The Oxford History of the Biblical World

by Coogan, Michael D.

  Vespasian is remembered especially for working to rebuild parts of the city of Rome damaged during the upheaval following Nero’s reign. The emperor himself is said to have “carried away a basket of debris on his own neck” (Suetonius, Vespasian 8.5). Along with construction of the Temple of Peace, Vespasian’s most spectacular architectural accomplishment was the Flavian amphitheater in Rome, later known as the Colosseum.

  This marble-covered structure reached four stories high, and the top was fitted with mastlike devices that could support a canopy to shade spectators. It also featured an elaborate substructure with cages for wild animals and passageways that allowed for the movement of animals, personnel, and equipment to different spots in the arena. The longest axis of the elliptical structure measured 188 meters (616 feet), and it could hold up to fifty thousand spectators. Vespasian began the construction, but the amphitheater was dedicated by Titus in 80 CE and not fully completed until the reign of Domitian (81–96 CE).

  To commemorate the dedication of the amphitheater, the poet Martial wrote a series of epigrams, fragments of which have survived. From these we know that the amphitheater was constructed on the site of Nero’s Golden House. Martial also stresses the international appeal of the events taking place there: “What race is so distant, what race so barbaric, Caesar, from which a spectator is not in your city,” and he comments on the exploits of performers in the amphitheater, like the hunter Carpophorus, who “dispatched a magnificent lion of unheard of size, worthy of the strength of Hercules” (Spectacula 2–3, 15). Elsewhere Martial describes the accomplishments of gladiators and the men who drove chariots in the racecourse (circus). His contemporary the poet Juvenal laments that all that was needed to satisfy the average citizen of Rome was “bread and circuses” (Satires 10.81).

  The popularity of public spectacles in Roman cities is attested by a proliferation of amphitheaters around the empire. Theaters in Greek cities were often remodeled to accommodate more spectacular and violent events. This usually meant that a wall was erected around the orchestra of the theater to separate the audience from the gladiators, wild animals, and other exotic entertainments. In some cases, as in the theater of Dionysus in Athens, this wall was waterproofed so that the orchestra could be flooded for mock naval battles.

  Some of these spectacles also involved humans being devoured by animals, as a letter to the churches in Rome from Ignatius, the bishop of Antioch in the early second century CE, illustrates. Ignatius uses graphic language to convey his anticipation of a martyr’s death as an imitator of the suffering of Christ: “Allow me to be eaten by the beasts, through whom I can attain to God. I am God’s wheat, and I am ground by the teeth of wild beasts that I may be found pure bread of Christ” (Romans 4.1). As such punishment for Christians became more common in the second and third centuries, the martyrological writings became even more vivid.

  Compared with the dramatic deaths of the martyrs, or even with the harsh endings endured by some of his predecessors, the passing of Vespasian (79 CE) was mundane. Suetonius reports that after being weakened by a slight illness, the emperor succumbed to a gastrointestinal problem. His demise is remembered mostly for an offhand remark shortly before his death: “Woe, I think I’m becoming a god” (Vespasian 23.4). This quip is often taken as both a sign of Vespasian’s humility and at least a slight mocking of the custom that a deceased ruler could become a divinity. Whatever the comment meant for Vespasian, the prospect of deification after death did have an impact on his successors.

  A Heroic Older Son: The Reign of Titus

  Once Vespasian had returned to Rome, his son Titus continued to battle the Jewish rebels in Palestine. Josephus records in great detail the compassion shown by Titus in battle, highlighting his reluctance to press the siege against Jerusalem because of his respect for the famous Temple of the Jews. Despite exaggerations in the account, Titus is remembered as a considerate leader. He found such favor with his troops that after his capture of Jerusalem his soldiers hailed him as emperor and wanted him to lead them in an armed challenge to his father (Suetonius, Titus 5.2). Instead, Titus took only the moral support of his forces with him when he returned to Rome in late 70/early 71 CE, and Vespasian welcomed him back, effectively making him coruler.

  Titus’s victories in the east also made him popular in Rome, where he and his father celebrated a triumph to recognize the long-awaited victory. For centuries the triumphal procession had been a means of honoring Roman leaders who had defeated foreign enemies. Originally, strict requirements had limited who could be a triumphator, and in what circumstances. By the imperial period, triumphs were reserved for emperors or members of the imperial family. The procession gave the conqueror a chance to display the fruits of his military prowess, including captives and spoils of war. It also permitted the senators, officials, and citizens of Rome to celebrate the power of the empire.

  To preserve the glory of the moment, triumphal arches were erected throughout the empire as permanent commemorations. Evidence for earlier arches is found mostly on coins minted to celebrate a triumph. The triumphal arch of Titus, which still stands in Rome, was actually erected posthumously in 81 CE, more than ten years after the victory over the Jews. Sculptural relief panels on the interior passage of the arch portray details of the triumphal procession. One panel shows soldiers carrying a menorah and other furnishings from the Temple. The other side features the emperor driving a four-horse chariot, being crowned by a victory figure, while he gestures to the assembled crowd. Prominently placed in the Forum of Rome, the arch is both a recognition of Titus’s achievements and a challenge for emperors to come. Anyone who passed through the Arch of Titus was reminded immediately of the great deeds Titus had done in order to deserve deification by the senate after his death. Of course, any Jews who viewed the arch would have been shaken by this vivid reminder of the destruction. Followers of Jesus, on the other hand, would have had mixed reactions to the fall of the Temple: the destruction was a tragedy perpetrated by the oppressive Romans, but the loss of the Temple could also be seen as retribution for the Jews who had failed to believe that Jesus was the Messiah (Matt. 22.1–7).

  The reign of Titus is also notable for one of the most famous natural disasters of ancient times. In 79 CE, Mount Vesuvius erupted, burying the nearby towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum, large sections of which have been excavated by modern archaeologists. Titus could do little more than provide imperial support to the survivors, but according to Suetonius, he did so with such generosity that the historian states that Titus “showed not only the concern of a princeps, but also the unique love of a parent” (Titus 8.3). This kind of positive view of the emperor dominates the reports of his reign, and makes it easy to understand why the senate moved quickly to honor him after his death in 81 CE. Because his reign as sole emperor was brief, the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem remains the major historical legacy of Titus. This single event precipitated major changes in Judaism, and also served to widen the growing chasm between Judaism and believers in Jesus as the Christ.

  In each of the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), Jesus is said to predict the downfall of the Jerusalem Temple: “As he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!’ Then Jesus asked him, ‘Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down’ ” (Mark 13.1–2; see also Matt. 26.61; John 2.18–22). Most scholars interpret Jesus’ remark as a prophecy after the fact, written after the destruction of the Temple, but presented as a prediction that the event would occur. In this case, the author of the Gospel of Mark, writing around the time of the destruction (70 CE), develops a saying of Jesus that was influenced by the actual or impending fall of the Temple. For those Jews who had been convinced that Jesus was the Messiah, the one who had come to usher in the new kingdom of God and set up a new understanding of atonement for sins, the destruction was neither unexpected nor especially tragic. To most
Jewish believers in Jesus, the promise of new life in Christ rendered inessential the traditional means of atonement, Temple and Torah. In addition, the proportion of Jewish believers in Jesus was diminishing as the movement attracted larger numbers of Gentiles, for whom the issue of whether Jesus had fulfilled the expectations for the Jewish Messiah was unimportant. If they believed that following Jesus would lead to eternal life, then they could join without hesitation. The mission to bring Jews into the church could never overcome that point of contention, so the churches continued to attract predominantly Gentiles, and questions about how the Jesus movement was related to Judaism became less significant.

  Even as the connection with Judaism was ebbing, voices within the churches attempted to retain or reinterpret that bond. The author of the Gospel of Matthew wrote some ten years after the destruction of the Temple, using Mark’s Gospel as a source. This author knew that the church was becoming a Gentile institution. The Gospel of Matthew, however, emphasized the ways in which Jesus as the Messiah had provided a sound interpretation of the Torah, and had fulfilled prophecies of Judaism in both his life and his death. The author of Matthew wanted to show belief in Jesus as the true continuation of Judaism. The letter to the Hebrews promoted Jesus as high priest and as sacrifice for the sins of the people. The second-century author of “The Preaching of Peter” accused Paul of being an apostle of Satan, since he had led the churches away from Judaism. Paul, however, had argued with Gentiles in the church at Rome who were claiming that God had rejected the Jews. He claimed the Jews’ refusal to believe in Jesus resulted from God’s temporarily hardening their hearts to allow the “full number” of Gentiles a chance to come into the church, but that God would eventually end the hardening and “all Israel will be saved” (Rom. 11.25–26). Paul’s vision was not realized, and after the Temple was destroyed, Judaism began to develop in new directions under rabbinic leadership. Meanwhile, the churches continued to attract mostly Gentiles. Ten years later, after Titus’s death in 81 CE, the churches and Judaism were evolving differently, but they both faced new challenges under the repressive policies of Vespasian’s other son, Domitian.

  A Younger Brother’s Revenge: The Reign of Domitian

  Many Romans greeted the accession of Domitian skeptically. Residing in Rome since before his father came to power in 69 CE, he had been instrumental in maintaining power until Vespasian returned to the city. In doing so, he had raised concerns about his leadership abilities. Once his father began to rule, Domitian was quickly relegated to a secondary status, and his eclipse was exacerbated when his victorious brother Titus returned to Rome. Suetonius suggests that Domitian had plotted against Titus after Vespasian’s death, but that Titus was too compassionate to deal harshly with him (Titus 9.3). After Titus died, Domitian came to power and at least went through the motions of honoring his predecessors, dedicating his boyhood home as a temple to the Flavian family and building the Arch of Titus (Domitian 1.1).

  Although the common interpretation of Domitian’s reign is decidedly negative, Domitian may have been popular with the people and especially with the troops, whom he treated with great generosity. He regularly clashed with senators and other elites, and his terrible reputation reflects the upper-class bias of the sources for his reign—writers like Tacitus, Suetonius, and Pliny the Younger. An anti-imperial perspective is evident in these sources, but the horrors they describe were not reserved only for senators. Suetonius also mentions harsh actions taken against the Jews (Domitian 12.2), including a heavy tax burden and physical inspection for circumcision to determine who was liable to pay the tax. Dio tells of Domitian’s execution of the consul Flavius Clemens for atheism, mentioning that this was the same charge “on which many others who had veered into the ways of the Jews had been condemned” (Dio Cassius 67.14.10). The book of Revelation is often cited as evidence for Domitian’s persecution of another marginal group, the followers of Jesus.

  Throughout the history of Christianity, the apocalyptic imagery of Revelation has been interpreted to refer to a variety of situations, both ancient and modern. The messages or “letters” at the beginning of the book, however, are all addressed to cities in western Asia Minor, and symbolic references within the letters have led scholars to date Revelation to the close of the first century, when important aspects of civic life in western Asia Minor coincided with the situation described in the book. Particularly significant is the heightening of a rivalry among the leading cities of Asia—Pergamon, Smyrna, and Ephesus.

  Pergamon had gained the upper hand more than a century earlier, when it was awarded the honor of building a provincial temple to Roma and Augustus. From then on, being allowed to build an imperial temple was important in the rivalry among these cities. Sometime during the Flavian period, the Ephesians were finally able to challenge Pergamon and Smyrna by constructing a temple dedicated to Domitian and his family. This increased attention to civic honors for deified emperors also led to a heightened emphasis on individual citizens paying ritual honors to the emperor. If followers of Jesus in these cities refused to participate in sacrifices to the Augusti, they could have been subjected to persecution.

  The images of the beast from the sea and the beast from the earth in Revelation 13 probably refer to the emperor and his representatives in the province, either officials sent out from Rome or local elites who administered the honors offered to the emperor. The second beast “exercises all the authority of the first beast on its behalf, and it makes the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast . . . and by the signs that it is allowed to perform on behalf of the beast, it deceives the inhabitants of earth, telling them to make an image for the beast . . . so that the image of the beast could even speak and cause those who would not worship the image of the beast to be killed” (Rev. 13.12–15). This description may foreshadow the kind of loyalty test used by Pliny the Younger when, about 110 CE, he confronted people accused of being Christian in Pontus and Bithynia. Those who refused to give honor to the statue of the emperor were endangering the well-being of society as a whole. Such refusal would have been even more dangerous if the city had just erected a new temple to the imperial family, which stood as a source of great civic pride. Persons with power in the city could easily lose privileges, and people would be risking their lives if they refused to worship the “image of the beast.”

  The phrase imperial cult is often used in discussion of honors paid to emperors. Unfortunately, the term is usually interpreted as a set religious system with uniform beliefs and practices. On the contrary, there was great diversity in where, when, and how honors were offered to the emperor. One variation focused on whether a living emperor could receive honors as if he were a god. The usual assumption is that living emperors were readily given divine honors in the undisciplined eastern provinces, but not in Rome and the west, where cooler heads prevailed. This view needs to be questioned.

  In the eastern provinces, divine honors do seem to have been offered to emperors. These offerings were not an irrational reaction by superstitious residents of the east, but rather part of a larger social matrix that connected people with the powers (human and divine) that controlled their world. Simon Price has pushed scholars to a more sophisticated understanding of how honors offered to the emperor should be seen as societal phenomena: “Using their traditional symbolic system they [the Greeks] represented the emperor to themselves in the familiar terms of divine power. The imperial cult, like the cults of the traditional gods, created a relationship of power between subject and ruler” (Rituals and Power: The Imperial Cult in Asia Minor, Cambridge University Press, 1984, p. 248). Although he refuses to look at these honors in strictly political terms, Price emphasizes that honors offered to the emperor also enhanced the civic power of those who controlled them, the local elite.

  It is also necessary to modify the view that divine honors offered for the emperor in the east stood in sharp contrast to those in Rome and the west. During his lifetime Domitian demanded honors as a god in th
e city of Rome. Suetonius reports that the emperor insisted on being addressed as dominus et deus (“lord and god”), and he describes how priests wore crowns with Domitian’s image alongside those of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva (Domitian 13.2, 4.4). Pliny the Younger laments that traditional religious ritual had been selfishly usurped by Domitian: “Enormous herds of victims [intended for sacrifice at the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus] were intercepted on their way to the Capitolinum and large parts of them were forced to be diverted from their path, because to honor the statue of that atrocious master, as much blood of victims had to flow as the amount of human blood he had shed” (Panegyricus 52.7).

  Pliny complained about these excesses in order to encourage the current emperor, Trajan, to expect more moderate honors during his lifetime. He was grateful that under Trajan the senate no longer needed to waste time deliberating on “enormous arches and inscribed titles too long to fit on temples” (Panegyricus 54). Pliny also laments the excessive “shows and riotous entertainment” that were performed in honor of Domitian: “He was a madman, ignorant of his true honor . . . who thought himself to be equal to the gods yet raised his gladiators to be equal to himself” (Panegyricus 33.4). However loudly they protested after the fact, Pliny and other senators who survived Domitian’s reign played a role in bestowing these honors. Even if they did not participate in rites honoring Domitian as a god, they must have swallowed their disgust and looked on silently.