The Story of Civilization: Volume III: Caesar and Christ
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The new faiths not only entered more deeply into the heart; they appealed more colorfully to the imagination and the senses with processions and chants alternating between sorrow and rejoicing, and a ritual of impressive symbolism that brought fresh courage to spirits heavy with the prose of life. The new priesthoods were filled not by politicians occasionally donning sacerdotal garb, but by men and women of all ranks, graduating through an ascetic novitiate to continual ministration. By their help the soul conscious of wrongdoing could be purified; sometimes the body racked with illness could be healed by an inspiring word or ritual; and the mysteries at which they officiated symbolized the hope that even death might be overcome.
Once men had sublimated their longing for grandeur and continuance in the glory and survival of their family and their clan, and then of a state that was their creation and collective self. Now the old clan lines were melting away in the new mobility of peace; and the imperial state was the spiritual embodiment only of the master class, not of the powerless multitude of men. Monarchy at the top, frustrating the participation and merger of the citizen in the state, produced individualism at the bottom and through the mass. The promise of personal immortality, of an endless happiness after a life of subjection, poverty, tribulation, or toil, was the final and irresistible attraction of the Oriental faiths and of the Christianity that summarized, absorbed, and conquered them. All the world seemed conspiring to prepare the way for Christ.
* * *
I His date is disputed. Pauly–Wissowa place him about 50 B.C.; Heiberg, Diels, and Heath about A.D. 225.23
II Cf. the emphasis of current medicine on glandular secretions.
III Meleager’s Stephanos was combined in our sixth century with the Musa Paidiké, a homosexual anthology compiled by Strabo of Sardis (50 B.C.). Subsequent additions were made, chiefly of Christian verse; and the Anthology was given its present form at Constantinople about A.D. 920.
CHAPTER XXV
Rome and Judea
132 B.C.-A.D. 135
I. PARTHIA
BETWEEN Pontus and the Caucasus rose the troubled mountains of Armenia, on whose crest, story told, Noah’s ark had found a mooring. Through the fertile valleys ran the roads that led from Parthia and Mesopotamia to the Black Sea; hence empires competed for Armenia. The people were Indo-European, akin to the Hittites and the Phrygians, but they had never surrendered their sweeping Anatolian nose. They were a vigorous race, patient in agriculture, skilled in handicraft, unequaled in commercial acumen; they made the best of a difficult terrain and raised enough wealth to keep their kings in luxury if not in power. Darius I, in the Behistun inscription (521 B.C.), named Armenia among the satrapies of Persia; later it gave a nominal allegiance to the Seleucids and then alternately to Parthia and Rome; but its remoteness allowed it a practical independence. Its most famous king, Tigranes the Great (94-56 B.C.), conquered Cappadocia, added a second capital, Tigranocerta, to Artaxata, and joined Mithridates’ revolt against Rome. When Pompey accepted his apologies he gave the victorious general 6000 talents ($21,600,000), 10,000 drachmas ($6000) to each centurion, and fifty to each soldier, in the Roman army.1 Under Caesar, Augustus, and Nero Armenia acknowledged the suzerainty of Rome, and under Trajan it was for a time a Roman province; nevertheless, its culture was Iranian, and its usual orientation was toward Parthia.
The Parthians had for centuries occupied the region south of the Caspian Sea as subjects of the Achaemenid, then of the Seleucid, kings. They were of Scythian-Turanian stock—i.e., they belonged racially with the peoples of southern Russia and Turkestan. About 248 B.C. a Scythian chief, Arsaces, revolted against the Seleucid authority, made Parthia a sovereign state, and established the Arsacid dynasty. The Seleucid kings, weakened by Rome’s defeat of Antiochus III (189 B.C.), were unable to defend their territory against the reckless, half-barbarous Parthians, and by the end of the second century B.C. all Mesopotamia and Persia were absorbed into a new Parthian Empire. Three capitals, according to the season, entertained the new royalty: Hecatompylus in Parthia, Ecbatana in Media, and Ctesiphon on the lower Tigris. Across from Ctesiphon lay the former Seleucid capital Seleucia, which remained for centuries a Greek city in a Parthian realm. The Arsacid rulers kept the administrative structure built up by the Seleucids, but overlaid it with a feudalism derived from the Achaemenid kings. The mass of the population was composed of agricultural serfs and slaves; industry was backward, but the Parthian ironworkers made a fine steel, and “the brewing trade was highly profitable.”2 The wealth of the state came partly from the trade that passed along the great rivers, partly from the caravans that crossed Parthia on the way between farther Asia and the West. From 53 B.C., when the Parthians defeated Crassus at Carrhae, to A.D. 217, when Macrinus bought peace from Artabanus, Rome fought war after war for the control of these routes and the Red Sea.
The Parthians were too rich or too poor to indulge in literature. The aristocrats, as in all ages, preferred the art of life to the life of art, and the serfs were too illiterate, the artisans too busy, the merchants too commercial, to produce great art or great books. The people spoke Pahlavi and wrote in Aramaic on parchment, which now replaced cuneiform; but not a line of Parthian literature has been preserved. We know that Greek plays were enjoyed in Ctesiphon as well as in Seleucia, for the head of Crassus played a part there in the Bacchae of Euripides. The paintings and sculptures discovered at Palmyra, Dura-Europus, and Ashur were probably the work of Iranian artists; their crude amalgam of Greek and Oriental styles affected later art from China to Byzantium. A vivid relief of a mounted archer has come down to us to suggest that we might have a higher opinion of Parthian art if more of it remained.2a At Hatra, near Mosul, an Arabian feudatory of the Parthian king built (88 B.C..?) a limestone palace of seven arched and vaulted halls, in a powerful but barbarous style. Good Parthian work has survived in engraved silverware and jewelry.
The Parthians excelled in man’s favorite art—personal adornment. Both sexes curled their hair; the men nursed frizzed beards and flowing mustaches, and clothed themselves in tunic and baggy trousers, usually covered with a many-colored robe; the women swathed themselves in delicate embroideries and decked their hair with flowers. Free Parthians amused themselves with hunting, ate and drank abundantly, and never went on foot when they could ride. They were brave warriors and honorable foes, treated prisoners decently, admitted foreigners to high office, and gave asylum to refugees; sometimes, however, they mutilated dead enemies, tortured witnesses, and corrected trifling offenses with the scourge. They practiced polygamy according to their means, veiled and secluded their women, severely punished the infidelity of their wives, but permitted divorce to either sex almost at will.3 When the Parthian general Surena led an army against Crassus he took with him 200 concubines and a thousand camels for his baggage.4 All in all the Parthians impress us as less civilized than the Achaemenid Persians and more honorable gentlemen than the Romans. They were tolerant of religious diversities, allowing the Greeks, Jews, and Christians among them to practice their rituals unhindered. They themselves, veering from Zoroastrian orthodoxy, worshiped the sun and the moon, and preferred Mithras to Ahura-Mazda, much as the Christians preferred Christ to Yahveh. The Magi, neglected by the later Arsacid kings, abetted the overthrow of the dynasty.
On the death of Vologases IV (A.D. 209) his sons Vologases V and Artabanus IV fought for the throne. Artabanus won, and then defeated the Romans at Nisibis. Three centuries of war between the empires ended in a modified victory for Parthia; on the Mesopotamian plains the Roman legions were at a disadvantage against the Parthian cavalry. Artabanus in turn fell in civil war. His conqueror, Ardashir or Artaxerxes, feudal lord of Persia, made himself King of Kings (A.D. 227) and established the Sassanid dynasty. The Zoroastrian religion was restored, and Persia entered upon a greater age.
II. THE HASMONEANS
In 143 B.C. Simon Maccabee, taking advantage of the struggles among the Parthians, Seleucids, Egyptians, and Romans, wreste
d the independence of Judea from the Seleucid king. A popular assembly named him general and high priest of the Second Jewish Commonwealth (142 B.C.-A.D. 70), and made the latter office hereditary in his Hasmonean family. Judea became again a theocracy, under the Hasmonean dynasty of priest-kings. It has been a characteristic of Semitic societies that they closely associated the spiritual and temporal powers, in the family and in the state; they would have no sovereign but God.
Recognizing the weakness of the little kingdom, the Hasmoneans spent two generations widening its borders by diplomacy and force. By 78 B.C. they had conquered and absorbed Samaria, Edom, Moab, Galilee, Idumea, Transjordania, Gadara, Pella, Gerasa, Raphia, and Gaza, and had made Palestine as extensive as under Solomon. The descendants of those brave Maccabees who had fought for religious freedom enforced Judaism and circumcision upon their new Subjects at the point of the sword.5 At the same time the Hasmoneans lost their religious zeal and, over the bitter protests of the Pharisees, yielded more and more to the Hellenizing elements in the population. Queen Salome Alexandra (78-69 B.C.) reversed this trend and made peace with the Pharisees, but even before her death her sons Hyrcanus II and Aristobulus II began a war of succession. Both parties submitted their claims to Pompey, who now (63 B.C.) stood with his victorious legions at Damascus. When Pompey decided for Hyrcanus, Aristobulus fortified himself with his army in Jerusalem. Pompey laid siege to the capital and gained its lower sections; but the followers of Aristobulus took refuge in the walled precincts of the Temple and held out for three months. Their piety, we are told, helped Pompey to overcome them; for perceiving that they would not fight on the Sabbath, he had his men prepare unhindered on each Sabbath the mounds and battering rams for the next day’s assault. Meanwhile the priests offered the usual prayers and sacrifices in the Temple. When the ramparts fell 12,000 Jews were slaughtered; few resisted, none surrendered, many leaped to death from the walls.6 Pompey ordered his men to leave the treasures of the Temple untouched, but he exacted an indemnity of 10,000 talents ($3,600,000) from the nation. The cities that the Hasmoneans had conquered were transferred from the Judean to the Roman power; Hyrcanus II was made high priest and nominal ruler of Judea, but as the ward of Antipater the Idumean, who had helped Rome. The independent monarchy was ended, and Judea became part of the Roman province of Syria.
In 54 B.C. Crassus, on his way to play the part of Pentheus at Ctesiphon, robbed the Temple of the treasures that Pompey had spared, amounting to some 10,000 talents. When news came that Crassus had been defeated and killed, the Jews took the opportunity to reclaim their freedom. Longinus, successor of Crassus as governor of Syria, suppressed the revolt and sold 30,000 Jews into slavery (43 B.C.).7 In that same year Antipater died; the Parthians swept across the desert into Judea and set up, as their puppet king, Antigonus, the last of the Hasmoneans. Antony and Octavian countered by naming Herod—son of Antipater—king of Judea and financing his Jewish army with Roman funds. Herod drove out the Parthians, protected Jerusalem from pillage, sent Antigonus to Antony for execution, slew all Jewish leaders who had supported the puppet, and so auspiciously entered upon one of the most colorful reigns in history (37-4 B.C.).
III. HEROD THE GREAT
His character was typical of an age that had produced so many men of intellect without morals, ability without scruple, and courage without honor. He was in his lesser way the Augustus of Judea: like Augustus he overlaid the chaos of freedom with dictatorial order, beautified his capital with Greek architecture and sculpture, enlarged his realm, made it prosper, achieved more by subtlety than by arms, married widely, was broken by the treachery of his offspring, and knew every good fortune but happiness. Josephus describes him as a man of great physical bravery and skill, a perfect marksman with arrow and javelin, a mighty hunter who in one day caught forty wild beasts, and “such a warrior as could not be withstood.”8 He must have added some charm of personality to these qualities, for he was always able to outtalk or outbribe the enemies who sought to discredit him with Antony, Cleopatra, or Octavian. From every crisis with the Triumvirs he emerged with larger powers and territory than before, until Augustus judged him “too great a soul for so small a dominion,” restored the cities of Hasmonean Palestine to his kingdom, and wished Herod might rule Syria and Egypt too.9 “The Idumean” was a generous as well as a ruthless man, and the benefits he conferred upon his subjects were equaled only by the injuries he did them.
He was molded in part by the hatred of those whom he had defeated or whose relatives he had slain, and by the scornful hostility of a people that resented his harsh autocracy and his alien descent. He had become king by the help and money of Rome, and remained to the end of his life a friend and vassal of the power from which the people night and day plotted to regain their liberty. The modest economy of the country bent and at last broke under the taxes imposed upon it by a luxurious court and a building program out of proportion to the national wealth. Herod sought in various ways to appease his subjects, but failed. He forgave taxes in poor years, persuaded Rome to reduce the tribute it exacted, secured privileges for Jews abroad, relieved famine and other calamities promptly, maintained internal order and external security, and developed the natural resources of the land. Brigandage was ended, trade was stimulated, the markets and ports were noisy with life. At the same time the King alienated public sentiment by the looseness of his morals, the cruelty of his punishments, and the “accidental” drowning, in the bath, of Aristobulus, grandson of Hyrcanus II and therefore the legitimate heir to the throne. The priests whose power he had ended, and whose leaders he appointed, conspired against him, and the Pharisees abominated his apparent resolution to make Judea a Hellenistic state.
Ruling many cities that were more Greek than Jewish in population and culture, and impressed with the refinement and variety of Hellenic civilization, Herod, himself not by origin or conviction a Jew, naturally sought a cultural unity for his realm, and an imposing façade for his rule, by encouraging Greek ways, dress, ideas, literature, and art. He surrounded himself with Greek scholars, entrusted to them high affairs of state, and made Nicolas of Damascus, a Greek, his official counselor and historian. He raised at great expense a theater and an amphitheater in Jerusalem, adorned them with monuments to Augustus and other pagans, and introduced Greek athletic and musical contests and Roman gladiatorial combats.10 He beautified Jerusalem with other buildings in what seemed to the people a foreign architectural style, and set up in public places Greek statuary whose nudity startled the Jews as much as the nakedness of the wrestlers in the games. He built himself a palace, doubtless on Greek models, filled it with gold and marble and costly furniture, and surrounded it with extensive gardens after the manner of his Roman friends. He shocked the people by telling them that the Temple which Zerubbabel had set up five centuries before was too small, and proposing to tear it down and erect a larger one on its site. Despite their protests and their fears he realized his plan and reared the lordly Temple that Titus would destroy.
On Mt. Moriah an area was cleared 750 feet square. Along its boundaries cloisters were built roofed with cedar “curiously graven,” and supported by multiple rows of Corinthian columns, each a marble monolith so large that three men could barely join hands around it. In this main court were the booths of the money-changers, who for the convenience of pilgrims changed foreign coins into those acceptable to the Sanctuary; here, too, were the stalls where one might buy animals to offer in sacrifice, and the rooms or porticoes where teachers and pupils met to study Hebrew and the Law, and the noisy beggars inevitable in Oriental scenes. From this “Outer Temple” a broad flight of steps led up to an inner walled space which non-Jews were forbidden to enter; here was the “Court of the Women,” where “such men as were pure came in with their wives.”11 From this second enclosure the worshiper passed up another flight of steps, and through gates plated with silver and gold, into the “Court of the Priests,” where stood, in the open air, the altar upon which burnt sacrifice was offer
ed to Yahveh. Still other steps led through bronze doors seventy-five feet high and twenty-four wide, overhung with a famous golden vine, into the temple proper, open only to priests. It was built entirely of white marble, in set-back style, and its façade was plated with gold. The interior was divided crosswise by a great embroidered veil, blue and purple and scarlet. Before the veil were the golden seven-branched candlestick, the altar of incense, and the table bearing the unleavened “shewbread” that the priests laid before Yahveh. Behind the veil was the Holy of Holies, which in the earlier temple had contained a golden censer and the Ark of the Covenant, but in this temple, says Josephus, contained “nothing whatever.” Here human foot trod only once a year, on the Day of Atonement, when the high priest entered alone. The main structures of this historic edifice were finished in eight years; the work of adornment, however, continued for eighty years, and was just completed when Titus’ legions came.12
The people were proud of the great shrine, which was ranked among the marvels of the Augustan world; for its splendor they almost forgave the Corinthian columns of the porticoes and the golden eagle that—defying the Jewish prohibition of graven images—symbolized at the very entrance to the Temple the power of Judea’s enemy and master, Rome. Meanwhile Jews who traveled brought back news of the completely Greek buildings with which Herod was remaking the other cities of Palestine, and told how he was spending national funds, and (rumor said) the gold that had been hidden in David’s tomb,13 in constructing a great harbor at Caesarea, and lavishing gifts upon such foreign cities as Damascus, Byblus, Berytus, Tyre, Sidon, Antioch, Rhodes, Pergamum, Sparta, and Athens. Herod, it became clear, wished to be the idol of the Hellenic world, not merely the King of the Jews. But the Jews lived by their religion, by their faith that Yahveh would someday rescue them from bondage and oppression; the triumph of the Hellenic over the Hebraic spirit in the person of their ruler foreboded to them a disaster as great as the persecutions of Antiochus. Plots were formed against Herod’s life; he discovered them, arrested the conspirators, tortured and killed them, and in some cases put their entire families to death.14 He set spies among the people, disguised himself to eavesdrop on his subjects, and punished every hostile word.15