabad melas became a site where these nationalist ideas were disseminated.” 33  McCorriston 2011, 52; McCorriston 2013, 608: “In the highly mobile world of Arabian pastoralists, the periodic gatherings and rites of pilgrimage played a paramount role in constituting social groups. … Pilgrimage ritual is not unique to Arabian social identities, but in Arabia it played an exceptional role in linking mobile peoples and very small settled populations in wider social networks to support specialized exchanges. Arabian pilgrimage is a constellation of gathering, sacrifice, and feasting at a sacred place to assemble and reify communities that are not coresident, and it is used here not to denote a particular ritual but to name the structuring practices that shape and reshape social arenas.” 34  For the parallel between panhellenic festivals and Jewish pilgrimage, see Leonhardt-Balzer 2001, 22. 35  Rutherford 2013, 277–80; Hall 2002 sees the sanctuaries as a focus for the development of Greek identity, but in the seventh century BC.

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the Ionian League in Western Anatolia were said to have met regularly at festivals at Delos, Ephesos or Priene, and even at Athens, which represented itself as their “metropolis.”36 In some cases, imperial authorities seem to have encouraged their subjects to participate in a central festival, so that it became a symbol of their power: Athens had done this in the fifth century BC, and the early Ptolemies did something similar in the third.37 The panhellenic gatherings had a powerful, symbolic force. In Herodotus’s account of the Persian Wars the Athenians are represented as saying that the common sanctuaries and sacrifice there are one of three things that define their identity as Greeks, and make it unthinkable that they could join the Persian side, along with kinship and their way of life.38 Aristophanes’s Lysistrata stirs up yearning for panhellenic peace by recalling times when the Greeks have engaged in joint sacrifice at the panhellenic sanctuaries.39 One term we sometimes find for this intense panhellenic sentiment is “homonoia” (concord). Already in the fifth century BC the rhetorician Gorgias called for homonoia between the Greeks in his ‘Olympian Speech,’ which was presumably delivered at the great festival at Olympia, in front of all the assembled Greeks.40 “Homonoia” was even worshipped as a goddess at Plataea in Boeotia, the site of an important battle between the united Greek forces and Persians in 479BC, and eventually (mid third century BC at the latest) a cult of “Zeus Eleutherios” (i.e. Zeus of Freedom) and Homonoia was set up at Plataea which itself became the site of a national festival of commemoration, which lasts into the Roman period.41 Important as this practice was in the Greek world, however, Greco-Roman writers do not show much interest in making grand theoretical statements about it. In fact, when Greek intellectuals talk about national festivals, they tend to be critical. Thus, in his account of the constitution of his ideal state of Magnesia in the Laws, Plato forbids citizens to visit national festivals except unless they are over 40 and traveling in a public capacity.42 Similarly, the Stoic Epictetus regarded the great festival at Olympia as a distraction from philosophical introspection, though in one passage he seems to have advised that one should at least try to join in festivals, “for what is pleasanter to a man who loves his fellow-men than the sight of large numbers of them?”43

36 

Rutherford 2013, 60. Rutherford 2013, 254–56. 38 Herodotus, Hist. 8.144.2. 39 Aristophanes, Lys. 1128–134; see Rutherford 2013, 266. 40  Gorgias DK 82B8a = Plut. Conj. praec. 43, 144 BC; Philostr., VS 1.493. 41  For the term, see Therault 1996. The cult of Zeus Eleutherios and Homonoia: West 1977. The terminus ante quem is provided by the decree for Glaukon, of the mid third century BC by the Hellenic League, found at Plataea. On the practice, Rutherford 2013, 260. 42 Plato Laws 12.950e–951a; see Rutherford forthcoming. 43 Arrian, Epict. 1.6.19; Arrian, Epict. 4.4.27 with Bénatouïl 2013, 164–65; Brunt 2013, 144. 37 

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Greek intellectuals show more interest in festivals organized within a specific community. Plato in his Laws recommends a calendar of no less than 365 festivals.44 For Aristotle, the purpose of festivals organized by political communities is relaxation.45 A similar idea is found much later in a passage in Strabo’s Geography, which indicates that it was developed Hellenistic philosophy.46 Philo must have been aware of Greek festival culture, which continued in his lifetime, albeit without the intensity of the Hellenistic period. Many of the things he says about pilgrimage have parallels in Greek sources, and his terminology seems to be largely borrowed from Greek intellectual idiom. We saw earlier that his use of the terms aparkhai and hieropompoi echo Greek usage. The reference to leisure (skhole) and relaxation recalls the passages of Aristotle and Strabo just cited. His use of the term homonoia for the process of intellectual convergence generated by pilgrimage seems to echo the usage of that term in Greek sources. Similarly, the idea that pilgrimage provides an opportunity to get to know other people echoes statements made by Plato in the Laws about the purpose of civic festivals. In Book 5 their purpose is said to be, so that … people may fraternize with one another at the sacrifices and gain knowledge and intimacy, since nothing is of more benefit to the state than this mutual acquaintance; for when men conceal their ways from one another in darkness rather than in light, there no man will ever rightly gain either his due honor in office, or the justice that is befitting.

Similarly in Book 6 the purpose of sacrificial gatherings is said to be partly thanksgiving to the gods and partly mutual acquaintance.47 Amid all these similarities to the Greek sources, two differences stand out. First, no Greek source, as far as I am aware, argues that pilgrimage is valuable because it creates an opportunity to create relationships with other people. Greek writers occasionally report that significant relationships begin at festivals at sanctuaries (this is a common theme in the fictionalized world of the Greek Romance, for example), but this is never identified as a reason to go.48 Secondly, 44 Plato, Laws 8.821a-c. Leonhardt-Balzer 2001, 291–92 suggests that Philo imitated this passage at SL2.42–55. 45 Aristotle, NE 8.9.1160a22–30. Epicurus called the wise man “lover of spectacle,” i.e. lover of festivals: Plut. Against Epicurean Happiness 1095c., a clear challenge to Plato’s condemnation of lovers of spectacles. 46 Strabo, Geog. 10.3.9: “Now this is common both to the Greeks and to the barbarians, to perform their sacred rites in connection with the relaxation of a festival … the relaxation draws the mind away from human occupations and turns the real mind towards that which is divine.” 47  Laws 5.738d-e: ὅπως ἂν … φιλοφρονῶνταί τε ἀλλήλους μετὰ θυσιῶν καὶ οἰκειῶνται καὶ γνωρίζωσιν, οὗ μεῖζον οὐδὲν πόλει ἀγαθὸν ἢ γνωρίμους αὐτοὺς αὑτοῖς εἶναι. ὅπου γὰρ μὴ φῶς ἀλλήλοις ἐστὶν ἀλλήλων ἐν τοῖς τρόποις ἀλλὰ σκότος, οὔτ᾽ ἂν τιμῆς τῆς ἀξίας οὔτ᾽ ἀρχῶν οὔτε δίκης ποτέ τις ἂν τῆς προσηκούσης ὀρθῶς τυγχάνοι … Laws 6.771d: … ἡμῶν αὐτῶν οἰκειότητός τε πέρι καὶ γνωρίσεως ἀλλήλων … καὶ ὁμιλίας ἕνεκα πάσης. For Plato’s Laws as a model for Philo see Leonhardt-Balzer 2001, V.3.3; Lieber 2007, 200–201. 48  Philip is supposed to have met Olympias when both were being initiated at Samothrace: Plut. Alex. 2; for the Greek romance, see Rutherford 2013, 349–54.

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as I said earlier, Greek writers do not seem to present arguments in favor of pilgrimage at all, even though it was a significant part of their culture.

IV. One possibility that I would like to consider is that Philo’s account of pilgrimage echoes an official invitation used by the Jerusalem authorities. In view of Goodman’s suggestion that pilgrimage to Jerusalem was promoted by Herod the Great, the possibility arises that Philo and Josephus are echoing the rhetoric of an official doctrine, perhaps contained in an announcement sent to the participants. In the Hellenistic world if you were organizing a big festival and wanted to encourage broad participation, it was standard practice to stress the contributions you had made to the wider Greek community, the festival as a whole being a celebration of Greek identity. When Ptolemy Philadelphos organized the Ptolemaia festival at Alexandria in 283/2BC in honor of his father Ptolemy Soter, the League of the Islanders passed an enthusiastic decree promising to send a delegation on the grounds that: Ptolemy Soter had been the cause of many good things for the Islanders and the rest of the Greeks, by liberating cities, restoring laws, establishing the ancestral constitution for all, and relieving them of taxes, and since now King Ptolemy, succeeding to the kingdom after his father, continues to show the same goodwill and concern to the Islanders and the rest of the Greeks. (The decree of Nicouria, SIG 3 390, 11–26)

It seems very likely that these words reflect those of an official invitation.49 A few years later, the Aetolians invited the Greeks to a new festival at Delphi, the Soteria, a commemoration of their recent action of saving Greece by demanding Delphi from the Gauls.50 More generally, in the later third and early second centuries BC Greek cities solicited participation in festivals by sending out messengers to deliver a formal announcement, which sometimes included appeals to affinity and ancestral connections between inviters and invitees. Thus in 208 BC Magnesia on the Maeander established a festival called the Leukophruenia in honor of the local Artemis Leukophruene, apparently as the result of an epiphany, and, like many other Greek cities in this period, proclaimed Magnesia “inviolable”; messengers were dispatched to invite other Greek cities to send delegates to the festival (bring sacrifices and aparkhai in some cases) and to ask them to recognize the claim of inviolability (presumably because panhellenic recognition of this status would guarantee some level of protection). The argument presented to justify this involves the idea of the community of Greeks, 49 

50 

Rutherford 2013, 267–68. Rutherford 2013, 268–69.

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specifically that Magnesia is worthy of this attention, because in the past its citizens performed great benefits for the Greeks.51 There are similarities here with what Philo and Josephus say about pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Although they do not talk about how Jerusalem has benefitted the Jews of the Diaspora, the justification is based on ethnicity; and although as far as we know, Jerusalem was never proclaimed “inviolable,”52 the city’s unique status is central to the argument. I would suggest, then, that Philo and Josephus draw on the text of an official invitation, sent by the authorities in Jerusalem (possibly via the official emissaries (“apostoloi”) known to have been used),53 which might well have included both a reminder that the Temple was the unique center of Jewish faith and an appeal to Jews from different parts of the Diaspora to come and get acquainted, and the language would quite possibly have been informed by official Greek idiom.

V. If Philo could imagine that the assembled hieropompoi might have posed a military threat to the Romans, the Roman authorities may well have realized the strategic threat posed by Jewish pilgrimage as well. Given the risk, the destruction of the focus of the pilgrimage – the Temple – in 70AD made strategic sense, and it is significant that when Hadrian decided to rebuild Jerusalem as Aelia Capitolina in 131AD, he had a temple of Jupiter built instead of restoring the Temple.54 If uncontrolled pilgrimage was dangerous, a religious network might be useful if it could be made to serve the needs of the Empire. Around the same time, Hadrian established the “Panhellenion,” a new religious-political network based in Athens, comprising selected cities in the Eastern Roman Empire. These cities were required to send delegates to Athens, who met in a council and participated in the imperial cult.55 The Panhellenion had a strict ethnic condition for membership: cities had to be able to prove that they were of true Greek origin.56 One possibility is that Hadrian’s model for this was the practice of earlier Greek religious networks. However, although there was a vague sense that the great Greek festivals were for Greeks, there is no sign that the criterion of eth51 

See Rutherford 2013, 270–71; Rigsby 2013, 179–279. Rigsby 1996, 527–31. 53  Safrai 1974, 205–10. 54  Cassius Dio 69.12, 1–3. 55  Panhellenion: Jones 1996; Romeo 2002. 56  A good example of how it worked is a decree from Cyrene from AD 134/5, according to which the city of Cyrene in Libya was regarded as truly Greek and sent two delegates whereas the smaller city of Ptolemais-Barca, though Greek, was regarded as less deserving and hence sent only one. See the translation of Jones 1996, 53. 52 

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nicity was strictly enforced, at least in this period.57 In fact, as far as the strict ethnic qualification is concerned, the Jewish pilgrimage to Jerusalem is much closer to the Panhellenion, with the crucial difference that the latter was an instrument of the imperial cult.

Works Cited Amir, Yehoshua. 1983. “Die Wallfahrt nach Jerusalem in Philons Sicht.” In Die hellenistische Gestalt des Judentums bei Philon von Alexandrien, by Yehoshua Amir. FJCD 5. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, pp.  52–64. Bayly, Christopher A. 1996. Empire and Information: Intelligence Gathering and Social Communication in India, 1780–1870. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bénatouïl, Thomas. 2013. “Theoria and schole in Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius.” In Plato and the Stoics, ed. Alex G. Long. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.  106–27. Bitton-Ashkelony, Brouria. 2005. Encountering the Sacred: The Debate on Christian Pilgrimage in Late Antiquity. Berkeley: University of California Press. Brunt, Peter A. 2013. Studies in Stoicism, ed. Miriam Griffin, A. Samuels and Michael Crawford. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Eade, John and Michael Sallnow, eds. 1991. Contesting the Sacred: The Anthropology of Christian Pilgrimage. London: Routledge. Elsner, Jas´. 1997. “The Origins of the Icon: Pilgrimage, Religion and Visual Culture in the Roman East as ‘Resistance’ to the Centre.” In The Early Roman Empire in the East, ed. Susan E. Alcock. Oxford: Oxbow, pp.  178–99. Faraone, Christopher A. 1993. “Molten Wax, Spilt Wine and Mutilated Animals: Sympathetic Magic in near Eastern and Early Greek Oath Ceremonies.” JHS 113: 60–80. Feldman, Jackie. 2006. “‘A City that Makes All Israel Friends’: Normative Communitas and the Struggle for Religious Legitimacy in Pilgrimages to the Second Temple.” In A Holy People: Jewish and Christian Perspectives on Religious and Communal Identity, ed. Jewish and Christian Perspectives 12. Marcel Poorthuis and Joshua Schwartz. Leiden: Brill, pp.  109–26. Ferrary, Jean-Louis. 2014. Les mémoriaux de délégations du sanctuaire oraculaire de Claros, d’après la documentation conservée dans le Fonds Louis Robert [2 vols.]. Paris: Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres. Fontenrose, Joseph. 1988. Didyma: Apollo’s Oracle, Cult, and Companions. Berkeley: University of California Press. Giorgieri, Mauro. 2001. “Aspetti magico-religioso del giuramento presso gli Ittiti e I Greci.” In La questione delle influenze vicino-orientali sulla religione greca: stato degli studi e prospettive della ricerca, atti del colloquio internazionale, Roma, 20–22 maggio 1999, ed. Sergio Ribichini, Maria Rocchi and Paolo Xella. Rome: Consiglio nazionale delle ricerche, pp.  421–40. 57  Rutherford 2013, 264–80. In the fifth century BC athletes had to prove that they were Greek to take part in the Olympics (Hdt. 5.22; Rutherford 2013, 265), but van Nijf 1999, 177 argues that in the Hellenistic period the requirement for participants to be ethnically Greek was slowly relaxed.

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Goodman, Martin. 1999. “The Pilgrimage Economy of Jerusalem in the Second Temple Period.” In Jerusalem: Its Sanctity and Centrality, ed. Lee Levine. New York: Continuum, pp.  69–76. Haber, Susan. 2001. “Going up to Jerusalem: Pilgrimage, Purity, and the Historical Jesus.” In Travel and Religion in Antiquity, ed. Philip A. Harland. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, pp.  49–67. = Susan Haber and Adele Reinhartz, eds. 2008. They Shall Purify Themselves: Essays on Purity in Early Israel, 181–206. EJIL 24. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature. Hajjar, Youssef. 1977. La triade d’ Héliopolis-Baalbek [2 vols.]. Leiden: Brill. Hall, Jonathan. 2002. Hellenicity: Between Ethnicity and Culture. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Iancu, Carol. 1987. “Les pèlerinages dans le Judaïsme après 70 et dans Israël aujourd’hui.” In Histoire des pèlerinages non chrétiens. Entre magique et sacré: le chemin des dieux, ed. Jean Chélini and Henry Branthomme. Paris: Hachette, pp.  345–64. Jeremias, Joachim. 1969. Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus: An Investigation into Economic and Social Conditions during the New Testament Period. London: SCM. Jones, Christopher P. 1996. “The Panhellenion.” Chiron 26: 29–56. Kerkeslager, Allen. 1998. “Jewish Pilgrimage and Jewish Identity in Hellenistic and Early Roman Egypt.” In Pilgrimage and Holy Space in Late Antique Egypt, ed. David Frankfurter. Religions in the Graeco-Roman World 134. Leiden: Brill, pp.  99–225. Klauck, Hans-Josef. 1986. “Die heilige Stadt. Jerusalem bei Philo und Lukas.” Kairos 28: 129–51. Leonhardt-Balzer, Jutta. 2001. Jewish Worship in Philo of Alexandria. Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism 84. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Lieber, Andrea. 2007. “Between Motherland and Fatherland: Diaspora, Pilgrimage and the Spiritualization of Sacrifice in Philo of Alexandria.” In Heavenly Tablets: Interpretation, Identity and Tradition in Ancient Judaism, ed. Lynn R. Lidonnici and Andrea Lieber. Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 119. Leiden: Brill, pp.  193–210. Lightfoot, Jane. 2003. Lucian, On the Syrian Goddess. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Maclean, Kama. 2008. Pilgrimage and Power: The Kumbh Mela in Allahabad, 1765– 1954. New York: Oxford University Press. McCarthy, Dennis J. 1973. “Further Notes on the Symbolism of Blood and Sacrifice.” Journal of Biblical Literature 92 (1973): 205–10. McCorriston, Joy. 2011. Pilgrimage and Household in the Ancient Near East. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. –. 2013. “Pastoralism and Pilgrimage: Ibn Khaldūn’s Bayt-State Model and the Rise of Arabian Kingdoms.” Current Anthropology 54: 607–41. McCready, Wayne O. 2011. “Pilgrimage, Place and Meaning-Making by Jews in Greco-Roman Egypt.” In Travel and Religion in Antiquity, ed. Philip A. Harland. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, pp.  69–81. Niehoff, Maren. 2001. Philo on Jewish Identity and Culture. Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism 86. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. –. (Forthcoming). Philo of Alexandria: An Intellectual Biography. New Haven: Yale University Press. Nijf, Onno van. 1999. “Athletics, Festivals and Greek Identity in the Roman East.” PCPS 45: 176–200.

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Petsalis-Diomidis, Alexia. 2010. Truly Beyond Wonders: Aelius Aristides and the Cult of Asklepios. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pullan, Wendy. 2005. “‘Intermingled until the end of time’: Ambiguity as a Central Condition of Early Christian Pilgrimage.” In Patterns of Pilgrimage in Graeco-Roman and Early Christian Antiquity: Seeing the Gods, ed. Jas´ Elsner and Ian Rutherford. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp.  387–409. Rigsby, Kent. 1996. Asylia: Territorial Inviolability in the Hellenistic World. Hellenistic Culture and Society 22. Berkeley: University of California Press. Romeo, Ilaria. 2002. “The Panhellenion and Ethnic Identity in Hadrianic Greece.” CP 27: 21–40. Rutherford, Ian. 1998. “The Island at the Edge: Space, Language and Power in the Pilgrimage Traditions of Philai.” In Pilgrimage and Holy Space in Late Antique Egypt, ed. David Frankfurter. Religions in the Graeco-Roman World 134. Leiden: Brill, pp.  229–56. –. 1999. “To the Land of Zeus: Patterns of Pilgrimage in Aelius Aristides.” Aevum Antiquum 12: 133–48. –. 2003. “Pilgrimage in Greco-Roman Egypt: New Perspectives on Graffiti from the Memnonion at Abydos.” In Ancient Perspectives on Egypt, ed. Roger Matthews and Cornelia Roemer. London: UCL Press, pp.  171–89. –. 2005. “Down-Stream to the Cat-Goddess: Herodotus on Egyptian Pilgrimage.” In Pilgrimage in Graeco-Roman and Early Christian Antiquity: Seeing the Gods, ed. Jas´ Elsner and Ian Rutherford. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp.  131–50. –. 2013. State-Pilgrims and Sacred Observers: A Study of Theoria and Theoroi. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. –. (Forthcoming). “Pilgrimage and Communication.” In The Oxford Handbook of Communications in the Ancient World, ed. F. Naiden and R. Talbert. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Safrai, Shemuel. 1969. “Pilgrimage to Jerusalem at the End of the Second Temple Period.” In Studies in the Jewish Background of the New Testament, ed. Otto Michel et al. Assen: Van Gorcum: 12–21. –. 1974. “Relations between the Diaspora and the Land of Israel.” In The Jewish People in the First Century: Historical Geography, Political History, Social, Cultural and Religious Life and Institutions, ed. Shemuel Safrai and Menahem Stern. Assen: Van Gorcum, pp.  184–215. –. 1981. Die Wallfahrt im Zeitalter des Zweiten Tempels. Trans. Y. Aschkenasy and H. Kremers. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag. S¸ahin, Mehmet C. 1981–1990. Die Inschriften von Stratonikeia [3 vol = Inschriften griechischer Städte aus Kleinasien vols. 21–22, 68]. Bonn: Habelt. Smallwood, Edith M. 1961. Philonis Alexandrini Legatio ad Gaium. Leiden: Brill. Swain, Simon. 2007. Seeing the Face, Seeing the Soul: Polemon’s Physiognomy from Classical Antiquity to Medieval Islam. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Thériault, Gaétan. 1996. Le culte d’ Homonoia dans le cités grecques. Lyon: Maison de l’Orient méditerranéen. Turner, Victor. 1972. “The Center out There: Pilgrim’s Goal.” History of Religions 12: 191–230. –. 1974. “Pilgrimages as Social Processes.” In Dramas, Fields and Metaphors: Symbolic Action in Human Society, ed. Victor Turner. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, pp.  166– 230.

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van der Horst, Pieter W. 2003. Philo’s Flaccus: The First Pogrom. Introduction, Translation, and Commentary. Leiden: Brill. West, William C. 1977. “Hellenic Homonoia and the New Decree from Plataea.” GRBS 18/4: 307–19. Wolfson, Harry A. 1947. Philo: Foundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam [2 vols]. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Imposing Travelers: An Inscription from Galatia and the Journeys of the Earliest Christians Laura S. Nasrallah “But when Cephas came to Antioch (Ὅτε δὲ ἦλθεν Κηφᾶς εἰς Ἀντιόχειαν)” (Gal 2:11) may be the most boring phrase in the letter of the apostle Paul to the ekkle¯siai or assemblies of Galatia (1:2), one of seven letters within the Christian Testament that scholars generally agree was written by Paul in the mid-first century CE. Yet this short phrase and the letter in which it appears provide a succinct introduction to the phenomenon of journey and travel in Judaism of the late second temple period, including the travels of Jewish Christ-followers. While scholarship has generally focused on the hardships faced by Paul in his “missionary” endeavors, this chapter instead turns the lens upon those who bore the tasks of receiving and hosting travelers. The Letter to the Galatians and an inscription from Galatia provide the context for exploring a different question: who had to receive and to give hospitality to the figures, whether Paul, Cephas, or others, who traveled to and fro in this earliest phase of what we cannot yet call Christianity? This chapter focuses on the local experience of those who deal with travelers. In this way, I hope to contribute to a turn in scholarship on early Christianity, away from its usual focus on heroic travelers, to think instead about the majority: those early communities that hosted such travelers.1 In order to make such an argument with precision, this chapter is focused and local. It uses two pieces of evidence – the Letter to the Galatians and an inscription from first-century CE Galatia – to think about the question of those impacted by “imposing travelers,” whether travelers with power and authority (holding Roman imperial diplomata, for example), or those who exerted other forms of power and authority (through their role as traveling in the name of Christ). Early followers of Christ had to negotiate the power dynamics of staying in place – of hosting travelers who made demands not only upon their souls and spirits but also upon their dwellings, food supplies, and other goods.

1  Such a move takes part in feminist methodologies that are concerned with an analysis that attends to those marginalized or occluded by the rhetoric of ancient texts. See Schüssler Fiorenza 2000, 40–57; Johnson-DeBaufre and Nasrallah 2011; Marchal, ed. 2015.

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The Journeying Man, the Navigable Empire In Monty Python’s Life of Brian, the highly fractious Jewish resistance secretly meets. The Jewish leader asks, “What have they” – that is, the Romans – “ever done for us?” and a masked revolutionary meekly pipes up: “the aqueducts,” and then later, “sanitation.” All, murmuring, agree that these are benefits. Another calls out “the roads,” and another general murmuring acclamation results: “Well, yeah. Obviously the roads. I mean, the roads go without saying, don’t they? But apart from the sanitation, the aqueduct, and the roads…” (Life of Brian DVD; dir. Terry Jones, 1999 [1979]).2 The idea of Roman roads as a significant contribution to communication and infrastructure in late antiquity, and as a contribution to the spread of earliest Christianity, is well known. Even in the Republican period, Roman road-building had begun. This road-building facilitated military action, commerce, and the spread of ideas. The Via Egnatia, constructed in the second century BC and marked by miliaria, covered a distance of approximately 1,120 km and connected Dyrrachium, on the East coast of the Adriatic Sea, to Byzantium, later Constantinople (F. W. Walbank 2003: i–ix).3 Under Roman imperial rule, roughly 80–100,000 kilometers of roads were established from Britain in the West to Judea and beyond in the East, often punctuated by miliaria, inscribed with information about distance as well as the name of the emperor reigning at the time the milarium was erected, thus reminding the traveler of Roman influence, often in both Greek and Latin.4 In the reign of Diocletian, in the late third century, 372 roads of approximately 85,000 km are mentioned (Raymond Chevallier 1976: 131). In the Hadrianic period, too, closer to the time of the writing of the Letter to the Galatians, roadways ran through Judea and Asia Minor, which likely traced the same pathways of those who spread the idea of Jesus as Christ eighty or so years earlier. The roadways, of course, were not the only means of travel. Travelers fretted over sea voyages, worrying about delays, pirates, and avoiding marine travel during the months of November to April of the year (Boudewijn Sirks 1991: 41–42). Not only the relative ease of travel, but also the idea of easy travel, was ideologically important at the beginnings of the Roman Empire. As Timothy Luckritz Marquis writes, the likes of “Philo and other Roman writers would credit the godlike powers of the emperor with the preservation of free movement across the inhabited world.” Yet, as Luckritz Marquis also notes, this celebration of free movement could be matched with suspicion of the traveling stranger (2013: 6). 2 

See also Schellenberg 2011, 144–45. My thanks to Luan Henrique Ribeiro for his work on a project on Roman roads, particular in Philippi, for my course Archeology and the New Testament World (spring 2015). 4  See Hezser 2011. 3 

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Two men from the first to second centuries CE give us a more concrete sense of the importance of travel, its danger, and its connections to empire. An entrepreneur from Hierapolis, in modern-day Turkey, famously boasts of his many voyages in an inscription on his posh late first or early second century mausoleum at Hierapolis, far inland from the sea (fig.  1). It reads in part: “Titus Flavius Zeuxis, merchant (ἐργαστής), who navigated around Cape Maleas towards Italy during seventy-two sailings, built the monument for himself and his sons Flavius Theodoros and Flavius Theudas.” Tullia Ritti suggests that Zeuxis would have had to take two trips per year for thirty-six years to achieve his seventy-two sailings (2006: 28, 70), a good pace given the seasonal restrictions on travel in antiquity.5

Fig.  1:  View of the mausoleum of Titus Flavius Zeuxis, Hierapolis, Turkey. Photograph: J. Gregory Given and the Harvard New Testament and Archaeology Project.

Aelius Aristides, the well-known orator who was famously sick and who was a supplicant of the god Asklepios at Pergamon, also talks about roadways. His mid second-century CE oration Regarding the Romans celebrates the navigability of the Roman Empire: You have filled your whole empire with cities and adornments. When were there so many cities on land or throughout the sea, or when have they been so thoroughly adorned? 5  See Casson 1995; now see also the digital tool for approximately mapping travel and expense in Mediterranean antiquity at http://orbis.stanford.edu/.

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Who then ever made such a journey, numbering the cities by the days of his trip, or sometimes passing through two or three cities on the same day, as it were through avenues? 6 (Aelius Aristides: The Complete Works, Vol. II, Orations XVII–LIII. Trans. Charles A. Behr, 1986)

Flavius Zeuxis or his family portray the essence of his life at his tomb as having to do with his work travels. Aelius Aristides was often laid up in the Pergamene sanctuary of the healing god Asklepios, but he depicts the Roman imperium as producing a pleasantly navigable empire, and elsewhere in his writings discusses his longing to travel and his frustration that his ill health prevents it.

Journeys and the Power of the Acts of the Apostles The role of early Christian journeyers – travelers like Zeuxis, moving along the land and the city-studded seaways, as Aelius Aristides puts it, of the Roman Empire – is both difficult to reconstruct historically and ideologically fraught. Much ink has been spilled over the question of Jewish and Christian missionary activity in antiquity.7 If we understand Paul to be a Jew spreading a message of the possibility that Gentiles can enter into covenant with the God of Israel through a messiah/Christ, Jesus, then Paul is one piece of evidence, among ­others, of the activity of Jews in antiquity who encouraged Gentile proselytes to Judaism.8 Early Christian writings, particularly the Acts of the Apostles, depict the apostles – those “sent out” (apostellein) by Jesus or after his death – as the heroic travelers of early Christianity,9 and Christianity itself as expanding geographically from Jerusalem to Rome. The reader might wonder: if this chapter aims to consider the likes of Paul and Cephas as travelers, and the role of early Christ groups in hosting them, why turn to Galatians and not to the Acts of the Apostles? The Acts of the Apostles has often been understood as the earliest Christian historical narrative; scholars concerned with modernist definitions of history and with finding a firm narrative of the origins of Christianity are se6 

The larger thrust of the oration is the celebration of cities under the Roman Empire. See the summary in Dickson 2003, 11–12, esp. n.  1 and following pages, even if Dickson still problematically frames the question of mission in terms like “universal” and “belief.” The idea of competition among traveling missionaries was key to Dieter Georgi’s 1986 reading of 2 Corinthians. 8  The reader may note my deliberate avoidance of the terminology of mission and conversion, both fraught, even if Martin Goodman boldly used them for his book Mission and Conversion: Proselytizing in the Religious History of the Roman Empire (1994). See also Donaldson 2006, 109–38; and Vaage 2006, 3–20. Important resources for thinking about mission and conversion in antiquity, including how problematic these categories are, include: Cohen 1992; Dickson 2003; Paget 1996, 65. On shifting ethnicity rather than converting from one religion to another, see Buell 2005; see also Johnson 2004, 23–56; Schott 2008; Nasrallah 2006, 467–74. 9  Johnson-DeBaufre and Nasrallah 2011, 161–74; Schellenberg 2011, passim. 7 

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duced by its mention of eyewitnesses and its use of the term die¯ge¯sis, “narrative,” to describe the text (Luke 1:1–4, Acts 1:1). Acts’ construction of Paul and other apostles as travelers has often been understood as a description rather than a crafting of a particular narrative. The Acts of the Apostles, however, likely dates to the early second century CE and presents a Paul who differs from the one we find in the letters that Paul wrote or co-wrote with others.10 Acts, of course, is a historical source, but one that offers data about ideology and politics in the second century rather than a secure biography of the historical Paul. It is worth considering the Acts of the Apostles in more detail, because it has had such a powerful effect on historians’ and exegetes’ stories of earliest Christianity. Acts aspires to participate in the so-called Second Sophistic, a trend beginning in the late first-century, which celebrated Greek paideia (and Atticizing Greek) under the Roman Empire (Nasrallah 2010, ch. 1). Acts writes in a Greek more sophisticated than many other early Christian texts. It presents a Christianity that fits well within the parameters of the Roman Empire, that cultivates a Christian paideia and piety that draws from the venerable traditions and scriptures of Israel – and that exists in contradistinction from Jewish mobs. It presents the Romans as orderly.11 Patterns of apostolic journeys in the Acts are often symbolic, demonstrating the expansion of a Christian culture to various cities, particularly those of the Greek East, along lines analogous to the development of a Panhellenion, a league of Greek cities, under Hadrian (Nasrallah 2010, ch. 3). Much of what we think we know about the heroic journeyer Paul derives not from his own words but from Acts: a man from Tarsus, a student of Gamaliel (22:3), a tentmaker (18:3), a blinding light on the road to Damascus, a fine and charismatic public speaker, a Christian convert. The letters of Paul the mid-first century Jew present a different construction of his character: a poor public speaker (1 Cor 1–4, 2 Cor 10:1) who, in the words of Krister Stendahl, understands himself not to be converted but to have responded to a prophetic call to help the nations, or the Gentiles, come into covenant with the one true God, the God of Israel (1976: 7–23).12 Yet, even if we cannot use the Acts of the Apostles to reconstruct precise, modernist historical maps and timelines of the journeys of Paul, Acts still looms large as a lens through which the letters that Paul authored or co-authored should be interpreted and historically plotted. Maps of Paul’s travels use the Acts of the Apostles, cross-correlated with Paul’s own letters, to map Paul’s multiple “missionary journeys.” Scholars such as W. M. Ramsay, at the turn of 10  See e.g. Pervo 2009, 2006, and 2010; Matthews 2013; Gregory 2003; Harrill 2012; Sampley, ed. 2003; and the work they cite. 11  Wills 1991, 631–54; Matthews 2013. 12  Versus e.g. Lührmann 1992, 22: “conversion for Paul meant a complete break with his past”; see also his attempt to fit together Paul’s comments about himself with Acts’ presentation of Paul.

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the twentieth century (1907), collected inscriptions to corroborate Paul’s travels according to Acts and to demonstrate the historicity of the New Testament accounts.13 Moreover, New Testament scholars interested in the story of Paul’s travels often read Paul as journeyer not only in light of the narrative of Paul in the Acts of the Apostles, but also in terms of the ecclesiology and missiology of their own time periods – that is, the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. Commentators on Galatians offer words like “church” and “mission” as if these were solid, stable practices and locations in the mid-first century CE. For example, de Boer assumes that there is an articulated view of a “church in Antioch” versus a “church in Jerusalem” (2011: 126), or Lührmann comments, “The church at Antioch was the right place for a man like Paul, who indeed already understood his conversion as a commission to the Gentile mission and had himself radically broken with his Jewish past” (1992: 23).14

Journeys and Roadways Historians should not use Acts to map Paul’s life; the Acts of the Apostles maps its own theological and political concerns. So too, our vision of journeying in antiquity may be influenced by Christian missions and “church-planting” from more recent time periods, but this context is not the most fruitful for considering a first century CE text. Rather, Paul’s own letters map journeys on Roman roads and seaways and establish him as a traveling man of the empire.15 This evidence of the travels of Paul and his co-workers can be understood in tandem with evidence we have of roads from antiquity; it should also be considered in light of the burdens placed upon hosting communities, as we shall discover in the following sections. Paul traveled in Judea proper and environs. His own words in Galatians 1–2 perhaps lay out most clearly his travels in the Mediterranean, plotting his movements from Arabia to Damascus and only long after to Jerusalem, then Syria and Cilicia, then Jerusalem again. Paul insists strenuously that after the revelation from Jesus he did not “go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me.” Rather, he continues, 13  Paul’s work as traveling between urban centers is a cornerstone for the interpretation of his letters and for the understanding of the communities to which he wrote, a key theme articulated in Wayne Meeks’s 1983 First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul. On his role as heroic traveler, suffering to offer grace and salvation to communities of the Greek East and hoping to move further westward in his mission, see Schellenberg 2011, 151– 55. On Paul’s idea of a complete mission and his emphasis on provinces, see Donaldson 2006, 114–15. 14  Lührmann does, however, see that there are discontinuities between Paul and Acts. 15  See Nasrallah 2010, chap.  2.

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17b I went away into Arabia; and again I returned to Damascus. 18 Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas, and remained with him fifteen days. … 21 Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia. 22 And I still was not known by sight to the assemblies of Judea which were in Christ. (Gal 1:17–18, 21–22) 16

According to Paul, it was fourteen years later that he “went up again to Jerusalem” (2:1). Israel Roll and others have outlined the four major latitudinous roadways that would have led even in the mid-first century CE from the area of Judea to Arabia, commercial ways established long before Roman rule for the transport of frankincense and myrrh (2005: 107–18, esp.  111). In Roll’s words, The Romans gradually crisscrossed these provinces [of Judaea, later named Palaestina, and Provincia Arabia] with an impressive network of about 2,500 Roman miles of firstclass highways. … [These], like the other roads in the Empire … featured massive embankments, solid roadbeds, surfaces paved with flat slabs well fitted onto another, curbstones along the pavements’ sides to protect them from disintegration, bridges and viaducts across watercourses and tunnels that cut through otherwise impassable cliffs. (2005: 108)

In the first century CE, as Roman rule over the east was more fully established, “the main overland incense routes became extensively busy and, therefore, well known in the west” (ibid. 112).17 These roads were renovated under Trajan and again under Hadrian. Paul’s travels from Arabia to Judea and regions further north, which Paul mentions in Galatians, were not his only ones. His role as a frenetic traveler, keen to speed the evangelion, can be established from other letters, too, in which he states his desire to go to Spain (Rom 15:24), or discusses his plans to travel to Jerusalem to deliver money for the poor (2 Cor 8–9). In Galatians and in other letters, Paul keeps the lens on himself, offering dramatic stories of a traveling self,18 sometimes deliberately dramatic and funny. He suffers in his travels: ὁδοιπορίαις πολλάκις, on “frequent journeys,” as he retells his story with deliberate drama in the “fool’s speech” of 2 Cor 11:26, and in every sort of danger, whether from rivers, robbers, his own people, Gentiles, the city, the wilderness, or the sea.19 In his travels he rejects the authority of those in Christ in Jerusalem (Gal 1–2); he is both free and commissioned to go to the ethnē, the Gentiles, that is – anywhere and everywhere (1 Cor 9:19–23; Gal 1:15–17, 2:7–10). This is part of his story, his rhetorical self-construction. Scholars have often assumed that a voice like Paul’s is descriptive, not prescriptive – that is, that he correctly describes communities in schism and division (regarding the ekkle¯sia at Corinth, for instance) or communities that mis16 

All translations are from the RSV unless otherwise indicated. See also Chevallier 1976, 142. 18 For an important new approach to travel and characterizations of space, see Johnson-DeBaufre 2011, 91–118. 19  See discussions in, e.g., Glancy 2004, 99–135; and Marquis 2013. 17 

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understand the gospel (those in the province of Galatia) and are in need of his intervention. Such scholarship often supposes that these missionary journeys concluded with the grateful responses of those communities. This may well have been true for some to whom Paul wrote. In the Corinthian correspondence, however, we have a sense of Paul’s interactions with the ekkle¯sia at Corinth over time. These letters indicate that other authoritative travelers to this ekkle¯ sia were welcomed, with the result that Paul perceives his role as founder and apostle to be in question (1 Cor 4:15–21, passim; 2 Cor 10:10).20 To understand better the Epistle to the Galatians, scholars must ask: what was the impact of travel upon local populations – those who hosted journeyers such as Paul, as well as others who taught about Christ?

Galatia and the Transportation Requisition Inscription The adscriptio of Paul’s letter to the Galatians is unusual among the other letters: it is written by Paul and the “brothers and sisters” (adelphoi) not to an ekkle¯sia in a particular city, but to the ekkle¯siai, plural, in a province. That province is Galatia, and its boundaries and political history in the first century BC to the second century CE are chaotic.21 To understand the context of those addressed in the letter to the Galatians, we must have a better sense of the history, the region, and the population of this province, with its shifting boundaries. In this story, roads figure as a way of linking and controlling local populations and the outsiders who sometimes quell them. The chaos of these boundaries is the result of events that trace back to the Hellenistic period, when Galatia was invaded and settled by Gauls from the West (B. M. Levick 1996: 647). In 25 BC one of their leaders, Amyntas, who had been tapped by Mark Antony to head the region, died, leading Augustus to form from Amyntas’s territories the third province in Asia Minor, that of Galatia.22 Galatia and nearby regions were in political turmoil. In 25 BC the area of Pisidia was put under guard by foundation of six veteran colonies, the chief of which was Pisidian Antioch. In 6 BC, the via Sebaste (one “imperial road” of many) was constructed to link them (D. H. French 1980: 707).23 Soon thereafter, the governor of Galatia, P. Sulpicius Quirinius, captured 44 castella of the Ho20 

See Wire 1990; Nasrallah 2014, 427–71. See also Kahl 2010 on pressures to Romanize. 22  See Levick 650. 23  Llewelyn 1994, 82 n.  61: “Mitchell argues that the city of Sagalassus was responsible for the provision of all transport within its territory, Cormasa and Conana forming its boundary. Both these towns lay closer to the via Sebaste than Sagalassus itself. That the edict was published in both Latin and Greek may be explained by the fact that the via Sebaste was in the view of, essentially a road linking the Roman colonies of Cremna, Conona, Parlais, Antiochia, Iconium and Lystra.” 21 

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manadenses tribe – the very tribe that assassinated Amyntas – and the power of that tribe diminished (Levick 641–75). By 6 BC the ruler of the area to the north, Paphlygonia, had died, and eastern Paphlagonia and Phazemonitis were incorporated into Galatia; three years later, it had accessioned the region south of Phazemonitis and east of Galatia. In sum: Galatia was becoming very large, the same size as the province of Asia to its south and west, and twice that of the province of Bithynia, to its north (ibid. 650–51). The area included important urban centers and fertile plains that were the grounds for the country estates first of the local elite and later of Roman colonists, and then were part of imperial estates (Stephen Mitchell 1980: 1056, 1078). In the early years of the principate and beyond, this area was particularly important militarily. Stephen Mitchell builds on the work of Barbara Levick to trace thirteen Augustan settlements in Galatia, which extended as far east as Attaleia (modern-day Antalya) on the Pamphylian coast. As Galatia grew, Augustus’s administration also subjected it to an “active policy of urbanization” (Levick 662). Such active urbanization would have affected those addressed in the Epistle to the Galatians, who were subject to the political currents of the day. In addition, unofficial colonists were probably settled on the ager publicus in Attalia (modern day Antalya), where Roma Archegetis was worshipped (ibid.). Levick’s survey puts the transformation simplistically and dramatically: “The Gauls themselves, once the scourge of Asia Minor, began to move into line. … In token of loyalty they referred to themselves as the Sebasteni” (ibid.). Thus, for example, Sebaste Ancyra, a key city of the Tectosages, became a capital and center for the provincial cult of Roma and Augustus. Roman influence was substantial and its ethnic impact over the local populations of the first-century region of Galatia loomed large, as Brigitte Kahl has discussed with regard to the Epistle to the Galatians. The populations affected included not only Gauls, but also Phrygians and others. Stephen Mitchell suggests that the eleven Roman foundations likely included “at least 15,000, a figure which does not include wives and children” (1980: 1067). Galatia was primarily a rural province, but in the Roman period its well-developed roads and its system of staging posts and mansiones linked its cities, such as its two largest, Ancyra and Pisidian Antioch, together, drawing this large and diverse population more strongly under Roman influence as well as facilitating communication and travel.24 This survey of the historical context of Galatia grounds us in the region within which Paul’s letter appeared – a region much traversed and contested. It also 24  Mitchell 1980, 1068: “roads were designed to tie the cities of the Empire closer together, not to link them with the countryside, and with their well-organised systems of staging posts and mansiones, enabled their users to ignore the rural areas through which they passed.”

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sets a context for an inscription regarding travel that discusses Sagalassos, which in the early first century CE was part of the region of Galatia. This inscription indicates the burden that road travel could impose upon those who did not travel – that is, upon the locals who were visited, upon the “governed” (Mitchell 1976: 106). From the region of Sagalassos, part of Galatia in the first century CE, we find a bilingual Greek and Latin edict of 14–19 CE carved into a thick stele of gray marble with a pediment decorated with a blank circular shield (fig.  2).25 Unfluted pilasters frame the inscription and give the impression of an architectural structure that contains the message within it. The back is rough, indicating that it would likely have been pushed against a wall, approached only from the front. Because the inscription was not found in situ, and because it is a unique example, it is difficult to know how it was displayed and who its primary viewers were. It is the only known piece of epigraphic evidence from a local leader about how leitourgia involving transport impact a local population.

Fig.  2 :  Bilingual inscription of Sextus Sotidius Strabo Libuscidianus regarding transportation requisitions. Burdur Museum, Turkey. Photograph: J. Gregory Given and the Harvard New Testament and Archaeology Project. 25  Horsley 2007, 232. The inscription is reported to have been at the Burdur train station, then moved to the Museum. Its association with Sagalassos is clear because of the inscription itself. But there is no find site to help with interpretation of use, visibility, or legibility.

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The inscription regulates travel in the region and is intended to protect locals against abuses by those using the imperial post. At the same time, the inscription articulates demands that must be satisfied. It begins: Sextus Sotidius Strabo Libuscidianus, legatus propraetore of Tiberius Caesar Augustus, declares: It is indeed of all things most unjust that I should tighten up by my edict that which the two Augusti, the one the greatest of gods, the other the greatest of leaders, with utmost care guarded against, that no one should make use of transport vehicles without payment. …26 The Sagalassians should supply a service of [Greek: up to] ten carts and as many mules for the necessary uses of those passing through, and accept ten bronze (asses) per cart per schoenus27 from those who make use of them, or four asses per mule per schoenus. … They shall be obliged, moreover, to supply transport vehicles as far as Cormasa and Conana. However, not all [Greek: who want it] will the right of this obtain, but for the procurator of the excellent leader [Greek: of the Augustus] and for his son is granted the use of it up to ten carts, or (the use of) three mules in place of each cart, or two donkeys in place of each mule which they are using at the same time, subject to their paying the price determined by me. (SEG XXVI 1392; translation and text from G. H. R. Horsley 2007: 233)

The inscription goes on to delimit who can demand what from locals and by whom. The regulations apply “to those on military service, to those holding certificates (diplomata), and to those who are traveling from other provinces [Latin: while on military service].” To give a further example: To a centurion, a car or three mules or six donkeys (is to be supplied) on the same terms. To those who carry grain or any such things for their own profit or use, it is my wish that nothing be supplied, nor for anyone for his own beasts of burden or those of his freedmen or slaves [Greek adds: I veto anything being received].

The inscription concludes: Accommodation for all those who belong to my staff, for those on military service from all provinces, and for the freedmen and slaves of the excellent leader [Greek: the Augustus], and for their beasts, should be supplied free (ἄμισθον παρασχεθῆναι δεῖ), but in such a way that they do not demand the rest (of their costs) for no payment from those who are unwilling (to supply them) [gratuitam praestari oportet, ita ut reliqua ab invitis gratuita non exsigant]. The inscription records regulations intended to limit the burdens of the socalled cursus publicus upon a local population.28 In doing so, it participates in a 26 

As in Horsley’s edition, underlining indicates something that is only in the Latin. That is, a distance of perhaps 40 stades, with a stade measuring perhaps 150–210m. 28  Scholars generally use the term cursus publicus, which emerges only in the fourth century CE, to explain earlier practices of a “government transportation system based on obligations placed by the Roman state” on cities and “private persons” (Anne Kolb 2001, 98). Suetonius says that Augustus put this system in place (Vit. Aug 49.3; see discussion in Llewelyn 27 

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larger discourse of resistance to governmental abuses, directed to the top of the imperial food-chain: the emperor. In this case, travelers are an imposition, their demands promiscuous, their roles not always delineated by diplomata. While the inscription concerning Sagalassos is unique in its details, there are other indications of abuses and attempts to restrict abuses of the imperial transport system (or admissions of its abuse and allowances of such abuses).29 The Gospel of Matthew, for instance, explicitly mentions the practice of angareia, or “impressment for public service.”30 Rather than a usual translation of “if any one forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles” (RSV) we could instead read, “if someone should impress you into service for one Roman mile, go with him for two” (5:41).31 The gospel of Matthew presents this as a willful submission to expressions of imperial powers; one resists the forces or “impressments” of empire through participation; resistance happens through the practice of love (Matt 5:44: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you”). Egyptian papyri also document abuses and protest or seek to curtain them. In an example contemporaneous with the Sagalassos inscription, Germanicus, adopted son of the emperor Tiberius, offers an edit against “an act of acknowledged banditry” on his visit to Egypt in 19 CE (Llewelyn 1994: 64–65). He responds to reports he has heard that boats, animals and lodgings “are seized by force and private individuals are bullied.” Germanicus insists that only his “friend and secretary, Baebius” can command such a thing, and that Germanicus himself insists that boats and beasts of burden must be paid for (but not, note, lodging!).32 Despite the recognition of the force or violence (bia is used) of 1994, 7, 15, 80, passim). See also the discussion of the inscription at Sagalassos published by Judge 1981. 29  But even if abuses were not being perpetrated, the sheer demands of those traveling on imperial business upon locals were heavy. We can even consider this in relation to seafaring; Boudewijn Sirks, in his study of grain transport in the Roman world, explains the angaria, in this case compulsory service for shipowners: “Where necessary the Roman authorities could require someone to convey for them, for example a shipowner and his ship.” Sirks 1991, 44. Sirks continues: “from this interest a munus angariae evolved, the cursus clabularis [large, open wagon] on a particular route which existed under the Empire and entailed providing transportation for a certain period of time. This cursus was the heavy overland official transport service. Basically it involved transportation of onus fiscal by ox-cart, and further, transportation of goods and belongings of high officials who were granted the privilege of using the cursus. The munus angariae was to be fulfilled by landlords (possessores) and consisted of providing animals (also called ‘angariae’) and maintaining the halting-places (mansiones). Besides the cursus clabularis there was the cursus publicus, the State postal service for which horses were used; these had to be provided” (ibid.). Burdens lay especially heavily on provincials. From the second century, see the evidence in Hist. Aug., Vit. Hadr. 7.5, where Hadrian is said to have sought favor by establishing an imperial post (statum cursum fiscalem) in order that the burden would no longer fall on local officials (Historia Augusta 1, trans. David Magie 1921, 22–23). See Chevallier 1976, esp.  184–85, for this and other evidence. 30  Liddell-Scott-Jones Greek-English Lexicon, s.v. ἀγγαρεία. 31  See also Matt 27:32 (Simon of Cyrene); Llewelyn 1994, 86–87. 32  See discussion in Llewelyn 64–66.

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such demands, the system Germanicus creates for reporting such wrongs to his secretary or to himself is itself lugubriously bureaucratic.33 In the early second century CE, an emperor again weighs in on the abuse of diplomata; Trajan states that Pliny, the Roman governor of Bithynia, did nothing wrong by allowing his wife to use official travel services when a family emergency had occurred (Ep.  10.121; Greg Woolf 2015: 145). And while some elites abused the rules, as Pliny’s wife evidently did, so other Roman elites in the Greek East erected multiple inscriptions, alluding to a Severan constitution, in order to protect their property “from the possible exactions of hospitium” (Jean-Louis Morgues 1987: 80 and see esp. n.  12). Nor did the problem cease. From Skaptopara in ancient Thrace (modern Bulgaria) comes an example of a libellus or petition and an imperial subscription or response, dating to 238, during the reign of Gordian III.34 The beginning of the inscription is in Latin, and includes information about Aurelius Pyrrus, a “fellow villager and owner” as well as a soldier, who presented the petition. The libellus itself is in Greek and presents the concerns of villagers. It explains that their town is attractive for its thermal springs and for its proximity to a “celebrated assembly” – that is, a market that was popular, presumably also to the two nearby military camps that the inscription describes. During the time of this market, some “turn up in our village and compel us to provide them with quartering and most of the other things for their entertainment without offering payment.” The petition is organized so that the level of offense and proximity to imperial power increases as the petition winds on. Not only do persons whose roles are not named show up and impose upon the village, but so too soldiers who “leave their proper routes and appear among us and likewise press us hard to furnish them quartering and provisions without paying anything.” Then the villagers list the provincial governors and also “your” procurators who come (οἵ τε ἡγούμενοι τῆς ἐπαρχίας, ἀλλὰ καὶ οἱ ἐπίτροποί σου) (lines 51–53). The petition continues: We greet the authorities in a most hospitable way by necessity but as we could not put up with the others, we have on many occasions appealed to the governors of Thrace, and they have – in accordance with the divine [i.e. imperial] commands – ordered that we remain undisturbed. (Lines 53–59, translation modified) καὶ τὰς μὲν ἐξουσίας εὐξενώτατα δεχόμεθα κατὰ τὸ ἀναγκαῖον, τοὺς δὲ λοιποὺς ὑποφέρειν μὴ δυνάμενοι ἐνετύχομεν πλειστάκις τοῖς ἡγεμόσι τῆς Θρᾴκης, οἵτινες ἀκολούθως ταῖς θείαις ἐντολαῖς ἐκέλευσαν ἀοχλή τους ἡμᾶς εἶναι.35 33  A rescript of Caracalla found at Takina (AD 213); see Hauken 1998 and an edict of Germanicus during his visit to Egypt in 19 CE “warn against abuses being perpetrated in the name of officialdom” (Horsley 2007, 233). 34  All information about the Skaptopara inscription, including translations, is taken from Hauken 1998, 74–139. 35  See Hauken 1998, 88 for details regarding uncertain readings.

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While the libellus may not offer the best Greek, the first lines quoted above are rhetorically brilliant and perhaps bitter and wry: they assert their hospitality to authorities but also slip in the phrase kata to anagkaion – out of sheer necessity. And, since taxes are a key issue throughout human history, the villagers stress to the emperor that continual abuses will result in their inability to “provide the sacred taxes” (line 97). Their oppression – baroumetha – might lead to a situation in which the “the treasury is encompassed by the greatest loss” (lines 92– 94). The villagers beg for divine grammata (letters or decrees) to be written upon a stele and so be “publicly indicated.” Another portion of the inscription indicates that the emperor referred the case back to the governor. A (fragmentary) subscriptio in Latin indicates that Gordian III himself referred them on to the governor. The inscription concludes with words well worth publishing, despite the fact that the emperor had referred the villagers to another authority. Rescripsi. Recognovi. I have answered. I have examined (Tor Hauken 94). They have caught the emperor’s attention as they suffer from forced and excessive demands upon their hospitality.36 Whether we consider the case in Galatia or in Egypt, the abuses of Pliny’s wife or the concerns of the senatorial elite of the Greek East, or even, later, the villagers struggling in Skaptopara, it is important to recall the larger context of the scarcity of food and goods for the majority of those living in the Roman Empire.37 Demands upon locals were not a mere inconvenience for those who lived at or near subsistence level. Those in Skaptopara, at least, insisted that they might have to leave their ancestral lands. Historical data are insufficient to determine if abuses in Egypt, the region of Sagalassos, and Skaptopara in ancient Thrace were widespread and fundamentally similar. Creating a systematic, diachronic and transregional understanding of Roman practices of the cursus publicus is difficult if not impossible. We have insufficient data to determine whether the mail system and the transport system for goods worked in the same way; whether locals had to provide lodging and food and transportation, or just lodging and food; and whether one imperial traveler took the entire journey (thus requiring rest and accommodation) or whether there was a relay system (Llewelyn). Thus, rather than trying to create a synoptic vision of the process, it is better to return more precisely to Galatia, considering the local in a disciplined way.

36  For details regarding imperial scripts, including the technicalities of the language just cited, see the same volume and Hauken et al. 2003. 37  Garnsey 1988; Meggitt 1998.

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Returning to the Letter to the Galatians Thinking locally about Galatia in the first half of the first century CE, we find evidence in the edict of Sextus Sotidius Strabo of locals who experience confusion or inconvenience (or worse) because of travelers. The Sagalassos inscription demonstrates that Roman officials imposed upon locals,38 even as it “seeks to regulate the provision of transport and hospitium to travelling officials” (Llewelyn 14).39 We may turn our local lens as well on the Letter to the Galatians, looking in it to investigate what kind of impositions – albeit on a different scale – may have resulted from the visits of those who traveled for Christ. The Sagalassos inscription has met with some attention from New Testament scholars. The first use of this inscription for the study of early Christianity, to my knowledge, comes in E. A. Judge’s publication of it in the first volume of New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity (1981: 36–45). S. R. Llewelyn subsequently discussed it in the seventh volume of the same series. It has been primarily used to think about missionaries and travelers, about whether Paul and others had access to the cursus publicus, and not to think about their impact upon local populations. Examining the inscription from Sagalassos in conjunction with the Letter to the Galatians allows us to focus on the majority of those associated with the earliest ekkle¯siai: not the apostles who wandered, but the locals who received them. Given that Sagalassos was part of Galatia at the time of the inscription in the Tiberian period, the Letter to the Galatians, written soon thereafter, also allows a roughly contemporaneous datum regarding travelers and their impositions. The phrase “When Cephas came to Antioch” begins Paul’s story of the disruption that occurred when a traveler from Jerusalem and environs, Cephas or Peter, traveled to Antioch. In this light, a verse like Gal 2:11 provokes the questions: what happened when travelers arrived? How were local communities impacted by the journeys of others? While most assume, via the story of Paul’s travels in Acts, that the Antioch mentioned in Gal 2:11 must be Antioch on the Orontes in Syria, we can wonder, given that this is the letter to the Galatians, whether Paul refers instead to Pisidian Antioch, a city within the region of Roman Galatia in the mid first century CE, thus offering a narrative more relevant to the ekkle¯siai of Galatia – perhaps even alluding to and reframing in his own terms an incident known to some of those local ekkle¯siai. If we look again at Galatians, we see that Paul accuses several in Christ of having disrupted local communities by their presence. He 38  The inscription found in the region of Sagalassos, currently in the museum in Burdur, is the only one detailing the munus on local populations. 39  Llewelyn goes on: “the canon makes no mention of either the tabellarii or the speculatores who worked the cursus publicus as couriers nor does there appear to be a well organized system of relay stations” (ibid.).

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criticizes not only Cephas for coming to Antioch and disrupting established practices, but also others: it is the event of the “coming of certain people from James” (Gal 2:12) that leads Cephas to cease his meals with the Gentiles.40 Paul presents himself as the traveler who intervenes, speaking up for the nations, insisting that Gentiles not be compelled to “Ioudaiko¯s ze¯s” (2:14), to live like Jews. In the context of Galatians, this means that Gentiles who are interested in affiliating with the Christ movement – who are, in effect, interested in becoming Jews in this particular mode – need not be circumcised, if they are male, and need not maintain certain dietary restrictions. Elsewhere in the letter, however, Paul admits that even he was an imposition to those whom he addresses. He asks them to remember that past, praising them for having been willing to suffer this imposition: “You know it was because of a bodily ailment that I preached the gospel to you at first; and though my condition was a trial to you, you did not scorn or despise me, but received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus. What has become of the satisfaction you felt? For I bear you witness that, if possible, you would have plucked out your eyes and given them to me” (Gal 4:13–15). In the same chapter, he contrasts the work of other travelers with his own: 17 They zealously pursue you for no good reason, but they want to shut you out in order that you should zealously pursue them (ζηλοῦσιν ὑμᾶς οὐ καλῶς, ἀλλὰ ἐκκλεῖσαι ὑμᾶς θέλουσιν, ἵνα αὐτοὺς ζηλοῦτε). … 20 I could wish to be present with you now and to change my tone, for I am at a loss with regard to you.41

This passage uses language drawn from the realm of politics (the twice-used verb ze¯ loo¯42) and language with tones of the political and the legal (especially in the verb ekkleio¯). Like the language of the Sagalassos inscription and of the Egyptian papyri from the Tiberian period, the language of Galatians activates a political and transactional understanding of the situation.43 Those who come from the Christ movement impose upon the local Galatians who wish to affili40 

Pace de Boer 2011, 129. translation. Note that de Boer 2011 titles this section “The Danger of Abandoning Paul and His Gospel.” 42  Betz 1979, 230; see also de Boer 2011, 277. On missionary competition in 2 Corinthians, see Georgi 1986. 43  We do not have evidence of any ensuing correspondence between the Galatians and Paul or other travelers in Christ. Such evidence might help us to trace the further impact of travelers upon local populations. In the case of the Corinthian correspondence in the Christian Testament, we can trace the relations of Paul and others with a local ekkle¯sia over time. Things did not go well: the Corinthians in Christ welcomed other travelers and found Paul’s teachings and presence problematic. In the case of the Letter to the Philippians, we cannot trace a long durée of communications, but even within this one letter the sending and receiving of monies and persons is discussed with such vigor that it becomes clear that funding and the role of the emissary Epaphroditus – perhaps a slave or freedman – is at issue. Regarding “theo-economics” and financial discourse in Paul’s letters, see Quigley, “Divine Accounting: Theo-Economic Rhetoric in Philippians” (Th.D. diss., Harvard Divinity School, in progress); regard41  My

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ate with Christ. They come into town to pursue the Galatians, but then toy with the locals, according to Paul, creating the opposite situation: the locals are exploited as they are shut out and are instead forced to pursue the travelers in some way. The situation is (conveniently?) unclear as the rhetorical point made is that Paul seeks to act differently from other imposing travelers. In Galatians, Paul accuses other travelers of imposing on the community. He criticizes Cephas for imposing and disturbing locals. He even admits to imposing upon them himself. He discusses not only the theological but also the political implications of these impositions upon the ekkle¯siai of Galatia – and the term ekkle¯sia is of course that of the governing bodies of Greek cities even under the Roman Empire (Anna C. Miller 2015).44 To be sure, other letters of Paul recognize possible burdens of his and his co-workers’ travel upon others. In 1 Thess 2:9, Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy insist that they “worked night and day, that we might not burden any of you.” 1 Cor 9 offers a complex argument regarding whether or how Paul should be funded, in relation to others who travel to Corinth and other locations to teach Christ. Paul presents himself as a kind of temple worker, perhaps even a temple slave involved in sacrifice, who deserves some returns for the work in which he engages – food from the altar, in his words (1 Cor 9:13).45 At the same time, both 1 Cor 16:5–12 and 2 Cor 1:15– 16 indicate an expectation that the ekkle¯sia at Corinth will host and “send.” In Romans 15:24 Paul insinuates that he would like to receive funding for his travel further westward, to Spain, as well as hospitality in Rome itself.46 The letter to Philemon, Apphia, and Archippos uses the imperative: “Prepare a guestroom for me” (ἑτοίμαζέ μοι ξενίαν, 22). Later Christian texts like the Didache¯ give credence to the idea that Paul and other travelers in Christ might well be considered impositions47 by showing that the needs and demands of early travelers-in-Christ were subject to regulation by the local community (as we have seen even in the inscription of Sextus Sotidius). The Didache¯ likely dates to the early second century CE, and also contains elements of earlier Christian community regulations. Thus, this text is contemporaneous with the production of the Acts of the Apostles, with its poring the transactions of Philemon, see Schwaller, “The Use of Slaves in Early Christianity: Slaves as Subjects of Life and Thought” (Th.D. diss., Harvard Divinity School, in progress). 44  See also van Nijf and Alston, eds. 2011, esp.  1–26; see also Brélaz 2002. 45  See Nasrallah 2014. 46  I here leave aside the rich discussion of the “collection,” often discussed in tandem with 2 Corinthians 8 and 9. For a list of passages in the letters of Paul that treat hospitality, see Arterbury 2005, 100–10. 47  So too the correspondence in 2 Corinthians; see also Schellenberg 2011, although the framing is problematic: “What the Corinthian correspondence reveals, then, is the extent to which problematic relations with his churches could impinge on Paul’s travel plans,” (155) apparently raising the stakes in relation to “Paul’s precarious social location” (156). See also Harnack 1897 regarding possible tensions between local leadership and traveling missionaries; for this reference I am indebted to van der Watt 2015, esp.  17.

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trayal of Paul as heroic traveler along the roads and seaways especially of the eastern Empire (Johnson-DeBaufre and Nasrallah 2011). The Didache¯ directly addresses the issue of apostles, by which we should think not only of those who first followed Jesus, but also of those thereafter who claimed to be “sent forth.” Didache¯ 11 reads: 3. But act towards the apostles and prophets as the gospel decrees. 4. Let every apostle who comes to you be welcomed as the Lord. 5. But s/he should not remain more than a day. If s/he must s/he may stay one more. But if s/he stays three days, s/he is a false prophet. 6. When an apostle leaves s/he should take nothing except bread, until s/he arrives at his or her night’s lodging. If s/he asks for money, s/he is a false prophet. (LCL Ehrman, with slight modifications. The Apostolic Fathers, vol. I, ed. and trans. Bart D. Ehrman. 2003: 435)

The point is important enough that the Didache¯ reiterates it, applying it not only to apostles or prophets but also more generally to those “who come in the name of the Lord (ὁ ἐρχόμενος ἐν ὀνόματι κυρίου)” (12.1). The Didache¯ encourages the local community to host (“if the one who comes is passing through, help him or her as you are able”; εἰ μὲν παρόδιός48 ἐστιν ὁ ἐρχόμενος, βοηθεῖτε αὐτῷ, ὅσον δύνασθε). Yet it also warns against those who might impose for a longer time, insisting that the traveler practice a trade (ἐργαζέσθω 12.3). If the traveler wants to remain and yet does not want to work, that person is a christemporos. This term is often translated “Christ-peddler,” but perhaps “Christ-trafficker” is a better translation. The Greek emporos calls to mind connotations of travel and voyage – the market to which the likes of the Hierapolitan Titus Flavius Zeuxis responded in his many sailing voyages.49 In later Christian literature, namely the longer recension of the letters of Ignatius, this term “Christ-trafficker” is brought together with a term from Paul’s own letters, found in 2 Cor 2:17: “hawking” or “peddling”: “For we are not like the majority who are hawking the word of God.” Whether in 2 Corinthians, in the Didache, or in the later Christian imaginary of letters associated with Ignatius of Antioch, a critique is launched against those who market Christ, likely to communities that were poor and which were able to provide for each other out of their own poverty and scarcity, rather than by means of wealthy benefactors.50 The Letter to the Galatians and the Didache¯ respond to dynamics of power vastly different from those found in the Sextus Sotidius inscription. Yet there are parallels nonetheless. In the case of the Didache, a local community seeks to limit and adjudicate the impositions of travelers, preventing abuses of Christians by those who claim to be Christians who demand food, money, and hospitality. The Didache provides rules for community organization and expresses Liddell-Scott-Jones Greek-English Lexicon, s.v. παρόδιος. Liddell-Scott-Jones Greek-English Lexicon, s.v. ἔμπορος. 50 Meggitt 1998; Friesen 2004, 323–61; Longenecker 2010; Buell, 2008, 37–47; Friesen 2008, 17–36; Holman 2001. 48  49 

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some limits and tests that locals could use for those who traveled through and made demands, Christians though they be. In the case of the Letter to the Galatians, we find a view from the other side: a writer who is himself an imposing traveler, who discusses the disruptions that another traveler in Christ, Cephas, had caused in the community. These Galatians in Christ came from a region that knew the imposition of imperial travelers who make demands upon locals for food, shelter, and beasts of burden.

Conclusions New Testament scholarship, and the Roman historians who engage with New Testament texts, have focused on Paul’s journeys. They have often done so by reading the Acts of the Apostles as an objective mapping of Paul’s travels and his role as heroic missionary. Such a framework has led us to ignore the complex or deleterious consequences of such travel on local populations. This chapter has instead focused on the local impact of journeying, asking how those who traveled brought benefits and especially consequences to those willing, obliged, or forced to host and accommodate such travelers. In doing so, the lens has turned away from Acts, and away from Paul alone, and onto local communities, particularly in Galatia. This chapter has sprung from a desire to consider earliest Christian journeys – really, before we can use the terminology of Christian – as a social history of those to whom the journeyers came.51 When the earliest communities in Christ took on the name ekkle¯sia, they borrowed from the terminology and practices of the political bodies of Greek cities of the Roman East (Miller 2015).52 They were likely attuned to their role as adjudicators of deliberative discourse and as political bodies analogous to the ekkle¯siai of their cities, even if they were marginalized and small, even tiny, in relation to such groups (John S. Kloppenborg 2013: 183–215).53 Rostovzeff early on asserted that the responsibilities of the imperial cursus publicus fell primarily on the “administrative units of the Empire, the cities” (Llewelyn 63). 51 

In this vein consider feminist work, e.g. Wire 1990; Kahl 2010. van Nijf and Alston 2011, 5–7, esp.  9: “We may even say that the Greek polis reached its acme in the Roman imperial period. Under the Roman emperors the Greek polis flourished as never before. This was not simply a case of old cities surviving against all odds; rather Roman emperors themselves promoted the polis as the dominant model of social and political organisation throughout the Greek-speaking provinces. To millions of people the polis was not just a place of residence, but seems to have continued as the prime focus for political and social identification. Even Roman colonies in Greece, as for example Patras or Corinth, ultimately presented a fully Hellenised appearance.” 53  Stowers 2011, 238–56, pushes us away from the vague term “community.” He finds philosophical schools as the analog for early Christian ekkle¯siai. Others, e.g., Kloppenborg et al., find instead the voluntary associations; Ascough, Harland, and Kloppenborg 2012. 52 Also

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Analogously, the responsibilities, consequences – and any benefits – for the travels of Paul, Cephas, and others, seems to have fallen primarily on the ekkle¯ siai of the region of Galatia. Looking closely at the transport requisition inscription from Sagalassos allows us to draw a larger context for travel and its abuses in the Roman period. This larger context does not mean that all travelers were abusive to locals, nor that all locals felt all travelers to be an imposition, even if those claiming to travel in the name of the kyrioi sebastoi, the imperial lords and masters, might be particularly and “unjustly,” to use Germanicus’s word, demanding of locals. Nonetheless, even the Letter to the Galatians, and certainly the Didache¯, indicate how disruptive and imposing those who traveled in the name of kyrios Christos could sometimes be.

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Early Roman Empire and the Rise of Christianity, ed. Leif E. Vaage. Studies in Christianity and Judaism 18. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, pp.  3 –20. van der Watt, Jan G. 2015. “On Hospitality in 3 John: An Evaluation of the Response of Malina to Malherbe.” In The New Testament in the Greco-Roman World: Essays in Honour of Abe Malherbe, ed. Marius Nel, Jan G. van der Watt, and Fika J. van Rensburg. Vienna: LIT, pp.  15–33. van Nijf, Onno, and Richard Alston, eds. 2011. Political Culture in the Greek City after the Classical Age. Leuven: Peeters. Walbank, Frank W. 2003. “The Via Egnatia: Its Role in Roman Strategy.” In La Via Egnatia, Da Apollonia e Dyrrachium ad Herakleia Lynkestidos, by Michele Fasolo. Rome: Istituto grafico editoriale romano, pp. i–ix. Wills, Lawrence M. 1991. “The Depiction of the Jews in Acts.” Journal of Biblical Literature 110/4: 631–54. Wire, Antoinette Clark. 1990. The Corinthian Women Prophets: A Reconstruction through Paul’s Rhetoric. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. Woolf, Greg. 2015. “Pliny/Trajan and the Poetics of Empire.” Classical Philology 110: 132–51.

“Lead Me Forth in Peace”: The Origins of the Wayfarer’s Prayer and Rabbinic Rituals of Travel in the Roman World Sarit Kattan Gribetz* Invoco vos Lares Viales ut me bene tutetis (Plautus, Mercator 865)

‫את כל אהן דאת אזיל אלהך עמך הה"ד כה' אלהינו בכל קראינו אליו‬ (y. Ber. 9:1, 13b) χυ ευλογη σον την εισο δον και την ε ξο δον ημων αμη (Inscription, Syria) 1

The last chapter of the rabbinic tractate Berakhot in the Mishnah lists a miscellaneous group of blessings to be recited at various sightings and on different occasions in everyday life. Those include spots in which miracles have transpired, or in which shooting stars, lightning, and thunder are observed; in the presence of the geographical grandeur of mountains, hills, seas, rivers, and deserts; during earthquakes and storms; or upon settling into a new home. The list also includes reference to a prayer about travel: “One who enters a city should pray twice, once on his entrance and once on his exit” (m. Berakhot 9:4).2 A slight modification, attributed to Ben Azzai (or to Rabbi Simeon in the Tosefta), suggests that a traveler must actually deliver four prayers, “twice on his entering and twice on his exiting.”3 In Ben Azzai’s expansive rendition of the prayer, one *  Many thanks to Maren Niehoff for the kind invitation to participate in the conference from which this volume developed, and to Maren, Mika Ahuvia, Tali Banin, Anthony Bibawy, Menachem Butler, Jonathan Gribetz, Daniel Picus, Chris Sweeney, Jennifer Udell, and Moulie Vidas for help along the way. 1  Inscriptions grecques et latines de la Syrie, inscription 431, p.  240, inscribed on the lintel or wall of an unidentified house; the inscription indicates that it was dedicated in 510 CE (the month of Lôos, in the third indiction of the 558th year according to the Syro-Macedonian calendar), and contains a cross with a nomina sacra. 2  The term that I have translated as “city” is ‫כרך‬. It can mean more specifically a fortified place, or a capital city, and is used in rabbinic sources for both Jerusalem and Rome. In this passage, though, it seems simply to refer to any city, in contrast to a much smaller village or countryside – the distinction is that of urban rather than rural space. 3  The Tosefta manuscripts vary, and some of them attribute this opinion to Ben Azzai, as the Mishnah does. Lieberman suggests that the saying might have originated with “Simeon [ben Azzai]” (Lieberman 2001, 118).

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is required not only to pray for safe entry and exit, but also to express general gratitude towards God for that which has passed, and to supplicate for that which awaits in the future. The parallel drawn between geographical space (entry into and exit from urban centers) and linear temporality (passing from past to future) is intriguing, especially in light of late antique metaphors, pervasive in Greek and Latin literature and philosophy, that depict life as a journey or a voyage by sea.4 Travel – like life – in late antiquity was often a perilous endeavor (unsurprisingly, the English term “travel” is rooted in the Old French “travail”),5 and rabbinic prayers of travel tap into the web of fears associated with even the most local of journeys: encountering natural dangers, human enemies, deviant religious practices, and competing intellectual ideas, or crossing real and imagined boundaries. This paper traces the history and development of rabbinic travel prayers, and locates them within the cultural and religious context of the Roman Empire, in which fears concerning travel persisted even during the pax Romana and the construction of an elaborate system of imperial roads, which made journeys safer than ever before. This paper will pursue four avenues of interest: the history and development of rabbinic travel prayers, from Mishnah Berakhot to the Babylonian Talmud’s “tefillat haderekh” (a wayfarer’s prayer); the fears underlying these prayers and their varied articulation by tannaitic and amoraic rabbis in Palestinian and Babylonian sources; the Roman imperial context of rabbinic travel rituals and alternative non-Jewish rituals of this kind in the Greek east; and the historical practicalities of travel in the region, urban-rural relations, cartographical strategies and landscapes, and fears about communal boundaries that can be gleaned from close analysis of these rabbinic travel prayers. I will pursue these four topics through a close reading of the mishnaic prayers concerning travel, their reinterpretation in later rabbinic texts, and their place within Roman and Christian rituals and materials of travel.

4  E.g. Philo, De specialibus legibus 2.42–55; Seneca, De brevitate vitae 18.1–6 and De tranquilitate animi 5.11–12. Both Philo and Seneca agree that life is a stormy voyage – due to natural and human causes, in private and public life – and that finding secure anchorage and a peaceful harbor is a worthy goal. They might both be referring specifically to the life of a public figure as a voyage on the doubly rough seas of public service and private relationships. On travel in the writings of Seneca, see Montiglio 2006, 553–86. 5  On which see Horden 2004, 121. We learn of the travails of travel in antiquity not only from literary sources but also from documentary materials. One papyrus (BGU 13.2350) mentions a certain Aphrodite who, on her way to Alexandria, suffered a travel-related injury and was delayed in returning home; another (P.Oxy. 14.1773) lists a series of obstacles faced by Eutychis on her journey to Oxyrhynchus; both documents are discussed in Bagnall and Cribiore 2006, 82–83. Paul mentions a particularly dramatic list of misfortunes during land and sea travel in 1 Corinthians 11:25–26, and complications of travel in late ancient Egypt are discussed in Adams 2001, 154–58.

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I argue that rabbinic travel prayers underwent significant transformations from their earliest appearances in the Mishnah to their later versions in the Babylonian Talmud. 6 Palestinian sources articulate fears about traveling on the road (particularly about the potential dangers during roadside prayer breaks); they conceive of travel prayers, however, not as encompassing all travelers and all forms of travel, but rather as prayers aimed specifically at entering and exiting urban centers. The wording of the prayers as they are preserved in Palestinian sources, in the Tosefta and the Palestinian Talmud, reflect this focus. While these earlier Palestinian sources attest to a more limited set of prayers for certain types of trips to urban centers, the Babylonian Talmud introduces a general wayfarer’s prayer, which it titles “tefillat haderekh,” for protection during all types of travels, meant to safeguard travelers at any point in their journey. I also argue that Palestinian rabbinic travel prayers were one of several forms of piety found on the Roman roads, and ought to be considered within this context. Greco-Roman sources (textual and material) about rituals of travel reveal that customs of requesting safety on a journey, marking points of transition, praying on the road, and offering thanksgiving upon safe return were shared by many in the Roman Empire, and reach far beyond the rabbinic community. The Roman roads and city entrances might thus be regarded not only as pathways for movement and transportation and as distinctly Roman displays of imperial power (which of course they were), but also as locations for various pious practices, and thus important sites for the enactment of “religion” by rabbis and others in the Roman east. It should be noted at the outset that it is unclear, based on the rabbinic sources, whether the term “prayer” (tefillah) or “blessing” (berakhah) is best applied to the recitations required of travelers. Some rabbinic manuscripts and printed editions use the root ‫פלל‬, while others employ ‫ ברך‬for the same supplication.7 For the sake of clarity, I use the term “prayer,” as in “the wayfarer’s prayer,” throughout the paper, even though the status of the latter as prayer, rather than blessing, is itself a question widely debated in medieval sources and among Talmudic commentators.8

6 

For a brief overview of tefillat haderekh in later traditions, see Nulman 1996, 318–19. MS Kaufman of m. Berakhot 9:4 uses ‫ ;פלל‬the Vilna and Erfurt manuscripts of t. Berakhot 6:16 both use ‫פלל‬, but the first printed edition of the Tosefta uses ‫( ברך‬on which see Lieberman, ed., 37). I have chosen to use the term “prayer” because the majority of manuscripts and editions use ‫פלל‬, even though it appears in a chapter about blessings. 8  On the debates surrounding the status of this obligation in the Babylonian Talmud and its medieval commentary tradition, see Schwartz 2016, 363–69, and Lieberman’s discussion in Tosefta Kipeshuta: Seder Zeraim, Berakhot, 118. E.g. Rashi, in his commentary on the Mishnah, states that it is a prayer rather than a blessing, while the Meiri insists that it is a blessing; Tosafot discusses the status of tefillat haderakh on b. Pesachim 104b, and explains that it is not a blessing because it does not begin with “‫ברוך‬.” 7 

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Prayers and Travel in Mishnah Berakhot Themes of travel, prayers during travel and prayers for safe travel appear frequently within the Mishnah’s first tractate, Berakhot. The theme of travel bookends the tractate, linking prayer, place, and travel in a web of rules and rituals. Regulations for prayer during travel feature centrally in the tractate’s opening chapter (and elsewhere), while prayers for protection on future trips are outlined in the tractate’s concluding chapter. These mishnaic discussions are the earliest existing indication of rabbinic fears about traveling and their ritual responses to them. They exhibit, on the one hand, concerns regarding travelers’ roadside prayer breaks, and, on the other, anxiety about travel to and within cities. The Babylonian Talmud eventually combined these two sets of fears in the more expansive wayfarer’s prayer. The very first reference to travel in this mishnaic tractate appears in a story attributed to Rabbi Tarfon who, having reclined during his recitation of the Shema while on a journey, made himself vulnerable to robbers on the road. The brief episode unfolds as follows: Rabbi Tarfon said: I was once on a journey and I reclined to recite [the Shema] in accordance with the words of the School of Shammai, and so I put myself in jeopardy because of [potential] robbers. They said to him: You would have deserved anything that would have happened to you because you transgressed the words of the School of Hillel! (m. Berakhot 1:3) 9

The School of Shammai interprets the passage from Deut 6:7, “when you lie down and when you rise,” as indicating that a person must recline in the evening recitation of the Shema and stand up during the morning recitation. According to the School of Hillel, this passage only indicates times of day, not bodily positions. Rabbi Tarfon is rebuked for reclining and told that, had he been attacked by robbers on the road exploiting this position to physically harm or rob him, he would have deserved his fate, for he failed to observe the prevailing rabbinic opinion about the Shema. The story is used, within the Mishnah, to underscore the logic behind the School of Hillel’s halakhah not to recline, and to polemicize against the School of Shammai; yet the story is logical and effective only because it assumes – and indeed capitalizes on – fears, common to the time, of travel and road crime.10 In his study of latrocinium in the Roman empire, Brent Shaw argues that “banditry appears as integral to the functioning of imperial 9  Trans. Danby, 2, with modifications. Albeck suggests that the answer to Rabbi Tarfon can be understood as follows: even had he been killed on the road, he would have deserved it. 10  On which see Shaw 2003 [1984], 3–52, who writes: “Latrones were men who threatened the social and moral order of the state by the use of private violence in pursuit of their aims” (4). Shaw also cites the second-century medical author Galen, who wrote in On Anatomical Procedures 1.2 that he encountered “a skeleton of a bandit lying on rising ground by the roadside. He had been killed by some traveler repelling his attack” (5).

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society” (2003 [1984]: 8) Indeed early rabbis, as the Mishnah here makes evident, accommodated their halakhah and their writings to banditry’s ubiquitous presence in their society.11 The dangers of travel are apparently so great that even the performance of the very first rabbinic ritual, the recitation of the ­Shema, does not protect travelers from harm. Moreover, the recitation must be altered to avoid further danger.12 Traveling on Roman roads is thus directly ­established in the Mishnah as a dangerous endeavor, which demands caution even during prayer to God. The earliest allusion to the obligation of praying for a safe journey appears in the fourth chapter of tractate Berakhot in its discussion of the recitation of the Amidah, the Eighteen Benedictions. Despite the requirement to recite the Amidah daily, a passage attributed to Rabbi Joshua instructs that an abridged version of the Amidah be used when traveling in areas of danger, to avoid halting for longer than necessary as a measure of caution and a form of self-preservation: “He who journeys in a place of danger should pray a short prayer, saying, ‘Save, O Lord, the remnant of Israel; at their every crossroad (‫ )כבל פרשת העיבור‬let their needs come before you. Blessed are you, O Lord, who hears prayer” (m. Berakhot 4:4).13 This shortened version is not a segment of the existing Amidah but a prayer that alludes to the traveler’s precarious condition at a moment of transition and transit. It is only required when the traveler considers the trip a perilous one.14 This same mishnaic discussion also provides instructions on

11  Shaw adds that one set of sources in which we see its impact is in Roman laws designed to deal with the phenomenon: “I do not mean this statement to be understood in some obvious sense, as for example in the existence of many laws directed at the repression of bandits. Rather I am thinking of a more subtle intrusion of the phenomenon into numerous laws that have no obvious or direct connection with banditry. In these laws brigandage constantly surfaces as a peripheral item, though one of common concern, much in the manner of earthquakes, tempests on the high seas and other ‘natural disasters.’ That is to say, banditry is mentioned as one of those external occurrences that could affect almost any legal act from the deposition of a will to the signing of building contracts, to sales agreements, marriages and the transfer of dowry” (8). Here in the Mishnah, we see rabbinic ritual law from within the empire contending with banditry as well. Shaw also discusses the dangers of travel due to bandits in the provinces and Judaea as it appears in legal and literary sources. 12  In later rabbinic sources, this narrative becomes the focal point for many examples and guidelines for proper ritual conduct when one prays on a journey. There are other dimensions of the spatiality of prayer and benediction that play an important role in the way in which the Shema, Amidah, grace after meals, and other prayer and blessings are conceived in the tractate, and the sites of the synagogue, the home, and the table at which those prayers are usually situated. Time and temporality are also important themes in the rabbinic discussions of prayer in this tractate, on which see Gribetz 2015, 58–84. 13  Trans. Danby, 5. Other versions of this abbreviated prayer are found in t. Berakhot 3:11 and y. Berakhot 4:4, 8b; the tannaitic versions recorded in the Mishnah and Tosefta, in addition to another one introduced in the Babylonian Talmud, are discussed in b. Berakhot 29b, where ‫ עיבור‬is not translated as crossroads in travel, but as moments of life transitions. 14 In t. Berakhot 3:7 (ed. Lieberman, 13), the abbreviated prayer for those traveling in unsafe areas does not mention travel at all: ‫ותן נחת רוח לריאיך והטוב בעיניך עשה ברוך שומע תפילה ממעל יעשה רצונך בשמים‬         . ‫יך והטוב בעיניך עשה‬ ‫ותן נחת רוח לריא‬

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how to recite the Amidah on the road: “If he was riding on an ass he should dismount [to pray]. If he cannot dismount he should turn his face [toward Jerusalem]. … If he was journeying on a ship or raft he should direct his heart toward the Holy of Holies.” Yet although these are instructions for a journey, they do not concern a prayer specifically intended for safe travels; they mandate ways of reciting the Amidah during a journey (m. Berakhot 4:5).15 Rabbi Joshua’s prayer is thus not primarily for or about travel; it is primarily a transformed and drastically abbreviated recitation for a traveler to fulfill the obligation of daily prayer without risking personal safety during a trip in precarious territory, while also asking God for protection at the crossroads. A second reference to a prayer for travelers appears in the ninth chapter of Mishnah Berakhot. The prayer in this tractate is not an abbreviated or adapted version of another, and it specifically concerns passage into and out of the city. Interestingly, in contrast to the other blessings detailed in this tractate, no specific wording is provided; the text only commands that a prayer be recited upon entry and exit. This is still not a general travel prayer, however, because of its focus on specifically urban passage; comprehensive travel prayers are a later rabbinic development. Still, it is innovative and it has no pre-rabbinic precedent. In his study of this mishnaic chapter, Ishay Rosen-Zvi maintains that the entire set of benedictions that “do not have fixed time and context but rather respond to external events or phenomena” is “unique and unprecedented … in any pre-rabbinic or adjacent culture” (2007: 25).16 The novelty of this prayer, as well as of the other blessings and prayers found in this chapter, differs from those discussed earlier in the tractate (e.g. the Shema, the Amidah, and the meal blessings), which have biblical or second temple antecedents.17 The entire ninth chapter of tractate Berakhot can be read as a set of rituals that marks the landscape as sacred and familiar through the language of blessing and prayer. The chapter is structured around the overarching theme of space and its historical, miraculous, natural, domestic, urban, and cultic significance. The set of blessings maps benedictions onto topography or geographical landscape, providing a suitable thematic context for the introduction of the first rabbinic travel prayer. The chapter begins with a particularly dramatic mapping of territory, as the first blessings pertain to places linked with the divine: the very first blessing ought to be recited upon arrival at sites of past miraculous events, and the second at sites from which idolatry has been rooted out (m. Berakhot 9:1). These blessings are theological markers of space – they distinguish localities in 15 

Trans. Danby, 5. Cf. idem. 2008, 1–29. 17  Perhaps like the last chapter of Mishnah Pesahim, which also includes rabbinic practices for the Passover after the destruction of the temple, on which see Bokser 1986. On the question of the antiquity of the Shema, the subject of the beginning of tractate Berakhot, see Gribetz 2015, 58–84. 16 

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which God performed miracles on behalf of Israel, or in which Israel glorified God by eradicating other gods.18 Blessings in the chapter’s second mishnah continue the theme of space. They focus on the encounter with impressive geological and hydrological sites: mountains, hills, seas, rivers, and deserts. They also include an aside attributed to Rabbi Judah about viewing and blessing the Mediterranean Sea (m. Berakhot 9:2).19 These are all natural geographical places, and they are paired with blessings for other feats of nature, including lightning and thunder, shooting stars, earthquakes, and rain. The chapter’s third mishnah addresses familial and personal matters and begins, not coincidentally, with the physical space of a house. According to the text, upon building a new house and acquiring new domestic objects one must express gratitude towards God for giving life (m. Berakhot 9:3). This section also employs the domestic sphere to stage an important lesson. It capitalizes on an individual’s relationship to home and its dwellers to convey the importance of avoiding vain prayer. An example is related of an individual who, returning from a journey, hears cries from the city and prays they do not originate from his own home. Prayer, it is posited, is too late at this point; the cause of sorrow is already a fait accompli. This example functions as a compelling transition to the next section, centered on departures from home.20 This next mishnah addresses communal space and urban development, and includes the aforementioned prayer on urban passage (m. Berakhot 9:4). In this mishnah, the city is perceived as a site of comings and goings. The chapter then takes different directions, first presenting the idea that blessings ought to be recited for both positive and negative aspects of life, and then addressing specific rules about blessings in the Temple and at the Temple Mount. The mishnaic chapter thus moves from (1) theological and historical space to (2) natural and geographical space to (3) personal and domestic space to (4) urban and communal space, and finally to (5) ritual and cultic space. Moshe Halbertal and Ishay Rosen-Zvi have both pointed out the temporal shifts that animate this chapter of tractate Berakhot.21 In their respective analy18  The two types of sites, the first a positive marker of space, the second a negative one (removal of the non-divine reasserts the power of true divinity), become loci for the recitation of different blessings. 19  The wording of one of the blessings in this section is telling – it describes God’s might as “filling the world,” emphasizing God’s presence as permeating physical space, similar to the first mishnah in which God’s miracles or dominance mark the physical landscape, on which see Rosen-Zvi 2007, 25–56. 20  In MS Kaufman, the last section of this mishnah, about prayers recited in vain (praying for the sex of one’s baby once a woman has conceived, or praying that the cries from a city are not coming from one’s home), appears as the beginning of the fourth mishnah, and the prayer about traveling in and out of cities is included as the second half of this mishnah. The organization makes good sense, as it consolidates the instances of travel into one mishnah. 21  Halbertal (2001, 27–28) has argued that the chapter is composed of various parts; the middle section about travel along with the halakhot that immediately precede it do not, in his analysis, fit with the rest of the chapter. He observes that the incongruence lies in the differ-

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ses, the first set of benedictions commemorates past events such as historic miracles and instances in which idolatry was eliminated from the land. The second set acknowledges divine presence in current natural phenomena, that is, in the ongoing present. This temporal alternation correlates with both the discussion on vain prayer (the inability to pray for predetermined outcomes), and the earlier-mentioned travel prayers that not only point back in time but also forward to ensure a good future through safe returns.22 The spatial and temporal themes of the chapter intersect, and the careful curation of the many parts of Mishnah Berakhot’s last chapter highlights this duality. Worshippers mark certain territories with blessings because these places gesture towards a theological past, or because the natural landscape attests to the divine sphere in the present, and still other places allude to the need for continued protection in the future. Travel is an activity that can only occur through time and space – one moves through time and territory on a trip, and one encounters aspects of the past, present and future embedded into physical places during a journey. In Mishnah Berakhot, then, the theme of travel is linked to prayer in the tractate’s account of the recitation of the Shema, in the discussions of the Amidah, and in the final list of miscellaneous blessings. The dangers of travel are acknowledged repeatedly, and the alteration of liturgical practices is encouraged for the purpose of protecting travelers. This entails, for example, forging special bodily positions during recitation, abridging or reformulating prayers, and adding new prayers during certain types of trips. What comes closest to a traveler’s prayer is a recitation limited in scope, which applies only to those who travel to cities. The text of this prayer is not presented; all that is mentioned, rather, is the city traveler’s obligation to pray upon entry and exit. On these sparse details, the Tosefta and the amoraic sources expand.

Entering and Exiting Urban Space in Tosefta Berakhot 6:16 The Tosefta, too, contemplates prayers of passage into and out of cities. In contrast to the Mishnah, however, it specifies the wording of the prayer. On entering the city, one must recite “               ‫( ” יהי רצון מלפניך ה אלהי שאכנס לשלום‬may it be your will, Lord my God, that I enter in peace). Having entered safely, one utters ence between the benedictions that praise God, and those inserted prayers that request something of God, and argues from a stylistic perspective that reading mishnayot 1 and 2 and 5 together (skipping over 3 and 4) highlights that this was the original piece before the insertion. Nonetheless, Rosen-Zvi argues that the chapter has a coherent thematic logic of its own and thus points to a thoughtful redactor whose new organization also makes good sense (RosenZvi 2007, 25–46). My outline of the spatial theme that runs through the chapter likewise points to a deliberate structuring of the chapter by a redactor. Kraemer 2015, 115–30 also notes the focus on space and place at the beginning of the ninth chapter of tractate Berakhot. 22  Rosen-Zvi 2007, 27–38.

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‫( ”מודה אני לפניך ה אלהי שהכנסתני לשלום כן יהי רצון מלפניך ה אלהי שתוציאני לשלום‬I thank “                              you Lord my God that you brought me in in peace, may it be your will Lord my God that you will bring me out in peace), and finally, upon peaceful exit: “                                 ‫( ” מודה אני לפניך ה אלהי שהוצאתני לשלום כן יהי רצון מלפניך ה אלהי שתגיעני למקומי לשלום‬I thank you Lord my God that you brought me out in peace, may it be your will Lord my God that you will deliver me at my [final] place in peace; t. Berakhot 6:21).23 Interestingly, the final prayer not only thanks God for ensuring a peaceful exit, but also requests a safe arrival at the final destination. It thus provides a liturgical formula to the Mishnah’s instructions to mark not only entry and exit but to ask God for safety in the future. Albeit still a secondary part of the prayer ritual in the Tosefta, this is the earliest indication of a shift of focus from exit and entry to the inclusion of the act of travel. The Mishnah and Tosefta theologically map blessings and prayers specifically onto the territory of Roman Palestine. This point becomes especially clear in the Tosefta.24 In both texts, a particularly complicated cultural landscape is reflected. On one hand, the territory is imagined as a biblical land, associated with mythical, miraculous, and historical events detailed in scriptural texts, and on the other, the same land is understood to be ruled by an idolatrous empire and abounding in Roman temples, monumental buildings, altars, and bathhouses. The series of blessings in the last chapter of Berakhot exhibits the anxiety of the rabbis in traversing this diverse and often dangerous landscape, and their need to mark the land both physically and verbally, through the language of prayer and blessing. Illustrating this point is an interesting parallel prayer featured in the Tosefta alongside the aforementioned discussion of city prayers: “He who enters a bathhouse recites two benedictions, one upon entering and one upon leaving” (t. Berakhot 6:17).25 The prayer for visiting a bathhouse overlaps with that for a visit to a city: in both cases, one is required to ask God for safe entering and exiting. Appended to the bathhouse prayer, however, is a plea to avoid accidents, and a request that an accident, should it occur, be considered atonement for one’s sins. At the end of a visit to the bathhouse, the Tosefta encourages its read23 

I quote here MS Vilna according to Lieberman, ed., 35–36. This is not dissimilar to the marking of space through other rabbinic practices, including the eruv and the tehum, the subject of studies by Fonrobert 2005, 9–35, and Klein 2015, 33–48. 25  Interestingly, a prayer for the entry to and exit from a house of study is mentioned in m. Berakhot 4:2; there, it is framed as an anecdote rather than an obligation: “R. Nehunya b. ha-Kanah used to pray a short prayer when he entered the House of Study and when he came forth. They said to him, ‘What is the nature of this prayer?’ He replied, ‘When I enter to pray that no offence shall happen through me, and when I come forth I give thanks for my lot’” (trans. Danby, 5). The way that the blessing is described in this mishnah resonates with the prayer for travel in the later rabbinic sources as well, and perhaps it served as the basis of the traveler’s prayer as it is given in the Babylonian Talmud, discussed below. See also the discussion of this mishnah in y. Berakhot 4:4, 8b and b. Berakhot 28b. 24 

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ers to recite, “I thank you for bringing me out safely. So may it be your will to bring me home safely.” The city and the bathhouse (which in some senses is conceived as the social center of a city) are associated here not only through similar entry/exit prayers, but also because the latter prayer regards the act of emerging unscathed from a bathhouse as the first step of a longer journey home (“so may it be your will to bring me home safely”). The Palestinian Talmud also draws a parallel between a trip to the city and a visit to the bathhouse. In the interpretation of m. Berakhot 4:4 in y. Berakhot 4:4 14b, following a statement attributed to Rabbi Simeon bar Abba that declares that all roads must be assumed to be dangerous, the text adds that when Rabbi Mana went to a heated bathhouse, he gave instructions to those in his household about what to do should he die there. These passages present a trip to a city and a trip to a bathhouse as similarly perilous.26 Indeed, in rabbinic sources, bathhouses are portrayed as urbanity at its most crowded and intense, and the bathhouse becomes a symbol of the city. In what ways are the city and the bathhouse similar? They are both spaces of dense population and gathering; they are manmade rather than natural (visiting a bathhouse is not the same as bathing in a river); and they include urban, public structures and complexes. The rabbis express ambivalence toward the space of the bathhouse,27 as they did toward cities in Roman Palestine more generally.28 Roman bathhouses, as Yaron Eliav details, reflected “the engineering and architectural competence of the Romans, their cultural practices and social customs” (2000: 419), and the structures embodied Roman technological sophistication.29 They contained various rooms, windows, aqueducts, arches, mosaic floors, 26  In this section of the Palestinian Talmud there is also a passage about Rabbi Yona, who made the same declaration when he visited an inn, another liminal space that visitors frequented on their trips and that represented a place between the city and that which lay beyond it (because inns were located not at the center of cities but on their outskirts). 27  See e.g. Seth Schwartz 2001, 335–61. 28  The rabbis shared sentiments about urban life with others, including Philo of Alexandria, who expressed his critiques of the city despite being a thoroughly urban dweller himself, and Juvenal, who actively encouraged people to escape from Roman city life in his third Satire. On Philo, see Quod deterius potiori insidiari soleat 99, 174; De specialibus legibus 3.37, 2.44–45, De ebrietate 78–79, De Abrahamo 20–23, De Dacalogo 2–17, De vita Moysis 2.34– 36, De sacrificiis Abelis et Caini 50, all of which are discussed in Runia 2000, 361–79. Juvenal insists that cities are only for evil and dishonest people who are prepared to do dishonorable work; consider this passage: “Let the men who turn black into white stay on, men who find it easy to take on the contracts for temples, rivers, harbors, for draining floods and transporting corpses to the pyre–men who offer themselves for sale under the spear-sign of ownership. These former horn-players–the permanent followers of country shows, their rounded cheeks a familiar sight through all the towns–now stage gladiatorial shows themselves and kill to please when the city mob demands it with a twist of the thumb. From that, they go back to their contracts for operating the public urinals–and why draw the line at anything? After all, they’re the type that Fortune raises up from the gutter to a mighty height whenever she fancies a laugh” (Juvenal, Satire 3.10–11; trans. LCL, 168–69). 29  On Roman bathhouses in Jewish contexts, see Eliav 2000, 416–54.

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frescoes and other adornments, and statues. They were, in a sense, micro-cities. One literally journeys through the rooms of a bathhouse, as on a more extended trip, and entering into such a space might have been considered by the rabbis similar to entering the very heart of the city. The institution of the bathhouse was also one of social interaction, and in this way, too, it represented an alternative to the Roman forum or other places of intellectual and philosophical exchange. The rabbis viewed the bathhouse, like the city itself, as a locus of idolatry, on the one hand, but at the same time also as a space that could not be avoided.30 In the Tosefta, as in the Mishnah, the prayer for travel is limited to entering and exiting cities, but the Tosefta elaborates on the Mishnah’s ideas in three central ways. First, it records the text of the prayers, previously unmentioned; second, it adds a phrase in the last prayer that shifts the focus to travel itself, rather than exclusively on entry and exit; and third, it aligns the prayer for city travel with the prayer for a safe journey to the bathhouse, pointing to the particular context for rabbinic fears of cities and their various dangers. We thus see the elaboration and expansion of the prayer itself, and the ways in which it was imagined in a particularly Roman urban landscape.

The Dangers of the City and the Need for Protection in Yerushalmi Berakhot 9:4, 14b The Palestinian Talmud’s discussion of the prayer for entering and exiting cities expands on the Mishnah and the Tosefta. As with the latter, it includes the content of the travel prayers, requesting, and later giving thanks for, safe arrivals (y. Berakhot 9:4, 14b).31 The Palestinian Talmud also explains, however, that the prayers apply only to those traveling through areas of gentile settlements, and not through Jewish ones. What did the rabbis of the Palestinian Talmud fear about the prospect of entering and exiting gentile cities? I suggest that two interrelated issues were at work: first, the rabbis feared entering a territory in which they were not only “others” but also minorities; and secondly, they feared 30 

E.g. Halbertal 1998, 159–72. The Palestinian Talmud first lists two prayers, to accord with the Mishnah’s first opinion that two prayers are required, and then it lists four separate prayers, in line with Ben Azzai/Rabbi Simeon/Simeon ben Azzai’s opinion in the Mishnah and Tosefta that there are two prayers upon entry and two upon exit. (The Tosefta combines the final two into one more extended prayer, which perhaps it counted as two separate prayers.) I reproduce the four blessings here: 1. ‫יהי רצון מלפניך ה' אלהי ואלהי אבותי שתכניסני לכרך זה בשלום‬ 2. ‫מודה אני לפניך ה' אלהי ואלהי אבותי שנכנסתי לשלום כן יהי רצון מלפניך שתוציאני מתוכו לשלום‬ 3. ‫יהי רצון מלפניך ה' אלהי שתוציאנו מכרך זה לשלום‬ 4. ‫מודה אני לפניך ה' אלהי שהוצאתני לשלום כן יהי רצון מלפניך שתוליכני לביתי לשלום או למקום פלוני לשלום‬ 31 

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that gentile spaces, which they perceived as idolatrous, posed substantial threats to their overall efforts to avoid idolatry. In his study of what he terms “Religion on the Road,” Steven Muir identifies a two-fold fear of travel in Greek and Roman antiquity. In addition to the “obvious and practical hardships of travel, such as uncertainties associated with the journey, en route accommodation, and destination,” there was an additional anxiety about “how one’s social identity becomes precarious when one is separated from the primary social groupings of family and fellow citizens” (2011: 30).32 He argues that “the gods were invoked and encountered on the road not only as powerful divine beings who offered protection, but also as omnipresent patron-witnesses who knew the person ‘back home’ and whose reassuring presence would help maintain a person’s identity while traveling” (ibid.).33 This fear of identity loss would have been most acute, I suspect, when traveling not only away from home and from one’s familiar social context, but when entering the space of the ‘other.’ This ‘other’, the majority overpowering the Jewish minority, was moreover considered hostile and threatening in the Palestinian Talmud.34 It is hence not only the normative dangers of travel and cities in general, but this particular circumstance that requires prayer to God for safe crossing. Divine guidance is needed to enter those territories construed as decidedly different, foreign, and forbidden. Fear of the ‘other’ merges, in rabbinic sources, the fear of idolatrous worship. In tractate Avodah Zarah, the Mishnah details restrictions about traveling to cities in which idolatrous practices are performed, particularly before, during, and after Roman festivals.35 The discussion of idolatry in that tractate is strikingly spatial, as regulations on commerce in cities containing idols (within the urban space and without) are debated, and travel on certain roads leading to gentile cities is prohibited on Roman festivals for fear of encountering or inadvertently participating in idolatrous worship (m. Avodah Zarah 1:4). In addition, entry into certain urban shops is prohibited. Further emphasizing idolatry’s spatial dimension are rules regarding the reconstruction of a damaged wall shared with a pagan temple, or regarding the space of the bathhouse.36 These rulings remind the Mishnah’s readers of the pervasiveness of idolatry in the urban landscape of Roman Palestine. Palestinian rabbis thus presumably instituted prayers for entry into such cities in order to ensure the safety – bodily and 32  See Muir 2011, 29–47. The mundane/profane dangers of travel were, of course, ever present as well, on which see Adams 2001, 138–66. 33  The Greek terms for travel – apodemein and ekdemain – themselves signal the idea of being away from one’s neighborhood and from that which is familiar. Interestingly, in the rabbinic sources, the prayer is framed in terms of approaching unfamiliar territory, going in, as opposed to leaving the familiar, or going out. 34  Especially so because of specifically urban crime within the empire. 35  E.g. Hezser 2011, 301–4. 36 E.g. m. Avodah Zarah 1:4, 2:1, 2:5, 3:4–7.

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religious – of those who found themselves venturing into idolatrous urban ­spaces. These interrelated fears of both the “other” and idolatry thus combined with the normative dangers of travel and further haunted rabbinic travelers. One important narrative in this chapter of the Palestinian Talmud taps into the dangers of travel, the fear of idolatry, and the efficacy of Jewish prayer to protect an individual on a journey. The narrative, set during a sea voyage rather than on a journey into the heart of a city,37 begins as follows: Rabbi Tanhuma said: An event concerning a ship of gentiles that was sailing out on the Great Sea [i.e. the Mediterranean]. And a Jewish child was on it. A great storm broke out over them in the sea and each of them stood up and began to take his idol (‫ )יראתו‬38 into his hand and called [out], but it did not help at all. When they saw that it did not help at all, they said to this Jew: My son, stand up [and] call to your God, for we have heard that he answers you when you cry out to him and that he is mighty. The child stood up immediately and cried out with all his heart, and the Holy One Blessed Be He received his prayer and calmed the sea. (y. Berakhot 9:1, 13b) 39

When the passengers disembark, they set out to buy provisions and are bewildered that the Jewish boy purchases nothing.40 The story ends by explaining that the boy need not worry because his God will always protect him, while others, who do not worship a true deity who is present with them at all times, must stock up and endeavor to protect themselves when traveling outside their home territory. As its final proof text, the narrative cites a verse from a speech by Moses, “the Lord our God is wherever we call to him” (Deut 4:7).41 This verse urges the Israelites to observe God’s commandments so as not to be destroyed by God in the ways that those practicing idolatry were but rather to be saved by God in any place, even in distant lands or at sea.42 This travel story pits gentiles against a Jew, a group of adults against a single child, idolatrous worship against Jewish prayer, the sea against dry land, and 37  On traveling by sea in ancient Jewish sources, see Patai 1998 (92–93), who mentions an interesting inscription from the Temple of Pan at Apollonopolis Magna in Upper Egypt, in which a Jew thanks God for saving him on a sea voyage. In this inscription, a Jew praises the Jewish God in an inscription in a pagan temple; the juxtaposition of Jewish and idolatrous is striking in contrast with the story from the Palestinian Talmud discussed here, which argues so vehemently against the efficacy of praying to other gods during times of trouble at sea. 38  Lit. “his fear”; it can also mean “object of fear” or “idol,” see Jastrow 2005, 593. 39 Cf. t. Niddah 15:7 and Pesiqta de-Rav Kahana 18:5; translation, with slight modifications, from Hezser 2011, 262. 40  The text changes from Hebrew to Aramaic at this point in the story, and the terminology for idolatry shifts as well. Perhaps this indicates that the second half of the story (which is set on dry land) was added later to the story of the storm at sea, which might have originally stood on its own. 41 NRSV. 42  The story identifies the passengers’ idolatry by place and empire – there are the idols from Babylonia and from Rome. This is an effective literary choice in a story about travel and the Israelite God’s omnipresence in contrast to other gods.

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wealth against poverty.43 It serves as a primary example for the efficacy of prayer during travel, over and against idolatrous practices of travel that are portrayed as woefully ineffective. The Jewish boy’s prayer aboard the boat convinces his fellow gentile passengers of Israel’s wisdom in worshipping their God, because this God responds to their pleas from any location, even from sea.44 Although the boy does not recite a wayfarer’s prayer per se, the story demonstrates the power of prayer during travel. The Palestinian Talmud in this narrative conceives of idolatry and the Jewish-gentile distinction as one of the defining dichotomies in its conception of the dangers of travel and of venturing into unfamiliar and liminal spaces. Idolatrous practices aggravate the naturally dangerous rough seas, and it is only prayer to the Israelite God, rather than to idolatrous gods, that will safely lead the passengers to shore.45 We have noted above that the Palestinian Talmud adds a new requirement to the mandate to pray upon entering and exiting a city, specifying that prayers are to be recited only upon traveling to gentile territories. It is now important to attend to an additional exception, marked in the following line of the text: “If it is known as a place where executions occur (‫)מקום שהורגין‬, even if it is an area of Jewish settlement, one must recite the blessings” (y. Berakhot 9:4, 14b).46 ‫ מקום שהורגין‬can also be translated as “a place where there is murder.” 43  The child is described as poor, and the others as purchasing provisions when they arrive at their destination, though interestingly they are described as beggars (‫ )אכסניא‬because they are poor by way of belief in false deities. 44  Note that the aggadah only cites the second half of Deut 4:7, altering the meaning of the quoted passage, which also explains the slight differences in the translations I provide of the verse itself, depending on its context. 45  We might also read the narrative as an updated rabbinic response to the epic storm at sea in the biblical Jonah story. In the line immediately preceding the story, God is described as the one who “saved Moses from the sword of Pharaoh … Jonah from the belly of the whale … Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego from the fiery furnace, and Daniel from the lion’s den” – that is, as a God who saves loyal believers from serious dangers. The invocation of Jonah and the other biblical figures sets the stage for the rabbinic reinterpretation of Jonah and his mission. In the book of Jonah, the prophet tries to avoid God’s instructions to visit Niniveh by boarding a boat and fleeing. God creates a storm and, in desperation, the passengers aboard cry out to their gods and throw their belongings overboard to lighten the load, but it is to no avail until the captain finds Jonah. Jonah admits that he has fled God, who controls the sea and dry land, and he is eventually thrown overboard; the storm finally subsides. While in the book of Jonah the Israelite prophet’s refusal to confront the sins of gentiles causes his ship to encounter a dangerous storm, it is not the passengers’ idolatrous practices that cause the storm – it is the prophet’s refusal to follow God’s instructions. The only solution therefore is to throw him overboard. In the rabbinic story, we do not know the reason for the storm. But in both stories the idolatrous practices of those on board do not save them from shipwreck, and in the rabbinic story it is only a young Jewish boy (‫ )תינוק‬who has the ability to do so through his cries to God. One of the central lessons that the rabbinic story thus tries to convey is that it is the power of rabbinic prayer that saves the passengers – Jewish and gentile alike – and that convinces them of the efficacy of rabbinic ritual and theology and the futility of idolatry, especially when one is on a journey far from home. 46  This translation follows Zahavy 1989, 354.

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That is, areas are considered sufficiently dangerous to require prayer if within them murder is a frequent occurrence or executions are a normative form of punishment – even if they are on Jewish territory. This requirement adds an additional rabbinic fear to the ones identified earlier (“identity loss,” “otherness,” and “idolatry”) – a fear of death. This fear may pertain to a concern of being wrongly accused of crime and consequently punished by execution (hence a pessimistic statement about human justice systems and their inherent shortcomings). It may also suggest that the imperial authorities governing the legal system were considered a force of terror even within Jewish settlements. Or, alternatively, it may simply mean that necessary precautions must be taken upon entering particularly violent cities. In all of the Palestinian sources examined above, travel and prayer are associated with one another, and individualized prayers for certain types of trips are featured. There is still no general wayfarer’s prayer to protect all travelers on the road to any destination, however. The emphasis is on urban entry and exit, and the rabbis identify a number of fears – concerning the dangers of cities, the threats of idolatry, and rabbinic minority status – to which prayers and their requirements respond. In the next section, I turn to the social and religious context of late antique Palestine and the Roman Empire to understand why our Palestinian rabbinic sources articulate a prayer for travel in terms of entry and exit, and how these prayers participated in the larger ritual context of the Roman east.

Rabbinic Travel Rituals in a Roman World How might we understand the Mishnah, Tosefta, and Palestinian Talmud’s prayers recited upon entry to and exit from a city within their Greco-Roman context? Before turning to the prayers for travel in the Babylonian Talmud, I will offer a number of examples from the Roman ritual landscape that help situate the prayers mentioned in tractate Berakhot within a broader context. I propose that the rabbinic requirement first articulated in the Mishnah, and the suggested formulas found in the Tosefta and the Palestinian Talmud, fit into regional practices within the Roman empire of praying for safe entry and exit. Examining the increased attention on entry and exit in these rituals might shed light on the reasons for the similar focus in Palestinian rabbinic sources. I do not wish to conflate the many practices; rather, I hope that by discussing them together, I can illustrate the varied ways in which travel and its anxieties were handled by different people within the late antique Roman Empire, and how rabbis fit into this landscape and simultaneously resisted it. How would a traveler in the Roman Empire know when he or she had crossed into or out of a city? The Romans marked borders and entrances. Different spheres were distinguished and defined; one was either inside a city or outside

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of it, and each mile along the way was marked as well.47 This was true in Palestine as well, where hundreds of Roman milestones have been discovered at which travelers along Roman roads could break up their journeys while being constantly reminded of the empire’s power.48 As Joshua Levinson has recently argued, one function of these milestones was to assert Roman imperial authority over the traveling subject, and thus rabbinic/Jewish interaction with these milestones was always also an engagement with and resistance to the Roman Empire.49 Milestones, like urban entry and exit points, were places for travelers to pause, both physically and contemplatively, along the journey. Rutilius Claudius Namatianus remarks that “the stone that by its lettering marks the many miles seems to afford the tired wayfarer some breaks upon the road.”50 Yet they also served protective functions. Shaw writes: “many elements of these systems are known from epigraphic evidence to have been constructed to ensure a general safety for travelers and transport on local roads. Not a few of these frontier defences were directed as much to the solution of low-level regional threats to security as they were to more awesome ‘barbarian’ armies,’” including on the Syro-Palestinian frontiers (2003 [1984]: 12). The Roman landscape, especially in these transitional places, was also populated by divinities. There were lares compitales at crossroads, lares viales and lares semitales on the roads, and lares permarini on the seas, to whom one would pray and offer other forms of devotion.51 In her 2017 study of the Roman lares, Harriet Flower calls them “benevolent deities of place and of travel” and argues that “the cult of the lares at the hearth and the street corner, as well as their highly stereotyped depiction in art, indicates their character as protective gods of place, integral to the world of mortals and to its activities of cooking, eating, living, and travelling.”52 Muir observes that encounters that travelers would have with lares on the road linked back with the presence of lares in their homes, and thus drew for them a link between their identities at home and on their 47 

On Roman milestones, see Laurence 2004, 41–58. See Isaac and Roll 1982. 49  See Levinson 2016, 257–76. 50  Rutilius Claudius Namatianus, The Home-Coming from Rome to Gaul in the Year of 416 AD, 2.8 (trans. G. Savage-Armstrong, 168), cited in Levinson 2016, 265. 51  Laing writes that “just as the crossroads (compita) had their Lares compitales, so the roads (viae and semitae) had their Lares vials and Lares semitales. To these Lares vials travelers-by-land prayed, just as those who journeyed by sea made vows to the Lares permarini,” in “The Origins of the Cult of the Lares,” 133, about Walter Otto, “Mania und Lares, Arch. F. lat. Lez., XV, 113–20. See also Lott 2004, 34–35, who writes that “Lares were tutelary deities who watched over and protected those in their care; second, Lares were usually assocaited with a particular physical area. Thus from their seats in compita Lares watched over the territory of farms in the countryside and neighborhoods in the city” (35). See also Pollini 2008, 391–98. 52  Lares were associated with places on land, and not the sea, which corresponds as well to rabbinic prayers for travel that seem to have been associated with land travel rather than sea voyages. 48 

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travels (2011: 38). Romolo Augusto Staccioli writes that “From a very early date, small sanctuaries were a common presence along the extra-urban roads. Typical among them were those situated along the first mile outside of Rome. … But places of worship also sprouted up spontaneously, almost always in connection with phenomena or aspects of the landscape, and these were dedicated to the protective deities of the roads, first and foremost the lares viales, to whom people would direct prayers” (2003: 30–31).53 One of Plautus’s characters references them along the road: “I invoke you, lares viales, guardians of my well-being!” (Plautus, Mercator, 865).54 Within Rome and elsewhere, Romans encountered lares compitales at crossroads between neighborhoods. Ray Laurence explains that the altars dedicated to the lares compitales in Pompeii were probably situated on the majors roads of the city, marked the boundaries between neighborhoods, and would have been visible to those who entered the city and made their way from its entrance to the forum at its center (1996: 39–42).55 The compital shrines in particular became more widespread and geographically scattered during the imperial age, when Augustus and emperors after him transformed them into monuments to honor the emperor within neighborhood contexts in addition to marking spaces of transition.56 Pliny mentions that there were 265 such shrines recorded in the census of Vespasian and Titus, and the presence of these lares continued well into the rabbinic period.57 Staccioli details the many other divinities one might also encounter on a journey in the Roman Empire, including Hercules, the Dioscuri, and Mercury, all of whom protected those who traveled the roads (2003: 30–31). Kristen H. Lindbeck points out that “what rabbinic literature calls merkolis, busts of Hermes on pillars surrounded by cairns of stones, were found in both Palestine and Babylonia as market guardians and road markers” (2010: 80). Indeed, rabbinic sources warn against participation in cultic practices associated with Mercury-Hermes stones found on roads and boundaries precisely because they were so popular.58 Muir writes about the importance of Janus, whose two faces turn in and out of the city, in the Roman landscape: “Janus was the Roman god of the doorway and gate. Like a door, he looked outward to the road and inward to the home. Therefore he was depicted as double-headed. It was thought that he controlled the beginnings of an enterprise, so his protection was evoked at the 53 

On the lares viales in particular and gods of the roads, see Yanguas 2014, 252–63. Cited in Staccioli 2003, 31. 55  The map in Laurence p.  43 makes clear that while not all the street shrines were located on the outskirts of town, the tendency was to place them near roads leading into the city when possible. On the location of these shrines, see also Stek 2009, 203. 56  See Hano 1986, 2333–381. On milestones as markers not only of distance but also of imperial presence on the road, see Laurence 2004, 41–58 and French 1981. 57  See Flower 2017. 58  E.g. Sifra Behar 5; m. Sanh. 7:6; t. Avod. Zar. 5:15 (MS Erfurt); y. Avod. Zar. 4:1; 43d; y. Ber. 9:1, 12d, all discussed in Levinson 2016, 266. 54 

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commencement of a journey. There are shrines to Janus along the Via Sacra; and there is a temple to Janus in the Forum” (2011: 44).59 Mary Beard has analyzed 50 bronze plaques from a shrine of Jupiter Poeninus that contain vows of travelers for a safe journey across the Alps. 60 Divinatory practices could be performed at the start of journeys and as navigational tools, and thanksgiving rituals marked travelers’ safe return from sea. Of particular interest for the purpose of our study is “the special ‘god of return,’ Redicolus, to whom one devoted, in the manner of votives – pro itu et reditu [for the way and the way back] – small tablets of marble or terracotta with representations of one or two pairs of footprints pointed in both directions to indicate the outward journey and return” (Staccioli 2003: 30–31).61 These votives offer a visual, and ritualistic, counterpart to the rabbinic prayer for safe urban entry and exit.

Fig.  1:  Votive relief with footprints62

The second image (above) is a marble slab currently held in the Musei Capitolini. Imprinted on the marble are artistic presentations of two pairs of feet and an inscription dedicated to the goddess Caelestis. The inscription dates to the third century CE, and was found in 1939 between the Via della Consolazione and the Via del Mare in Rome. The dedication is found in a rectangular box between the two pairs of feet, with the inscription on top and a dove etched into 59  Janus is also the god of time, and here again we see the overlap between coming and going in a spatial and temporal sense, as we observed in the Mishnah’s discussion above. 60  InscItal XI.1 (Roma 1932), 27–38, cited in Beard 1991, 41. 61  Many thanks to Daniel Picus for pointing me to these inscriptions. 62  Votive at the Museo Ostiense; © Photo SCALA, Florence, discussed in Staccioli 2003, 30, who describes it as a “votive relief with footprints, wishing the traveler a good outcome on his journey.” There are other examples, e.g. a set of footprints from the second century CE, currently in the Seville Archaeologi­cal Museum. On votive footprints, see van Straten 1981, 144–145, and Draycott 2017, 155–160.

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Fig.  2 :  A second relief with two pairs of footprints63

the stone on the bottom half. The inscription reads: “to triumphal Caelestis, Jovinus donates this in fulfillment of a vow.”64 The invocation of the Roman goddess Caelestis is interesting, for among the many things with which Juno Caelestis was associated was travel. 65 According to some interpretations, the slab functions as a request for a safe voyage going (itus) and returning (reditus).66 Perhaps a traveler named Jovinus vowed to make a donation to the goddess Caelestis in exchange for a safe journey, and does so upon his return home. The rabbis may have had a practice like this in mind when formulating the prohibitions found in Mishnah Avodah Zarah 1:3, which forbid commercial transaction between Jews and gentiles on the days surrounding a gentile’s return home from a voyage, because such cultic displays of thanksgiving, considered idolatrous by the rabbis, would abound at that time. The votives clearly differ from rabbinic prayers. They contain images (though some of them also include brief textual inscriptions), and they were used in the fulfillment of vows, whereas the rabbinic sources available to us are textual, and prescribe an oral recitation of a prayer at the outset and conclusion of a journey, which left no ancient material remains. I do not posit that the rabbis imitated the Roman rituals, although they were probably familiar with some of them, as rabbinic sources indicate. Rather, I suggest that travelers within the Roman Empire – Jews, Christians, and Romans of other communities and sects – participated in a variety of rituals of travel, some of which are strikingly similar in the fears they articulate or reflect and the thanksgiving they offer. Other archaeological remains and inscriptions provide another fascinating corollary to the rabbinic prayers of entry to and exit from cities and buildings. 63 

Inventory: inv. NCE2416. © Roma, Sovrintendenza Capitolina ai Beni Culturali.

64 http://www.ilariamarsilirometours.com/blog/ancient-prayer-for-a-safe-journey.

65  On Juno Caelestis, see Benko 1993, 21–43. Caelestis was a popular goddess throughout the Roman Empire, including in the eastern provinces, and is mentioned by Tertullian, Firmicus Maternus, Cyprian, Ambrose of Milan, Augustine and others; Elagabalus brought Caelestis to Rome and built a temple for her on the Capitoline hill; she was associated with fertility, cosmic origins, and oracles. 66 http://images.ucdavis.edu/display/work.php?id=13727.

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In a collection of inscriptions from domestic and other structures in the Syrian highlands, all of which date to the years between 325 CE and 650 CE, a recurring pattern is observed in many entryways. The formula “may God protect your going in and coming out” (with some variations), in Greek, appears on a total of 24 inscriptions. Six of these inscriptions appear on house lintels, one appears on another part of a home, and 17 on unidentified buildings.67 The passage is an adaptation of Psalm 121:8 (and alludes to Deut 28:6), and it becomes, in these inscriptions, a scriptural marking of the threshold, presumably of Christian households. 68 We might imagine that, instead of reciting a prayer upon each entry and exit, the formula was inscribed onto lintels and other domestic thresholds, thereby acknowledging physical entry and exit. It is also possible that these inscriptions were placed not only on domestic structures but on the entryways of bathhouses, street corners, and other transitional spaces as well, which would correlate well with the rabbinic prayers for entry to and exit from bathhouses and houses of study, in addition to cities.69 This, then, is an interesting Christian (or perhaps Jewish-Christian?) counterpart to rabbinic prayers of entry and exit. Other Christian rituals of travel in the Roman world (at least in its later centuries) included divinatory and oracular texts and amulets for safe journeys. AnneMarie Luijendijk has pointed to several references to travel in a fifth- or sixth-century Coptic miniature codex from Egypt. The codex may have been designed as a text to be consulted on the road or “to cater to traveling clients” (2014: 73–74). It also resonates with the Sortes Astrampsychi, a collection of fortunes, which, as Franziska Naether has shown, also contains an abundance of travel-related entries and might have been used specifically by travelers who posed questions related to their journeys.70 These texts not only point to the fears associated with travel but also to the desire to manage the uncertainties of travel with the help of rituals and texts. We have encountered a number of rituals of travel in the Roman empire, and I have argued that rabbinic rituals of travel ought to be regarded as part of these 67  Inscriptions grecques et latines de la Syrie: 1468, 1496, 1571, 1943, 1493, 1562 on house lintels; 431 on another part of a house; 525, 1531, 1567, 1680, 1695, 1719, 1725, 1747, 1750, 1754, 1755, 1813, 1969, 1993, 642, 1563, 1748 on lintels of unidentified building. I thank Christopher Sweeney for making me aware of these inscriptions and sharing his preliminary research with ‫מעתה‬and – ‫ובואך‬ ‫ישמר צאתך‬Bibawy ‫יהוה‬ me, to Anthony for locating them. Psalm 121:8 reads: ‫יהוה ישמר צאתך ובואך – מעתה‬ ‫עולם‬-‫“ ועד‬The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from     , this ‫עולם‬ -‫ועד‬time on and forevermore” (NRSV). This passage does not appear particularly frequently in rabbinic sources. Similarly, incantation bowls and curse tablets were also often buried beneath a home’s threshold, protecting those within it and perhaps also functioning as protections for those who journeyed from the home. 68  Some of the inscriptions feature crosses and other elements that mark them as Christian. On the Christianization of the region around Antioch, see Gatier 2013, 145–64. 69 E.g. m. Berakhot 4:2; t. Berakhot 6:17; y. Berakhot 4:4, 8b; b. Berakhot 28b. 70  Naether 2010, 253–56.

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late antique practices. Some of the practices surveyed in this section were aimed at the activity and idea of travel more generally, but one of the striking trends in the sources is the focus of so many of them on entries and exits in particular. This was evident in the boundary markers, the figure of Janus, the votives of imprinted feet, and the domestic inscriptions. The tannaitic and amoraic rabbinic sources composed in the Roman empire show a similar emphasis on entry and exit, and on the markings of boundaries that made this focus possible. In this more particular sense, too, the rabbinic practices fit well into their Roman context, even as they were designed to protect rabbinic travelers from the dangers they associated with Roman urban culture and the Roman landscape.

Shifting Concerns beyond the Roman Empire: Bavli Berakhot 29b–30a and 60a The last chapter of Bavli Berakhot provides a detailed reflection on piety during travel, and redefines the Mishnah’s set of blessings and prayers in distinctly Babylonian ways. Additionally, the phrase “tefillat haderekh” first appears, within the classical rabbinic corpus, in the Babylonian Talmud. Here, too, we find the first rabbinic wayfarer’s prayer addressing the general act of travel, and focusing on the road itself rather than the destination.71 The rabbinic travel prayers thus expand from the boundaries of cities to the roads themselves, and address the experiences of travelers along those roads. The wording of these prayers in the Babylonian Talmud most closely resembles the wayfarer’s prayer that became popular from the medieval period onwards. The Babylonian Talmud expands upon the Palestinian Talmud’s prayers regarding entry and exit in y. Berakhot 9:4, 14b.72 Four prayers are recorded in the 71  As far as I could find, through a Bar Ilan Database search, it is also the only place where the phrase is used. 72  The Babylonian Talmud’s explanation for the reasoning behind the prayer into and out of cities is similar to the discussion in the Palestinian Talmud. As in the Palestinian Talmud, the issue is a matter of the justice system, but the Babylonian Talmud offers an opposing opinion. A passage attributed to Rav Mattena explains as follows: “This [obligation to pray] applies only to a city where criminals are not tried and sentenced, but in a city where criminals are tried and sentenced, this is unnecessary” (MS Munich, Vilna). The implication of this opinion is that a city that does not pursue its criminals is a particularly dangerous place. In contrast to the Palestinian Talmud, which fears over-punishment, here the fear is under-punishment. A secondary tradition in the Babylonian Talmud suggests that Rav Mattena’s position was somewhat different: “some report that Rav Mattena said: Even in a city where criminals are tried and sentenced, for sometimes he must happen not to find a man who can plead in his defense” (b. Berakhot 60a, trans. Soncino). According to this second tradition, Rav Mattena does not fear chaos and crime, but the potential of an unjust trial, unwarranted punishment, or other repercussions of a faulty legal system. The focus shifts, in this second opinion, away from the protection of the traveler as someone who might encounter dangerous individuals within the city to concern for the traveler as someone who might himself be a victim

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Palestinian Talmud: two requesting safe entry and exit, and two expressing appreciation and gratitude for them. The final prayer contains a brief additional request: “I thank you for taking me out in peace, thus may it be your will that you accompany me to my home in peace or to so-and-so-place in peace” (y. Berakhot 9:4, 14b; emphasis added).73 As opposed to the third prayer, which only thanks God for protection upon exiting a city, the words quoted above ask for divine protection on the remainder of the journey. This last phrase thus functions as a sort of general travel prayer (as did the final prayer in the Tosefta, discussed above). The Babylonian Talmud records a longer praise and a divine request that should be recited once one has left the city altogether: “I give thanks to you, God, that you have brought me out of this city in peace, and as you have brought me out of this city in peace, so may you guide me in peace and support me in peace and make me proceed in peace and deliver me from the hands of all enemies and liers-in-wait along the way” (b. Berakhot 60a (trans. Soncino); italics added).74 Although this is not a proper wayfarer’s prayer because it is recited at the middle or end of a journey, the suppliant requests guidance, support, and protection on the road. of the city’s justice system, by being falsely accused, subjected to an unfair trial, or being the victim of dishonest witnesses. Absent in the Babylonian Talmud’s discussion, and yet so central in the Palestinian Talmud, is any mention of the distinction between Jewish and gentile cities and the implications that such differentiation holds. In the Babylonian Talmud’s brief exposition on this prayer, there are no Jewish or gentile cities, only ones with more or less flawed justice systems. 73  On the mechanics of this entire sugya, including the other prayers of entry and exit that follow this one (blessings to be recited upon entry to and exit from a bathhouse, surgery, a privy, sleep), see Marx 2007, 105–36. Marx argues that this series of prayers all mark the crossing of boundaries and are therefore discussed together in the Babylonian Talmud. Marx, too, traces the development of these prayers from the Mishnah through the Babylonian Talmud to show how the latter came to incorporate the initial prayers mentioned in the Mishnah and the additional blessings found in the Tosefta to ultimately include these prayers for various types of boundary-crossing. 74  The manuscripts preserve significant variation (note especially MS Munich 95), indicating that the exact wording was not fixed. All transcriptions are taken from the Saul Lieberman Institute Talmud Text Databank. a) Munich 95: ‫יהי רצון שתוציאני מכרך זה לשלום יצא או' יהי רצון מלפניך יי אלהי כשם שהוצאתני מן הכרך הזה לשלום כן תוליכני‬ ‫לשלום ותסמכני לשלום ותצעידני לשלום ותצילני מכף כל אויב ואורב בדרך ותנני לחן לחסד ולרחמים בעיניך ובעיני כל‬ ‫רואי בא"י שומע תפילה‬ b) Oxford Opp. Add. fol. 23: ‫מודה אני לפניך יי'י אלהי שהוצאתני מכרך זה לשלום וכשם שהוצאתני מכרך זה לשלום כן תוליכני לשלו' ותסמכני לשלום‬ .‫ותצילני מכף אויב ואורב בדרך‬ c) Paris 671: ‫מודה אני לפניך י"י אלהי שהוצאתני מכרך זה לשלום וכשם שהוצאתני לשלום כן תוליכני לשלום ותצעידני לשלום ותצילני‬ ‫מכף אויב ואורב בדרך‬ d) Vilna: ‫מודה אני לפניך ה' אלהי שהוצאתני מכרך זה לשלום וכשם שהוצאתני לשלום כך תוליכני לשלום ותסמכני לשלום ותצעידני‬ ‫לשלום ותצילני מכף כל אויב ואורב בדרך‬

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A more general wayfarer’s prayer is found in the Babylonian Talmud’s elaboration of m. Berakhot 4:2. There, Rabbi Jacob, citing Rav Hisda, declares that “Whoever sets forth on a journey should say the prayer for a journey” (b. Berakhot 29b). The Babylonian Talmud thus introduces here a wayfarer’s prayer to be recited by all travelers at the beginning of their journeys. The novelty of this Babylonian practice lies in its explicit request for divine assistance for all journeys, the requirement to recite it at the start of a journey, and in its focus on the trip rather than the destination. The content of the prayer is given as follows: May it be your will, O Lord my God, to lead me forth in peace, and direct my steps in peace and uphold me in peace, and deliver me from the hand of every enemy and ambush by the way, and send a blessing on the works of my hands, and cause me to find grace, kindness, and mercy in your eyes and in the eyes of all who see me. Blessed are you, O Lord, who hears prayer. (b. Berakhot 29b) 75

The prayer’s origin is attributed to Elijah the Prophet, who is said to have conveyed the following instructions to Rav Judah, the brother of Rav Sala Hasida: “do not get angry and you will not sin, do not get drunk and you will not sin, and when you set out on a journey, consult with your Creator and leave” (b. Berakhot 29b). The last part of these instructions is identified, by Rabbi Jacob, as “tefillat haderekh,” the wayfarer’s prayer. As Lindbeck has argued, the Babylonian Talmud portrays Elijah as a traveling figure and a rabbinic patron of travelers – even a rabbinic counterpart to the Greek god Hermes.76 Here he announces that all travelers must pray to God for protection during their journeys. I would suggest that the attribution to Elijah suggests that this wayfarer’s 75  This passage is followed up (30a) with a discussion about when the prayer should be recited (while standing still or while actively journeying). The wording of the prayer is not consistent in the manuscripts, itself an interesting phenomenon: a) Florence II.I.7: ‫יהי רצון מלפניך יי א]ל[}ק{י שתוליכני לשלום ותסמכני לשלום ותצעידני לשלום ותצילני מכף כל אויב ואור])(ב[ בדרך‬ ‫ותניני לחן לחסד ולרחמים בעיניך ובעיני כל רואי ותחזירני לביתי לשלום ברוך אתה יי שומע תפילה‬ b) Munich 95: ‫יהי רצון מלפניך יי אלהינו שתוליכני לשלום ותחזירני לשלום ותסמכני לשלום ותצעידני לשלום ותצילני מכ)ל(]ף[ אויב‬ ‫ואורב ותנני לחן לחסד ולרחמים בעיניך ובעיני כל רואי ותחזירני לביתי לשלום שמח וטוב לב כי אתה שומע תפלות כל פה‬ ‫ברוך שומע תפלה‬ c) Oxford Opp. Add. fol. 23: ‫יהי רצון מלפניך יי'י אלהי שתוליכני לשלום ותצילני מכף כל אויב ואורב בדרך ותנני לחן לחסד ולרחמים בעיניך ובעיני כל‬ ‫רואי בא'י שומע תפלה‬ d) Paris 671: ‫[ שתוליכני לשלום ותצעדני לשלו' ותסמכני ותצילני מכף כל אויב ואורב בדרך ותנני לחן‬sic]‫יהי רצון מלפניך מלפניך‬ ‫ולחסד ולריוח ולרחמים בעיניך ובעיני כל רואי ותחזירני לביתי לשלום ברוך אתה י"י שומע תפלה‬ e) Soncino (1484): ‫י"ר מ"ה אלהי שתוליכני לשלום ותצעידני לשלום ותסמכני לשלום ותצילני מכף כל אויב ואורב בדרך ותשלח ברכה במעשה‬ ‫ידי ותתנני לחן לחסד ולרחמי' בעיני' ובעיני כל רואי בא'י שומע תפלה‬ f) Vilna: ‫יהי רצון מלפניך ה' אלהי שתוליכני לשלום ותצעידני לשלום ותסמכני לשלום ותצילני מכף כל אויב ואורב בדרך ותשלח‬ ‫ברכה במעשי ידי ותתנני לחן לחסד ולרחמים בעיניך ובעיני כל רואי ברוך אתה ה' שומע תפלה‬ 76  See Lindbeck 2010, 74–94.

320

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prayer is not as ancient as the text claims it to be. After all, the requirement for a traveler to recite a wayfarer’s prayer is not recorded as biblical or attributed to an early rabbinic sage, but is presented as a tradition transmitted from an ancient prophet to a Babylonian rabbi. The appeal to Elijah’s authority might be an attempt to portray a relatively new ritual practice from Babylonia – with no clear biblical or rabbinic precedent – as an ancient and prophetic one. One of the themes of Bavli Berakhot remains, as it was in Mishnah Berakhot, the intersection of prayer and travel. Just as the Palestinian sources engaged with the landscape of Roman Palestine, the Babylonian Talmud marks the biblical landscape in ways that reflect its own historical and cultural context. Rather than relating to the land of Israel in more contemporary terms, the Babylonian Talmud dwells in particular on themes of biblical history and pilgrimage through a historical and distant landscape. The opening set of blessings in the tractate’s concluding chapter – benedictions for travel to sites of past miraculous events and/or locations from which idolatry was removed – paves the way for a fascinating rabbinic pilgrimage narrative (b. Berakhot 54a–b). The anonymous voice of the text (the stam) explains that individuals must recite the blessing for individual miracles, such as when a traveler is attacked by a lion and miraculously saved, but that the whole community should recite the prayer when the miracle is communal (e.g. when a group of people are saved from harm). All of the individual miracles featured are, importantly, specifically about travel and miracles on the road. The text records an example of a thirsty traveler miraculously finding a well of water in an unexpected place, and another example of a traveler who is attacked by a camel when a house miraculously appears to shield him from the dangerous animal. A third set of miraculous events, extending beyond individual and communal deliverances to travel miracles in the distant Israelite past, is also mapped onto the topographical landscape. These miracles mark past events in Israelite history in which geography, natural forces, and travelers collided in fortuitous ways: If one sees the place of the crossing of the Red Sea, or the fords of Jordan, or the fords of the streams of Arnon, or hail stones [avne elgabish] in the descent of Beth Horon, or the stone which Og king of Bashan wanted to throw at Israel, or the stone on which Moses sat when Joshua fought with Amalek, or Lot’s wife, or the wall of Jericho which sank into the ground, for all of these he should give thanksgiving and praise to the Almighty. (b. Berakhot 54a) 77

These are all instances in Israelite history in which God intervened specifically during travel: the exodus from Egypt across the sea and the crossing of the Jordan and the Arnon rivers, the period of military threats during biblical journeys 77  In a passage in the Palestinian Talmud (y. Berakhot 9:1, 11d), places associated with Babylonian history – the Euphrates, a statue of Mercury, Nebuchadnezzar’s home, Daniel’s fiery furnace and lion’s den, a quarry, and Babylonia itself – become the occasions for blessings, about which see Kraemer 2015, 122–23.

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with Moses and Joshua (including the battle with Amalek in the desert and the felling of Jericho’s walls), and Lot’s fateful escape from Sodom when his wife, looking back rather than forward on the trip, was turned into a pillar of salt. The Babylonian Talmud etches these iconic travels onto the permanent liturgical landscape by insisting on the recitation of benedictions by travelers who found themselves in the same miraculous locations. In a way, marking each spot with a benediction transforms them into sites of pilgrimage, and the group in its entirety forms a surprising pilgrimage route within the biblical land. This turn to pious travel through biblical lands correlates with Christian pilgrimage to the Holy Land, developed in the fourth and fifth centuries and especially popular in the period of the Babylonian Talmud’s redaction.78 Moreover, pilgrimage to Palestine would be something on the minds of those outside of Palestine. For them, visiting the land was not only travel through space, but also through time, to a period in which God acted in overtly miraculous ways. Thus, in the Babylonian Talmud’s discussion, parts of Israelite history are made present through the linguistic and ritualistic dimensions of the act of blessing, and Jews are required ritually to mark the geography and history of the land of Israel through prayer. A similar move occurs in the Babylonian Talmud’s discussion of the blessing to be recited at places from which idolatry has been removed. There, the examples move from Rome to Babylonia, and it is the Babylonian landscape that is regarded as dangerous and filled with false deities. Babylonia is depicted as the land of idolatry, while Palestine is presented as a land marked by God’s miracles. We have made two main observations about travel prayers in Bavli Berakhot. First, the Babylonian Talmud introduces a new wayfarer’s prayer. This prayer, as we have seen, was a Babylonian innovation attributed to the ancient prophet Elijah, and it extended from boundaries and liminal spaces to journey as a whole. Second, the Babylonian Talmud reimagines the role of travel prayers in a Babylonian context, which was both far from Palestine and contained its own set of challenges. This consists of a turn to Palestine’s biblical landscape (in contrast to the Palestinian sources’ focus on Roman Palestine), and an acknowledgement of the contemporary Babylonian landscape as potentially threatening and idolatrous. Finally, travel is not only depicted as an act of entry to and from cities, or as a form of transit, but also as pilgrimage, a form of pious travel in which those settled in distant places can visit sacred spaces of the past.

78  See, e.g., the pilgrimage accounts of Egeria, the Bordeaux Pilgrim, and the Piacenza Pilgrim.

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Conclusions The theme of travel runs through rabbinic sources, both narrative and halakhic.79 This paper examined rabbinic prayers associated with travel, and the constellation of traditions, interpretations, laws, and rituals that revolve around them in the rabbinic corpus, from the Mishnah through the Babylonian Talmud. I argued, first, that tannaitic sources articulate only prayers for entry to and exit from cities, and that the Tosefta and Palestinian Talmud incorporate a broader reference to the act of travel in their liturgical language. It is in the Babylonian Talmud that the requirement to mark entry to and exit from cities is complemented by a new “wayfarer’s prayer,” which applies to any journey and the potential dangers it posed to the traveler. We thus trace a gradual shift from concern about boundaries and urban spaces to a focus on the experience of traveling more generally. Second, I proposed that these rabbinic prayers were informed by and also marked the urban landscape of Roman Palestine, and later Sasanian Babylonia. Travel (into cities and on the roads) was approached with caution and necessitated prayer in rabbinic sources for various overlapping reasons, such as the potential for mundane inconveniences and dangers associated with all ancient travel, the sense of discomfort felt when entering new or foreign territories, and the threat of idolatrous practices and lifestyles challenging one’s own way of life. Finally, I contextualized this rabbinic practice among other travel rituals in the Roman Empire (both “pagan” and Christian) designed to deal with similar anxieties, and I argued that rabbinic prayers were one of many ways in which the ancient Roman landscape was ritually marked by travelers. The three passages quoted in the epigraph of this paper – from Plautus’s Mercator, from the Palestinian Talmud, and from an inscription in Syria – bring into conversation cross-cultural concerns about travel and the various attempts to manage travel anxieties through prayer and other devotional practices. Plautus’s character, the figures in the story of the Palestinian Talmud, and those who inscribed Psalm 121:8 on the lintel of their home all turned to their gods as they marked the spaces and places, domestic and urban, through which they traveled. Our rabbinic texts encapsulate a range of topics – geography and topography, road infrastructure and urban structures, and embodied rituals and spoken prayers – in their discussions of how to manage the dangers (physical, social, communal, spiritual, and affective) particular to those who traveled through territory and made their way in and out of new or foreign places. They provide a glimpse into a complicated affective landscape of travel as well. The sources 79  On rabbinic narratives of travel, especially traveling rabbis, see e.g. Hezser 2011; Kurtzer 2008, 93–233; Grossmark 2010, and idem. 2015, 125–48; Boyarin 2015, esp. ch. 1; Kipperwasser and Shapira 2008, 215–41; and Mandsager 2011, 70–88.

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discussed above reveal a range of emotions – fear about the crossing of boundaries, and relief and thanksgiving upon safe return – that the proposed prayers for travel sought to articulate, prevent, and acknowledge along the road.80 One of the recurring themes in rabbinic prayers is the conflation of passing through space and passing through time. In one of the mishnaic prayers discussed above, a person asks God to “Save … Israel; at their every crossroad (‫)בכל פרשת העיבור‬, let their needs come before you” (m. Berakhot 4:4). 81 In this prayer, ‫ העיבור‬means both a literal crossroad along a journey, and also other moments of transition during life; both meanings seem to be intended (m. Berakhot 4:4). Elsewhere, the Mishnah explains that a traveler ought to offer “thanks for what is past and supplication for what is still to come,” alluding to one’s past and future (m. Berakhot 9:4). A tradition in the Babylonian Talmud’s discussion of travel prayers is attributed to Rav Judah in the name of Rav: “There are four [classes of people] who have to offer thanksgiving: those who have crossed the sea, those who have traversed the wilderness, one who has recovered from illness, and a prisoner who has been set free” (b. Berakhot 54b).82 Each of these categories exemplifies a type of travel through time and crossing of boundaries, literal (as in the case of those who travel by sea or in the desert), metaphorical (those who journey through illness to recovery), or both (those who move from imprisonment to freedom, and physically from the enclosed space of a prison to the more open free world). The list is quite similar to Mishnah Avodah Zarah 1:3, which provides a set of Roman festivals and occasions on which Romans would have practiced idolatrous worship (from which Jews are urged to abstain in the mishnaic passage). This latter list begins with republican and imperial civic festivals, but then turns to a group of personal festivals: “the day when a man shaves off his beard and his lock of hair, or the day when he returns from a voyage, or the day when he comes out of prison.”83 Here, in a description of personal Roman festivals and rites of passage practiced by those among whom the rabbis were living, coming of age, returning from a sea or land voyage, and being released from prison are also grouped together into a single category, the organizing principle of which is the transition from one place or stage or condition to another. 84 That is, in rabbinic texts, rabbis and their gentile neighbors are both presented in literary and legal sources as marking similar moments of travel and transition between past and future, even as their prayers and rituals remained distinct from one another. 80  Here, I draw a connection to the emotional aspects of prayers in second temple texts that is explored in Reif and Egger-Wenzel 2015. 81  Trans. Danby, 5. 82  Trans. Soncino. 83  Trans. Danby, 437. These festivals are discussed at greater length in Gribetz 2016, 57–86. 84  The connection between travel and rites of passage is significant in both these contexts; see e.g. van Gennep 2004 [1960].

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In his work on ancient road networks, Charles D. Trombold writes that “cultural landscape reflects the interplay between technology, environment, social structure, and the values of the society that shaped it” (2011: 1). By “cultural landscape,” Trombold means “roads, agricultural terraces, hydraulic works, field systems, settlement patterns, and any other man-made alteration of the natural terrain.” I would like to expand Trombold’s definition of ‘cultural landscape,’ and suggest that religious monuments that mark roads and boundaries as well as the rituals and practices performed at those sites constitute an important, if underappreciated, additional aspect of the cultural landscape in the ancient world (ibid.). Pompeius Festus defines public sacra as those rites “performed at public expense on behalf of the people and for the hills, rural districts, ward, and shrines.”85 In this definition, pubic rites are not only financed collectively by the people, but are also mapped onto the landscape, and mark it. Interestingly, although rabbinic travel prayers and other Greco-Roman practices of travel were, for the most part, private rituals, they likewise interacted with and came to mark the landscape of the traveler. We are occasionally left with the material remains of these devotional practices (for example the compital shrines, border markings, and stone reliefs), or textual and inscriptional references to them and literary reflections about them (e.g. in the form of rabbinic sources). Most often, however, we have little access to the ways in which prayers and other words of supplication marked a traveler’s journey through the Roman landscape. This paper is a preliminary attempt to incorporate the rituals and prayers of travel into our understanding of the diverse late antique cultural landscape of the Roman Empire.

Works Cited Adams, Colin. 2001. “‘There and Back Again’: Getting around in Roman Egypt.” In Travel and Geography in the Roman Empire, ed. Colin Adams and Ray Laurence. London: Routledge, pp.  138–66. Bagnall, Roger S. and Cribiore, Raffaella. 2006. Women’s Letters from Ancient Egypt, 300 BC – AD 800. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Beard, Mary. 1991. “Writing and Religion: Ancient Literacy and the Function of the Written Word in Roman Religion.” In Literacy in the Roman World, ed. J. H. Humphrey. Journal of Roman Archaeology Supplementary Series 3. Ann Arbor: Journal of Roman Archaeology, pp.  35–58. Benko, Stephen. 1993. The Virgin Goddess: Studies in the Pagan and Christian Roots of Mariology. Numen Book Series 59. Leiden: Brill. 85  Pompeius Festus, De Verborum Significatu (ed. Lindsay, 284), s.v. Publica sacra, translated and discussed in Bodel 2008, 249. Bodel writes that “Festus’ second category of publica sacra refers to festivals associated with the topography of Rome, a characteristic of Roman state religion” (268).

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Bodel, John. 2008. “Cicero’s Minerva, Penates, and the Mother of the Lares: An Outline of Roman Domestic Religion.” In Household and Family Religion in Antiquity, ed. John Bodel and Saul M. Olyan. Ancient World: Comparative Histories 6. Malden: Wiley Blackwell, pp.  248–75. Bokser, Baruch M. 1986. The Origins of the Seder: The Passover Rite and Early Rabbinic Judaism. Berkeley: University of California Press. Boyarin, Daniel. 2015. A Traveling Homeland: The Babylonian Talmud as Diaspora. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Draycott, Jane. 2017. Bodies of Evidence: Ancient Anatomical Votives Past, Present and Future. London: Routledge. Eliav, Yaron. 2000. “The Roman Bath as a Jewish Institution: Another Look at the Encounter between Judaism and the Greco-Roman Culture.” Journal for the Study of Judaism 31.4: 416–54. Festus, Pompeius. 1913. De Verborum Significatu, ed. Wallace M. Lindsay. Stuttgart: Teubner. Flower, Harriet I. 2017. The Dancing Lares and the Serpent in the Garden. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Fonrobert, Charlotte E. 2005. “The Political Symbolism of the Eruv.” Jewish Social Studies 11: 9–35. French, David. 1981. Roman Roads and Milestones in Asia Minor I: The Pilgrim’s Road. Oxford: BAR International. Gatier, Pierre-Louis. 2013. “La christinisation de l’Antiochène dans l’Antiquité tardive.” In The Levant: Crossroads of Late Antiquity, ed. Ellen Bradshaw Aitken and John M. Fossey. Leiden: Brill, pp.  145–64. Gribetz, Sarit Kattan. 2015. “The Shema in the Second Temple Period: A Reconsideration.” Journal of Ancient Judaism 6.1: 58–84. –. 2016. “A Matter of Time: Writing Jewish Memory into Roman History.” AJS Review 40.1: 57–86. Grossmark, Tziona. 2010. Travel Narratives in Rabbinic Literature: Voyages in Imaginary Realms. Lewiston: Mellen. –. 2015. “The Nehutei as Traveling Agents and Transmitters of Cultural Data between the Torah Study Centers in Babylonia and in the Land of Israel during the Third and Fourth Centuries CE.” Mediterranean Studies 23.2: 125–48. Halbertal, Moshe. 1998. “Coexisting with the Enemy: Jews and Pagans in the Mishnah.” In Tolerance and Intolerance in Early Judaism and Christianity, ed. Graham N. Stanton and Guy G. Stroumsa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.  159–72. –. 2001. “David Hartman and the Philosophy of Halakhah.” In Renewing Jewish Commitment: The Work and Thought of David Hartman, ed. Avi Sagi and Zvi Zohar. Tel Aviv: Shalom Hartman Institute and Hakibbutz Hameuchad. Hano, Michel. 1986. “A l’origine du culte impérial: les autels des Lares Augusti. Recherches sur les thèmes iconographiques et leur signification.” ANRW 2.16.3, pp.  2333–381. Hezser, Catherine. 2011. Jewish Travel in Antiquity. TSAJ 144. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Horden, Peregrine. 2004. “Regimen and Travel in the Mediterranean.” In Mobility and Travel in the Mediterranean from Antiquity to the Middle Ages, ed. Renate Schlesier and Ulrike Zellman. Munich: LIT, pp.  117–32. Isaac, Benjamin and Israel Roll. 1982. The Roman Roads of Judaea I: The Legio-Scytlopolis Road. Oxford: Tempus Reparatum.

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Jastrow, Marcus. 2005. A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature. Peabody: Hendrickson. Kipperwasser, Reuven and Dan Shapira. 2008. “Massa’ot shel Rabbah Bar Bar Hannah.” In Sifrut Umered, ed. Ariel Hirschfeld, Hannan Hever, and Joshua Levinson. Jerusalem: Hebrew University, pp.  215–41. Klein, Gil. 2015. “Squaring the City: Between Roman and Rabbinic Urban Geometry.” In Phenomenologies of the City: Studies in the History and Philosophy of Architecture, ed. Henriette Steiner and Maximilian Sternberg. Farnham: Ashgate, pp.  33–48. Kraemer, David. 2015. Rabbinic Judaism: Space and Place. London: Routledge. Kurtzer, Jared Louis. 2008. “‘What Shall the Alexandrians Do?’ Rabbinic Judaism and the Mediterranean Diaspora.” Ph.D. diss., Harvard University. Laing, Gordon. 1921. “The Origin of the Cult of the Lares.” Classical Philology 16.2: 124–40. Laurence, Ray. 1996. Roman Pompeii: Space and Society. London: Routledge. –. 2004. “Milestones, Communications, and Political Stability.” In Travel, Communication and Geography in Late Antiquity: Sacred and Profane. Aldershot: Ashgate, pp.  41–58. Levinson, Joshua. 2016. “The Language of Stones: Roman Milestones on Rabbinic Roads.” Journal for the Study of Judaism 47: 257–76. Lieberman, Saul. 2001. Tosefta Kipeshuta: Seder Zeraim, Berakhot. Jerusalem: Jewish Theological Seminary of America. Lindbeck, Kristen H. 2010. Elijah and the Rabbis: Story and Theology. New York: Columbia University Press. Lott, John Bert. 2004. The Neighborhoods of Augustan Rome. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Luijendijk, AnneMarie. 2014. Forbidden Oracles? The Gospel of the Lots of Mary. Studien und Texte zu Antike und Christentum 89. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Mandsager, John. 2011. “Travel, the Inn, and Identity in Rabbinic Storytelling.” Symposia: The Graduate Student Journal for the Study of Religion at the University of Toronto 3: 70–88. Marx, Dalia. 2007. “Hanikhnas Lakrach – Tfilot Al Hasaf.” Madaei hayahadut 44: 105– 36. Montiglio, Silvia. 2006. “Should the Aspiring Wise Man Travel? A Conflict in Seneca’s Thought.” The American Journal of Philology 127.4: 553–86. Muir, Steven. 2011. “Religion on the Road in Ancient Greece and Rome.” In Travel and Religion in Antiquity, ed. Philip A. Harland. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, pp.  29–47. Naether, Franziska. 2010. Die Sortes Astrampsychi. Problemlösungsstrategien durch Orakel im römischen Ägypten. Orientalische Religionen in der Antike 3. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Nulman, Macy. 1996. The Encyclopedia of Jewish Prayer: The Ashkenazic and Sephardic Rites. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. Patai, Raphael. 1998. The Children of Noah: Jewish Seafaring in Ancient Times. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Pollini, John. 2008. “A New Bronze Lar and the Role of the Lares in the Domestic and Civic Religion of the Romans.” Latomus 67/2: 391–98.

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Touching and Feeling in Late Antique Christian Pilgrims’ Narratives Georgia Frank As travelers’ writings from late antiquity remind us, pilgrimage was a multisensory phenomenon. The late fourth-century pilgrim Egeria noted hearing biblical passages appropriate to the place or the chanting of hymns and psalms in Jerusalem.1 Other pilgrims visualized biblical scenes “with the eyes of faith” (Jerome, Ep.  108.10) while some defenders of pilgrimage likened such exuberance to the desire one feels to behold the home and belongings of one’s beloved (Theodoret of Cyrrhus, Hist. rel. 9.2).2 Other senses, however, were kept more tightly in check. Egeria recalls how pilgrims filed past to kiss the wood of the true cross, as clergy kept a steady grip on the relic (lest someone attempt a bite from it, as had happened once before). She noted how pilgrims proceeded under the watchful eye of clergy as they touched the cross and plaque (titulus) “first with their foreheads and then with their eyes, and then they kiss it, but no one puts out his hand to touch it” (It. Eg. 37.2–3).3 Touch, then, was carefully monitored and confined to specific holy objects and places. By the sixth century, all that changed. Both pilgrims’ narratives and the souvenirs they transported home testify to a heightened interest in touching at the holy places and in carrying the touchables home for further healings and protections. The proliferation of flasks, manufactured tokens, and other pilgrims’ souvenirs afforded pilgrims ongoing sensory engagement with the holy places far from the holy sites. That desire to touch is most apparent in the travel account by an anonymous male traveler from Italy, known today as the Piacenza pilgrim. One of the most animated descriptions of tactile encounters at the holy places, this pilgrim’s writings provide insight into the embodied, affective, and performative aspects of pilgrims’ experiences in the late sixth century. His eagerness to touch the holy places and the many ways he tried doing so point to a heightened sense of 1 

It. Eg. 3.6; 10.7; 14.1; 24.1. See Frank 1995, 790. 3  Cum ergo positum fuerit in mensa, episcopus sedens de manibus suis summitates de ligno sancto premet, diacones autem, qui in giro stant, custodent … acclinantes se ad mensam, osculentur sanctum lignum et pertranseant. Et quoniam nescio quando dicitur quidam fixisse morsum et furasse de sancto ligno … Ac sic ergo omnis populus transit unus et unus toti acclinantes se, primum de fronte, sic de oculis tangentes crucem et titulum, et sic osculantes crucem pertranseunt, manum autem nemo mittit at tangendum. 2 

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the “thingness” (Brown 2015: 17–43) and the power inherent in those objects, not just to conjure the biblical past, but also to summon the pilgrim to engage it.

Touching Why touch? Of all the senses, touch had certain distinctive qualities which puzzled philosophers. Aristotle regarded touch as a non-stop sense, most fully vulnerable to pressures and intrusions from the outside world. We feel the world even as we sleep. In addition, touch has no distinct properties. Unlike vision, which is the only sense to provide awareness of color, or taste which provides awareness of sweetness, touch has no single defining property. It can sense a wide variety of qualities: hot/cold, moist/dry, hard/soft, and even density, heft and weight, solid or elastic, suggesting to Aristotle that touch had a multi-sensory nature.4 That tangibility is best captured by a reliquary box from the late sixth or early seventh century. Now housed in the Vatican’s Treasure of the Sancta Sanctorum, the box measures roughly 24 x 18 cm and contains pieces of wood, earth, and cloth, each labeled according to their origins: “from the Mount of Olives,” “from Sion,” “from the life-giving Anastasis.”5 In contrast to the disarray of the box’s contents, the interior of the lid is neatly divided into three bands, containing five scenes from the life of Christ. The lower left frame shows the nativity, next to the baptism on the right. The crucifixion occupies the entire middle band. The top band includes the Women at the Tomb on the left and the Ascension in the upper right. The box, then, was a container for eulogiae, the bits and pieces from places that bore connection to the collector’s experience of Christ’s past. Labels alone could not evoke the pilgrim’s entire experience; the images would reflect the holy sites as encountered ritually by the pilgrim. As Cynthia Hahn explains, the series of objects may evoke the physical appearance of some holy places, thereby “point[ing] to an authentic experience” (1990: 89). The contents are fragments of a reality (now displaced) paired with miniature representations of their settings. The box “stores,” so to speak, visual and tactile memories of the holy places, including the sight of the Anastasis Rotunda as it would have appeared at the time of the painting (around 600): ornamental columns, grillwork, the pointed roof, marble revetment, and the curtains all find their way here (Vikan 2010: 19).6 Thus, the box contains fragments (the bits of rock and bone), the labels which adorn them, and miniatures (images), combin4 Arist.,

De anima 2.11, discussed in Fulkerson 2014, 15, 114. Purves 2013, 29. Krueger 2015, 15. Vikan 2010, 18–20. 6  A practice that continued well into the middle ages, as Kathryn Rudy’s analysis of Friar Felix Fabri (9.214–15) reveals (2011, 110): the fifteenth-century Dominican describes taking an early morning walk to search for thorns and pebbles, each of which he marked, then bound 5 

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ing both holding and beholding. By combining pieces and representations, the box’s contents promise access to a haptic “lived reality” insofar as its labels assure that the bits of earth, pebbles, and dirt provide contact with materiality from the past. Here it is helpful to invoke art historian Annabel Jane Wharton’s distinction between relics and souvenirs: a relic is “identical to what it represents,” whereas a souvenir is “a sign of what it represents.” In addition, whereas relics may travel, souvenirs must travel to serve as a “mnemonic device” of an experience (2006: 50). The box not only contains the dirt and fragments, but its images render it a repository for memory. Whose memory is contained here is unknown, as the box’s owner and maker are anonymous. Moreover, the box’s portability eased transport of its contents, so as to displace and thereby display their power away from the holy places. The box combines several important functions: neat bands of images both ordered and guided the rush of memories triggered by the box’s disheveled contents. It gathered and stored labeled fragments, narrated scenes from Christ’s life as experienced by pilgrims, with labels testifying to the source of their power. Juxtaposing reality to miniature, the box and its contents provided the ongoing experience of touch, away from the holy places. Whereas the box combined topographical fragments with a chronological pictorial scheme, in later centuries illustrated virtual pilgrimages and maps from the Middle Ages would abandon the topographical organization of pilgrims’ itineraries and replace them with chronological schemes more appropriate to virtual pilgrimages.7 That combination of fragment and representation appeared in the contents of another box, a wooden casket unearthed in the crypt of the Basilica of San Columbano in Bobbio in Lombardy near Milan in 1910. Although the casket appears lost, its contents, some twenty small pewter flasks to hold oil that had come in contact with the holy places, have survived. 8 Like the bits of earth in the box from the Vatican reliquary, these flasks, or ampullae, are inscribed with words indicating their contents and place of origin (“oil of the wood of life from the holy places”). Together with a set of ampullae found in a nearby Treasury of the Cathedral at nearby Monza, donated by the Lombard Queen Theodelinda (ca. 570–628), they form a collection of over fifty known ampullae. As art historian Jas´ Elsner observes, “as a collection, these relics and reliquaries make the Holy Land accessible in Lombardy through its tangible mementos. Moreover, what they evoke is not simply a single site or group of sites, but rather a myth of completeness, a sense of the totality of Palestine being in some sense available to the worshipper” (1997: 121). That “myth of completeness” was effected by the convergence and containment of label, relic, and place. the thorns together into a crown with twigs he found. On the “intersensory” nature of perception and the anticipatory quality of intersensory memory, see Connolly 2010, 182, 184. 7  See essays in Donkin and Vorholt 2012, esp. Rudy, “Illuminated English Guide,” 240–41. 8  I draw here from Elsner’s “Replicating Palestine,” 119–21.

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Pilgrims’ writings also noted this convergence of stuff, sensory experiences, and the biblical past. To understand better the affective qualities of such recapitulation, it is worth considering the sixth-century account of the Piacenza pilgrim, which describes travels with companions to the Holy Land sometime between 560–570.9 Described by one modern commentator as “the most vivid and unselfconscious description of pilgrimage” (Wilkinson 2002: 12), the Piacenza pilgrim’s account stands out for its exuberance. The pilgrim’s attentiveness to objects at the holy places drives that enthusiasm, as he describes not only their existence, but also various sensory perceptions of them. He recalls gazing upon images of the virgin and Jesus (20), joining pilgrims as they ascended carrying lights and incense to a cross atop a miraculous column near Siloam (25), inhaling the sulfuric smells emitting from Clysma (30, 42), drinking from Saint Theodota’s skull (20), and pressing his ear to hear distant waters in a crack in the rock where Abraham bound Isaac (19; cf. 22).10 And he is quick to judge those experiences: the people of Lebanon “are the worst” (2), whereas in Nazareth, “no more beautiful Jewish women can be found” (5). Some places are remembered for their oversized dates, wines, or citrons (14). More often than not, however, he is most focused on non-edible objects, such as stones, benches, relics, and so on. As commentators have noted, his attention to objects may reflect the greater presence of relics at holy places and the proliferation of holy sites, guides, and availability of portable objects for pilgrims to bring home.11 E.D. Hunt sees this enthusiasm as more than “souvenir-hunting.” As he conjectures, “Any relics originating from the Holy Land … were treasured possessions precisely because they were capable of arousing that kind of vivid reaction which the holy places themselves stimulated, and which the church’s liturgy mirrored” (1982: 129; italics mine).12 Things, then, could be said to have animated the holy places and, conversely, to be energized by their proximity to those places.13 “Vivid reactions” were a familiar occurrence at holy places. Already in the fourth century, Jerome recalled how his fellow-pilgrim Paula prostrated herself before the cross and worshipped (adorabat) as if she beheld the Lord hanging there. … She entered the Sepulcher of the Resurrection and repeatedly touched her lips (osculabatur) to the stone that the angel had rolled away from its door and, as if thirsting for waters longed for by faith, she passionately kissed (ore lambebat) the very place (ipsum corporis locum) where the Lord’s body had been laid. (Jerome, Ep.  108.9.2; trans. Cain 2013: 53)

9 

Jacobs 2004, 124–31. On genres of travel writing, see Johnson 2016, 39–41. As catalogued in Jacobs 2002, 214–15. 11  Sodini 2011, 77–140. 12  On the development of the stational liturgy in Jerusalem, see Baldovin 1987, 83–104. 13  My thinking here is shaped by Patricia Cox Miller’s insights into “thing theory” and the animation of matter in late antique Christian aesthetics (2009: 1–2, 131–47). 10 

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She could not hide such emotions, as “all of Jerusalem and the Lord himself … are witnesses to the tears and amount of visceral groaning (gemitum doloris) she poured out (effuderit)” (108.9.3; Cain 52–53). Nor was such effusive adoration reserved for the sites of Jesus’s death and resurrection. As Paula laments, “I, a wretched sinner, have been considered worthy … to kiss the crib in which the baby Lord cried” (108.10.7; Cain 56–57). To be sure, such descriptions are likely to reflect rhetorical conventions and gender stereotypes current in Jerome’s day.14 However constructed the habits of speech, it is noteworthy that Paula’s kiss, that immersive touch, was reserved for key sites in salvation history: the places of the birth, death, and resurrection of Christ.15 By comparison, the Piacenza pilgrim, writing almost two decades later, extends the touch to a much wider range of holy places. Indeed, he encountered holy places through a greater variety of bodily gestures, touch, and even ingestion. By noting this difference, I am not suggesting that earlier pilgrims were somehow less engaged with the holy places. As I have argued elsewhere,16 visual perception had strong haptic dimensions in antiquity. But in this later “economy of sight and citation,” to borrow Joshua Levinson’s elegant phrase (2013: 115), the Piacenza pilgrim stands out for touching the sacred past more immersively so that his body can feel the mass, textures, heat, sweetness, and sensations of the biblical past’s continuous efflorescence at the holy places. If Egeria and Paula used the text to “touch the sacred past” (Levinson’s words again; ibid.),17 the Piacenza pilgrim, I suggest, used things to feel his way into the sacred past. (And, by extension, the vividness of his descriptions permitted his audience to feel their way as well.) 18 Touch takes many forms in this narrative. Early on in the text that proclivity to touch is not confined to his fingertips. At Cana, where Jesus miraculously converted water into wine, the pilgrim “reclined on [Jesus’s] very couch,” inscribed his parents’ name on it, and filled one of the two water jugs there with wine and “lifted it, full, onto [his] shoulders” (4).19 And at Gethsemane, the pilgrim reclined on all three seats on which Jesus reclined “for a blessing” (17). These actions suggest an imitation of Jesus’s movements: to recline, to hoist up 14  Andrew Cain (2013, 241 on Ep.  108.9.2; 256 on Ep.  108.10.7) observes how traces of Ciceronian rhetoric (cf. Second Verrine, 1.76) and elegy inflect this letter, not to mention gendered stereotypes of feminine emotionality. 15  Cf. Eusebius on the topographical triad connecting the main events of salvation history: the nativity at Bethlehem, the death at the Holy Sepulchre, and the Ascension at the Mount of Olives (Walker 1990, 184). 16  Frank 2000, 102–33. 17  On cross-cultural and contemporary approaches to touch and “haptic aesthetics,” see Paterson 2007, 79–102; Classen 2005; Classen 2012. 18  Although examples of virtual pilgrimage are more widespread in later centuries, Rudy (2011, 117) locates their origins in late antiquity. 19  On the relation of graffiti to sacred space, see Marinis 2014, 330–33; Yasin 2015.

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the weight of the Lord’s miracles. In the synagogue at Nazareth, he notes the “book in which the Lord used to write his ABCs” (5). He does not mention being allowed to touch or inscribe the book; but he adds that the bench on which Jesus sat is capable of “being moved by Christians and lifted up,” even as Jews are “unable to move it; and it doesn’t permit them to drag it outside” (5). This detail suggests that the objects in this space have an agency all their own.20 As he was told, Christians may move the furniture of the sacred past, but it won’t budge for Jews. And at the basilica at Sion, Jesus’s quotation of Ps 118:22 (“The stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone”; cf. Matt 21:42) becomes a stone which Jesus picked up and placed in the corner. So too the pilgrim handled it: “When you hold it and lift it in your hands and put your ear into that corner it makes a sound in your ears like the murmuring of a multitude of people” (22). Thus, this pilgrim encounters the mass, bulk, and mobility of objects. And some objects even have a form of user-recognition software found in today’s technologies: the objects are portable to Christians but immoveable to Jews. That solidity of the sacred past is most apparent in the collection of souvenirs he acquires on his journey. Somewhere between Sinai and Horeb, the pilgrim notes how dew, “which is called ‘manna,’” falls from the sky. Yet, by the time the dew touches earth it “congeals and it becomes like cakes of gum” (39). Near Rachel’s tomb, he collected seven pints of water issuing from a rock, noting that “it is of an indescribable sweetness to drink” (28) and that Mary drank from this spring during her journey to Egypt. This liquid does not turn to solid, but it issues from solid and is transported in measured containers. The monastery there dispenses it in small flasks and the pilgrim reports drinking it. At the Red Sea, the receding tide reveals the “weapons of Pharaoh and the tracks of wheels of chariots” (42) and the weapons now turned to marble. Such shifts from soft to hard substances, from liquids to solids, render the stuff of the holy places capable of being contained, relocated, and even acquiring a solidity and permanence that might otherwise have eroded.21 That solidity of the sacred past extends to foods. Nazareth’s grain is “supernaturally tall” (5). Likewise, Elisha’s spring still waters many vineyards and orchards (14). And at Jericho, he observed a field sown once by Christ, which produces three pecks. Harvested twice annually, the land never requires reseeding. We may surmise that because the hand of Jesus first touched and sowed the seed, the abundance is secure. Thus Jesus’s words and deeds, as found in gospel narratives, are performed by this pilgrim as a series of gestures and touches.22 20  My thinking here is inspired by the insights of Jane Bennett into the vitality of non-human materialities and their interactions with humans (2010, 10–18, 62). 21  On this feature of holy land relics, see Frank 2011, 49–54. That swapping between hard and soft resonates with a visual aesthetic explored by Eunice Dauterman Maguire 2015, 30. 22  I thank the anonymous reader for this insight.

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The pilgrim’s grocery basket includes wine from Jericho, water from springs sweetened by Elisha, one-pound dates he brought home as gifts, forty-pound citrons, and Pentecost wine from grapes grown on the Mount of Olives. And at Clysma, he gets his fill of green nuts “which people believe to be from paradise” and which shipped in from India (42). And from an island 11 miles into the Red Sea, he takes oil dripping from a living rock, “soft fingers hang from it, like flesh fingers of date trees (digiti molles ut carnei in modum dactalorum),” as he describes the “rocky oil (petra uiua).” And the small flasks with their sulfuric odor are believed to withstand even the fiercest turbulence at sea (42). As these brief examples suggest, he is interested in foods and substances that originated from Jesus’s touch or derive from finger-like rock. Touch shapes his memories of his visit to Golgotha. He counts out his paces: 80 steps from the tomb to Golgotha (19), 50 steps from Golgotha to the site where the cross was discovered (20). At Golgotha, he touched his ear to the crack and could hear running water. Moreover, an apple tossed down that crack will reappear floating in the pool of Siloam, about a mile away (19), such that touch reveals contiguity. Like Paula and Egeria before him, he “revered and kissed (adorauimus et osculauimus)” the wood of the cross (20). Whereas these earlier pilgrims were permitted to touch the plaque, or titulus, with the inscription “Here is the King of the Jews (Hic est rex Iudaeorum),” he got to hold it in his hand (vidi et in manu mea tenui). And he describes how small flasks are filled with oil and when their mouth touches the cross, the oil bubbles up until the flask is sealed tight. He also saw the sponge, soaked in vinegar and gall, which was offered to Christ, and the reed which pierced his side (20). Spared the bitter draught, this pilgrim drank water from this sponge. Touching, tasting, testing, and measuring – all these activities point to his tactile engagement with Golgotha. In addition to recounting what he touched, this pilgrim is attentive to the touch of others, most notably in the impressions they leave in the terrain and its objects. He notes the Samaritans’ practice of burning away both Christians’ and Jews’ footprints with chaff to rid themselves of any traces of such enemies (8). And at the ruins of Sodom and Gomorrah, the salt pillar that was once Lot’s wife is diminutive, but not because it was used as a salt lick by livestock, as some mistakenly believe (15). Perhaps one of the most tactile if overlooked pilgrims’ rituals in this account is the act of measuring. At the basilica at Sion, the column where Jesus was whipped still bears the impressions of his chest, hands, and fingers.23 And the 23  The proliferation of imprints appears in middle Byzantine Marian hagiography, as in Epiphanios Kallistratos’s Vita of the Theotokos (BHG 1049), Dressel 1843, 38, which reports that following Jesus’s ascension Mary undertook even more genuflexions, which left impressions on the marble floors at Sion. I thank Dr. Mary B. Cunningham for this reference. The Virgin Mary’s knee prints are comparable to earlier traditions about Christ’s footprints in the

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stone upon which he stood before Pilate still shows the imprint of his feet (23). The pilgrim takes a measure of both sets of imprints, such that the cord used to measure the relic holds healing properties for those who wear it. Gregory of Tours also attests to the power of those cords to travel back to the West. As he describes the practice, “many who are filled with faith approach this column and tie around it cords they have woven; they receive these cords back as a blessing that will help against various illnesses” (Glory of the Martyrs, 6; trans. Van Dam 1988: 27). Sacralized measurements, or what medievalists call “metric relics,” are an inexhaustible source. They spatialize and materialize holy figures, particularly those who left no bodily relics, as say, Christ and Mary. The practice of associating measurements with divine presence predated Christianity, as in the use of Nilometers in Greek sanctuaries to the Egyptian deity Sarapis.24 And the phenomenon of miracle-working measurements of Christ’s wounds and other holy traces continued well into the middle ages.25 I am hardly the first to note the multitude of objects that crowd this pilgrim’s description of the holy places. But if we look past their sheer number, we may pause to consider what all this touching, lifting, moving, measuring, hoisting, reclining, and handling means. To some extent they call attention to the sheer busy-ness of this pilgrim, compared to earlier pilgrims who focused more on the biblical episode associated with a particular holy place and the apt psalm or hymn.26 The Piacenza pilgrim’s hyper-awareness of the sights, sounds, textures, and tastes of the holy land are distinctive. Indeed, the objects themselves sometimes appear less than inert. Recall that “whose small island, of living rock,” the pilgrim recalls, “soft fingers hang from it, like flesh fingers of date trees. Ointment pours from them, which they call rocky oil, which is taken away for a great blessing” (42). The fleshiness of the rock and the paradox of “rocky oil” enliven this description of the material world. These descriptions endow matter with a will of its own, such that a rock may allow itself to be lifted by a Christian but remain fixed to the floor if approached by a Jew. It is as if, to borrow a description from political theorist Jane Bennett, “the world comes alive as a collection of singularities.” Bennett calls this state – perhaps more accurately, a mood – a form of enchantment, which entails, in her words, “a condition of exhilaration or acute sensory activity. To be simultaneously transfixed in wonder and transported by sense, to be both caught up and carried away” (2001: 5). Objects assume a “thing-power,” or “lively intensity,” which blurs the line between living sand at the Church of the Ascension (Paulinus of Nola, Ep.  31.4, trans. Walsh 2.129–30. Cf. Ps 131 (132): 7. Cf. Maraval 2004, 266; Sulpicius Severus, Hist. sac. 2.33; Augustine, Trans. in Joh. 47.4, cited in Wilkinson 2002, 166. 24  Wild 1981, 154–55. I thank the anonymous reviewer for suggesting this similarity. 25  On “metric relics” in the Middle Ages, see Rudy 2011, 98–103; Arad 2012, 307; Bury 2007, 112–34; Shalev 2011, 131–50. On the role of measurement in meditational exercises, see Carruthers 2012, 116–17. 26 E.g., Itinerarium Egeriae 7.2, 10.7, 12.3.

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beings and inert objects. Such alertness engenders a persistent impulse to heed the “call” from things (Bennett 2012: 237–40). By reclining upon, touching, lifting, kissing, hoisting so many things at the holy places, the Piacenza pilgrim touched as a way to feel the sacred past’s texture. There is no doubt that the increased traffic in relics and the inventive expressions of relic veneration found expression in this account. It was no longer enough to kiss or to extend one’s hand; the Piacenza pilgrim drank from a holy skull and lifted sacred objects. As Annabel Jane Wharton argues in her rich study of the commodification of Jerusalem, the physical reality of material from the holy land (rocks, relics, gifts) eventually gives way to a medieval proliferation of replicas and the eventual mass production of images, prints, and panoramas, resulting in the theme parks and virtual cyber-pilgrimages (2006: 237). Describing this shift from materiality to materialism, Wharton reminds readers of the “somatic encounter with the spaces of the Passion and Resurrection [and] … participatory space that encouraged haptic engagement with the sacred” (237– 38; italics mine). Wharton’s study of the fate of the holy land in the industrialized West is a helpful reminder of the still visceral and embodied contact this sixth-century pilgrim had with the biblical past. His delight in heeding the call to grab, touch, and run his hand along the surfaces and stuff of the holy places signals that to touch is to feel and to feel one’s way into a sacred past. This examination of touch has suggested that the haptic gaze extended beyond sight to encompass a multi-sensory feel for the Holy Land in late antiquity. Although the Piacenza Pilgrim does not mention visiting Syria, it is worth recalling these abundant souvenirs from the shrine of the pillar saints Symeon the Elder (d. 451) as well as Symeon the Younger (d. 592). Symeon tokens show no trace of a hole or place to attach a cord to this object, so it could not have been worn as a pendant, as the small flasks had been. As art historian Shannon Steiner points out, “tokens lacked cords or mounting, and so touch is implicit in interaction with such objects. Pilgrims cradled tokens in their hands, rubbed them over their skin, and consumed them in food and drink, all forms of touching. Touch communicated among sacred and profane bodies and things” (2013: 110).27 Imprints of that touch appear on tokens that were molded by hand, suggesting what Steiner identifies as “the very essence of touch-loving” (108, 111). Such material traces of touching suggest that for pilgrims to the holy land, the power of touch would provide new forms of immersion into biblical realities. As medievalist Sarah Stanbury observes, images of saints holding objects “evoke a certain haptic pleasure – the pleasures of holding and having” (2008: 68–71). Pilgrims in earlier centuries likewise enjoyed and recounted those pleasures.

27 

Cf. Vikan 2010: 32, 36 for examples of pendant and non-pendant souvenirs.

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Works Cited Arad, Pnina. 2012. “Pilgrimage, Cartography, and Devotion: William Wey’s Map of the Holy Land.” Viator 43: 301–22. Baldovin, John F. 1987. The Urban Character of Christian Worship: The Origins, Development, and Meaning of Stational Liturgy. Orientalia Christiana Analecta 228. Rome: Pontifical Institute of Oriental Studies. Bennett, Jane. 2001. The Enchantment of Modern Life: Attachments, Crossings, and Ethics. Princeton: Princeton University Press. –. 2010. Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Durham: Duke University Press. –. 2012. “Powers of the Hoard: Further Notes on Material Agency.” In Animal, Vegetable, Mineral: Ethics and Objects, ed. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen. Washington: Oliphant Books, pp.  237–69. Brown, Bill. 2015. Other Things. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Bury, Michael. 2007. “The Measure of the Virgin’s Foot.” In Images of Medieval Sanctity: Essays in Honour of Gary Dickson, ed. Debra Higgs Strickland. Leiden: Brill, pp.  121–34. Carruthers, Mary. 2012. “The ‘Pictures’ of Jerusalem in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 156.” In Imagining Jerusalem in the Medieval West, ed. Lucy Donkin and Hanna Vorholt. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp.  97–121. Classen, Constance, ed. 2005. The Book of Touch. Oxford: Berg. –. 2012. The Deepest Sense: A Cultural History of Touch. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Connolly, William E. 2010. “Materialities of Experience.” In New Materialisms: Ontology, Agency, and Politic, ed. Diana Coole and Samantha Frost. Durham: Duke University Press, pp.  178–200. Dauterman Maguire, Eunice. 2015. “Design Exchanges between Hard and Soft.” In Abstracts of the 41st Annual Byzantine Studies Conference. 30. New York: Byzantine Studies Association of North America. Devos, P. 1967. “La date du voyage d’Egérie.” Analecta Bollandiana 85: 165–94. Donkin, Lucy, and Hanna Vorholt, eds. 2012. Imagining Jerusalem in the Medieval West. Rom, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dressel, Albert, ed. 1843. Epiphanii monachi edita et inedita. Leipzig: Brockhaus-Avenarius. Elsner, John (Jas´ ). 1997. “Replicating Palestine and Reversing the Reformation: Pilgrimage and Collecting at Bobbio, Monza, and Walsingham.” Journal of the History of Collections 9 117–30. –, and Ian Rutherford, eds. 2005. Pilgrimage in Graeco-Roman and Early Christian Antiquity: Seeing the Gods. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Engemann, Josef, and Ernst Dassmann, eds. 1995. Akten des XII. Internationalen Kongresses für Christliche Archäologie (Bonn 22–28 September, 1991); Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum, Ergänzungsbände, 20: 1–2. Münster: Aschendorff. Frank, Georgia. 1995. “Pilgrim’s Experience and Theological Challenge: Two Patristic Views.” In Akten des XII. Internationalen Kongresses für Christliche Archäologie (Bonn 22–28 September 1991); Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum, Ergänzungsbände, 20: 1–2; 2.787–91. Münster: Aschendorff. –. 2000. The Memory of the Eyes: Pilgrimage to Living Saints in Christian Late Antiquity. Transformations of the Classical Heritage, 30. Berkeley: University of California Press.

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–. 2008. “Pilgrimage.” In The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Studies, ed. Susan Ashbrook Harvey and David Hunter. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp.  826–43. –. 2011. “Telling Jerusalem: Miracles and the Moveable Past in Late Antique Christianity.” In Objects in Motion: The Circulation of Religion and Sacred Objects in the Late Antique and Byzantine World, ed. Hallie Meredith. British Archaeological Reports International Series 2247. Oxford: Archaeopress, pp.  49–54. Fulkerson, Matthew. 2014. The First Sense: A Philosophical Study of Human Touch. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Itinerarium Egeriae. Text: P. Geyer and O. Cuntz, eds. 1965. Itineraria et alia geographica. CCSL 175–76. Pierre Maraval, ed. and trans. 1982. Égérie, Journal de voyage. SC 296. Paris: Cerf. Trans. John Wilkinson. 1981. Egeria’s Travels to the Holy Land. Rev. ed. Jerusalem: Ariel/Warminster: Aris & Phillips. Gregory of Tours, Glory of the Martyrs. ed. B. Krusch. 1885. “Georgii Florentii Gregorii episcopi Turonensis libri octo miraculorum.” In Monumenta Germaniae historica. Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum, 1. Hannover, pp.  451–820. Engl. trans. Raymond Van Dam. 1988. Translated Texts for Historians, Latin Series III. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. Hahn, Cynthia. 1990. “Loca Sancta Souvenirs: Sealing the Pilgrim’s Experience.” In The Blessings of Pilgrimage, ed. Robert Ousterhout. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, pp.  85–96. Hunt, Edward D. 1982. Holy Land Pilgrimage in the Later Roman Empire (AD 312– 460). Oxford: Clarendon. –. 2001. “The Date of Itinerarium Egeriae.” Studia Patristica 38: 410–16. Jacobs, Andrew S. 2002. “The Most Beautiful Jewesses in the Land: Imperial Travel in the Early Christian Holy Land.” Religion 32: 205–25. –. 2004. Remains of the Jews: The Holy Land and Christian Empire in Late Antiquity. Divinations. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Jerome, Epitaphium Sanctae Paulae (Ep.  108), ed. and trans. Andrew Cain. 2013. Jerome’s Epitaph on Paula: A Commentary on the Epitaphium Sanctae Paulae. Oxford Early Christian Texts. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Johnson, Scott Fitzgerald. 2016. Literary Territories: Cartographical Thinking in Late Antiquity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Krueger, Derek. 2015. “Liturgical Time and Holy Land Reliquaries in Early Byzantium.” In Saints and Sacred Matter: The Cult of Relics in Byzantium and Beyond, ed. Cynthia Hahn and Holger A. Klein. Washington: Dumbarton Oaks, pp.  111–31. Levinson, Joshua. 2013. “There Is No Place Like Home: Rabbinic Responses to the Christianization of Palestine.” In Jews, Christians, and the Roman Empire: The Poetics of Power in Late Antiquity, ed. Natalie B. Dohrmann and Annette Yoshiko Reed. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, pp.  99–120. Maraval, Pierre. 2004. Lieux saints et pèlerinages d’Orient. Histoire et géographie des origines à la conquête arabe. 2d edition. Paris: Cerf. Marinis, Vasileios. 2014. “Piety, Barbarism, and the Senses in Byzantium.” In Sensational Religion: Sensory Cultures in Material Practice, ed. Sally M. Promey. New Haven: Yale University Press, pp.  321–40. Miller, Patricia Cox. 2009. The Corporeal Imagination: Signifying the Holy in Late Ancient Christianity. Divinations. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Paterson, Mark. 2007. The Senses of Touch: Haptics, Affects, and Technologies. Oxford: Berg.

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Paulinus of Nola, Sancti Pontii Meropii Pavlini Nolani Epistvlae. Ed. Wilhelm August Hartel. 1894. CSEL 29. Vienna: Tempsky. Trans. P.G. Walsh. 1966–1967. Letters of St. Paulinus of Nola. 2 vols.; Ancient Christian Writers 35–36; Westminster, Maryland. Ps.-Antonini Placentini Itinerarium. [Piacenza Pilgrim] Text: P. Geyer and O. Cuntz, eds. 1965. Itineraria et alia geographica. CCSL 175–76. Turnhout: Brepols, 175:129– 53. Trans. John Wilkinson. 2002. Jerusalem Pilgrims before the Crusades. Warminster: Aris & Phillips, pp.  129–51. An online translation by Andrew S. Jacobs is also avail­ able at http://andrewjacobs.org/rs90/piacenza.html. Purves, Alex. 2013. “Haptic Herodotus.” In Synaesthesia and the Ancient Senses, ed. Shane Butler and Alex Purves. Durham: Acumen, pp.  27–41. Rudy, Kathryn M. 2011. Virtual Pilgrimages in the Convent: Imagining Jerusalem in the Late Middle Ages. Disciplina Monastica. Vol. 8. Turnhout: Brepols. –. 2012. “An Illuminated English Guide to Pilgrimage in the Holy Land: Oxford, Queen’s College, MS 357.” In Imagining Jerusalem in the Medieval West, ed. Lucy Donkin and Hanna Vorholt. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp.  219–42. Shalev, Zur. 2011. “Christian Pilgrimage and Ritual Measurement in Jerusalem.” Micrologus 19: 131–50. Sodini, Jean-Pierre. 2011. “La terre des semelles: images pieuses ramenées par les pèlerins des Lieux saints [Terre sainte, Martyria d’Orient].” Journal des Savants n.v. (January– June): 77–140. Stanbury, Sarah. 2008. The Visual Object of Desire in Late Medieval England. The Middle Ages Series. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Steiner, Shannon. 2013. “Tokens Touched and Touching.” In Byzantine Things in the World, ed. Glenn Peers. Houston: Menil Collection, pp.  108–11. Stewart, Susan. 1993. On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection. Durham: Duke University Press. Theodoret of Cyrrhus, Historia religiosa. Text: Pierre Canivet and Alice Leroy-Molinghen, ed. and trans. 1977, 1979. Théodoret de Cyr, Histoire des moines de Syrie. SC 234, 257. Paris: Cerf. Trans. R. M. Price. 1985. History of the Monks of Syria. CS 88. Kalamazoo: Cistercian. Vikan, Gary. 2010. Early Byzantine Pilgrimage Art. Dumbarton Oaks Byzantine Collection Publications. Rev. ed. Vol. 5. Washington: Dumbarton Oaks. –. 2003. Sacred Images and Sacred Power in Byzantium. Variorum Collected Studies Series, 778. Aldershot: Ashgate. Walker, Peter W. L. 1990. Holy City, Holy Places? Christian Attitudes to Jerusalem and the Holy Land in the Fourth Century. Oxford: Clarendon. Walsh, P. G. ed. 1966–1967. Letters of St. Paulinus of Nola. 2 vols. ACW 35–36. Westminster: Newman. Wharton, Annabel Jane. 2006. Selling Jerusalem: Relics, Replicas, Theme Parks. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Wild, Robert A. 1981. Water in the Cultic Worship of Isis and Sarapis. Leiden: Brill. Wilkinson, John, ed. 2002. Jerusalem Pilgrims before the Crusades. Revised edition. Warminster: Aris & Phillips. Yasin, Ann Marie. 2015. “Prayers on Site: The Materiality of Devotional Graffiti and the Production of Early Christian Sacred Space.” In Viewing Inscriptions in the Late Antique and Medieval World, ed. Antony Eastmond. New York: Cambridge University Press, pp.  36–60.

Jesus’s Travels from Different Perspectives

The Wandering Jesus: Luke’s Travel Narrative as Part of His Hermeneutical Strategy of “Double Codification” Reinhard Feldmeier The Travel Narrative as the Central Part of the Third Gospel “When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51). These words mark the beginning of a large section in the third Gospel, which covers about ten chapters. Depicting Jesus on his way to Jerusalem, the so-called Travel Narrative, the central section of the gospel, comprises almost half of Luke’s account of the life of Jesus. Of course, the other gospels, too, show us Jesus constantly on the move around the Sea of Galilee and finally going to Jerusalem. The tradition of the wandering master and his ‘following’ disciples surely goes back to the historical Jesus, whose message of the dawning kingdom of God was embodied in the figure of an itinerant preacher and healer. So Mark and Matthew have at the end of Jesus’s life a kind of a travel itinerary, too – from Caesarea Philippi in the north to Jerusalem in the south. To use Knut Backhaus’s vivid metaphor, we can say that Christianity started as a “road movie” (2014: 86).1 But it is Luke’s unique move to insert the Jesus tradition he had received into the account of an ongoing journey with Jerusalem as its destination.2 From a historical point of view, Luke’s presentation of this journey is not very compelling: most of the time Jesus is going to Jerusalem without coming closer to it. So, almost eight chapters after the start of the voyage in Luke 17:11, Jesus is again at the border between Samaria and Galilee where the whole journey started.3 Nevertheless, there are repeated travel notices and way markers – mostly without parallels in the other gospels. I quote some of them: As they were going along the road. (Luke 9:57) Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village. (Luke 10:38) 1  “Das Christentum hat – die pointierte Wortwahl sei gestattet – als road movie begonnen.” 2  For that purpose Luke has omitted a part of Mark’s gospel (Mark 9:41–10:12) and instead inserted material from Q and his special tradition (including the famous parables). 3  I do not deal here with the various attempts to explain the structure of this narrative; on that cf. Baum 1993, 340–46.

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Jesus went through one town and village after another, teaching as he made his way to Jerusalem. (Luke 13:22) “Yet today, tomorrow and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.” (Luke 13:33) On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. (Luke 17:11) Then he took the twelve aside and said to them, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished.” (Luke 18:31) As he approached Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging. (Luke 18:35) He entered Jericho and was passing through it. (Luke 19:1) As they were listening to this, he went on to tell a parable, because he was near Jerusalem. (Luke 19:11) After he had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. (Luke 19:28) As he came near and saw the city, he wept over it. (Luke 19:41)

The motif of the wandering Jesus may be a device for stringing together a mass of disparate materials, but these quotations nevertheless demonstrate that the pointed presentation of the gospel’s protagonist as a traveler must be a central literary pattern for the evangelist.4 However, the exact signification of this motif is disputed. Many stress that the way to the passion plays an important role in understanding Jesus’s teaching, especially since his teaching in the face of death functions to prepare his followers for the difficulties of true discipleship. The journey thus has a theological-christological as well as an ecclesiastical function.5 I would like to add here a third accentuation which is closely connected to our topic of travel. I see two intertwined threads expressed through the motif of the wandering Jesus: on the one hand, the third Gospel presents its Jesus as a nonconformist outsider and stranger, a homeless prophetic figure set in motion, or indeed driven by his God and thus making his way through resistance and rejection towards his violent death. On the other hand, since God is behind this journey, its vanishing point is not an abyss but the ascension: the introduction of the Travel Narrative Luke 9:51 makes it clear that the journey to Jerusalem is in fact the path home to God. Between the two contrasting and correlating poles of exitus and exaltation, Luke displays his dramatic reformulation of the story of Jesus of Nazareth as the story of a continuous journey. In doing so, he not only combines humilia4  This fits with the observation that πορεύεσθαι (to walk, to travel) is one of Luke’s favorite words: we find it 51 times in the gospel and 38 times in Acts, cf. Geiger 1999, 663 f. Geiger also refers to words like “return” (ὑποστρέφειν), “stride” (διαβῆναι), “travel through” (διοδεύω) and “pass through” (διέρχομαι) as preferential Lukan words (664 f.). The word “travel” (πορεύεσθαι) takes “on the function of a terminus technicus for Jesus’s progress toward Jerusalem” (Gill 1970, 201). It should also be noticed that the Christian movement is five times simply called “the Way” (Acts 9:2; 19:9; 22:4; 24:14.22), but also “the way of salvation” (Acts 16:7), “the way of the Lord” (Acts 18:25), or “the way of God” (Acts 18:26). 5  A survey of different explanations can be found in Bendemann 2001, 6–48.

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tion and elevation as the two sides of a coin, but also skillfully blends the biblical traditions with pagan motifs.

The Homeless Son of Man As I have indicated, Luke shapes his protagonist as an outsider who is finally rejected by most of his addressees. Right at the outset of the gospel, the unborn child has to travel in the womb of his mother from Nazareth to Bethlehem, where Mary is forced to give birth to him in a stable “because there was no place for them in the inn” (Luke 2:7). This start in a manger is a portent for his future life: Simon, the “righteous and devout” man, who was “looking forward to the consolation of Israel” (Luke 2:25), prophesies as follows about the newly circumcised child: “This child is destined for the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed” (Luke 2:34 f.). When Simeon then addresses the mother, “and a sword will pierce your own soul too” (Luke 2:35), he already makes it clear that the divine destiny of the child also affects those who belong to him in one way or the other. This can be seen immediately in the next scene in the gospel. Luke is the only evangelist who presents a story from the childhood of Jesus, the discussion of the twelve-yearold boy with Israel’s teachers in the temple. Not without reason, this is interpreted as describing the divine wisdom that rests on the child (cf. Luke 2:40.52). But one should not overlook the obverse of this divine distinction, which already alienates the child from those who love him: without saying a word, the boy lets his parents return home alone, and when after three days of desperate searching they find him in the temple and his mother asks him reproachfully how he could have done that to them, he simply rebukes her with the words: “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be (δεῖ) in my Father’s house?” (Luke 2:49). There is a cold, almost cruel air of strangeness around this child, which is a result of his exclusive attachment to the God he calls “my Father,” an unconditional dedication that disregards all human ties. Jesus’s strangeness is foreshadowed in his precursor John the Baptist, the radical outsider from the desert (Luke 3:2), and it is explicitly emphasized by Luke when Jesus’s ministry starts with his rejection in his hometown Nazareth. In Mark’s and Matthew’s gospels, this is a minor incident mentioned somewhere in the middle of Jesus’s life (Mark 6:1–6 par. Matt 13:53–58), but Luke has fundamentally revised the story and transferred it to the very beginning of Jesus’s ministry, thereby stressing its importance for his portrayal of Jesus. The citation from Isaiah which Luke has inserted emphasizes that Jesus’s appearance is the fulfillment of the biblical prophecies. But this also includes participation in the fate of a prophet, as he states in Luke 4:24: “Truly I tell you, no prophet is

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accepted in the prophet’s hometown.” So the story already emphasizes the inevitable and ultimately lethal estrangement between the one whom God has anointed with his Spirit (Luke 4:18) and his contemporaries – who in the end even try to hurl him off the cliff (Luke 4:29). The story makes the point that the appearance of this “holy one that is born, called Son of God” (Luke 1:35, trans. Feldmeier) is a constant provocation. Belonging to God and being “full of the Holy Spirit” (Luke 4:1, cf. 4:14) therefore does not result in a success story, but leads to confrontation and rejection. Even as a miracle worker, Jesus is not always welcomed; the manifestation of God’s power in his appearance6 is accompanied, more often than we normally realize, by astonishment and fury, fear and terror,7 even in his own followers (Luke 8:25; 9:34). We see this in a story which only Luke reports, the miraculous draught of fish, at the end of which Peter says to Jesus: “‘Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!’ For terror had seized him and all who were with him” (Luke 5:8 f., trans. Feldmeier). When Jesus then says “Do not be afraid,” this is a theophanic element and hence a clear indication that in the lives of those who encounter this wandering preacher, the tremendum of a divine reality is breaking in – a reality in the light of which they recognize that they are far from God. This portrayal of a stranger and outsider is intensified in the Travel Narrative, where Jesus himself increasingly provokes his contemporaries through his message and demands at the same time that those who want to follow him must become strangers and outsiders like him. When, at the very beginning of the Travel Narrative, the Samaritans refuse to give Jesus and his disciples shelter (Luke 9:52–55), this forms a suitable introduction to the bitter words Jesus addresses to one who wants to be his pupil: “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head” (Luke 9:58). The two following maxims in the same context confirm this fundamental distance, indeed contrast with the conventions of everyday life: when one who wants to follow him asks to be allowed first to bury his father, Jesus says to him: “Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:60). In the other saying, he rebukes the request of a prospective follower to bid a last farewell to his family with the words: “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:62). This demand to take part in his own radical detachment from all human relations and obligations is later underscored by Luke in the Travel Narrative in some logia that originate either from his Sondergut or from Q, but were enlarged and tightened up by him: “Do you think that I have come to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; they will be divided: father against son 6  7 

Luke 9:43; cf. Luke 5:17.26; 7:16. Luke 4:32.36; 5:26; 6:11; 7:16; 8:34.37.56; 9:43; 11:14.

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and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law” (Luke 12:51–53); “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26). There it is again, this cold, almost cruel air of strangeness of the one who is possessed by his God – possessed in such a way that his contemporaries accuse him of being driven by an evil spirit, even being possessed by Satan (Luke 11:14–23). The following story of the sending of the disciples again mentions the possibility of being rejected, a possibility experienced by Jesus himself, who at the end of this brief discourse curses in bitter woes the Galilean cities Chorazim, Bethsaida, and Capharnaum because they did not listen to his call for repentance (Luke 10:13–15). The next passages, Jesus’s thanksgiving to the Father and the parable of the Good Samaritan, are understandable only against the dark background of Jesus’s rejection by the wise and educated ones (Luke 10:21) and his being put to the test by a scribe (Luke 10:25–37). This tension with the religious elite is reflected in the parable itself, with its contrast between the priest and Levite, who pass by on the other side, and the Samaritan who helps the wounded man. In the next chapter, Jesus turns against this “evil generation” (Luke 11:29), threatens them with destruction in the final judgment (Luke 11:29–32), and hurls his woes against the Pharisees (Luke 11:37–52). Throughout the Travel Narrative, the wandering Jesus repeatedly refers to, and is implicated with, rejection and hostility. 8 Most of the famous parables featured in this Travel Narrative originate in conflicts (cf. esp. Luke 15:1 f.; 16:14; 18:9) and form part of them. To put it pointedly: in his words, his deeds and his behavior, Jesus confronts his opponents with the God who is praised in the Magnificat at the beginning of the Gospel as the savior who turns the hierarchy of this world upside down: “His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty” (Luke 1:50–53). The Son of God has come in order to kindle a fire – and precisely this fire is increasingly directed against his own self: “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed!” (Luke 12:49 f.). Many of those who are provoked in this way react with an increasing hostility which finally results in persecution and death: “Therefore also the wisdom of God said, ‘I will send to 8  Cf. Luke 12:4.11f; 13:31; 18:31–33. God’s invitation to the heavenly banquet through him is rejected (Luke 14:15–24), and when he exercises God’s mercy they murmur against it (Luke 15:1 f.). In the last parable of the travel narrative, Luke 19:11–27, he refers to those who hate him and do not want him to be their king (Luke 19:14.27).

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them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute,’ so that this generation may be charged with the blood of all the prophets shed since the foundation of the world” (Luke 11:49 f.). The explicit reference to the divine wisdom shows that the teacher and the traveler cannot be separated, let alone opposed to each other.9 Jesus’s homelessness is the consequence of his teaching and preaching as God’s messenger. The constant provocation of his contemporaries results in Jesus’s final rejection: the homeless traveling thus ends10 with the note that after his arrival in Jerusalem “the chief priests, the scribes, and the leaders of the people kept looking for a way to kill him” (Luke 19:47).

The Homecoming Son of God The Jerusalem that is named as the destination of Jesus’s journey is the “city that kills the prophets” (Luke 13:34) and therefore the place where the wanderer finally meets his fate. But it is for Luke also the city of Jesus’s ἀνάλημψις, of his being “taken up,”11 as the beginning of the Travel Narrative clearly states: “When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.” (Luke 9:51). The importance of the ἀνάλημψις is proven by the fact that Luke is the only evangelist who not only stresses, but also stages Jesus’s final exaltation as an ascension to heaven – and not only once, but twice: in his gospel it marks the end of the story of Jesus on earth, and in his Acts it marks the beginning of the second book, the story of Jesus as the exalted Lord of his church. Jerusalem thus ultimately becomes a place of salvation. Accordingly, despite all the rejection and hostility, despite suffering and death, Jesus’s travel is in the end the path to the final unification with God. This is not least underlined by the fact that the Travel Narrative is interwoven with eschatological texts. These texts are presented in Mark’s and Matthew’s gospels in one discourse during the last days of Jesus. In Luke’s gospel, they are scattered all over the Travel Narrative.12 Just as the strangeness of the Son of 9 

Against Ellis 1996, 4. many scholars, the travel narrative ends with Luke 19:27. But the references to the ongoing travel to Jerusalem in Luke 19:28 and 41 make it more plausible that the narrative ends with Luke 19:48, when Jesus has entered the city, with the cleansing of the temple (cf. also Ellis 1996, 224 f.). But even if one has the travel narrative end earlier, the verse Luke 19:47 presents some kind of result of the whole journey. 11  The transfiguration scene, where Elijah and Moses talk to Jesus “of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem” (Luke 9:31), probably hints already at this final exaltation (cf. Luke 24:26; Fitzmyer, 1981, 800; already Bengel 1860, 157: “Res magna: vocabulum valde grave, quo continetur Passio, Crux, Mors, Resurrectio, Adscensio”). 12  Cf. Luke 12:35–48 par. Matt 24:42–51; Luke 17:20–37 par. Mark 13:19–23.14–16; Luke 19:11–27 par. Matt 25:14–30 (Mark 13:34); further Luke 13:35 f. par. Matt 23:37–39; Luke 14:15–24 par. Matt 22:1–14. 10  For

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Man is the obverse side of his unique attachment to God,13 so too there is a counterpart to his homelessness as an itinerant stranger in this world: the final destiny of all travel is the way home to the heavenly Father – a prerequisite of his new coming as king. This is emphasized by the parable in the last chapter of the Travel Narrative (Luke 19:15–27).

Luke’s Double Codification: The Blending of Biblical and Pagan Traditions in the Travel Narrative Relating the story of Jesus back to the scriptures, especially to the prophetic tradition, while at the same time selecting those features which are plausible also for readers with a Greco-Roman background,14 is a hermeneutical strategy which characterizes Luke’s Gospel as a whole. It can also be seen in the two central motifs of the Travel Narrative: the homeless messenger rejected by his addressees and his final exaltation by God. Not so much has been said about the prophetic background of the first motif, at least as it is understood among early Christians. His rejection by his own people aligns Jesus with the prophets.15 The saying in Luke 13:33 f., which is without a parallel in the other gospels, is significant in this context: “Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem. Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who were sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” But the emphasis on the homeless teacher cannot be explained only by reference to prophetic traditions.16 Most exegetes fail to notice that, due to the changes of the Hellenistic world,17 traveling was quite popular in the Roman Empire. It represented the new mode of life that transcended the integration into a particular community. Thus it became also a central motif in ancient novels.18 Even itineraries and travel tales became quite prominent.19 Concerning the gospel of Luke (and his Acts), two aspects are especially noteworthy. 13 

The attachment is expressed not least in Luke’s portrayal of the praying Jesus. Cf. Backhaus 2012, 79–108. Backhaus describes the means used by ancient historians to make something plausible. 15  As Steck 1965 has demonstrated, the motif of the rejected prophet was first formulated in the deuteronomistic sections of Torah and then taken over in Jewish and later also in Christian traditions. 16  There may also be a reference to Moses and Israel’s wandering with him in the desert, cf. Moessner 1989. 17  Hägg 1983, 84: “The world was widened, new routes were opened for trade, towards China in the East, towards Russia in the North, to the regions south of the Sahara.” 18  In Early Christian Times the basic themes of the most popular novels of Xenophon of Ephesus and Chariton of Aphrodisias are “love, travel, and adventure” (Hägg 1983, 25) 19  Konstan 1994, 227 f. 14 

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The motif of travel in such tales could become subordinate to another purpose, e.g. the introduction of a doctrine or the description of a political utopia.20 This is all the more significant as it is related to another point: the traveling and teaching Jesus in Luke’s gospel resembles the wandering orator as employed in Cynic and Stoic philosophy. This movement of itinerant philosopher-orators experienced a quite surprising revival in New Testament times21 and was certainly familiar to Luke and his readers. One famous example is Dion of Prusa (called Chrysostomos), who traveled around as an exile. According to his own testimony (cf. Exil. 10–12; Hab. 11), his experiences transformed him from an orator into a philosopher. Stressing the parallels between the wandering Jesus and the itinerant oratorphilosophers is all the more appropriate given that the figure of the wandering philosopher could also assume religious characteristics: Dion regarded himself as a divine messenger sent to his countrymen (cf. Alex. 11–13), and texts from the second century prove that itinerant philosophers could even become miracle workers and prophets, as we see in two of Lucian’s satirical books, Alexander and De morte Peregrini.22 In other works, the combination of the wise and holy man can be related to the double aspect of the philosopher and the diviner: according to the Vita Apollonii, Apollonius possesses the ability to “foresee the future on account of his wisdom”23 – a claim substantiated in Vit. Apoll. 1.2 through reference to the daimonion, which produces the same divinatory ability in him as it did in Socrates. It is easy to discover in Jesus’s teaching, as this is reported by Luke, traits which point towards an affinity to the wandering philosophers of his time. First, Jesus’s teaching in the famous Lukan parables bears the stamp of Jesus’s critique of the high and mighty, which has both prophetic (cf. Amos 8:4–10) and philosophical parallels. In particular, the provocative reversals of the valuation of the protagonists (priest, Levite and Samaritan; the two brothers; the rich man and the poor Lazarus; Pharisee and tax collector, etc.) can easily be understood

20  Cf. Hägg 1983, 117: “Euhemerus (c. 300 BC) wrapped his doctrine about the origins of worship of gods – they were originally particularly prominent men – in just such a fantastic tale, and Iambulus (c. 100 BC) tells the utopian life on a group of islands in the Indian Ocean near the equator … where the inhabitants live without family ties in an almost communistic labour-sharing society.” 21  Hahn 2009, 252: “Die kynische Bewegung, im ausgehenden Hellenismus fast erloschen, erlebte unter den politischen und sozialen Verhältnissen der römischen Herrschaft gerade in der östlichen Reichshälfte einen neuerlichen Aufschwung.” 22  Alexander of Abonuteichos, the “liar prophet,” earned his money as a visionary and messenger of his god, compared himself with Pythagoras, and even styled himself with the golden thigh as the latter’s reincarnation. Peregrinus Proteus, another charlatan mercilessly satirized by Lucian, could effortlessly exchange the mask of a Christian prophet (Peregr. 11: προφήτης) for that of a Cynic philosopher (Peregr. 15 ff.). 23  Vit. Apoll. 1.2: κατὰ σοφίαν προγιγνώσκειν.

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as a variant of the Cynic παραχαράττειν τὸ νόμισμα, the re-minting of the common value judgments (cf. Diogenes Laertios, Vitae Philosophorum 6.20.56.71). Second, the ethos Jesus propounds in this account, which is particularly marked by the critique of wealth, would fit this picture. For Luke (as Bovon says), greed is the original sin.24 So too, the Cynic Diogenes can say that the love of money (φιλαργυρία) is the mother city (μητρόπολις) of all evils (Diogenes Laertios, Vitae Philosophorum 6.50, cf. 6.87); and according to Dio Chrysostom, the greediness (πλεονεξία) denounced in Luke 12:15 is the greatest evil (μέγιστον κακόν) (Avar. 7). Altogether, the whole argumentative nexus of Luke 12:13–34, down to the exemplum story, displays not only a nearness to Cynicism but also a range of surprising correspondences to the treatment of the topos of greed in the speeches of Dio Chrysostom, especially De avaritia (Περὶ πλεονεξίας), but also elsewhere,25 so that one can speak of the “Christianization of a Topos.”26 It is therefore quite probable that Luke, who elsewhere underlines Jesus’s affinity to wisdom, had also this type of wandering orators/philosophers in mind when he profiled Jesus as a homeless wanderer.27 This can include persecution and death: the classical example is, of course, Socrates, but in Luke’s time there were also the philosophers executed by Nero and persecuted by the Flavian dynasty.28 The author of Luke-Acts likes to use motifs which can be read from both perspectives, biblical and Hellenistic. This double codification, as I call it, can be seen even more clearly in the motif of exaltation closely connected with the travel motif (Luke 9:51). On the one hand, the ascension to heaven has again a prophetic background: the Lukan use of ascension (ἀνάλημψις) and being taken up (ἀναλαμβάνομαι) (Acts 1:2.11.22) is a clear reference to Elijah’s ascension to heaven in a fiery chariot, as described in the Septuagint (4 Kgdms 2:9.10.11), in Sir 48:9, and in 1 Macc 2:58 with the verb ἀναλαμβάνω, and perhaps also a reference to the Enoch-tradition.29 But on the other hand, the ascension, as the final destination of Jesus’s journey to Jerusalem, also points to the antique ideal of per aspera ad astra, as for example Ovid says about the dying Hercules in Metam. 9.271f: “The Almighty Father carried him away, / Swept in his four-horsed chariot through the clouds, / And stationed him among the shining stars.”30 Luke’s account of Jesus’s ascension to heaven might very well remind his readers 24 

Bovon 1989, 175: “die lukanische Ursünde.” Cf. Dio Chrysostom, Venator, English title: “The Hunter” (Eubeoan Discourse). 26  Malherbe analyzes the parallels in detail. His conclusion: “The similarities of the popular conventions associated with covetousness are numerous and striking” (Malherbe 1996, 135). 27  Cf. Luke 9:58 and Epictetus, Dissertationes ab Arriano digestae 3.22. 28  Hartmann 2002. 29  In Sir 49:14 ἀναλαμβάνω is also used of the translocation of Enoch. 30  Trans. Melville 1986. 25 

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and hearers of this fate of a hero – all the more since it is known not only from mythical stories about Hercules or Romulus,31 but in New Testament times, too, from the deification of a deceased emperor in the Imperial cult.32 In this strategy of a double codification Luke not only picks up these traditions, but also transforms them. The point of ἀνάλημψις in the Lukan context is not the exaltation of the hero into celestial spheres where he enjoys his divine status far away from the misery of the conditio humana. On the contrary: having achieved the victory over death, he became for others the “author of life” (Acts 3:15). We can see here the Christian transformation of a mythical motif: being taken up is the prerequisite for Jesus’s new presence amidst his followers, guiding and empowering them. This brings us to our last point.

‘The Way’: The Migrating Lord and the ecclesia peregrinans The traveling master also becomes the model for his followers. As members of the familia Dei (Luke 8:21), the followers have to take part in Jesus’s homelessness; 33 at the same time, however, they share in Jesus’s power over the evil spirits (Luke 10:1–12) and they also have the promise of a final exaltation (Luke 14:11; 18:14). This means that traveling with their master from Galilee up to Jerusalem (Acts 13:31) is a preparation of the disciples for the future.34 This is important for Acts, Luke’s second book, where Paul becomes the central figure, and is deliberately given the same profile as Jesus, as an itinerant preacher who is victorious by suffering. While Jesus made his way from Galilee to the Holy City, the center of Judaism, Paul continues this journey from Jerusalem to the capital of the Empire, the center of the pagan world.

Works Cited Backhaus, Knut. 2012. “Asphaleia: Lukanische Geschichtsschreibung im Rahmen des antiken Wahrheitsdiskurses.” In Wahrheit und Geschichte. Exegetische und herme31  Cf. Plutarch, Rom. 27 and Livy 1.16.1–8 (who reports the disappearance of Romulus, which is interpreted as ascension); Ovid, Fast. 2.499–518 describes an epiphany of the exalted Romulus, who thus became the hero of a cult. 32  Cf. Sueton, Aug. 100.4. 33  This includes, of course, also the complete break with all the securities that possessions give: “So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions” (Luke 14:33). 34  Reike 1959, 216: “Considering the fact that the Travel Narrative contains so many traditions intended to be instructive for Christian missionaries, one may ask whether Christ is not described here as being on a pilgrimage toward suffering and glorification, because such pilgrimage is the lot of his messengers on this earth.” And it is scarcely by chance that the risen one reveals himself to two of his disciples during their journey to Emmaus (Luke 24:13–32).

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neutische Studien zu einer dialektischen Konstellation, ed. Eva Ebel and Samuel Vollenweider. Zurich: Theologischer Verlag, pp.  79–108. –. 2014. Religion als Reise. Intertextuelle Lektüren in Antike und Christentum. Tria Corda 8. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Baum, Armin Daniel. 1993. Lukas als Historiker der letzten Jesureise. Wuppertal: Brockhaus. Bendemann, Reinhold von. 2001. Zwischen ΔΟΞΑ und ΣΤΑΥΡΟΣ. Eine exegetische Untersuchung der Texte des sogenannten Reiseberichts im Lukasevangelium. BZNW 101. Berlin: de Gruyter. Bengel, Johann Albrecht. 1860. Gnomon Novi Testamenti. In quo ex native verborum VI. Simplicitas, profunditas, concinnitas, salubritas. Sensuum coelesticum indicator. Secundum editionem tertiam (1773). Berolini: Schlawitz. Bovon, François. 1989. Das Evangelium nach Lukas 1. Lk 1,1–9,50. Evangelisch-Katholischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament 3. Zürich: Benzinger. Ellis, Edward Earle. 1996. The Gospel of Luke. The Century Bible. London: Nelson. Fitzmyer, Joseph A. 1981. The Gospel According to Luke I–IX. Anchor Bible 28. New York: Doubleday. Geiger, Georg. 1999. “Der Weg Jesu als roter Faden durch Lk-Apg.” In The Unity of Luke-Acts, ed. Jozef Verheyden. Leuven: Leuven University Press, pp.  663–73. Gill, David. 1970. “Observations on the Lukan Travel Narrative and Some Related Passages.” The Harvard Theological Review 63: 199–221. Hägg, Thomas. 1983. The Novel in Antiquity. Oxford: Blackwell. Hahn, Johannes. 2009. “Das Auftreten und Wirken von Philosophen im gesellschaftlichen und politischen Leben des Prinzipats.” In Dion von Prusa. Der Philosoph und sein Bild, ed. Heinz-Günther Nesselrath. Scripta antiquitatis posterioris et ethicam religionemque pertinentia 13. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, pp.  241–58. Hartmann, Udo. 2002. “Griechische Philosophen in der Verbannung.” In Gelehrte in der Antike. Alexander Demandt zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Andreas Goltz, Andreas Luther, and Heinrich Schlange-Schöningen. Cologne: Böhlau, pp.  59–86. Konstan, David. 1994. Sexual Symmetry: Love in the Ancient Novel and Related Genres. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Malherbe, Abraham Johannes. 1996. “The Christianization of a Topos (Luke 12:13– 34).” Novum Testamentum 38: 123–35. Moessner, David P. 1989. The Lord of the Banquet: The Literary and Theological Significance of the Lukan Travel Narrative. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. Reike, Bo. 1959. “Instruction and Discussion in the Travel Narrative.” In Studia Evangelica, Papers Presented to the International Congress on “The Four Gospels in 1957” Held at Christ Church, Oxford, 1957, ed. Kurt Aland, F. L. Cross, Jean Danielou, Harald Riesenfeld, and W.C. van Unnik. Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur. Archiv für die von der Kommission für spätantike Religionsgeschichte der Deutschen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin unternommene Ausgabe der älteren christlichen Schriftsteller 73 (= V. Reihe, Band 18). Berlin: Akademie, pp.  206–16. Steck, Odil Hannes. 1965. Israel und das gewaltsame Geschick der Propheten. Untersuchungen zur Überlieferung des deuteronomistischen Geschichtsbildes im Alten Testament, Spätjudentum und Urchristentum. WMANT 23. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchner Verlag.

Jesus’s Descent to the Underworld in the Babylonian Talmud and in Christian Literature of the Roman East Richard Kalmin It is my heartfelt pleasure to thank Maren Niehoff for the warm hospitality she showed to me and to the other scholars gathered in Jerusalem for her conference. The conference was one of the most exciting and inspiring I have ever had the pleasure to attend. This paper is a close reading of a Babylonian rabbinic narrative featuring a certain Onkelos bar Kalonikos raising Jesus from the dead to ask him whether or not he should go ahead with his plan to convert to Judaism.1 We attempt to show that the rabbinic narrative is a subversion of the Christian belief that immediately following his crucifixion, Christ descended to Hell, preached the Gospel and converted the dead imprisoned there, following which he ascended with them to heaven. This belief is well-attested in early Christian sources from the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire, and it is significant that a counter-narrative is preserved in the geographically distant Babylonian Talmud (but not in Palestinian rabbinic compilations from the same time and place as the Christian sources), a phenomenon that has been increasingly well-documented of late.2 The present paper, therefore, corroborates earlier research that reached the surprising conclusion that non-Jewish literature from the Roman East is vitally important for contextualizing traditions preserved in the Babylonian Talmud. This paper builds on the findings of my earlier work, according to which Jewish Babylonia and Christian Mesopotamia underwent similar processes of eastern provincial Romanization beginning in the third century CE, when Shapur I of Persia invaded deep into Roman territory and transplanted thousands of Jews, Christians, and pagans from the Roman East, settling them in eastern Syria, Mesopotamia, and western Persia. In part as a result of these dramatic events of the mid-third century, the Jewish and Christian communities of Mesopotamia experienced an influx of literature and modes of behavior deriv1  To my knowledge there is no basis for equating Onkelos bar Kalonikos with Onkelos (or Akilas) the Convert, fragments of whose Greek translation of the Torah are quoted throughout rabbinic literature. 2  See, for example, Kalmin 2014, passim.

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ing from the eastern Roman provinces that achieved literary expression beginning in the fourth century. This pattern of forced resettlement repeated itself later in the Sasanian period, as a result of the continued incursions of Sasanian monarchs deep into Roman territory between the fourth and sixth centuries, and the phenomenon of the eastern provincial Romanization of Mesopotamia and its environs therefore continued in these later centuries.3 At first glance, the narrative about the prospective conversion of Onkelos bar Kalonikos to Judaism seems to be nothing more than a bizarre account of one man’s conversations with three men who are all imprisoned in Hell. These men seem to have virtually nothing in common besides the fact that they are all enemies of Israel. In addition, the story seems to be unfinished, since we hear at the outset that Onkelos is thinking of converting to Judaism but we never discover whether or not he does.4 However, other aspects of the narrative demonstrate that it is a well-crafted literary work. It is built upon the stock number three: Onkelos speaks to three villains and asks the same three questions of each. The answers of the villains decrease in the intensity of their animus against Israel, moving from Titus’s advice to Onkelos to “attack them in this world,” to Balaam’s advice “not to seek their welfare or their prosperity all [your] days,” to Jesus’s advice to Onkelos to convert to Judaism. These conversations are bracketed by a statement at the beginning, which introduces the reader to Onkelos and gives the reason for the conversations, and a concluding statement that contrasts two of the three villains.5 Additionally, once in the story the author uses clever word play. Onkelos is considering ‫( לאיגיורי‬to convert) but Titus tells him not to convert, but rather to ‫איגרי‬, to attack the people of Israel. These factors indicate that the narrative is an intentionally written, well-crafted literary work. What, then, is its message? What is the connection between Titus, Balaam, and Jesus? Why is each one condemned to a specific punishment? In order to find answers to these and other questions, we must take a closer look at the story in its larger rabbinic context, and also broaden our scope to examine the relationship between the story and other texts and ideas in the contemporaneous Christian context. Only by considering both Jewish and non-Jewish texts and concepts can one understand and appreciate the full force of this narrative. 3 

See Kalmin 2014, 5–6, and the literature cited there. name “Onkelos bar Kalonikos” is perhaps intended to describe this character’s nature as “Good” (Kalos in Greek), “son of Beauty” (Kalon), which suggests that he went ahead with his plan to convert. In Hebrew, the term “son of X” often means “a member of the category X.” Bnei Yisrael, for example, is routinely the Bible’s way of referring to “the Israelites.” Another possibility is that “Kalonikos” is meant to derive from the Greek word Kakon, “evil,” and refers to Onkelos’s evil ancestry, in spite of which he turned out good. 5  The fact that each of the two villains are referred to in the plural: “the sinners of Israel” (Jesus) and “the prophets of the nations of the world” (Balaam) is a fairly common feature of ancient rabbinic Hebrew. 4  The

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The narrative is as follows: 67 Vilna Printing (except where noted) Onkelos, son of Kalonikos, son of the daughter of Titus wanted to convert.6

‫אונקלוס בר קלוניקוס בר אחתיה‬ .‫דטיטוס הוה בעי לאיגיורי‬

He went and he brought Titus up by means of necromancy. He [Onkelos] said to him: “Who is important in that world?” He [Titus] said to him: “Israel.”

‫ אמר‬.‫אזל אסקיה לטיטוס בנגידא‬ ?‫ מאן חשיב בההוא עלמא‬:‫ליה‬ .‫ ישראל‬:‫אמר ליה‬

“What about joining with them [that is, convert:‫אמר ליה‬ ‫בהו? אמר‬ ?‫מהו לאידבוקי בהו‬ :‫ליה‬ ‫ולא מצית‬ ‫נפישין ולא‬ ‫מילייהו נפישין‬ ing]?” He [Titus] said to him: “Their commands ‫מצית‬ ‫בהו בההוא‬ ‫איגרי בהו‬ ‫ זיל איגרי‬.‫לקיומינהו‬ .‫לקיומינהו‬ are many and you will not be able to uphold them. ‫בההוא‬ ‫ דכתיב‬,‫דכתיב‬ ‫והוית רישא‬ Go and attack them in this world and you will be ,‫עלמארישא‬ ‫איכה והוית‬ ‫]עלמא‬ ’‫צריה" וגו‬ ‫"היולראש‬ ‫היו’[צריה‬ " [’‫א‬ the head, as it is written [Lam 1:5]: ‘Her enemies ‫כל וגו’ כל‬ "‫לראש‬ ‫]איכה א‬ .‫נעשה ראש‬ ‫המיצר לישראל נעשה‬ will become the head etc.’ Anyone who causes .‫ראש‬ Israel to suffer will be made head.” He [Onkelos] said to him: “What is the punishment of that person [i.e. you]?” He [Titus] said to him: “With that which I decreed for myself: Every day his ashes are collected, and they judge him, and they burn him, and they scatter [the ashes] across the seven seas.” He [Onkelos] went and he brought up Balaam by means of necromancy. He said to him: “Who is important in that world?” He [Balaam] said to him: “Israel.” “What about joining with them?” He [Balaam] said to him: [Deut 23:7] “‘Do not seek their welfare or their prosperity all [your] days.’” 6  See

‫ דיניה דההוא גברא‬:‫אמר ליה‬ :‫ במאי דפסיק אנפשיה‬:‫במאי? א"ל‬ ‫כל יומא מכנשי ליה לקיטמיה‬ ‫ודייני ליה וקלו ליה ומבדרו אשב‬ .‫ימי‬ ‫ אמר‬.‫אזל אסקיה לבלעם בנגידא‬ ?‫ מאן חשיב בההוא עלמא‬:‫ליה‬ .‫ ישראל‬:‫א"ל‬ ‫]דברים‬:‫א"ל‬ ‫בהו?? א"ל‬ ‫לאידבוקי בהו‬ ‫מהוו לאידבוקי‬ ‫מה‬ [‫דבריםכ"ג‬ ‫וטובתם‬ ‫תדרוש שלומם‬ ‫לא תדרוש‬ ‫לא‬ [‫כ"ג‬ ]: ‫שלומם‬ 7 7 ‫כל‬ ‫וטובתם‬.‫הימים‬ ‫הימים כל‬ ?‫ דיניה דההוא גברא במאי‬:‫א"ל‬

Cassius Dio, Historia Romana 67.14.1–3, for an account of the emperor Domitian’s .‫רותחת‬ ‫בשכבת זרע‬ :‫א"ל‬ execution of Flavius Clemens, a relative “who drifted into Jewish ways.” Domitian was the emperor Titus’s brother, according to which the parallel between the Bavli and Cassius Dio is tantalizingly close. See also Stern 1980, vol.  2, 379–84. :‫ א"ל‬.‫בנגידא‬ ‫ישו‬Munich ‫אזל אסקיה ל‬ 7  The verse ends with the words ‫כל ימיך לעולם‬. It is quoted accurately in ms 95. : ‫א"ל‬ ? ‫עלמא‬ ‫בההוא‬ ‫ חשיב‬the ‫מאן‬ Other manuscripts and printed editions either do not quote the end of the verse, or quote last three words slightly inaccurately. The meaning, however, is the same, and it is a clear '‫ישר‬ reference to Deuteronomy 23:7.

‫ טובתם‬:‫מהו לאדבוקי בהו? א"ל‬ ‫ כל הנוגע‬.‫דרוש רעתם לא תדרוש‬ .‫בהן כאילו נוגע בבבת עינו‬ ?‫ דיניה דההוא גברא במאי‬:‫א"ל‬

358

Richard Kalmin

‫]דברים‬:‫מהו לאידבוקי בהו? א"ל‬ [‫לא תדרוש שלומם וטובתם כ"ג‬ .‫כל הימים‬

He [Onkelos] said to him: “What is the punishment of that person [i.e. you]?” He [Balaam] said to him: “In boiling semen.”

?‫ דיניה דההוא גברא במאי‬:‫א"ל‬ .‫ בשכבת זרע רותחת‬:‫א"ל‬

He [Onkelos] went and he brought up Jesus by means of necromancy. He said to him: “Who is important in that world?” He [Jesus] said to him: “Israel.”

:‫ א"ל‬.‫ בנגידא‬8‫אזל אסקיה לישו‬ :‫מאן חשיב בההוא עלמא? א"ל‬ '‫ישר‬

“What about joining with them?” He [Jesus] said to him: “Seek their welfare; do not seek their harm. Anyone who touches them, it is as if he touches the apple of His eye.”

‫ טובתם‬:‫מהו לאדבוקי בהו? א"ל‬ ‫ כל הנוגע‬.‫דרוש רעתם לא תדרוש‬ .‫בהן כאילו נוגע בבבת עינו‬

He [Onkelos] said to him: “What is the punishment of that person [i.e. you]?” He said to him: “In boiling excrement, for the master said: ‘Anyone who mocks the words of the sages will be judged in boiling excrement.’”

?‫ דיניה דההוא גברא במאי‬:‫א"ל‬ :‫ דאמר מר‬,‫ בצואה רותחת‬:‫א"ל‬ ‫כל המלעיג על דברי חכמים נידון‬ .‫בצואה רותחת‬

Come and observe what the difference is between the sinners of Israel and the prophets of the nations of the world!

‫תא חזי מה בין פושעי ישראל‬ 9 .‫לנביאי אומות העולם‬

89

 (Babylonian Talmud Gittin 56b–57a)

The section about Titus is perhaps the easiest to understand. Immediately preceding this story is the account of Titus ransacking the Temple and bringing the spoils back to Rome. Before Titus dies, he says: ‫ליקליוה לההוא גברא ולבדרי‬ ‫בדינא‬ ‫“ לקיטמיה אשב ימי דלא לשכחיה אלהא דיהודאי ולוקמיה‬Burn this person [i.e. me]                       , and scatter his ashes on the seven seas so that the God of the Jews cannot find him and bring him to judgment” (b. Git. 56a). This end connects well with the beginning of the story of Onkelos. Onkelos is introduced as a relative of Titus, and he speaks first to Titus, who has died and is now in the underworld. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the man who is famous for 8  This is the reading of ms Vatican 140. It is the same as ms Munich 95 (except that Munich 95 has abbreviated more words). Ms Vatican 130 lists the character in this excerpt as ‫ישו הנוצרי‬, while the Soncino printed edition does not name any character. The Vilna printed edition appears to have been censored: instead of ‫ ישו‬or ‫ישו הנוצרי‬, it lists ‫ פושעי ישראל‬as the character(s). Because all the extant manuscripts of this story include the name of Jesus, I will assume throughout this paper that the original narrative was in fact about Jesus, and that “Sinners of Israel” was a change made by a censor at a later date. 9  The Vilna printing includes the words ‫ עובדי ע"ז‬here. No other version of this story includes those words; therefore, I will assume that they were a later addition and do not belong in the original story.

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attacking and destroying Jerusalem and the Temple (both historically and in the rabbinic mindset) encourages Onkelos to attack the Jews, despite the fact that he now knows the Jews receive the best treatment in the afterlife. Also unsurprising is Titus’s punishment in the underworld. When Onkelos asks Titus what his punishment is there, Titus appropriately answers, “That which I decreed for myself.” But there is a cruel irony to this judgment, for in the preceding narrative Titus asked that his body be burned “so that the God of the Jews cannot find me and bring me to judgment,” yet we find Titus being judged by the God of the Jews in the very same way that he had hoped would avert such punishment. Titus’s punishment is fitting in yet another way. While the immediately preceding story describes Titus plundering the Temple, Titus is generally known in the rabbinic world for having burned the Temple. With this in mind, Titus is not only receiving the judgment he decreed upon himself, but his punishment is also ‫מידה כנגד מידה‬, measure for measure. It is appropriate that the one who burned the Temple will himself be repeatedly burnt. Onkelos’s interaction with Balaam is the shortest and least detailed, making his dialogue perhaps the most mysterious. Like the others, Balaam states that the most important group in the afterlife is Israel. Despite this, like Titus before him, Balaam seems to discourage Onkelos from converting, though the way in which he does so is somewhat vague. Rather than speak his own words, Balaam simply quotes a verse from Deuteronomy (23:7): “Do not seek their welfare or their prosperity all your days.” In the context of Deuteronomy, this verse is a commandment directed at the Israelites regarding Ammonites and Moabites, who had hired Balaam to curse the Israelites during their exodus from Egypt.10 It is unclear if, in our story, Balaam is quoting this verse in its biblical context or if he is recontextualizing it. If the former, Balaam seems to be saying that the Israelites will not let just anyone join them, or perhaps even that they are rude and elitist and will never accept Onkelos even if he tries to join them; if the latter, then Balaam is advising Onkelos not to seek the welfare of the Israelites, let alone to convert. There is nothing to indicate that one reading is preferable over another; either way, the meaning is the same: Balaam does not recommend that Onkelos convert. In a similarly concise manner, Balaam states but does not explain his judgment in the underworld. What did Balaam do to merit the judgment of spending an eternity in boiling semen? Rashi, in his comment on b. Git. 57a, is probably correct when he states:                      ‫ מדה כנגד מדה שבעצתו התחיל העם לזנות אל בנות מואב‬, “Measure for measure, for as a result of his advice the [Israelite] people began to whore after the daughters of Moav.” Rashi here is referring to an incident described in Numbers 25, in which the daughters of Moav caused the Israelites to engage in 10  To be precise, only the Moabites hired Balaam, a textual problem that need not detain us here.

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idolatry and sexual immorality, leading 24,000 Israelites to perish in the resulting plague. While Balaam is not mentioned in Numbers 25, this incident seems to be recalled in Numbers 31:16, where Moses states that Balaam counseled the foreign women to seduce the Israelites. The rabbis of the Talmud embrace this concept of Balaam as an instigator of sexual immorality: b. Sanhedrin 106a gives a lengthy account of Balaam’s culpability in this incident at Ba’al Peor. Rashi, then, would seem to be correct: Balaam’s judgment is apparently merited because he caused 24,000 Israelites to sin through sexual immorality. The rabbinic association between Balaam and sexual immorality does not stop there, however. In fact, routinely in rabbinic literature, “The Rabbis found the biblical soothsayer Balaam as an ideal symbol of the perceived gentile evils of [sexual] immorality” (Judith Baskin 1983: 78–79).11 With this rabbinic conception of Balaam in mind, it seems there could not be a more fitting punishment for the archetype of sexual immorality than to be punished by soaking in a by-product of that sin. Following his brief interaction with Balaam, Onkelos then conjures up Jesus and asks him the same three questions. The very appearance of Jesus indicates that this story is probably drawing on and subverting Christian ideas.12 The very fact that Jesus is depicted here as being judged in the underworld is itself a parody of the Christian belief that Jesus “was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God” (Mark 16:19).13 But that insight does not help us understand the dialogue between Onkelos and Jesus. The dialogue starts out as we expect. Onkelos asks who is most important in the underworld, and Jesus offers the same answer that Balaam and Titus gave before him: Israel. Following the established pattern, Onkelos asks: “What about joining with them?” Here, Jesus breaks the pattern set by Balaam and Titus. Instead of discouraging Onkelos from converting, Jesus responds by saying: “Seek their welfare; do not seek their harm. Anyone who touches them, it is as if he touches the apple of His eye.” This response at the very least is Jesus’s way of telling Onkelos to be good to the Jews. In fact, Yisrael Yuval and Judith Baskin both suggest reading the text this way. Regarding this narrative, Yuval writes: “The Jewish legend has Jesus issuing a call to protect the lives of the Jews – a clear echo of Augustine’s doctrine, adopted by the Church in the middle Ages, which forbids doing bodily harm to the Jews” (2000: 7). However, in light of the story as a whole, it seems strange that Jesus would simply want to encourage Onkelos to do no harm to the Jews. The story was introduced, after all, by telling us that Onkelos was seeking to convert, not seeking an answer to the question of whether or not he should persecute the Jews. Consider also the way 11  In addition, in b. Sanhedrin 105a the rabbis accuse Balaam of bestiality and of performing sorcery with his phallus. 12  As noted by Schäfer 2010, 82–94. 13  This and all other New Testament quotes use the NRSV translation. This concept becomes widespread among early Christians.

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that Onkelos phrases his question, and the way Jesus phrases his answer. Onkelos asks “what about joining with them,” and Jesus responds: “Anyone who touches them, it is as if he touches the apple of His eye.” Jesus is clearly alluding here to Zechariah 2:12: “Anyone who touches you, it is as if he touches the apple of His eye.” Only three verses later, in Zechariah 2:15, we read that “Many nations shall join themselves to the Lord on that day.”14 It is likely that the verse Jesus quotes almost exactly in the Onkelos story is meant to refer to the continuation of the Zechariah passage, which describes non-Jews joining Israel. Most likely, therefore, Jesus advises Onkelos to convert. But why do the rabbis portray Jesus encouraging Onkelos to convert? I would like to suggest that the story draws on and subverts contemporaneous Christian theology. While the idea that Jesus was eternally punished in Hell is a clear mockery of Christian beliefs, the idea that Jesus descended into Hell was widely (although not universally) accepted among Christians in the first several centuries of the Common Era and became even more entrenched in Christian thought in subsequent centuries. Modern scholars, in fact, assert that from at least the second century, the belief that Christ descended, preached to the dead, and released souls from the underworld was quite common.15 There may be allusions to this idea already in the New Testament: 1 Peter 4:6 may describe Jesus preaching to the dead after his death: 16 “For this reason the gospel was preached even to the dead, so that, though they had been judged in the flesh as everyone is judged, they might live in the spirit as God does.” Modern scholars debate the precise meaning of this and other New Testament passages that expressed similar convictions,17 but many early Christians believed that they reflect the belief that Christ descended to Hell to offer salvation to dead Israelites.18 Apocryphal writings and church fathers alike espoused this belief and expanded on these verses (see below). It was incorporated into various Catholic Creeds, apparently at an early date; 19 and in the late fourth century the Councils of Nicaea and 14  The Hebrew word for “join” in the Bible, ‫נלוו‬, is different from the word Onkelos uses (‫)לאדבוקי‬, but it is certainly no problem for my thesis that the Babylonian rabbinic authors of this story translated a biblical Hebrew word into Babylonian Jewish Aramaic. 15  See, for example, MacCulloch 1930, 254–73; Bauckham 1998, 40–41; Gounelle 1990, passim; and Frank, 2009, 211–26; id., 2010, 58–74. Derrett 2002, 234–45, observes that the idea that a god descended into the realm of the dead and released the dead is found in Indian literature. At least in part, however, Christian tradition has to be the Talmud’s source, due to the role Jesus plays in the rabbinic narrative. In most of the Indian sources the god does not preach to and convert the dead, but there are some examples of preaching in the Indian sources as well. 16 Bauckham 1998, 39; and Laufer 2013, 11–15. See also 1 Peter 3:18–20. See Laufer, ibid., 15–21, for discussion of other New Testament passages that have been understood by some as references to Christ’s descent to the underworld. 17  Bauckham 2008, 293, n.  34. See also Matthew 12:40 and Ephesians 4:7–10. 18  See, for example, Ignatius, Epistle to the Magnesians 9; Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.20.4 and 4.22.1; and Justin, Dialogue with Trypho 72.4. 19  See Kelly 1950, 378–79; Gounelle 1990, 177–214.

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Constantinople condemned as a heretic anyone who denied Christ’s descent to the netherworld and his victory over the rulers of that realm.20 And what did early Christians believe Jesus was doing in Hell for those three days? According to many early Christian sources, Jesus was smashing the gates of Hell and rescuing the Old Testament saints or the righteous pagans, who died without hearing the Christian Gospel, and carrying them out of Hell to Paradise or to one of the chambers of heaven.21 According to a significant number of early Christian sources, however, Christ was busy preaching to and converting the dead, 22 and he was specifically converting the Old Testament patriarchs and prophets.23 Origen, in chapter 43 of Against Celsus, clearly states that Jesus converted dead souls while he was in the underworld: “We assert that … when He [Jesus] became a soul, without the covering of the body, He dwelt among those souls which were without bodily covering, converting such of them as were willing to Himself, or those whom He saw, for reasons known to Him alone, to be better adapted to such a course.” In addition, in the mid-second century, Justin Martyr cites an apocryphon which he claims the Jews deleted from the Book of Jeremiah: “And the Lord God of Israel remembered his dead ones, who slept in the earth, and He descended to preach to them his salvation” (Dialogue with Trypho 72.4).24 20  See Socrates, Church History 2.30 and Athanasius, Epistle on the Councils 2.31. See also Gounelle 2000, 141. 21 See, for example, Acts of Thomas 10; Epiphanius, Exposition of Faith 17; Eusebius, Church History 1.13.20, Demonstration of the Gospel 4.12.3, 5.20.5, 9.12.5, 10.8.501–2 and 507; Gospel of Bartholomew 1.20; Gospel of Nicodemus 21.3 (see the bibliography in Tamburr 2007, 2, n.  4); John Chrysostom, Homilies on the First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians 24.7; Melito, Paschal Homily 3.101; Odes of Solomon 17.9–11, 24.5–7, 42.11–20; Origen, Commentary on Romans 5.1; Teachings of Silvanus Account A 103.28–104.14, Account B 110.14–111.4; and Testament of Dan 5.10–11. See also MacCulloch, 1930, 83–151, and 253; and Roddy 2000, 148. 22  We find this version of the story in several Christian authors from the Roman west, but our primary concern in this paper is the Roman east. Confining ourselves to the Roman east, we find the following: Athanasius, Letter to Epictetus 5–6, On the Incarnation of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Against Appolinarius 1.14–15; Clement of Alexandria, Miscellanies 6.6.37–53; Cyril of Alexandria, Paschal Homilies 3, 6, 7, 11, and 20, 2nd Festive Letter 8.52–89; Didascalia 6.23 (Syriac text); Epistle of the Apostles 27; Ignatius, Epistle to the Magnesians 9.2; Epistle to the Philadelphians 5; Justin, Dialogue with Trypho 72.4; Origen, Against Celsus 2.43, On First Principles 2.5.3, 2.6.2; Sibylline Oracles 1.377–78, 8.310–11; and possibly Gospel of Peter 35– 43 and Gospel of Nicodemus 19 (see the previous note). See also MacCulloch 1930, 240–52; Tamburr 2007, 15–16; and Paulsen, Cook, and Christensen 2010, 60. 23  Bauckham 1998, 40–41. 24  Ephrem, a fourth century Christian author who wrote in Syriac and flourished in Nisibis and later Edessa, describes Christ’s conquest of the underworld and his release of the dead from the clutches of Satan, Death, and Sheol. He does not, however, portray Christ preaching to the dead to convert them. See Buchan 2004, passim. Even if we found a closer Mesopotamian or eastern Syriac parallel to the motif under investigation in this paper, however, our findings would not be fundamentally changed, since it would be equally significant if we found evidence that Christian and Jewish Mesopotamia and eastern Syria belonged to a common

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It is not unreasonable to suggest, therefore, that the rabbis of the Talmud were familiar with this concept, and that they would want to tell a story about Jesus urging a gentile to convert to Judaism while Jesus himself was being eternally punished in the underworld. This is a perfect subversion of the Christian concept of Jesus’s descent to Hell. It was the rabbis’ way of saying, “You think your god conquered Hell and converted our prophets and patriarchs to Christianity? Actually, he is being eternally punished in Hell, and thinks that gentiles should join us!” The rabbinic counter narrative paints a portrait of a defeated, failed Jesus who cannot make good on the claims the Christian tradition makes for him. Not only does the rabbinic narrative deny Christian claims that Jesus was resurrected and sits beside the Father in glory; it also depicts Onkelos, a prospective convert to Judaism, “raising” Jesus through the powers of necromancy. Jesus, unable to raise himself, leaves Hell, but not by virtue of his power as God, but by virtue of the magic performed by a potential proselyte. Not only that, but Onkelos does the same to the arch-villains Balaam and Titus. This explains why Jesus would urge Onkelos to convert, but it does not explain why Jesus merited judgment in boiling excrement. Perhaps this punishment, too, is measure for measure. Not only was measure for measure punishment a widespread idea in rabbinic thought and a concept around which this narrative seems to be structured, but the idea that people would be punished in the afterlife “each according to his deed” was also widespread among early Christians. The idea of being punished in Hell by being immersed in human excrement was also not foreign to early Christians. The Apocalypse of Peter, an apocryphal work composed in the mid-second century, apparently in Palestine, that was seriously considered for inclusion in the New Testament and that played an important role in the development of early Christian beliefs about the afterlife, ordained this as punishment for two types of people: usurers and women who aborted their fetuses.25 The rabbinic narrative itself explains why Jesus was punished with boiling excrement. In response to Onkelos’s question about how he was being punished in the next world, Jesus states that this punishment is meted out to him because of a statement that appears to have originated in b. Eruvin 21b, 26 to the effect cultural sphere, and/or that Christian and Jewish Mesopotamia independently received the motif from the Roman East. See Kalmin 2014, 1–52. 25  Bauckham 1998, 123–31 and 215–20; 169 and 289; 166 and 218. Kyrtatas 2009, 286. Kyrtatas, ibid., 290, observes that like all apocryphal documents, the Apocalypse of Peter was frequently reworked to serve the developing needs of early Christians. 26  Interestingly, in its original context in b. Eruvin, Rava explicitly rejects this statement and concludes the brief discussion there with an alternative interpretation of the scriptural verse. The fact that the rejected position is “resurrected” by our narrative is not surprising, given its appropriateness in the present context. When an argument or an opinion is rejected in rabbinic literature, furthermore, it is by no means clear that the rejected opinion should be

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that “Anyone who mocks the words of the sages, he will be judged in boiling excrement.” There is a cruel irony to this response, since Jesus, who mocked the words of the rabbis, is now quoting the rabbis and being subjected to a punishment they ordained. But why is the punishment for this crime to spend an eternity in boiling excrement? 27 It could be that the explanation for this punishment is similar to an explanation suggested for why women who aborted their fetuses suffered this same punishment in the Apocalypse of Peter 8:1. Richard Bauckham suggests that these women were subjected to an eternity in a pit of excrement up to their throats because “they treated their fetuses as mere excrement” (1998: 218).28 If this is the logic of the Apocalypse of Peter, then perhaps the rabbis employed a similar reasoning: because Jesus treated the words of the rabbis as excrement, he is now subjected to an eternity of dwelling in excrement.29 In other words, since excrement issued from Jesus’s mouth, in the form of the horrible things he said about the traditions of the rabbis, he is condemned to spend eternity immersed in it.30 Additional features of the Onkelos narrative indicate that Jesus and Christianity are a hermeneutical key to understanding the story. In a detailed examination of b. Eruvin 21b–22a and Mark 7:1–23, Shaye Cohen makes a very strong case for the possibility that the Talmudic passage is “intended as a reply to Christian truth claims that ultimately derive from Mark 7” (2013: 19). While Cohen himself is not prepared to consider that conclusion anything other than “possible,”31 he admits that: viewed as utterly defeated with no possibility of rehabilitation, either later on in the discussion at hand or in a parallel elsewhere in the Talmud. On the contrary, it is equally possible that the “defeat” is simply the Talmud’s way of saying that the rejected opinion is not necessarily correct. 27  Compare Schäfer 2010, 92. Schäfer’s argument, however, depends upon rejecting the reason offered in the Onkelos story itself. 28  Buchholz 1988 translates the passage as “menstrual discharge.” 29  Perhaps it will be objected that there is nothing specific to Jesus about this punishment, as presumably anyone who treated the words of the rabbis as excrement would be punished in this way. Since the statement originated in b. Eruvin, however, where it is not specific to Jesus, and is only a secondary borrowing in our narrative, this objection loses its force. See also b. Avodah Zarah 16b–17a, according to which we find further indication that according to the rabbis, Jesus has an affinity for the scatological. 30  It would be a mistake, however, to claim that all punishments in early Jewish and Christian literature are measure for measure, and the fact that perhaps the punishment in our narrative works less than perfectly as measure for measure is not a strong argument in favor of seeking a different crime to go with the punishment. See also Himmelfarb 1985, 128–29. For example, it is difficult to imagine how the punishment of usurers to stand in excrement up to their knees could be viewed as measure for measure. 31  Compare Cohen, ibid., 2: “Did the editor of B. Eruvin 21b-22a know, or know of, Mark 7? I do not see any convincing evidence that he did, even if I am convinced that the Bavli passage in some sense is a response to Mark 7 or to Christian truth claims growing out of Mark

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The confluence of themes between Mark 7 and B. Eruvin 21b–22a is remarkable. … The question addressed by the two texts is the same: do humans have the authority to add to the divine revelation contained in the Torah? Mark says no, B. Eruvin says yes. In Mark the Pharisees and scribes uphold “the tradition of the elders”; B. Eruvin celebrates “the words of the sages” and “the words of the scribes.” In Mark Jesus mocks the Pharisees and scribes for upholding their tradition, because, he says, their tradition sets aside the word of God. In B. Eruvin anyone who mocks the words of the scribes is threatened with dire punishment in the afterworld, because violating the words of the scribes is an even more serious offense than violating the words of the Torah. Both Mark and B. Eruvin adduce scriptural prooftexts to support their positions, and both Mark and B. Eruvin see the washing of hands before eating as the primary example of this human supplementation of the Torah. In Mark Jesus comes to the defense of his disciples who do not wash hands before eating; in B. Eruvin R. Aqiva explains to his disciple that washing hands before eating must be observed even at the risk of death. (2013: 16–17).

In other words, our story in b. Gittin alludes to a lengthy text in b. Eruvin that is closely, almost inextricably linked to Christian claims of superiority over Jewish claims. It is possible that b. Eruvin alludes to the text of Mark 7, or at least that it alludes to Christian claims made on the basis of Mark 7. In other words, the close connection between b. Eruvin and Mark 7 supports the claim that the author of the Onkelos story in b. Gittin chose this particular punishment (an eternity in boiling excrement) because of his conviction that it was appropriate in a narrative that mocks Christian claims about the glorious fate of Christ and his followers in the next world. Jesus and Christianity, therefore, comprise the central theme around which this story is structured. After analyzing each section of this narrative, we are still left with the question: why these three people? There are many enemies of Israel throughout biblical and Jewish history, so why group together Titus, Balaam, and Jesus? I suggest that these three characters were grouped together as yet another way of subverting Christian theology. Jesus’s connection to Christianity is obvious; Titus’s and Balaam’s are less so, although the ensuing discussion argues that the connection is very real.32 E. E. Urbach and Judith Baskin observed that the rabbis often portrayed Balaam as a representative of all foreign prophets, both Christian and pagan (1955–1956: 277–81). This portrayal of Balaam as a prophet of Christianity fits well in the context of this story and matches an important aspect of the Christian understanding of Balaam as well. Based on Balaam’s prophecy in Numbers 24:17 that “There shall come forth a star from Jacob, and a scepter shall arise from Israel,” Christians understood Balaam as the first prophet to predict the coming of 7.” Cohen here seems to imply that the b. Eruvin passage is a response to a Christian tradition based on Mark 7, although not a response to the New Testament passage itself. 32  Some scholars suggest that rabbinic portrayals of Balaam were often meant to refer to Jesus, but most scholars reject this view. In this story in particular, where we have Balaam and Jesus both mentioned explicitly, it is extremely unlikely that Balaam is being used as a standin for Jesus. See Urbach 1955–1956, 272–89, esp.  281–84.

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Christ.33 As such, he was given particular importance in early Christian teachings.34 Additionally, he was considered by many Christian authors to be the forefather (either biological or pedagogical) of the magi, the wise men who were the first to acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah at his birth.35 It is possible that the rabbis were aware of the elevation of Balaam as a prophet of Christ,36 which might help explain why the Amoraim were much more elaborate in their vilification of Balaam than the Tannaim, since it is likely that Christianity impinged more on the consciousness of later rabbis than it did on early rabbis.37 It is therefore possible that in this story Balaam is being portrayed not only as the archetype of sexual immorality, but also as the predictor of the birth of Jesus. Support for this conclusion is provided by two Talmudic texts. R. Abahu,38 in y. Ta’anit 2:1, 65b, explained the words of Balaam (Num 23:19): “God is not a man, that he should regret it. Has he said, and shall he not do it? Or has he spoken, and shall he not do it?”, as follows: “If a man says to you, ‘I am God,’ he is lying. [If he says], ‘I am the son of Man,’ he will regret it. [If he says], ‘I shall go up to heaven,’ [of him it is said], ‘He said [it] … but he shall not do it.’” In addition, in b. Sanhedrin 107a, Resh Lakish expounded another of Balaam’s oracles: “Alas, who can survive unless God willed it” (Num 24:23), as: “Woe unto him who brings life to himself with the name God.” Here the rabbis portray Balaam as the reprover of the nations, warning them against being caught up in the web of the new belief. The irony of the prophet of the gentiles refuting the claims of the would-be messiah whose advent he is said to have prophesied might have seemed irresistible to the rabbis. Perhaps the significance of Balaam in the Onkelos narrative is even deeper: Origen preached that Balaam, as an idolatrous pagan magician on the one hand and the forefather of the magi on the other, was proof that gentiles who believed in Jesus would be saved. This conception of Balaam was not universally accepted (Augustine, in particular, vehemently disagreed with Origen on this point),39 and it is unclear whether or not the rabbis were aware of it. However, it would 33  See, for example, Athanasius, On the Incarnation of the Word 33; Ephrem, Hymns on the Nativity 20; Jerome, Epistle 77, Commentary on Matthew 1.2; Justin, Apology 1.32.12–13, Dialogue with Trypho 126.1; and Origen, Commentary on John 13.26, and Homily on Numbers 15.4. See Hanson 1959, 73; and Baskin 1983, 101. For an earlier messianic understanding of Numbers 24:17, see the Damascus Document 7.18–19. 34  Daniélou 1964, 102–23; and Baskin 1983, 92 and 101. 35  See, for example, Origen, Homily on Numbers 13.7 and 15.4; and Jerome, Epistle 77. 36  See Kirschbaum 1954, 130; Urbach 1955–1956, 287; and Baskin 1983, 92, 101, and 157, n.  54. 37 Baskin 1983, 80–91. Tannaim were rabbis of the first–early third centuries CE, and Amoraim were rabbis of the third–fourth or early fifth centuries CE in Palestine, and of the third–sixth centuries in Babylonia. 38  R. Abahu flourished in Caesarea in the late third, early fourth century CE. Caesarea was an important center for both Christians and Jews. 39  Baskin 1983, 108–9

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be highly appropriate to feature Balaam, the Christian symbol of gentile salvation, in a narrative about the eternal punishment of Jesus and the gentile prophet who foretold his advent. Titus, too, played an important role in Christian theology. While he himself was not a Christian, Christians (including such church fathers as Origen and Eusebius) saw the destruction of the Temple as God’s punishment of the Jews for the crucifixion.40 Titus, then, as the one who destroyed the Temple, became the instrument for God’s punishment of the Jews for crucifying Jesus. This was a widespread belief among early Christians, and it is possible that the rabbis were aware of it.41 Therefore, the rabbinic narrative about Titus, Balaam, and Jesus can be easily understood as a subversion of the Christian beliefs about Jesus, the prophet who predicted his advent, and the Roman general who exacted retribution on the Jews for his death. The narrative communicates the message that these three figures are not praiseworthy; rather, they deserve eternal, gruesome punishments in Hell. By analyzing the Onkelos narrative in the context of Christian ideas about Jesus’s descent to Hell, Balaam, Titus, and the destruction of the Temple, we see that it is a well-crafted narrative that subverts Christian beliefs and asserts instead that Judaism is the correct religion and that the Jewish God is in charge and metes out retributive judgment. This story is filled with meaning in both explicit and implicit ways, many of which go easily undetected without understanding the larger framework of both contemporary Christian and rabbinic theology. It is only by examining the New Testament, apocrypha, and early church fathers that we can fully appreciate the ways in which this seemingly simple story about Onkelos’s conversion is actually a complex subversion of Christian belief. It is possible that this story was addressed to Jews who were attracted to the idea of Jesus’s post-mortem conversion of dead Israelites to Christianity. Alternatively, perhaps the story was addressed to Christians in an effort to convince them of the falsehood of Christianity and of the desirability of conversion to Judaism. Perhaps it is simplest to suggest that the rabbis told the story to express what they wished was happening in reality. Ultimately, these three possibilities do not preclude one another, and perhaps all three were applicable at various points in the story’s lengthy career.

40  See, for example, Origen, Against Celsus 1.47; and Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 13.5. See also Wilcken 1983, 132–38; and Yuval 2000, 53–54, 57, and 63. 41  Yuval 2000, pp.  53–71. Yuval goes beyond the evidence, however, when he argues that the entire aggadic compilation, from the Kamtza/Bar Kamtza story on 55b until the Onkelos story on 57a consists entirely of a dialogue with Christianity. If we accept even a small fraction of Yuval’s arguments, however, we strengthen the thesis of this paper, since the larger rabbinic context of this story is at least in part concerned with Christianity.

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Works Cited Baskin, Judith R. 1983. Pharoah’s Counsellors: Job, Jethro, and Balaam in Rabbinic Literature. Brown Judaic Studies 47. Chico: Scholars Press. Bauckham, Richard. 1998. The Fate of the Dead: Studies on the Jewish and Christian Apocalypses. Novum Testamentum Supplements 93. Leiden: Brill. Buchan, Thomas. 2004. “Blessed is He who has brought Adam from Sheol”: Christ’s Descent to the Dead in the Theology of Saint Ephrem the Syrian. Gorgias Studies in Early Christianity and Patristics 13. Piscataway: Gorgias. Buchholz, Dennis D. 1988. Your Eyes will be Opened: A Study of the Greek (Ethiopic) Apocalypse of Peter. SBLDS 97. Atlanta: Scholars Press. Cohen, Shaye J. D. 2013. “Antipodal Texts: B. Eruvin 21b–22a and Mark 7:1–23 on the Tradition of the Elders and the Commandment of God.” https://dash.harvard.edu/ handle/1/10861156 (accessed February 26, 2015). Daniélou, Jean. 1964. Primitive Christian Symbols. Baltimore: Helicon Press. Derrett, John D. M. 2002. “He Descended into Hell.” Journal of Higher Criticism 9/2: 234–45. Frank, Georgia. 2009. “Christ’s Descent to the Underworld in Ancient Ritual and Legend.” In Apocalyptic Thought in Early Christianity, ed. Robert Daly. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, pp.  211–26. –. 2010. “Death in the Flesh: Picturing Death’s Body and Abode in Late Antiquity”. In Looking Beyond: Visions, Dreams and Insights in Medieval Art and History, ed. Colum Hourihane. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, pp.  58–74. Gounelle, Rémi. 1990. “Le frémissement des portiers de l’Enfer à la vue du Christ: Jb 38, 17b et trios symbols de foi des anées 359–60.” In Le livre de Job chez les Pères, ed. Pierre Maraval. Strasbourg: Centre d’Analyse et de Documentation Patristiques, pp.  177–214. –. 2000. La descente du Christ aux enfers. Institutionalisation d’une croyance. Collection des Études augustiniennes, série antiquité 162. Paris: Institut d’études augustiniennes. Hanson, Richard P. C. 1959. Allegory and Event: A Study of the Sources and Significance of Origen’s Interpretation of Scripture. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press. Himmelfarb, Martha. 1985. Tours of Hell: An Apocalyptic Form in Jewish and Christian Literature. Philadelphia: Fortress Press. Kalmin, Richard. 2014. Migrating Tales: The Talmud’s Narratives and Their Historical Context. Berkeley: University of California Press. Kelly, J. N. D. 1950. Early Christian Creeds. London: Longmans, Green. Kirschbaum, Engelbert. 1954. “Der Prophet Balaam und die Anbetung der Weisen.” Revue de Qumran 49: 129–71. Kyrtatas, Dmitri J. 2009. “The Origins of Christian Hell.” Numen 56: 282–97. Laufer, Catherine Ella. 2013. Hell’s Destruction: An Exploration of Christ’s Descent to the Dead. Farnham: Ashgate. MacCulloch, John A. 1930. The Harrowing of Hell: A Comparative Study of Early Christian Doctrine. Edinburgh: T&T Clark. Paulsen, David L., Roger D. Cook, and Kendel J. Christensen. 2010. “The Harrowing of Hell: Salvation for the Dead in Early Christianity.” Journal of the Book of Mormon and Other Restoration Literature 19/1: 56–77.

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Roddy, Kevin. 2000. “Politics and Religion in Late Antiquity: The Roman Imperial Adventus Ceremony and the Christian Myth of the Harrowing of Hell.” Apocrypha 11: 147–79. Schäfer, Peter. 2010. Jesus in the Talmud. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Stern, Menahem. 1980. Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism. Jerusalem: The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Tamburr, Karl. 2007. The Harrowing of Hell in Medieval England. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer. Urbach, Ephraim E. 1955–1956. “Drashot hazal al nevi’ei umot haolam veal parashat Balaam leor haviku’ah hayehudi-notsri.” Tarbiz 25: 272–89. Wilcken, Robert. 1983. John Chrysostom and the Jews: Rhetoric and Reality in the Late Fourth Century. Berkeley: University of California Press. Yuval, Yisrael Y. 2000. Shnei goyim bevitnekhah: yehudim venotsrim–dimuyim hadadi’im. Tel Aviv: Am Oved.

Destination Rome

“Going up to Rome” in Josephus’s Antiquities Daniel R. Schwartz In this paper, I will first suggest that Josephus’s frequent references to travel back and forth between Judea and Rome in the first century constitute the structural backbone of his narrative for this period in the last three books of his Jewish Antiquities. As such, the very structure of his narrative bespeaks the fact of Roman rule and presents Rome and Judea as two poles, thus preparing readers for the final conflict between them and the destruction of Jerusalem. Then I will point to a certain peculiarity in Josephus’s formulation of his references to travel to Rome in one particular section of Antiquities 20 and suggest that, along with some other considerations, it indicates Josephus’s dependence in that section on a Roman source. That source tended to explain the final conflict in a way that was well at home among aristocratic Romans but conflicted with the explanation that Josephus preferred for the final catastrophe. In the year 6 CE, ten years after Herod’s death, Augustus Caesar put an end to Herodian rule in Judaea and began ruling the region by Roman governors. There were twelve of them between 6 and 66 CE, when the Judean Revolt against Rome broke out. The last three books of Josephus’s Jewish Antiquities, namely Books 18–20, are devoted to this period, and it is not at all surprising that Josephus’s narrative of this period is built around the successive terms of these governors. Just as naturally as the terms of office of successive presidents could define the chapters of a history of the United States, the tenure of each Roman governor of Judea defines a chapter of Antiquities 18–20.1 However, as opposed to American presidents, who according to the Constitution must be homegrown, the Roman governors of Judaea were sent to it from afar. This part of Josephus’s Antiquities is, accordingly, punctuated by sentences that introduce new governors by announcing their departure from Rome and/ or arrival in Judea, just as we frequently hear that a governor whose tenure ended returned to Rome. Thus, for example, early on in Book 18 we read the following section, just five paragraphs, about some governors concerning whom Josephus had little to report: 1  There are also three anomalous chapters on other rulers of Judea in the period, during the hiatus in the succession of governors between Pilate (until 37) and Fadus (from 44): one on Agrippa I, from 10 BC–39 CE, one on Gaius Caligula during the years 39–41, and another one on Agrippa I during 41–43/44. For a detailed outline of all the chapters, see Schwartz 1992, 189–93.

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(31) Coponius returned (ἐπαναχωρεῖ) to Rome not long thereafter, and as his successor to the governorship there came (παραγίνεται) Marcus Ambivulus, during whose tenure. … (32) He was succeeded (διαδέχεται) by Annius Rufus, in whose days Caesar died. … (33) Caesar was succeeded (διαδέχεται) in rule by Tiberius Nero (the son of his wife Julia), who was the third emperor; sent (πεμπτός) by him as Annius Rufus’s successor, Valerius Gratus came (παρῆν) to Judaea. … (34) He terminated the priestly service of Ananus and. … (35) … Gratus, having done these things, returned (ἐπανεχωρεῖ) to Rome after having stayed eleven years in Judaea. Pontius Pilate came (ἧκεν) as his successor. (Translation and italics are mine)

Coponius “returned,” Ambivulus “came,” Gratus was “sent” and so he “came,” Gratus “returned” and Pilate “came.” Of the five governors mentioned here, only one (Annius Rufus) simply “succeeded,” just as Tiberius “succeeded” Augustus and Obama succeeded Bush Jr. In this way Josephus’s diction usually reflects quite explicitly the fact that travel was involved. Thus, from the very outset of his narrative of Roman rule in Judea, Josephus gets his readers used to understanding that the story they are reading is one that transpires between two poles. The same holds true regarding governors concerning whom Josephus has much more to report. Thus, for some examples, Josephus’s long account of Pontius Pilate’s tenure ends with him being ordered to go to Rome (ἐκέλευσεν ἐπὶ ‘Ρώμης ἀπιέναι) and so he “hurried to Rome” (εἰς ‘Ρώμην ἠπείγετο, 18.89); Tiberius “sent out” (ἐκπέμπει) his successor to Judaea (18.237) just as, after a long hiatus, Claudius “sent out” (ἀπέστειλεν) the next governor, Fadus, at the end of Book 19 (§363), and he “arrived (ἀφίκετο) in Judea at the outset of Book 20 (§2). Next, Fadus’s successor, Tiberius Julius Alexander, “came” (ἦλθε) to succeed him (20.100), and he served until Cumanus “arrived” (ἀφίκετο) to replace him (20.103). Below we will focus on Josephus’s next report, that Cumanus, after several years, was “sent up” along with others (ἀναπεμφθέντες) to Rome (20.134), to give an account of himself, at which point Claudius “sent” (πέμπει) to Judea his successor, Felix (20.137). This emphasis on the coming and going of Roman governors, and this use of them to punctuate the narrative, has several implications. The first was mentioned above: it makes readers realize that the story is one between Rome and Jerusalem; everything else is ancillary. Second, note that already at the beginning of Book 18, and then again at the very end of Book 19, Josephus tells his readers that the rebellion, the final tragedy, broke out in the days of the Roman governor Gessius Florus (Ant. 18.25, 19.366). But he does not tell his readers when (how many years later, or under which emperor) Florus was governor. This means that every time readers learn of the appointment of a governor who is not Florus, or whenever they come to the end of a governor’s term, there is an element of suspense: will the next one be Florus? Thus, the routine notices of appointments and replacements, of travel from Rome and travel back to Rome,

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which would otherwise be mere marks along an interminable road, constitute something of a countdown – but a suspenseful one, for readers know that it brings them nearer to the final catastrophe without revealing how much longer they have to wait. Third, the fact that travel between Rome and Jerusalem took many weeks or some months, 2 not to mention the delays before new appointments might be made in Rome by an emperor who had other matters on his desk (and who, moreover, was not always at his desk), means that every time Josephus mentions a new appointment, which entails the departure of a new governor from Rome (or possibly elsewhere) to Judea, there is something of a hiatus in his narrative. History is put on hold, as it were, until the new governor arrives. Sometimes, indeed, history, or at least Roman rule in Judea, really was put on hold; that was the case on the two occasions when an incumbent died in office. In those cases, the deaths of Agrippa I and of Festus, a good bit of time perforce went by before the news reached Rome and a replacement could be appointed and arrive in Judea. Interestingly, in both cases, Josephus reports that the Judeans took advantage of the anomalous situation: they took self-serving initiatives for which they were later rebuked and punished by the new governor, when he finally arrived (Ant. 20.2–5, 197–203). These instances give us readers an inkling of what might happen when Judeans decide to take the law into their own hands, and thus they too point us toward the end of the story. However, even when travel time between Judea and Rome engendered no such anomalous interruption of Roman gubernatorial rule, for the incumbent governor remained at his post until his replacement arrived (as orderly governmental practice requires), Josephus’s announcement of each new appointment created a hiatus from a literary point of view. For such announcements sound as if they begin new chapters, but every reader knew that in fact a not inconsiderable period of time would pass before the new ruler could begin to rule. Josephus was well aware of such narrative situations, and often uses the space they provide to bring us up to date about other events, less relevant to his main subject, which is Judean history.3 The space that he devotes to those other topics functions, inter alia, to give the reader the impression that time has gone by before the main narrative is resumed. Thus, for an example given above, after Josephus reports Pilate’s appointment at Ant. 18.35 he goes on to recount a story about an episode in the Galilee (§§36–38) and then offers a longer narrative about Parthian events (39–52) and yet another one about Roman events (53–54); only thereafter, at 18.55, do we hear about Pilate’s doings in Judaea. By that time we are willing to hear such a report, as if Pilate were traveling during the Parthian and Roman events, which is not at all the case. Similarly, in the middle of 2  3 

See Casson 1951, 144–46; Schwartz 1992, 204–5, n.  11. See the chart mentioned above, n.  1.

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Antiquities 20 the notice of Felix’s appointment in Rome in §137 is followed by several pages (§§138–59) of other odds and ends, about Herodians, Claudius, and Nero, before §160 opens the account of Felix’s doings in Judea; and again at the end of the book Albinus “hears” in §215 that Florus was coming to succeed him but it is only thirty-seven paragraphs later that Josephus begins to report Florus’s doings. In the interim Josephus supplies his readers with a good bit of extraneous material to read in the meantime, especially a long summary of the history of the high priesthood, and so they are not surprised when Florus finally shows up in §252. This is a narrative tactic Josephus uses frequently, in other parts of his works as well,4 but it is not to be taken for granted. There are those who, instead, simply ignore the time required for travel and build seamless narratives.5 I do not know if Josephus chose to do it the way he did because he sensed the reader’s need to “feel” the passage of time and wanted to satisfy that need, or rather because he had extraneous material that he wanted to include and realized that the dead time required for travel would afford him opportunities to do so. One way or the other, the phenomenon should be recognized for what it is. And it has an important implication for historians: events that Josephus reports while a main character is traveling might not have happened after he began his travel. They might be told there only as fillers, to keep us occupied during the protagonist’s trip. Sometimes this is quite obvious; thus, for example, the Parthian material Josephus uses to keep us busy while Pilate traveled from Rome to Judea begins quite clearly a few decades earlier than Pilate’s appointment. In other cases, the point is not so obvious. Fourth, and most importantly in the present context, since Josephus’s way of organizing his story so demonstratively suggests to readers that the big story is one of the relations between Judea and Rome, it encourages us to notice tensions in the narrative, currents that pull in another direction. Now, just as the way that Josephus reflects, literarily, the time required for travel is not to be taken for granted, for he could have ignored it, so too it is the case that, historiographically, there are other ways of interpreting the final catastrophe. Josephus’s way of organizing the story bring readers to focus on the relationship between Rome 4  See especially P. Villalba i Varneda 1986, 171, on the timeless geographical excursus on the Galilee in War 3.506–21 that fills up, from the point of view of the reader, the time needed to build boats – a project which is announced in §505 and completed in §522. Another, closer example: Josephus’s timeless account of the Jewish sects in Antiquities 18.11–25 allows us to feel, as it were, the passage of time between the beginning of Quirinius’s census of Judaea (announced at the very beginning of Book 18) and its conclusion, which allowed for the resumption of the narrative, at 18.26. 5  So, for example, the talmudic story at b. Baba Qamma 117a has R. Kahana go from Babylonia to Tiberias simply in one word, “(he) went,” just as another famous story in b. Gittin 56a has an informer, Bar Qamtza, go straight from his ruminations in Jerusalem to a conversation with the emperor.

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and Judea, but he could have, for example, taken another approach popular in ancient Jewish historiography: concentrate on the Jew’s relations with their God, who is conceived of as being the providential sovereign of history. Indeed, in my work on Josephus’s Judean War I found that it actually has two conflicting structures, one bespeaking a Flavian version of the story that focuses on Judeans vs. Rome and the other bespeaking a Jewish interpretation that focuses on sinful Jews vs. their God.6 Similarly, and closer to the text on which we will focus, in studying Josephus’s account in Antiquities of one of the late Roman governors of Judea, Lucceius Albinus, one cannot help but notice the contrast between the structure of the narrative, which implies that the story is one of Jewish rebels versus a Roman governor, and the contents of the story, which focus on Jews vs. Jews and Jews vs. their God.7 That is, in fact, not at all surprising for the Antiquities.8 In the present context I would point out that, concerning one of Albinus’s predecessors in office, the ways in which Josephus refers to traveling to Rome can make a difference in our analysis of his interpretation of the events he narrates. They can help us distinguish between Josephus’s own point of view, which, here as elsewhere, tended to blame the Jews and their sins for their troubles, and a secondary point of view, popular among Jews but also among some Romans for their own reasons, that tended to blame corrupt and/or incapable Roman governors. That Roman point of view especially liked to condemn people like the last Roman governors of Judea prior to the outbreak of the rebellion, of whom several were of Greek or oriental descent – the kind of people aristocratic Romans loved to despise, especially insofar as they managed to attain influential positions in Roman society and government.9 To begin to see this distinction between two points of view, let us start with a pair of notices about the appointments, and travel to Judea, of two successive Roman governors in the fifties: Felix and Festus. Here are the two passages:

6  See Schwartz 2015a, 33–41. That study builds, especially, on the contrast between War 4.120, 4.439, and 6.435, which create a three-part story of the Flavian victory in Judea, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, War 4.75–76, 6.252, and 7.317–19, which create a competing three-part story of the Jews’ defeat at the hands of a divine (daimonios) power. Probably Josephus planned the first story from the outset, while he could only conceive the second one years later, after the fall of Masada. I hope to develop this point elsewhere. 7  See Schwartz 2011, 291–309. 8  Josephus’s focus on divine providence in the Antiquities, as already promised in its prologue’s declaration that the work’s main point is that those who obey God prosper and those who disobey Him suffer disasters (Ant. 1.14), is the main theme of Attridge 1976. 9  In general, see Bilde 1979, 179–202. For the point that several of the governors of Judea, beginning with the days of Claudius, were Greek or oriental (Tiberius Julius Alexander [of Jewish birth, but an “Aegyptius” according to Tacitus and Juvenal], Felix and Florus), see M. Stern 1974–1976, 1.319. On aristocratic Roman scorn for such Greeks and easterners, see below, n.  19.

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Ant. 20.137: He [Claudius] sent (πέμπει) Claudius Felix, Pallas’s brother, to administer the affairs of Judaea. Ant. 20.182: When Porcius Festus was sent (πεμφθέντος) by Nero as Felix’s successor the leaders of the Jews residing in Caesarea went up (ἀναβαίνουσιν) to Rome to accuse Felix. And he certainly would have had to pay the price for his unjust acts against the Jews (τῶν εἰς Ἰουδαίους ἀδικημάτων) had it not happened that Nero acquiesced to the intense pleading on Felix’s behalf by his brother, Pallas, who at that time was highly honored by Nero.

Here it is very clear that the second passage is meant to remind readers of the first, and thus signal to them that a new chapter has begun. This is accomplished, first of all, by the use of pempō – one governor was sent, then another governor was sent. But the same effect is also achieved by the fact that both passages refer to Pallas. These are the only passages in Antiquities 20 in which this well-known and influential freedman is mentioned (and Josephus mentions him in Antiquities in only one other passage, to which we shall turn below), and so readers who encountered the name at 20.137 will recognize it again at 20.182 and realize that his role is the same and so he defines the story at both ends. Namely, it is the influence of his brother Pallas that explains the appointment of Felix at the outset of his story, and it is the influence of his brother Pallas that saves Felix from punishment at the end of his story. But it is also interesting to note that, according to 20.182, the Jews who went to Rome “went up” to Rome – ἀναβαίνουσιν. Felix and Festus were “sent” to Judea, but Jewish delegates from Judea to Rome are said to have “gone up” to Rome. True, here and there in Antiquities Josephus uses such a formulation.10 But such cases are relatively rare and scattered; usually he refers to going and sending to Rome without “up.”11 In this case, moreover, we have a concentration of such formulations in one brief section of his work: just before the plain “sending” of Felix, at §137, from Rome to Judea, we read at §131 that the Roman governor of Syria, Ummidius Quadratus, “sent up” some Jewish high priests, from Judea to Rome, to give an account of what had been done to Claudius Caesar (δήσας εἰς ‘Ρώμην ἀνέπεμψεν περὶ τῶν πεπραγμένων λόγον ὑφέξοντας Κλαυδίῳ Καίσαρι); three paragraphs later we read that the Roman governor of Judea and some Samaritan dignitaries were also “sent up” to Rome (§134: Οἱ περὶ Κουμανὸν δὲ καὶ τοὺς πρώτους τῶν Σαμαρέων ἀναπεμφθέντες εἰς ‘Ρώμην); another two paragraphs later, at §136, the latter are characterized as people who had “come up” (ἀναβάντας) to Rome; and in §161 we also read that one of the first things Felix did was capture some Judean rebels and “send them up,” in chains, to Rome (δήσας εἰς ‘Ρώμην ἀνέπεμψεν) – the exact same words used at §131. That is, Josephus’s diction in this short section of Antiquities 20 (recall 10 See,

inter alia, 15.343, 349; 16.91, 282, 336. Note, for example, all these reports from the days of Herod and just after his death: Ant. 16.293, 299, 326, 332, 335; 17.222, 224, 300, 328. 11 

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that §§138–59 are an excursus occasioned by Felix’s departure for Judea, announced in §137, so §§160–62 are the direct continuation from 137) distinguishes consistently between those who go from Judea to Rome, who are said to “go up” or to be “sent up,” and those who go in the other direction: the latter just “go” or are just “sent.”12 How unusual this is becomes all the more clear when we add in some comparative evidence from Josephus’s Life, which is, formally, an appendix to his Antiquities (see Ant. 20.266 and Life 430). Here two passages are especially interesting: at Life 13 we read that Felix “sent” some priests in chains to Rome to render an account of themselves before the emperor (δήσας εἰς τὴν ‘Ρώμην ἔπεμψε, λόγον ὑφέξοντας τῷ Καίσαρι), and at Life 408 we read that Vespasian advised King Agrippa II to send Philip to Rome to render an account of his actions to Nero (πέμψαι Φίλιππον εἰς ‘Ρώμην ὑφέξοντα λόγον Νέρωνι περὶ τῶν πεπραγμένων). The phrase Josephus uses in both passages for “rendering an account” (λόγον ὑπέχω) is the same as at 20.131, but there, as we have seen, Josephus has Ummidius Quadratus send his prisoners up to Rome, using anapempō as opposed to the plain pempō used both times in the Life. The very fact that, as we see from the Life, Josephus could have used pempō in his expression, lends significance to the fact that, at Ant. 20.131, he did not; rather, he used anapempō, making the distinction we have already observed in the other passages we cited from Antiquities 20. Why the difference? The same contrast recurs elsewhere as well, in a very suggestive way. First, we can see it in two pairs of parallel passages in Josephus’s corpus: a. At Ant. 17.57 Josephus says only that the Roman governor of Syria “sent out” (ἐξέπεμψεν) to Rome some individuals suspected of plotting against Herod, but the parallel at War 1.577 says they were “sent up” (ἀνεπέμφθησαν). b. Similarly, at Ant. 17.222 we read that Sabinus acted right after Varus and Archelaus departed (ἐκπλεῖ, ἐγέγοντο κομιδαί), but War 2.18 distinguishes between Varus who only “left” (ἀπῆρεν) for Antioch, while Archelaus “went up” (ἀνήχθη) to Rome. 12  Note that at times ἀναπέμπω has a particular legal sense, “refer up to a higher authority.” So, for example, H. J. Mason 1974, 21, referring to Luke 23:7 and an inscription; one could also add Acts 25:21 and such Josephan passages as Ant. 3.72 and 4.218, and it could be appropriate for 20.131, 134, 136, 161. But that does not foreclose our discussion, not only because Josephus uses “up” with regard to travel to Rome in this section in §182 without this nuance, but also because elsewhere he uses other formulations, without “up,” for those who are referred to give an account of themselves to higher authority in Rome (Ant. 17.57, 18.89; Life 13, 408). Both points suggest that, even if we adopt this legal sense of the verb, Josephus’s recurring use of “up” for travel to Rome in this part of Ant. 20 should have some explanation. And that is especially the case because these are the only instances in Antiquities in which Josephus uses ἀναπέμπω with regard to travel to Rome (apart from 14.97, where the adjacent use of πάλιν shows that the verb means “send back,” not “send up”), in contrast to the several passages in which, even in Roman documents, he uses it for travel to Jerusalem (3.72; 16.163, 166, 169, 171; 18.313). Similarly, not far from the passages that interest us Josephus uses ἀναβαίνω for “going up” to Jerusalem (20.164).

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In these cases it is likely that a non-Roman source’s formulation, preserved in the Antiquities, was edited, by Josephus’s style editors for the War (mentioned in Against Apion 1.50), into something that conformed better to what Roman readers would prefer and perhaps even expect.13 Such cases of Romanizing formulations in War are not without parallel.14 Similarly, note that the same Roman point of view is reflected, artistically, by Luke in his Acts of the Apostles: at 28:16 Luke has Paul or his companion report only that “we came” (εἰσήλθομεν) to Rome, but at 25:21 he reports the formulation of a Roman governor, Festus, in direct speech, that he wants to “send Paul up” (ἀναπέμψω) to the emperor in Rome. Here Luke seems to be artfully representing the way a Roman governor would speak of going up to Rome. I conclude, accordingly, that Josephus’s remarkable diction in the midst of Antiquities 20, about Roman governors who are sent to Judea but Jews and others who go up to Rome or are sent up to Rome, as also some passages in War and Acts 25:21, reflects a Roman point of view, whereas Josephus’s own diction in his Life, and Luke’s in Acts 28:16, do not. Perhaps I ought to content myself with that. However, I will go further and note that the difference between the usage of Life and Antiquities 20 is something of a riddle. That is because it is usually held that the language of Antiquities 20 and the Life are very similar, so much so that Thackeray was convinced that they both represent the closest we can come to Josephus’s own ipsissima verba, written without the help of assistants.15 Thackeray based that conviction on a long list of words that, in Josephus’s oeuvre, appear in these two books alone, along with a general impression that the style of both of them was relatively simple – the kind of thing Josephus could produce by himself. This theory is attractive, and should not easily be abandoned. But what are we to do about Life 13 and 408, where Josephus speaks of simply being sent to Rome, just as in Life 14 he simply “arrives” in Rome, just as did Paul and his companions (Acts 28:16), in such sharp contrast to his diction in the middle of Antiquities 20 that, as we have seen, so clearly distinguish13  Note, for example, Epictetus Discourses, book 3, ch. 7 (trans. Long): “no man will venture to go up (ἀναβῆναι) to Rome for the purpose,” and esp. ch. 9: “To a certain rhetorician who was going up (ἀνῄει) to Rome on a suit. When a certain person came to him, who was going up (ἄνεισιν) to Rome on account of a suit which had regard to his rank, Epictetus inquired the reason of his going up (ἄνεισιν) to Rome. … What is the reason that you are now going up (ἀνέρχῃ) to Rome?” Epictetus, a younger contemporary of Josephus, was brought to Rome in his youth and lived there for a few decades. An examination of such language in other Roman literature is an obvious desideratum. 14  For similar cases of Romanizing formulations in War (“the province of Syria” and “two legions” in War 157 as opposed to “the province” and “two Roman legions” in Ant. 14.76, 79, and references to “marble” in several passages where the parallels in Antiquities have only “white” or “polished” stone), see Schwartz 2015b, 421–25. 15  See Thackeray 1930, ix; idem 1929, 19.

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es between “going up to Rome” (§§131, 134, 136, 161, 182) and just “going” anywhere else? I see two possibilities. The first is to conclude that, although the language of Antiquities 20 and the Life is similar, some topics are more sensitive than others, and it is not so surprising that, even without many other changes in his style, Josephus learned or simply picked up, in the years between his composition of the Life and his production of Antiquities 20, the nuance we are discussing. That is, this first explanation assumes that the Life was written before the Antiquities, substantially earlier, although it was actually published as an appendix to the Antiquities, as noted above. However, while that thesis has often been offered, it concerns only the body of Life, which is supposed to have originated in the late sixties of the first century, as a report on Josephus’s short military career in the Galilee, a quarter-century before Josephus published his Antiquities; according to that theory, it was in publishing the Life, in the 90s, that Josephus tacked on the brief autobiographical account of his youth at the beginning of the work.16 Since §§13–14 are in that opening section, this theory cannot really help us. Moreover, as we have seen, with regard to Ant. 17.57 and 18.89, even in the latter books of Antiquities Josephus is perfectly capable of referring to going to Rome without “up.”17 This means that the notion, that his diction in the section we noted in the middle of Book 20 reflects his own internalization of Roman-oriented diction, is not very convincing. Rather, another hypothesis seems to be preferable, one that builds on the nature of the relatively short section in which we found the consistent usage of “up.” Why this preponderance of exceptional formulation in this short section? True, it could be that we have mere happenstance, an instance of something which some of us might know from our own work, and which Steve Mason has noted with regard to Josephus: at times writers simply get stuck on a certain word and use it several times over a short stretch, only to abandon it thereafter.18 However, in the case we are studying the unusual formulation comes together with a focus on an unusual topic: the passages we are considering revolve, in three successive sections, around the issue of Greek freedmen in Rome and their notionally excessive and deleterious influence upon the emperors and justice. First, at Ant. 20.135 we read that Cumanus was almost acquitted (unjustly), due to the influence of the freedmen and the “friends” who surrounded Claudius; then at §137, when Josephus reports the appointment of Felix, he identifies him as the brother of Pallas, hinting that that explains the appointment; and finally at §§182–84 we read not only of Pallas’s great influence with Nero, which saved Felix from what justice required, but also of the intervention of one Beryllus, 16 

See Schwartz 2007, 3–10. See above, n.  11. 18  S. Mason 2003, lii-liii. 17 

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who was Nero’s tutor and in charge of Greek correspondence for the emperor: Josephus reports that he accepted a large bribe in return for exerting his influence upon Nero on Felix’s behalf. That is, in these passages, which are where we found this consistent concentration of differential usage in which going to Rome, as opposed to all other places, is “going up,” we also find a very familiar Roman point of view – one that expresses scorn and hostility vis-à-vis influential Greek freedmen in Rome. And that theme, in Roman literature of the day, was very popular especially concerning the days of Claudius and Nero, which is precisely where we find it here in Josephus.19 This conjunction of Roman formulation and Roman theme suggest that these passages in Josephus derive from a Roman provenance.20 That, of course, might be Josephus’s own Roman context. Note, however, three more points, which point away from Josephus himself and instead suggest he was dependent here on a Roman source: 1. Of all the Roman governors of Judea, Tacitus has a detailed report about only two, but they are the same two: Cumanus and Felix. And the story he tells (at Annales 12.54), which focuses on Felix’s corruption and crimes in Judea, is explicitly told in order to blacken the image of Pallas: in the previous chapter of his work (12.53) Tacitus had written quite bitterly, and ironically, about Pallas’s corruption and great wealth, and now, in ch. 54, he tells a story with a similar point about Pallas’s brother, thus bolstering his own case against Pallas in particular and Greek freedmen in Claudius’s day in general. Tacitus thus provides very explicit evidence for Roman interest in these two Roman governors, making it all the easier to imagine that Josephus used, for this report, material pro19  On the real or perceived influence of freedmen on Roman emperors, which peaked in the days of Claudius and Nero, and accordingly “the reactions to their wealth and power were virulent, and the historical tradition surrounding these individuals is exceptionally hostile,” see Mouritsen 2011, 95–96. On the freedmen’s wealth, which often aroused hostility due to jealousy and was fanned by more general hostility toward them, see also ibid., 109–18. On the traditional claim that Claudius was enslaved by his freedmen (and his wives; see, for example, Suetonius, Claudius 25), see Osgood 2011, 190–205. 20  From the methodological point of view, compare Ant. 18.51, where – in a long excursus on Roman-Parthian relations (§§39–52), that has nothing to do with Jews but does call the Parthians “barbarians” (47, 49), which is otherwise quite rare in Josephus – we read that the Parthians “sent up” a delegation to Rome. That is the only appearance of ἀναπρεσβεύω in Josephus’s writings, and it is difficult to deny the likelihood that Josephus was following a Roman source. True, Täubler suggested that Josephus’s source here was in fact Parthian; see Täubler 1904, 24–25. However, that is based only on the notion, that since a few points in Josephus’s account differ from what we read in two Roman accounts, Josephus’s must be of Parthian origin – as if one Roman source cannot disagree with another. Moreover, one of the discrepancies concerns the reason why the Parthian king sent his sons as hostages to Rome: while Tacitus and Velleius Paterculus refer to considerations of international diplomacy, Josephus relates instead to a nasty court intrigue in Parthia (Ant. 18.41–42). While Täubler assumes Josephus’ tale is true and points to a knowledgeable Parthian source, the story, whether true or not, can be read just as easily, or more easily, as Roman anti-Parthian gossip.

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duced by some such Roman writer, whose report could also have made its way a few decades later, directly or indirectly, to Tacitus. 2. For Josephus, in contrast, there is little reason to think that the issue of Greek freedmen and their influence was very important. True, Josephus likes to complain about Greeks – but for their mendacity, not due to their influence on Roman affairs. Moreover, in Antiquities he does not complain about them; such complaints show up only in his later works.21 Indeed, when Josephus refers to Pallas elsewhere in Antiquities, which he happens to do once, it is very positively. Josephus not only gives him a positive role but also adds some complimentary words about his virtues: at Ant. 18.182 he reports that when Antonia Minor discovered the villainous Sejanus’s plot against Tiberius, she informed Tiberius via a letter that she entrusted “to Pallas, the most trustworthy of her slaves.” No one forced Josephus to write that, linking Pallas closely to a very positive figure in his work 22 and emphasizing his trustworthiness – and the attitude that gratuitous compliment bespeaks is the opposite of the one expressed at 20.182, where Pallas is overly influential and attempts to run roughshod over Roman justice. This bolsters the suspicion that the text of the latter passage was created by a Roman author, whose diction was preserved by Josephus. 3. Source-critical suggestions like that are most warranted when they solve some problem. In our case, we have already noted the problems posed by Josephus’s unusual references to travel “up” to Rome and by the contradiction between his attitude toward Pallas in Book 18 and that evinced in 20.135–37, 182. But alongside those two problems, which can only be noticed by comparing Josephus’s text here to other far-flung passages, there is also a very local problem, one that should mystify any even halfway attentive reader of 20.182. Namely, Josephus’s summary of Felix’s term of office, When Porcius Festus was sent (πεμφθέντος) by Nero as Felix’s successor, the leaders of the Jews residing in Caesarea went up (ἀναβαίνουσιν) to Rome to accuse Felix, and he certainly would have had to pay the price for his unjust acts against Jews (τῶν εἰς Ἰουδαίους ἀδικημάτων), had it not happened that Nero acquiesced to the intense pleading on Felix’s behalf by his brother, Pallas, who at that time was highly honored by Nero,

clearly assumes that readers will accept the notion that Felix’s term of office was a collection of unjust acts, adikēmata, against the Jews. But in fact readers should not accept that summary, for the past forty-five paragraphs, which nar21  See esp. Against Apion and Life 40. For the sharp contrast between Josephus’s hostile attitude toward Greeks in Against Apion (for which Porphyry indeed gives the title Against the Greeks) and his earlier works, see esp. Haaland 2006, 36–39. True, Haaland writes that Greeks are criticized in Josephus’s earlier works too, but Cohen’s study, to which he refers us in support of that, lists, for Antiquities, only two passages in which Josephus criticizes Polybius and Nicolaus (Ant. 12.358–59; 16.183–87); in neither does he characterize them as “Greek” or present them as representative of “the Greeks.” See Cohen 1988, 1. 22  On Antonia, see Ant. 18.143, 164–66, 179–86, 202–3, 236.

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rate the period of Felix’s governorship, some six pages in Niese’s editio minor, do not at all prepare readers for a summary of Felix’s tenure there as one of “unjust acts.” Rather, a review of Josephus’s foregoing narrative since Felix’s appointment easily breaks it down into seven sections, and of them only one short one supports such a characterization of Felix’s tenure. The other six sections focus on Jewish villains and, when they discuss Felix, portray him positively, as attempting to deal with the terrible conditions created by Jewish villains. Namely: a. §§138–59 report (as noted above) extraneous events, pertaining to Herodians, Claudius, and Nero, that fill up the time between Felix’s appointment and the beginning of his term. In this long section, Felix is mentioned only in §§142–43, in the Herodian material, namely, due to his marriage to the sister of Agrippa II. Although the passage portrays Felix as having seduced a married woman to leave her husband, it excuses him by saying that he had been taken by a passion for her; and anyway this was not the type of thing that the Jews would complain about as an “unjust deed against the Jews” (§182). In fact, the passage condemns Drusilla for marrying him (“violating the ancestral laws,” §143), not Felix (who was not bound by those laws) for marrying her. b. §§160–61 report that Felix devoted his efforts to capturing bandits and “imposters.” In particular Josephus reports that Felix captured Eleazar son of Dinaeus, who, according to War 2.253 (and Ant. 20.121), had been troubling the country for decades. That is, in this passage Josephus actually praises Felix for doing his job. c. §§162–64: Enmity between Felix and Jonathan led Felix to bribe a friend of Jonathan’s to see to his assassination, by “brigands” brought in for the purpose. This passage clearly condemns Felix, even if it somewhat backhandedly mitigates his guilt by explaining that he resented Jonathan because he had frequently been critical of him and “those who wish to act unjustly (ἀδικεῖν) find it difficult always to be rebuked.” d. §§165–66: No mention of Felix. The brigands continued their criminal activities, murdering their enemies (or those they were hired to murder) around the city and even in the Temple. This led God to “turn away” (ἀποστραφῆναι) from the city, thus paving the way for its destruction, “for He wished to bring us to our senses via suffering.” This passage is very explicitly introduced as Josephus’s own personal notion of the etiology of the destruction (διὰ τοῦτ’ οἶμαι – “for this reason, I believe”).23 23  For the personal nature of a statement Josephus introduces this way, cf. Daube 1976, 142–46. On Josephus’s understanding of the destruction as God’s punishment of the Jews for their sins, see my studies mentioned above, nn. 6–7. Note, in this connection, Josephus’s just as programmatic use of ἀποστραφῆναι in War 2.391, 539 – the latter too with οἶμαι.

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e. §§167–72: Felix pursues and punishes two groups of Jewish rebels who deserved their punishment. He is depicted as having done his job properly. There were troubles, but Josephus gives us no reason to think there was anything “unjust” about Felix’s behavior. f. §§173–78: Felix intervenes in a dispute between Jews and Syrians in Caesarea that had become violent, and agrees to the Jews’ appeal for mercy. Here too, as in sections b and e, Felix is depicted as having done his job properly, even humanely, dealing with troublemakers as best he could. g. §§179–81: This section does not mention Felix. As section d, it is all about wicked high priests and other Jewish gangsters in Jerusalem and the suffering they imposed upon poor priests. To summarize: of the seven sections into which we divided Josephus’s narrative about the period of Felix, only one short one (c = 162–64) condemns Felix. Apart from that, one (a) portrays him neutrally, two ignore him (d, g) and condemn Jewish villains, and three (b, e, f), including two that are quite long (six paragraphs each), portray Felix quite positively and condemn Jews for the Jews’ troubles; Felix, according to those three passages, attempted as best he could to deal with an impossible situation. Indeed, in this context, even the two passages that fail to mention Felix (d, g) actually contribute to portraying him positively, for they show just how difficult a job he had. Thus, whether or not we believe Josephus’s report in §§162–64, which condemns Felix, it is hardly characteristic.24 How, then, could Josephus summarize Felix’s governorship of Judea as one characterized by his “unjust acts against the Jews” (§182), and why should he do so? This should mystify readers. To illustrate the problem, I will point out that Louis Feldman, in his Loeb edition of Antiquities 18–20, adds a note at §182 that justifies Josephus’s generalization about Felix’s misdeeds by referring to two passages in which Tacitus condemns Felix quite roundly.25 While that suggests (although of course it does not prove) that Josephus’s statement here is historically true, it only points up the historiographical problem: we cannot justify Josephus’s summary on the basis of Josephus’s own account. On the background of this conclusion, that the only two passages in Josephus’s account of Felix that condemn him read more as if they were from Tacitus than from Josephus, it is very interesting to note that, of the seven units in 24  For the suspicion that we should not believe §§162–64, for War 2.256 tells the story of Jonathan’s murder without implicating Felix so the report in Antiquities might be only “malicious gossip designed to discredit … Felix,” see Smallwood 2001, 275. Basically, my present suggestion amounts to pointing to the Roman circles in which such malicious gossip might be expected. 25  Feldman 1981, 99, n. f: “Even Tacitus, in a passage hardly marked by friendliness towards the Jews, admits (Hist. v.9) that Felix, during his term of office, indulged in every kind of barbarity and ‘exercised the power of a king in the spirit of a slave.’ Cf. Ann. xii.54: ‘Felix … by ill-timed remedies, stimulated disloyal acts.’”

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Josephus’s account of Felix in Antiquities, beginning with 20.160 and down to §184, the only ones that lack parallels in the War’s account of Felix (2.247–70) are the two we are discussing: §§162–64 and §§182–84. Only these passages in Antiquities 20.160–84 lack parallels in Josephus’s account of Felix in his earlier work, and only these two passages condemn Felix. It is, therefore, likely to infer that they are based on material that came to Josephus’s attention only when preparing his Antiquities, and he stuck it into his own text, in which he preferred to blame other, Jewish, villains. Moreover, note that §§162–64 and §§182–84 share similar terminology and themes: if §182 characterizes Felix’s record as one of ἀδικήματα (“unjust acts”), §162 characterizes Felix as one who wanted to ἀδικεῖν (“act unjustly”), and both passages refer in particular to bribes, using πείθω and χρήματα (“convince” and “money” – §§163, 183). This makes it all the more likely that the new material reflected in these two passages came, originally, from the same hand. To conclude: Josephus’s account in Antiquities 18–20 of Roman rule in Judea in the first century CE quite naturally focused on the relations between Rome and Judea. That focus is bespoken by travel: the narrative is punctuated by the comings and goings of Roman governors, and of Judean prisoners and delegations, between Rome and Judea. The hiatuses in the narrative, which reflect the time needed for the governors’ travel, created a challenge or an opportunity for Josephus, as a writer, and he dealt with it by using the interstices between successive chapters of Judean history to tell other stories, ancillary to his main account. It is obvious, moreover, that Rome was the seat of power, so from that point of view one can understand why someone might choose to characterize travel to Rome as going “up.” However, while that would have been congenial to Roman sensitivities, it was not, for Jewish sensitivities, perhaps particularly for those of a Jerusalemite such as Josephus who was brought up thinking that it was his native city to which people ascend,26 a natural way to phrase things; indeed, it is not usual for him. But we did find Josephus repeatedly phrasing travel to Rome that way in one particular section of his Antiquities, in the middle of Book 20, between the end of Cumanus’s term of office and the end of that of his successor, Felix. And therefore it is interesting that we also find, in that same section, a focus on a very Roman theme in that period, the days of Claudius: the condemnation of the rising influence of Greek freedmen, such as Felix and his brother. That theme, however, competes with Josephus’s own tendency, as a Jewish historian, to blame the Jews and their sins for their troubles. If a Roman theme that is not very interesting for Josephus is found in his Antiquities alongside repeated verbal usage that is unusual for Josephus but congenial to Roman sensitivities, it is likely that they both came in together, reflecting Josephus’s use 26 

See end of n.  12.

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of a Roman source, probably one similar to the one that served Tacitus a few years later, when he wrote, exceptionally, about the very same Roman governors of Judea. Thus, attention to Josephus’s diction concerning travel back and forth between Rome and Judea has led us to notice and explain a tension in his work, observable elsewhere as well, 27 concerning the etiology of the catastrophe with which his work culminates. Moreover, the fact that this special Roman diction (going “up” to Rome) occurs consistently only in a section that apparently follows a Roman source indicates that, despite his long residence in Rome, Josephus did not, in general, learn to speak of travel to Rome, from the lowly provinces, the way Roman aristocrats, or even Greeks who got used to living in Rome28 would prefer. Whether he simply failed to pick up the usage, or rather actively resisted it, is an interesting question.29

Works Cited Attridge, Harold A. 1976. The Interpretation of Biblical History in the Antiquitates Judaicae of Flavius Josephus. HDR 7. Missoula: Scholars Press. Bilde, Per. 1979. “The Causes of the Jewish War according to Josephus.” JSJ 10: 179–202. Casson, Lionel. 1951. “Speed under Sail of Ancient Ships.” Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 82, pp.  136–48. Cohen, Shaye. J. D. 1988. “History and Historiography in the Against Apion of Josephus.” In Essays in Jewish Historiography, ed. Ada Rapoport-Albert. History and Theory: Beiheft 27. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, pp.  1–11. Daube, David. 1976. “‘I believe’ in Jewish Antiquities xi.237.” JJS 27: 142–46. Feldman, Louis H. 1981. Josephus, X: Jewish Antiquities, Book XX, and General Index to Volumes I–X. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Goodman, Martin. 1994. “Josephus as a Roman Citizen.” In Josephus and the History of the Greco-Roman Period: Essays in Memory of Morton Smith, ed. Fausto Parente and Joseph Sievers. SPB 41. Leiden: Brill, pp.  334–38. Haaland, Gunnar. 2006. Beyond Philosophy: Studies in Josephus and His Contra Apionem. Diss., Norwegian School of Theology, Oslo. Mason, Hugh J. 1974. Greek Terms for Roman Institutions: A Lexicon and Analysis. American Studies in Papyrology 13. Toronto: Hakkert. Mason, Steve. 2003. Flavius Josephus: Life of Josephus. Leiden: Brill. Mouritsen, Henrik. 2011. The Freedman in the Roman World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Osgood, Josiah. 2011. Claudius Caesar: Image and Power in the Early Roman Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

27 

See above, nn. 6–7. Such as Epictetus, and Josephus’s editors in the War; see above, at n.  13. 29  On Josephus’s ambiguity about being a Roman, including an unwillingness to express himself in a way that clearly identified him as one, see Goodman 1994, 334–38. 28 

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Schwartz, Daniel R. 1992. Studies in the Jewish Background of Christianity. WUNT 60. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. –. 2007. Flavius Josephus: Vita–Introduction, Hebrew translation, and Commentary. Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi. –. 2011. “Josephus on Albinus: The Eve of Catastrophe in Changing Retrospect.” In The Jewish Revolt against Rome: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, ed. Mladen Popović. Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 154. Leiden: Brill, pp.  291–309. –. 2015a. “Josephus between the Flavians and God: On the Duality of The Judean War.” In Milestones: Essays in Jewish History Dedicated to Zvi (Kuti) Yekutiel, ed. I. Etkes, D. Assaf, and Y. Kaplan. Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center, pp.  33–41 (in Hebrew). –. 2015b. “On Herod’s and Josephus’ Building Materials.” Eretz-Israel 31: 421–25 (in Hebrew). Smallwood, E. Mary. 2001. The Jews under Roman Rule, From Pompey to Diocletian. 2nd ed. Studies in Judaism in Late Antiquity 20. Leiden: Brill. Stern, Menachem. 1974–1976. The Jewish People in the First Century. 2 vols. ed. Shmuel Safrai and Menachem Stern. Assen: Van Gorcum. Täubler, Eugen. 1904. Die Parthernachrichten bei Josephus. Berlin: Ebering. Thackeray, Henry St. J. 1929. Josephus: The Man and the Historian. New York: Jewish Institute of Religion Press. –. 1930. A Lexicon to Josephus, Part I. Paris: Geuthner. Villalba i Varneda, Pere. 1986. The Historical Method of Flavius Josephus. ALGJ 19. Leiden: Brill.

From Disaster to Disclosure: The Shipwreck in the Book of Acts in Light of Greco-Roman Ideology Knut Backhaus También se le ocurrió que los hombres, a lo largo del tiempo, han repetido siempre dos historias: la de un bajel perdido que busca por los mares mediterráneos una isla querida, y la de un dios que se hace crucificar en el Gólgota. It did also occur to him that humans, throughout the times, have always retold two tales again and again: the tale of a forlorn ship crossing the Mediterranean in search of an island eagerly longed for, and the tale of a god who has himself crucified on Golgotha. Jorge Luis Borges1

Weighing Existence: Shipwreck as condicio humana “What is a ship? (τί ἐστι πλοῖον)” Hadrian, the traveling emperor, is said to have asked Secundus the Silent this question. And since this Cynic was a silent one, he wrote his answer down: Tottering thing, house without fundament, tomb already prepared, cubical piece of timber, voyage ruled by winds, prison hovering through the air, fate in fetters, sport of storms, doom fully rigged, wooden poultry, marine horse, open weasel trap, rescue most unsure, lurking death, wanderer through waves. (Secundi philosophi Taciturni vita ac sententiae 14) 2 1  “Evangelio según Marcos,” 128–29. I owe the reference to this short story to Alexander 2007b, 118–19. I have discussed the subject of this paper in greater length and with further relevant literature in my book Religion als Reise, ch. 3, pp.  173–240, parts of which are incorporated into this article; see also Backhaus 2015. All translations are mine, with the exception of biblical literature, which is quoted from the New Revised Standard Version. I am gratefully indebted to Dr. Joseph Sanzo (Hebrew University/LMU Munich), who patiently and carefully revised my English. 2  Ἐπίσαλος πρᾶξις, ἀθεμελίωτος οἰκία, ἡρμοσμένος τάφος, κυβικὴ σανίς, ἀνέμων ὁδοιπορία, ἀνιπταμένη φυλακή, συνδεδεμένη μοῖρα, ἀνέμων παίγνιον, ἐπιπλέων μόρος, ὄρνεον ξύλινον,

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Hadrian, as the legend tells, added a further question: “What is a sailor? (τί ἐστι ναύτης)” Again, the philosopher’s sententia proves to be less than encouraging: One who rides on waves, mounted messenger at sea, windy tracking dog, companion of winds, alienated from civilization, deserter of the earth, hostile to the winter storm, gladiator at sea, unsure about his rescue, next door to death, a lover of the sea. (Secundi philosophi Taciturni vita ac sententiae 15) 3

These impressions represent the common view of ancient Mediterraneans, who do not seem to have been “lovers of the sea.” As long as the Romans stood on the shore they would proudly speak of the mare nostrum, but as soon as they found themselves on the high sea, they felt at the mercy of its tremendous powers. In Aratus’s Phenomena this experience has found vivid (or deadly) expression: Similar to seabirds diving into water, we will often sit timidly gazing at the sea from our ships and longing for the shore. But it is far away behind the waves. And only a thin plank of timber separates us from Hades. (Phen. 296–99) 4

The Jewish Book of Wisdom, probably originating from the great harbor city Alexandria, communicates a similar feeling: “People trust their lives even to the smallest piece of wood” (Wis 14:5). Nevertheless, the wise will take this risk as an amazing sign of trust in God’s fatherly providence (cf. Wis 13:18; 14:1–8). It is without this particular trust that Juvenal gives his caustic advice: “Go then and commit your soul to the winds! Put your trust to a hewn piece of wood! May spruce timber part you from death by its breadth of four fingers or maybe, if it is especially thick, seven” (Sat. 12.57–59).5 Dedicated to loved ones who were drowned, the epigrammata often give a melancholic echo of the experience of the sea being the all too permeable frontier between life and death. 6 Propertius, in a moving elegy on a friend who has fallen prey to a shipwreck, sighs: “Whatever you may build – it belongs to the

πελάγιος ἵππος, ἠνεωγμένη γαλεάγρα, ἄδηλος σωτηρία, προσδοκώμενος θάνατος, ἐγκύματος ὁδοιπόρος. The Greek text follows the edition by Ben Edwin Perry (1964). 3  Κυμάτων ὁδοιπόρος, θαλάσσιος βερεδάριος, ἀνέμων ἰχνευτής, ἀνέμων συνοδευτής, οἰκουμένης ξένος, γῆς ἀποστάτης, χειμῶνος ἀνταγωνιστής, διαπόντιος μονομάχος, ἄδηλος ἐπὶ σωτηρίᾳ, θανάτου γείτων, θαλάσσης ἐραστής. 4 … ἴκελοι δὲ κολυμβίσιν αἰθυίῃσιν / πολλάκις ἐκ νηῶν πέλαγος περιπαπταίνοντες / ἥμεθ’ ἐπ’ αἰγιαλοὺς τετραμμένοι· οἱ δ’ ἔτι πόρσω / κλύζονται· ὀλίγον δὲ διὰ ξύλον ἄϊδ’ ἐρύκει. 5  i nunc et ventis animam committe dolato / confisus ligno, digitis a morte remotus / quattuor aut septem, si sit latissima, taedae. 6  Cf., e.g., Anthologia Graeca 7.263–79, 282–88, 291–92, 494–503. For the crude reality of traveling by sea in Roman times, see Casson 1994, 149–62; André and Baslez 1993, 419–47. For an impressive collection of testimonies about sea traveling as a risk and a liminal situation, see Rahner 1984, 291–94; Wachsmuth 1967, 431–34.

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winds. No ship will ever grow old. Even the harbor will betray your trust!” (Eleg. 3.7.35–36).7 As a matter of fact, many of the epic heroes suffer shipwreck: the Argonauts, Ulysses, Aeneas.8 The subject attracts Greek tragedians, Roman poets, philosophers, rhetoricians, fabulists, satirists, historians, biographers, autobiographers, and private or official letter writers.9 In a particular manner, it occupies novelists10 as well as the novel-like apocryphal Acts of the Apostles.11 Hence, it is hardly surprising that the Bible, being part of the Mediterranean culture, is deeply committed to this subject as well. In the Hebrew Bible the scope ranges from Leviathan, the crocodile-like embodiment of the monstrous powers of the sea,12 to the prophet Jonah, who survives his very individual sea storm in a rather unusual vessel (cf. Jonah 1:3–2:11). As God manifests his power by taming Leviathan, Jesus in the New Testament conquers the chaos on the Sea of Galilee13 – labelled as θάλασσα by the first Christians (not without some exaggeration, to be sure, but without any alternative as far as seamanship background is concerned).14 In sum, for Greco-Romans, for Jews, and for early Christians sea traveling was the liminal situation par excellence, and both in documentary and fictional 7 

ventorum est, quodcumque paras: haut ulla carina / consenuit, fallit portus et ipse fidem. Argonauts: Apollonius of Rhodes, Argon. 2.1097–122; 4.1223–249; Valerius Flaccus, Argon. 1.608–58; Ulysses and his comrades: Od. 3.286–300; 5.291–463; 7.248–55, 270–82; 9.67– 84; 12.401–50; Aeneas: Virgil, Aen. 1.81–156; 3.192–208; 5.8–25. 9  For examples, which are representative of the respective groups and literary types, see Euripides, Hel. 400–13; Horace, Carm. 1.3.9–24; Propertius, Eleg. 3.7; Phaedrus, Fab. 4.23.9– 25; Lucanus, Bell. civ. 9.319–47; Josephus, Vita 14–15; Dio Chrysostomus, Or. 7.2, 31–32 (cf. Aelius Aristides, Or. 45.33–34); Plutarch, Dion 25.3–11; Arrian, Peripl. M. Eux. 3.2–5.3; Appian, Bell. civ. 5.88–90; Aelius Aristides, Or. 48 (Sacri sermones 2): 12–14, 65–68; Lucian of Samosata, Merc. cond. 1; Nav. 7–9; Tox. 19–20; Ver. hist. 1.6, 9–10; Diogenes Laertius, Vit. phil. 7.4–5 (Zeno); Synesius of Cyrene, Epist. 5.69–174, 195–227. 10 Chariton, Callirhoe 3.3.10–12; Xenophon of Ephesus, Anthia & Habrocomes 2.11.10; Achilles Tatius, Leucippe & Clitophon 3.1–5; Longus, Daphnis & Chloe 1.30.1–31.1; Heliodorus of Emesa, Aethiopica 1.22.21–29; 5.27.1–45; Historia Apollonii regis Tyri 11–12. For details, see the instructive study by Börstinghaus 2010, 69–118; for the travel motif in the early novels in comparison with Acts, see Alexander 2007a; 2007b, esp.  101–17. 11  Ps.-Clem. hom. 12.16.3–17.4; Acts John Pro. ed. T. Zahn pp.  8 –9, 50–51; Acts Phil. 3.10– 12 (33–34). For the motifs of sea storm and shipwreck in the apocryphal Acts of the Apostles, see Söder 1969, 48; Börstinghaus 2010, 237–45. 12  Pss 74:14; 104:26; Isa 27:1; cf. Job 38:8–11. 13  Cf. Mark 4:35–41 parr.; 6:45–52 par.; John 6:16–21. 14  I use the term “Christianity etc.” for the sake of convenience. However, I am aware of the fact that Judaism and Christianity were not clear-cut religions in the era of Second Temple Judaism and some decades thereafter. For a methodological discussion of the selection and comparative evaluation of “parallel” texts, see Backhaus 2014, 2–16. For the intertextual and intracultural background of Acts 27–28, see first of all Börstinghaus 2010, esp.  13–277. Also helpful: Plümacher 1972, 14–15; Praeder 1980, 227–45; Pervo 1982, 50–51, 156 nn. 182, 189; Thimmes 1992, 40–80; Talbert and Hayes 1999. For the cross-cultural profile of the narration, see Hummel 2000. 8 

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literature, sea storms and shipwrecks do not only occur extensively but also serve as a test case of character, of philosophy, and of religion. If there is a condicio humana, nothing is more suitable for illustrating it than exactly this type of story.

Changing the Maps: Paul’s Sea Passage and the Cultural Passage of the Gospel (Acts 27:1–28:16) It is in this liminal space above the numinous deep that “Luke,” the ostensible author of the Third Gospel and the Book of Acts, places his revealing narrative picture of Christianity as it enters the center of the Empire (Acts 27:1–28:16).15 Notwithstanding its polycentric setting, Luke’s two-volume work, as a whole, is designed along the axis Jerusalem – Rome (periphery – center).16 The narration starts in Jerusalem as the omphalos of the world. Thus, in the first two chapters of his gospel, the evangelist – who, according to the old legend,17 was often depicted as a painter – draws a completely “Hebrew Bible scenery” before our eyes: Jerusalem, temple, priest, sacrifice, pilgrimage, angels, prophets, scribes, barren woman, unexpected hero boys, psalms prayed. These motifs are styled in semantic imitation of the Septuagint. Luke leaves no doubt in his readers’ minds: the (Christian) Messiah is born on the venerable ground of Israel’s Holy Scripture; the Christian “way” takes as its point of departure the time-honored biblical foundation invoked by this imagery. By contrast, in the last two chapters of Luke’s two-volume work, this master of mimesis changes the literary colors completely: now he leaps into the urbanity of sea travels, sea storms, and shipwreck, so familiar to the cultural encyclopedia of each pagan around the Mediterranean. He does not only change the subject but also the way to present it. To put the matter pointedly: where before there has been “Bible,” there is now “novel.”

15  To be sure, there were obviously already Christians in the city (cf. Acts 28:15); however, what we find in Acts 27–28 is the spirit-guided advent of the gospel to Rome as its divine destination. 16  Alexander (2003, esp.  170–73) warns against a centrist view of early Christianity that does not represent the more fluid Lukan model of loosely connected Christian communities. According to her, it is to be taken seriously that the main characters in Acts are neither “itinerant bishops” nor “local church leaders” but travelers on a way that mirrors a web of social and communicative networks. However, it seems hard to deny that the axis Jerusalem – Rome (periphery – center) in fact dominates the Lukan road map as a whole, and this obviously with the purpose of revealing the course of historical change guided by God’s plan. For detailed argumentation, see Schäfer 2012. 17  This legend, which may go back to the sixth century, was popular since the eighth century, see Belting 1991 70–72; Bacci 1998, esp.  33–96.

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His last and most adventurous journey leads Paul, the prisoner, from the East to the West, from the margins to the center, from Caesarea Maritima to Rome.18 He faces many dangers, some of which are rather novelistic in character, on a sea voyage extending from Sidon, Myra, Syracuse, and Rhegium to Puteoli. The disaster – a tempest of fourteen days and an odyssey between Crete, Syrtis and “Adriatic Sea” – occurs between the port of Fair Havens and Malta.19 Off the island of Malta, Paul and his company eventually suffer shipwreck and encounter “philanthropic barbarians.” As a result, they spend the winter on the island. Paul, Luke’s prototypical Jew, who circumcised Timothy in the central part of Acts (16:1–3), is now portrayed as the travel companion of Julius, the – again “philanthropic” – centurion of the Augustan Cohort, who saves Paul’s life as he is likewise saved by Paul. At the end of the day, the messenger of the God of Israel reaches the Italian shore from the Gentile island on board an Alexandrian ship under the protection of the Dioscuri (cf. Acts 28:11). We may wonder why the sea storm and the shipwreck – which in no way propel the plot forward – are so important to Luke that he dedicates one of his most extensive and detailed stories to this very subject. Loveday Alexander has called this sort of narrative retardation “slow motion filming.”20 No feature of the conventional tales of sea storms and shipwrecks seems to be left out.21 Luke, who omits years of development and skips months of Paul’s last journey, is suddenly indulging in sailor’s parlance (and hapax legomena): “to sail slowly” (βραδυπλοέω, Acts 27:7), “northeaster” (εὐρακύλων, 27:14), “to take soundings” (βολίζω, Acts 27:28), “steering-oars” (πηδάλια, Acts 27:40), “to hoist the foresail to the wind” (ἐπαίρω τὸν ἀρτέμωνα τῇ πνεούσῃ, Acts 27:40), etc. Having started with pious legends in the milieu of the Jerusalem temple, Luke now comes to his conclusion by spinning a sailor’s yarn. What is going on? He is spinning his yarn, as it were, from east to west, or, more exactly, from the Galilean margins of the Roman Empire to its very center. This extensive narrative marks the caesura between the first Christian epoch, which takes place on the familiar ground of the biblical world, and the Mediterranean culture, in which the readers live their lives.22 It was of vital importance for the 18  For interpretation, see Pervo 1987, 50–57; Klauck 1996, 127–33; Pervo 2009, 639–78; see also the monographs by Praeder 1980, and Börstinghaus 2010, esp.  279–444. 19  There has been some dispute about the isle Μελίτη; for a comprehensive and reliable discussion, see Börstinghaus 2010, 432–44. 20  Alexander 2007b, 118. 21  Untimely departure, treacherous winds, distressing darkness, helpless nautical maneuvers, the superior knowledge of the special passenger, his being guided by dreams, the lightening of the ship by throwing cargo overboard, the lowering of the dinghy, the sinking hope, again and again the wooden ship planks – sometimes rescuing the shipwrecked, sometimes not – swimmers, who save their comrades, and – as an encouragingly frequent pattern – helping natives. For reference material, see Backhaus 2014, 194–95. 22 For the epochal break marked by the narrative device of the sea storm episode, see Wolter 2009, 277–78.

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“functional memory” to have an ancient and venerable past in order to legitimize Christian identity. In this view, “Moses” is the “mos maiorum” of the Christians.23 Nevertheless, it was of equal importance to the Christian historian to be on a par with contemporary Greco-Roman culture. And it is this culture, in particular, which the sea storm narrative puts into a quasi-visual effect created by the rhetorical technique of ἐνάργεια (“vivid illustration”).24 The subject as such, the setting, the motifs and topoi, the semantic inventory, lines, and colors together serve the rhetorical function of placing the gospel in a new world. The reader will mentally grasp that the cognitive cartography has changed. Although the gospel is rooted in the biblical world of old, it has now reached the center of the contemporary Roman world. It is not only the last journey of the individual Paul that is told in Acts 27–28 but a dramatic change of historical spotlight, of cognitive maps, of cultural orientation. Our travel narrative builds “the moving bridge between the mysterious scene of Christian origins and the awesome power of the Roman forum.”25 What these concluding chapters focus on – in the narrated world but also by the conventional mode of narration – is nothing less than the key experience of nascent Christianity: reaching the shores of the “here and now.”26 The tale of the disaster turns out to be the ekphrasis of a transition, as violent as a sea storm, as dangerous as a shipwreck, and as necessary and secure as this particular passage guided by God’s providence. Plato once remarked that the Greeks lived between the Pillars of Hercules and the Black Sea like frogs about a pond (cf. Phaedr. 109). On a more modest level, we may say that Luke considers the narrated world, in which the first followers of Jesus lived, as a frog-like existence about the shores of the Sea of Galilee. While he is the first evangelist to call the Lake of Gennesaret λίμνη, that is to say a kind of pond, he reserves the noun θάλασσα for the Mediterranean, thereby indicating that it has become the mare nostrum of the developing Christian οἰκουμένη (“universal culture”).27 The Mediterranean puts dramatically into effect that “[b]ig events happen on a big stage.”28 The gospel requires the world stage – nothing less will suffice. Thus, what is first and foremost disclosed by this narrated disaster is the cultural claim of nascent Christianity and its changing self-definition. No longer 23 

For detailed discussion (and relevant literature), see Backhaus 2007. Cf. Backhaus 2014, 40–45, 63, 192, 202; for the rhetorical strategy of ἐνάργεια in Acts 27, see now also Neumann 2015. 25  Miles and Trompf 1976, 259. 26  Cf. Jipp 2013, 28–30. The “cognitive cartography” of Luke-Acts, esp. Acts 27–28, was insightfully explored by Loveday Alexander in two important contributions: 2007a esp.  75– 86; 2007b, esp.  108–19. For the divine plan in Paul’s sea adventure, see Talbert and Hayes 1999, esp.  278–80. 27  Cf. Alexander 2007a, 81. 28  Thus (in regard to the apocryphal Acts of the Apostles) Spittler 2013, 372. 24 

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were demons expelled, but waves were conquered. Lukan Christians are no longer content with the “hidden transcripts” of cultural underdogs. Instead, these believers are becoming familiar with the urbane Mediterranean map visualized from Homer to Chariton by sailing through storms and surviving shipwrecks. The culmination of this development was reached with Synesius of Cyrene (ca. 370–413 CE). We owe this highly learned philosopher-bishop a late but delectable eyewitness report (Epist. 5.296–97 [ed. Garzya]). His fifth epistle has left us an extensive and valuable description of two sea storms, which illustrates that autopsia and fiction do in no way exclude each other: sea storms are always similar (cf. Epist. 5.198–200), but they may be shaped to be an entertaining δρᾶμα ἐκ τραγικοῦ κωμικόν, a “comedy woven from a tragic event” (cf. Epist. 5.296–301).29 With a twinkle in the eye, Synesius intimates that such stories might appear, for sophisticated readers, somewhat conventional or even overused. Indeed, already the satirical writers of the first and second centuries like to jump into the genre of the poetica tempestas to take an ironical bath in it: omnia fiunt / talia, tam graviter, si quando poetica surgit / tempestas (Juvenal, Sat. 12.22–24).30 We have, of course, reason to believe that the early Christians were less than sophisticated readers, and they may have found both entertainment and edification even in a “literary mass-product item.”31 By offering a popular form of entertainment, Luke shows himself able to keep pace with contemporary literature. The elaborate maritime story indicates that nascent Christianity is on its way to emerge from the phase of (semi-)orality and to claim its equal footing with the dominant literary culture. Luke may even embrace the cliché, for how else should he demonstrate that he shares common social values? However, the point is that our author, while using the traditional shipwreck narrative, lends some of its motifs and topoi a particularly Christian color. He baptizes, as it were, the cliché in order to transform the conventional disaster into a theological disclosure so that an existential border experience between life and death, separated by a “tottering thing,” reveals who the Apostle Paul is, what sort of gospel he delivers, and how his God works.

Revealing the Truth: The Disaster as Disclosure of Character It is in extremis that we may see how truthful a person is and how genuine his or her convictions really are. Hence, sea storms and shipwrecks provide the narrator with the opportunity of disclosing what is in a character. It is therefore 29 

For a detailed discussion of Synesius’s report, see Börstinghaus 2010, 253–77. “It always happens in this way, so gravely, when once the poetical storm has risen.” Cf. also Juvenal, Sat. 1.9, 14; 12.81–82; Lucian of Samosata, Merc. cond. 1; Tox. 19; Ver. hist. 1.1–4. 31  Cf. Börstinghaus 2010, 142–43. 30 

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not by accident that the first downright characterology, Theophrastus’s Χαρακ­ τῆρες ἐθικοί, unmasks one of its most telling types – i.e., the coward – by placing him aboard a vessel (cf. Char. 25.1–2). In particular, philosophers as well as political leaders often passed their “trial by fire” above water: “Tell me how they behave in disaster and I will tell you how much their view of life is worth.”32 The “Stoic in the sea storm” is an attractive subject. After all, it is the Apostle Paul himself who, in a hardship (peristasis) catalog, refers to his experience of suffering shipwreck as proof of his apostolic character: “Three times I was shipwrecked; for a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from bandits, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea” (2 Cor 11:25–26). It is sufficient to offer only one example, not too remote from Luke’s time. The satirist Lucian of Samosata (ca. 120–190 CE) takes obvious pleasure in revealing the true character of his antihero Peregrinus, a Cynic and for some time a Christian prophet-celebrity: Peregrinus, who is a master of an eye-catching contempt of death, proves to be excessively timid in the eye of a sea storm: “We were shaken up during the night in the middle of the Aegean. Dark stormclouds came up and a tremendous sea rolled in. And, behold, this right admirable gent, who appeared to be superior to death, broke into wailing along with the women” (Peregr. 43).33 Although Peregrinus survives the tempest, his philosophy suffers shipwreck! It goes without saying that the Lukan Paul, in contrast, reveals himself to be a first-class sea hero. He is the one who warns against putting out to sea (Acts 27:10–11, 21), thereby displaying more nautical expertise than the centurion, the skipper, and the ship-owner. He is the only one keeping calm amid the tempest, between all the hectic activities on deck during that odyssey of two weeks; eventually we even see him taking over the command. This leads us to another feature of our travel narrative, which may be called “The special passenger”: the lay expert who proves himself more competent in seamanship than the professional sailors. The prototype is, of course, the indefatigably lamenting Aelius Aristides.34 Philostratus’s Apollonius of Tyana is probably the closest parallel to Luke’s Paul. Nonetheless, his fellow passengers are doomed to suffer shipwreck; only Apollonius and his friends survive by 32 

Cf. Plutarch, Caes. 38.2–4; Gellius, Noctes Atticae 19.1; Augustine, Civ. 9.4.29–71. ὡς ἐπεὶ ταραχθείημεν τῆς νυκτὸς ἐν μέσῳ τῷ Αἰγαίῳ γνόφου καταβάντος καὶ κῦμα παμμέγεθες ἐγείραντος ἐκώκυε μετὰ τῶν γυναικῶν ὁ θαυμαστὸς καὶ θανάτου κρείττων εἶναι δοκῶν. For interpretation, see Börstinghaus 2010, 176–78, who also elucidates the contrast to Paul, the “sea hero” (cf. ibid. 181–82). 34 Cf. Or. 48 (Sacri sermones 2): 67–68; Or. 50 (Sacri sermones 4): 33–36; Synesius of Cyrene, Epist. 5.57–71. For a detailed discussion of Aelius Aristides, see Börstinghaus 2010, 44–59. 33 

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timely changing the vessel (cf. Philostratus, Vit. Apoll. 5.18). In contrast, no lesser than God above grants safety to Paul’s travel party, obviously for the sake of Paul’s errand (cf. Acts 27:22–25). Perhaps the most appropriate means of characterizing one’s hero is to describe what the special passenger does while the world around him is on the verge of sinking down. In his twelfth satire, Juvenal describes his friend Catullus, who finds himself in a deadly sea storm, with all its dangers and horrors, which, by the way, are very similar to those experienced by Paul in Acts 27–28 (cf. Sat. 12.10–82). The central hull is already flooded when Catullus decides to throw overboard quae mea sunt … cuncta (Sat. 12.37) – a business to which Juvenal dedicates no less than 25 verses. Eventually, even the ship’s mast is lowered: “The danger is extreme when we take refuge to such means that make the ship smaller” (Sat. 12.55–56).35 Throwing off the ballast is, of course, a common emergency measure in distress at sea as well as a common motif in sea storm narratives. However, in this case the motif illustrates Catullus’s character: in telling contrast to the legacy hunters, whom Juvenal wishes to unmask, his friend is prepared to part decisively with all his possessions in order to save his life. It is the last minute that makes the man! Let us contemplate for a while another hero’s “last minute.” We remain close to Luke – not only as far as the dating but also as far as the special passenger’s behavior is concerned (although, at first glance, this may seem rather doubtful). In his Satyrica, Petronius Arbiter (died 66 CE) depicts a sea storm off the Italian coast with the typical elements we know from Acts 27–28 (Sat. 114.1–115.5): the play of winds, darkness, the dinghy lowered, the mast cracked, timber planks on the roaring sea. Once again, the ship runs on a cliff; once again, local people turn out to be “philanthropic” helpers; once again, the catastrophe throws light on a character. In this case, it is the peculiar poet Eumolpus, whom the narrator Encolpius finds wholly absorbed in his poetic activities in the midst of disaster: We hear an odd murmuring, a sort of groaning under the skipper’s cabin as if some beast is trying to escape. So we follow up the sound and find Eumolpus sitting there and scribbling verses on an immense scroll of parchment! We are taken by surprise that he finds leisure to engage in poetry being in the neighbourhood of death (in vicinia mortis). We pull him out although he is screaming and adjure him to get his senses back. This guy, however, enraged because he is interrupted, cries: “Let me complete this sentence! My poem might grow bad in the end!” (Sat. 115.1–4) 36

35 

discriminis ultima, quando / praesidia adferimus navem factura minorem. audimus murmur insolitum et sub diaeta magistri quasi cupientis exire beluae gemitum. persecuti igitur sonum invenimus Eumolpum sedentem membranaeque ingenti versus ingerentem. mirati ergo quod illi vacaret in vicinia mortis poema facere, extrahimus clamantem iubemusque bonam habere mentem. at ille interpellatus excanduit et « sinite me » inquit « sententiam explere; laborat carmen in fine. » 36 

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Although in satirical distortion, the scene implies a serious message: in the vicinia mortis, the neighborhood of death, the truth of a life is revealed. What is not worth dying for is neither worth living for. Notwithstanding the obvious difference in literary genre, the “special passenger” Paul bears some resemblance to Eumolpus. Like Eumolpus, Paul is described as acting normally when in vicinia mortis: the stable pole in the middle of the storm, he speaks to his fellow passengers about σωτηρία (“salvation”), a noun that acquired theological connotations since having been proclaimed in the nativity story in view of the expected Messiah (Luke 1:69, 71, 77; cf. 2:30). Salvation is more than sea rescue, and it may be found not beyond, but amidst the disaster: after having raised the morale of his 275 fellow passengers, Paul “took bread; and giving thanks to God in the presence of all, he broke it and began to eat. Then all of them were encouraged and took food for themselves” (Acts 27:35–36).37 Of all the conventional narrative elements, this feature catches the eye. As it is salvation that shines through rescue, it is the Christian Eucharist that shines through this act of reinforcement.38 Thus, Luke borrows elements from the broader Mediterranean world and makes them acceptable narrative forms for the Christian gospel.39 This leads us to the last way in which narratives of sea storms and shipwrecks contribute to characterization. In particular, these motifs address the overlapping concerns of what really matters to a human being and what he or she has made of himself or herself. It is again the vicinia mortis that demonstrates what is of remaining value for a person. Catullus, Juvenal’s friend, for instance, wisely puts – in contrast to the voracious Roman legacy hunters – all his eggs in one basket when he decides to throw overboard all his belongings because he knows that life is his only real property.40 The Roman author Vitruvius reports that the Socratic philosopher Aristippus, when he was stranded on the Rhodian shore, learned an important lesson: 37  εἴπας δὲ ταῦτα καὶ λαβὼν ἄρτον εὐχαρίστησεν τῷ θεῷ ἐνώπιον πάντων καὶ κλάσας ἤρξατο ἐσθίειν. εὔθυμοι δὲ γενόμενοι πάντες καὶ αὐτοὶ προσελάβοντο τροφῆς. 38  Read against a pagan background, a certain closeness to the votum in tempestate might have been observed; for this form of prayer in distress at sea, see Wachsmuth 1967, 435–39. Acts 27:35–36 may allude to the Eucharist; for discussion on this question, see Klauck 1996, 128–29; Pervo 2009, 664. In Acts Pet. 5, the Apostle Peter uses the time of a calm to baptize the skipper and to share the Eucharist with him. 39  For the relationship between literary convention and innovation in ancient sea storm narratives, see Thimmes 1992. 40  Juvenal illustrates what he means by a drastic image from wildlife: imitatus castora, qui se / eunuchum ipse facit cupiens evadere damno / testiculi: adeo medicatum intellegit inguen – “He imitates the beaver that makes himself a eunuch by forgoing his testicles in order to escape: Clearly enough he understands the abdomen’s healing power” (Sat. 12.34–36). The beaver was said to shake off the hunter by biting off and throwing away his own testicles, which putatively contained valuable remedies. Similarly, the sea passenger who is hunted by storms saves his life by throwing away his belongings. For the interpretation of Juvenal’s twelfth satire, see Adamietz 1993, 417–21.

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Only such belongings and provisions for the journey should be delivered to the young people that may be rescued from a shipwreck. For only those things may help us to live which may not be harmed by the changeful tempest of fate nor by political overthrow nor by the devastation of war. (Vitruvius, De architectura 6 praef. 1–2) 41

When Paul suffered shipwreck on the Maltese shore, he was left with nothing but his fellow passengers, the gospel, and the spirit. As he continued the voyage aboard the Alexandrian vessel ΔΙΟΣΚΟΥΡΟΙ three months later, he had all that he needed. Like Zeno, the founder of the Stoic school, he could have said: Bene navigavi, cum naufragium feci – “I have navigated well when I have suffered shipwreck” (Diogenes Laertius, Vit. phil. 7.4; cf. Seneca, Tranq. 14.3). The old Mediterranean tale of the shipwreck provided Luke with the image he needed to demonstrate the new beginning “beyond the Sea.” Indeed, for Luke the traditions, labors, and struggles of the past sink without any trace. He does not explain the paradigmatic shift; rather, he paints a picture of it in a genre that is familiar to his readers. There is a fresh start in Rome, an open end, and a new story to be told by subsequent Christians in other books.

Fathoming the Deep: The Disaster as Disclosure of the Divine The sea with its tremendum et fascinosum is a natural medium of disclosing divine sovereignty and guidance. We observe the Argonauts, Ulysses, and Aeneas crossing not only the sea but also the stories of classical gods and goddesses. The names given to ships in Hellenistic and Roman times may remind us of the index of a theological handbook (Clementia, Concordia, Constantia, Fides, Iustitia, Pax, Pietas, Providentia, Salus, Salvia), but also of the “who’s who” of Mount Olympus (Aphrodite, Artemis, Asclepius, Athena, Demeter, Apollo, Dionysus, Hercules, Isis, Parthenos, Poseidon, Eleutheria, Castor, Pollux, Dioscuri).42 Such names reveal a bit of the existential insecurity of seafarers but also imply that those who go on an errand will always cross boundaries, even those separating the earthly from the transcendent. We have seen that the historical Paul was shipwrecked three times and drifted at sea for a night and a day (2 Cor 11:25). That may sound a bit fictitious. Ulysses, after all, suffers a very similar fate – not without cogent theological reasons, to be sure.43 However, the boundaries between fact and fiction are porous. Jose41  eiusmodi possessiones et viatica liberis oportere parari, quae etiam e naufragio una possent enare. Namque ea vera praesidia sunt vitae, quibus neque fortunae tempestas iniqua neque publicarum rerum mutatio neque belli vastatio potest nocere. In his magisterial work Schiffbruch mit Zuschauer, Hans Blumenberg refers to this anecdote in the thought-provoking chapter “What the shipwrecked person is left with” (12–27; English version: 10–26). 42  See Casson 1973, 354–60; for a list of ancient ship names, see ibid. 439–41; for theophoric or soteriological ship names, see Wachsmuth 1967, 98–100. 43 Cf. Od. 5.388–89: ἔνθα δύω νύκτας δύο τ’ ἤματα κύματι πηγῷ / πλάζετο, πολλὰ δέ οἱ κραδίη

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phus, in his autobiographical report on his embassy to Rome, which was at the very least meant to be documentary, tells the same story. He was traveling, probably aboard a large Alexandrian grain freighter, from Caesarea Maritima to Italy, when fate – or, as we shall see, providence – struck: After our vessel had sunk in the middle of the Adriatic Sea, we – being about 600 passengers in number – kept ourselves above water, swimming through the entire night. At daybreak, by God’s providence a Cyrenaic ship appeared so that I and a few others, setting the rest behind, were picked up aboard, all together about eighty people. (Vita 15) 44

When a man is to be praised, Cicero remarks, one should tell of great and incredible events that have occurred to him, most of all when such events seemed to be caused by divine intervention.45 It is by divine intervention (κατὰ θεοῦ πρόνοιαν) that Josephus is saved: after all, only eighty out of six hundred passengers are saved. Josephus is obviously chosen by God in order to reach the destination that providence has reserved for him in Rome and Jerusalem. Likewise, Paul is saved because he has a place reserved for him in Rome, as the angel tells him with the typically Lukan “divine δεῖ” (“must”): “Do not be afraid, Paul; you must stand before the emperor; and indeed, God has granted safety to all those who are sailing with you” (Acts 27:24; cf. 19:21; 23:11). Luke uses the verb διασῴζειν / διασῴζεσθαι – “to save someone through” to indicate God’s hand in this sort of “religious escapism.”46 The disaster results not from coincidence, but from God’s sovereign plan. Thus, what is at stake here is the legitimacy of the very transition Paul’s last journey dramatically visualizes. This legitimacy implies that Paul is innocent regardless of what the emperor will decide. Here Luke is touching a far-reaching conviction in Greco-Roman ideology: those whom the gods wish to punish, they punish at open sea. Those whom the gods wish to exonerate, they spare or rescue from distress at sea. We know this act-and-consequence connection best from the Book of Jonah.47 The role this connection played in Greco-Roman προτιόσσετ’ ὄλεθρον – “In this way, he drifted around on roaring waves for two nights and two days; often his heart saw doom ahead.” 44  βαπτισθέντος γὰρ ἡμῶν τοῦ πλοίου κατὰ μέσον τὸν Ἀδρίαν, περὶ ἑξακοσίους τὸν ἀριθμὸν ὄντες, δι’ ὅλης τῆς νυκτὸς ἐνηξάμεθα, καὶ περὶ ἀρχομένην ἡμέραν ἐπιφανέντος ἡμῖν κατὰ θεοῦ πρόνοιαν Κυρηναϊκοῦ πλοίου, φθάσαντες τοὺς ἄλλους ἐγώ τε καί τινες ἕτεροι, περὶ ὀγδοήκοντα σύμπαντες, ἀνελήφθημεν εἰς τὸ πλοῖον. For interpretation, see Mason 2001, 23–24; Börstinghaus 2010, 35–37. 45  si quid cui magnum aut incredibile acciderit maximeque si id divinitus accidisse potuerit videri (Part. or. 82). 46  Cf. Luke 7:3; Acts 23:24; 27:43, 44; 28:1, 4. 47  The Rabbinic tradition provides an impressive counter-story: Titus, the destroyer of the Jerusalem temple, fell into blasphemous boasting but was spared from shipwreck and survived a tempest. However, soon enough he found himself vexed by some gnat in his brain – eventually swollen to the size of a bird (Giṭ. 56b; cf. Gen. Rab. 10.7). For the motif of pious Jews being saved from sea storm and shipwreck by divine intervention in Rabbinic narratives, see Hezser 2011, 262–64.

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culture was so significant that it could even be employed in lawsuits: suffering shipwreck or being spared from shipwreck is treated as evidence in cases of murder48 and impiety.49 To demonstrate that the whole passage – and thereby the transition it illustrates – is guided by God, Luke makes use of the conventional elements of a sea travel story. The apparition of an angel, presumably in a dream, prepares the special passenger for the perils ahead.50 Once again – now from the perspective of the Maltese Gentiles – the divine will is disclosed. After Paul and his company have been rescued (Acts 28:1–6), a viper bites the holy man at the fire kindled by the “philanthropic barbarians.” The logic of retribution seems obvious: someone who has just managed to escape from a deadly peril only to fall prey to another one has doubtless incurred divine wrath: “This man must be a murderer; though he has escaped from the sea, justice [viz., Δίκη, which also may refer to the goddess of justice] has not allowed him to live” (28:4).51 The viper exe48  Miles and Trompf 1976, esp.  261–63 refer to the oration Περὶ τοῦ Ἡρῶδου φόνου by the Athenian logographer Antiphon (ca. 480–411 BC). The defendant was accused of having killed and removed a fellow traveler named Herodes on a passage to Aenus. The defense made clear that impure passengers had often perished at sea taking the lives of their fellow passengers, even the innocent ones, with them. In the present case, however, all the passengers had enjoyed a favorable voyage so that the defendant’s innocence seemed to be established (De caed. Herod. 82–83). The analogy to the case of Paul, for whose sake the fellow passengers were saved, is obvious (cf. Acts 27:22–24, 34, 44). Sure enough, this passage is somewhat remote from Luke’s times and culture. Its heuristic value lies in illustrating a common Greco-Roman ideologoumenon, which reaches from the punishment of Ulysses’s comrades for the slaughter of Helios’s cattle (Od. 12.127–41, 260–446) to Lactantius (cf. Miles and Trompf 1976, 263–64). 49  A relevant source text from the forensic milieu of classical Athens is contributed by Ladouceur 1980, esp.  436–41. In 399 BC, the orator Andocides was accused of ἀσέβεια. In this case, not only the speech for the defense but also the prosecution speech has come down to us (in the corpus of Lysias’s orations). Both sides concentrated on the fact that Andocides had survived several sea journeys without any harm. On the one hand, the prosecution allowed that the gods had saved the blasphemer, but only for the official punishment (Pseudo-Lysias, Contra Andociden 19–20, 26–28, 31–32). On the other hand, Andocides was not reluctant to emphasize how dangerous his journeying had been in so uncertain a time. He who was spared by the gods was not to be judged by humans: ἐγὼ μὲν οὖν, ὦ ἄνδρες, ἡγοῦμαι χρῆναι νομίζειν τοὺς τοιούτους κινδύνους ἀνθρωπίνους, τοὺς δὲ κατὰ θάλατταν θείους – “I for my part, gentlemen, hold that this sort of dangers (viz., the risks of a lawsuit) are to be considered only human, whereas the dangers at sea are to be considered divine in nature” (De mysteriis 139; cf. 137–39). Again the analogy is obvious: if God was on Paul’s side in the drama at sea, it did not matter what Nero was about to do in Rome. As Ladouceur himself stresses (1980, 441), we again have to take into account the temporal and cultural remoteness from the first century CE. Therefore, he adds further evidence (e.g., Virgil, Aen. 1.39–45; Horace, Carm. 3.2.26–30; 1980, 441–43). For the concept of shipwreck or ἄπλοια because of impiety, see Wachsmuth 1967, 265–71; for the complementary idea of εὔπλοια, see ibid. 272–76. 50  Acts 27:23–26; cf., e.g., Aelius Aristides, Or. 48 (Sacri sermones 2): 12–14. 51 Without retributive character: the shipwrecked, who has managed to escape to the shore, is bitten by a venomous snake (Anthologia Graeca 7.290) or killed by a wolf (Anthologia Graeca 7.289, 550). Cf. Amos 5:19: “as if someone fled from a lion, and was met by a bear;

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cutes the divine judgement. In Heliodorus’s novel Aethiopica the rascal Thermuthis discloses his character by dying in an appropriate way: Thermuthis laid down to sleep, and so he fell into a sleep that was his last and a deadly one caused by the bite of a venomous snake. Perhaps it was the counsel of the Moirai that he found his end in a way that was not unsuitable to his character. (Helidorus, Aethiopica 2.20.13–16) 52

Observing that Paul has not only survived the shipwreck but also the bite of the snake, the Maltese barbarians change their mind entirely: the stranger is not a murderer but a god (Acts 28:5–6). Luke, who is not normally prepared to allow the confusion of man with god (cf. Acts 12:20–24; 14:8–20), does not seem to have any problem with such a questionable theology. For, in this case, even in terms of a pagan framework, Paul is on the right side. Whatever might happen in front of the emperor’s court in Rome, providence has passed its judgement! 53 And so we come finally to the Dioscuri, in whose sign (Acts 28:11: παρασήμῳ Διοσκούροις) and, apparently, under whose protection the gospel reaches its destination port.54 The Twin Brothers belong to the usual cast of seafarer stories, and they create a marine milieu that is, as we have seen, so important to Luke. Sure enough, the inconspicuous detail of the ship’s name and sign may have come down to Luke from his tradition. Nevertheless, even in this case we may wonder why, of all details, he considers this one important enough to be told. In a rather widespread tradition of Greek and Roman mythology, Castor and Pollux were the patrons of sailors and helpers to those in distress at sea.55 Ever since the time of the late Republic they symbolized Rome’s expansive claim on the world. Particularly in the early Empire they were also venerated as patron gods of the city of Rome and as role models in the emperor cult and ideology. The reason for this veneration was not least due to the cultivated remembrance of or went into the house and rested a hand against the wall, and was bitten by a snake.” A variant with a retributive seal is offered in Anthologia Graeca 9.269 (Antipatros of Thessalonike). 52  πρὸς ὕπνον τραπεὶς ὁ Θέρμουθις χάλκεόν τινα καὶ πύματον ὕπνον εἵλκυσεν, ἀσπίδος δήγματι, μοιρῶν τάχα βουλήσει, πρὸς οὐκ ἀνάρμοστον τοῦ τρόπου τὸ τέλος καταστρέψας. 53  For interpretation of Acts 28:1–6, see Ladouceur 1980, 448–49; Klauck 1996, 129–31; Talbert and Hayes 1999, 272–75; Kauppi 2006, 107–12; Pervo 2009, 673–75; Jipp 2013, 257–64. 54  For mythographic evidence, see Diodorus Siculus, Bibl. hist. 6.6.1; Apollodori Bibliotheca 1.67, 111, 119; 2.63; 3.117, 126–28, 134–37, 173; Hyginus, Fab. 77; 80. As always, there are numerous variants: sometimes Zeus is not the father of both twins; often human origin is attributed to Castor, and he is regarded as mortal. For an overview of the myth, the religious and political significance, and the iconography of the Twin Brothers, see Bethe 1903; Kraus 1956, 1122–133; Poulsen 1994; Geppert 1996; Scheer and Ley 1997. The relationship between the Twin Brothers and Acts 28:11 is discussed in Ladouceur 1980, 443–49; Backhaus 2015. 55  That is why Theophrastus’s coward does well to check if someone aboard is not initiated, when the sea is getting up (cf. Char. 25.1–2). The lily-livered passenger probably thinks of the Samothracian mysteries of the Cabiri, which were, on a popular level, often identified with the Dioscuri. Of course, he is eagerly interested in good relationships with those gods who are “in charge of the sea”; cf. Ladouceur 1980, 442.

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their deeds as saviors and messengers of the good news of victory in Rome’s legendary past.56 Such distinctive features doubtless belonged to the cultural encyclopedia of Luke’s readers. Therefore, we do not go too far when we transfer this symbolic system of meaning to the traveler Paul: he is depicted as the pre-destined messenger of the good news of God’s victory in the city of Rome, claiming the world both for the gospel and for the true σωτήρ (“savior”) and βασιλεύς (“king/emperor”). Let us add a virtue of the Dioscuri that correlates with Dike’s function: the Dioscuri were regarded as guardians of oath and verity.57 They punished the wrongdoers and saved the innocent at open sea. To be sure, Luke, as a Christian, does not “believe” in these functions (cf. Acts 14:11–17; 17:16–34), but he is – at least, to a certain measure – accommodating towards popular piety. The subtle symbolism of the detail “Dioscuri” lies in the field of connotation and enculturation, not meaning and message. For Luke, the Twin Brothers are a culturally adaptable indicator of the “good star” and universal claim, under which the gospel’s journey to the end of the world takes place. But the God of Israel remains in control.58 It is human disaster that opens space for his disclosure – not yet at the end of the world, to be sure, but at the end of an adventurous journey and at the world’s very center. Hence, there is one insight – probably one insight only – that connects Luke’s shipwrecked hero Paul to Petronius’s shipwrecked fool Encolpius, who sits, after all, at the shore and who has come to his wisdom: si bene calculum ponas, ubique naufragium est – “If you draw the right conclusion, there is shipwreck everywhere” (Sat. 115.16). 56  Cf. Geppert 1996, 19–28, 32–35. In Christian times, Paul as well as the Apostle Peter adopted important functions of the Twin Brothers, e.g., as patrons of the city of Rome and helpers of the sailors; cf. Ladouceur 1980, 448. 57  Cf. Ladouceur 1980, 445–46, who refers to the function of the Twin Brothers as war­ rantors of oaths, which is demonstrable for the first century CE. The self-description of the Dioscuri in the conclusion of Euripides’s Electra is much older, but extraordinarily clear: νὼ δ’ ἐπὶ πόντον Σικελὸν σπουδῇ / σῴσοντε νεῶν πρῴρας ἐνάλους. / διὰ δ’ αἰθερίας στείχοντε πλακὸς / τοῖς μὲν μυσαροῖς οὐκ ἐπαρήγομεν, / οἷσιν δ’ ὅσιον καὶ τὸ δίκαιον / φίλον ἐν βιότῳ, τούτους χαλεπῶν / ἐκλύοντες μόχθων σῴζομεν. / οὕτως ἀδικεῖν μηδεὶς θελέτω / μηδ’ ἐπιόρκων μέτα συμπλείτω – “We two must now hurry over the Sicilian Sea to rescue the ships floating in its waves. As we stride through the regions of the air, we will not give help to those who are polluted. But those who are attached to piety and justice in their lives we will save and deliver from grave hardships. Hence, make sure that no one does wrong or joins perjurers when they go to sea” (El. 1347–355; cf. Isocrates, Or. 10.61; Libanius, Or. 57.24). The warning against sharing a ship with perjurers sources from the concern that the fellow passengers will have to share the punishment at open sea (cf. the sarcastic anecdote in Diogenes Laertius Vit. phil. 1.86). 58  For interpretation, see Klauck 1996, 132–33; Kauppi 2006, 112–17. For a critical overview of the motif of Paul’s “innocence” in Acts 27–28, see Jipp 2013, 7–12. Paul is not only “innocent,” he is God’s empowered messenger; compare Börstinghaus 2010, 449, 451; Jipp 2013, 11–12, and, comprehensively, Labahn 2001, 89–91. Thus, Paul’s innocence is but one aspect within the comprehensive theme of God’s plan with the transition of the gospel from the margins to the center; compare Alexander 2007a, 74; Börstinghaus 2010, 452–53.

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Drawing the Right Conclusion: “There is Shipwreck Everywhere” The “right conclusion” takes us back to Secundus the Silent: shipwreck is not the worst illustration of our condicio humana. Nor is it the worst illustration of the condicio Lucana of early Christianity. Ever since John the Baptist, the prophetic desert nomad, the followers of Jesus formed an itinerant movement as part of a religion that formed an itinerant people ever since Abraham and Moses. Luke, however, was the first Christian author who made, in literary form and clearness, of this pragmatic necessity a program of self-affirmation, thereby transforming a style of life into a style of spirituality.59 Remarkably enough, he chooses the genre of a travel report in order to explain a religious journey. Christianity in its beginnings – or, as Luke calls it, “The Way” (ἡ ὁδός) – is itinerant by definition. In the particular case of sea storm and shipwreck, we have worked out how Luke uses the conventional forms of a Mediterranean narrative to transform the topos of the final disaster into an image of the decisive transition. Paul’s last journey demonstrates that Christianity has reached both (intradiegetically) the cultural and political center of the Roman empire and (in the “real world”) the level of contemporary literature. By means of μίμησις (“imitation”) and ἐνάργεια (“vivid illustration”), Luke creates a narrative atmosphere in which this change is conjured up before the eye of the mind. Intended readers are “at home” between the philanthropic centurion Julius, Dike, and the Dioscuri; they face this liminal situation at the side of the special passenger Paul, whose privileged knowledge and theological bird’s eye view they share. In this way, the readers get, so to speak, a first-hand experience of the decisive transformation of Christianity: the passage from the epoch of Judean origins to the epoch of the “here and now,” from the biblical ancestry to the pagan culture, from the Sea of Galilee to the mare nostrum. The dramatic story of a complicated passage legitimizes the (similarly complicated) passage from a Christianity that is centered on its Jewish descent to a Christianity that is on a par with the dominating society. So, first of all, our travel narrative reveals the direction of the course of history. For Luke, the conventional plot and narrative strategies provided the opportunity to connect this lesson in salvation history with a lesson about the character of the protagonist Paul: he is the calm force in the eye of the storm; he is the upright Jewish hero and the saving companion of Gentiles. If Nero’s court condemns him, the heavenly court obviously does not. Instead, the plot affirms the passenger Paul to be God’s distinguished messenger – eventually taking over 59  Accordingly, the third gospel, Luke’s bios of Jesus, describes its hero as a wanderer proclaiming God’s kingdom as a message on the way and for the way; see the contribution by Reinhard Feldmeier in this volume: “The Wandering Jesus: Luke’s Travel Narrative as Part of His Hermeneutical Strategy of ‘Double Codification’”, pages 343–353.

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the role of the Dioscuri as deliverer of good news to Rome. At the end of the day, what is disclosed is God’s guiding hand in the course of history. Thus, Paul’s dramatic sea travel ends where journeying will always end: it does not matter to be elsewhere; it matters to be someone else.

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Talbert, Charles H., and John H. Hayes. 1999. “A Theology of Sea Storms in LukeActs.” In Jesus and the Heritage of Israel: Luke’s Narrative Claim upon Israel’s Legacy, ed. David P. Moessner. Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, pp.  267–83. Thimmes, Pamela Lee. 1992. Studies in the Biblical Sea-Storm Type-Scene: Convention and Invention. San Francisco: Mellen. Wachsmuth, Dietrich. 1967. ΠΟΜΠΙΜΟΣ Ο ΔΑΙΜΩΝ. Untersuchung zu den antiken Sakralhandlungen bei Seereisen. Diss., Freie Universität Berlin. Wolter, Michael. 2009. “Das lukanische Doppelwerk als Epochengeschichte (2004).” In Theologie und Ethos im frühen Christentum. Studien zu Jesus, Paulus und Lukas. WUNT 236. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, pp.  261–89.

“From Syria all the Way to Rome”: Ignatius of Antioch’s Pauline Journey to Christianity Yonatan Moss Introduction: The Journey to Rome It was, in all likelihood, exactly 1900 years ago, early in the summer of the year 116, that Ignatius, bishop of the young Christian community of Antioch – at that time the third largest city of the empire – was arrested and sent to Rome, under heavy imperial guard, to be executed by gladiatorial combat.1 Ignatius’s journey to Rome, recently dubbed by one scholar “one of the great moments of the early Church” (Étienne Decrept 2008: 399), is known to us almost exclusively through the letters the bishop wrote to different Christian communities and individuals along his route. Just about all aspects of Ignatius’s journey, his letters and, indeed, his very existence, have been questioned at one point or another, from the dawn of modern critical scholarship until late in the twentieth century.2 Nevertheless, since the beginning of the present millennium a current consensus is emerging which accepts the historicity of Ignatius’s journey and the authenticity of seven of the letters that go under his name.3 According to this consensus, Ignatius was arrested – it is unclear why – under the reign of Trajan, probably in July of 116, and was initially led – it is unknown whether by land or by sea – from Antioch to Philadelphia in Western Asia Minor.4 We cannot say how long he stayed in Philadelphia, but by late August he had continued on to Smyrna on the Aegean coast. During his stay in Smyrna, Ignatius received Christian delegates from three of the province’s major cities: Ephesus, Magnesia, and Tralles. Before leaving Smyrna, he wrote letters to these three communities, as well as to the (or: a?) Christian community in Rome. From Smyrna Ignatius was led to the northern coastal town Alexandria Troas. While staying there he sent letters to the two communities he had already visit1 

On the precise date of Ignatius’s arrest, see Decrept 2008, 392–93. Munier 1992, 377–79; Hübner 1997; Brent 2007, ix–x. 3  Munier 1992, 380; Edwards 1998; Brent 2007, 95–143. 4  For the reconstruction of the journey, see Lightfoot 1889, 2.33–37, followed, with the support of additional evidence, by Decrept 2008, 390. 2 

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ed, Philadelphia and Smyrna, as well as a final letter personally addressed to Smyrna’s bishop, Polycarp. At this point we hear no more from Ignatius himself, but from a letter written by Polycarp we learn that Ignatius sailed from Troas to Europe, having reached Philippi in Macedonia, by way of the latter’s port city, Neapolis (today’s Kavala). After this we lose track of him. It is not improbable that his military guard would have led him along the Via Egnatia to Dyrrachium (today’s Durrës, in Albania), whence they could have set sail for Italy. But despite subsequent tradition, it is unknown whether Ignatius did indeed end up meeting a martyr’s death in the capital city. Scholarship is divided on this question.5 Whether or not this journey terminated with execution in Rome, as it was intended, one thing is certain. This was the outcome Ignatius himself obsessively desired. His letters repeatedly cast his route as a symbolic journey. Like the sun, he emerged from the east and was to conclude his career in the west. To the Roman Christians he writes: God judged the bishop of Syria worthy to be found at the (sun’s) setting (εἰς δύσιν), having sent him from the (sun’s) rising (ἀπὸ ἀνατολῆς). It is good to set (τὸ δῦναι) from the world to God that I may rise (ἀνατείλω) to him. …6 From Syria all the way to Rome (ἀπὸ Συρίας μέχρι Ῥώμης) I am fighting with wild beasts, on land and sea, by night and day, chained to ten leopards, a squadron of soldiers. (Romans 2.2; 5.1)

Like the sun’s setting at the day’s close, Ignatius’s physical journey across the Roman Empire needed to end with his own death. This was because the martyr’s death signified for him nothing less than the full attainment of God. He beseeches the members of the Roman community to refrain from using their connections to save him from execution, writing: As a prisoner in Christ Jesus I hope to greet you, if it be [God’s] will for me to be judged worthy to reach the end (εἰς τέλος). For the beginning (ἡ ἀρχή) has been well-ordered, if I attain the grace to obtain my lot unimpeded; for I fear your love lest precisely it may do me wrong; for it is easy for you to do what you want; but it is hard for me to attain God (τοῦ θεοῦ ἐπιτυχεῖν) if you do not spare me. … I exhort you: do not become an inopportune kindness for me; let me be the food of wild beasts through whom it is possible to attain God (θεοῦ ἐπιτυχεῖν). (Romans 1.1–2; 4.1)

It was clearly important to Ignatius to frame his voyage to Rome as a journey to attaining God. Ignatius himself uses this language over and over again in his letters: some twenty times altogether.7 Outside of Ignatius, such language is 5 

Decrept 2008, 398–99, denies it; Schoedel 1985, 11, cautiously accepts it. Compare the translation in Brent 2007, 84: “God has deemed the bishop of Syria worthy to be found at the setting of the sun, having dispatched him from the sun’s rising.” 7  Schoedel 1985, 28, counts three times with reference to Christians attaining God; 15 times with reference to himself, and once referring to Polycarp. See ibid. for the full list of passages. See also Bower 1974. 6 

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actually extremely rare in early Christian literature. 8 Other martyriological accounts are not framed in quite such “goal-oriented” images and even pilgrimage literature normally does not conceive of God himself as that which is attained.9 It is perhaps for this reason that one subsequent textual tradition of these letters consistently changes the verb in these cases from “attainment” or “reaching” God to “being worthy” of him. This consistent pattern is evident in the socalled “short recension” of three of Ignatius’s letters, which survives only in Syriac and was probably produced in a monastic setting.10 Thus, for example, comparing the so-called Middle Greek Recension to the so-called Short Syriac Recension of the relevant parts of the passage cited above (Romans 1.2; 4.1), we find as follows: Middle Recension (Greek)

Short Recension (Syriac)

but for me it is hard to attain (epituxein) God (ἐμοὶ δὲ δύσκολον τοῦ θεοῦ ἐπιτυχεῖν)

but for me it is hard to be worthy (eshtawa) ‫ܠܝ ܕܝܢ ܥܛ� ܠܝ ܕܐܫܬܘܐ �ܠܗܐ‬ of God (            )

let me be the food of wild beasts through whom it is possible to attain (epituxein) God (Ἄφετέ με θηρίων εἶναι βοράν, δι’ ὧν ἔνεστιν θεοῦ ἐπιτυχεῖν)

let me belong to the beasts, through whom I will be worthy (eshtawi) of God ̈ ‫ܫܘܒܩܘܢܝ ܕܐܗܘܐ‬ ̈ (                   ) ‫ܕܒܐܝܕܝܗܝܢ ܐܫܬܘܝ �ܠܗܐ‬ ‫ܕܚܝܘܬܐ‬

As we see here – and the pattern repeats itself throughout the “short recension” – the Syriac eshtawy, “to be worthy,” replaces the Greek epituxein, “to attain.”11 This consistent move, which, as far as I can tell, has not previously been treated in scholarship, demonstrates the late ancient discomfort (and perhaps particularly monastic discomfort) 12 with the radical telos of Ignatius’s journey.13 Nevertheless, although it is clear that the journey’s final destination, “attaining God,” was what gave it its full meaning for Ignatius, not only the telos but 8  Schoedel 1985, 29: “It appears that Ignatius is still alone in speaking of God himself as that which is to be attained.” See ibid., n.  153 for citations from earlier studies of this question. 9  See Bitton-Ashkelony 2005, 54–56; 83–84; 115–22. 10  See Von Lilienfeld 1966. 11  See Sokoloff 2009, 1525, which offers “to join together, be united” as one of the meanings of the verb. This might appear to be the meaning here, but a closer look at the examples cited shows that this definition is irrelevant in our case. 12  For monastic ambivalence with regard to pilgrimage and wandering in general, see Bitton-Ashkelony 2005, 154–56; 205. 13  A similar trajectory can be identified with regard to the journey to spiritual perfection. Whereas Christian texts in the early centuries exhort perfection as an attainable goal, from the late fourth century onwards perfection is reconfigured as ultimately unattainable. Compare, e.g., Didache 6.2–3; Origen, Contra Celsum 4.29; Athanasius, Letter to the African Bishops 7.4, on the one hand, to Gregory of Nyssa, Life of Moses, 1.5–10; Ps. Macarius, Spiritual Homilies 8.5; Isaiah of Scetis, Discourse 23; John Climacus, Ladder of Divine Ascent 153, on the other hand. See Moss, “Attaining Perfection.”

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also the journey itself was of central importance to Ignatius. His letters are shot through with “journey-related” language. To cite some examples: he calls the Christians of Ephesus “the highway of the martyrs”; he speaks, as we saw, of his movement “from Syria all the way to Rome”; and he repeatedly refers to other Christians as “fellow-travelers” and as “speed-runners.”14 It is, therefore, not surprising that Ignatius’s journey and the way he chooses to cast it has caught the attention of several scholars.

Interpreting Ignatius’s Journey: State of the Question Some eighty-five years ago, the young Heinrich Schlier argued that Ignatius’s journey is in fact an allegory of the Gnostic’s cosmic voyage.15 William Schoedel, in his influential commentary on the letters, published in 1985 in the Hermeneia series, disproved this theory,16 proposing, instead, to view Ignatius’s journey as real, but also as a choreographed performance. According to his reading, Ignatius recognized the importance of embassies, escorts and letters in gaining recognition and support. Thus, “to a certain extent,” writes Schoedel, “events were ‘staged.’” The journey to Rome provided Ignatius the opportunity to ensure that his martyrdom would bring about peace and concord in the churches (Schoedel 10–13). Along similar lines, Allen Brent has argued that Ignatius consciously choreographed his voyage as a Christianized form of the procession of a mystery cult (2007: 44–94). His vision, according to Brent, was of “an ekklesia reconstituted as a mystery cult that achieved both union with the divine and concord between different congregations and within congregations bearing the common, Christian name” (94). More recently Étienne Decrept (2008) has made the interesting suggestion that Ignatius was led together with a host of other prisoners as part of emperor Trajan’s planned triumphal procession back from his Parthian campaigns. Decrept proposes to thus explain the strange zigzag route through Asia Minor that the voyage took. He interprets it as an expiatory journey, whereby Ignatius and his fellow-prisoners were led, as propitiatory scapegoats, through the various towns of Asia Minor that had recently suffered earthquakes and other natural disasters.17 The interpretation of Ignatius’s journey, however, that I would like to draw on was offered a decade ago by Katharina Waldner. Astutely commenting that 14 

For the sources of these images and a discussion of them, see further below. Schlier 1928–1929, 68–69. Compare Lechner 1999, 306–7, where allegedly anti-Gnostic (specifically late Valentinian) traits of the Middle Recension are recruited to argue for its dating to the late second century. 16  See also Brent 2007, 129–34. 17  Cf. idem 2001. 15 

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we must not situate the journey in “an abstract map,” but “in a network of roads traversed by people, and, with them, messages” (2006: 115), Waldner reads Ignatius’s letters as an attempt to establish himself as the center in a Christian world which he felt lacked a proper center. The cities he stopped at along the Roman imperial cursus publicus18 (not by his own choice, of course) became, through acts of sending out letters and taking in messengers, symbolic centers. In the manner of a Roman magistrate, who “sets up shop” in a particular location as he tours the province, Ignatius describes his reception of these messengers, confirming their “ambassadorial” representation in the letters that were then brought back to their places of origin. And just as Rome remains the true center even in the magistrate’s absence, so, Ignatius emphasizes in his Letter to the Romans, does Antioch, his episcopal seat, remain the center of all churches. In Ignatius’s absence from the city, Jesus Christ, in Ignatius’s words, now served as its bishop (Romans 9.1). Waldner, like others before and after her, sees this as part of Ignatius’s effort to pattern the authority of the episcopate, at that time still very much contested, after the structures of Roman imperial power.19

A New Interpretation of the Journey: Recruiting Paul I would like to sharpen and expand upon Waldner’s interpretation but in order to do so I must first briefly introduce two other aspects of Ignatian studies. The first aspect has to do with Ignatius’s social contextualization. Here I draw on Allen Brent who has shown that Ignatius’s argument for episcopal authority was not aimed at supporters of more “presbyterian” modes of church-government (2007: 149–56). Although this was the use to which Ignatius was put in the ecclesiastico-political battles in modern times, this was not the original context.20 The original argument, reflected in other early Christian writings also thought to stem from Antioch of Ignatius’s generation, was, we might say, much more Weberian.21 The Gospel of Matthew and the Didache, a Christian text comprising a series of ethical, ritual, and institutional teachings, both thought to have been written in Antioch in the final decades of the first century, reflect a crisis of ministerial authority, in which there was confusion about who, if an18  Technically, this term, although commonly used in modern scholarship to speak of Ignatius’s journey, is an anachronism when applied to the second century. It is not to be found in texts before the third century. Inscriptions and coins during the first two centuries CE refer to the same system as vehiculatio. See Kolb 2014, 660. See also Laura Nasrallah’s contribution to this volume. 19  Brent 2007, 60–70, and, in more detail, idem 1998; Lotz 2007, 87–92. 20  See Schoedel 1985, 2. Brent 2007, 1–8. 21  The classic statement of the theory and its application to early Christianity appears in Weber 1978, 241–54; 1111–117. For a critique of some of the theory’s common uses and a new proposal, see Draper 1998.

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yone, had the right to exercise charismatic authority (Brent 23–30). Both texts repeatedly warn the community against “false prophets, apostles, and wandering missionaries” and propose a more institutionalized, orderly ministerial structure to replace them. The Didache famously exhorts: Elect for yourselves therefore bishops and deacons worthy of the Lord, gentle men and not fond of money who are true and approved; for these are those who perform for you the liturgy of the prophets and teachers. (Didache 15.1) 22

Thus, the Didachist. And thus also Ignatius. His arguments against the charismatics and in favor of routinized ecclesiastical institutions centered on the eucharist are well-known. To cite just two examples: Take care therefore to participate in one Eucharist, for there is one flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ and one cup which leads to unity in his blood; there is one altar, just as there is one bishop, together with the presbytery and the deacons, my fellow servants, in order that whatever you do you do in accordance with God. You are subject to the bishop as to Jesus Christ … you must not engage in any activity apart from the bishop, but be subject also to the presbytery as to the apostles of Jesus Christ. (Philadelphians 4; Trallians 2.1–2) 23

Rather than latter-day missionaries and wandering prophets who claim the apostolic mantle (“activity apart from the bishop,” in Ignatius’s words), the contemporary apostles of Jesus are the community’s sedentary priests who administer the eucharist (“the presbytery as … the apostles of Jesus Christ”; Brent 2007: 30–43). Ignatius sets up a clear analogy: the bishop is like Jesus and his presbyters are like Jesus’s apostles.24 This analogy was particularly important to Ignatius because the wandering charismatics whom he opposed had a point in claiming continuity with the apostles, especially with Paul, the journeying apostle par excellence. This brings us to the second point that must be made before expanding on Waldner’s treatment of Ignatius’s journey. It was precisely due to the ease with which his charismatic opponents could appeal to Paul’s example, that Ignatius made a point of establishing continuity, both explicitly and implicitly, with that apostle. Indeed Ignatius casts his very path towards “reaching God” as a journey in Paul’s footsteps. To the Ephesians he famously writes: You are on the highway (πάροδος) for those slain for God; you are fellow initiates (συμμύσται) with Paul who has been sanctified, approved, worthy of blessing, in whose footsteps may it be mine to be found (οὗ γένοιτό μοι ὑπὸ τὰ ἴχνη εὑρεθῆναι) when I reach God (θεοῦ ἐπιτύχω), who in every letter remembers you in Christ. (Ephesians 12.2) 22 

Compare Matt 7:15–23 and see Draper 2008. See more examples and discussion at Decrept 2008, 398. 24  Thus, even the deniers of the historical authenticity of the Middle Recension are struck by the fact that the notion of apostolic succession, prevalent in Hegesippus and Irenaeus and subsequent ancient Christian writers, is absent from Ignatius’s conception of the episcopate. See Lechner 1999, 110; Brent 2007, 122–29. 23 

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And, sure enough, a careful reading of Ignatius’s letters reveals numerous allusions to the letters of Paul and those who wrote in his name. But, as often discussed in scholarship, they are allusions, not direct citations, and the differences between the two men are just as apparent as the similarities.25 In the manner of any good rhetorician in antiquity, Ignatius did not simply cite Paul; he creatively rewrote and repurposed him.26 This was due to his complex and ambivalent relationship with the apostle’s legacy. On the one hand, Paul’s authority was indisputable in the churches of Ignatius’s day; and yet the latter’s particular type of authority was exactly what Ignatius strongly opposed. His challenge was to repossess Paul’s decentralized, itinerant example in accordance with his own model of centralized, sedentary authority. How did Ignatius meet this challenge? I would like to propose that Ignatius did so precisely by seizing the opportunity of his east-to-west journey, which followed, most literarily, in Paul’s footsteps. To facilitate our understanding of how Ignatius met the challenge, we may speak of two kinds of journeys. Both Paul and Ignatius traveled widely around Asia Minor and the Mediterranean, establishing personal relationships and networks, which they sustained through their letters. In this the two men have often been compared.27 But what earlier scholarship has failed to stress is the fundamental difference in the natures of their voyages. Whereas Paul’s traveling was contingent, spontaneous and diffusive, Ignatius’s was directed, goal-oriented and centralized. The difference between their respective voyage patterns might be characterized as the difference between centrifugal and centripetal movement. It is no coincidence that Paul wrote his letters as a free, wandering missionary. If he was later arrested and escorted under imperial guard to Rome, as described in the Book of Acts, we do not know of any letters from that journey.28 It is also no coincidence that it is not really possible, based on the letters alone, to confidently reconstruct Paul’s itinerary as an apostle.29 It was unpredictable and sporadic, with no clear beginning or end, and with few indications of its course in the letters themselves.30 With Ignatius the situation was exactly the reverse. All 25  See Munier 1992, 392–93. A practical ramification of this question is how and whether to mark in editions of Ignatius’s letters apparent allusions to phrases appearing in documents that would later comprise the New Testament. See on this point Cline and Thompson 2006, 447–48. 26  Reis 2005, 287–88. 27  See, e.g., Lightfoot 1889, 2.1.36; Arnal 2011, 208–9. See further below, at the end of the article. 28  See Acts 27–28. On the question of the historicity of the journey to Rome, see Luedemann 1984, 3, 15. 29  Despite repeated, and varying, scholarly attempts to do so. See, in brief, Donaldson 2010, 40–42. 30  Contrast this with the contemporary debate, discussed by Knut Backhaus in this volume, about whether the Luke-Acts narrative was designed to represent a centripetal move

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of his letters were written as he was being led as a prisoner from Antioch to Rome. We know of no letters written prior to his journey. In the letters Ignatius gives clear indications of his route, since, as we saw earlier, his route was one with a clear beginning and a clear end. This is what I mean by the difference between Paul’s essentially centrifugal movement and Ignatius’s centripetal one. Ignatius, as we have already seen, is certain and confident about this course. Just as it began in Antioch, it must end in Rome. He offers precise locations and dates along the way.31 The trajectory was meaningful precisely because it was centripetal. It placed him and his glorious martyrdom at the center. This granted him the broader authority which continuously had been contested as long as he remained in Antioch. Paul, by contrast, is vague about his plans. He writes to the Corinthians (1 Cor 16:6) that he might spend the winter with them, after which he speaks of his journey, using the indefinite subjunctive, that will bring him “whithersoever he goes (οὗ ἐὰν πορεύωμαι).” To the Romans (15:24) Paul says he would like to stop by on his way to Spain, “whensoever he takes his journey (ὡς ἐὰν πορεύωμαι).” It is possible that Paul’s language is non-committal in this regard precisely because he thought the world was coming to an end at any moment. Contrary to one popular understanding, he was not trying to convert the whole world, or even establish a universal church. Brent Nongbri and Stanley Stowers are probably correct in viewing Paul’s mission as aimed at assuring that there would be an assembly of Gentiles to meet Christ at his return and bring eschatological offerings to the temple in Jerusalem.32 His missionary movement was therefore primarily centrifugal: to set up numerous pockets of such gentiles, in corners of the oikoumene as far-flung as possible.33 Unlike Ignatius, who placed his culminating death at the center of his journey, Paul did not attach any particular attention to death. Death was, as he famously remarks, a daily affair for him.34 A similar difference is at play with regard to another movement-related ­metaphor, the “running” metaphor, often invoked in the context of Ignatius’s from Jerusalem to Rome. See Alexander 2003, 170–73, arguing for a more “polycentric” read, vs. Schäfer 2012, advisedly endorsed by Backhaus. 31  Romans 10.1–3 (date and location of composition of letter to the Romans); Smyrnaeans 11.1 (Antioch as point of original departure); Polycarp 8.1 (leaving Troas for Neapolis). 32  Stowers 2011, 252, citing Nongbri 2008, 161–203. 33  Thus, while on the one hand, we may say that Paul viewed Jerusalem as a “center,” this was an eschatological perspective. Judging from the letters, in his own activities Paul was not particularly keen on traveling to Jerusalem, contrary to the picture that emerges from Acts. See Donaldson 2010, 30. 34  1 Cor 15:31: “I die daily,” meaning that he faced the reality of death on a daily basis. See Fee 1987, 769 and n.  41, ibid. This is not to mean that Paul did not attach importance to his suffering. Like other early Christian writers, he sought to anchor his authority in suffering (see, e.g. 2 Cor 11:20–28), but he did not necessarily connect this suffering to potential martyrdom. See on these points Kelhoffer 2010, 30–64, esp. at 37.

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usage of Pauline language. Paul describes his and other people’s missions as a succession of individual runs: personalized careers, as it were.35 To the Philip­ pians he writes about his own running (“I did not run in vain” – οὐκ εἰς κενὸν ἔδραμον (Phil 2:16)) and to the Galatians he speaks of their running (“you were running well” – ἐτρέχετε καλῶς (Gal 5:7)). Much has been made of the athletic, agonistic context of this image in Paul.36 Ignatius, on the other hand, while echoing Paul on one level, recasts the running metaphor for his own needs.37 Running for him is a communal and submissive affair, rather than an individualistic and competitive matter. He exhorts the Ephesians to “run together” with the mind of their bishop (συντρέχειν τῇ ἐπισκόπου γνώμῃ (Ephesians 4.1)); and he tells the Magnesians not to “do anything without the bishop and the presbyters.” They must “as a gathered church … all run together, as to one temple-shrine of God, as to one altar” (Magnesians 7.1–2). Running is not following one’s own course, but following the course dictated by one’s bishop. Ignatius portrays his own physical journey from East to West with the same centripetal brushstrokes. The Christians who come to visit him are “fellow-travelers” (σύνοδοι (Ephesians 9.2)) 38 and the messengers who deliver letters to and from him are “divine-speed-runners” (θεοδρόμοι (Philadelphians 2.2; Polycarp 7.2)).39 Indeed the Christian communities are themselves the “highway” upon which the martyr travels (Ephesians 12.1. See above). Just as Ignatius, bishop of the city which now had Jesus Christ as its bishop, will attain God through his journey that will conclude with martyrdom, all Christians can attain God through the same collective journey of which we have been speaking. In order to do so one must learn to submit oneself to church discipline. Ignatius writes to his followers in Ephesus: But pray on behalf of other people unceasingly, for there is hope of repentance in them that they may attain God (ἵνα θεοῦ τύχωσιν). Let them learn at least from your deeds to become disciples (μαθητευθῆναι). (Ephesians 10.1)

We see here, as elsewhere in the letters, that one need not necessarily undergo martyrdom in order to “attain God.” One can do so also by submitting to ecclesial hierarchy as Ignatius envisioned it.

35 

Reading “career” according to its etymological meaning. The classic study remains Pfitzner 1967. See also, more recently, Krentz 2003, 344–83. 37  Earlier scholarship tended to identify the similarities between Paul and Ignatius with regard to running, rather than the differences. See, e.g., Camelot 1951, 126, n.  1. 38  See Schoedel 1985, 67. See also above. 39  See Schoedel 1985, 197–98; Brent 2007, 50–53. See above. 36 

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Conclusion: Creating Christianity In conclusion, I would like to reflect more broadly on the importance of Ignatius’s journey. Why indeed was this journey “one of the great moments of the early Church,” as Étienne Decrept dubbed it (2008: 399)? Returning to the theme of apostles as opposed to bishops, we may observe that whereas the former, almost by definition (“ones sent”) are travelers, the latter, also by their very name, are considered sedentary (since they “sit” in their “see”). Initially, as long as Ignatius was in Antioch, his main challenge was to defend his sedentary model of leadership and authority against the traveling, “apostolic” usurpers. We see other hints of this challenge in the documents thought to have stemmed from the Antiochene milieu of the late first century, namely Matthew and the Didache. We do not know how Ignatius dealt with this challenge prior to his condemnation – if at all. What we do know is that once condemned, he seized the fact that he had now become a traveler. He was in the position to use his new role as journeyer in order to reimagine, we might say quite literally, “the way of the church.”40 It is perhaps no coincidence that Ignatius’s letters provide the earliest known attestation of the word – and the very concept – “Christianity.”41 The bishop of Antioch claimed to be walking in the apostle Paul’s footsteps. In a certain sense he was. Both men traveled essentially the same route, but they seem to have thought of it as leading in very different directions. Paul’s journey was a constant, centrifugal movement away from the biblical centers of nomos and ethnos. His journey was successful. So successful indeed that by Ignatius’s time the need had developed for a new center. Ignatius sought to provide this by redefining his own journey from a centrifugal one into a centripetal one. Unlike Paul, his journey was one not away from the center but constantly towards new ones: towards eucharist, towards bishops, towards martyrdom.42 In so doing he, rather than Paul, created Christianity. William Arnal, in a recent article on the second-century “invention” of Christianity, captures well this dynamic: Ignatius’s … creative mimesis of Paul not only helps to construct Ignatius as a Paul-like figure, i.e., establish Paul as a traditional predecessor; but also serves to construct Paul the predecessor after the image of Ignatius. By presenting himself as a travelling letter40  For this characterization of the early followers of Jesus, see Acts 9.2; 19.9; 23; 22.4; 24.14; 22, and, further, Johnson 1992, 162. 41  Magnesians 10.1; 3; Philadelphians 6.1. These passages have been cited often in discussions of the question of the so-called “parting of the ways” between Judaism and Christianity. See Robinson 2009, and, more recently, Cohen 2013, 8; Nicklas 2014, 1–17. 42  The journeys of both Paul and Ignatius can be said in this sense to have situated them in Derridean différance, “a deviation, both temporal and spatial, from the linearity that constitutes identity (in its root sense of sameness).” For this quote and its application to travel in another context, see Whitmarsh 2011, 20. See also a similar application of Whitmarsh’s recruitment of Derrida in Catherine Heszer’s contribution to this volume.

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writer who communicates on behalf of “the church” to scattered communities of strangers, Ignatius’s frequent adoptions and echoes of Pauline epistolary language serve to interpret Paul in a similar light, and thus to cast Paul as Ignatius casts himself: as bishop, martyr, traveler, as one addressing the morals of the gospel and the refutations of heresy to strangers, as a major authority in a unified church, as, ultimately, an actor on the very large and single stage of Χριστιανισμός (Christianity). (2011: 209)

Expanding upon Arnal’s insight, this article has tried to show that Ignatius does not just create Christianity by appealing to the authority of Paul as “a traveling letter-writer.” Ignatius redefines the journey in question. From a journey away from the center to a journey to the center. From a voyage around the cities of the empire to a voyage into its very heart.

Works Cited Alexander, Loveday. 2003. “Mapping Early Christianity: Acts and the Shape of Early Church History.” Interpretation 57: 163–73. Arnal, William. 2011 “The Collection and Synthesis of ‘Tradition’ and the Second-­ Century Invention of Christianity.” MTSR 23: 193–215. Bitton-Ashkelony, Brouria. 2005. Encountering the Sacred: The Debate on Christian Pilgrimage in Late Antiquity. Berkeley: University of California Press. Bower, Richard A. 1974. “The Meaning of ΕΠΙΤΥΓΧΑΝΩ in the Epistles of St. Ignatius of Antioch.” VC 28: 1–14. Brent, Allen. 1998. “Ignatius of Antioch and the Imperial Cult.” VC 49: 111–38. –. 2007. Ignatius of Antioch: A Martyr Bishop and the Origin of Episcopacy. London: Continuum. Camelot, P. Th. 1951. Ignace d’Antioche, Polycarpe de Smyrne. Lettres, Martyre de Polycarpe. Sources Chrétiennes 10. Paris: Cerf. Cline, Brandon, and Trevor Thompson. 2006. “Ignatius Redux: Bart Ehrman on Ignatius and his Letters.” Journal of Religion 86: 442–54. Cohen, Shaye J. D. 2013. “The Ways that Parted: Jews, Christians, and Jewish-Christians, ca. 100–150.” Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University (Preprint), pp.   1–34. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:10861143 (accessed May 1, 2017). Decrept, Étienne. 2001. Le voyage d’Ignace d’Antioche. Thèse soutenue à Paris IVSorbonne. –. 2008. “Circonstances et interprétations du voyage d’Ignace d’Antioche.” Revue des Sciences Religieuses 83: 389–99. Donaldson, Terence L. 2010. “Introduction to the Pauline Corpus.” In The Oxford Bible Commentary: The Pauline Epistles, ed. John Muddiman and John Barton. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp.  27–56. Draper, Jonathan A. 1998. “Weber, Theissen, and ‘Wandering Charismatics’ in the Didache.” JECS 6: 541–76. –. 2008. “Apostles, Teachers and Evangelists: Stability and Movement of Functionaries in Matthew, James, and the Didache.” In Matthew, James, and the Didache: Three

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Related Documents in their Jewish and Christian Settings, ed. Huub van de Sandt and Jürgen K. Zangberg. SBLSS 45. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, pp.  139–76. Edwards, Mark J. 1998. “Ignatius and the Second Century: An Answer to R. Hübner.” ZAC 2: 214–26. Fee, Gordon D. 1987. The First Epistle to the Corinthians. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. Hübner, Reinhard. 1997. “Thesen zur Echtheit und Datierung der sieben Briefe des Ignatius von Antiochien.” ZAC 1: 42–70. Johnson, Luke Timothy. 1992. The Acts of the Apostles. Sacra Pagina Series 5. Collegeville: Liturgical Press. Kelhoffer, James A. 2010. Persecution, Persuasion and Power: Readiness to Withstand Hardship as a Corroboration of Legitimacy in the New Testament. WUNT 270. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Kolb, Anne. 2014. “Communications and Mobility in the Roman Empire.” In The Oxford Handbook of Roman Epigraphy, ed. Christer Bruun and Jonathan Edmondson. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp.  649–70. Krentz, Edgar. 2003. “Paul, Games and the Military.” In Paul in the Greco-Roman World: A Handbook, ed. J. Paul Sampley. Harrisburg: Trinity Press, pp.  344–83. Lechner, Thomas. 1999. Ignatius adversus Valentinianos? Chronologische und theologiegeschichtliche Studien zu den Briefen des Ignatius von Antiochien. Vigiliae Christianae Supplements 47. Leiden: Brill. Lightfoot, J. B. 1889. The Apostolic Fathers, Part 2: S. Ignatius, S. Polycarp (2nd Ed.; 3 vols.). London: Macmillan. Lotz, John-Paul. 2007. Ignatius and Concord: The Background and Use of the Language of Concord in the Letters of Ignatius of Antioch. Patristic Studies 8. New York: Peter Lang. Luedemann, Gerd. 1984. Paul, Apostle to the Gentiles: Studies in Chronology. Trans. F. Stanley Jones. Philadelphia: Fortress Press. Moss, Yonatan. (In preparation). “Attaining Perfection: A Late Ancient Greek Ascetic Journey.” Munier, Charles. 1992. “Où en est la question d’Ignace d’Antioche? Bilan d’un siècle de recherches 1870–1988.” ANRW 2.27.1, pp.  359–484. Nicklas, Tobias. 2014. Jews and Christians? Second Century ‘Christian’ Perspectives on the ‘Parting of the Ways.’ Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Nongbri, Brent. 2008. Paul without Religion: The Creation of a Category and the Search for an Apostle beyond the New Perspective. Ph.D. Diss., Yale University. Pfitzner, Victor C. 1967. Paul and the Agon Motif: Traditional Athletic Imagery in the Pauline Literature. Novum Testamentum Supplements 16. Leiden: Brill. Reis, David M. 2005. “Following in Paul’s Footsteps: Mimēsis and Power in Ignatius of Antioch.” In Trajectories through the New Testament and the Apostolic Fathers, ed. Andrew F. Gregory and Christopher M. Tuckett. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp.  287–305. Robinson, Thomas A. 2009. Ignatius of Antioch and the Parting of the Ways: Early Jewish-Christian Relations. Peabody: Hendrickson. Schäfer, Jan. 2012. “Vom Zentrum zum Zentrum. Die Achse der Apostelgeschichte von Jerusalem nach Rom.” In Das frühe Christentum und die Stadt, ed. Reinhard von Bendemann and Markus Tiwald. BWANT 10. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, pp.  189–219. Schlier, Heinrich. 1928–1929. Religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zu den Ignatiusbriefen. BZNW 8. Giessen: Töpelmann.

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Schoedel, William R. 1985. Ignatius of Antioch: A Commentary on the Letters of Ignatius of Antioch. Hermeneia 81. Philadelphia: Fortress Press. Sokoloff, Michael. 2009. A Syriac Lexicon: A Translation from the Latin, Correction, Expansion, and Update of C. Brockelmann’s Lexicon Syriacum. Winona Lake and Piscataway: Eisenbrauns and Gorgias Press. Stowers, Stanley. 2011. “The Concept of ‘Community’ and the History of Early Christianity.” MTSR 23: 238–56. Von Lilienfeld, Fairy. 1966. “Zur syrischen Kurzrezension der Ignatianen. Von Paulus zur Spiritualität des Mönchtums der Wüste.” Studia Patristica 7: 233–47. Waldner, Katharina. 2006. “Ignatius’ Reise von Antiochia nach Rom. Zentralität und locale Vernetzung im christlichen Diskurs des 2. Jahrhunderts.” In Zentralität und Religion. Zur Formierung urbaner Zentren im Imperium Romanum, ed. Hubert Cancik et al. Studien und Texte zu Antike und Christentum 39. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, pp.  95–121. Weber, Max. 1978. Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology, ed. Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich. Berkeley: University of California Press. Whitmarsh, Tim. 2011. Narrative and Identity in the Ancient Greek Novel: Returning Romance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

List of Contributors Knut Backhaus, born in 1960, is Professor and Chair of New Testament Exegesis and Biblical Hermeneutics at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (since 2003). He received his Dr. theol. from the Theological Faculty Paderborn in 1989 (subject: The Movement of John the Baptist). In 1994 he was habilitated from the University of Münster (subject: The Covenant Motif in the Epistle to the Hebrews). He was Professor and Chair of New Testament Exegesis in Paderborn in the years 1994–2003. He is co-editor of Zeitschrift für die Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft (ZNW), Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche (ZThK), Evangelisch-Katholischer Kommentar (EKK), and Herders Biblische Studien (HBS). His books include Religion als Reise: Intertextuelle Lektüren in Antike und Christentum (Mohr Siebeck, 2014). His current focus of research is the Book of Acts. Ewen Bowie was Praelector in Classics at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, from 1965 to 2007, and successively University Lecturer, Reader, and Professor of Classical Languages and Literature in the University of Oxford. He is now an Emeritus Fellow of Corpus Christi College. He has published articles on early Greek elegiac, iambic and lyric poetry, Aristophanes, Hellenistic poetry, and many aspects of Greek literature and culture from the first century BC to the third century AD. He edited (jointly with Jas´ Elsner) a collection of papers on Philostratus (CUP 2009) and (jointly with Lucia Athanassaki) a collection entitled Archaic and Classical Choral Song (Berlin, de Gruyter, 2011). He is currently completing a commentary on Longus, Daphnis and Chloe for CUP. Janet Downie is Assistant Professor of Classics at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill. She specializes in Greek, and her research and publications focus on literature of the Roman imperial period. She is the author of At the Limits of Art: A Literary Reading of Aelius Aristides’ Hieroi Logoi (Oxford 2013) and has published articles on a range of texts and authors of the imperial period including Philostratus, Artemidorus, Galen, and Dionysius the Periegete. Her current research focuses on the perception and description of the landscapes of Asia Minor in imperial literature. Kendra Eshleman is Associate Professor of Classical Studies at Boston College. She is the author of The Social World of Intellectuals in the Roman Empire:

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Sophists, Philosophers, and Christians, and articles about Philostratus’s Lives of the Sophists, Plutarch’s Table Talk, and ancient conversion narratives. Reinhard Feldmeier, PhD and Habilitation in Tübingen. Pastor of the Lutheran Church of Bavaria. Professor for Old and New Testament in Koblenz (1992– 1995), Professor for Biblical Theology in Bayreuth (1995–2002), Professor for New Testament in Göttingen (since 2002). Member of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen. Co-editor of SAPERE, COMES, and TOBITH. Research areas: History of Religion in the Hellenistic Period; New Testament Ethics; Synoptic Gospels; Biblical Theology. Georgia Frank is Charles A. Dana Professor of Religion at Colgate University (Hamilton, NY, USA). She is author of The Memory of the Eyes: Pilgrims to Living Saints in Christian Late Antiquity (2000). Amit Gvaryahu is a PhD Candidate at the Hebrew University’s Mandel School for Advanced Studies in the Humanities. He has taught at various institutions of higher learning, including the Gregorian Pontifical University in Rome and Mechon Hadar in New York. Catherine Hezser is Professor of Jewish Studies at SOAS, University of London. Her research focuses on the social history and daily life of Jews in Roman Palestine. She has written the first monograph on Jewish Travel in Antiquity (2011). Her most recent book publications are Jewish Art in Its Late Antique Context (with Uzi Leibner, 2016) and Rabbinic Body Language: Non-Verbal Communication in Palestinian Rabbinic Literature of Late Antiquity (2017). Benjamin Isaac is Lessing Professor of Ancient History Emeritus at Tel Aviv University. Among his published works are The Limits of Empire: the Roman Army in the East (Oxford 1992) and The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity (Princeton 2004). He is one of the editors of the Corpus Inscriptionum Iudaeae – Palaestinae, and a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities and of the American Philosophical Society. In 2008 he received the Israel Prize for History. Richard Kalmin is the Theodore R. Racoosin Professor of Rabbinic Literature at The Jewish Theological Seminary, where he has taught since 1982. He is the author of several books and numerous articles on the interpretation of rabbinic stories, ancient Jewish history, and the development of rabbinic literature. His publications include the award-winning Jewish Babylonia between Persia and Roman Palestine (2006, Oxford University Press) and Sages, Stories, Authors, and Editors in Rabbinic Babylonia, considered a classic in its field. He has been

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a visiting professor at Hebrew Union College, Union Theological Seminary, and Yale University, and a faculty fellow at the University of Michigan and the Institute of Advanced Studies at Hebrew University. He is the recipient of a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities in support of the research and writing of his most recent book, Migrating Tales: The Talmud’s Narratives and Their Historical Context (2014, University of California Press). He was elected to the American Academy of Jewish Research in 2015. Sarit Kattan Gribetz is Assistant Professor in the Theology Department at Fordham University. She is currently writing two monographs, the first titled Time and Difference in Rabbinic Judaism and the second about the Toledot Yeshu manuscripts. Yonatan Moss, Senior Lecturer in Comparative Religion at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, specializes in Christianities and Judaisms of late antiquity and the early Middle Ages. He earned his PhD in Religious Studies at Yale University (2013) and is the author of Incorruptible Bodies: Christology, Society and Authority in Late Antiquity (Christianity in Late Antiquity 1; University of California Press, 2016). Laura Nasrallah is Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at Harvard Divinity School. She is author of An Ecstasy of Folly: Prophecy and Authority in Early Christianity and Christian Responses to Roman Art and Architecture: The Second-Century Church Amid the Spaces of Empire, and co-editor of Prejudice and Christian Beginnings: Investigating Race, Gender, and Ethnicity in Early Christian Studies and From Roman to Early Christian Thessalonikē: Studies in Religion and Archaeology. Maren R. Niehoff holds the Max Cooper Chair in Jewish Thought at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She has published widely on Ancient Jewish thought and Bible interpretation, with particular emphasis on encounters between Jews, pagans, and Christians in the Greco-Roman world. Her recent publications include Jewish Exegesis and Homeric Scholarship in Alexandria (Cambridge 2011, Polonsky Prize 2011) and Philo of Alexandria: an Intellectual Biography (Yale 2017). She has also edited two volumes of Philo’s works in Hebrew and several collections of articles, among them Homer and the Bible in the Eyes of Ancient Interpreters (Leiden 2012) and Abrahams Aufbruch. Philo: Migratio Abrahami (together with Reinhard Feldmeier, Tübingen 2017). Niehoff is currently the head of two research projects: an international research group at the Israel Institute for Advanced Studies, working on “The Contours of the Self in Ancient Mediterranean Cultures”, and a research team, funded by the Israel

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Science Foundation, working on “Genesis Rabbah in Greco-Roman and Christian Context”. Jonathan Price is Chair of the History Department in Tel Aviv University; author of Jerusalem Under Siege (Brill 1992) and Thucydides and Internal War (Cambridge 2001); editor of the “Jewish Inscriptions” in the Corpus Inscriptionum Iudaeae/Palaestinae: A Multi-Lingual Corpus of the Inscriptions from Alexander to Muhammad (CIIP), of which three volumes have already been published (Berlin 2012–2014; Vol. IV due out in 2017); Area Editor for the new online Oxford Classical Dictionary; and author of many articles on Greek and Roman historiography, Jewish history of the Roman period, epigraphy. Ian Rutherford, Professor of Classics at the University of Reading; PhD Oxford; author of State Pilgrims and Sacred Observers in Ancient Greece: A Study of Theōriā and Theōroi (OUP, 2013) and Pindar’s Paeans: A Reading of the Fragments with a Survey of the Genre (OUP, 2001). Daniel R. Schwartz is the Herbst Family Professor of Judaic Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and specializes in Jewish history and historiography of the Second Temple period. His commentary on 2 Maccabees appeared in 2008 and currently he is preparing one on 1 Maccabees. His contribution to the present volume derives from his work on preparing a commentary to the last three books of Josephus’s Antiquities. Froma Zeitlin is Charles Ewing Professor of Greek Language and Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature at Princeton University with emeritus status. She has worked on Greek epic and drama throughout her career. In addition, she has ventured beyond the limits of archaic and classical Greece to the study of the Greek and Roman novel along with other works of the Second Sophistic. Her books include Under the Sign of the Shield: Semiotics and Aeschylus; Seven Against Thebes (1982; 2d ed. 2009), Playing the Other: Gender and Society in Classical Greek Literature (1996), and two co-edited volumes, both published in 1990, Nothing to Do with Dionysos? Athenian Drama in its Social Context; and Before Sexuality: Structures of Erotic Experience in the Ancient Greek World. She also edited and wrote an introduction to selected essays of Jean-Pierre Vernant, entitled Mortals and Immortals (1991). She has a special interest in relations between word and image as well as in gender and sexuality studies. Nicola Zwingmann is the author of Antiker Tourismus in Kleinasien und auf den vorgelagerten Inseln (Ancient Tourism in Asia Minor and its Offshore Islands, Bonn 2012), and various articles on ancient travel with a focus on its im-

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pact on cultural identity and on women travelers embracing the Mediterranean area in general and Asia Minor in particular. She has been a research associate at the University of Tübingen and at the Friedrich-Meinecke Institute of the Free University of Berlin, as well as a member of the Excellence Cluster Topoi in Berlin. She currently works as an independent researcher.

Index of Names Apollonius of Tyana, see under Life of Apollonius Aristides, Aelius  41–8, 396 – on urban landscape  4, 54, 57–64, 69 f. – erotic  65 f., 65n42, 69, 72 – political view of  54, 56 f., 61, 66, 68, 71 f., 125 – Sacred Tales 46 – travels  72, 83, 89, 125, 275 Augustus I  246, 280 f., 283, 313 Aurelius, Marcus  54, 66, 215 Aristotle  266, 330 Antony, Mark  33, 280 Augustine, Saint  360, 366 Balaam  192, 356–60, 363, 365–7 Ben Azzai 297, 307n31 Callimorphus, Tiberius Claudius  25–7 Chariton of Aphrodisias  27–30, 35–8, 157–62, 164 f., 174 f., 395 Clement of Alexandria  190 f., 194 Chaereas, see under Chariton of Aphrodisias Cicero, Tullius Marcus  203 f., 207, 209, 214, 217, 219, 400 Ctesias of Cnidus  227, 229 f. Cephas, see under Peter Claudius I  382, 384 Diogenes, Antonius  27 f., 30 – views of Hellenism  31–4 – travel  36, 38, 351 Elijah  120, 319, 321, 348n11, 351 Epictetus 265 Esau  242, 244 Flavius, Josephus  6, 9 f., 15, 125, 203–5, 216, 221, 258, 381 – Antiquities (Jewish) 374–7, 385

– autobiography  206–9, 387 – Greek culture (attitude towards) 383, 386 – in Jerusalem Temple  260 f., 267 f. – parallel between his books  380 f., 384–7 – Roman source of  378–82, 382n20, 386 f. – travel to Rome  373–5, 377–80, 382n20, 386 f., 400 – War (the Jewish) 205, 208, 286, 377–80, 384, 386 Galen of Pergamum  42, 218 Gamaliel  247 f. Hiyya b. Abba 3 Hadrian  24, 42, 48, 268, 278 f., 389 f. Heliodorus  29, 157–61, 163–6, 174–6, 402 Homer  93, 159–61, 163, 204, 212, 227, 229 f., 395, see also Odyssey Hermogenes of Tarsus  38 Horace  124, 129, 204, Herodotus  25, 126, 158, 164, 228, 232, 265 Herod the Great  258, 373, 384 Ignatius of Antioch  10, 290, 409 – his execution in Rome  410, 416 – letters of  409–411, 415–8 – symbolic journey of  410–2, 414 f., 417 f. Jacob, (rabbi)  318 f. Jesus  278, 391 – as a child  345 f., 349 – as a Hellenistic hero  350–2 – as a model of imitation  333 f., 352, 413 – as a stranger  345–7 – as a traveler  9, 343 f., 347 f., 350 – Early Christian belief in  362, 367

430

Index of Names

– in Talmudic literature  355 f., 358, 360 f., 363 f., 367 Jonah  122 f., 192, 310n45, 391 Justin Martyr  6, 204 f., 210, 216 f., 221 – Dialogue with Trypho  210–5, 362 Juvenal  306n28, 390, 395, 397 f. Jerome  122, 332 f. John the Baptist  207, 345, 405 Joshua (rabbi)  301 f. Judah (rabbi)  303 Johanan ben Zakkai  148 Lucian (Pseudo-)  4, 77, 79 f., 102, see also Erôtes Lucian of Samosata  3, 6 f., 87, 99, 104, 203–5, 211, 257, 350, 396 – Philosophies for Sale 212–4 – Quomodo Historia Conscribenda Sit  228, 232 f. – Verae Historiae  225n1, 225–9, 231–4 – view of historiography  12, 34, 208 f., 226–30, 232, 234 – views on philosophers  216 f. – Wisdom of Nigrinus (The)  216–21 Menander, Aelius Aurelius  26 Moses, as a model of imitation  5, 121, 140, 146–51, 192, 309, 320, 348n11, 394 Marcus, Aurelius  66–8, 70, 72, 125 Nero  208 f., 284 f., 292, 351, 382n19, 383 f. Onkelos bar Kalonikos  355–8, 356n4, 360 f., 363 f., 367 Origen  362, 366 f. Paul the Apostle – character of  2 f., 277, 279, 396, 397, 402 – in Rome  9, 416 – travel  277 f., 289 f., 352, 393 f., 400, 403 f., 415 f. – Letter to the Corinthians  289 f. – influence of  414 f., 418, see also Galatians, Letter to the Pausanias  11, 62 f., 63n36, 123, 126 Philo of Alexandria – view of traveling  2, 205, 217, 274, 306n28

– pilgrimage  7, 259–63, 266–8 Philostratus, Lu¯cius Fla¯vius  205 – on India  6, 12, 183 f., 189–91, 193, 195–7 – Lives of the Sophists  23, 41, 45, 66, 70, 70n57 Plato  60n25, 79, 265 f., 394, see also Platonic Philosophy Plutarch  15, 205, 216 – Travel  2, 185 Petronius Arbiter  397 Protogenes 89 Pliny the Elder  5, 99, 117 f., 126, 313 Pseudo-Skylax 115 Pythagoras  189, 191 Poppaea Sabina  209 f. Philadelphos, Ptolemy  266 Peter the Apostle  273, 276, 278, 287–9, 291, 346 Piacenza pilgrim  329, 332 f., 336 f. Sappho  64n38, 69 Seneca (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)  2, 215, 219, 399 Shimon b. Shatah – in relation to biblical myth  147–51 – character of  142 f., 146, 149, 151n50 – view of witches  139–41 Simeon bar Abba  306 Strabo of Amaseia  5, 23, 57, 116 f., 266, 287 Straton of Sardis  100 Synesius of Cyrene  395 Tanhuma  3, 309 Tatius, Achilles  46, 103, 159 f., 166–7 – erotic view of space  168–70, 172 f. – Leucippe and Cleitophon  166, 176 f. Thomas the Apostle  6, 183, 187 f., 192, 196 Tertullian  194, 212 Thucydides  7, 229, 231–4 Trajan 28, 279, 285, 409, 412 Titus  313, 356–60, 363, 365, 367, 400n47 Tacitus  34, 126, 382 f., 382n20, 385, 387 Tiberius  31 f., 283 f., 383 Tarfon  250, 300

Index of Names

Vespasian, Titus Flavius 243–5, 251, 313, 379 Xenophon of Ephesos  29, 39, 45, 82, 157, 159, 251

Yose bar Yehudah  241, 243, 251

431

General Index Acco 247 Acts of the Apostle  2 f., 276–8, 287, 289, 348, 352, 380, 391–3, 395, 399, 402 f., 415 – narrative agenda of  404 (see also Double Codification) Acts of Thomas  6 f., 86, 183 – India (travel to)  184–7, 193–5 – Greek influence on  188–90, 193 f. – Christianity as a concept in  191 f., 195–7 Aethiopica  165, 402 – summary  175 f., see also Heliodorus Affairs of the Heart, see under Erôtes Alexandria  16, 102, 158, 218, 267, 390 – descriptions of  46, 53, 159, 170–4, 176 – travel to  53, 166–7, 298n5, 399 Antioch (in Syria, also known as Antioch on the Orontes) – Christianity in  10, 273, 287 f., 409, 413, 416, 418 – travel to  23, 26, 77, 81 f., 86, 102 f., 119, 126, 379 Aphrodisias  3 f., 23 f. – travelers to 25–7, 33, 35 – literature from  25–9, 39 f. – Sebasteion in  31 Aphrodite  31, 64n39, 146, 175, 399 – Aphrodite of Cnidos  79, 87–91, 98–103, 163 Apocalypse of Peter  143, 363 f. Apocryphal Acts of Thomas, see under Acts of Thomas Apologetic  184, 191, 245 Apostles  277 f., 288–90, 348, 414, see also individual names Arabia  27, 257, 278 f. Ascalon  5, 116–9, 129, 139, 140n7, 144–7, 149–51, 259 Ascension, see under exaltation Asia  24, 26 f., 41, 46 f., 55, 280 f.

Asia Minor – cities of  56 f., 70, 72, 158, 412 – natural disaster  68, 70 f. – novels from  28 f., 218 – tourism in  11, 53 – travel in  3, 48, 53, 80, 203, 274, 409, 412, 415 Athens  216 f., 221 265, 268 – description of  57n16, 60 f., 63, 123, 204, 220 – literature from  103, 162 – travel to  2, 42, 48, 53, 102, 203 f., 215 f. Authority – charismatic  10, 183, 195 f., 279, 365, 414 f., 418 f. – episcopal  413 f., 416–8 – imperial  66 f., 273, 286, 312, 379n12, 413 – Jewish  267, 365 – philosophical  183 f., 195 f. Babylon 8 – Jewish community in  13, 258, 262 – travel to  36, 158, 161 f., 257 Babylonian Talmud, see under Talmud Babli Banditry  157 f., 164, 167, 176 f., 247 f., 284, 300 f., 301n11, 384, 396 Barbarians (encounter with)  30, 45, 158, 162, 176, 186, 188, 190 f., 194, 393, 401 f. Bath  35, 243 Bathhouse  220, 305–8, 315 Berakhot – Mishna  297 f., 300–4, 320 – Talmud Babli 317–20 – Talmud Yerushalmi  306 f. – Tosefta  304 f. Blessing – Jewish  150, 192, 244 f. (see also Berakhot) – Christian  333, 336, 414

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General Index

Border  5, 145 f., 148n39, 164, 251, 311, 324, 343, 395 Brahmans – Philostratus’ view of  6, 184–6, 188–91, 194 – Thomas’ views of  6, 192, 194 Caesarea  26, 119, 246, 343, 378, 383, 385, 393–400 Callirhoe  27, 29 f., 35 f., 160 f., 174 f. – homecoming of  162 f., see also Chariton Capital punishment  311, 317n72 Centrifugal movement  415 f., 418 f. Centripetal movement  415–7, 418 f. Chariot  334, 351 Children – in Greek novel  175 – Jewish 309 Christianity, as a discursive category  191 f., 195–7, 367, 411, 418 f. – Christians as strangers 279, 344–9 – death, attitude towards  184, 194, 344, 348 f., 251 f., 367, 395–7, 410, 416 – Greek philosophy, attitude towards 188, 213 – novel  183, 188 f., 392–5 – travel narrative  240, 276, 352, 393–6, 399, 404, 417 (see also identity; Jesus; New Testament; names of Saints) Cilicia  26, 29, 162, 257, 278 f. Claros 257 Clothes  36, 141, 148, 162, 206 f., 240 Cnidos – ceramics and fabrics from  4, 91 f., 94 f., 97–100, 105 (see also Aphrodite of Cnidos) – novel from  70, 82, 85, 87, 90, 101 f., 104 f. Comana (city)  101 Corinth  31, 101 f., 210 f., 288 f., 291n52 – archeological evidence from  92 Corinthians, Letters to  277, 280, 288n43, 289 f., 416 Cos  25, 90 Crossroads  3, 301 f., 312 f., 322 f. Cursus Publicus  84, 245–7, 283–6, 291, 413

Delphi  175, 190 – oracle of Apollo  163, 176 – pilgrimage to  26 f., 158, 161, 164, 262, 264, 267 Devotional Objects  91, 95, see also Souvenirs Diaspora, Jewish  8, 258, 261, 268 Didache  8, 289 f., 292, 413 f., 418 Dionysius  30, 36, 399 – dionysiac ritual  61n32, 101 (see also under Temple: Dionysius) Dioscuri  313, 393, 399, 402–5 Disguise  141, 240, 242–4, 251 Earthquake  23, 297, 301n11, 303 412 – Cnidos 97 – Sebasteion of Aphrodisias (Temple)  31 f. – Smyrna  4, 54–7, 66, 68–72, 125 (see also Smyrna Orations) Egypt  170, 191 – as reflected in Greek novel  30, 86, 161, 175–6, 196 (see also specific novels) – pilgrimage to  12, 257–8 – travel to  10 f., 41–3, 46, 80, 82, 86, 116, 119, 129, 151, 158 f., 164, 167, 175, 190, 206, 284, 286, 320, 334 (see also Nile) Ekphrasis  38, 79, 159, 170–4, 394 Emotions  1 f., 9, 38, 68, 217 – in travel accounts 69 f., 119–22, 128 f., 133, 322, 333, 335, 337 Ephesos  24, 26 f., 46, 85, 99, 257, 265, 409, 412, 417 – in Greek novel  82 166, 170–2, 177 Epic  115, 158–60, 225, 233, 391 Eroticism – archeological evidence 92–96 – novel  28, 159–61, 166 (see also Erôtes) – space of  54, 57–9, 63 f., 68 f., 166, 168 f., 171–3 – in Christianity  188 Ethiopia  4, 42, 158, 160–2, 164 f., 167, 175 f., 190, 258 – in novel  160–4, 229 Ethnography  1, 11, 86, 115, 128, 160–4, 187, 194–7, 229, 244, 268, 418 Exile and return  159 f., 162 f., 166, 304–6, 314–6, 322, 350

General Index

Erôtes (novel)  4, 77, 79 f., 97 – eroticism  79, 95, 102–4 – food 85–7 – prostitution  100 f. – tourist guide  80, 87, 90 f. – travel  81 f., 97–9, 101–4 Ein Gedi  118 Expositio Totius Mundi et Gentium 119, 126 Essenes  118, 206 f. Exaltation  263n28, 344, 348 f., 351 f., 362 f. Eucharist  398, 414, 418 Festivals – as celebrated by emperors  43, 68 – Greco-Roman  24, 79, 84, 102, 141n7, 257, 265, 267, 308, 323 – Jewish  3, 258, 308 – Thesmophoria 84 – travel to  158, 165, 257, 264–8 Food  82, 85–7, 185, 188, 285 f., 291, 332, 334 f. Fortune, see under Tyche Gates – city of  63, 71, 127, 146, 170, 313 – of hell  140, 142, 151, 362 Geographical texts  115 – Antonine Itinerary  118 f. – Itinerarium Burdigalense 120–3 – rhetorics of  125 – Roman 122–6, see also landscape Greeting 55, 124, 148, 150, 219, 240, 243, 286, 419 Gaza  27, 116, 118 f. Greek – cities  24, 28 f., 54, 72, 103, 267, 277, 289, 291 (see also individual cities) – culture  205 f., 212, 214–6, 221, 230, 261 f., 264, 267 – identity  6, 217, 251, 264–6 – rhetoric 69 – in the Roman empire  205, 217–21, 285–7, 387 – writings  38, 45, 57, 59, 64, 72, 77, 157, 204 (see also novel; individual Greek novels)

435

– travel  42, 64, 85, 115, 126, 133, 184, 203–5, 218–21, 237, 266, 308, 394 Genesis Rabbah  3, 241–3, 247 f. Galatia  273, 279–82, 287, 291, 417 – inscription  8, 273, 281–4, 287 Galatians, Letters to the  8, 273, 278 f., 287–92, 288n43 Gentiles  7 f., 192, 241, 247 f., 276 f., 279, 287, 307–10, 315, 317n72, 323, 360, 363, 366 f., 393, 401, 404, 416 Golgotha  335, 389 Galilee  146, 344, 352, 375, 381 Galilee, sea of  343, 391, 394, 404 God – guided by  344–8, 360, 392n16, 394–6, 400 f., 401n49, 405, 410 – journey to  9, 410 f., 414, 417 – trust in  384, 390 Hadrianoutherae  4, 23, 41–3, 46, 48, see also Aristides, Aelius Halakhah  247 f., 250, 300 f., 321, 323 Hebrew  187 f., 190–3, 197 Hell  5, 9, 48, 140, 142, 146, 151, 229, 355 f., 361–3, 367 Hellenism  47, 35–21, 72, 158, 184–8, 191, 195–7, 257, 266 f., 291n52 – Tyre (city)  30 f., 34 Hellenocentrism  45, 56, 63, 72, 117, 158–61, 184, 195 History of culture  186, 191–3 Holy Spirit  247 f., 346 Home  8, 68, 157, 170, 173, 195 f., 247, 329, 332, 346, 349 – longing  29 f. Hometown  2, 103, 209, 214, 216 f., 240 f., 249, 260, 345 f. Homecoming  47, 205, 306 – prayer for  297, 303, 306, 308 f., 312 f., 315, 322 – Jesus  9, 344 f., 348 f. – novel 159–63, 176 f., 189, 205, 239, 349, 404 (see also individual Greek novels) Homelessness  9, 344–6, 348 f., 351 f. Horse  246, 284n29, 351  Hymn of the Pearl  86, 189, 196 Hospitality  84, 273 – Christian community  288–91

436

General Index

– diplomata  285 f. – impact on locals  273, 280–4, 286, 288, 292 Heliopolis  119, 274 Historiography  226–30, 232, 234 Homonoia  260, 265 f. Hostility  347 f., 274, 382 Hierapolis  23, 257, 275 Identity – Christian  8, 196, 394 – rabbinic  7, 205, 240–2, 248 f., 251 f. – preservation of  205, 239, 241 f., 251 f., 308, 322 – Greek  5 f., 9, 12–4, 86, 161, 173, 189, 203, 216 f., 220 f., 264 f., 267 Idolatry  151, 302, 304 f., 307–11, 315, 321 f., 360, see also Miriam of the Onion Leaves India (images of) 229, 335 – Clement of Alexandria  191, 194 – Philostratus  6, 183–7, 190–3, 195–7 (see also Acts of Thomas) Iope, see under Joppa Itineraries, see under travel accounts Jerusalem  205 f., 278 f., 302, 373–5 – in Christian writings  276, 278 f., 287, 333, 351 f., 392, 400, 416 – description of  118, 121, 127 f. – Jesus in  192, 343, 348 f., 351, 416 – pilgrimage to  7–10, 258–63, 267–9, 320 f., 329, 337 – travel to  120, 123, 129, 209, 287 (see also Jerusalem, temple) Jerusalem, Temple  7, 12, 150, 258–62, 268, 303, 345, 367, 392, 416 – destruction of  358 f., 267, 377 f., 384, Jonah (Book of)  310n45, 400 Judean Revolt  205 f., 208, 373 f., 377 f., 385 Joppa  116 f., 122, 128 f., 132 Jericho  118, 320, 334 f., 344 Judea  258, 274, 278 f., 378 – Rome (relationship with) 373–9, 386 f. Jewish law, see under halakhah

Kidnapping  157, 239 – in novel  176 f., 229 Kissing – as greeting 37, 240 – as a religious ritual 329, 332 f., 335, 337 Landscape – erotic  168–70, 172 – Greece  61, 63 – personification of space  59–62, 71, 103, 169, 171 f. – political dimension  70 f. – prayers as markers of  302 f., 305–8, 312, 319–21, 323 f. – Smyrna  59 f., 71, 251 – visual dimension  66–8, 193 Lares  297, 312 f., 312n51 Life of Apollonius  6, 183–6, 191, 194–7, 205, 396 – attitude towards Hellenism  186–90 Liminality  244, 251, 310, 391, 404 Luke (Gospel of)  9 f., 12, 277, 343–9, 392, 398 – double codification of  349–52 Libanios  102 f. Lycia  79, 81, 101 Longue durée 192 Mark, (Gospel of) 343, 345, 360, 364 f. Maeander, valley of  23, 34, 267 Malta  393, 399, 401 f. Maps  115, 117–9, 126–128, 133, 277 Mare nostrum  390, 394, 404 Martyrdom  123, 129, 183 f., 336, 410–2, 416–8 Matthew (Gospel of) 243, 274, 284, 343–8, 413, 418 Merchant (traveling)  129, 158, 241–3, 251 f. – Flavius, Titus Zeuxis  275 f., 290 Meroe  158, 258 Mesopotamia  9, 12, 120, 193, 355 f. Metropolis  102, 259, 265 Milestones  274, 279, 312, 324 Miletus  24, 27, 29 f., 35 f., 48, 158, 161 f., 174 f. Military  10, 40, 45, 60, 176, 209, 244, 262 f., 274, 284 f.

General Index

Miriam of the Onion Leaves  5, 140, 142–6, 149 Mishnah  140–3, 148, 150, 297, 307 f., 311, 315, 322 f., see also Berakhot Missionary  183, 192, 196, 273 f., 276–9, 287, 291, 414–7 Murder  239, 310 f., 384, 401 f. Mystery cult  90 – Christianity as  412 Mythology – Andromeda  116 f., 122, 175 – Greco-Roman  313–5, 399 – Biblical 333–4 – Heracles  102, 313, 351 – Hermes  63n36, 319 – Jacob  120, 242, 244, 247 – Janus  313 f., 316 – Troy  99, 203, 234 Nile  159, 164–8, 176 – Aristides, Aelius  42 Novel  25–8, 38, 104, 157–60, 157n1, 174, 239, 251, 349, 391 – adventure time  157, 174 – strategies of characterization in  396 f., 404 – Christian  183, 188 f., 392–5 – erotic  28, 160 f. – The Incredible Things beyond Thule  30–4 (see also specific novels) Ninus  27–9, 34, 36, 39 f. Neapolis  26, 118 f., 205, 214, 410 Nazareth  332–4, 344 f. New Testament  361, see also Acts of the Apostles; Corinthians (Letters to); Galatians (letter to the); Luke; Mark; Matthew Nicaea (Councils of)  361 Odyssey  3, 38, 46 f., 159–61, 163, 239, 241 f. Oracle  90, 165, 168, 257, 366 – of Delphi  163, 176 Otherness  89, 212, 239, 249, 307–9, 311 Palestinian Talmud, see under Talmud Yerushalmi Panathenaic Oration, 60

437

Parody  209, 212, 216, 219–21, 225–6, 229–31, 234, 360, 364, 397 f. Parthian, see under Persia Pederasty  77, 79, 102 Periegesis  57–65, see also Smyrna Orations Personification, of cities  103, 169, see also Smyrna Pharisee  206–9, 243, 347, 350, 365 Phoenicia  120, 257 – in novel  166 Pilgrimage  183, 193, 257, 263 f., 411 – community 264–8 – danger 268 – experience  330 f. – rituals  329, 332, 336 – touching  330, 333–7 Palestine  122, 329, 332, 337 – proxy  261, see also Homonoia; Jerusalem Pillars of Hercules  230, 394 Platonism  60n25, 79, 103, 189 f., 210, 217, 219, 221 Postal service, see under cursus publicus Prayer during travel  315 – Jewish  303 f., 307 f., 310, 317–21 – Shema  300, 304, 301n12 – Amidah  301 f., 301n12, 304 – Roman  43, 312–17, 322–24 (see also Tefillat Haderekh) Progymnasmata  38, 158 Paideia  2, 6, 139, 184, 186–8, 197, 203, 211 f., 214, 220, 225, 277 – “know thyself ”, (Delphic maxim)  188– 90 Paradoxography  31, 167, 193 f. Parable  102, 143, 244 f., 344, 347, 349 Panhellenion  265, 267–9, 277, 349 Pisidian Antioch  280 f. Prophetic traditions  120, 140, 148 f., 192, 310n45, 319–21, 344–6, 348–51, 365–7 Persia  28 f., 158, 195, 262, 263n27, 265, 355, 375 f., 382n20, 412 – in Greek novel  30, 36, 161–3, 175–6 Philosopher-orator, wandering  344–7, 350, 401n49, 414 f., 418 Palestine  5, 10, 99, 115–7, 120–3, 127, 239, 243, 245, 305 f., 308, 311–3, 320–2, 331 f.

438

General Index

Pergamum  11, 24, 26 f., 41 f., 44, 46, 53, 257, 275, 95

Revelation of Peter, see under Apocalypse of Peter

Rabbis  142 f., 147–50, 192, 251, 323, 360, 366 – traveling  12 f., 239–44, 246–8, 252, 298–300, 307, 309, 311, 315–7, 319, 322–4 (see also Berakhot; Tefillat haderekh; indivedual rabbis; individual rabbinic literature) Rabbinic narratives  139, 249 f., 310n45, 320 f., 355, 360, 363–5, 367, 400n47 Rhetoric 172 – Greek  30, 36, 38–41, 45–47, 54–7, 69, 72, 79, 104, 125 f., 174, 207, 22, 231 – centers of  82, 102 – rhetorical school  158 f., 166–8, 203 – Christian  188, 289, 333, 394, 415 Rhodes  4, 30, 79, 81 f., 84 f., 89 f., 102, 104, 158, 203, 207 Road  241, 244 – official courier route  246, 273–5, 279, 299, 312 – encounter on  247 f. Roman empire  29, 116 f. – Roman philosophy  203 f., 211, 215 f., 220 f. – navigability  274 f., 281, 298, 349, 413 – relation with Christians  281, 284, 409 – Jews  243–6, 251 f., 305 f., 311, 373, 376 f., 383 Roman Provinces (Eastern)  355 f. Romance, see under Novel Rome  203 f., 216, 220, 376 – journey to 9, 14, 373, 378–80, 416 – Aristides  41 f., 44–7 – Flavius, Josephus  205 f., 208 f., 373–5, 377–80, 382n20, 386 f., 400 – Justin Martyr  205, 221 – Lucian of Samosata  216–8, 220 f. Roman governors in Judea  374–8, 381 f., 387 – Felix  376, 378, 381–6 – Cumanus  374, 379, 381–3, 386 Runner  27, 246 Running, metaphor of  412, 416 f. Relic  8, 329, 331 f., 335–7, see also souvenirs

Sadducees  206 f. Sagalassos, inscription of  8, 281 f., 284, 286–8, 287n38, 292 Salvation  44, 66, 151 – Christian  189 f., 192 f., 333, 346, 348, 361 f., 367, 398, 404  Samaritan  335, 346 f., 350, 378 Schools of Philosophy  203 f., 206–9, 215, 221 – Platonic  214 f., 217–9 – Stoic  208, 210–3, 217, 350, 396, 399 – Peripatetic  210, 213 f. – Pythagorean 212–4 – Cynic  350 f., 389 f. Sea 390–2 – storm 35–8, 40, 43 f., 47, 393–8 – travel conditions  81 f., 84 – in novel  394–8 – divine intervention  400–3, 405 Seafaring  41 f., 80, 166–8, 170, 176, 210, 259, 274, 309, 314, 323, 405 Second Sophistic  11, 13, 77, 80, 91, 104, 157, 204, 216, 277 Semiramis  145, 149, 151 Sexuality  14, 79, 100–3, 194, 360, 366 Ship names  399, 402 Shipwreck  167, 169, 176 f., 208, 389, 391, 393, 395 f., 399 f., 402 f. Sidon  46, 119, 158, 168 f., 173, 393 Slaves 244 – traveling with 4, 39, 81, 83–5, 124, 242, 247 f., 283 – female  29, 174, 176 – male  175, 185, 217, 244, 251, 289 – freedman  25, 82, 158, 163, 217, 244, 261, 382n19, 283, 288n43, 378 Smyrna  4, 23 f., 27, 42, 48, 53–7, 70, 72, 343, 409 f., see also Smyrna Orations Smyrna Orations  4, 53, 56, 125, 258, 409 f. – personification of cities  59–62, 68, 71 f. – visitor (experience)  58, 62–5, 69, 71 f. – erotic 57–9 – speeches  54 f., 67–71

General Index

– landscape  53–5, 57–9, 57n16, 58n18, 61, 66, 72 Souvenir  8, 79 f., 86, 91, 94–96, 105 – sacred  329–32, 334, 337 Space  298, 302–4, 306, 321 – eroticized  57–9, 166, 168 f., 171–3 Strangeness  195, 239, 345–48 Strange traveler  169, 187, 197, 206, 214, 217, 220 f., 239–42, 248 f., 251 f., 260 f., 274, 344–6, 349, 402, 419 Symposium  6, 60n25, 79, 84 f., 92, 185–8, 185n15, 195–7 Syracuse  29 f., 158, 161 f., 174 f. Syria  26 f., 29, 82, 119 f., 162, 257, 278 f., 315, 322, 337, 355, 379 Syriac 411 Syrian Christianity  188, 409–12 Talmud Yerushalmi 240, 243, 245 – Jesus in  9, 355 – Shimon b. Shatah  139–42 – traveling  299, 306 f., 309–11, 317n72, 317 f., 322 Talmud Babli  8 f., 146 f., 298–300, 311, 317–23, 317n72, 355, 365 f., see also Berakhot; Onkelos bar Kalonikos Tax  244, 267, 285 f. – temples  90, 258, 261 f. – tax collector  140–2, 144, 146, 151, 350 – cult tax  90 Tefillat Haderekh  297–300, 311, 317–9, 322 Thomas (Gospel of)  188, 190 Time  26, 301n12, 302, 304, 315, 321–3 – Adventure time  157, 174 – traveling time  23 f., 44, 65 f., 129, 375 f., 386 Temporality  62n35, 66, 170, 172 f., 329, 301n12, 303 f. Tourism  14, 53, 82, 84 f., 99 f., 102 – tourist guide  45, 75, 80, 87–91, 115, 332 – Sightseeing  79, 81, 103, 166, 171, 335 Travel – as a test (religious)  400–3, 405 – Greco-Roman 177 – Jewish 259 – Christian 347 – – baggage 244

439

– – cosmic voyage 412 – – courier 45, 246 – – danger – –  – encounter with (in novel)  163, 239n3 – –  – physical  2 f., 8, 158, 239, 242 f., 245–7, 249, 261–3, 268, 274 f., 279, 298 f., 301, 304–8, 317, 320, 322, 393, 395–7, 401n49 – –  – of death during travel  36, 311, 365, 390, 395–7, 416 – –  – spiritual  5, 298, 309–11, 317, 321, 396 – –  motivation of  228, 249 – – Suspicion (towards travelers)  245–7, 274 (see also hostility) – –  – educational  203, 205, 207, 209 f., 214–7, 219, 221, 350 – –  – religious  260, 263, 418 f. (see also Pilgrimage) – – – sociological 260–2, 264 f. – – of the apostles  277 f., 288–90, 348, 414 – –  robbery  116, 239, 247 f. – –  fear of  279, 300 – see also names of specific travel destinations and travel novels Travel accounts, 115, 133, 225 f., 415–7 – emotions in  122, 128–30, 166, 260 – Egeriae, Itinerarium  122 – illustrations  130–3 (see also geographical texts; maps) Travel Narrative – Christian 240, 276, 352, 393–6, 399, 404, 417 (see also Ignatius of Antioch) – Jesus  343, 346–9, 348n10 – Graeco-Roman  34–40, 48, 115, 128, 139, 146, 159, 166, 174, 195, 218, 239, 245 – Jewish  240, 249–51, 386 Travel accommodation  84–6, 124, 286, 291, 312 Travelling companion  151, 158, 175, 240 f., 246–8, 250, 260, 263 f., 332 Tyche  5, 29, 40, 45, 145 f., 158 162, 204 Tyre  26, 118, 120, 158, 166–8, 176 – Hellenization  30 f., 34 Tarsos  77, 81 f., 102

440

General Index

Temple  57 f., 63, 89 f., 99, 158, 289, 305, 308 – entrance fees and taxes  8, 87, 90, 258 – hieropompoi 262 – in Smyrna (in)  125 – of Abydos  257 – of Artemis  177 – of Asclepius  53 – of Dionysos  82 f., 89 f., 91n63, 96, 98, 102, 104 f. – of Janus  314 – Philai 258 – Sebasteion  31 (see also under Cnidos: Aphrodite of Cnidos) Theater  208 f. Tosefta  145 f., 246, 250, 297, 299, 304–7, 311, 322 Urban space  297–9, 297n2, 302–4, 306, 311, 322

Urbanization 281 Votive Offerings  79, 91, 95 f., 105, 169, 314–6, see also Souvenirs Women – encounter with during travel 90, 103, 119, 160, 332 – in novel  36, 64, 79, 102, 162, 177 (see also Callirhoe) – religious  84, 87, 89, 99, 146–7, 363–4, 151 – as travelers  13 f. – witches  139, 141, 145 f., 151 Wayfarer’s prayer, see under Tefillat Haderekh Wisdom (Book of ) 390