THE RHETORIC OF PARTICIPATION: GENDER AND REPRESENTATION IN ANCIENT SYNAGOGUES

Carrie Elaine Duncan

A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Religious Studies

Chapel Hill 2012

Approved by:

Jodi Magness

Elizabeth Clark

Bart Ehrman

Laura Lieber

Zlatko Plese

©2012 Carrie Elaine Duncan ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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ABSTRACT

CARRIE ELAINE DUNCAN: The Rhetoric of Participation: Gender and Representation in ancient synagogues (Under the direction of Jodi Magness)

Twenty four inscriptions from the late ancient Mediterranean world commemorate individual Jewish women using titles such as Head of the Synagogue, Elder, Mother of the Synagogue, and other terms seemingly indicative of religious leadership or authority.

This project explores the social locations of these inscriptions’ production and display by considering issues such as geographical and chronological distribution, literacy and textuality, as well as visuality and non-verbal modes of communication. Whereas earlier studies asked whether these inscriptions prove that women acted as leaders in ancient synagogues, this study asks how inscriptions were read and seen by ancient audiences and what purposes the epigraphic representation of women served in ancient Jewish

Diaspora communities. The question of women’s roles in ancient synagogues, rather than an end in itself, opens a wider door to explorations of gender and representation in the ancient world.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My gratitude towards those who have helped this project reach this point cannot be adequately expressed on paper. I am grateful for financial support from the University of

North Carolina Graduate School in the forms of a Dissertation Research Fellowship in the fall of 2010 and a Paul C. Hardin Royster Society Fellowship in 2011-2012, as well as the many teaching opportunities, travel fellowships, and other forms of support offered to me. The Charlotte Newcombe Foundation awarded me a dissertation completion fellowship in 2011-2012, which I was greatly honored to receive.

I am grateful to Amy Hirschfeld of the International Catacomb Society, Hannah

Kendall of the Ashmolean Museum, and Andrew Reinhard of the American School of

Classical Studies for their assistance with many of the images that appear in this dissertation.

Thank you to my committee: to Bart Ehrman and Zlatko Plese in particular for the innumerable letters of recommendation written on my behalf and to Laura Lieber and

Elizabeth Clark for their helpful, gracious, and timely feedback on an initial draft of this dissertation. Finally, with love and gratitude to Jodi Magness, my mentor of 15 years, who might not have known what she was getting into when I showed up at her door at age eighteen and said I wanted to be an archaeologist! For every prompt email reply, phone conversation, marked-up draft, honest opinion, recommendation letter, crisis negotiation, and sugar-free birthday cake, thank you. I am grateful also to Laurie Maffly-

Kipp and Randall Styers, who have been interchangeably department chair and director

iv of graduate studies for most of my time at UNC and have helped me in many ways, some of which I am likely not even aware.

My brilliant and dedicated colleagues at UNC have provided seven years’ worth of support and camaraderie. In particular, I would like to thank the members of Team JOB, everyone from various writing and reading groups, and the women of my cohort: Jill

Peterfeso, Cynthia Hogan, and Brandi Denison. Non-Carolina people nonetheless deserving of recognition are Ely Levine and Maria Doerfler.

Finally, I am grateful to friends and family who have taken this circuitous journey with me. To Cori for all the care packages and phone calls, my brother Andrew for all the pep talks and encouragement, and my husband Peter for tech and design support, photographic assistance, and unstinting confidence in me – thank you. Above all, to my parents Mary and Phil Duncan, copyeditors par excellence, for everything. Thank you.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF FIGURES...... viii

Chapter

I. INTRODUCTION TO SYNAGOGUES, TITLES, AND INSCRIPTIONS...... 11

Introduction...... 1

The early history of the synagogue...... 4

Title Bearer Inscriptions...... 15...15

Theoretical Considerations...... 2727

Organization of the Study...... 3131

II. CHRONOLOGY AND GEOGRAPHY...... 43... 43

Introduction...... 43.43

Religion, Gender, and Title...... 45...45

Chronology...... 52.52

Geography...... 66

Conclusions...... 98

III. ON THE USE AND ABUSE OF EPIGRAPHY...... 9999

Introduction...... 99

Textuality and the Linguistic Turn...... 105...105

Ancient Literacy...... 111111

Epigraphy as a Genre...... 121

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Synagogues and Catacombs...... 136

Conclusions...... 155

IV. MATERIALITY AND THE VISUAL RECEPTION OF INSCRIPTIONS...... 156156

Introduction...... 156156

Where art and text collide: Reception Theory and Visual Culture...... 167157

Materiality: Medium, Execution, Decoration...... 176176

Sophia of Gortyn and Marcella of Rome...... 211

Conclusions...... 216

V. WOMEN LEADERS...... 219

Introduction...... 219

Objectivism, Presentism, Feminism...... 221221

Power, Prestige, Leadership...... 232232

Financial Leadership in Synagogues...... 245245

Inscribing Identity...... 265

Conclusions...... 278

VI. CONCLUSION...... 281

BIBLIOGRAPHY...... 286

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure

1. Chronological Chart of Female Title Bearer Inscriptions...... 5555-56-56

2. Chronological Chart of Average Dates...... 57

3. Map of Geographical Distribution of Inscriptions...... 67

4. Geographical Chart of Inscriptions...... 70

5. Faustinus Family Tree...... 131

6. Typical entry in Jewish Inscriptions of Western Europe...... 158.158

7. Typical plate in Jewish Inscriptions of Western Europe...... 160.160

8. Chart of Inscriptions’ Decoration...... 17.176-1776-177

9. Example of Inscription of average quality...... 183.183

10. Example of Inscription of high quality...... 184.184

11. Transcription of Rufina of Smyrna’s inscription...... 186.186

12. Image of Gaudentia’s inscription...... 191.191

13. Image of Sophia of Gortyn’s inscription...... 212212

14. Image of Marcella of Rome’s inscription...... 214

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Chapter One: Introduction to Synagogues, Titles, and Inscriptions 1.1: Introduction Did women act as leaders in the synagogues of Late Antiquity? For those familiar with early Judaism, the instinctual answer is no. Judaism has historically been overwhelmingly male oriented in its authority structures: male deity, male priests, male rabbis. Yet, a small number of inscriptions have been taken as evidence for exceptions to this general understanding of exclusively male leadership among ancient Jews. These inscriptions have led some scholars to answer yes to the question posed above. This study does not answer the question of whether women were leaders of synagogues: at least, not in the way it was meant. Instead, the question will itself be questioned, its assumptions illuminated, its terms unpacked. The evidence cited in support its affirmative answer will be analyzed, its utility queried, its interpretation challenged. My goal is to broaden the question of women’s leadership in synagogues from yes or no to when and where/how and why.

The evidence in question is a corpus of what I am calling title bearer inscriptions:

Late Antique dedicatory and funerary inscriptions labeling individual Jews, men and women, with a variety of titles – head of the synagogue, mother or father of the synagogue, elder, etc. – seemingly associated with the institution of the synagogue. Title bearer inscriptions are found throughout the Mediterranean littoral, with a possible range of dates from the first century BCE to the seventh century CE. Early excavations of synagogues and Jewish burial sites, particularly those of the Monteverde catacomb in

Rome, brought title bearer inscriptions to the attention of scholars as early as the early 17th century, although they were not taken as a serious subject of inquiry until the 19th century.1

Title bearer inscriptions hold great potential to illuminate the inner workings of the early synagogue institution as well as the options and opportunities available to women within early Jewish communities. This potential has resulted in consistent and continued engagement by scholars with these inscriptions for over 150 years.2 This project engages and builds upon the work of these scholars. While I will question and assess critically the assumptions, theoretical stances, and conclusions of those whose work precedes my own,

I neither minimize nor marginalize their contributions to the subject.

At the same time, however, title bearer inscriptions are a type of historical data susceptible to cooption in modern disputes. For some, these inscriptions constitute evidence for a more egalitarian original version of Judaism subsequently routinized into an androcentric hierarchy.3 Appeals are made to ancient precedent to justify calls for women’s more active involvement in Jewish leadership roles. Further, the mutually reactionary and contested relationship between Judaism and Christianity in their early development has led to a modern controversy over which religion offered women more

1The Monteverde catacomb was discovered by Antonio Bosio in 1602 and described briefly in his publication of the Christian catacombs of Rome, Roma sotterranea (Rome: Facciotti, 1632). See Leonard Rutgers, The Jews in Late Ancient Rome (Leiden: Brill, 1995), 1-49, for a history of the excavations of and scholarship on the Jewish catacombs of Rome. See also Amy Hirschfeld, “An Overview of the Intellectual History of Catacomb Archaeology,” in Deborah Green and Laurie Brink (eds.), Commemorating the Dead: Texts and Artifacts in Context (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2008), 11-38. 2For example, Ross Shepard Kraemer, Unreliable Witnesses: Religion, Gender, and History in the Greco- Roman Mediterranean (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 179-242. 3For various articulations of Max Weber’s theory of routinization, see The Sociology of Religion 4th ed. (Boston: Beacon Press 1963), esp. 60-79 and The Theory of Social and Economic Organization (New York: Oxford University Press, 1947), 358-386. On the history of women’s ordination to the rabbinate, see Pamela Nadell, Women who would be Rabbis: a History of Women’s Ordination 1889-1985 (Boston: Beacon Press, 1998). See also Sarah Grossman and Rivka Haut, “Introduction: Women and the Synagogue,” in Sarah Grossman and Rivka Haut (eds.), Daughters of the King: Women and the Synagogue (Philadelphia & New York: Jewish Publication Society), 3-11.

2 equitable status.4 Thus, advocates for women’s leadership and ordination in conservative

Christian denominations likewise justify their case, at least in part, on ancient evidence.5

Whether ancient precedent should be used to validate modern decisions regarding gender and religious leadership is not for me to say.6 The fact is that synagogue inscriptions and comparable material are used by all sides in current debates over issues of justice, gender equity, and leadership in modern religious institutions. Therefore, scholars’ work on this subject has real-world ramifications rather than remaining within a strictly academic context. The timely dissemination of conclusions based on careful evaluation of evidence to a non-academic audience is increasingly seen as the responsibility of every scholar, regardless of subject.7 If historical data are to be used to authorize modern ethical decisions, however, historians’ responsibility to evaluate continually the validity of those data and their interpretation carries even greater weight.

The main premise of this study is that female title bearer inscriptions were created, signified, and read by ancient Jewish communities, and therefore cannot be understood properly when examined in isolation. Consequently, the subject is not so much the women who feature in these inscriptions, but rather the inscriptions themselves and the communities that produced them. These inscriptions are one body of evidence which

4Amy-Jill Levine, “Second Temple Judaism, Jesus, and Women,” Biblical Interpretation 2.1 (1994), 8-33 provides a summary of the debate, which will be discussed in more detail below. 5See, for example, Karen Torjesen, When Women were Priests (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1993) and Dorothy Irvin, “The Ministry of Women in the Early Church: The Archaeological Evidence,” The Duke Divinity School Review 45 (1980), 76-86. Irvin in particular is a key advocate for women’s ordination in the Roman Catholic Church based on her interpretation of ancient evidence for women in early Christian sacramental roles. 6While I sympathize with and support the efforts of women to achieve equal access to religious leadership positions in conservative Christian and Jewish denominations, I believe that reliance upon ancient precedent in arguing for gender equity in religious leadership is ultimately detrimental to their cause. 7Russell McCutcheon, “A Default of Critical Intelligence?” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 65.2 (1997), 443-468.

3 informs our understanding about these communities, specifically how and, perhaps, why certain individuals are represented in particular ways.

Since the larger discussion will take place in the context of synagogues, I begin not with inscriptions, but with a brief overview of the history of the earliest synagogues and the questions of origins, purposes, extant remains, and literary references. An introduction to the earliest scholarship on Jewish titles in inscriptions follows, along with the challenges title bearing women held for early scholars. Feminist scholars’ interest in and influence upon the discussion of women’s title bearer inscriptions, and the insights, challenges, and responses presented by their influence, provide a context for understanding the current state of the question. Finally, I introduce the theoretical underpinnings and methodological approaches that will be used in this study to explore how title bearer inscriptions served as representations of women in early synagogue communities.

1.2: The early history of the synagogue

Origins and purposes

The date and origins of the early synagogue as an institution are hotly contested.8 The earliest suggested period of synagogue origin is the pre-exilic period. Von Waldow, following Finkelstein, suggests that the 7th century reforms of Josiah were only feasible if local worship facilities were already in existence.9 Weingreen agrees with Finkelstein’s

8This conversation is complicated by the fact that συναγωγή can refer to a community or gathering of people as well as a structure, as in 1st century C.E. manumission inscriptions from the Bosphorus region. See, for example, IJO I BS5 and IJO I BS4, which clearly use synagoge to refer to the community and proseuche to refer to the community’s physical meeting place. For additional examples see Lee Levine, The Ancient Synagogue: The First Thousand Years (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005), 122-123. 9H. Eberhard von Waldow, “The Origin of the Synagogue Reconsidered,” in Dikran Hadidian, ed., From Faith to Faith: Essays in Honor of Donald G. Miller on his Seventieth Birthday (Pittsburgh: Pickwick Press, 1979), 269-284; Louis Finkelstein, “The Origin of the Synagogue,” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 1 (1928-1930), 49-59. 4 dating, but not with his explanation.10 Morgenstern, following Lods, suggest that the synagogue originated as a response to Josiah’s reforms.11 Some scholars advocate a date in the 6th century BCE, reasoning that the development of non-sacrificial religious observations by the displaced Judahite population during the Babylonian Exile would have required a new type of facility.12 While these suggestions are all reasonable, each is based solely on reason; there are neither extant remains from the region nor textual references to synagogues in pre-exilic, exilic, or post-exilic literature to support an origin prior to or in the Babylonian Exile.

Levine has suggested that the synagogue institution resulted not from a religious crisis, but from a change in city wall construction. Bronze and Iron Age city walls contained monumental gate complexes in which civic business was conducted.13

Hellenistic period walls had no such accommodation. Separate structures were therefore required to replace the city gate as the location for social and civic business.14 The functional connections Levine draws between city-gate and synagogue are striking. A specific connection between city-gate and synagogue is difficult to see, however,

10Jacob Weingreen, “The Origin of the Synagogue,” Hermathena 98 (1964), 68-84. 11Julian Morgenstern, “The Origin of the Synagogue,” Studi Orientalistici II (1956), 192-201; Adolphe Lods, The Prophets and the Rise of Judaism, trans. S. Hooke (London: Routledge & K. Paul, 1937). 12Salo Wittmayer Baron, The Jewish Community: Its History and Structure to the American Revolution, v.1-3 (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1942), I.59-63; Samuel Krauss, Synagogale Altertümer (Berlin: Benjamin Harz, 1922), 52-66; George Foot Moore, Judaism in the first centuries of the Christian era, v.1-3 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1958-1959), I.283. 13For example, in the post-exilic book of Ruth 4:1-12, Boaz conducts the transaction with the next-of-kin at the city gate under the auspices of the elders. 14Levine, The Ancient Synagogue, 28-42.

5 particularly given the break in time between the change in gate structure and the earliest evidence for synagogue structures.15

Richardson sees the development of the synagogue as a Diaspora invention of the

Hellenistic period. Diasporic communities in need of a center for religious life built synagogues, known by a variety of names from inscriptions, but most famously in Egypt as proseuche, or house of prayer.16 This new structure was imported to Palestine, where the term synagoge became prevalent. The difficulty with this suggestion is the terminology’s implications. Richardson sees minimal importance in what he considers regional differences of language: a gathering place for Jews is a synagogue, regardless of whether the structure is called a synagoge or a proseuche. Equating these terms, however, presumes that specifically religious activities occurred in the earliest synagogue structures.17 The debate over the synagogue’s origins is, therefore, enmeshed in the equally contested debate over the early synagogue’s purpose.

Theories which advocate a primarily religious original purpose for the synagogue typically locate its origins in the Diaspora. Thus, positing the origin of the synagogue in the Babylonian Exile helps to explain how the exiles retained their identity as God’s

15Levine, The Ancient Synagogue, 41-42 notes that those who advocate an early date for synagogues in Palestine cannot explain why they are not mentioned in Hellenistic Jewish literature such as Ben Sira, 1-2 Maccabees, Tobit, Jubilees, the Letter of Aristeas, the Testament of the 12 Patriarchs, and Enoch. He contrasts the Hellenistic texts with the 1st century CE writings of Philo and Josephus, in which synagogues as buildings do appear. As an argument from silence, the lack of synagogue buildings in Hellenistic literature does not carry significant weight, but the chronological uniformity of the texts is striking. 16Peter Richardson, “Early Synagogues as Collegia in the Diaspora and Palestine,” in John Kloppenborg and Stephen Wilson (eds.), Voluntary Associations in the Graeco-Roman World (London: Routledge, 1996), 90-109, but argued earlier by Martin Hengel, “Proseuche und Synagoge: Jüdische Gemeinde, Gotteshaus, und Gottesdienst in der Diaspora und in Palästina,” in Joseph Gutmann (ed.), The Synagogue: Studies in Origins, Archaeology and Architecture (New York: KTAV, 1975), 27-54. 17Although Levine, The Ancient Synagogue, 128, argues that proseuche and synagoge should be equated, he acknowledges that, at least originally, the difference in names indicates a difference in perception of what the main purpose of the structure was.

6 chosen people. Similarly, for Richardson the synagogue is readily understandable as a house of prayer because the Jewish population of Egypt did not have access to the

Jerusalem Temple and needed alternative religious centers.18

In contrast, theories of Levantine synagogue origins usually suggest that synagogues primarily served civic or social roles.19 Levine’s suggestion that the synagogue replaced the city gate as a location for community business is one example.20 While the connection between city gate and synagogue is tenuous, the concept of a communal space in which a wide variety of activities occurred is plausible. Moreover, a primarily civic or social purpose for synagogues seems also to fit the earliest extant evidence, both archaeological and textual, of synagogue activity.

Second Temple period Judaism’s religious focal point was the Jerusalem Temple.21

As in the pre-exilic period, religious observance was manifested principally in the

18Josephus, in Antiquities 13.62-73, records Onias IV petitioning Ptolemy VI for permission to build a temple at Leontopolis, which is described in greater detail in War 7:420-436. Victor Tcherikover in Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum v.1-3 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1957-1964), I.44-46 questions the degree to which Onias could have been a Torah observant Jew and expressed doubt that his temple was ever accepted by the Jewish population of Egypt. Erich Gruen argues that the temple at Leontopolis was not a rival of the Jerusalem Temple in “Origins and Objectives of Onias’ Temple,” Scripta Classica Israelica 16 (1997), 45-70. The biggest problem with establishing the relationship between Palestinian synagogues and Egyptian proseuchai is that no archaeological remains of the latter have been found and excavated. Without any actual material to compare, we are left with supposition and logic. 19I would characterize Runesson’s suggestion of a Persian influenced Levantine fourth century BCE synagogue origin similarly, in its focus on reading the law as recorded in the book of Ezra, see “Persian Imperial Politics: The Beginnings of Public Torah Reading, and the Origins of the Synagogue,’ in Birger Olsson and Magnus Zetterholm (eds.), The Ancient Synagogue: From its Origins until 200 C.E. (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 2003), 63-89. 20Although Levine, The Ancient Synagogue, 29, notes that religious activities sometimes occurred at the city gate as part of Jewish life, and would likewise have occurred at the synagogue, he distinguishes his theory specifically from those that see the synagogue primarily as a religious institution, arguing instead that as communal buildings, synagogues would have seen the full gamut of functions and activities. 21We enter difficult territory when trying to parse what constitutes “religious” behavior within early Judaism. See Brent Nongbri, “Dislodging ‘Embedded’ Religion: A Brief Note on a Scholarly Trope,” Numen 55 (2008) 440–460. Remaining conscious of Jonathan Z. Smith’s critique of the term in “Religion, Religions, Religious,” in Mark Taylor (ed.), Critical Terms for Religious Studies (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 269-284, the Torah mandated Temple observances seem to me most 7 performance of sacrifices by priests at the Temple. Laypersons participated in these observations primarily by bringing sacrificial offerings on specific pilgrimage holidays and for other specific reasons and occasions. It is possible that additional forms of devotion were practiced at the Temple; for example, Luke 18:9-14 tells a parable of two men who went to the Temple to pray. In any case, while it stood, the Temple was the ideological and practical center of Jewish religious observance in Palestine.

Reasonable proximity to the Temple would seem to negate the need for alternative structures dedicated to religious observances. Moreover, even for diasporic communities, synagogues did not and could not have served as a rivals or replacements for the Temple.

The Temple was God’s house where sacrifices were offered; synagogues were where

Jews gathered for a multiplicity of purposes. Over time, and with the sacralization of the

Torah, the synagogue became a repository for the sacred and a location for the specifically religious expressions that came to constitute post-Temple Judaism.22

appropriate to term “religious” behaviors in Second Temple period Judaism. In the post-Temple period, a different set of religious behaviors develops with the transfer of the sacred to the Torah scrolls themselves. 22On the increasing sanctity of synagogues in Late Antiquity, see Steven Fine, This Holy Place (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1997), although he sees a sacred character to synagogues earlier than I would. Jodi Magness, “Heaven on Earth: Helios and the Zodiac Cycle in Ancient Palestinian Synagogues,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 59 (2007), 1-52 follows Seth Schwartz, Imperialism and Jewish Society: 200 B.C.E. to 640 C.E. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), in seeing many of the liturgical, architectural and theological aspects of Late Antique Judaism developing in the 4th century in response to the rise of Christianity. My views of Late Antique Jewish society have been significantly influenced by the work of Seth Schwartz, both Imperialism as well as the more recent Were the Jews a Mediterranean Society? Reciprocity and Solidarity in Ancient Judaism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010). I am well aware that Schwartz’s work, particularly Imperialism, has been quite controversial. See, for example, the following reviews: Fergus Millar, “Transformations of Judaism under Roman Rule: Responses to Seth Schwartz’s ‘Imperialism and Jewish Society,’” Journal of Jewish Studies 57.1 (2006), 139-158; Michael Satlow, “A History of the Jews or Judaism? On Seth Schwartz’s ‘Imperialism and Jewish Society, 200 B.C.E. to 640 C.E.’,” Jewish Quarterly Review 95.1 (2005), 151-162; Stuart Miller, “Roman Imperialism, Jewish Self-Definition, and Rabbinic Society: Belayche's “Iudaea-Palaestina”, Schwartz's “Imperialism and Jewish Society”, and Boyarin's “Border Lines” Reconsidered,” Association for Jewish Studies Review 31.2 (2007), 329-362; James Rives, Review Article, The International History Review 24.4 (2002), 864-865; Louis Feldman, Review Article, International Journal of the Classical Tradition 10.1 (2003), 129-133; Jeremy Penner, Review Article, Journal for the Study of Judaism 36.1 (2005), 125-127; Benjamin Isaac, 8

Extant archaeological evidence

The earliest preserved synagogue structures known to have been used as synagogues in Palestine include those at Gamla, Masada, Herodium, and Migdal, and date to the first century CE.23 In the Diaspora, the earliest extant synagogue is at Dura Europos and dates to the mid-third century CE.24 Most early synagogues appear to reuse existing buildings, to exhibit indifference regarding orientation, to lack permanent furnishings and to eschew

Review Article, The American Historical Review 108.4 (2003), 1255; Lester Grabbe, Review Article, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 27.5 (2003), 188; Yaron Eliav, “The Matrix of Ancient Judaism,” Prooftexts 24 (2004), 116-128. The bulk of objections to Imperialism seem to rest on Schwartz’s Part II, in which the Jews of Palestine are thought mostly to assimilate to Greco-Roman culture, foregoing any distinctively Jewish religious affiliation or expression. I agree that for this period Schwartz overstates his case and gives insufficient credence to the evidence from Beth She‘arim, Christian sources, and the Mishnah. Nonetheless, I agree with Michael Satlow (155) that Schwartz provides a framework uniting the increasingly agreed upon views that Jewish-Roman/Christian relations were not universally negative, that Jews shared cultural space with non-Jewish neighbors, and that rabbis and patriarchs exerted less universal and/or powerful influence over the majority of Late Antique Jews. Schwartz focuses primarily on Jewish society in Palestine while this study engages Diaspora Jewish populations. Thus, although Schwartz has provided substantial influence on my scholarly outlook in general, his particular argument, and any associated difficulties, are only tangentially relevant to my work. For a review of Were the Jews a Mediterranean Society?, see Judith Lieu, Review Article, The American Historical Review 118.4 (2011), 1177-1178. 23On the Gamla synagogue, see Bezalel Bar-Kochva, “Gamla in Gaulanitis,” Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins 92 (1976), 54-71; on Masada, see Yigael Yadin, “The Synagogue at Masada,” in Lee Levine (ed.), Ancient Synagogues Revealed (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1981), 19-23 and Ehud Netzer, Masada III, The Yigael Yadin Excavations 1963-1965, Final Reports: The Buildings, Stratigraphy and Architecture (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1991), 420-413; for Herodium, see Gideon Foerster, “The Synagogues at Masada and Herodium,” in Levine, Ancient Synagogues Revealed, 24-29; Migdal has yet to be published and has only appeared in popular news releases. For other proposed first century CE Judean synagogues and associated bibliography, see Levine, The Ancient Synagogue, 45-80. 24Carl Kraeling, The Excavations at Dura-Europos, VIII, Part I: The Synagogue (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1956; reprinted, New York: KTAV, 1979). The Ostia synagogue is often cited as one of the earliest Diaspora synagogues, but there is no clear evidence that the building was used as a synagogue before the 4th century, and given the proclivity of Diaspora synagogues to reuse existing buildings, there is no reason to assume that it was a synagogue in its earlier phases just because it was used as one at a later date. See Anders Runesson, “A Monumental Synagogue from the First Century: the Case of Ostia,” Journal for the Study of Judaism 33.2 (2002), 171-220; “The Oldest Original Synagogue Building: A Response to L. Michael White,” Harvard Theological Review 92.4 (1999), 409-433, and L. Michael White, “Reading the Ostia Synagogue: A Response to A. Runesson,” Harvard Theological Review 92.4 (1999), 435-464; “Synagogue and Society in Imperial Ostia: Archaeological and Epigraphic Evidence,” Harvard Theological Review 90.1 (1997), 23-58. The proposed synagogue at Delos will not be considered here, for the reasons given by Lidia Matassa in “Unraveling the Myth of the Synagogue on Delos,” Bulletin of the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society 25 (2007), 81-115, contra Monika Trümper, “The Oldest Original Synagogue Building in the Diaspora: The Delos Synagogue Reconsidered,” Hesperia 73.4 (2004), 513- 598.

9 decoration.25 Early synagogues are often indistinguishable in many ways from other types of meeting places: all typically have one or more levels of benches around the edges of the room. In several of the aforementioned cases, identification of a structure as a synagogue depends entirely on an exclusively Jewish population at that time and location.26

The Masada synagogue preserves the only distinguishably Jewish find among these early synagogues published to date. Two scraps of scrolls from the Torah were found in a small, subsidiary room next to the synagogue’s meeting room.27 The discovery of Torah remains in one of the earliest synagogue buildings is significant in that it corroborates part of the earliest extant description of a synagogue’s purpose: the Theodotus inscription.

The Theodotus inscription was found in excavations of the City of David in

Jerusalem and has been dated to the first century CE.28 The inscription is written in Greek on limestone and reads:

Theodotus, son of Vettenos, priest and archisynagogos, son of an archisynagogos, grandson of an archisynagogos, built the synagogue for reading the law and teaching the commandments, and the guest chamber, the rooms, the water installations as an inn for those in need from foreign lands, which his fathers founded together with the elders and the Simonides.29

25Migdal is an exception in that it is decorated; its publication remains forthcoming. The Dura Europos synagogue is exceptional in many ways: it is the only synagogue building in the eastern Diaspora; it is the earliest extant synagogue building outside of Palestine; its decoration is unique among all extant synagogue buildings; it contains the earliest known example of a Torah niche. 26For a survey of pre-70 Diaspora synagogues, see Levine, The Ancient Synagogue, 81-134. 27The scraps found were from Ezekiel and Deuteronomy, according to Yadin, “The Synagogue at Masada,” 21-22. 28Raymond Weill, “La Cité de David,” Revue des Études Juives 71 (1920), 1-45. For the dispute regarding the dating of the Theodotus inscription, see the discussion in Anders Runesson, Donald Binder, and Birger Olsson, The Ancient Synagogue from its Origins to 200 C.E.: a Sourcebook (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 53, as well as John Kloppenborg, “Dating Theodotus,” Journal of Jewish Studies 51.2 (2000), 243-280. 29CIJ 1404.

10

Several features stand out. First is the person of Theodotus himself: a synagogue builder, a priest, and third generation archisynagogos. He will be dealt with below.

Second, the purpose of the synagogue, according to the inscription, is for the reading of law and instruction of commandments. Depending on one’s perspective, these could constitute religious or civic activities.30 In the context of first century Palestine, the latter would seem closer to how the members of Theodotus’ synagogue would have viewed their activities. Third, the earliest synagogue buildings have no features comparable to the sort of hostel arrangement the Theodotus inscription describes as one of the primary features of his synagogue. Perhaps accommodations for visitors were features of

Jerusalem synagogues specifically, and were intended for visitors to the city during the pilgrimage holidays. It is possible that, like other early synagogue buildings, the

Theodotus synagogue renovated and reused an existing domestic space and retained some of the domestic features as lodgings for travelers.

While part of the Theodotus inscription fits well with the archaeological evidence and part does not, it is nonetheless significant that the inscription describes the synagogue as having social and civic functions. Theodotus does not record having built the synagogue as a house of prayer or as a repository for the Torah scrolls. The synagogue as a place for reading of Torah and instruction of Law fits well with the archaeological remains of the earliest synagogues in Palestine and the Diaspora. Although their functions expand with

30The status of the Torah as scripture or law relates in many ways to the discussion of “religious” above. James VanderKam, An Introduction to Early Judaism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), 14, approaching the subject from a Catholic perspective, notes that the second century translation of the Bible into Greek constitutes the first known time of scripture being translated. Elias Bickerman The Jews in the Greek Age (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988), 101-116, on the other hand, considers the translation of the Torah into Greek as falling within the long history of legal translations in the Ancient Near East. See also Shaye Cohen, From the Maccabees to the Mishnah 2nd ed. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006), 177.

11 the changing needs of Jewish communities in the post-Temple period, the earliest synagogues are best understood as locations for Jewish communities to conduct a variety of communal civil and social activities.

Literary references

There are a variety of references to early synagogues in Jewish, Christian, and Roman literature.31 These sources include Philo, Josephus, the New Testament, rabbinic writings, patristic literature, and Roman legislation. 32While each source mentions the synagogue in some capacity, these references, particularly the later ones, offer more insight into the writer’s relationship to the synagogue and its Jewish community than historically useful information about the synagogue itself.

Earlier and, arguably, more insider literary sources, such as Philo, Josephus, and the

New Testament, depict the synagogue primarily as a place of assembly and location for reading and teaching Torah.33 In the New Testament, these activities are supplemented by

31For example, Runesson et al., A Sourcebook, where literary references are organized geographically by town. Levine, The Ancient Synagogue, divides the literary evidence chronologically (pre-70 and post-70) and geographically (Palestine and Diaspora), although it is used throughout as relevant, e.g. rabbinic material to discuss the pre-70 Diaspora (91-96). 32See also Juvenal, Satires III. 296. 33According to Levine, The Ancient Synagogue, 91, Philo uses the term proseuche in his writings 19 times, in Flaccus and Embassy to Gaius, and uses synagoge twice: On Dreams 2.147 and Embassy 311. More specifically, according to Günter Mayer, Index Philoneus (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1974), 267, Philo uses the term συναγωγή three times: in Posterity of Cain 67 and On Husbandry 44 to refer to the assembly of the Israelites and in Every Good Man is Free 81 to refer to the Essene’s place of assembly for reading and study of Torah. Συναγώγιον is the term used in On Dreams 2.147 and Embassy 311. In the latter reference the synagogue is the place where Jews assemble, while in the former it is, more specifically, a place for Jews to sit together to read and explain the philosophy of their ancestors. It is interesting that in the 19 uses of proseuche, the context is almost always on Roman regulation, desecration, destruction, or protection of the structure in question, the exception being Embassy 156, in which training in philosophy is said to occur in proseuchai. Josephus uses synagoge three times each in Jewish Antiquities and Jewish War: in the former while telling the story of the desecration of a synagogue with a statue of Caesar (19.300-305); in the latter first to describe the conflict and subsequent profanation of the synagogue at Caesarea (2.285-289) and also in describing the restitution made by the heirs of Antiochus IV to the synagogue at Antioch (7.44). It is interesting that Josephus uses proseuche in Life 1.277-293 to describe the large meeting hall in which the citizens of Tiberias met to discuss the revolt. His other references to proseuchai are in Antiquities 14.258 and Against Apion 2.10, each of which refers to an outdoor place of prayer; a usage that parallels 12 a few others. In Matthew 6:2 and 6:5, Jesus warns against giving charity and praying in public places like the synagogue and the street corner. While the latter example might be cited as evidence for prayer as a regular facet of first century synagogue activity, its pairing with the street corner argues against the synagogue being more than an example of a public location in these passages. Concern with the synagogue as a public place is also evinced by references to those who desire the “chief seats” therein.34

In contrast to Philo, Josephus, and, to a lesser extent, the New Testament authors, later literary sources like rabbinic writings, patristic literature and Roman legislation can be seen as having more of an outsiders’ view of synagogue activities. As many have observed, the most notable feature of the early sages’ attitudes towards the synagogue is their seeming lack of involvement.35 These observations run counter to earlier assumptions that the post-70 CE Yavneh circle arranged and ran the synagogue under their purview as part of an organized and deliberate religious retrofitting of post-Temple

Judaism.36 The heterogeneity and geographical spread of synagogues as well as the disparate attitudes towards synagogues evinced among the rabbis argues for caution in taking their comments as uniformly descriptive of synagogue practice.37 Only in the

interestingly the references in Acts 16:13-16:16 of Paul expecting to find a place of prayer by the riverside in Philippi. 34See Mark 12.39; Matthew 23:6; Luke 11:43, 26.46. The other most frequent activities the New Testament purports to occur in synagogues are judgment, imprisonment, and beatings, see Mark 13:9; Matthew 10:17, 23:34; Luke 12:11, 21:12; Acts 22:19, 26:11. Paul’s reference in Acts 22.19 to imprisoning Christians in synagogues, if accurate, is very interesting. 35Erwin Goodenough’s study Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period, 13 vols. (New York: Pantheon, 1953-1968) launched this theory, which has been articulated most forcefully by Seth Schwartz, Imperialism. As noted above, n. 22, Michael Satlow has characterized this position as one which has achieved scholarly consensus. 36See, for example, Gedalia Alon, Jews, Judaism, and the Classical World (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1977). 37See Levine, The Ancient Synagogue, 466-498, as well as the following studies: Morton Smith, “Palestinian Judaism in the First Century,” in Moshe Davis (ed.), Israel: its Role in Civilization (New 13 fourth century CE does the preponderance of evidence suggest that any significant number of rabbis were involved in synagogue activities and it is not until the medieval period that the relationship between sages and synagogue administration becomes axiomatic.

If the rabbis are considered synagogue outsiders, the comments in patristic writings and Christian imperial legislation regarding synagogue activities are at least another large step away. The church fathers engage synagogues most often in the performance of anti-

Jewish polemic.38 In this context, synagogues stand as architectural representations of anti-churches, where Jews sought to entice Christians away from true faith, as represented spiritually by the Church and physically by churches.39 The Theodosian Code gives provisions for protection of synagogue buildings and freedom of worship, so long as that worship does not include sacrifice or affronts to Christianity.40 In doing so, those aspects of Judaism recognized as significant by Christians are codified: buildings, worship, clergy. In this way, the Theodosian Code constructs the synagogue as a Jewish religious institution modeled upon the church and, consequently, defined by and controllable by Christians. The Theodosian Code thus offers a clearer picture of the

York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1956), 67-81; Lee Levine, The Rabbinic Class of Roman Palestine in Late Antiquity (Jerusalem & New York: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi & Jewish Theological Seminary, 1989); Stuart Cohen, The Three Crowns: Structures of Communal Politics in Early Rabbinic Judaism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990); Catherine Hezser, The Social Structure of the Rabbinic Movement in Roman Palestine (Tubingen, J..B. Mohr, 1997); Alexei Sivertsev, Households, sects and the origins of rabbinic Judaism (Leiden: Brill, 2005); Hagith Sivan, Palestine in Late Antiquity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008). 38See Robert Wilken, John Chrysostom and the Jews: Rhetoric and Reality in the Late Fourth Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983). For analysis of and extensive bibliography on conversion, proselytes, and god-fearers, see Kraemer, Unreliable Witnesses, 179-242. 39Chrysostom’s Adversus Iudaeos is the best example, and demonstrates as well the continuing attraction of Christians to synagogues. 40Codex Theodosianus 16.8. See Amnon Linder, The Jews in Roman Imperial Legislation (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1987).

14

Church’s perception of synagogues (and Judaism) than of synagogues themselves. As a whole, the later Christian sources offer little reliable information on synagogue activities.

This brief overview of the history of the early synagogue, debates regarding its origin and purpose, and the extant archaeological and literary evidence brought to bear in these debates highlights the highly contested nature of almost all aspects of early synagogue history. It is this complicated context in which title bearer inscriptions appear and in which they must be interpreted.

1.3: Title Bearer Inscriptions

Early interpretations

“Theodotus… priest and archisynagogos, son of an archisynagogos, grandson of an archisynagogos, built the synagogue…” Theodotus’ designation in this inscription is interesting for several reasons. First, the fact that Theodotus was both a priest and a head of the synagogue indicates that these offices were at the least mutually compatible.41

Second, Theodotus is the third of three men in his family to hold the position of head of the synagogue. This does not necessarily indicate an automatic heredity of office, but is noteworthy nonetheless. Third, if Theodotus was both a priest and a head of the synagogue, it is mostly likely his father and grandfather were also priests in addition to being heads of the synagogue, given the hereditary nature of Jewish priestly lines.

Therefore, although the date of the Theodotus inscription does not inform on whether

Theodotus built this particular synagogue before or after the destruction of the Temple, it is likely that his father and grandfather both served simultaneously as priests and heads of

41As noted by Jean-Baptiste Frey, (ed.) Corpus Inscriptionum Judaicarum II (Rome: Pontificio Istituto di Archeologica Cristiana, 1952), pg.334. On the subject of priests in post-Temple Jewish society see Matthew Grey, Jewish priests and the social history of post-70 Palestine (Ph.D. dissertation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2011).

15 the synagogue while the Temple was in operation. Last, to say that Theodotus built the synagogue is to say that he financed the synagogue. Did he do so in his capacity as priest? As head of the synagogue? Or simply as a wealthy Jewish individual in a capacity unrelated to either official role?

Nineteenth and early twentieth century studies of ancient Judaism interpreted

Theodotus’ title, head of the synagogue, and other title bearer inscriptions as evidence for the officers responsible for running the synagogue. Their various explications of the responsibilities incumbent upon officers are based primarily on interpretations of references to synagogue officials in rabbinic and Christian texts, as noted above.42 Thus,

Baron understands the synagogue to have been governed by the head of the synagogue, his assistant, the ḥazzan, the group secretary, or grammateus, and a council of elders, the gerousia, under their leader, the gerousiarch. Fathers of the synagogue and, sometimes, archons, are understood by Baron to be honorary officials.43 Krauss sees the offices of head of the synagogue, archon, and secretary as wielding substantial powers; the head of the synagogue in particular chooses the person to read and lecture on the Torah text and to oversee the building.44 Moore sees the head of synagogue as elected from among the elders and working with a salaried attendant to execute the necessary tasks.45 Schürer sees the elders as chiefly in charge of synagogue affairs, with officers delegated for

42 Brooten addresses the various literary exemplars of each title bearer in Women Leaders in the Ancient Synagogue (Chico: Scholars Press, 1982). 43Baron, Jewish Community, I.95-107. Heads of the synagogue are understood by Baron to have “maintained order, assigned seats, distributed honors, invited guest preachers, and, when necessary, cared for the building” (I.103). 44Krauss, Synagogale Altertümer, 112-137. Krauss separates synagogue officials, including the head of synagogue, ḥazzan, and cantor from synagogue counselors, such as the archon, gerousia, secretary, and gerousiarch (137-159). 45Moore, Judaism, I.289.

16 specific tasks.46 He views the head of the synagogue’s office, for example, as one restricted to supervision of worship activities and not indicative of authority over the synagogue as a whole.47 Juster emphasizes the regional variations in title usage, but generally divides offices into administrative and religious categories. To the former belong the elders, gerousiarch, and archons, along with the scribes, while the latter include the head of the synagogue, priests, the ḥazzan, readers, translators, and exegetes.48 Thus, although early scholars disagreed about the particulars, they are generally in agreement that title bearers functioned in a variety of leadership capacities within the early synagogue, albeit with little evidence to support their conclusions. The titles’ ambiguities lent themselves to broad spectrums of possibility, which include, but were not limited to administrative, logistical, liturgical, financial, spiritual, and social roles.

The “problem” of female title bearers

The general consensus regarding title bearers was challenged upon the realization that some titles were associated with women as well as men. For example, a fourth century

CE marble mortuary plaque from Crete reads, “Sophia of Gortyn, elder and head of the synagogue of Kisamos, lies here. The memory of the righteous one forever. Amen.”49

Some early scholars were not able to maintain their clear understanding of the

46Emil Schürer, History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ, rev. ed. Geza Vermes, Fergus Millar, Matthew Black and Pamela Vermes (eds.), (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1973-1979), II.431-433. 47Schürer, History, II.435. Frey appears to agree with this assessment in CIJ I. xcvii-xcix. 48Jean Juster, Les Juifs dans l’Empire Romain (New York: Burt Franklin, 1914), I.440-456. 49Anastasius Bandy, “Early Christian Inscriptions of Crete,” Hesperia 32 (1963), 227-247.

17 responsibilities and duties of title bearers when those bearers happened to be women. A variety of methods were engaged to explain this phenomenon.50

One explanation for female title bearers was that women held titles as a consequence of their marriages. Drawing parallels to contemporary Jewish traditions of calling a rabbi’s wife rebbetzin, some early scholars understood the titles bestowed upon women to reflect the offices held by their husbands. Thus Krauss said of female heads of synagogue in general that their titles “…can certainly not mean that they were clad with the dignity of a head of the synagogue… it is rather the wives of heads of the synagogue who are meant.”51

A problem with this explanation is that only four of the extant female title inscriptions include the woman’s husband. In two cases husband and wife have the same title, but in two other examples they bear different titles.52 One of the latter comes from Malta, where a catacomb inscription commemorates “[X], gerousiarch, lover of the commandments and Eulogia, the elder, his wife”.53 The second comes from Nocera Superiore in southern

Italy and records the funerary inscriptions of “Pedoneious, the scribe” and “Myrina, the

50Moore deals with the issue by ignoring it. Despite devoting several pages to women in his section on The Family and defending vigorously the legitimacy of his “digression,” Moore discusses title bearers only in their literary appearances and thus does not engage the question of female title bearers (Judaism, II.1218- 131). 51Krauss, Synagogale Altertümer, 118. Baron echoes this thought in Jewish Community, I.97. 52The two cases in which husband and wife seem to have the same title include JIWE I 166 from Venosa: “Here likes Faustina, mother, wife of Auxanios, father and patron of the city,” and JIWE II 251, which is very poorly preserved, and is reconstructed to reflect a married mother and father of the synagogue in Rome. 53Ross Shepard Kraemer, “A New Inscription from Malta and the Question of Women Elders in Diaspora Jewish Communities,” Harvard Theological Review 78 (1985), 431-438. This inscription was originally published in Antonio Ferrua, “Antichità cristiane: le catacombe di Malta,” La Civiltà cattolica (1949), 505- 515.

18 elder, wife of Pedoneious.” 54 The case of a possible infant head of the synagogue from

Cappadocia also argues against the suggestion that women’s title bearers were derived from their husbands.55 Moreover, there are numerous examples of male title holders named in inscriptions alongside untitled wives.56 The explanation that female title bearers received their titles by virtue of marriage to a functional office holder does not seem to fit the evidence.

A second, less specific, explanation for the presence of female title bearers is that their titles were honorary, in contrast to those of men, which were functional. As noted above, early scholars filled the void created by the paucity of information on the organization and administration of Late Antique synagogues with (male) title bearers. At the same time, their understanding of a uniform male-dominated rabbinic Judaism, established in the first century CE and continuing virtually unchanged to modern times, precluded any possibility that the titles bestowed upon women could be of the same quality as those bestowed upon men.57 For example, Schürer, after discussing the important responsibilities required of (male) heads of the synagogue, notes that archisynagogos “…seems also to have been applied just as a title, even to children and women.”58

54Bernadette Brooten, “Female leadership in the ancient synagogue,” in Lee Levine and Ze’ev Weiss (eds.), From Dura to Sepphoris: studies in Jewish art and society in Late Antiquity (Portsmith: Journal of Roman Archaeology, 2000), 215-223. 55IJO II 255; Brooten, “Female leadership,” 216. Walter Ameling, Inscriptiones Judaicae Orientis II: Kleinasien (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004), does not agree that the inscription refers to an infant, noting that Brooten’s reconstruction of the broken text of IJO II 255 relies upon its relationship with IJO II 257. The Nevşehir inscriptions are soon to be republished by Christine Thomas in Harvard Theological Review, which should clarify the status of this inscription. 56See, for example, JIWE I 351, JIWE I 266, IJO I Moes1, among many others. 57As noted by Kraemer, Unreliable Witnesses, 233. 58Schürer, History, II.435.

19

A gender-based dichotomy of meaning for title bearers held sway through the middle of the 20th century.59 Practical responsibilities and obligations were incumbent upon male title bearers, but the same could not be said for women. Regarding a third century CE mortuary inscription from Smyrna that names a woman, Rufina, as head of the synagogue, Frey observes, “It seems difficult to admit that she [Rufina] actually exercised the functions of a head of the synagogue.”60 The dichotomy of meaning predominated until developments in feminist scholarship led to a reconsideration of female title bearers and their role in the early synagogue.

Feminist Scholarship and the Rise of Women Leaders

Studies of women in antiquity appeared as early as the turn of the 20th century.61

Derived from Enlightenment ideals, “first-wave” feminist scholarship sought to demonstrate women’s social status by recovering women’s historical presence in public roles and demonstrating the significance of women’s domestic roles.62 The popularity of research on women increased during the 1960s and 70s, perhaps in response to the publications of Friedan’s Feminine Mystique and de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex.63 A

59Louis Robert, in Hellenica 1 (1940), 26-27, does not elaborate on his observation that Jewish women occasionally bore titles. 60IJO II 43; Frey, CIJ II, 11. 61See, for example, John Edgar, Noble dames of ancient story (Edinburgh: Gall & Inglis, 1870) and Knud Wieth-Knudsen, Understanding Women: a popular study of the question from ancient times to the present day (New York: E. Hold, 1929). Joseph McCabe, The Religion of Woman: an Historical Study (London: Watts, 1905) focuses primarily on women and Christianity. For studies on women in Classical Greece and Rome, see Frank Abbot’s essays, “Women and Public Affairs under the Roman Republic,” Scribner's Magazine 46.3 (1909), 357-366 and “Roman Women in the Trades and Professions,” Society and Politics in Ancient Rome: Essays and Sketches (New York: Scribner’s, 1909), 77-99; Helen Clees, A Study of Women in Attic Inscriptions (New York: Columbia University Press, 1920). 62Suzanne Spencer-Wood, “Feminist Gender Research in Classical Archaeology,” in Sarah Nelson (ed.), Women in Antiquity: Theoretical Approaches to Gender and Archaeology (Lanham: Altamira Press, 2007), 265-299. 63Betty Friedan, Feminine Mystique (New York: Norton, 1963); Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (New York: Knopf, 1953).

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“second wave” of feminist scholarship joined the first at this point, exploring the influence of patriarchy and emphasizing gender ideology and women’s resistance.64 Both waves of feminist theory have been and continue to be influential in the study of women’s title bearers, which are seen as representative of the broader question of women’s status in earliest Judaism and, by extension, Christianity.65

Questions about women’s status in first century CE Judaism and early Christianity have at times become competitive and controversial. In the 1970s and 80s, Christian and

Christian feminist theologians made efforts to reclaim for contemporary Christianity the perceived egalitarian basis of Jesus’ original movement. Although many of these scholars appropriately contextualized the Jesus movement within its Jewish setting, an inevitable dichotomy arose between a woman-friendly Jesus movement and a woman-restrictive

Judaism.66 Jewish feminist scholars were quick to respond to these characterizations: in their most extreme, responses included accusations of anti-Semitism, but more moderate voices answered with comparable studies of women’s status in early Judaism.67 These

64Suzanne Spencer-Wood, “Feminist theory and Gender research in Historical Archaeology,” in Nelson, Women in Antiquity, 29-74. 65See Alison Wylie, “Why is there no Archaeology of Gender?” in Joan Gero and Margaret Conkey (eds.), Engendering Archaeology (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991), 31-56 on the non-evolutionary nature and interrelatedness of these “waves.” 66Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza’s In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins (New York: Crossroads, 1984) is the classic articulation of the Christian feminist position, and although it does situate the Jesus movement’s perceived feminist impulse within a Jewish context, the proposed radical break with Judaism that Jesus is thought to have effected diminishes the force of this acknowledgement. Schüssler Fiorenza subsequently clarified her position and its implications for early Judaism in But She Said: Feminist Practices of Biblical Interpretation (Boston: Beacon Press, 1992). On the other hand, Leonard Swidler, Women in Judaism: the status of women in Formative Judaism (Metuchen: Scarecrow Press, 1976); Biblical Affirmations of Women (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1979) and Ben Witherington III, Women in the Earliest Churches (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988) draw stark comparisons between the freedom offered by Jesus and the restrictiveness of Judaism. 67Judith Plaskow, “Blaming the Jews for Inventing Patriarchy,” Lilith 7 (1980), 11-12. See Levine, “Second Temple Judaism,” and Tal Ilan, “Women’s Studies and Jewish Studies,” Jewish Studies Quarterly 3 (1996), 162-173 for two examples of Jewish responses to this controversy. See also Ilan, Jewish Women in Greco- Roman Palestine: an inquiry into image and status (Tübingen, J.C.B. Mohr, 1995). For an opposing view, 21 studies questioned the prevailing certainty of Judaism’s unilaterally restrictive treatment of women by reexamining non-canonical and other “unofficial” Jewish literature.68 The question of leadership, in particular, became a litmus test by which a religion’s original woman friendliness could be judged. A tentative truce appears to have been drawn, which recognizes the utility of each side for the other: women in both second/post-Temple

Judaism and early Christianity possessed a degree of freedom, status, and leadership potential during the formative years of their respective religions. These potentials were gradually eliminated by an increasingly rigid, androcentric, and even misogynist hierarchy and eventually forgotten or actively denied.

As mentioned above, part of the process to establish women’s status in Judaism and

Christianity involved investigation of alternative ancient sources which might preserve a more authentic, unaltered record of women’s place in history. Inscriptions fit the bill nicely. Bernadette Brooten’s 1982 monograph Women Leaders in the Ancient Synagogue redeemed Sophia of Gortyn, Rufina of Smyrna, and other female title bearers from being part of the problem to being part of the solution: Judaism allowed women to be leaders of the synagogue.

Brooten challenges the gender-based dichotomy of meaning ubiquitous in previous scholarship on title bearers. She argues that different meanings are ascribed to the same

see Léonie Archer, Her Price is beyond Rubies: the Jewish Woman in Graeco-Roman Palestine (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1990). 68As discussed in Levine, “Second Temple Judaism,” 13-20, including Cheryl Anne Brown, No Longer Be Silent: First Century Portraits of Biblical Women (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1992); Ross Shepard Kraemer, Her Share of the Blessings (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992); Betsy Halpern- Amaru, “Portraits of Women in Pseudo-Philo’s Biblical Antiquities,” in Amy-Jill Levine (ed.), “Women Like This”: New Perspectives on Jewish Women in the Greco-Roman World (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1991), 83-106; Eileen Schuller, “Women in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in Michael Wise et al. (eds.), Methods of Investigation of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Khirbet of Qumran site: Present Realities and Future Prospects (New York: Annals of the New York Academy of Science 772, 1993), 115-131.

22 title based on the sex of its bearer due to preconceived and unwarranted assumptions about women’s roles within early Jewish communities. If these assumptions are discarded, no reason remains to postulate one meaning for a title when given to a man and another for the same title when given to a woman. Read in this light, the inscriptions testify to the fact that women could stand as equals with men in the realm of synagogue leadership. Brooten’s study thus falls primarily within the paradigm of first-wave feminist theory, insomuch as it focuses on highlighting the heretofore neglected or discounted evidence for Jewish women in public, authoritative roles.69 Second-wave feminist thought is engaged only to the degree that Brooten sees subsequently developed gender ideologies and the increasingly patriarchal structure of Judaism serving to obscure women’s early positions of prominence in early Jewish communities, in collusion with traditional scholarship on the subject.70

In addition to disputing the basis upon which women’s titles were thought to derive from husbands, Brooten disputes the idea that a functional title could be used for honorary purposes.71 Following Preisigke, she claims that truly honorary titles, such as clarissimus (most distinguished) and spectabilitas (notable one) always had an honorary meaning whether applied to men or to women.72 Since Brooten agrees with earlier scholars that titles such as archon or archisynagogos are functional titles for their male bearers, she argues that they cannot be honorary when applied to women. Instead, they

69Preoccupation with women in positions of authority is characteristic of first-wave feminist theory as described by Spencer-Wood, “Feminist theory,” 36-37. 70Bernadette Brooten, “Early Christian Women and their Cultural Context: Issues of Method in Historical Reconstruction,” in Adela Collins (ed.), Feminist Perspectives on Biblical Scholarship (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1985), 65-91. 71Brooten, Women Officeholders, 7-8. 72The nominalization of spectabilis is a late form, appearing only in the Codex Justinianus.

23 imply the same degree of authority and practical responsibility when applied to both men and women. Brooten concludes that all title bearers should be viewed as functional without reference to the biological sex of the bearer. Following her history of scholarship and articulation of theoretical stance, the bulk of Brooten’s monograph is devoted to a catalogue of extant female title inscriptions organized according to title, with a discussion of complementary titles among men as well as the corresponding literary evidence for the use of each title. In each case, both male and female title bearers are credited with functional responsibilities for the organization and administration of synagogues, based on the understanding that what is functional in one place cannot be honorary in another.

Brooten’s adaptation of the earlier model, wherein functionality implies leadership and honor something less, continues to be the paradigm by which new inscriptions are evaluated, albeit with a new default conclusion: women (somehow) acted in a leadership capacity within the synagogue. The most recent example is a 2009 publication by Daniel

Stökl Ben Ezra of a funerary epitaph from Byblos.73 The inscription is only partially preserved, and reads, “May the pity of Adonai, my God, be on Sambathion, archontesse.

Year 416, Mars 30.” Having concluded that Sambathion was most likely a woman due to the yod-tav ending on the word archon, Stökl Ben Ezra comments that the next point to consider is whether she was an archon in her own right, or whether the title was honorific and derived from her husband.74 He concludes that there is insufficient evidence to make this determination, but leans towards the former possibility, given that, as he says, “…in

73Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra, “A Jewish ‘Archontesse’. Remarks on an Epitaph from Byblos,” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 169 (2009), 287-293. Earlier examples that follow the same paradigm include Kraemer, “A New Inscription from Malta,” and Bernadette Brooten, “Jael προστάτης in the Jewish Donative Inscription from Aphrodisias,” in Birger Person (ed.), The Future of Early Christianity (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991), 149-162. 74The name Sambathion is attested for both men and women, according to Stökl Ben Ezra, “A Jewish ‘Archontesse’,” 290.

24 some instances at least, women seem to have actually performed some leading functions.”75

Stökl Ben Ezra’s ambiguous conclusions regarding Sambathion are characteristic of the current state of research on women’s title bearers. Most scholars are willing to say that title inscriptions indicate women were doing something within the early synagogue, while several insist that these women were doing a very important something.76 As new inscriptions have added to the corpus of female title bearers over the past thirty years, each publication presents its inscription as further confirmation that earlier assumptions of women’s subordinate place in Judaism and Jewish society have been overturned.

State of the Question

Tessa Rajak and David Noy note that Brooten’s otherwise revolutionary study neither questions the basis upon which the functional responsibilities of title bearers had been established, nor challenges the binary functional/honorary terminology of the debate.77

Brooten’s assertion that both men’s and women’s titles were functional has no more solid basis or supporting evidence than did earlier scholars’ assumptions that women’s titles

75Stökl Ben Ezra, “A Jewish ‘Archontesse’,” 291. 76Tessa Rajak, “The Jewish Community and its Boundaries,” in Judith Lieu, John North, and Tessa Rajak (eds.), The Jews among Pagans and Christians (London: Routledge, 1992), 9-28 and James Burtchaell, From Synagogue to Church (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 244-246 reject women leaders in Brooten’s sense, although not for the same reasons. Levine, The Ancient Synagogue, 509-511 is tentative in his conclusions, while Matthew Collins, “Money, Sex, and Power,” in Peter Haas (ed.), Recovering the Role of Women (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992), 7-22 sidesteps the issue by discussing patronage without reference to titles. Paul Trebilco, Jewish Communities in Asia Minor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991) and Hannah Safrai, “Women and the Ancient Synagogue,” in Grossman and Haut, Daughters of the King, 39-50 support Brooten’s conclusions. 77Tessa Rajak and David Noy, “Archisynagogoi: office, title and social status in the Greco-Jewish synagogue,” Journal of Roman Studies 83 (1993), 75-93. William Horbury, “Women in the Synagogue,” in William Horbury, William Davies, and John Sturdy (eds.), The Cambridge History of Judaism v. 3 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 358-401, addresses some of the relevant issues, but does not offer satisfactory evidence for many of his rather dated conclusions, such as separation of sexes in synagogues, duties associated with various titles, and women’s primary participation in synagogue hymnody.

25 were honorary while men’s were functional.78 The argument that women’s titles must be functional since men’s were rests upon the unsubstantiated assumption that men’s titles were functional. As it is, there is simply too little information available to know what, if any, practical responsibilities or obligations were associated with the titles in question, regardless of the title bearer’s gender.

Given the absence of progress interpreting these inscriptions over the past thirty years, a re-conceptualized approach to the corpus as a whole is warranted. The continued enumeration of female title bearers brings us no closer to understanding how these and other title bearers functioned in early Jewish communities.79 Without disputing the importance of publishing newly discovered women’s title inscriptions, scholarship on title bearers in general and female title bearers specifically is trapped in a pattern in which, to quote feminist historian Elizabeth Clark, “…we retrieve another forgotten woman and throw her into the historical mix.”80

78Kraemer, Unreliable Witnesses, 237-238 observes that functionality might not have been as highly valued in antiquity as it is in modern times, and that honor derived from benefaction might have more effectively garnered the social cachet Brooten sought to obtain for ancient Jewish women by seeing them as administrative leaders. Many of the observations made by Kramer in Unreliable Witnesses, 232-241 correspond to my own, presented in the following conference papers: “Women leaders in the ancient synagogue: a reevaluation of the archaeological evidence,” Annual Meeting of the American Schools of Oriental Research (session: World of Women), November 2009; “What’s in a Title? Rethinking women’s leadership in the ancient synagogue,” Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting (session: Archaeological Excavations and Discoveries: Illuminating the Biblical World), November 2010; “If it’s good for the gander is it good for the goose? Gender and Representation in Title bearer Inscriptions,” Southeastern Conference for the Study of Religion (session: Women and gender in conjunction with material culture), March 2011; “‘Honor’ vs. ‘Function’: Challenging the terms of the debate on title bearers,” Philadelphia Seminar on Christian Origins. University of Pennsylvania, April 2011. 79This point is made eloquently in Riet van Bremen, The Limits of Participation: Women and civic life in the Greek East in the Hellenistic and Roman periods (Amsterdam: J.C. Gieben, 1996), 43, who notes that the enumeration of women with titles is offered frequently as evidence for significance: “that by showing quantity… we are somehow able to make a positive qualitative point: ‘therefore women must have been prominent’, or some such statement.” Italics in original. 80Elizabeth Clark, “The Lady Vanishes: Dilemmas of a Feminist Historian after the ‘Linguistic Turn’,” Church History 67.1 (1998), 1-31 (30).

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The pattern can be broken and progress renewed by establishing a new approach to analyzing title bearers, which incorporates both theoretical and methodological advances.

I will argue that title bearer inscriptions are not examples of women in leadership positions, but representations of women in leadership positions. Following this post- structuralist suspicion/dissolution of the subject, I rethink how, methodologically, to engage these inscriptions as textual, visual, and gendered representations of Jewish women by Jewish communities. Finally, I will discuss whether and how these representations of women can inform our understanding of Jewish women’s reality in early synagogues.

1.4: Theoretical Considerations

Examining historians’ theoretical responses to post-structuralist critical theory’s rejection of subject and history is one place to start developing a new theoretical approach to women’s title bearers. Studies on women in ancient Judaism are not always uniform or explicit in articulating their assumptions or outlook.81 I offer the following two examples to orient myself and the reader to the theoretical positions from which this book has been researched and written as well as the types of questions this project will ask and answer.

Elizabeth Clark has reflected on the effects of literary criticism’s linguistic turn on historians and their work on female subjects in particular.82 She notes that whereas the initial “discovery” of respected, authoritative female figures in male-dominated religious

81An excellent exception to this generalizing statement is Cynthia Baker, Rebuilding the House of Israel: Architectures of Gender in Jewish Antiquity (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002), which has been very influential in the conceptualization of this project. 82Elizabeth Clark, History, Theory, Text: Historians and the Linguistic Turn (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004). For another perspective on this encounter and possible responses to it, see Edith Hall, “Subjects, Selves, and Survivors,” Helios 34.2 (2007), 125-159.

27 roles was cause for celebration, the gradual realization of the representational nature of such figures has tempered expectations about their proving the empowerment of “real” women.83 Clark illustrates this point using the depiction of St. Macrina in the writings of her brother, Gregory of Nyssa. Gregory’s prominent, positive depiction of Macrina initially was lauded by feminist historians. Scholars have become increasingly aware, however, of the distinction between the historical Macrina and the textual Macrina. The former was a real woman whose reality is lost to modern scholars, whereas the latter is a representational character created by Gregory for specific uses in his text.84 This realization leads to more sobering conclusions regarding Macrina’s presence and prominence in the text, but also to more credible understandings of women’s roles in early Christianity. Clark’s critique of Macrina scholarship in light of post-structuralism’s desired elimination of the subject offers a way to rethink female title bearers, such as

Rufina of Smyrna and Sophia of Gortyn. Like Macrina, Rufina and Sophia are not the subjects they were once thought, but neither are they fictitious. As representational subjects, female title bearers can illuminate the ways in which ancient synagogues conceived and used gender in their public presentations of leadership.

In response to post-structuralism’s attempted dissolution of history into textuality,

Gabrielle Spiegel has formulated a stance by which literary text and historical context remain distinct but work in conjunction to create meaning.85 She argues that by heeding a text’s “social logic,” due diligence is given both to its contextual and discursive

83Clark, “The Lady Vanishes,” 30-31. 84Clark, “The Lady Vanishes,” 14-30; History, Theory, Text, 178-179. The trope of Macrina as a teacher of men was considered as particular vindication for women as early Christian leaders and officeholders. 85Gabrielle Spiegel, “History, Historicism and the Social Logic of the Text in the Middle Ages,” Speculum 65.1 (1990), 59-86.

28 dimensions as simultaneous product and agent of social construction.86 Moreover, if the discursive power of a text is to be understood, it should be examined within a historical context which, though distinct from the text itself, simultaneously establishes its significance: “Historians must insist… on the importance of history itself as an active constituent of the elements which themselves constitute the text.”87 The theoretical relationship between history and text articulated by Spiegel offers a corrective to the current practice of reading title bearer inscriptions as neutral records of historical fact.

Indeed, a robust skepticism toward archaeological and epigraphic sources is particularly important, as these sources are often heralded as straightforward and unequivocal in their depiction of “real” women in contrast to more bias-prone literary sources.88 Determining the “social logic” of title bearer inscriptions will involve renewed emphasis on the historical context of Jewish communities as the social location reflected in and generative of these titles.

Repositioning the theoretical stance from which to view title bearer inscriptions is the first step in moving the conversation in a productive direction. The insights developed by

Clark and Spiegel in response to post-structuralist challenges to subject and history offer three new positions from which to think about title bearers. First, the subjects of inquiry are, of necessity, representations rather than real people. This is not to say that Sophia of

Gortyn, for example, did not exist, but rather that the title inscription from which we

86Spiegel, “History,” 77-78. 87Spiegel, “History,” 83-84. 88Historians working with literature have been quicker to recognize the constructed nature of their source material compared to those working with documentary evidence, but recognition is growing that inscriptions too are social constructions. While both Spiegel and Clark seem skeptical about the applicability of their methods to non-literary sources, the post-modern expansion of the notion of text permits an exploration.

29 know her is a contextually specific representation of Sophia as head of the synagogue at

Kisamos. Second, title inscriptions participate in the construction of social meanings at the same time they purport to reflect those meanings. Again using Sophia as an example, her title inscription contributes to what it means to be a head of synagogue even as it describes Sophia. Third, the meaning of a title bearer is not fixed, but fluid and signified through the discursive exchange between text and historical context. For example,

Theodotus, Sophia, and the anonymous female infant from Cappadocia bear the title head of synagogue.89 The social logic of these texts would suggest that the title’s meaning is sufficiently fluid to allow all three individuals to be heads of the synagogue without necessarily implying that they were heads of the synagogue in exactly the same way. The significance of the term is mediated by each context in which it is invoked.

As an analysis of representation, this study inevitably distances and, perhaps, excises

Jewish women from its pages. Shaye Cohen has addressed a similar phenomenon in his work:

This book is about Jewish women, but is not about Jewish women. Jewish women are everywhere but nowhere in this book. The Jewish women who figure on every page are women as imagined, constructed, and classified by Jewish men… This book is not a history of women’s Judaism; it is at best a small contribution to the history of women in men’s Judaism.90

By applying to my own project Cohen’s observation that his study of Jewish women does not actually engage with Jewish women, I am, from the outset, inexorably delimiting the parameters of my conclusions. I cannot offer encouragement about how many Jewish women you will meet in this study or how much you will learn about them.

89Originally published in G. Mavridis, The scientific, literary, and technical illustrated almanac of 1913, especially for Anatolian Greeks, published by the ‘Papa Giorgios’ Association of the inhabitants of Nevşehir (1913), as referenced in Brooten, “Female leadership,” 216. 90Shaye J. D. Cohen, Why Aren’t Jewish Women Circumcised? (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), xii-xiii.

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My objective is, instead, to explore the ways in which Jewish women were imagined, constructed, and classified by Jewish men in early synagogue communities. While this approach may appear precipitate or overly negative, it is, perhaps, my attempt to restore balance to the discussion. However tempting it may be to see in the extant evidence positive implications for women, both ancient and modern, the historian’s job is to determine what is most probable rather than what is most appealing.91

1.5: Organization of the Study

Earlier studies focused on the inscriptions as an end unto themselves: examples of women leaders in the ancient synagogue. As noted above, this study will take a step back and focus on the inscriptions themselves: where and when do they appear; how and why do they represent women as bearing titles? Chapter Two addresses the questions of when and where female title bearer inscriptions occur. ChaptersThree and Four explore how inscriptions represent title bearers: textually and visually, respectively. Chapter Five discusses why inscriptions represent title bearing women by investigating the social locations of their creation and display.

Where and When?: Chapter Two

The questions of when and where female title bearer inscriptions occur are strangely absent from discussions of their meaning and significance. Studies of these inscriptions are most often organized according to title, grouping all the heads of synagogue together, all the elders separately, and so on. This organizational strategy risks obscuring potentially informative trends in the practice of title commemoration. Chapter Two

91Bart Ehrman, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction 4th ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 242-244 discusses the historian’s role as determining what is most probable in the context of miracles. I would argue that his observation is equally instructive here.

31 illuminates these trends by attending to the dates and locations in which title bearer inscriptions appear.

Dating inscriptions which do not include a date in their text can be quite difficult, and the vast majority of Jewish title bearer inscriptions make no reference to when they were inscribed. This study has benefitted from several new editions of Jewish epigraphic corpora from the eastern Mediterranean published in the last few decades, which constitute significant improvements on earlier publications from the early twentieth century.92 Although many inscriptions can be dated no more precisely than a span of several centuries, when examined as a group inscriptions in the small female title bearer corpus appear to cluster in the fourth and fifth centuries CE.

Whereas previous studies gave female title bearing a timeless, ahistorical character, diachronic analysis reveals a specific chronological context in which these inscriptions are located. The fourth and fifth centuries witnesses a significant degree of religious upheaval as Christianity began its ascendency to cultural and social dominance in the eastern Mediterranean. Identifying this social location of inscriptions’ production becomes important in Chapter Five, as the question of why title bearing women were commemorated in inscriptions is addressed.

The geographic locations in which title bearer inscriptions appear have likewise been of minimal concern in studies which address the question of women’s leadership.

Immediately striking, when such an analysis is conducted, is the diversity of places in

92William Horbury and David Noy, The Jewish Inscriptions of Graeco-Roman Egypt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992); David Noy, Jewish Inscriptions of Western Europe v.1-2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993-1995); David Noy, Alexander Panayotov, and Hanswulf Bloedhorn, Inscriptiones Judaicae Orientis I: Eastern Europe (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004); Ameling, IJO II; David Noy and Hanswulf Bloedhorn, Inscriptiones Judaicae Orientis III: Syria and Cyprus (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004).

32 which these inscriptions are found. Although many are located in Rome and other urban areas, as might be expected, others come from small, isolated villages in remote areas.

Moreover, analysis of inscriptions’ locales reveals a variety of geographic trends in the usage of specific titles. When mothers and elders are separated, for example, it is not clear that these two titles were the most popular in Italy, whereas examples of Italian female heads of the synagogue are non-existent. The diversity in title usage indicates regional variations in practice that challenge notions of uniformity among Jewish populations across the Mediterranean.

Locating title bearer inscriptions in time and space is a first step in understanding how these inscriptions functioned within Jewish communities and what they intended to convey regarding women and their roles in ancient synagogues. Chapter Two demonstrates that inscriptions cluster in times and locations of religious diversity and interaction. With their geographical and chronological contexts ascertained, subsequent chapters can address how and why women are represented as title bearers in these inscriptions.

Inscriptions as Text: Chapter Three

The importance of genre for recognizing conventions, assumptions and silences in texts is widely acknowledged.93 Nonetheless, monographs which make substantive use of inscriptions as source material are rarely grounded in the context of epigraphy as a genre.94 When genre does come up in discussions of title bearers, it is usually invoked to

93See John Frow, Genre (New York: Routledge, 2006), 2, who notes that the assumption of genres as fixed categories to which texts belong must be rejected in favor of genres as organizational structures that create and signify knowledge. 94Compare, for example, Ute Eisen, Women officeholders in early Christianity: epigraphical and literary studies (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2000) with Jason Moralee, “For Salvation’s Sake”: Provincial 33 make a distinction between literature or higher genres of writing, on the one hand, and documentary or lower genres, on the other, wherein the former is susceptible to bias and historical revisionism while the latter preserves a more authentic, straightforward record of the past.95 Operating under this set of assumptions, inscriptions are excused from the sort of critical analyses that are de rigueur for other types of sources.

Rejecting the inherent authenticity/transparency of epigraphic evidence, Chapter

Three entails an analysis of inscriptions as a specific textual genre. The chapter begins by exploring some of the pitfalls specific to epigraphic texts, such as “history from square brackets” and epigraphic bias, which demonstrate potential ways in which inscriptions can be unintentionally misused in scholarship.96 The phrase “history from square brackets” derives from the epigraphic convention of placing hypothetical reconstructions of damaged or missing sections of texts in square brackets for publication. When these conjectural readings are instead taken as fact and used to build an argument, their original hypothetical character is overlooked.

Epigraphic bias refers to the unwitting distortion created by reliance upon inscriptions as evidence for historical facts, particularly in cases where other types of sources are silent.97 Inscriptions are narrowly bound in what they do and do not say by convention and local custom. Epitaphs in particular are susceptible to epigraphic bias, insomuch as

Loyalty, Personal Religion, and Epigraphic Production in the Roman and Late Antique Near East (New York: Routledge, 2004), who pays more than lip service to consideration of his source material’s genre. 95Spiegel, “History,” 76 discusses “literary” and “documentary” texts, as does Clark, “The Lady Vanishes,” 14-15; 18, while Eisen, Women officeholders, 19-20 and Brooten, “Early Christian Women,” 87-91 make the qualitative distinction. 96This phrase was coined by Ernst Badian, “History from Square Brackets,” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 79 (1989), 59-70. 97John Bodel, “Epigraphy and the Ancient Historian,” in John Bodel (ed.), Epigraphic Evidence: Ancient history from inscriptions (New York: Routledge, 2001), 1-56.

34 the facts convention and custom choose to commemorate are not always unmediated reflections of social realities. This section will examine the ways in which epigraphic bias might influence interpretation of title bearer inscriptions.

Chapter Three continues with a discussion of ancient literacy and the question of how inscriptions as texts functioned in a highly illiterate society. Mary Beard introduced the notion of symbolic epigraphy, which refers broadly to the extra-textual meanings conveyed by inscriptions in a variety of ways.98 Contrary to modern expectations, the act of writing is not always done with the primary purpose of conveying information to a reader. Some writing is intended to be ornamental, for example, while in some cases the act of writing is itself efficacious, with the product being of little importance.99 The bulk of extra-textual analysis of inscriptions will occur in Chapter Four, but this section will serve as a transition, in that it will address the symbolic use of title bearer inscriptions’ words as performative, decorative, and evidentiary texts.

The final section of the chapter will address the specific locations in which inscriptions are found. Epigraphic rhetoric describes the process by which short, standardized inscriptions utilize prescribed formulas to convey broader concepts.100 The inscriptions in which title bearers are found are formulaic and most often fall into one of two general categories: epitaphs and dedicatory inscriptions. This section will organize

98Mary Beard, “Writing and Ritual: A Study of Diversity and Expansion in the Arval Acta,” Papers of the British School at Rome 53 (1985), 114-162. 99Bodel, “Epigraphy,” 19-30. 100The rhetorical character of inscriptions is discussed by Edwin Judge, “The Rhetoric of Inscriptions,” in Stanley Porter (ed.), Handbook of Classical Rhetoric in the Hellenistic Period 330 BC-AD 400 (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 807-828, who focuses on how epigraphic rhetoric creates a dialogue between reader and writer.

35 extant title bearer inscriptions according to type and investigate the rhetorical characteristics of each type of inscription to determine the meanings behind the words.

Inscriptions as Image: Chapter Four

Historians overwhelmingly favor texts as source material for constructing history.101

The word itself is used to define social progression: societies with textual records have history, while those without are pre-historic. Title bearer inscriptions are texts, as Chapter

Three discusses. In fact, it is their textual nature which receives the lion’s share of attention in scholarship: the value of title bearer inscriptions rests in what they say. In addition to this textual nature, however, and often overlooked, is the material nature of inscriptions. Inscriptions are artifacts –examples of material culture – in addition to being textual sources. When an inscription is transcribed onto a page in a book, even if accompanied by a photograph or line drawing, an incomplete impression is made that prioritizes the textual over the material. Chapter Four, therefore, uses the lens of visual representation to discuss the materiality of title bearer inscriptions.

This visual analysis occurs in two parts. First, it is necessary to balance the attention that has been paid to inscriptions’ textuality by exploring their materiality. The inscriptions’ execution ranges from finely chiseled in marble to sloppily scrawled in red paint on plaster. Some are decorated with symbols while others are plain. Their location varies from prominent display on a synagogue chancel screen to obscurity in the dimly lit passages of catacombs. Some are found in urban centers while others are located in

101See, for example, the exclusive reliance on textual sources by Moses Finley, The Roman Economy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973) and the challenge to this approach by Kevin Greene, The Archaeology of the Roman Economy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986). On the contribution of material culture to the construction of history and study of religion, see Marie Louise Stig Sørenen, “Gender, Things, and Material Culture,” in Nelson, Women in Antiquity, 75-106 and Colleen McDannell, Material Christianity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), respectively.

36 isolated villages. While these aspects of title bearer inscriptions are noted in the literature, they are not often discussed. Therefore a physical analysis of title bearer inscriptions, focusing on their materiality and execution will serve to balance the distinct emphasis given to textuality in historical construction.

Second, with the results of this analysis, I will assess title bearer inscriptions’ impact as visual representations by discussing the various images and symbols incorporated into inscriptions. This assessment will involve techniques borrowed from visual culture studies as well as reception theory in its attempt to determine how the “how and where” of inscriptions would have affected their original audience.102 For modern eyes, inscriptions’ words stand out automatically as their most informative and readily meaningful aspect. The literacy rate in Late Antiquity, however, is estimated to be as low as ten percent.103 Given the overwhelming illiteracy of the society in which they were created and displayed, inscriptions’ words were likely not their most informative characteristic. Title bearer inscriptions must have communicated visually as well as textually. Therefore, an analysis of the non-textual aspects of title bearer inscriptions is necessary to understand whether and how they succeeded as visual representations of

Jewish women.

Women and Leadership: Chapter Five

102David Morgan, The Sacred Gaze: Religious Visual Culture in Theory and Practice (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005) pioneers the application of visual culture studies to religious topics. This chapter will also engage many of the non-verbal aspects of Beard’s notion of symbolic epigraphy, as well as classical and art historical adaptations of reception theory, as found in Jaś Elsner (ed.), Art and Text in Roman Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), for example. On aurality in Judaism, see David Stern, “The First Jewish Books and the Early History of Jewish Reading,” Jewish Quarterly Review 98.2 (2008), 163-202. 103Schwartz, Imperialism, 10-11.

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Chapter Five turns back to the question of women leaders in ancient synagogues, both to question the question as well as to answer it. Against the inclination in earlier studies to isolate titled women, separating them from titled men, Chapter Five seeks to integrate the phenomenon of title bearing and explore how both men and women came to be represented as title bearers in inscriptions.104 This examination will occur in two parts: first, to challenge definitions of leadership which presume conditions of domination and control and to question the universality of individualism and autonomy as innate human values; second, to suggest that a broader definition of leadership opens new opportunities to recognize ways that Jewish women contributed to the well-being of their communities on both practical and representational levels.

In her analysis of civic inscriptions of the Greco-Roman east, van Bremen observes that while independence is a modern criterion for assessing status and authority, it is anachronistic when applied to antiquity: “…we need to understand the status, the roles and the civic activities of women within the context of the families to which they belonged. In other words, not ‘independence from’ but its diametrical opposite

‘belonging to’ is the criterion we should be applying when measuring status and power.”105 Van Bremen’s own approach eschews the valuation of independence in favor of analyzing the social and familial contexts of specific women and drawing conclusions from those analyses. Her conclusions are instructive for the study of women title bearers:

104For brief introductions on the history of thought on gender and sexuality, see, respectively, David Glover and Cora Kaplan, Genders (New York: Routledge, 2009) and Joseph Bristow, Sexuality (New York: Routledge, 2011). On the fact that studying gender does not simply mean talking about women, see Sarah Nelson (ed.), Women in Antiquity: Theoretical Approaches to Gender and Archaeology (Lanham: Altamira Press, 2007), vii; Elizabeth Brumfiel, “Methods in Feminist and Gender Archaeology,” in Nelson, Women in Antiquity, 1-28, esp. 4-5. 105van Bremen, Limits of Participation, 45 contra Sarah Pomeroy, Goddesses, whores, wives and slaves: women in classical antiquity (New York: Schocken Books, 1975).

38 greater attention should be devoted to the social circumstances in which inscriptions were created and displayed.

For many studies of title bearer inscriptions, the importance of female title bearers rests in their being recognized as the fully autonomous equals of men in the leadership of the synagogue. Such recognition requires acceptance of several anachronistic and culturally dependent presuppositions regarding conceptualizations of leadership, autonomy, and status within Jewish communities. Rather than assume that Jewish women in Late Antiquity wanted for themselves what late 20th and early 21st century educated western women would want in their places, this chapter will begin by questioning the universality of women’s desire for individuality and autonomy. This destabilization will engage a modern example to demonstrate the tenuous nature of these assumptions: women leaders of Egypt’s contemporary piety movement. Saba Mahmood’s research on women’s participation in and support of Islamist movements reveals women asserting themselves within male-dominated power structures, but with the goal of supporting the very discursive strategies that normalize and reify their subordination.106 Rather than locating agency in political and moral autonomy, as western feminist scholarship tends to do, she suggests that, “…the meaning of agency must be explored within the grammar of concepts within which it resides.”107 This insight encourages a reconsideration of the a priori conclusion that female title bearers accrued, or even sought to accrue, equal power, authority, and responsibility within the synagogue community.

106Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety: the Islamic revival and the feminist subject (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005), 4-5. 107Mahmood, Politics of Piety, 34.

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Chapter Five will argue that whatever else title bearers did, they provided financial support to their synagogue.108 This conclusion does not preclude the possibility that additional responsibilities were incumbent upon title bearers, including women, but we do not and cannot know what those responsibilities might have been.109 Building on the discussion of Greco-Roman euergetism and patronage in Chapter Three, Chapter Five explores the Jewish adoption and adaptation of these social practices and their implications for the range of opportunities available for women to participate and to contribute as members of their communities.

In his recent monograph, Seth Schwartz explores the question of how Jewish communities reacted and adapted to Roman social systems founded on concepts of reciprocal exchange, given, as he notes, that the Hebrew Bible prioritizes solidarity over reciprocity in intra-human relationships.110 His discussion makes two points clear. First, honor was held as a socially functional commodity, even among conservative Jewish circles deliberately resistant to Roman values. Second, Jewish epigraphic memorialization was recognized, even among those who disapproved of it, as functioning within a Roman style system of euergetism. Disapproval implies recognition that reciprocity had become part and parcel of the synagogue institution. Schwartz’s study supports the notion that all Jewish communities were influenced to one degree or another by the values of institutionalized patronage. Again, the focus upon women as patrons is not intended to imply that this is all Jewish women did or could have done within synagogue communities, but it is the one activity for which there is evidence.

108A position that Brooten herself appears to adopt in “Jael προστάτης,” although she backs away from emphasizing women as donors in her later article, “Female leadership.” 109Kraemer, Unreliable Witnesses, 236. 110Schwartz, Mediterranean Society.

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In their study of the title head of the synagogue, Tessa Rajak and David Noy have argued convincingly for similarities between the early synagogue institution and voluntary associations.111 Roman voluntary associations were flexible, socially legitimizing organizations, uniting people according to craft, employer, affiliation with a particular deity, or other common interest. Using voluntary associations as a model, synagogues, particularly in the Diaspora, were able to fit into the Roman social system in a comprehensible manner.112 Synagogue communities awarded titles in exchange for financial patronage in a manner similar to Greco-Roman practices. Thus, titled individuals, men and women, acted as financial leaders in their communities.

Chapter Five concludes by returning focus to the subject of inscriptions and why the display of titles became an important cultural practice among Jews in the fourth and fifth centuries. I suggest that during this period of religious competition between Judaism and

Christianity, both groups used inscriptions as a means of articulating specific modes of self-definition. While Christians chose to emphasize their expectations for eternal life and hope in the resurrection, Jewish inscriptions celebrated lifetime achievements, including titles awarded to them as benefactors.

The goal of this study is to reinvigorate the subject of women’s roles in ancient synagogues, to challenge some of the assumptions and preconceptions that have influenced the field, and to encourage new and diverse methodologies and theoretical

111Rajak and Noy, “Archisynagogoi,” 84-87. See also Peter Richardson, “An Architectural Case for Synagogues as Associations,” in Birger Olsson and Magnus Zetterholm (eds.), The Ancient Synagogue: From its Origins until 200 C.E. (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 2003), 90-117. See also Margaret Williams, “The Organization of Jewish Burials in Rome in light of Evidence from Palestine and the Diaspora” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 101 (1994), 165-182. 112A familiarity that is attested by non-Jewish patrons of synagogues, such as Julia Severa IJO II 168, Tation, IJO II 36, and Capitolina, IJO II 27. On whether the latter two are Jewish, see Levine, The Ancient Synagogue, 509 and Trebilco, Jewish Communities, 157-158.

41 approaches to women, inscriptions, and the social world of early Judaism. Inevitably more questions will be raised than answered and undoubtedly some answers will be found unsatisfactory. The question of whether women were leaders in ancient synagogues requires a more nuanced answer than a simple yes or no.

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Chapter Two: Chronology and Geography

2.1: Introduction

Chapter Two will place the inscriptions memorializing female title bearers within their chronological and geographical contexts. Many studies of women’s title inscriptions present their data synchronically, organized according to title. This methodological choice is understandable, given that these studies are concerned specifically with titles.

At the same time, however, this method creates a misleading sense of uniformity among the inscriptions in question. The individuals in these inscriptions have several features in common, namely being Jewish, being women, and having titles, but they are also separated by wide variations in date and location. To assume a uniformity of meaning across the more than six centuries and thousands of miles in which title inscriptions occur presumes an untenable notion of a static “normative Judaism.” 113 This chapter organizes

113This phrase was coined by George Foot Moore, Judaism I, 125; contra Moore see Jacob Neusner, “The Demise of ‘Normative Judaism,’ a Review Essay,” Judaism 15 (1966), 230-240. The concept was rebranded “common Judaism” by Ed Sanders, Judaism. Practice and Belief. 63 B.C.E.-66 C.E. (Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1992). Neusner challenged Sanders’ conceptualization in a review article in the Journal of Jewish Studies 24 (1993), 317-323. The issue has become rather contentious, with Rutgers, Late Ancient Rome, 207-209 and Steven Fine, This Holy Place, 159, agreeing with Sanders that Jews throughout the Mediterranean had more commonalities than differences, while J. Andrew Overman, “The Diaspora in the Modern Study of Ancient Judaism,” in J. Andrew Overman and Robert MacLennan (eds.), Diaspora Jews and Judaism: Essays in Honor of, and in Dialogue with, A. Thomas Kraabel (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992), 63-78 and Michael White, Building God’s House in the Roman World: Architectural Adaptation among Pagans, Jews and Christians (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990) see Judaism as expressing wide diversity in the Diaspora. This debate, in my view, stems more from choice of analytical focus than from any correct understanding of a historical reality. If one is interested in finding commonalities between Jewish populations throughout the Mediterranean, there are many compelling illustrations; if one is interested in exploring differences between those populations, an equal number of cogent examples exist. Most recently, see Seth Schwartz, “How many Judaisms were there? A critique of Neusner and Smith on Definition and Mason and Boyarin on Categorization,” Journal of Ancient Judaism 2.2 (2011), 208-238. the corpus according to a variety of criteria to discern patterns in title usage over time and space.

In her study on Jewish populations in Roman North Africa, Karen Stern argues convincingly for prioritizing regional analyses over pan-Mediterranean comparisons, specifically in the evaluation of archaeological material.114 This chapter adopts her view that Diaspora Jewish populations are more likely to share social and cultural practices with their geographically and chronologically proximate neighbors than with their spatially and temporally distant co-religionists. This is not to say that pan-Jewish and pan-Mediterranean comparisons have no utility, but rather that their use should wait until more local analyses fail adequately to explain similarities or differences in practice.115

This chapter is complicated by the mutually awkward, if not entirely incompatible tasks of cautioning the reader about paucity of data sets, uncertainties in interpretation, vagaries of archaeological discovery, and difficulties in establishing dates on the one hand, and presenting conclusions based on these problematic factors on the other.

Wariness and skepticism are necessary. At the same time, this project seeks to think imaginatively and untraditionally about a known and oft-cited corpus. Creativity and innovation are necessary. The most tenable solution to this quandary is to remain relatively skeptical about my conclusions. If my analysis suggests a conclusion, I will make it and move on. Basing additional conclusions upon the first would create an increasingly hypothetical house of cards: potentially persuasive, but not verifiable.116

114Karen Stern, Inscribing Devotion and Death: Archaeological Evidence for Jewish Populations of North Africa (Leiden: Brill, 2008), xiii-xiv. 115Stern, Inscribing Devotion, 156. 116As Chapter One discussed, the piling up of unwarranted conclusions has long characterized the study of title bearer inscriptions. The hypothesis that male title holders were administrative and/or religious leaders of synagogues was supported by minimal data. When the question of female title bearers arose, the 44

This chapter contains three main sections. To begin, the categories usually thought to unite female title bearer inscriptions – religion, gender, and title – are not as clear cut as they seem.117 The first section of the chapter complicates the ways in which the corpus is delineated by exploring how “Jewishness,” gender, and titles are determined and articulated in secondary literature. Turning to the elements known to divide, the chapter focuses its second and third sections on chronological and geographical analyses, respectively. Each section will address the problems inherent to temporal and spatial analysis, organize and present the data chronologically and geographically, analyze the corpus in its new configuration, and offer contextual information to aid in the interpretation of these inscriptions in time and space.

2.2: Religion, Gender, and Title

This study was introduced as an analysis of inscriptions in which Jewish women of antiquity are represented as holding a variety of titles thought associated with synagogue leadership. Yet, the categories “Jewish,” “women,” and “title,” are not as self-evident as they initially appear. The following brief examination reveals the tenuous nature of these seemingly stable analytical categories. My aim is not to contest the status of any female title bearers in this corpus of inscriptions, but rather to demonstrate the fragility of the categories by which they are classified.

Determining the “Jewish-ness” of inscriptions can at times be a matter of interpretation rather than certainty.118 In some cases, the inscription specifies that the

existence of male leaders was accepted uncritically as fact rather than hypothesis and used as the basis for the conclusion that women were also administrative and/or religious leaders. 117I use “gender” in this context to delineate between male and female: the two gender options acknowledged as available within the worldview of early Judaism. 118Michael Satlow addressed the issue of “Jewish” things in Jewish Marriage in Antiquity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001). In concluding that there was nothing particularly Jewish about the 45 individual named is a Jew, as in the case of Rufina and the anonymous female head of synagogue from Nevşehir.119 In other cases, the title provides sufficient indication of religious identity, such as the four women designated as mothers of synagogues.120 The otherwise Greek mortuary inscription of Faustina the elder from Venosa closes with

while Faustina the mother, also from Venosa, bears a family name known from a ,שלום prominent Jewish Venosan family.121 The inscriptions of Mazauzala and Gaudentia are decorated with numerous Jewish symbols.122 On a positive note, therefore, a variety of indicators are available that indicate Jewish identity.

At the same time, however, there are more ambiguous cases. Veturia Paulla, who became a proselyte to Judaism at the age of 70, was the mother of two synagogues, and is always included among lists of Jewish female title bearers.123 The inscription of Irene, a proselyte who died at age 3, calls Irene or her anonymous mother a “Judean Israelite,” which although seemingly straightforward is unattested in Jewish inscriptions.124 Instead,

“Israelite” is a designation found on two early Samaritan inscriptions at Delos.125 The

marriages of Jews in antiquity, he asks what we mean when describing anything as Jewish. He concludes that Jewishness is a consequence of Jews’ adoption of majority cultural ideologies coupled with unconscious reinscription of those ideologies with culturally distinct adaptations. This definition, Satlow admits, “...implies a certain superficiality of Jewish culture,” but is useful in many cases for thinking about how Jews accommodated themselves as minority populations (268). On the other hand, I do think that in more than a few cases, their adaptations were deliberate rather than unconscious. 119IJO II 43 and 255. Ross Kraemer, “On the Meaning of the term ‘Jew’ in Greco-Roman Inscriptions,” Harvard Theological Review 82.1 (1989), 35-53, argues that the explicit use of Ioudaia/Ioudaios indicates an individual who converted to Judaism. 120JIWE I 5; JIWE II 251, 542, 577. 121JIWE I 71 and 116. 122SEG 1201; JIWE II 11. 123JIWE II 577. 124JIWE II 489. 125IJO I Ach66 and Ach67. Kraemer, Unreliable Witnesses, 211 suggests that the phrase “Judean Israelite” could be understood as designating a Samaritan from Judea.

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“Jewish-ness” of this inscription is a matter of debate, so its inclusion in Jewish

Inscriptions of Western Europe II is understandable. Charitine the deacon, on the other hand, is a Christian convert of Samaritan origin, yet her inscription is included in

Inscriptiones Judaicae Orientis II.126 The ambiguity of religious identity in inscriptions is part of a broader discussion in the field.127 Acknowledging the instability of this category, the individuals featured in the 24 inscriptions I include in the corpus of female title bearer inscriptions can be considered Jewish with reasonable confidence.

The study of female title bearers came into being precisely because of the irrefutable evidence that in some cases women bore the same titles as men. Nevertheless, given the terse nature, poor preservation, inconsistent spelling, and gender-ambiguous names that characterize ancient Jewish inscriptions, determining the gender of the title bearers can prove difficult. For example, Simplicia’s gender, name, and title are almost entirely reconstructed, based on the preservation of the term ίνς (lover of [her] husband).

Theopempte was taken as a male head of synagogue by Goodenough, probably because the name does not appear elsewhere as a feminine name. Theopempte’s gender is clinched by the feminine possessive adjective in the phrase, “her son Eusebios.”128 In most cases, like the examples of “Jewish-ness” above, there are enough clues to make a clear determination whether a man or woman is featured in an inscription. A few ambiguous cases remain.

126IJO II 243. 127See discussions in Daniel Boyarin, Border Lines: The Partition of Judaeo-Christianity (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), Steve Mason, “Jews, Judeans, Judaizing, Judaism: Problems of Categorization in Ancient History,” Journal for the Study of Judaism 38 (2007), 457-512, Shaye Cohen, The Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999); Margaret Williams, “The Meaning and Function of Iudaios in Graeco-Roman Inscriptions,” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 116 (1997), 249-262. 128IJO II 25; Goodenough, Jewish Symbols v.2, 79. See Brooten, Women Leaders, 14.

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The name Sambathion is attested for both men and women.129 In the case of the

Sambathion inscription from Byblos, the determining factor is the form of the title archon. The inscription is in Hebrew, but the title is derived from Greek and

Noy and Bloedhorn interpret the term as borrowed and .[אר]כונית reconstructed as transliterated, in which case the tav is part of the word’s stem: archont-.130 More recently,

Stökl-Ben Ezra has challenged this reading. His reconstruction of this section of the inscription is the same as Noy and Bloedhorn, but he points out that the Aramaic form

with a tet rather than a tav transliterating ,ארכונטס derived from the Greek ἄρχοντος is the Greek tau. Since the inscription preserves a tav rather than a tet, Stökl-Ben Ezra argues that the yod-tav ending represents a feminine singular ending on the shorter form

If his interpretation is correct, Sambathion’s female gender is confirmed. On the .ארכון other hand, ancient inscriptions are rife with misspellings, and Stökl-Ben Ezra’s interpretation relies heavily on the accuracy of one ancient epigrapher. Sambathion’s status is, therefore, still in contention.

The example of Jael in the Aphrodisias inscription is likewise ambiguous. In Jael’s case, neither name, nor title, nor familial association is sufficient to determine whether the inscription memorializes a man or a woman. In each situation, both options are equally plausible.

129See Stökl-Ben Ezra, “A Jewish ‘Archontesse’,” n. 24. Jósef Tadeusz Milik, Recherches d’épigraphie proche-orientale I. Dédicaces faites par des dieux (Palmyre, Hatra, Tyr) et des thiases sémitiques à l’époque romaine (Paris: P. Geuthner, 1972), 68 interpreted the name as feminine. 130IJO III Syr30.

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Jael is most famously a woman’s name, by virtue of the heroine in Judges 4.131 Even so, in their publication of the Aphrodisias inscription, Reynolds and Tannenbaum argue that the Jael in this inscription is most likely male. They point to the use of this form of the name in the Septuagint passages Ezra 10:43 and, perhaps, 10:26.132 Their argument that no other women are named in the Aphrodisias inscription, making it unlikely that this Jael would be a woman, is not convincing. Ameling argues that the name is flexible, and can be given to both men and women interchangeably.133 Jael’s name is not helpful in determining gender.

In Jael’s case, the form of the title προστάτης is masculine: the expected feminine form would be προστάτις, as is found in Romans 16:1 describing Phoebe the deacon.

There are numerous cases of women bearing titles that remain grammatically masculine:

Rufina the ἀρχισυνάγωγος is the best known example.134 The form of the title does not, therefore, offer conclusive evidence regarding Jael’s gender.

Moreover, unlike Theopempte, the inclusion of Jael’s son in the Aphrodisias inscription does not provide any additional clue regarding her gender. Jael’s inscription does not include a personal pronoun, but rather reads, “σὺν υἱῷ Ἰωσούᾳ.” Without the inclusion of αὐτοῦ or αὐτῆς, there is no way to determine if Iosua donated together with his father or his mother at Aphrodisias.

131The case for Jael being a woman was made most forcefully by Brooten, “Jael προστάτης,” and responses remain mixed. 132Reynolds and Tannenbaum, Jews and Godfearers, 101. 133Ameling, IJO II, 92 “…theophore Namen, die aus Aussagen über Gott entstanden, können von Männern und Frauen getragen werden; selbst Feminina konnten als maskuline PN benutzt werden – und umgekehrt: and is therefore not ע Sicherheit ist hier ohne Kontext selten zu erzielen.” In Hebrew, Jael is spelled with a theophoric. I am grateful to Laura Lieber for pointing out Ameling’s misinterpretation of the transliterated name. 134IJO II 43.

49

Neither name, nor title, nor parental status provide any conclusive evidence on whether Jael was a man or a woman. Again, the goal here is not to cast doubt on Jael specifically. Rather, I mean to emphasize that even in relatively informative inscriptions, the identification of a title bearer’s gender is not always possible.

Finally, determining which titles to include in a study of this kind is fraught with uncertainty. Without being able to know what, if any, activities were incumbent upon title bearers, it is difficult to know where to set the study’s parameters. “Priest” and “mother” are two titles whose place among title bearer inscriptions is questionable: the former could be no more than an indication of lineage, while the latter could have nothing to do with the Jewish community per se.

The term “priest” is associated with title bearers as far back as the earliest epigraphic evidence: Theodotus was a priest and a head of the synagogue. The three inscriptions which name Jewish women as priestesses are, therefore, suggestive and have led to speculations that priestesses might have played an official role, if not in the Temple, then perhaps in the synagogue.135 Horbury and Noy argue that the term “priest” refers to hereditary status in the priestly line, at least where it appears in Egypt, even when it identifies men.136 Similar conclusions predominate in discussions of the term’s use in the

Diaspora and in post-70 CE Palestine. At the same time, however, recent scholarship has argued for priestly involvement in Late Antique synagogues.137 While the emphasis has

135JIGRE 84, JIWE II 11, and CIJ 1007. Brooten, Women Leaders, 73-99 suggests these options along with the standard understanding of priestly lineage, and notes that there is no evidence against the former possibilities. 136Horbury and Noy, JIGRE, 158. 137See Grey, Jewish priests. See also Magness, “Heaven on Earth,” 1-52.

50 been on male priestly participation, the possibility of female priestly roles in synagogues cannot be ruled out.

The challenge of identifying the “Jewish-ness” of a title bearer was discussed above, and a similar difficulty exists in determining the “Jewish-ness” of a title. Take the example of “mother.” The longer title “mother of the synagogue” seems unambiguous, and the shorter version “mother” could, in Jewish contexts, be taken as an abbreviation of the same role.138 Brooten suggests, however, the equally valid interpretation of “mother” as a civic title associated with the broader community.139 For example, an inscription from Venosa reads: “Here lies Faustina, mother, wife of Auxanius, father and patron of the city.”140 Nothing about their titles suggests that Faustina and Auxanius were mother and father of the Jewish community specifically, and Auxanius’s additional title “patron of the city,” in fact, implies he held a role in the broader community of Venosa. The assumption is that a Jewish bearer of a non-specifically-Jewish title must have been prominent within the Jewish community as well as outside it, but the scope of Faustina’s and Auxanius’s titles cannot be determined. Including these titles within the study corpus prioritizes the “Jewish-ness” of the bearers over that of their titles.

The aim of this section is not to challenge the inclusion of any of the inscriptions typically cited among discussions of Jewish female title bearers. Removing the inscriptions of Sambathion, Jael, or Faustina would have little bearing on the broader discussion of how title inscriptions were used to signify women in Jewish communities.

138On penalties for murmuring against the Fathers and Mothers at Qumran, see Cecilia Wassen, Women in the Damascus Document (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 184-188. 139Brooten, Women Leaders, 62-63. van Bremen, Limits of Participation, Appendix 3 lists nine “Mothers” among the inscriptions in the eastern Mediterranean. 140JIWE I 116.

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Rather, my intent in this section is to demonstrate the vulnerability of the categories used to demarcate the subjects of study. “Jewish,” “women,” and “titles” are unstable classifications in large part because they constitute a reflection of modern, rather than ancient interests. As the chapter continues to questions of chronology and geography, it is with the acknowledgement that the female title bearer corpus is a modern construction that does not (necessarily) represent an ancient reality.

2.3: Chronology

Difficulties with Dates

As noted in Chapter One, the earliest epigraphic evidence for a title bearer and the earliest epigraphic evidence for the institution of the synagogue come from the same artifact: the first century CE Theodotus inscription from Jerusalem.141 It is impossible to identify a terminus post quem for disuse of title bearers in inscriptions, but some extant examples might extend as late as the seventh century CE.142 The chronological span for title bearer inscriptions is thus roughly the immediate pre-destruction or post-Temple period through Late Antiquity.

Within this span, more specific dates can be difficult to determine. Two female title bearer inscriptions contain an internal reference to date, but these references are not always as helpful as they appear. Marin’s inscription from Tell el-Yehoudieh reads in part, “In the third year of Caesar, Payni 13,” and has been dated to the Augustan era: 27

BCE.143 The inscription of Sambathion from Byblos, on the other hand, does not specify

141See Chapter One. 142Several inscriptions are given a wide range of possible dates, often spanning 3 centuries. The widest range of dates given among the current corpus of female title bearer inscriptions is that of Sambathion for which Stökl Ben Ezra “A Jewish ‘Archontesse’,” 289 n. 19 gives a range of 1st-7th centuries CE, depending upon how “year 416” in the inscription is interpreted. 143Horbury and Noy, JIGRE, 158. 52 the era used as a referent. Noy and Bloedhorn note that “…in the year 316, 30 March,” in

Sambathion’s inscription, could refer to 4 BCE, 253 CE, 385/6 CE, or 516 CE, depending on the era being used as a reference point.144 They assign the 4th century date to

Sambathion’s inscription, based in part on comparisons with the proximate inscriptions

Syr28 and Syr29 and the local use of the destruction of the Temple as an era. Stökl Ben

Ezra corrects Noy and Bloedhorn, noting that the inscription reads, “year 416” rather than

316.145 He notes that the possible dates are 96 CE, 353 CE, 484 CE, or 616 CE, but does not comment on which era the inscription is using. The most likely dates appear to be either 353 CE, using Noy and Bloedhorn’s comparison with Syr28 and Syr29, or 484 CE, following their observation of the Temple’s destruction as a locally popular era.146 As this example demonstrates, even inscriptions that carry chronological information can be difficult to date with certainty.

Most inscriptions, however, do not carry an internal date, and are assigned to a span of one or more centuries based on a variety of methods. Bodel notes that some of these methods are more tenuous than others.147 Particularly problematic, according to Bodel, is the use of letter-forms to date inscriptions. Absolute dates assigned to particular epigraphic trends are subject to continual revision, and local stylistic variations often defy broad generalizations. Methods used to replicate inscriptions, including squeezes, photographs, and drawings, can change the appearance of letters and mislead

144Noy and Bloedhorn, IJO III, 47. 145Stökl Ben Ezra “A Jewish ‘Archontesse’,” 289 n. 19. 146On the destruction of the Temple as an event used for dating purposes, see Paul Flesher, “When? After the Destruction of the Temple,” in Eric Meyers and Paul Flesher (eds.), Aramaic in post-Biblical Judaism and early Christianity (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2010), 55-66. 147Bodel, “Epigraphy,” 49-52.

53 interpreters.148 When present, onomastic practices and linguistic formulae offer better material for dating inscriptions, particularly, as Bodel notes, when they are used in combination.149 Without a large corpus of comparanda, however, this method is of limited utility. A combined approach, focusing on local practices, utilizing all possible factors, and proceeding with caution, will yield the most reliable results. Unfortunately, the method used to establish dates is often not made explicit in publication. This tendency leaves readers little option but to accept the proffered dates without knowing the basis upon which they were determined.

In the case of the 23 dated female title bearer inscriptions, when specific rationales for dating are offered they fall into three general, though related, types: letter forms, group association, and historical considerations.150 Four inscriptions among the corpus are dated explicitly according to letter forms.151 Eight more are dated by association with the larger burial areas in which they were found: the Monteverde and Vigna Randanini catacombs in Rome and the Venosa catacombs east of Naples. Two are dated on historical grounds by their use of specific terms.152 Five inscriptions are dated with no

148Bodel, “Epigraphy,” figs. 1.7, 1.8 , 1.9. 149Bodel, “Epigraphy,” 51. 150I have not found a date assigned to the inscriptions from Nevşehir, so the anonymous head of synagogue (IJO II 255) is not included in this analysis. Hopefully, Christine Thomas’s re-publication of these inscriptions will shed additional light on the date of these inscriptions. 151Those of Sophia (IJO I Cre3), Rufina (IJO II 43), Theopempte (IJO II 25), and Marcella (JIWE II 542). The inscriptions of Jael (IJO II 14A) and Myrina likely should be added to this category, but their dates are even more problematic: for Myrina, see below n. 159; for the ongoing debates about the dating of the Aphrodisias inscription, see Marianne Bonz, “The Jewish Donor Inscriptions from Aphrodisias: Are They Both Third-Century, and Who Are the Theosebeis?” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 96 (1994), 281-299; Angelos Chaniotis, “The Jews of Aphrodisias: New Evidence and Old Problems,” Scripta Classica Israelica 22 (2002), 209-242; Gary Gilbert, “Jews in Imperial Administration and Its Significance for Dating the Jewish Donor Inscription from Aphrodisias,” Journal for the Study of Judaism 35.2 (2004), 169-184; Dietrich-Alex Koch, “The God-fearers between Facts and Fiction: Two theosebeis inscriptions from Aphrodisias and Their Bearing for the New Testament,” Studia Theologica – Nordic Journal of Theology 60.1 (2006), 62-90. 152Peristera (IJO I Ach18) and Lady Mary (Beth She‘arim II 66). 54 indication of rationale.153 Inconsistencies in methods of dating and in reporting these methods lends credence to following Bodel’s suggestion “…to avoid expressing conviction where confidence is out of place.”154

It is beyond the scope of this study, as well as the expertise of this author, to challenge specific dates assigned to individual female title bearer inscriptions. Shifting some inscriptions’ dates by a century one way or the other will not have significant bearing on the study as a whole. Moreover, as in the preceding section, the goal here is to emphasize the uncertainty of this category of analysis, not to argue for an alternative certainty.

Data and Analysis

The chronology of women’s title bearer inscriptions can offer some insight, albeit tentative, into trends in representations of women’s titles. The following chart organizes female title bearer inscriptions according to date.155

Marin priest 1st c. (27) BCE Coelia Paterna mother of the synagogue 2nd-4th c. CE ...]ia Marcel[la] mother of the synagogue 3rd c. CE (?) Rufina head of the synagogue 3rd c. or later Peristera leader 3rd c. CE or later (?)

153Mazauzala (SEG 27 1201), Rebeka (IJO I Thr3), Veturia Paulla (JIWE II 577), Coelia Paterna (JIWE I 5), and Eulogia (JIWE I 163). Eulogia is a good example of the problem. Noy, JIWE I, 221, following Kraemer, “A New Inscription from Malta,” 431, following Ferrua, “Antichità cristiane,” 506, assign a 4th- 5th century date to the SS. Paul and Agatha catacombs without discussing the reasons why. Noy discusses why earlier dates assigned to the catacomb are wrong, but not why the later dates are correct. 154Bodel, “Epigraphy,” 51. 155These dates are taken from the most recent publications available, primarily JIGRE, JIWE I-II and IJO I- III. All markers of uncertainty (question marks and “or later”) are original in these sources, with the exception of Rufina’s “3rd c. or later,” which is my loose translation of Salomon Reinach, “Inscription grecque de Smyrne: la juive Rufina, ” Revue des études Juives 7 (1883), 161-166, as quoted in Ameling, IJO II, 188 “…nicht vor dem 3. Jh.,” in an effort to use consistent language. In many cases, these dates are significantly later than those offered in earlier publications, such as Frey’s CIJ I-II. Other sources that are used for dating information are noted.

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Simpli[cia] mother of the synagogue 3rd-4th c. CE (?) Veturia Paulla mother of the synagogue 3rd-4th c. CE Sara Ura elder 3rd-4th c. CE (?) Gaudentia priest 3rd-4th c. CE (?) Lady Maria priest 4th c. CE156 Sambathion leader 4th c. (353) or 5th c. (484) CE157 Eulogia elder 4th-5th c. CE Faustina mother 4th-5th c. CE (?) Sophia head of the synagogue and elder 4th-5th c. CE Jael benefactor 4th-5th c. CE Rebeka elder 4th-5th c. CE or later Mazauzala elder 4th-5th c. CE or later158 Myrina elder 4th-6th c. CE159 Theopempte head of the synagogue 4th-6th c. CE (prob. late) Mannine elder 5th c. CE Faustina elder 5th c. CE Beronikene elder 5th c. CE Alexsandra "fatheress" 5th-6th c. CE

Figure One With only 23 dated women’s title bearer inscriptions, it is difficult to make anything more than the most general of observations based on chronological factors. Nevertheless, several trends among specific titles emerge: 1) the “mother of the synagogue”

156This date is given in Brooten, Women Leaders, 76, who follows the explanation of Moshe Schwabe and Baruch Lifshitz, Beth She‘arim v. II: The Greek Inscriptions (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1974), 37-40. 157See discussion above. Dates offered in the chart follow Noy and Bloedhorn’s reasoning, but Stökl Ben Ezra’s translation of the inscription as year 416. 158Date is given in SEG XXVII (1977), 306-307. 159Marisa Conticello De’ Spagnolis, “Una testimonianza ebraica a Nuceria Alfaterna,” in Ercolano 1738- 1988: 250 anni di ricerca archeologica (Rome: «L’Erma» di Bretschneider, 1993), 243-252 describes Myrina’s tomb as belonging to the Late Roman or Late Imperial period, and notes paleographic similarities between the Nocera Superiore inscriptions and others in the Naples Museum dated to the 4th-5th centuries CE. Brooten, “Female leadership,” 218. describes Myrina’s inscription as 6th century. The discrepancy might have arisen from Brooten’s not having seen De’ Spagnolis’s publication, as noted by Brooten in n. 32.

56 inscriptions are all early, between the second to fourth centuries, although Faustina’s more general title of “mother” could be fifth century; 2) Sara Ura is the only “elder” whose inscription might extend as early as the third century; the remaining elders cluster in the fourth and fifth centuries; 3) the titles “head of the synagogue” and “priest” appear over the longest spans of time: four and five centuries, respectively.

In looking at commemoration of title bearers more generally, additional features stand out. Marin, in the first century BCE, appears to be an outlier, as there is a minimum gap of two centuries between her inscription and the next example, if the earliest date in

Coelia Paterna’s range is correct. If Marin’s inscription is excluded, and the inscriptions analyzed using the earliest and latest values within each inscription’s range, respectively, the following distributions result:160

2nd c. 3rd c. 4th c. 5th c. 6th c. Mean Median Mode Earliest 1 7 10 4 0 3.77 4 4 Latest 0 1 8 8 5 4.77 5 5

Figure Two

These numbers indicate that inscriptions featuring female title bearers are, generally speaking, either a third to fifth century or a fourth to sixth century phenomenon. The second span of dates is tempting, in that revisions in dating seem to shift forward more often than backward in time.161 In the absence of persuasive evidence either way, however, the safer course is to posit a significant concentration of inscriptions featuring female title bearers in the fourth and fifth centuries CE. This conclusion does not

160In these calculations, I treated the phrase “or later” as an additional century added to the range, e.g. Rebeka, 4th-5th c. or later was treated the same as Myrina, 4th-6th c. 161This observation is no more than anecdotal, but there does appear to be a tendency of wanting to have the earliest example of a phenomenon. As discussed, the CIJ dates for these inscriptions tend to be earlier than the later anthologies.

57 preclude the existence of female title bearer inscriptions before or after these centuries; it merely suggests a greater frequency of finds dating to these centuries.

The question remains whether the fourth/fifth century concentration of female title bearer inscriptions signifies a peak in female title bearers or in their commemoration.

That is, the numbers could be interpreted as indicating that the fourth and fifth centuries witnessed a rise in the number of female title bearers in Jewish communities.162 Another interpretation – one more in keeping with recognition of inscriptions as representations – is that the fourth and fifth centuries saw an increased tendency to memorialize title bearers in inscriptions. This interpretation moves the question to one of the epigraphic habit of Diaspora Jewish communities.

MacMullen’s influential articles on the Roman epigraphic habit have given rise to numerous studies on the practice of public writing in the ancient world.163 His analysis of

Latin inscriptions reveals a gradual and steady increase in the number of inscriptions, which peaked at the turn of the second to third centuries and fell steeply off after that point.164 More significant than his specific conclusions, which have been subject to some revision, are his observations about how epigraphic data should be interpreted.165 These

162This conclusion seems vulnerable, however, to the pitfalls of “epigraphic bias,” which will be discussed at greater length in Chapter Three. 163Ramsay MacMullen, “The Epigraphic Habit in the Roman Empire,” American Journal of Philology 103 (1982), 233-246; “Frequency of Inscriptions in Roman Lydia,” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 65 (1986), 237-238; Elizabeth Meyer, “Explaining the Epigraphic Habit in the Roman Empire: The Evidence of Epitaphs,” Journal of Roman Studies 80 (1990), 74-96; David Cherry, “Re-Figuring the Roman Epigraphic Habit,” Ancient History Bulletin 9 (1995), 143-156; Michele Corbier, “L’écriture dans l’espace public romain, “ in L’Urbs. Espace urbain et histoire Ier siècle av. J.-C. – IIIe siècle ap. J.-C. (Rome: Ecole française de Rome), 27-60; John Mann, “Epigraphic Consciousness,” Journal of Roman Studies 75 (1985), 204-206; Armando Petrucci, Public Lettering. Script, Power, and Culture, trans. L. Lappin (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1986). 164MacMullen, “Epigraphic Habit,” 242-243, using samples from the earlier studies of Lassère and Mrozek. See also MacMullen’s comments in “Frequency of Inscriptions,” 238. 165See Greg Woolf, Monumental Writing and the Expansion of Roman Society in the Early Empire,” Journal of Roman Studies 86 (1996), 22-39.

58 observations will shape considerations of how epigraphic data are used throughout the remainder of this study.

MacMullen notes that the choice to make epigraphic representations was deliberate, and offers an opportunity to observe what he calls “…a clear sign of cultural significance viewed from the inside.”166 His insight lends weight to this study’s broader goal of shifting the focus of inquiry away from what about inscriptions is significant to modern scholars and instead moving towards a consideration in Chapter Four of what was significant about inscriptions for those who conceived of, paid for, and viewed them.

MacMullen concludes that trends in epigraphic practice were controlled by what he calls a “sense of audience,” which again reinforces the importance of analyzing inscriptions from the perspective of their viewers.167

Additionally, MacMullen cautions against the casual ascription of specific historical causes to explain changes in epigraphic trends. In his case, the reigning wisdom at the time he was writing saw the peak of epigraphic practice as being at odds with the political and economic instability of the pre- and early Severan dynasty. 168 His caution is instructive, insomuch as female title bearers are, at times, included among a perceived pan-Mediterranean, pan-religious amelioration of women’s social circumstances, particularly in terms of legal and economic autonomy.169 This point is emphasized in

Chapter Five, which will engage the question of women’s status in Jewish communities and the Greco-Roman Diaspora more broadly.

166MacMullen, “Epigraphic Habit,” 244. 167MacMullen, “Epigraphic Habit,” 246. 168Specifically, political and economic factors. See “Epigraphic Habit,” 245. 169See Sarah Pomeroy, Women in Hellenistic Egypt (New York: Schocken Books, 1984); see also comments and bibliography in van Bremen, Limits of Participation, 41-46. Much of Ross Kraemer’s early work falls into this category, as does her most recent book Unreliable Witnesses, albeit to a lesser degree.

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Most germane for the current chapter, however, is MacMullen’s comment that changes in epigraphic data do not directly reflect changes in the social realities they describe, which gives credence to the interpretive model endorsed above. That is, the data in Figures 1 and 2 speak to trends in public commemoration rather than to numbers of actual titled women.170 This is not to say that these phenomena are unrelated, but the resulting question does change: instead of asking why women were more likely to bear titles in the fourth and fifth centuries, the question becomes why women were more likely to be represented as title bearers during this time.

This chapter began by promising to adopt a local analytical lens wherever possible, and the next section’s chronological analysis will include, where possible, consideration of local events during the specific times to which inscriptions in those areas date. In many cases, however, information about individual communities in particular periods is difficult to find. In these situations, reliance upon broader historical trends is unavoidable. The fourth and fifth centuries, to which our data suggest the majority of female title bearer inscriptions date, were tumultuous in terms of religious and political change. Christianity’s legalization and subsequent political and cultural domination of the

Mediterranean had profound effects on all cultural and religious groups, not least of which were Jews, both in Palestine and in the Diaspora. Before moving to a more local analysis, this section will conclude with a broader discussion of Jewish circumstances in an increasingly Christianized Mediterranean world.

Contextualizing the Fourth and Fifth Centuries

170MacMullen, “Epigraphic Habit,” n.17.

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Seth Schwartz has argued that it is only with the Christianization of the Roman

Empire and the threat of cultural domination beginning in the fourth century CE that the majority of Jews in Palestine reasserted themselves as culturally and religiously

Jewish.171 He refers to a process of “Judaization” acting in parallel with the process of

Christianization. As Jewish communities responded to increasing Christian influence by establishing clearer group ideologies and public cultural markers of Judaism, including the sanctification of the Torah, the development of Jewish iconographies and liturgies, and the increasing centrality of synagogues.172

Archaeological evidence appears to support Schwartz’s picture of a resurgent Judaism beginning in the fourth century as represented in the construction of synagogue buildings.

After the appearance of synagogue buildings in the first century CE, as discussed in

Chapter One, there is a paucity of archaeological evidence for synagogues from the second and third centuries CE. With the exception of Dura Europos, the demise of the traditional Galilean chronology for synagogue dating has led to most synagogues being dated or re-dated to the fourth century or later.173 This is not to say that there were no

171Schwartz, Imperialism, 177-292 (Part III: Synagogue and Community from 350-640). Schwartz has been criticized for overstating his case in terms of the paucity of non-rabbinic evidence for Jewish life in the second and third centuries, considering the evidence at Beth She‘arim, for example. In addition to the reviews listed above, n. 22, see Jodi Magness, “Third Century Jews and Judaism at Beth She‘arim and Dura Europos,” in David Gwynn and Susanne Bangert (eds.), Religious Diversity in Late Antiquity (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 135-166. My interpretation of Schwartz, based in part on hearing his talk at the Philadelphia Symposium on Christian Origins on October 21, 2010 is that he argues not that average Palestinian Jews of the second and third century did not think of themselves as Jewish, but rather that they did not think of Jewishness as something indicative of cohesive corporate identity. 172Schwartz, Imperialism, 240, is careful to maintain that he is not advocating a unified response to Christianity, which would not make sense given the clear differences between these elements of Jewish life in various communities. Instead, he suggests a shared sense of identity, which might differ in particular manifestations, but was mutually recognizable among various polities. 173Resistance to the gradual shift in synagogue dates remains, but the past 10 years have witnessed a gradual recognition that the art-historical basis of the Galilean synagogue chronology is, at least, methodologically suspect. See Jodi Magness, “The Date of the Sardis Synagogue in Light of the Numismatic Evidence,” American Journal of Archaeology 109.3 (2005), 443-475; “Did Galilee Decline in the Fifth Century? The Synagogue at Chorazin Reconsidered,” in Jürgen Zangenberg, Harold Attridge, and 61 synagogues in the second and third centuries; rather, that in the fourth century synagogues began to serve a different purpose in terms of visual/architectural/public rhetoric, which had the concomitant result of superior preservation in the archaeological record.

Schwartz’s analysis focuses on Jewish life in Palestine specifically and, consequently, his evidence derives from this region. The question remains whether the Jewish cultural florescence he posits beginning in fourth century Palestine is equally valid in the contemporaneous Mediterranean Diaspora.174 The days of a presumed qualitative distinction between Diasporic Judaism and Palestinian Judaism are over, but care must be taken not to generalize from one locale to another.175 Diasporic evidence must defend

Diasporic claims.

Jewish populations had to contend with rising Christianization throughout the

Mediterranean; Palestine was not a special case in this regard. Logically, it would seem that Schwartz’s conclusions, at least as regards the purposeful increase in specifically

Jewish cultural markers, would be equally applicable in the Diaspora. As it turns out, the

Diaspora is comparable to Palestine in terms of the dates of synagogues. Of the eleven

Dale Martin (eds.), Religion, Ethnicity, and Identity in Ancient Galilee, A Region in Transition (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), 259-274; “Review Article: The Ancient Synagogue at Nabratein,” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 358 (2010), 61-68; and the essays in Alan Avery-Peck and Jacob Neusner (eds.), Judaism in Late Antiquity: The Special Problem of the Synagogue (Leiden: Brill, 2001). See also Levine, The Ancient Synagogue, 165-172 as well as Schwartz’s comment in Imperialism, 226 n.38. 174I am not considering Dura Europos among this group. As the sole extant archaeological example of a synagogue from the eastern Diaspora, Dura stands apart in many respects, not least of which is its secure third century date. 175Martin Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism: studies in their encounter in Palestine during the early Hellenistic period, trans. John Bowden (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1981); Erich Gruen, Heritage and Hellenism: the reinvention of Jewish tradition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998); Lee Levine, Judaism and Hellenism in antiquity: conflict or confluence? (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1998); Tessa Rajak, The Jewish Dialogue with Greece and Rome: studies in cultural and social interaction (Leiden: Brill, 2001).

62 extant archaeological examples of Diaspora synagogues, nine are dated to the fourth century or later.176 This evidence might not justify a whole-scale appropriation of

Schwartz’s conclusions vis-à-vis Palestine to the Diaspora, but it does support the suggestion that Diaspora Jews were also interested in making a physical claim to ideological distinctiveness.

Like Schwartz, I am not claiming that there were no earlier synagogues in the

Diaspora. Epigraphic and literary evidence clearly suggest otherwise. There does, however, seem to be a change in the conceptualization of how synagogue buildings functioned as architectural claims to cultural space, insomuch as fourth century and later synagogues survive as archaeologically discernible architectural spaces. The fourth century seems to mark the beginning of a trend of using synagogues as public declarations of Jewish-ness. This conclusion supports Millar’s assessment that

“…archaeologically known synagogues of the fourth century were more elaborate and explicitly Jewish structures than any attested before…”177 Although brief, Millar’s study suggests a period of active and intentional, though often indirect, competition between

Christianity and Judaism in the Diaspora. In whatever ways that Jewish communities

176These are the synagogues at Gerasa, Apamea, Sardis, Aegina, Stobi, Ostia, Bova Marina, Hammam Lif, and Elche. Dates are taken primarily from Levine, The Ancient Synagogue, 256-283. Although claims have been made for earlier phases of the Ostia synagogue, there is no evidence for the use of the space as a synagogue prior to the fifth century, according to excavator L. Michael White at the Society of Biblical Literature Annual Conference in San Francisco, November 2011. The two synagogues of uncertain date are Plovdiv, which was dated to the third century on paleographic grounds and Priene, which was dated to the second century by the 19th century excavators who mistook it for a house church. Priene is currently being re-excavated and has been characterized as “Late Roman” by the current excavators. A preliminary publication of their excavation should offer a more concrete date for this synagogue. I do not include Delos in this group for several reasons: first, the “synagogue” building was identified as such on the basis of a series of inscriptions referring to “Theos Hypsistos,” which is not a term used exclusively for the Jewish God. There is no other reason to associate this building with anything to do with synagogues. The inscriptions associated with a Samaritan synagogue were found several hundred yards away. At the most, on Delos there is epigraphic evidence for a Samaritan synagogue. See Chapter One n.24. 177Fergus Millar, “Jews of the Greco-Roman Diaspora between Paganism and Christianity, AD 312-438,” in Lieu, North, and Rajak, The Jews among Pagans and Christians, 97-123.

63 throughout the Mediterranean might have differed in their response to the

Christianization of the Empire, the archaeological evidence suggests at least one similarity: a general trend of claiming cultural space using ideologically distinct structures.

The appearance of distinctively Jewish synagogues at the beginning in the fourth century in both Palestine and the Diaspora appears related to the issue of female title bearers in terms of using material means to make religious claims. As noted above, the vast majority of inscriptions (22/24) are from funerary contexts. In fact, only one,

Theopempte’s, is associated specifically with a synagogue. Moreover, only Lady Maria’s inscription comes from Palestine; all the rest are from the Diaspora.178

The fact that most title bearer inscriptions are found in tombs rather than in synagogues does not alter the fact that most titles are associated specifically with synagogues, particularly if the dual connotations of synagogue-as-building and synagogue-as-community continue to resonate. Female title bearers, like synagogues, are rendered more publically distinct, by virtue of being inscribed, beginning in the fourth century and are, thereby, more readily preserved. Therefore it seems reasonable to suggest that the public inscription of female title bearers constitutes another means by which Jewish communities claimed rhetorical space in an increasingly competitive religious world.179

178The difference between titles used in Palestine and the Diaspora has been noted by Lee Levine, “Synagogue Officials: The Evidence from Caesarea and its Implications for Palestine and the Diaspora,” in Kenneth Holum and Avner Raban (eds.), Caesarea Maritima: a retrospective after two millennia (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 392-400. 179The specific choice of representing female title bearers will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 5.

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This strategy appears to have been utilized, however, only in the Diaspora. The suggestion that variations in reactions and tactics of response to Christianization are only to be expected, has already been made. In the case of titles specifically, this difference might be attributable to the long-standing minority status of Jewish communities in the

Diaspora. Chapter One discussed the hypothesis that Diaspora synagogues were modeled after Greco-Roman voluntary associations as one way, among many, to articulate Jewish concepts and institutions in a manner comprehensible and respectable in polytheist eyes.

As part of this organizational structure, synagogues had patrons, both Jews and non-Jews, among the wealthy members of the community.180 With the Christianization of the

Empire and the concomitant surge in church building, Christian institutions came to have a network of patrons as well, which were also modeled on the Greco-Roman system.

Where both communities used the same model of patronage, another opportunity for ideological space claiming results.181 These suggestions will be developed in greater detail in subsequent chapters. For the time being, the main purpose of this section has been to locate female title bearer inscriptions chronologically, to analyze visible trends in the extant data, and to situate the resulting conclusions in their broader religious and social contexts.

Conclusions on Chronology

180The Julia Severa inscription from Acmonia in Phrygia (IJO II 168) indicates that Julia Severa, known from numerous other Acmonian inscriptions as a wealthy polytheist patron, built the original synagogue building the renovation of which was the occasion for the inscription. Likewise, the inscription of Tation from Ionia (IJO II 36) uses language indicating that although Tation, daughter of Straton, son of Empedon, constructed a synagogue, she herself was not a member of the Jewish community. The theosebeis from the Aphrodisias inscription and elsewhere may also be examples of non-Jewish individuals whose partial participation in the Jewish community included financial support. On the God-fearers controversy, see Kraemer, Unreliable Witnesses, 188-232, and bibliography there. 181This is not to say that there were no patrons of synagogues in Palestine – see Levine “Synagogue Officials,” who notes the propensity for Palestinian communities to give as a group rather than having individual patrons. See also Susan Sorek, Remembered for Good: A Jewish Benefaction System in Ancient Palestine (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2010).

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In conclusion, and with all necessary provisos regarding the vagaries of discovery, the approximate nature of dating, and the limitations of a small sample size, a chronological assessment of extant female title bearer inscriptions suggests an increase in representations of women as title bearers in the fourth and fifth centuries. Again, this conclusion does not suggest necessarily that there were more women bearing titles during this period than there were before or after, but that the habit of recording titles in inscriptions became increasingly commonplace. One possible reason for the growing trend of public memorialization in the Diaspora is an escalating need to stake out and claim Jewish cultural/religious/ideological space in an increasingly Christianizing world.

2.4: Geography

Problems with Places

Geographically, women’s title bearer inscriptions are scattered throughout the

Mediterranean, from Malta to Byblos and Tripolitania to Thrace. Of the 24 extant inscriptions, 12 are located in Italy, five in Asia Minor, and one each in Greece, Crete,

Syria, Palestine, Libya, Egypt, and Malta.182 Studies of the epigraphic habit in the Roman provinces have yielded little by way of uniform customs and, in fact, have demonstrated a high degree of regional variation in almost all aspects of epigraphic practice.183 Therefore this section will consider the geographic context of inscriptions, to determine how regionalism might have influenced the practice of women’s epigraphic representation.

182The use of Palestine as a general designation for the geographic region that is today comprised of Israel, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and other disputed territory is not intended as statement of political position. Chronologically, most of the span of interest for this project falls after Hadrian’s re-designation of the area in question as Palestina, a name which lasted in various permutations until well after the Muslim Conquest. See Bernard Lewis, “Palestine: on the History and Geography of a Name,” The International History Review 2.1 (1980), 1-12. Likewise, I am locating the Byblos inscription in the Roman province of Syria rather than in the modern country of Lebanon. 183Bodel, “Epigraphy,” 6-15, and bibliography there.

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Figure Three, which represents the locations where female title bearer inscriptions are found, is simultaneously informative and deceptive. On the one hand, the wide geographic distribution of title bearer inscriptions argues for at least some degree of pan-

Mediterranean impetus in title commemoration. Clearly, the practice of memorializing female title bearers was not restricted to a single region. On the other hand, this map disguises as much as it reveals. Regional variations in title usage, for example, are not represented. Whether an inscription came from a metropolitan context, such as Rome, or

Figure Three a relatively rural area, such as Thessaly, cannot easily be discerned. Differences between types of inscriptions – e.g. dedicatory or funerary – are not indicated. Thus Figure Three, while useful for demonstrating succinctly the general area of interest to this study,

67 contributes to an unwarranted sense of uniformity among title bearer inscriptions that is not verified by closer inspection.

Before proceeding to such a closer inspection, several factors that can misrepresent or distort geographic analyses should be considered. First, and in keeping with MacMullen’s cautionary statements regarded epigraphic data discussed above, any analysis of female title bearer inscriptions’ geographic distribution cannot speak to the distribution of female title bearers themselves. Instead, at best, any such analysis can inform only about the distribution of the commemorative habit among Jewish communities. This point is repeated here to emphasize that the subject of interest in this study is the practice of title commemoration and, specifically in this section, the geographic distribution of that practice, rather than title bearers themselves, for whom inscriptions are often considered evidence.

A second set of factors which complicates making conclusions from geographic data is the inevitable vagaries in preservation and discovery inherent to archaeological finds.

For example, Rome is one of the most prolific sources of inscriptions bearing on the question of title bearer inscriptions. Nevertheless, population estimates for the period between Augustus and Constantine indicate that burials are identified for only about 1.5 percent of those living in Rome during these centuries.184 Chances are that some of the remaining 98.5 percent were female title bearers, but without preservation in the archaeological record, they are lost to history.

A related issue is that of discovery. While many inscriptions are found during the course of excavation or exploration of large burial areas, others, such as the Nevşehir

184John Bodel, “From Columbaria to Catacombs: Collective Burial in Pagan and Christian Rome,” in Brink and Green, Commemorating the Dead, 177-242.

68 head of the synagogue and Myrina the elder from Nocera Superiore, were discovered by chance or accident. Our perception of the geographic distribution of title inscription is thus influenced by chance discovery as well as by the choices and practice of excavation.

The concentration of title bearer inscriptions that appear in Italy at Rome and Venosa, for example, might result in part from continual and concerted excavation of these densely populated areas. Conversely, small rural sites often receive less attention from excavators and have yielded correspondingly fewer inscriptions.185 This difference is of particular importance in light of MacMullen’s comments discussed above. The density of distribution in metropolitan areas might initially suggest that title commemoration was an urban phenomenon. The discovery of several title inscriptions in remote areas, despite the lesser density of population and lesser possibility of discovery, suggests that the practice could have occurred comparably in urban and rural locations.

The issues of false uniformity, conditions of preservation, and chance discovery call for caution in making broad conclusions based on geographic disbursement are difficult to sustain.186 Nevertheless, as with the chronological analysis above, there is little alternative but to continue, albeit carefully. The chapter continues with an examination of

185Historically, archaeology has tended to focus on monumental and elite art and architecture. See, for example, Sarah Nelson, Gender in Archaeology: Analyzing Power and Prestige (Walnut Creek: Altamira Press, 1997), 173; John Clarke, Art in the Lives of Ordinary Romans (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 1-2. 186Although problematic, the evidence warrants agreement with those who have asserted that the title bearer phenomenon appears to be most prevalent among Jewish communities in the Diaspora or in Levantine cities with a strong Greco-Roman presence. See Levine, “Synagogue Officials,” 392-400, who notes that inscriptions from rural areas of Palestine appear to focus more on the community than on the individual. To assert that some cities in Palestine had a stronger Greco-Roman influence than others is not intended as a provocation in the essentially defunct discussion of whether or not all Jews were Hellenized: of course they were. It is, nonetheless, reasonable to imagine that Jews living in cities with significant non-Jewish populations had a different experience than those in a more homogenous environment. For more on this topic, see Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism; Gruen, Heritage and Hellenism; John Collins, Between Athens and Jerusalem: Jewish Identity in the Hellenistic Diaspora (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000); and Schwartz, Imperialism.

69 the geographic distribution of title bearer inscriptions, from which several patterns in title distribution become apparent.

Data and Analysis

The following chart organizes the 24 extant female title bearer inscriptions according to location.

X head of the synagogue Asia Minor: Cappadocia (Nevşehir) Jael donor Asia Minor: Caria (Aphrodisias) Theopempte head of the synagogue Asia Minor: Caria (Myndos) Rufina head of the synagogue Asia Minor: Ionia (Smyrna) Rebeka elder Asia Minor: Thrace (Bizye) Sophia elder and head of the synagogue Crete: Kastelli Kisamou Marin priest Egypt: Tell el- Yehoudieh Coelia Paterna mother of the synagogue Italy: Brescia Myrina elder Italy: Nocera Superiore Veturia Paulla F mother of the synagogue Italy: Rome Sara Ura elder Italy: Rome (Monteverde) Gaudentia priest Italy: Rome (Monteverde) ...]ia Marcel[la] mother of the synagogue Italy: Rome (Monteverde?) Simpli[cia] mother of the synagogue Italy: Rome (Vigna Randanini) Alexsandra "fatheress" Italy: Venosa Beronikene elder Italy: Venosa Mannine elder Italy: Venosa Faustina elder Italy: Venosa Faustina mother Italy: Venosa Mazauzala elder Libya: Tripolitania (Oea) Eulogia elder Malta: Rabat Lady Maria priest Palestine: Beth She'arim Sambathion leader Syria: Byblos Peristera leader Thessaly: Phthiotis (Thebes)

Figure Four

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When organized geographically, the data in Figure Four reveal a few tentative, but interesting trends. Half of female title bearer inscriptions come from Italy. All the inscriptions naming mothers and mothers of the synagogue are located in Italy. Three of the four inscriptions designating women as head of the synagogue are found in Asia

Minor. The title “elder” is most frequently represented among the inscriptions, and also appears to have the greatest geographic distribution, as inscriptions with this title have been found in five distinct regions.187 The title “priest,” though less frequent than elder, also occurs in three geographically disparate regions.

John Bodel has observed that epigraphy is local.188 He notes that while some communities seem to prioritize expending time and effort on inscriptions as a means of public discourse and representation, others immediately adjacent, with no discernible difference in population, resources, or culture, choose otherwise.189 Moreover, local fashion appears most influential in the choices of what information inscriptions contain and how those contents are expressed. For example, it is the habit of mortuary inscriptions from one area of Lydia to record the date in the first line of each inscription.

In contrast, epitaphs from most of the Greek East rarely display this information with such consistency.190 Bodel’s statement cautions against the expectation of discerning pan-

187If Sophia of Gortyn’s two titles are tallied separately for a total of 25 women’s titles, then the title of elder represents over one third of the total (9/25). The next most frequent titles, mother of the synagogue and head of the synagogue, each represent only half this number (in this case, not counting the derivative titles of “mother” or “fatheress” in this total). 188Bodel, “Epigraphy,” 15, speaking specifically of Greek epigraphy. I would argue that Jewish epigraphy, even that originating in Rome, is more like the Greek in this regard. 189405/850 inscriptions from the region of Saittae, Lydia contain dating formulae: MacMullen, “Frequency of Inscriptions,” 237; Bodel, “Epigraphy,” 14. 190MacMullen, “Frequency of Inscriptions,” 237, looking at the Lydian data from Peter Herrmann (ed.), Tituli Asiae Minoris, Vol. V: Tituli Lydiae, linguis graeca et latina conscripti, II: regio septentrionalis ad occidentem vergens (Vienna: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1989).

71 regional significance for specific women’s titles, and instead is reminiscent of Spiegel’s notion of text and context working in concert to generate and reflect meaning.191

A preliminary analysis reveals the following possibilities. The commemoration of women as head of the synagogue appears to be primarily a practice in Asia Minor, with the obvious exception of Sophia of Gortyn on Crete. Likewise, the epigraphic representation of mothers of the synagogue appears to be a specifically Italian phenomenon. In these cases, Bodel’s observations would suggest that the representation of these titles had particular significance in the specific localities in which they occur.

This is not necessarily to say that there were no mothers of the synagogue in Asia Minor or female heads of the synagogue in Italy, but rather that each region displays a preference for commemoration using one title over the other. The geographically ubiquitous title elder, on the other hand, appears to have been a more broadly acceptable or fashionable means by which to commemorate Jewish women.

Geographical Context

This section on geographic distribution of title bearer inscription will continue with a brief discussion of each of the regions in which female title bearers are represented. Such discussions are, of necessity, constrained by the available information. Whereas, for example, entire volumes have been written about the Jewish community at Rome, very little is known about Brescia. Nevertheless, this geographic survey should contribute a bit of local flavor to the discussion of the title bearer inscriptions in each locale. As noted above, Stern has advocated a local approach to the analysis of Diasporic Jewish communities. The underlying assumption of this section is that Jews in the Diaspora were

191See above, pg. 28-29.

72 influenced by and influential upon their non-Jewish neighbors. It is with this methodology in mind that the following discussion of the locations from which female title bearer inscriptions derive commences. Although there are numerous other research questions that could be addressed in this section, I will focus on the following points in each locale: 1) what additional evidence exists for the existence of a Jewish community and the practice of title commemoration among both men and women; 2) whether the location is in an urban or rural setting; 3) what can be discerned about the broader religious environment in which Jewish title commemoration occurred.

Cappadocia: Nevşehir

Cappadocia’s relative isolation on a high, central plateau of Asia Minor stalled its integration into the Hellenistic and Roman worlds, particularly in contrast to the coastal regions to the west.192 After its annexation to Rome in the first century CE, the region slowly re-founded, promoted, and established cities, such as Comana/Hierapolis and

Nazianzus/Diocaesarea, as centers of Roman administration and culture.193

Better known for its churches and monasteries than for its Jewish communities,

Cappadocia was home to a large and influential Christian population.194 At the same time, a Jewish population is indicated by Ariarathes, king of Cappadocia, as being one of the recipients of the Roman decree of protection sent in 1 Maccabees 15:22, as well as by

192Raymond Van Dam, Kingdom of Snow: Roman Rule and Greek Culture in Cappadocia (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002), 13-14. 193Van Dam, Kingdom of Snow, 24-28. 194See, for example, Sophie Métivier, La Cappadoce (IVe-IVe siècle): Une histoire provinciale de l’Empire romain d’Orient (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 2005). A popular, though well illustrated, volume is Fatih Cimok, Cappadocia (Istanbul: Turizm Yayınları Ltd., 1987). For Christian Cappadocia, see Raymond Van Dam, Becoming Christian: the conversion of Roman Cappadocia (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003).

73 references to the synagogue of the Cappadocians at Sepphoris.195 Brief mention is also made to Cappadocian Jews in two works of church father Gregory of Nyssa.196

Six epitaphs were found at the town of Nevşehir, of which at least five are Jewish. 197

The stones apparently were discovered by accident and have not been preserved. Four of the six epitaphs preserve titles, which might suggest a certain popularity of title commemoration at Nevşehir generally. Besides the anonymous female head of synagogue, additional inscriptions memorialize a male presbyter as well as another head of synagogue of indeterminate gender. The sixth inscription contains the word “priest,” but is too poorly preserved to determine its context.

The paucity of information about the Nevşehir inscriptions makes definitive conclusions difficult to draw. The extant remains indicate that title commemoration was popular in this Jewish community. Although relatively isolated, Cappadocia was home to a religiously diverse population with clear indication of interaction and exchange between its Jewish and Christian populations.

Caria: Aphrodisias and Myndos

Myndos sits on the end of the Bodrum peninsula, west of ancient Halicarnassus.

Along with a place among the cities in 1 Maccabees 15:23, Myndos is mentioned by

195Ameling, IJO II, 535. 196Encomium on his brother Basil 17; Life of Gregory the Wonderworker 73-76. In his tribute to his brother Basil, Gregory mentions the latter’s charity towards Jewish youths during a famine, while in his biography of Gregory Thaumaturgus he relates the story of two Jews who try to trick the Wonderworker and suffer the consequences. See Susan Holman, The Hungry are Dying: beggars and bishops in Roman Cappadocia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 4. 197IJO II 252-257.

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Athenaeus as producing excellent wine.198 Coins and other artifacts attest to Myndos having been a thriving Roman city, but its remains are very poorly preserved.

No information is available about the Jewish population of Myndos, or about the synagogue from which Theopempte’s dedication inscription originated.199 Although not unusual in the larger corpus of Jewish dedicatory inscriptions, Theopempte is one of only two female title bearers whose inscription names a titled woman alongside her son, the other being Jael at Aphrodisias.200 The two inscriptions differ in that Theopempte’s son

Eusebius does not himself bear a title.

Although some early occupation is evident at the site of Aphrodisias, its florescence as a city occurred in the late Hellenistic and early Roman periods.201 Unlike Myndos,

Aphrodisias remains in an excellent state of preservation and is the subject of numerous studies focusing on many aspects of this prosperous provincial city.202 Significant for this

198The Learned Banqueters 1.32e, 1.33b (S. Douglas Olson’s 2006 Loeb edition). See Roger Brock and Hanneke Wirtjes, “Athenaeus on Greek Wine,” in David Braund and John Wilkins (eds.), Athenaeus and his World (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2000), 455-465. 199The inscription’s original publication by Théodore Reinach, “La pierre de Myndos,” Revue des études Juives 42 (1901), 1-6 offers no indication of the circumstances in which the inscription was found. 200The familial aspect of dedications will be discussed in greater detail in Chapter Five. 201Kenan Erim, Aphrodisias: city of Venus Aphrodite (New York: Facts on File, 1986), 25-28. 202As testified by the ongoing publication of studies on Aphrodisian material, including Joyce Reynolds, Aphrodisias and Rome (London: Journal of Roman Studies, 1982); Charlotte Roueché, Performers and Partisans at Aphrodisias (London: Journal of Roman Studies, 1993); Charlotte Roueché and Kenan Erim (eds.), Aphrodisias Papers 1: Recent work on Architecture and Sculpture (Ann Arbor: Journal of Roman Studies, 1990); R.R.R. Smith and Kenan T. Erim (eds.), Aphrodisias Papers 2: The theatre, a sculptor's workshop, philosophers, and coin-types (Ann Arbor: Journal of Roman Studies, 1991); Charlotte Roueché and R.R.R. Smith (eds.), Aphrodisias Papers 3: The setting and quarries, mythological and other sculptural decoration, architectural development, Portico of Tiberius, and Tetrapylon (Ann Arbor: Journal of Roman Studies, 1996); Charlotte Roueché and R.R.R. Smith (eds.), Aphrodisias Papers 4: New Research on the City and its Monuments (Portsmouth: Journal of Roman Studies, 2008).

75 discussion is the large corpus of dedicatory inscriptions honoring numerous community benefactors in a variety of ways.203

Aphrodisias is among the most thoroughly discussed Jewish Diaspora communities, thanks in large part to a lengthy dedicatory inscription discovered accidently during the course of excavation.204 The block was found during construction preparation for the site museum and is thought to indicate the presence of a synagogue in the vicinity, though excavations have not identified any structure as such.205 The stone names more than 50 individuals designated θεοσεβεῖς. These “God-fearers” are typically understood as

Romans with a special sympathy and admiration for Judaism, but who have not, or have not yet, become proselytes.206 In this case, they are among those who are being honored on the stele for having constructed a tomb for the relief of Aphrodisias’ Jewish community.207

Other office holders listed with Jael are her son Iosua, probably an archon, Samuel, who was the head of the association in charge of building the tomb, and another Samuel, possibly an elder and priest.208 The Aphrodisias inscription’s context offers several

203See Joyce Reynolds, “Honouring benefactors at Aphrodisias, a new inscription,” in Roueché and Smith, Aphrodisias Papers 3, 121-126. 204For the dedicatory inscription, see Joyce Reynolds and Robert Tannenbaum, Jews and God-Fearers at Aphrodisias: Greek Inscriptions with commentary (Cambridge: Cambridge Philological Society, 1987). 205Erim, Aphrodisias, 130-131. 206For example, Margaret Williams, “θεοσεβής γαρ ἧν,’ – the Jewish Tendencies of Poppaea Sabina,” Journal of Theological Studies 39 (1988), 97-111; Bernd Wander, Gottesfürchtige und Sympathisanten. Studien zum heidnischen Umfeld von Diasporasynagogen (Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998); Pieter van der Horst, “Jews and Christians in Aphrodisias in the Light of their Relations in Other Cities of Asia Minor,” Nederlands Teologische Tijdschrift 43 (1989), 106-121. Additional bibliography in Kraemer, Unreliable Witnesses, 192-193, who notes the general use of theosebēs to denote piety in Late Antiquity. 207Koch, “Facts and Fiction,” 62-90. 208These individuals are listed on what Reynolds and Tannenbaum, Jews and God-Fearers, call the a side, which is what Koch, “Facts and Fiction,” designates as the second or left inscription. There are no titles assigned to the Jews in the block’s other inscription, although interestingly, nine of the theosebeis are designated βουλευτής (town councilor), see Koch, “Facts and Fiction,” 66.

76 insights into Jael’s position as its first designated donor.209 First, Aphrodisias was a city steeped in dedicatory inscriptions. Second, the participation of non-Jews in the benefaction of the Jewish community reinforces the picture of a highly integrated Jewish population at Aphrodisias. Finally, both Carian inscriptions represent titled women as donors alongside their sons.210

Ionia: Smyrna

The coastal city of Smyrna had a long history of occupation, beginning at least in the

Early Bronze Age. The most intensively excavated and published material comes from the seventh century BCE Temple of Athena.211 The city was re-founded in the Hellenistic period after Alexander the Great’s death, and changed hands several times among his successors.212 The re-founded city was located ca. 3 miles to the south of the earlier settlement, to the west of Mt. Pagos. Aside from the stadium, theater, and other extra- urban facilities, the presence of the modern city has obliterated the majority of remains from the later site of Smyrna.

The city list of 1 Maccabees 15:23 can be read as including Smyrna among the decree’s recipients.213 A reference to the Jews of Smyrna is found in Revelation 2:8-9,

209As noted above, acceptance of Jael as a woman is not universal, despite Brooten, “The gender of Ιαηλ in the Jewish inscription from Aphrodisias,” in Harold Attridge, John Collins, and Thomas Tobin (eds.), Of Scribes and Scrolls: studies on the Hebrew Bible, intertestamental Judaism, and Christian origins presented to John Strugnell on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday (Lanham: University of America Press, 1990), 164-173. Koch, “Facts and Fiction,” for example, does not even mention the possibility. 210Other Jewish inscription at Aphrodisias include those at the Odeon and, possibly, a dedicatory inscription by a Flavius Eusebius, who is called e primipilaribus, a common term of prestige in the time of Diocletian. See Charlotte Roueché, Aphrodisias in Late Antiquity (London: Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies, 1989), 23-25; 221-222. 211Ekrem Akurgal, Alt Smyrna (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Basımevi, 1983); John Cook and Richard Nicholls, Old Smyrna Excavations: The Temples of Athena (London: The British School at Athens, 1998). 212Cecil John Cadoux, Ancient Smyrna (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1938), 99-104. 213Ameling, IJO II, 174 notes that Κυρήνην can be read as Σμύρναν, citing, “Codex V mit E. Bickerman, Gnomon 6, 1930, 350.” I was not, however, able to find any reference to Bickerman or 1 Maccabees at this 77 and the Jews of Smyrna play a prominent role in the Martyrdom of Polycarp. Despite the polemical nature of both references, they attest to a Jewish presence in the city, as would be expected in a major Greco-Roman city in Asia Minor.

Of the six extant Jewish inscriptions from Smyrna, three, including Rufina’s, represent title bearers. The first, a dedicatory inscription, records the gift of Eirenopois, elder and father of the community, whose father Jacob was also an elder.214 The second is the mortuary inscription of Lucius Lollius Iustus, grammateus, who built a tomb for himself and his family. An additional untitled but relevant mortuary inscription is that of

Anna, who also build a tomb for herself and her child. Rufina’s inscription differs from the latter two mortuary inscriptions in that the tomb she constructs is not for herself, but for her dependents alone.

The collection of extant inscriptions from Smyrna attests to a wealthy Jewish community as well as a specific interest in tomb commemoration.215 Rufina’s inscription is of particular interest insomuch as it bearers a close resemblance to similar monuments built by wealthy patrons for their freedpersons and slaves.216 These similarities indicate a high degree of conformity to Roman mortuary practices in Rufina’s case at least and, perhaps, among Smyrnian Jews more generally.217

location. It would make sense to replace Caria with Smyrna, given that Myndos, though in Caria, is listed separately. 214IJO II 41, and see the discussion of the unusual phrase πατήρ τοῦ στέματος in Ameling, IJO II, 182-183. 215The community’s wealth is further attested by IJO II 40, if the interpretation of οἱ ποτὲ Ἰουδαῖοι follows A. Thomas Kraabel, Judaism in Western Asia Minor under Roman rule, with a preliminary study of the Jewish community at Sardis, Lydia (Th.D. Dissertation, Harvard University, 1968), 30-32 in reading “the former Judaeans,” rather than, among others, Frey, CIJ II, 11, who reads, “those who were formerly Jews.” See the discussion in Ameling, IJO II, 178-179. 216See below, Chapter Three. 217On the Jewish adoption of Greco-Roman euergetistic practices, including providing burial space for dependents, see Chapter Five.

78

Thrace: Bizye

Rebeca’s is the only Jewish inscription found at Bizye, and one of only a handful identified in Thrace.218 Ameling comments that although technically not in Asia Minor, the region of Thrace had a close cultural connection to the region, particularly to

Constantinople. Therefore the paucity of Thracian Jewish inscriptions might be due in part to the local influence of Constantinople, from which no Jewish inscriptions have survived, despite the certainty of a substantial Jewish population there in Late

Antiquity.219

In Asia Minor, three of the five title bearer inscriptions come from large urban centers

– Aphrodisias, Smyrna, and Myndos – while the remaining two originate in relatively rural areas – Nevşehir and Bizye. The concentration of titles at Nevşehir in particular indicates that title usage was not restricted to urban environments. That three of the four known inscriptions featuring female heads of the synagogue originate in Asia Minor is not surprising, given the region’s comparatively liberal attitude towards women in authority.220 In this light, it is perhaps surprising that more female title bearers are not memorialized in the inscriptions of Asia Minor.

Crete: Kastelli Kisamou

The Jewish community of Crete is likely among the oldest of the western Diaspora.

Closely associated with Ptolemaic Egypt, the administrative center of Gortyn, on the

218IJO II 12 and 13; Nicolay Sharankov, “Language and Society in Roman Thrace,” in Ian Haynes (ed.), Early Roman Thrace (Portsmouth: Journal of Roman Studies, 2011), 135-155, refers to a synagogue with dedicatory inscriptions at Philippopolis in E. Kesyakova, “Antichna sinagoga vav Filipopol,” Arheologiya (1989), 20-33. These inscriptions are repeated by Sharankov in n.56, and record synagogue dedications by Ioseph and Isaak, both of whom take Greek names as well: Kosmianos and Ellios, respectively. 219Ameling, IJO II, 64. 220See van Bremen, Limits of Participation and Trebilco, Jewish Communities, as well as Christine Trevett, Montanism: gender, authority and the new prophecy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996) for Asia Minor as home to the women-friendly Montanist movement of the 2nd-3rd centuries CE.

79 south central side of the island, was among the cities listed in 1 Maccabees 15:23. The presence of a Jewish population in Crete is supported by references in literature, including Philo, the Sibylline Oracles, and Paul’s letter to Titus.221

In addition to the inscriptions of Sophia, two other Jewish inscriptions have been identified on Crete. The first, found near Gortyn, is dated to the fifth century. Although originally identified as Christian, this fragmentary inscription commemorates a priest,

Satyros, and Moses, head of the synagogue.222 A second, third/fourth century inscription was found in the central region of Arcades, in an area that still bears the name ἑί

(Hebrew).223 There is also a report, thus far unsubstantiated, of a synagogue at Gortyn’s port city of Lenda.224

Although Sophia herself is identified as being from Gortyn, Kastelli Kisamou, the location of Sophia’s inscription, is on the sparsely populated western side of Crete, where there is otherwise no evidence for a Jewish community.225 Spyridakis suggests that

Sophia’s presence at Kisamos might suggest a Jewish removal from Gortyn resulting from Theodosius II’s anti-Jewish policies.226 The presence of the Satyros/Moses inscription at Gortyn in the fifth century cautions against positing a Jewish exodus to the

Cretan countryside. Nevertheless, the remote nature of Sophia’s synagogue is interesting,

221Sibylline Oracle 3.271, which states that land and sea were full of Jews, and Philo, Embassy, 282. On the letter to Titus, see George Harrison, The Romans and Crete (Amsterdam: Adolf Hakkert, 1993), 306. Josephus also mentions that his wife is from Crete in Life, 427. 222Anastasius Bandy, The Greek Christian inscriptions of Crete (Athens: Christian Archaeological Society, 1970), 140. See also Ian Sanders, Roman Crete (Warminster: Aris & Phillips, 1982), 43-45. 223Stylianos Spyridakis, “The Jews of Gortyna and Crete,” in Cretica: Studies on Ancient Crete (New Rochelle: Aristide Caratzas, 1992), 17-22. 224Harrison, The Romans and Crete, 215. 225For a description of the site, albeit not including Sophia’s inscription, see Daphne Gondicas, Recherches sur la Crete occidentale (Amsterdam: Adolf Hakkert, 1988), 163-170. 226Spyridakis, “The Jews of Gortyna,” 19-20. His interpretation would depend upon placing Sophia’s inscription in the latest part of its 4th-5th century range.

80 particular given her own metropolitan origins as represented in the inscription. The evidence from Crete appears to parallel that from Asia Minor in that title inscriptions are found in both urban and rural locations.

Egypt: Tell el-Yehoudieh

Along with Venosa, and after Rome, the site of ancient Leontopolis preserves one of the largest concentrations of Jewish inscriptions in the Diaspora.227 This fact, along with literary testimony that Leontopolis was the location of a Jewish temple from ca. 150BCE to 72/3 CE, led to early and sustained interest in the site.228 In contrast to many of the inscriptions discussed, most of the Leontopolis inscriptions were excavated from an identifiable necropolis. This necropolis consisted of numerous rock cut tombs, each of which contained several loculi.229 Unfortunately, in addition to the site having been looted, the excavator provided neither a detailed plan of the tombs nor clear indication of the spatial relationship between the inscribed stele he did excavate.230 Nevertheless, the large number of inscriptions associated with Leontopolis permits some insight into the epigraphic habit of the Jewish population there.

David Noy has observed several general tendencies among this set of inscriptions.231

The inscriptions are carved on limestone blocks with an architectural design, but they display no ornamentation or decoration. The language used is uniformly Greek, but personal names are a mix of Greek and transliterated Hebrew, often within the same

227The Leontopolis inscriptions are available in Horbury and Noy, JIGRE, nos. 29-105. 228David Noy, “The Jewish Communities of Leontopolis and Venosa,” in Jan van Henten and Pieter van der Horst (eds.), Studies in Early Jewish Epigraphy (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 162-182. 229Aryeh Kasher, The Jews in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1985), 119-135 describes the necropolis. 230Edouard Naville, The Mound of the Jew and the City of Onias (London: K. Paul, Trench, & Trübner), 1890. 231Noy, “Leontopolis and Venosa,” 165-172.

81 family and with no tendency towards or away from either. The inscriptions are frequently dated, although often in abbreviated form, making ascription to a specific date difficult.232 Leontopolis, like other sites in Egypt, contains a large number of metrical epitaphs, which are otherwise unusual in Jewish mortuary inscriptions. Noy concludes that as far as their epitaphs are concerned, the Jews of Leontopolis were primarily Greco-

Roman and only secondarily Jewish.233

Although patronymics and laudatory epithets are common, Leontopolis preserves very few inscriptions with title bearers. A certain Abramos appears to have held multiple magistracies, although whether these pertained specifically to the synagogue, to the

Jewish community, or to the broader civic administration is unclear.234 A poorly preserved inscription commemorates a father, but whether this term designates a familial or communal relationship in this context cannot be determined.235 Marin’s title of priest is unique among the Leontopolis inscriptions.

It is striking that in such a large corpus, relatively speaking, the incidence of title inscriptions is so low. Again, this conclusion does not necessarily imply that men and women did not hold titles at Leontopolis. Rather, it is possible that the Jewish community at Leontopolis was not in the habit of representing its members by means of publically commemorated titles. Moreover, Jewish settlement at Leontopolis ended earlier than

232Noy notes that some scholars have assumed the entire cemetery dates to the time of Augustus, but he argues for a two century period of use for the Leontopolis cemetery, from the mid-first century BCE to the mid-second century CE. 233Noy, “Leontopolis and Venosa,” 171. 234JIGRE 39. Noy, “Leontopolis and Venosa,” 166-167 comments that as Abramos’ epitaph is metrical, its terminology might reflect considerations of meter over accuracy. 235JIGRE 44.

82 many other locations in which Jewish inscriptions were found, which might also account for the paucity of title inscriptions from this site.236

Italy: Brescia

Two Jewish inscriptions were first identified in the 15th century in the region of

Brescia, although only Coelia’s is still extant.237 They remain the only indications of a

Jewish presence at Brescia, an otherwise relatively sizable Roman city which was sacked repeatedly in the fifth century along with the nearby capital Milan. The fact that both inscriptions were found in reuse in churches on the east side of the city leads Gregori to suggest that this was the general area of Jewish occupation at Brescia.238 If both inscriptions are, in fact, epitaphs, their location would be more indicative of an extra- urban burial site rather than a Jewish residential area.239

Italy: Nocera Superiore

The town of Nocera Superiore is located ca. 20 km. due east of Pompeii. 240 In addition to its Roman remains, the city is known for the sixth century Christian baptistery of S. Maria Maggiore. In 1988, construction of a railway line at Nocera Superiore revealed a series of 21 burials dating from the first-sixth centuries CE.241 Nine of the graves were from the late antique period (nos. 13-21). Tomb 17 contained the inscriptions of Myrina and Pedoneious. It does not appear from the preliminary report that any of the

236Noy, “Leontopolis and Venosa,” 163 comments that it is unlikely that the community remained after the 115-117 CE revolt in northern Africa. 237Noy, JIWE I 4 and 5. Photograph in Gian Luca Gregori, Brescia Romana (Rome: Edizioni Quasar, 1999) Tav. XII 1. For a general introduction to Brescia in Late Antiquity, see Milano capital dell’impero romano 286-402 d.C. (Milan: Silvana Editoriale, 1990), 153-156. 238Gregori, Brescia Romana, 307. 239Noy, JIWE I, 6-7 leans towards a mortuary inscription in both cases, although admits that neither can be definitively ruled out as a dedicatory inscription. 240Matteo Fresa and Alfonso Fresa, Nuceria Alfaterna in Campania (Naples: Fausto Fiorentino, 1974). 241De’ Spagnolis, “Una testimonianza ebraica,” 243-252.

83 other tombs in this group were decorated or inscribed. Although the preliminary publication article does not offer as much detail as one might hope, the modern discovery and excavation of this burial permits an understanding of the relationship between inscription and context superior to that of many title inscriptions.

The inscribed pieces of marble were clearly architectural fragments in reuse. The excavator suggests that the Pedoneious inscription is incompletely preserved, however, it seems mostly likely that the marble was broken prior to being inscribed, as the final five letters in grammateus are squeezed together to fit the piece.242 Moreover, the inscriptions’ location on the back side of the architectural fragments argues against their original purpose having been dedicatory rather than mortuary, despite the lack of funerary language typical of other mortuary inscriptions.243 Most striking is the fact that the inscriptions of both Myrina and Pedoneious appear to have been placed within the burial itself rather than positioned on the exterior to mark the grave; a circumstance that will be discussed in greater detail below. Further conclusions will need to wait on more detailed publication of the Jewish finds at Nocera Superiore.244

Italy: Rome

The Jewish population of Rome is the best epigraphically documented Diasporic community in the ancient world. Over 600 Jewish inscriptions have been recorded, the vast majority from the Monteverde, Vigna Randanini, and Villa Torlonia catacombs, with

242De’ Spagnolis, “Una testimonianza ebraica,” 244; Tav. LVIII 1-3. 243De’ Spagnolis, “Una testimonianza ebraica,” 247. On the Naples inscriptions, see Elena Miranda, “Due iscrizioni Greco giudaiche della Campania,” Rivista di archeologia cristiana 55 (1979), 338-341. 244De’ Spagnolis has published other burials at Nocera Superiore, for example, La Tomba del Calzolaio dalla necropolis monumentale romana di Nocera Superiore (Rome: «L’Erma» di Bretschneider, 2000), with only a brief mention of the Jewish remains. The various burials at Nocera Superiore are difficult to relate to one another due to an unfortunate lack of adequate plans or maps. See Eric Moormann’s review in Mnemosyne 54 (2001), 746-748, who notes that a publication that included all the mortuary material from this area would be more helpful than the current piecemeal approach.

84 a small percentage coming from other areas of the city or having been discovered ex situ.

Many more inscriptions doubtlessly existed, but Jewish remains were not always given careful attention in the early days of excavation and preservation in Rome.245

A Jewish population was likely established in Rome as early as the second century

BCE, and while many likely came to Rome as slaves, by the first century CE at least some had attained Roman citizenship.246 The inscriptions make reference to at least eleven synagogue communities, but no structures associated with these communities have been identified in the archaeological record.247 Nonetheless, Rutgers’ analysis of archaeological and textual materials from Rome offers a picture of a flourishing Jewish population at Rome, neither isolated from nor assimilated into their polytheist and

Christian neighbors, but rather deliberately asserting a clear sense of identity even while sharing many social and material mores.

While women are represented in Rome as mothers of synagogues (3), elder (1) and priestess (1), men are represented using a much wider array of titles.248 There are five male heads of the synagogue, 54 archons of various types, 14 gerousiarchs and one archigerousiarch, 22 scribes, eight fathers of synagogues and two fathers, five priests, and two donors. Noteworthy is the lack of elders among the titles used at Rome: a lack which led Noy to characterize Sara Ura’s designation as an indication of old age rather

245See Amy Hirschfeld, “Catacomb Archaeology,” 28-38 and Rutgers, Late Ancient Rome, 1-43. The patently tertiary status accorded Jewish remains from Roman antiquity is evident also in the current layout (ca. November 2010) of the Vatican Museum’s collection, in which Roman polytheist and Christian materials are prominently displayed with multi-lingual informational placards while Jewish inscriptions occupy a dim hallway with no information whatsoever. 246Leonard Rutgers, “Roman Policy towards the Jews: Expulsions from the City of Rome in the First Century C.E.,” Classical Antiquity 13.1 (1994), 56-74. 247Williams, “Jewish Burials,” 166-168. The closest identified synagogue building is at Rome’s port, Ostia. 248These numbers are taken from Noy’s Index V b. Jewish Titles in JIWE II, 538-539.

85 than a title as such.249 Given the relatively high number of mothers of the synagogue at

Rome, a comparably high percentage of fathers of the synagogue might have been anticipated. Instead, among Roman Jewish men the most frequently represented titles are archon and grammateus. Moreover, considering the numerous synagogues with which many of these title holders are associated, it is surprising to find so few archisynagogoi represented in the Roman inscriptions.250

Italy: Venosa

As noted above, the south central Italian city of Venosa preserves one of the two largest corpora of Jewish inscriptions after Rome. Excavation of the catacombs began in the mid-19th century and continued into the late 20th, with a shift in emphasis towards restoration and preservation.251 The records made of the Venosa catacombs and their inscriptions are significantly better than those of Leontopolis. The inscriptions themselves, however, are much more poorly preserved as they were almost invariably painted on tile or plaster rather than inscribed on stone.

As at Leontopolis, the relatively large corpus of inscription permits some observations regarding the epigraphic tendencies of Venosa’s Jewish population.252 Noy notes that Greek, Hebrew, and Latin are all used in the catacombs, with a discernible shift from Greek to Latin over time. Hebrew appears most often in the closing formula,

“peace!” which might indicate a means of differentiation from proximate Christian tombs

249Noy, JIWE II, 24. 250Only one inscription, JIWE II 117, identifies an archisynagogos with a specific synagogue, that of the Vernaculi. It is possible that the lacunae in JIWE II 534 obscure a second specific reference, but no reconstruction is possible. 251For the 19th century excavations, see G. Ascoli, Inscrizioni inedite o mal note (Florence, 1880); for the 20th century excavations, see Cesare Colafemmina, Apulia Cristiana. Venosa (Bari: 1973) and Eric Meyers, “Report on the Excavations at the Venosa Catacombs, 1981,” Vetera Christianorum 20 (1983), 356-364. 252Noy, “Leontopolis and Venosa,” 172-182.

86 using the Greek and Latin equivalents.253 Likewise, personal names in Latin, Hebrew, and Greek are all attested, in this order of frequency. There does not appear to be a shift towards or away from Hebrew-derived names. Menorahs appear in one third of inscriptions, along with occasional other typical Jewish symbols.254 Most striking in terms of decoration was a blue and gold frescoed arcosolium found in 1974 by

Colafemmina, depicting the full range of Jewish symbols.255

Whereas dates and epithets are almost always absent, title bearers are extremely common at Venosa.256 The precise number of titled individuals is somewhat difficult to determine. Names and titles appear to run in families, making it difficult to determine whether a name and title in one inscription represents the same individual as in another.257 Roughly speaking, however, the multi-generational Jewish community at

Venosa included four male heads of synagogue, two male gerousiarchs, one male teacher, four elders, one male and three female, eleven fathers, including four designated pater paterôn/patrum, one mother, and the enigmatic “fatheress,” Alexandra. In addition to title bearers, Venosan Jews are named as leaders of the community and patrons of the city.258

253One inscription, JIWE I 82 is entirely in Hebrew and another (JIWE I 75) transliterates Greek into Hebrew characters. This examination considers the fourth to sixth century inscriptions; the ninth century Hebrew inscriptions from Venosa are not included. 254Symbols will be discussed in greater detail in Chapter Four. 255Cesare Colafemmina, “Nova e vetera nella catacomba ebraica di Venosa,” Studi storici (1974), 79-87. Photograph of the painted arcosolium in Maria Salvatore, Venosa: Forma e urbanistica (Rome: «L’Erma» di Bretschneider, 1997), fig. 153. 256A situation directly opposite that of Leontopolis. 257See also Margaret Williams, “The Jews of Early Byzantine Venusia; The family of Faustinus I, the Father,” Journal of Jewish Studies 50 (1999), 38-52, who traces seven generations of the Faustinus family. Her analysis will be discussed in detail in Chapter Three. 258Perhaps this is the best way to understand the inscription of Ana, life officer, JIWE I 72. See the discussion on gender ambiguous names earlier in this chapter.

87

The proliferation of titles at Venosa demonstrates that for this community, public commemoration with titles was a significant practice. Noy suggests that this habit, along with other characteristics, might be a reflection of the mixed religious composition of

Venosa and the later date of this corpus in comparison with that of Leontopolis.259 The latter observation appears to correspond to the circumstance that female title bearer inscriptions seem to occur most frequently in locations with mixed religious populations.

Most title bearer inscriptions in Italy come from urban centers, most notably Rome.

Venosa and Brescia were important regional cities, while Nocere Superiore was a suburb of ancient Neapolis. Evidence from Italy, therefore, indicates that in this region title commemoration was concentrated in cities. That being said, it is surprising that more female title bearers were not commemorated at Rome. Despite being home to the largest

Diasporic Jewish community of the period, Rome preserves no more female title bearer inscriptions than Venosa, although it contains eight times the number of Jewish inscriptions.260 Whether these numbers indicate a distinct preference for female title commemoration at Venosa, a reluctance at Rome, or some combination of the two, it seems clear that each area had its own ideas about female title bearers and their inscriptions.

Tripolitania: Oea

Little information is available regarding the Jewish community at Oea.

Archaeologically, the ancient city is almost completely inaccessible under the modern capital, Tripoli. Two inscriptions from Rome make reference to a gerousiarch and an

259Noy, “Leontopolis and Venosa,” 182. 260There are ca. 75 Jewish inscriptions preserved from Venosa (JIWE I), compared to ca. 600 from Rome (JIWE II).

88 archon of the Tripolitanians.261 More broadly, epigraphic evidence from across north

Africa has led to interpretations of widespread Jewish settlement in this area.262 Lassère has noted that the majority of Jewish inscriptions and names are in Latin, indicating the possibility that many of the Jewish residents of Roman north Africa came via Italy.263 A

Jewish necropolis was found in a suburb of Carthage, and synagogues have been identified at Hammam-Lif and Leptis Magna.264

Although excavated in the 1930s, the Jewish tomb at Oea was published decades later, after its destruction during the Second World War, using the original photos and plans. The tomb had been mistaken for a Christian burial, of which there were others in the area, based on a misinterpretation by the original excavator of the partially exposed palm branch and menorah decoration.265 The catacomb housed 20 burials: two in stone sarcophagi and the rest in niches carved in three rows along the long walls of the rectangular chamber.266 The original excavator’s notes hint at several at least partially preserved inscriptions and decorative panels, but only the column containing

261JIWE II 113 and 166, respectively. 262See, for example, the essays in Carol Iancu and Jean-Marie Lassère, Juifs et Judaisme en Afrique du Nord dans l’antiquité et le haut Moyen-âge (Montpelier : Université Paul Valéry, 1985). Compare Stern, Inscribing Devotion, for a critique of scholarship on Jewish populations in North Africa and a cogent argument for regionally specific research on Jewish populations in the Diaspora. 263Jean-Marie Lassère, Ubique Populus (Paris : Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1977), 420- 421. Mazauzala’s name derives from Semitic roots transliterated into Greek, see Stern, Inscribing Devotion, 139, which inexplicably renders the name Μαζαζαυλα rather than Μαζαυζαλα as it appears in Yaan Le Bohec, “Inscriptions juives et judaïsantes de l’Afrique romaine,” Antiquités Africaines 17 (1981), 173 and in Pietro Romanelli’s transcription of the inscription in “Una piccola catacomba guidaica di Tripoli,” Quaderni di archeologia della Libia 9 (1977), fig. 4. It is unclear whether Stern is attempting to correct a perceived misspelling of the name. 264The Carthage necropolis was published originally in Alfred Delattre, Gamart ou la nécropole juive de Carthage (Lyon, 1895). The Leptis Magna synagogue was suggested by Ward Perkins whose interpretation is not universally agreed upon, see Romanelli, “Una piccola catacomba,” 111-118. The mosaics of Hammam Lif were published by Franklin Biebel, “The Mosaics of Hammam Lif,” The Art Bulletin 18.4 (1936), 540-551. 265Romanelli, “Una piccola catacomba,” 112-113. 266Romanelli, “Una piccola catacomba,” fig. 3.

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Mazauzala’s inscription, as well as the registers above and below hers, are represented in the publication.267 Romanelli notes that the catacomb at Oea resembles more closely the

Christian burials at Cirta than those of the Jewish necropolis at Gammarth, outside of

Carthage.268

Titles are relatively rare in the inscriptions of Roman North Africa and, when they do appear, come from regional urban centers.269 Aside from Mazauzala, all titles are assigned to men. These title inscriptions include a dedication by a head of synagogue and another by two servants of the synagogue at the Hammam Lif synagogue, the epitaph of an archon at Utique near Carthage, and those of two fathers of the synagogue in

Mauretania.270 These data indicate that title commemoration was a relatively infrequent practice in the Jewish communities of North Africa.

Malta

The impressive Jewish mortuary remains on Malta are often overshadowed, in both excavation and publication, by the even more substantive Christian burials. Nevertheless, the proximity in burial of Malta’s Jewish and Christian populations likely has contributed to their relatively complete documentation, and is one of the most interesting facets of

267Romanelli, “Una piccola catacomba,” fig. 4. Mazauzala’s inscription defies Lassère’s characterization of Libyan Jewish inscriptions as predominantly Latin, in its use of Greek language and local Libyan name. See the more nuanced discussion in Stern, Inscribing Devotion, 99-192. Noteworthy also is the cache of ceramic vessels apparent in one of the original excavation photographs, Romanelli, “Una piccola catacomba,” fig. 1. Lamps collected during the excavation are rumored to be held in the National Museum’s storerooms, but were not identified and are, at this point, most likely lost according to Romanelli, “Una piccola catacomba,” 116. This is a shame, since so few inscriptions can be associated with extant finds. 268Romanelli, “Una piccola catacomba,” 116-117. 269It is possible that the lack of title inscriptions from rural locations in North Africa results from the limited amount of recent excavation conducted in modern Libya and Algeria. 270Le Bohec, “Inscriptions juives et judaïsantes,” nos. 14, 15, 65, 74, and 79, respectively. The two Mauretanian inscriptions come from Sétif and Ksar Pharaoun – each of which was the primary city in its region.

90 these remains.271 Becker identified five of the hypogea at the St Agatha catacomb as

Jewish based on the inclusion of menorot. He suggests that others in the immediate vicinity might be Jewish as well.272 Buhagiar adds one more to this group as well for a total of six Jewish hypogea in the SS Paul/Agatha catacomb complex located in Rabat: a suburb of the city of Melita on the western coast of the island.273

Rutgers has argued for distinction in burial space as one of the only markers of differentiation in burial practice among various religious groups in Rome.274 Burials in

Malta appear to conform to this general practice, albeit on a much smaller scale. Ferrua notes that hypogea marked with crosses lie immediately next to those marked with menorot.275 Whether their proximity in death signals a correspondingly amicable relationship between Maltese Jews and Christians in life cannot be determined from these remains, but they are intriguing.

Despite the hundreds of Late Antique Jewish, Christian, and polytheist burials on

Malta, only 39 mortuary inscriptions have been identified. Of these, four, including

Eulogia’s, are considered definitely Jewish by virtue of their text or inclusion of a menorah and four more are presumed as Jewish based on their proximity to the first

271The classic study on the Jewish and Christian catacombs on Malta is Erich Becker’s 1913 publication, which was recently updated, edited, and translated by Katrin Fenech and published as Malta Sotterranea: Studies of its early Christian and Jewish Sepulchral art (Malta: Midsea Books, 2009). See also Mario Buhagiar, The Christianization of Malta: Catacombs, cult centres and churches in Malta to 1530 (Oxford: Archeopress, 2007) and “Early Christian and Byzantine Malta: some archaeological and textual considerations,” Library of Mediterranean History 1 (1994), 77-125. On the Roman remains in Malta, see Anthony Bonanno, Roman Malta: The archaeological heritage of the Maltese Islands (Valletta: World Confederation of Salesian Past Pupils of Don Bosco, 1992); Claudia Sagona, Looking for Mithra in Malta (Leuven: Peeters, 2009). 272Becker, Malta Sotterranea, 63-82. The St. Agatha hypogea with menorot include 10, 12, 13, 14, and 17A. 273Buhagiar, Christianization of Malta, 32, 36, and fig. 40. 274Rutgers, Late Ancient Rome, 262. Bodel, “From Columbaria to Catacombs,” n. 17, expresses reservations. 275Ferrua, “Antichità cristiane,” 514.

91 four.276 Of these eight inscriptions, only three, including Eulogia’s, preserve the decedents’ name(s).277 Eulogia and her husband are the only Maltese Jews whose inscription preserves titles. The relative disinterest in verbal inscriptions generally on

Malta makes it difficult to comment on trends in title commemoration specifically.

More numerous than inscriptions are decorations, most plentiful of which are menorot. 14 incised or painted menorot appear in the Jewish catacombs at Malta.278 The emphasis on symbols over inscriptions seen in the Jewish material from Malta appears to parallel a similar circumstance in the Christian remains. While roughly 12 of the 39 inscriptions from Malta are thought to be Christian, the catacombs preserve over 30 crosses and cross monograms, albeit some of indeterminable antiquity.279 This observation supports, if in an unquantifiable manner, the concept of an epigraphic habit shared between Jewish and Christian Maltese in Late Antiquity: the preference for symbols over words.

Palestine: Beth She‘arim

Literary and archaeological evidence attest to Beth She‘arim as an inhabited village at least through the Byzantine period.280 The city is best known for its extensive necropolis: one of the largest Jewish burial sites in Palestine. Judah ha-Nasi is said to have been buried at Beth She‘arim after his death at Sepphoris, and his choice of burial location

276Buhagiar, Christianization of Malta, nos. 10-16 and 31. 277Buhagiar nos. 10 and 31. One of the Jewish inscriptions (n. 31) is not in any of the catacombs, but instead comes from a tombstone, possibly associated with the Jewish necropolis of Kibur li-Lhud at Mtarfa, according to Buhagiar, Christianization of Malta, 39. 278Buhagiar, Christianization of Malta, figs. 51 and 53. 279Buhagiar, Christianization of Malta, 32, 35-36, and fig. 50. 280Fanny Vitto, “Byzantine mosaics at Beth She‘arim: New Evidence for the History of the Site,” Atiqot 28 (1996), 115-146 updates the dates given in Benjamin Mazar, Beth She‘arim; Volume I (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1973), 14-19.

92 likely accounts for the continued popularity of the necropolis for Jews through Late

Antiquity.281

Inscriptions at Beth She‘arim occur in Hebrew, Aramaic, Palmyrene, and Greek. It is among the Greek inscriptions that we might expect to find evidence for the commemoration of title bearers, but, as at Leontopolis, this expectation is for the most part unmet. The necropolis includes inscriptions of three male heads of synagogues, one gerousiarch, and two fathers, one of whom might possibly be an elder as well.282 The most striking fact, beyond the small number of titles represented, is that all the heads of the synagogue as well as the gerousiarch are not local inhabitants, but are associated with the cities of Beirut, Caesarea, Pamphylia, Sidon, and Antioch.283

Like Marin at Leontopolis, Lady Maria is the only female title bearer at Beth

She‘arim and she is also represented as a priestess.284 Unlike Marin, the inscription commemorating Lady Maria’s title actually marks the tomb of her mother, Sarah. Other titles in the family include that of Sarah’s father Nehemiah, a rabbi, and uncle Julianus, who held the civic position of palatinus, a treasury official.285

It appears that the habit of representing title bearers at Beth She‘arim was not widely practiced, either for men or women. In the case of the male heads of synagogue and

281Mazar, Beth She‘arim I, 5. 282Beth She‘arim II 164, 221, 203, 141, 61, and 110, respectively. 283Beth She‘arim II 221. Joses is from Caesarea and is the head of the synagogue of the Pamphylians. 284There are five other examples of women called κυρά, lady, although I have never seen any discussion on why this designation is used for some women and not others. See Catherine Heszer, Jewish literacy in Roman Palestine (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001), 338. 285Nehemiah and Paregorios, the Hebrew and Greek for “comforter,” are assumed to be the same individual. The Hebrew name is used in Nehemiah’s own funerary inscription (no. 65) as well as that of his daughter Sarah (no.66) in which the Lady Maria title appears. Paregorios is the name used in the funerary inscription of Leontios, his father (no. 61). Likewise, the Julianus of Leontios’ inscription (no. 61), might be equivalent to one or more of the individuals named Judah in nos. 62-64.

93 gerousiarch, their titles appear to have had an origin in Diasporic communities and were retained upon burial at Beth She‘arim. The popularity of Beth She‘arim as a burial place for Jews from a variety of locations creates a unique situation among the locations in which female title bearer inscription are found.

Syria: Byblos

The only evidence for Jewish presence at Byblos comes from inscriptions. The city is otherwise known best in the Roman period for its many polytheist cults, most prominently that of Adonis.286 The only other known Jewish association with Byblos is the report by Josephus that Herod the Great built a city wall there as part of his program of euergetism in Phoenicia.287

Two pieces of a broken mortuary inscription, found during Renan’s excavation of

Byblos in the mid-19th century, commemorate Joses, son of Asterius and announce permission for Joses’s son to use his tomb.288 Renan originally identified the inscription as Christian, but Noy and Bloedhorn, following Robert, suggest that the name Joses indicates a Jewish occupant.289 Another funerary inscription from Byblos marks the tomb of Judas, son of Domitius, following a similar pattern of a father with a Roman name and

286Julien Aliquot, La vie religieuse au Liban sous l’empire romain (Paris: Institut français du Proche- Orient, 2010). On Hellenistic and Roman Byblos generally, see Maria Bertinelli, “Per un storia di Biblo in età ellenstica e romana: chiose a margine di fonti greche e latine,” in Enrico Acquaro (ed.), Biblo: una città e la sua cultura (Rome: Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, 1994), 145-166. 287War 1.422; see Samuel Rocca, Herod’s Judaea: a Mediterranean state in the Classical world (Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck, 2008). 288IJO III Syr28 and Syr29. The name Asterios is known from Greek myth in association with the story of the Minotaur at Crete and is mentioned twice by Pausanius in Description of Greece, first as a Lydian giant (1.35.6) and second as a river god in Argos (2.15.4). Asterius is known as a male name in Jewish contexts at Rome (JIWE II 351) and at Hammam Lif, see Stern, Inscribing Devotion, 226-230, and becomes more frequent as a Christian name, see Wolfram Kinzig, In Search of Asterius: studies on the authorship of the Homilies on the Psalms (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1990). 289Ernest Renan, Mission de Phénicie (Beirut: Éditions Terre du Liban, 1998), 187, pl. XIX; Noy and Bloedhorn, IJO III, 44-45.

94 the son with a specifically Jewish name.290 The habit of Jews at Byblos to adopt non-

Jewish names is followed also in an epitaph from Beth She‘arim, which commemorates a certain Calliope, a matron from Byblos.

Sambathion’s inscription was found in the same necropolis as that of Joses, but in a cave that had been given masonry walls. Her inscription, along with two others, was part of this masonry lining, although it is not at all clear that Sambathion’s inscription was in situ, given that the stone was found broken vertically on both sides.291 Sambathion’s is the only title represented among the Jewish inscriptions at Byblos, which might account for the unusual form the title itself takes.

Thessaly: Phthiotic Thebes

Minimal information is available about the Jewish population at Phthiotic Thebes or in Thessaly more generally. The site itself was occupied to at least some degree in all the major periods from the Neolithic until Late Antiquity.292 At first centered on the acropolis, the city expanded to the area below the acropolis during the Hellenistic and

Roman periods. In about the fourth century CE, the city moved to the harbor city of

Pyrasos.293 Christian graves are noted on the acropolis in Late Antiquity, although whether Peristera’s tomb is located near or among them is unclear.294

290IJO III Syr32. 291Renan, Mission de Phénicie, 193. 292Dorothy Leekley and Nicholas Efstratiou, Archaeological Excavations in Central and Northern Greece (Park Ridge: Noyes Press, 1980), 155-156. 293Siegfried Lauffer (ed.), Griechenland: Lexikon der historischen Stätten (Munich: Verlag C.H. Beck, 1989), 434-435. 294Lauffer, Griechenland, 435. Peristera’s inscription was initially published by Hans Riemann and G. Sotirou, in “Archäologische Funde vom Sommer 1936 bis Sommer 1937: Thessalien,” Archäologischer Anzeiger 52 (1937), 146-148.

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Eight other Jewish inscriptions from Phthiotic Thebes are extant, but none of them displays titles.295 Fourteen inscriptions come from the nearby, larger city of Larissa, ca.

25 miles south of Phthiotic Thebes. Of these, only one displays titles – the grave of

Alexander, scholasticus and prostates.296 Peristera is therefore one of two extant title bearers in the region of Thessaly.297

Conclusions on Geography

If all epigraphy is local, as Bodel claims, then broad conclusions regarding title bearer inscriptions and their spatial distribution are inherently problematic. Nevertheless, a few observations are worth offering. First, it is apparent that local custom influenced the use of specific titles. That is, some titles are represented in some places and others in other places. Elders account for one third of all female titles memorialized in inscriptions and sixteen male elders are recorded in Asia Minor alone. Why are elders so infrequently represented at Rome? Conversely, fathers and mothers, of the synagogue or otherwise, appear nowhere in Asia Minor and almost exclusively in Italy.298 It is clear that local practice dictated the terms by which various community members were memorialized.

Second, terms borrowed or adapted from Greco-Roman civic or religious contexts and assigned to women, such as head of the synagogue, mother/father, elder, and archon,

295IJO I Ach15-24. 296IJO I Ach5. 297More striking than titles in the case of Thessaly is the phrase “farewell to the people.” This refrain appears on ten of the 14 funerary inscriptions found at Larissa (IJO I Ach1-4, Ach8, Ach10-14), but not at all in those of Thebes. This example clearly illustrates the local character of epigraphic practice, as described by both Bodel and MacMullen. 298An exception is Tiberius Claudius Polycharmus, father of the synagogue at Stobi in Macedonia, IJO I Mac1.

96 are used most frequently in areas with greater religious diversity.299 Levine has observed that in Palestine, these titles appear almost exclusively in Hellenized cities with mixed populations rather than in more exclusively Jewish enclaves; his argument centers on individual versus community benefaction practices. His data, as well as those discussed here, also suggest that such titles were not deemed as useful for commemoration in predominantly Jewish locations like Beth She‘arim and Leontopolis as they were among

Jews in mixed communities such as those in Italy and Asia Minor.300 That is, the inscription of religious titles appears to participate in the process of claiming and articulating specifically Jewish space in non-Jewish contexts. Further, each Jewish community encountered a particular locale in which to stake and negotiate their identity.

It stands to reason, therefore, that different choices in terminology and usage would be made to suit local exigencies.

Third, there is an unexpected paucity of female title bearers represented in major urban environments. This observation, although intriguing, relies upon very small numbers to make its case. For example, Peristera is one of only two known title bearers in

Thessaly. Thus, fifty percent of Thessalian title bearers are female and female title bearers represent four percent of the total number of inscriptions from Thessaly. In

Rome, on the other hand, only about four percent of title bearers are women and female title bearer inscriptions constitute less than one percent of the total number of inscriptions. Using Peristera as the point of comparison for Rome creates a slightly

299At Beth She‘arim and Leontopolis, the most homogeneous sites from the corpus, women are assigned only the title “priestess.” One could argue that the concept of a female priesthood is also borrowed from Greco-Roman contexts (see Brooten, Women Leaders, 73-99), but the prior existence of a Jewish priesthood differentiates this term from others, such as head of the synagogue, which were not used in Jewish contexts before the first century CE. 300Note that this conclusion is not a claim that individuals with these titles did not exist in Palestine. My argument continues to be about the choice to represent in certain ways in certain places.

97 exaggerated example, and the use of these statistics is not intended to be taken as significant in the formal sense of the term. It is nonetheless striking that in Rome, where we might expect to see commemorated the greatest density of female title bearers, there is a palpable dearth.

Finally, in no place are all known titles preserved. At the risk of moving from representation to reality, this observation challenges historical constructions of a standardized, uniform complement of synagogue officials running all Diaspora synagogues.301 For the moment, however, this particular challenge will not be engaged. A more moderate course is to observe that while the epigraphic data cannot comment on whether they existed, it appears that no one wanted to be memorialized as a Jewish elder in Rome.

2.5: Conclusions

The goal of this chapter has been to locate the constituent elements of the female title bearer corpus in time and space and to determine whether any discernible patterns in their chronological or geographical distributions are apparent. Female title bearer inscriptions appear to cluster in the 4th and 5th centuries and to occur in locations with mixed religious communities, both urban and rural. These observations support the suggestion that public commemoration of title bearers was one means by which Jewish communities claimed ideological space in a changing and increasingly competitive religious world.

301See Chapter One and the discussion of early reconstructions of synagogue leadership structures based on an amalgamation of titles from inscriptions.

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Chapter Three: On the use and abuse of epigraphy

3.1: Introduction

In his discussion of inscriptions as a source for ancient history, John Bodel notes several pitfalls inherent to the study of epigraphy.302 Of these examples, two seem particularly relevant to the question of female title bearer inscriptions. The first, the issue of history from square brackets, concerns the construction of evidence from hypotheses.

The second, more broadly conceptual issue is that of epigraphic bias. This pitfall concerns not the evidence itself, but rather the interpretive practices used by historians to create history from inscriptions. The liabilities of inscriptions as sources for the past will lead into a broader discussion of the textuality of inscriptions: the subject of Chapter

Three.

Badian coined the phrase “history from square brackets” to describe what he called the historical fiction created by historians’ injudicious use of hypothetical restorations for missing sections of text.303 Square brackets are the symbols by which epigraphers mark proposed readings for textual lacunae, and their contents are acknowledged as conjectural. Nevertheless, such suggestions are often taken as fact, particularly when they line up with a preconceived idea of what an inscription should say.304

302Bodel, “Epigraphy,” 46-56. 303Badian, “History from ‘Square Brackets,’” 59-70. 304Badian, “History from Square Brackets,” 59, comments that this practice is particularly dangerous for non-formulaic texts. I would argue that, in a certain sense, it is more problematic for texts deemed formulaic since a greater tendency to default language might obscure variations to standard language. The following example illustrates Badian’s point in the realm of female title bearers.

Simplicia’s partially preserved inscription from the Vigna Randanini catacomb in Rome is presented thus in translation: “Here lies Simplicia, mother of the synagogue, who loved her husband … of the synagogue for his own spouse…”305 If the brackets utilized in the

Greek are superimposed on the English, the inscription would read “Here lies Simp[licia, mother of the sy]nagogue, who loved her husband … of the synagogue for his own s[pouse]…In this case, both the name and title are reconstructions. Noy notes that the names Simplex, Simpliciana, and Simpliciola are additional possible reconstructions of a female name beginning “Simp…” but does not discuss why he considered Simplicia to be the most likely among these.306 More significantly, the reconstruction of Simplicia’s title as mother of the synagogue is based on the existence of other examples of mothers of the synagogue in Rome. Theoretically, however, it is also possible that Simplicia was a head of the synagogue.307

I am not arguing that the reconstructions of Simplicia’s name or title are inappropriate or incorrect. The fragmentary state in which many inscriptions are preserved makes reconstruction unavoidable and the formulaic nature of many inscriptions makes these reconstructions largely undisputed. What does seem problematic is the transformation of hypothetical reconstruction to historical fact, in so much as Simplicia is unproblematically tallied among mothers of the synagogue when she might, in fact have had a different title altogether. In other words, the conjectural reconstruction of the title

305JIWE II 251. 306Noy, JIWE II, 221. 307Compare JIWE II 13, “Here lies Euphrasius, head of the synagogue, having lived a good life” which also has an –ης ending. It is possible that Simplicia’s inscription might also be using a masculine –ης nominative ending rather than a feminine genitive. Rufina’s title of head of the synagogue is clearly masculine in its grammar, albeit using the more common –ος declension, see IJO II 43.

100 mother of the synagogue is created and accepted on the basis of the expectation that such a title is more appropriate to a female title bearer from Rome; there are other examples of

Roman mothers of the synagogue but no Roman examples of female heads of the synagogue. This history made within Simplicia’s (or whoever’s) square brackets is thus conditioned by historians’ expectations. The corpus of female title bearer inscriptions is such a small one with which to work; each inscription is significant to the character of the whole. This example, although not revolutionary in its implications, is symptomatic of a larger concern deserving greater attention.

The issue of epigraphic bias, discussed briefly in Chapter One, merits additional consideration as a problem affecting inscriptions. Dedications and epitaphs tend to be deceptively straightforward in their communication of facts. Their affinity with records and other types of documentary texts has contributed to a willingness to accept those facts at face value. In fact, as Bodel points out, “…the selection of what to inscribe and in what form to write it was never determined solely by what one wished to communicate or to record but by what was considered appropriate to communicate or to record in inscribed writing on a particular object in a particular place at a particular time.”308 The problem of epigraphic bias is particularly hazardous in situations where inscriptions provide the only source of information from which an historical phenomenon is known: a situation like Jewish female title bearers.

As noted in Chapter One, specific title bearers, both male and female, are known almost exclusively from inscriptions. Rabbinic and Christian legislative texts discuss title

308Bodel, “Epigraphy,” 34.

101 bearers in the abstract, usually without reference to specific individuals.309 As far as I am aware, the New Testament offers the only examples of named, titled individuals who appear outside of inscriptions, and their historicity is dubious at best.310 In no place aside from inscriptions is there a hint that women were awarded titles.311 Thus, Jewish title bearers, and female title bearers in particular, are susceptible to the problem of epigraphic bias. As the sole sources of information for individual title bearers, title inscriptions must be read with the same skepticism as any other ancient source.

The concerns articulated in the concept of epigraphic bias parallel those of post- structuralist textuality and representation, discussed below. Chapters One and Two made repeated reference to the representative character of female title bearer inscriptions. That is, these inscriptions testify directly to the commemoration of women as title bearers and only indirectly to these women’s historical realities. Consequently, a woman such as

Rufina of Smyrna is available to scholars only in textual, or more specifically in this case, inscribed form. Inscribed Rufina is not wholly separate from historical Rufina, but neither is she wholly commensurate with the woman who built a tomb for her household 1700 years ago.

Whatever historical realities were embodied by female title bearers are lost in the past and inaccessible to historians. We have only their inscribed selves – their epigraphic

309Brooten, Women Leaders, is thorough in finding both Jewish and Christian textual references to titles. Both Rabbinic writings and sources such as the Theodosian codes refer to title bearers primarily in the abstract. Occasional possible titles do occur, such as R. Huna the Elder of Sepphoris in Genesis Rabbah 8:5. The difficulty with elder as a title versus a designation of an older person was discussed in Chapter Two. Further Rabbinic “elders” and other possible title bearers are likely akin to Shaye Cohen’s “Epigraphical Rabbis,” Jewish Quarterly Review 71.1 (1981), 1-17. See also Hayim Lapin, “Epigraphical Rabbis: A Reconsideration,” Jewish Quarterly Review 101.3 (2011), 311-346. 310Jairus in Mark 5:21-43 (c.f. Matthew 9:18-26 and Luke 8:40-56); Crispus and Sosthenes in Acts 18:1-17. 311Brooten, Women Leaders, 38-39 attempts to link the title archegos/archegissa to Junia the apostolos in Romans 16:7, but this connection hinges on understanding the former title as having a sense of founder, which she sees connected to the idea of mission inherent to the latter title.

102 representations. The tendency to positivism embraced by many ancient historians might cause them to balk at this circumscribed conclusion.312 It feels so commonsensical to agree that as head of the synagogue, Theopempte ran the synagogue. Jewish communities are known to have had councils of elders: obviously Mannine sat on such a council. To refuse concession to these points, to argue against the conflation of representation and reality, to question the equation of epigraphic and historical facts likely appears as a stubborn refusal to admit the obvious.

To be clear, I am not arguing against the possibility that Theopempte and Rufina did run synagogues or that Mannine did sit on a council of elders. I am arguing against the assertion that the evidence in its present state supports these conclusions. However tempting, logical, or obvious it seems, the rift between these women’s inscribed and historical selves is too great to bridge with the tools currently at hand.

While the preceding conclusions might seem discouraging, or even unproductively negative, I would argue that the embrace of title bearers’ representational character opens new realms of possibility for exploration. Chapter Three launches this exploration by focusing on inscriptions as texts. More specifically, inscriptions are examples of a specific type of ancient textual practice: epigraphy. The written word carried marked significance in the ancient world and, consequently, inscribed women are likewise significant. That this significance is not of the sort that some scholars expected or hoped for cannot be helped. The textuality of inscriptions and the women they commemorate open numerous venues for exploring the representation of women in Jewish communities’ inscriptions.

312See Kraemer’s critique of E. Clark in Unreliable Witnesses, 7-11.

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The basis for distinguishing between inscribed and historical women lies in the approaches to history that have come out of twentieth century critical theory’s linguistic turn. Using texts, in this case, inscriptions, as source material for constructions of history requires attending to the limitations constraining such material. Chapter Three will begin, therefore, with a brief discussion of the linguistic turn and its effect on how historical projects can and should be framed.

Chapter Three then turns to the issue of ancient literacy. Exploring the textual nature of inscriptions leads logically to the question of who would have read them. William

Harris’ landmark book Ancient Literacy made a case for an unprecedentedly low estimate of literacy rates in the Roman Empire.313 Although various refinements to Harris’ argument have been offered, his conclusions have generally remained unchallenged.314 At the same time, writing was ubiquitous in the Roman world – far more so than can be explained by its use among readers and writers alone. Consequently, the relationship between literate and non-literate members of society must be more complicated than it would at first appear. This section thus explores not only who could read and who could not, but how those groups interacted.

The final section of Chapter Three will engage the conclusions reached earlier in the chapter to the contexts of title bearer inscriptions. As noted in Chapter Two, title inscriptions appear in two main contexts: in synagogues and other public spaces as dedicatory inscriptions, and in catacombs and cemeteries as funerary inscriptions.

Dedicatory and funerary inscriptions thus differ in location and, perhaps, in purpose and

313William Harris, Ancient Literacy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989). 314See the essays in J.H. Humphrey (ed.), Literacy in the Roman World (Ann Arbor: Journal of Roman Archaeology, 1991).

104 content. This section will, therefore, examine Jewish title bearer inscriptions’ locations of production to better understand their content and, consequently, their various purposes.

Thus, Chapter Three will demonstrate the utility of analyzing the textuality of inscriptions, their readership, their epigraphic character, and their context. I argue that, even as an inscribed character, Rufina offers insight into the ways women were represented in early Jewish communities.

3.2: Textuality and the Linguistic Turn

In attempting to engage critical theory in projects like this there is a risk, particularly for a non-specialist, of disappearing down so many rabbit holes. The sheer number of problems, concerns, objections, and critiques leveled by theorists at historians and their projects is overwhelming and, I would suggest, is in part what has led to historians’ general disengagement from theoretically oriented conversations. At the same time, however, those conversations are the very sort that might break the subject of women and

Jewish title inscriptions out of the disciplinary torpor in which they are mired. The challenges brought by the linguistic turn, addressed in the current chapter, and the pictorial turn, discussed in Chapter Four, open new possibilities for thinking beyond the question of whether or not there were women leaders in ancient synagogues.315 Two

315On the phrase “linguistic turn” and its application in a wide variety of historical projects, see, for example, the essays in Richard Rorty (ed.), The Linguistic Turn: recent essays in historical method (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967); Martin Jay, “Should Intellectual History Take a Linguistic Turn? Reflections on the Habermas-Gadamer Debate,” in Dominick La Capra and Steven Kaplan (eds.), Modern European Intellectual History: Reappraisals and New Perspectives (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1982), 86-110; John Toews, “Intellectual History after the Linguistic Turn: The Autonomy of Meaning and the Irreducibility of Experience,” American Historical Review 92 (1987), 879-907; James Vernon, “Who’s Afraid of the ‘Linguistic Turn’? The Politics of Social History and Its Discontents,” Social History 19.1 (1994), 81-97; Kathleen Canning, “Feminist History after the Linguistic Turn: Historicizing Discourse and Experience,” Signs 19.2 (1994), 368-404; Michael Dintenfass, “Truth’s Other: Ethics, the History of the Holocaust, and Historiographical Theory after the Linguistic Turn,” History and Theory 39.1 (2000), 1-20; Frank Ankersmit, “The Linguistic Turn: Literary Theory and Historical Theory,” in Historical Representation (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001), 29-74.

105 conversations seem of particular relevance here, though doubtless others could be chosen.

These are, first, the questions of what counts as text and second, how to relate text and context.316

Chapter One mentioned briefly the tendency among scholars to view inscriptions as offering more genuine or authentic views of the past than literary texts, particularly as pertains to women’s lives and other categories of knowledge most obscured by literature’s male, upper-class perspective. Such a view adopts a binary view of sources as either literary or documentary.317 Although documents, like literature, are also guilty of being conveyed in language (and, hence, alienating historians from a past to which words cannot do justice), documents are considered free from the rhetorical and ideological obfuscations of literature. Whereas “high” literary texts can benefit from a wide variety of against-the-grain critical reading strategies as part of a new intellectual historical project, documentary data, such as inscriptions, are left without an apparatus for critical examination as their rhetoric and ideology are obscured by their terseness.318

The distinction between literature and documents is increasingly breaking down. Joan

Scott has noted that even the most straightforward documentary evidence, in her case labor statistics, is constructed representation, neither wholly neutral nor wholly ideological.319 Whether or not they are apparent, choices were made regarding how to choose, organize, and categorize even the most seemingly straightforward data. The

316The question of objectivism and the relationship between scholar and subject are likewise relevant, but will be discussed in Chapter Five. 317This dichotomy is acknowledged and discussed by Clark, Spiegel, and LaCapra, for example, although it is unclear to me where the distinction originates. 318The outcome for Late Ancient Christian studies towards which Clark aims in History, Theory, Text. 319 Scott, Gender and the Politics of History, 115.

106 manner in which purportedly factual information is represented can reflect particular authoritarian agendas. Scott’s work highlights the fact that documents are not apolitical.

Dominick LaCapra has argued even more strenuously for recognition that literature and documents are both texts, albeit of different types, each of which engages components of the other.320 In his terminology, literary texts, or “works” must engage documentary aspects given their historically situated location, while documents, like tax records or legal documents (or inscriptions), have work-like components insomuch as they result from ideologically suspect social processes.321 While LaCapra’s aim is more to criticize what he considers an overwhelmingly documentary approach to literature, it is the comments regarding the work-like aspects of documents that are of interest here. The two issues are related for LaCapra, in that he sees a documentary approach to literary texts as complicit in overlooking the textual aspects of documents.322 He notes that recognition of documents’ textuality is lost when they are used “…purely and simply as a quarry for facts…”323

Both Scott and LaCapra offer support in arguing against a simple, positivist use of inscriptions as “hard” evidence for past realities. Scott emphasizes the dynamics of power and authority which work behind the scenes, particularly in representations of women

320I was surprised to realize, through reading Clark and LaCapra, for example, that scholars of complex or “literary” texts feel marginalized by documentary historians and their documents. I would have characterized my own small corner of the academy as privileging literary texts (Biblical texts, Patristic texts, Josephus, Philo, apocryphal texts, pseud-epigraphic texts, the list could go on and on) over documents at nearly every turn. Had I a more traditional History background, the prioritization of documents in constructing political, economic, and social histories would doubtless seem much more logical. I am grateful to Elizabeth Clark for pointing out how my own academic situatedness contributed to this sense of surprise. 321Dominick LaCapra, Rethinking Intellectual History: Texts, Contexts, Language (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1982). 322Dominick LaCapra, History & Criticism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985), 19. 323LaCapra, Rethinking Intellectual History, 31.

107 and other marginalized social groups. LaCapra insists that nowhere is language free from rhetoric, regardless of the type of text involved. While it seems wildly obvious to say that inscriptions are texts, a concomitant insistence upon inscriptions’ textuality forces engagement with their rhetorical and ideological commitments.

The second theoretical question of relevance here concerns the relationship between text and context. Derrida’s phrase “il n’y a pas de hors-texte,” most often translated as

“there is nothing outside-the-text,” was taken by some as an expression of linguistic extremism which attempts to reduce the world to words.324 The phrase’s perceived rejection of context as a means of understanding artifacts of the past, including texts, is alarming, particularly for those who deal in material culture. Viewed as a challenge to contextualism broadly construed, the absence of anything outside-the-text would seem to signal a disregard for historical specificity of artifacts and an embrace of a vacuum in which each pot sherd or graffito must speak for itself.325

Happily, this interpretation of Derrida is one which the author himself challenges.326

As a corrective, Derrida offers “there is nothing outside context” as an alternative translation of his famous phrase.327 His deconstructive agenda aims to challenge the perception that all texts have a single, real, accessible context which dictates meaning and calls, instead, for recognition of texts’ continual recontextualization. LaCapra’s logical corollary to Derrida’s phrase, “there is nothing inside-the-text,” continues this challenge

324Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1967), 158; Clark, History, Theory, Text, 135. 325Clark, History, Theory, Text, 138, offers the following broad definition of contextualism: “Historians’ customary appeal to the explanatory force of extratextual political, economic, and social phenomena.” 326It is funny that authorial intent becomes really important suddenly! 327Jacques Derrida, “Afterword: Toward an Ethic of Discussion,” Limited Inc. (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1988), 136.

108 by denying texts a single, independent, internal system of meaning.328 Contextualism, as an explanatory model, stumbles in its emphasis on authors and origins as the locations of meaning and understanding.

The fraught relationship between text and context can usefully be parsed through an archaeological allegory, which might redeem some of contextualism’s priorities while addressing the concerns of Derrida and LaCapra. In excavation, artifacts are encountered among layers of sedimentary deposits, all of which are carefully recorded. In some cases artifacts are in situ, such as when a piece of painted plaster is found adhering to a wall. In most cases, artifacts are found ex situ, as when the wall has collapsed and crushed said plaster. In both cases, the context of discovery and recording is the location of the archaeologist’s encounter with an artifact. But in either case, that location is only the latest in a series of contexts in which the plastered wall existed. The conditions of its construction (that is, before its being built), its span of usage (the length of time the wall was functional), and its post-usage phase (the processes of sediment accumulation and collapse which brought the site to the conditions in which the archaeologist first encountered it) are all equally valid contexts which explain various aspects of the wall.

Which context is authoritative depends on what answers regarding the wall are being sought at a particular moment. A similar story could be told of a coin that was minted, circulated, and eventually was dropped and covered with layers of dirt. Such a coin does not have a context that explains its meaning – it has many contexts and as many meanings. Which context is relevant depends on the question/s being asked.

328Dominick LaCapra, Soundings in Critical Theory (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989), 19.

109

To my mind, archaeology offers an understanding of context that accords well with the critiques leveled against contextualism. At the same time, this model advocates that authors and/or origins are no less valid contexts of exploration and meaning making than others. It is not necessary to consider that an author’s intention is the only source of meaning a text might hold to acknowledge that it is one of many potentially interesting sources of meaning worthy of study. It is also not necessary that an author’s intention be considered knowable or accessible to accept that a text was penned (or inscribed) with a particular meaning, regardless of whether and who else understood or accepted it.

Another way to articulate the relationship between text and context in the face of challenges to contextualism might be to argue with Gabrielle Spiegel that extratextual phenomena are both the cause and result of texts’ production and existence in the world.329 A similar concept is articulated by de Certeau in his willingness to explore the social location (dare we say, context?) of a text’s production – a location of which the text is a “partial symptom.”330 The idea of inscriptions as simultaneously reflecting and shaping social realities will be discussed in greater detail later in this chapter and in the next. For the moment it will suffice to say that although “il n’y a pas de hors-texte” was never the wholesale threat to context that it seemed, the complete denigration of authors and origins as potentially meaningful contexts is likewise an extreme interpretation.

Textuality and the Linguistic Turn: Conclusions

Classifying inscriptions as texts insists upon their representational, ideological, and rhetorical production and resists the inclination to assume their straightforward, neutral,

329 Spiegel, “History,” 59-86, argues that the genealogical histories which she studies are both “consequence and cause” of social developments in medieval France. 330Michel de Certeau, “Histoire et mystique,” Revue de l’histoire de la spiritualité 48 (1972), 69-82.

110 or innocent correspondence to the past. This recognition might be considered negative insomuch as scholars are thus distanced from their objects of study: Jewish women in antiquity. At the same time, however, new venues and openings appear which inspire questions beyond whether women were leaders in ancient synagogues. By embracing the textuality of women in Jewish title inscriptions, “whether or not” is beside the point.

Instead, questions can center on the language used to write women in inscriptions, what that language might have signaled to readers, how words might signal differently in different places. Likewise, by accepting the multi-contextuality of inscriptions, possibilities of meaning exponentially increase, locations of meaning production are compared, and conditions of production are explored. Why, how, where, to what end, in what manner, for whom, by whom and with whom expand possibilities of discovery.

Thus, I argue, inscriptions cannot be taken as straightforward or unmediated documentary sources. They are constructed texts existing in a multiplicity of contexts.

The next section will continue the conversation on inscriptions as texts by considering the issue of literacy. The textuality of inscriptions raises the question of readers, which in the case of the ancient world meant a small minority of the population. Ways in which readers and non-readers interacted with texts offer insight into the practice and purpose of inscribing.

3.3: Ancient Literacy

The ubiquity of the written word in the ancient world lends the latter a sense of familiarity to modern eyes. Billboards, shop signs, graffiti, tombstones, street signs all have their ancient corollaries. These similarities in the nature of public writing can lead to assumptions of corresponding similarities between ancient and modern practices of

111 reading as well. Our expectation is that if something is written down it is for the singular purpose of being read. The intimacy of writing and reading and the immediacy with which readers are expected to comprehend writing are deeply ingrained in the modern western imaginary. Thus, the abundance of ancient writing has led some scholars to posit a corresponding abundance of readers in the Mediterranean world: mass literacy which, if not as universal as modern rates, was pervasive throughout all levels of society.331

William Harris argues against such optimistic appraisals of ancient literacy in an exhaustive analysis of epigraphic and literary data from classical antiquity. Working from this evidence, Harris offers statistical estimates of literacy for various areas during specific periods, ranging from Archaic Greece to Late Ancient Rome. He suggests that neither Greece nor Rome at the heights of their democracies boasted a literacy rate above

10%.332 At its apogee, Imperial Rome might have reached a level as high as 10%, but literacy rates over the empire as a whole are estimated by Harris to have been roughly

5%.333 Harris’ assessment of ancient literacy rates instigated a reexamination of the relationship between writing and reading. While various scholars have challenged some

331Examples of optimistic appraisals of literacy rates cited by Harris include Oswyn Murray, Early Greece (Brighton: Harvester Press, 1980); Joachim Marquardt, Das Privatleben der Römer 2nd ed. (Unveränd: Leipzig, 1886); Anne-Marie Guillemin, Le public et la vie littéraire à Rome (Paris: Société d'édition "Les Belles lettres," 1937); Helen Tanzer, The common people of Pompeii: a study of the graffiti (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1939); Colin Roberts, “Books in the Graeco-Roman World and in the New Testament,” in Peter Ackroyd (ed.), Cambridge History of the Bible v.1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University press, 1970), 48-66. 332Harris, Ancient Literacy, 61 (archaic Greece); 114 (Classical Greece); 173 (Republican Rome). It is at times unclear in Harris’ statistics whether he is calculating in terms of whole or male populations. Phrases such as “The population of Attica as a whole” indicate the former, but he mentions hoplites, citizens, and other male-only groups when determining literacy numbers (114). His terminology is more specific in the conclusion (e.g. pg. 328). The underlying assumption that female literacy was statistically insignificant can create confusion in the articulation of literacy statistics. See Rebecca Benefiel, “Dialogues of Graffiti in the House of the Four Styles at Pompeii,” in Jennifer Baird and Claire Taylor (eds.), Ancient Graffiti in Context (London: Routledge, 2011), 20-48. 333Harris estimates that for Italy in the High Empire, literacy rates would have been less than 20% among men and less than 10% among women (259), but that in some of the provinces overall literacy rates could have been below 5% (272).

112 of Harris’ methods and interpretations, the general conclusion of surprisingly low literacy rates in the ancient world continues to hold sway.

It is tempting to wonder whether the Jewish population of the Roman Empire might constitute an exception to Harris’ statistics. As members of a book-centered religion, literacy rates among Jews might feasibly be thought higher than those among populations belonging to ritual-centered religion.334 Early discussions of Jewish literacy focused on the Biblical period and were generally positive in their assessment of literacy rates.335

Frequent references to reading in the Bible, epigraphic data, and numerous ostraca led some scholars to postulate that literacy was common in Torah-centered Israelite society.

These conclusions have been disputed on a number of points, including the dubious accuracy of the Biblical text on this point, the vocational nature of ancient schooling, and the circumscribed purposes of most “casual texts.”336 The centrality of text to Israelite religion does not appear to correlate with high literacy rates among adherents.

334See Beard, “Writing and Religion: Ancient Literacy and the Function of the Written Word in Roman Religion,” in Humphrey, Literacy, 35-58, who disputes the characterization of Roman religion as non- textual. This binary, naturally, is sweeping in its generalizations. As Beard illustrates, Roman religions did use text and Judaism certainly had its share of rituals. Likewise the binary between Judaism as a religion of praxis and Christianity as one of credo simplifies a more complex situation. Nevertheless, Roman religion does not have a central text commensurate with the Torah, so the question of whether the importance of this book in Judaism positively affected the literacy rates of Jews is worth asking. 335For positive assessments of Israelite literacy, see Alan Millard, “An Assessment of the Evidence for Writing in Ancient Israel,” in Janet Amitai (ed.), Biblical Archaeology Today (Jerusalem: International Congress on Biblical Archaeology, 1985), 301-312; Aaron Demsky, “Writing in Ancient Israel and Early Judaism: The Biblical period,” in Martin Mulder (ed.), Mikra: Text, Translation, Reading and Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in ancient Judaism and early Christianity (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2004), 2-20. See also Christopher Rollston, Writing and Literacy in the World of ancient Israel (Leiden: Brill, 2010). 336See Millard, “An Assessment,” 303-304 for ostraca as casual or occasional texts. For critiques of Millard, see Menahem Haran, “On the Diffusion of Literacy and Schools in Ancient Israel,” in J.A. Emerton (ed.), Congress Volume: Jerusalem, 1986 (Leiden: Brill, 1988), 81-95; Susan Niditch, Oral World and Written Word: Ancient Israelite Literature (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996) and James Crenshaw, Education in Ancient Israel: Across the Deadening Silence (New York: Doubleday, 1998). Stern, “The First Jewish Books,” 163-202, has argued that even within textually reliant Jewish culture, the Bible is best understood as a known, heard text rather than one which was read individually. Rabbinic midrash on Biblical passages was based on a primarily aural knowledge of Torah, whereas medieval 113

Circumstances do not appear to change significantly in Second Temple or post-

Temple Judaism. Catherine Heszer’s analysis of Jewish literacy in Roman Palestine concludes that, if anything, the Jewish population there had a rate of literacy lower than the Empire’s average, due to the predominantly rural character of the population.337

Being Jewish does not appear to increase the likelihood of being literate. The literacy rates of the Diaspora Jewish populations of interest in this study are, therefore, mostly likely commensurate with those of their non-Jewish neighbors.

The question remains of how to understand the simultaneous ubiquity of words and pervasiveness of illiteracy. That is, why did the ancient world have so many words when so few people could read them? The answers lie in more nuanced understandings of the interactions between literate and non-literate people, of the significance of texts for illiterate members of society, and of the power written words held even when they could not be read.

The lack of mass literacy in the ancient world does not preclude the possibility of concomitant widespread literacy.338 As Hopkins has noted, a literacy rate of 5% means that there were over two million literate individuals living in the Roman Empire at a given time.339 Evidence from a variety of sources reveals an expectation that those who could not read and write themselves would been able to call upon the services of another

exegesis depended upon the visual, written word, as changes to the appearance of texts attest. Even among a population of readers and writers, it is aural knowledge of text that is primarily engaged. 337Heszer, Jewish Literacy, 496. The question of literacy among Jews in Palestine is complicated by the fact that the Bible continued to be read in Hebrew while Jews were speaking Aramaic, as opposed to the Diaspora where Greek served both purposes. See Ann Ellis Hanson, “Ancient Illiteracy,” in Humphrey, Literacy, 159-198, on increased illiteracy in multi-lingual populations. 338Alan Bowman, “Literacy in the Roman Empire: mass and mode,” in Humphrey, Literacy, 119-132. 339Keith Hopkins, “Conquest by book,” in Humphrey, Literacy, 133-158.

114 who could, be it family member, friend, patron, or professional scribe.340 Interaction between literate and illiterate members of society made it possible for those who could not read to function in a world that prized writing.341

Illiteracy was not an excuse for opting out of the textual requirements of life in the

Roman Empire.342 Through literate proxies and collective memory, illiterate individuals were able to fulfill the textual obligations incumbent upon them. Moreover, several examples testify that even those who could not read were aware of the importance of the written word and carefully guarded their documents.

One example that demonstrates this awareness is the preservation of tax receipts in the form of ostraca from Egyptian villages. At the village of Karanis, official tax registers and receipts for payment exemplify both sides of the Roman tax system. While it is unsurprising that the Romans kept careful tax records for themselves, it is intriguing that the villages were equally aware of the importance of keeping their receipts as proof of payment.343

340Hopkins, “Conquest,” 150. 341Another intersection between the literate and illiterate is located at the juxtaposition of literacy and orality. The relationship between these two phenomena is rich and complicated, as is testified by the fruits of biannual conferences on the subject held beginning in 1994 and published in the following volumes: Ian Worthington (ed.), Voice into text: orality and literacy in ancient Greece (Leiden: Brill, 1996); Anne Mackay (ed.), Signs of Orality: Oral Tradition and its Influence in the Greek and Roman World (Leiden: Brill, 1999); Janet Watson (ed.) Speaking Volumes: Orality and Literacy in the Greek and Roman World (Leiden: Brill, 2001); Ian Worthington and John Miles Foley (eds.), Epea and Grammata: Oral and written communication in ancient Greece (Leiden: Brill, 2002); Chris Mackie (ed.), Oral performance and its context (Leiden: Brill, 2004); Craig Cooper (ed.), Politics of Orality (Leiden: Brill, 2007); Anne Mackay (ed.), Orality, literacy, memory in the ancient Greek and Roman world (Leiden: Brill, 2008) André Lardinois, Josine Blok, and Marc van der Poel (eds.), Sacred Words: Orality, literacy and religion (Leiden: Brill, 2011); Elizabeth Minchin (ed.), Orality, Literacy, and Performance in the ancient world (Leiden: Brill, 2011). See also Ruth Finnegan, Literacy and Orality (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998). 342Hanson, “Ancient Illiteracy,” 168. 343Hopkins, “Conquest,” 139.

115

An equally illustrative example is the well-known Babatha archive. Babatha, a second century Jewish woman, brought along a packet of letters and legal documents when she fled her home during the Bar Kochva revolt. The documents covered a variety of topics, including property rights, inheritance issues, and spousal support for children. The contents of the documents indicate that Babatha herself was unable to read.344 That being the case, she used various literate proxies to accomplish a variety of tasks. Moreover, she clearly understood the importance of retaining possession of these documents. Babatha exemplifies an illiterate individual navigating the textual world, who “…participated in literacy in some significant way.”345

One of the most important ways in which ancient and modern conceptions of the writing/reading relationship differ is in the issue of whether written words must be read in order to be meaningful. That writing might have meaning without being read is as antithetical to modern western thought as the idea that “going through the motions” of a

344The Babatha archive is published in Naphtali Lewis, Jonas Greenfield, and Yigael Yadin (eds.), The Documents from the Bar Kochva period from the Cave of Letters (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1989). See the review of the publication in Martin Goodman, “Babatha’s Story,” Journal of Roman Studies 81 (1991), 169-175; Hannah Cotton, “The Guardianship of Jesus son of Babatha: Roman and Local Law in the province of Arabia,” Journal of Roman Studies 83 (1993), 94-108; Tal Ilan, “Premarital Cohabitation in Ancient Judea: The Evidence of the Babatha Archive and the Mishnah (Ketubbot 1.4),” Harvard Theological Review 86.3 (1993), 247-264; Hannah Cotton and Jonas Greenfield, “Babatha’s Property and the Law of Succession in the Babatha Archive,” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 104 (1994) 211-224. A second set of documents belonging to a woman named Salome Komaïse and her family also came from the Cave of Letters, although they were not all located during formal excavation, see Jonas Greenfield, “The texts from Naḥal Ṣe’elim (Wadi Seiyal),” in Julio Trebolle Barrera and L. Vegas Montaner (eds.), The Madrid Qumran Congress: Proceedings of the International Congress on the Dead Sea Scrolls, Madrid 18-21 March, 1991 (Leiden: Brill, 1992), 661-665. Like the archive of Babatha, these texts include legal documents such as tax receipts, property deeds, and a marriage contract. See Hannah Cotton, “Fragments of a Declaration of Landed Property from the Province of Arabia,” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 85 (1991), 263-267; “Another Fragment of the Declaration of Landed Property from the Province of Arabia,” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 99 (1993), 115-121; “Rent or Tax Receipt from Maoza,” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 100 (1994), 547-557; “The Archive of Salome Komaïse Daughter of Levi: Another Archive from the ‘Cave of Letters’,” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 105 (1995), 171-208; Jacobine Oudshoorn, The relationship between Roman and local law in the Babatha and Salome Komaise archives : general analysis and three case studies on law of succession, guardianship and marriage (Leiden: Brill, 2007). 345Bowman, “Mass and mode,” 122.

116 religious ritual could be efficacious. There are numerous examples testifying that, in the ancient world, being written was equally, and occasionally more important than being read.

Mary Beard’s influential article on the Arval Acta, a large corpus of inscriptions recording the activities of a priestly cult in Rome, articulated a concept of “symbolic epigraphy.”346 Earlier scholars had assumed that these inscriptions were utilitarian in nature; that is, they were intended as reference sources for future generations. Beard suggests instead that the recording process was itself part of the Arval priesthood’s ritual activities, no less than the other activities inscribed therein.347 She suggests that, as symbolic writing, the inscriptions might act as a means of self-justification for the

Arval’s continued observances as the group’s social prestige waned over the first several centuries CE.348 A similar example comes from a temple on Delos, where three centuries’ worth of accounting information is inscribed on massive stone blocks. The information is not organized in a manner which would make it convenient to read. Instead, these inscriptions seem intended to testify in a symbolic way to the temple’s resources.349

Subsequently, Beard sought to clarify and particularize her argument regarding the symbolic force of written texts. Specifically, she outlines ways that writing was used to mediate between humans and the divine, to embody the latter, and to organize religious life as a means of social control.350 An instance of the first of these uses might be the deposition of inscribed prayers in the grave. Bodel suggests that Orphic leaves, for

346Beard, “Writing and Ritual,” 114-162. 347Beard, “Writing and Ritual,” 141. 348Beard, “Writing and Ritual,” 147-149. 349Bodel, “Epigraphy,” 20. 350Beard, “Writing and Religion,” 38.

117 example, were placed under the tongue of the deceased to give voice to their plea for salvation.351 The words of the prayer were thus meaningful, but not in a context in which they were read.

As an example of the second purpose, Beard points to the commemoration of an oracular consultation by the city of Oenoanda in Asia Minor.352 The words of the oracle were inscribed and placed high on the city wall where the inscription would catch the light at dawn, with an altar below dedicated to Apollo. In this case, the inscription is not intended to be read so much as to embody or symbolize the god himself.

Finally, Beard points to the codification of the Roman religious calendar as a method by which public texts served an ideological purpose by “writing” Roman religion on provincial towns. She notes that many of the events recorded on the calendars involved only a small subsection of the population and, in some cases, were pertinent only to inhabitants of the city of Rome.353 The calendar symbolized the Roman religious year in a way that no individual could experience it, since no one person engaged in all of the events described. The public display of the religious calendar can be seen as having both positive and negative implications for illiterate majorities. Public writing improves collective memory, making possible an expanded oral “afterlife” for a textual subject. A text can be integrated into the life of a largely non-reading community. On the other hand, the codification of religious time creates privilege among those in charge of the

351Bodel, “Epigraphy,” 24. 352Beard, “Writing and Religion,” 50-51. 353Beard, “Writing and Religion,” 54-55.

118 system, who could call upon their status as experts to dictate the terms of religious practice.354

These and other examples illustrate some of the ways in which writing – apart from reading – can serve numerous functions within society. These functions did not require that a large portion of the population be literate and were not directed towards the literate minority to the exclusion of the illiterate majority. By disassociating the acts of writing and reading, a clearer picture of how non-readers encountered words in the Roman

Empire emerges.

Ancient Literacy: Conclusions

One of the most surprising conclusions to emerge in light of Harris’ reappraisal of ancient literacy is the recognition that “…ancient society could be profoundly literate…” despite low literacy rates.355 That is, Roman society was highly literate even though the vast majority of those living in the empire were not able to read. This conclusion does not imply that writing was practiced exclusively for the benefit of the literate minority.356 In fact, evidence indicates that illiterate people were expected to participate in Roman writing culture and found ways and means to do so. Illiterate individuals understood the significance of writing as documentary evidence and took pains to preserve the written records pertinent to their lives. Awareness of what those documents said was not contingent upon being able to read them. Finally, the written word performed many

354Beard, “Writing and Religion,” 56-57. 355Bowman, “Mass and mode,” 122. 356Some would use the phrase literate elite in this context. See Nicholas Horsfall, “Statistics or state of mind?” in Humphrey, Literacy, 59-66 for arguments for non-elite literacy. By arguing for illiterate participation in the literate culture of the Roman Empire I do not intend to downplay the inevitable power dynamic that privileged readers over non-readers, see in particular the essays in Alan Bowman and Greg Woolf (eds.), Literacy and power in the ancient world (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).

119 social purposes without needing to be read. Inscriptions, prayers, oracles, and calendars were all written, but did not necessarily need to be read in order to perform their requisite functions.357

Turning to female title bearer inscriptions, the concept of illiterate participation in literate society begins to explain how and why titles were used in inscriptions when so few could read them. Part of the answer lies in how written words were assimilated, valued, and interpreted. Nonliterate members of the synagogue at Myndos would not necessarily have needed to read to know that Theopempte, the head of the synagogue, had dedicated the chancel screen with her son Eusebios. A literate member would have made this information available. The very fact of this information’s inscription adds it to the collective memory of the synagogue congregants and the oral history of the community.358 Moreover, by being inscribed, the value of Theopempte’s status and donation increased: people did not have to read the inscription to know it commemorated something important because the inscription itself makes this fact self-evident. Finally,

Theopempte’s inscription need not be read to convey that the synagogue at Myndos had the financial and social support of prominent members of the community.

This discussion of literacy was intended to locate the textuality of inscriptions in the context of a literate society populated by illiterate individuals and to emphasize the disjuncture between ancient writing and reading. The next section will continue this

357Naturally, that these texts can be seen to have roles apart from being read does not preclude additional roles that did involve reading. The former point is stressed here because the latter is pervasive. 358A modern parallel is the use of Hebrew in contemporary American synagogues. Although significant portions of services are conducted in Hebrew, congregant participation is based primarily on oral memorization of passages and knowledge of what those passages mean, which does not derive directly from having actually read them. Once when attending a seder I realized I was the only person there reading the Hebrew in the Haggadah. Everyone else at the table had the responses memorized and knew what they meant from having been told, not from having read them. The use of Hebrew among non-Hebrew speaker/readers is not unlike the use of Latin in traditional Catholic churches.

120 discussion by investigating epigraphy as a textual genre and explaining how the conventions particular to this type of writing assist in its production of meaning for all members of society.

3.4: Epigraphy as a Genre

“Genre… is a universal dimension of textuality.”359 Rather than a passive set of categorizations to which texts belong, genres actively participate in meaning production by mediating readers’ expectations. In this sense, genre is a literary context that conditions possibilities of meaning for texts in the same way archaeological context does for material remains. Genre simultaneously allows and circumscribes possibilities of meaning, and the structures it creates are products of the tension between the two.360

Without genre, words have no context and, in a sense, no opportunity to mean.361

As a specific textual genre, inscriptions engage many standard conventions by which information is conveyed. As noted in Chapter Two, these conventions are often influenced by local customs and therefore vary across time and space. Of interest, therefore, are not only the conventions that typify Jewish inscriptions and female title bearer inscriptions specifically, but also the ways in which some inscriptions break from convention by utilizing alternative modes of expression. This section will consider some of the conventional expressions utilized in female title bearer inscriptions as well as those which appear to fall outside of common use.

Inscriptions, as a genre, are not particularly creative. They engage standard, often generic, elements to express ideas conditioned by prior expectation. Where variations

359Frow, Genre, 2. 360Frow, Genre, 10. 361Frow’s discussion of genre relates in many regards to the discussion of post-structuralist theory offered at the beginning of this chapter.

121 occur they are often regional, as in the tendency for epitaphs in Spain to extol the piety of the deceased.362 Thus, trends in conventions between and among groups and regions are typical subjects of epigraphic analysis.363 Jewish inscriptions engage in many epigraphic conventions, some broadly utilized and others characteristic of Jewish inscriptions in particular. Of these diverse elements, three will be engaged here: names, ethnic or religious identities, and titles. The goal of this section is to illustrate the uses to which these conventions are put, to understand better how the genre of epigraphy functioned in specifically Jewish contexts.

Nearly all but the tersest of inscriptions have one element in common: a name.364 The ubiquity of names in inscriptions, even the least formal, is well attested.365 Since names are used in different ways and for different purposes in funerary and dedicatory inscriptions, respectively, each will be considered independently.

In her analysis of votive inscriptions from Greco-Roman shrines, Beard has noted the strong emphasis on the name of the worshipper, often with little or no additional detail.366

She suggests that the frequency of naming indicates an interest on the part of Greco-

Roman worshippers to articulate their sense of membership in the cult of a specific deity:

362Bodel, “Epigraphy,” 34. 363For example, Johann Strubbe, “Curses Against Violation of the Grave in Jewish Epitaphs from Asia Minor,” in van Henten and van der Horst, Early Jewish Epigraphy, 70-128; Alice Bij de Vaate, “Alphabet Inscriptions from Jewish Graves,” in van Henten and van der Horst, Early Jewish Epigraphy, 148-160; Moralee, “For Salvation’s Sake”; Sorek, Remembered for Good; Carlos Galvao-Sobrinho, “Funerary Epigraphy and the spread of Christianity in the West,” Athenaeum 83 (1995), 431-462. ,ש 364For example, a few funerary inscriptions from Venosa read simply “Peace!” or abbreviate with a although whether these are cases of deliberate terseness or poor preservation is unclear, see JIWE I 57, 58, and 74. Some longer, nameless funerary inscriptions exist as well, see, for example, JIWE I 185: “Peace upon Israel, and upon ourselves, and upon our sons, Amen.” Dedicatory inscriptions which deliberately eschew individual commemoration in favor of community benefaction are characteristic of Palestine, see Levine, “Synagogue Officials.” 365For a discussion of names in graffiti in classical Attica, see Claire Taylor, “Graffiti and the Epigraphic Habit,” in Baird and Taylor, Ancient Graffiti, 90-109. 366Beard, “Writing and Religion,” 44-48. Note that this membership is in no way exclusive.

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“Presence is fully defined only by naming.”367 Beard comments that votive inscriptions recording the fulfillment of a vow should not be taken so much as a record of events, but rather as a means of articulating and cementing the relationship between an individual and a deity.368

Naming in the context of Greco-Roman funerary inscriptions carries a different intent. Roman epitaphs calling on passing strangers to pause and remember them are well-known; one example from first century CE Rome reads in part,

“Here lies Tiberius Claudius Tibernus, of the Esquiline tribe, a freedman of the Emperor. Tampia Hygia, his mother, made this for her most pious son. You, traveler, whose journey brings you near the portals of my tomb, stop your hasty journey, I beseech you. Read this, so you might never mourn over a bitter, early death: you will find my names posted in my inscription…”369

These inscriptions make explicit the concept that, for ancient Romans, immortality resulted from the perpetuation of the memory of one’s name.370 The increasing incorporation of memoriae in inscriptions beginning in the second century CE also testifies to a concern with being remembered.371

I would argue that the invocation of names in Jewish funerary inscriptions engage both the concepts of belonging and of memory. Chapter Four will argue in greater detail for imagery in Jewish inscriptions as an articulation of corporate Jewish identity; the invocation of names parallels the usage described by Beard, in that naming constitutes an

367Beard, “Writing and Religion,” 46. Emphasis in original. 368Beard, “Writing and Religion,” 48. 369CIL VI 10098, taken from Michael Koortbojian, “In commemorationem mortuorum: text and image along the ‘Streets of Tombs,’” in Jaś Elsner (ed.), Art and Text in Roman Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 210-33. 370Clarke, Ordinary Romans, 181. 371Maureen Carroll, Spirits of the Dead: Roman Funerary Commemoration in Western Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 126.

123 articulation of membership in a particular religious community. Moreover, the association of names with memory is made in several inscriptions, including that of

Sophia, which after specifying her name, home town, and position as head of the synagogue of Kisamos, entreats, “…the memory of the righteous one forever.”372

Dedicatory inscriptions likewise use names as an integral part of the text, although often with a different emphasis. Rather than membership, names in dedicatory inscriptions can mark a more distant, though positive, association with a particular group.

Moreover, rather than inviting eternal memory, names in dedicatory inscriptions indicate a desire for recognition in the here and now.

Clear examples of dedicatory inscriptions functioning in this manner are the numerous cases of non-Jewish individuals named as dedicators or patrons in Jewish contexts. Julia Severa, for example, is named in a dedicatory inscription from Acmonia as the individual responsible for the original construction of a synagogue.373 Although the synagogue’s renovation by P. Tyrronios Klados, Lucius, son of Lucius, and Publius

Zotikos is the actual occasion for the inscription, Julia Severa is named, presumably again, as the original donor.374 A relationship, not of membership but of sponsorship, is thus acknowledged. The example of Tation, daughter of Straton from Phocaea is more

372There are several examples of Jewish inscriptions, similar to that of T. Claudius Tibernus, which address those passing by the tomb to stop. See, for example, JIGRE 23, 29-36, 39, 40 as well as the Aramaic inscription from Jason’s Tomb in Hellenistic Jerusalem in Nahman Avigad, “Aramaic Inscriptions in the Tomb of Jason,” Israel Exploration Journal 17 (1967), 101-11. The frequency of this type of lament at Leontopolis is in accord with Noy’s conclusion in “Leontopolis and Venosa,” 171, that “…the people of the city were Ptolemaic or Roman Egyptians first and Jews second.” An unusual inscription from Beth She‘arim, in which the inscription-as-tomb addresses current and future occupants, see Schwabe and Lifshitz, Beth She‘arim II, 157; Nahman Avigad, Beth She‘arim III: Catacombs 12-23 (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1976), 77-78, who comments that the inscription’s invocation of happiness in the tomb is distinctly un-Jewish. 373IJO II 168. 374That is to say, one would expect that she received an inscription commemorating her initial gift as well.

124 blatant in its emphasis on immediate recognition. In return for her gift to the Jewish community, Tation received a gold crown, a seat of honor in the synagogue, and, not least, the dedicatory inscription from which this information comes.375 Julia Severa’s and

Tation’s acts of patronage and the inscriptions and other honors which identify them as benefactors are typical examples of the Roman system of institutional benefaction.376

Although I have chosen examples of non-Jewish patrons of synagogues, a myriad of other types of institutional benefaction would exemplify the same phenomenon: by naming benefactors in inscriptions, institutions advertise the relationship and provide status-enhancing recognition.377

Given the practice of naming as a means of recognizing benefaction in dedicatory inscriptions, I would argue that a similar phenomenon occurs when Jews are themselves the dedicators. The Aphrodisias inscription exemplifies a monument which names both

Jews and non-Jews in recognition of their support of a community endeavor.378 Jael and her fellow patrons might also indicate their filiation or occupation, a civic or religious title, or an epithet, but they are all individually named. In the case of Aphrodisias and

375IJO II 36. 376Benefaction is discussed in greater detail below and in Chapter Five. For further reading, see Saller, Personal Patronage; Alvin Gouldner, “The Norm of Reciprocity: A Preliminary Statement,” American Sociological Review 25 (1960), 161-178; Shmuel Eisenstadt and Luis Roniger, “Patron-Client Relations as a Model of Structuring Social Exchange,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 22 (1980), 42-77; the essays in Maurice Bloch and Jonathan Parry (eds.), Money and the Morality of Exchange (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989); Andrew Wallace-Hadrill (ed), Patronage in Ancient Society (London: Routledge, 1989); John Davis, Exchange (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1992); Peter Brown, Poverty and Leadership in the Later Roman Empire (Hanover: University Press of New England, 2002); Robert Kaster, Emotion, Restraint, and the Community in Ancient Rome (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005); Aafke Komter, Social Solidarity and the Gift (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). 377Jewish participation in Roman systems of reciprocity and patronage will be covered in greater detail in Chapter Five. 378IJO II 14. As noted in Chapter Two, the Aphrodisias inscription is a contentious subject. See Margaret Williams, “The Jews and Godfearers Inscription from Aphrodisias: A Case of Patriarchal Interference in Early 3rd Century Caria?” Historia 41 (1992), 297-310 for the most convincing interpretation of the inscription and Chaniotis, “The Jews of Aphrodisias,” for the inscription’s dates.

125 other dedicatory inscriptions, naming constitutes the primary means by which recognition is afforded.

Unlike names, which appear in the overwhelming majority of inscriptions, examples of explicit epigraphic references to Jewish identity are relatively less common. A variety of explanations have been put forth to explain why a small minority of Jews articulated a more specific type of ethnic or religious identity in the texts of their inscriptions, two of which are discussed below. The choice to inscribe this identity was clearly within the bounds permitted by the genre, yet these cases are exceptional rather than standard.

Regional identifiers are typically associated with individuals who were buried in locations other than their hometowns.379 Thus Sophia, although buried at Kisamos where she was head of the synagogue, identifies herself as being of Gortyn. Likewise, since

Beth She‘arim was a destination burial site, many of its occupants identify themselves as originally hailing from other regions.380 One possible explanation for the explicit articulation of Jewish identity in some Jewish inscriptions follows this line of reasoning.

In Diaspora contexts, self-identification as a Jew (or, more accurately in this argument, a

Judean) is intended to indicate that one came originally from Judea.381 Thus Rufina’s identification as Ἰουδαία parallel’s Sophia’s identification as a Gortynian.

Another possible explanation for the term’s presence in a minority of inscriptions is that it identifies originally non-Jewish individuals who became converts to Judaism.382

379For a similar phenomenon in pre-70 Judean tombs, see Jodi Magness, Stone and dung, oil and spit: Jewish daily life in the time of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011), 151-155. 380IJO III Syr6-8; Syr17-19; Syr21; Syr25-26; Syr32; Syr39; Syr51-52; Syr74; App1-7; IJO II 217. See also the discussion in Schwabe and Lifshitz, Beth She‘arim II, 217-221. 381The translation of Ioudaios/a as “Judean” is advocated most vigorously by Mason, “Jews, Judeans.” 382This is the suggestion of Ross Kraemer in “On the Meaning of the Term ‘Jew’,” 311-330. There seems to me to be an unresolved tension in suggesting that Ioudaios indicates Judean geographic/ethnic heritage and 126

According to this theory, Rufina was born to pagan parents and at some point became a proselyte to Judaism, joining the Jewish community voluntarily. The suggestion that

Rufina had her origins in polytheist society at Smyrna might explain why violation of the tomb she built would result in fines paid both to the Jewish community and to the city.383

The transition of the notion and articulation of “Jew” from an ethnic and/or geographically specific to religious and/or geographically unspecific marker is a contentious issue in current scholarship. In fact, the proselyte theory can be articulated in terms of ethnicity rather than religious conversion if Rufina and others are considered to have chosen to become Judeans rather than Jews.384 The difference, at least in this context, is not of particular relevance.

Without wishing to weigh in on the intricacies of the Jew/Judean debate, both geographic and conversion based explanations for Ioudaios/a in inscriptions are problematic. Many of the geographic references that appear in Jewish inscriptions appear to specify a city of origin rather than a general region.385 It is not impossible that Judean would be used as a regional identifier for someone from an unrecognizably rural village.

This explanation does not account for an inscription from the Monteverde catacomb, which reads, “Here lies Ammias, a Ioudêa from Laodicea, who lived 85 years.”386

It is also possible that Rufina, Ἰουδαία, converted to Judaism and/or joined the Judean ethnos. Ultimately, however, this argument originates in silence. Some Jewish

Ioudaios as something to which individuals can become proselytes. One thinks of the habit of Assyrian usurpers taking throne names such as “I am the legitimate ruler.” 383Kraemer, “On the Meaning of the Term “Jew,” 322. 384This is Kraemer’s position in Unreliable Witnesses, 180, having been convinced by Mason’s argument for Judeans. See the more convincing arguments of Seth Schwartz in “How many Judaisms were there?” 208-238. 385See IJO I Index IV; IJO II Index 3; IJO III Index IV; JIWE I Index IV; JIWE II IV. 386JIWE II 183.

127 inscriptions engage terminology such as Ἑβραῖος as an expression of Jewish identity.387

Whether these terms are intended to express the same concept or they are meant to differentiate between individuals affiliated with Judaism cannot be discerned. Other inscriptions appear to use unambiguous language of conversion, such as that of Veturia

Paulla, which clearly reflect a polytheist proselyte to Judaism.388 Still others use the highly debated term god-fearer to denote some type of respect for the God of Israel, sometimes on the part of Jews and on other occasions by non-Jewish polytheists.389

Epigraphic conventions thus permitted a range of expressions by which individuals could express a spectrum of affiliations with Judaism. While proselyte and god-fearer seem more likely to be used by those who had been or were polytheists, Ἰουδαία and Ἑβραῖος cannot be said with certainty to express anything more than Jewish or Judean identity.

It is tempting to differentiate these explicitly Jewish Jews from those who appear in the vast majority of inscriptions, who feel no need to use such terms. Attempts to do so, whether as geographic indicators or markers of conversion, are ultimately unsuccessful.

In the case of religious/ethnic identifiers in Jewish inscriptions, it must suffice to say that use of such terms fell within the range of conventions permitted by the genre, although the practice is the exception rather than the rule.

The third convention particular to the genre of Jewish inscriptions I wish to discuss is the use of Jewish titles. Titles fall between names and ethnic/religious identifiers in terms of their frequency of appearance in inscriptions. The character of titles as textual referents for individual Jews is also somewhat different: while everyone in antiquity had a name

387For example, JIWE I 33, 35, 37; JIWE II 44, 108, 112, 559, 561; IJO I Mac8; IJO II 54, 240, 244; IJO III Syr40 388JIWE II 577. 389The debates regarding god-fearers were discussed briefly in Chapter Two; see bibliography there.

128 and (presumably) everyone who appears in what are being characterizing as Jewish inscriptions was, in some sense, Jewish, not everyone had a title to claim.390 For those who did, a wider range of expression was made possible in the text of their inscriptions as well as in those of their relatives. As discussed in Chapter Two, the proliferation of titles in Jewish inscriptions reaches a peak in the fourth and fifth centuries CE. This peak indicates a seemingly temporary expansion of conventions available within the epigraphic genre.391

Discussing titles as a convention of genre highlights the difficulties of relating text to context. Although thus far, female title bearers have been allowed as only textual representations of their historical selves, seeking historical causation for the textual practices endemic to inscriptions would seem to violate the premises set up at the beginning of this chapter by mixing the historical and the representational. At the same time, titles clearly fell within the possibilities of expectation available to the audiences of ancient inscriptions and as textual conventions conveyed broader messages in addition to the details they provide regarding specific individuals. For the time being, the issue of relating text to context in terms of title bearers and their inscriptions will be sidestepped by considering the question at one step removed. That is, rather than considering the convention of inscribing one’s own title in one’s own inscription, this section will address the convention of including the titles of others. This step does not resolve the broader problem, but does move the discussion back to the realm of textual conventions. The

390See Chapter Two for the slight complications regarding the Jewishness of some people in Jewish inscriptions. 391That is, Jewish titles are known to have existed earlier than the first century CE (I am thinking of Theodotus’ grandfather the head of the synagogue, for example), although they do not seem to appear in inscriptions in any significant number for several centuries.

129 chapter will return to the textuality and contextuality of female title bearers in its final section.

First, it must be said that the majority of title inscriptions do not mention more than one title bearer. Of the 24 inscriptions in the corpus, only six mention at least one additional titled relative, such as a son, husband, father, and/or grandfather. Second, there are many more inscriptions of untitled individuals whose inscriptions also display titled relatives. Third, an even greater number of inscriptions display family relationships without reference to titles on anyone’s part. Clearly, therefore, the convention of displaying titled relatives is bound up to some degree in a broader articulation of family identity in inscriptions. I will focus on two types of relationships: untitled descendants of titled individuals and married couples with titles to illustrate how the representation of relatives in inscriptions served a larger purpose.

The Faustinus family of Venosa provides the best source of information on the display of titles among descendants, themselves titled or otherwise.392 The Venosan corpus preserves six generations of the Faustinus family. The ways in which their relationships are displayed is indicative of their familial priorities. As conventions of genre, titled family members participate in the construction of particular meanings when included in inscriptions.

392See Williams, Faustinus I,” 38-52. In the discussion that follows, I follow her reconstruction of the family over that of Noy in JIWE I. Note that numerous members of the Faustinus family that appear in Venosan inscriptions cannot be grafted on the family tree due to the limited biographical information included in their epitaphs. Hence, although both titled Faustina’s (Faustina the mother of JIWE I 116 and Faustina the elder of JIWE I 71) are doubtless related to this family, it is unclear how they fit into the family tree.

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Figure Five393

The family patriarch, Faustinus (I) the father, appears with his title in at least three inscriptions at Venosa in addition to his own, namely those of his grandchildren Mannine the elder and Faustinus (II) the father, who are cousins, and that of Faustinus II’s daughter Faustina. All three trace their ancestry back to Faustinus I through his titled sons: brothers Longinus the father and Vitus, variously called gerousiarch, father of fathers, and, along with his wife Asella, leading citizen.394 In each case, the deceased’s ancestry is traced through the paternal (Faustini) line back to the family’s eponymous ancestor.

393Adapted from Williams, “Faustinus I,” Fig. 2. Blood members of the Faustinus family are outlined in solid black; relatives by marriage are outlined in dashed lines. 394Noy, JIWE I, 109 thinks that the Vitus, father of fathers in JIWE I 85 is not the same Vitus as that mentioned in JIWE I 82, 86, and 87, contra Williams.

131

Beginning in the fourth generation, several changes in commemorative practice occurs. First, the descendants of brothers Faustinus II the father and Sebbetius, father of fathers, no longer display titles of their own. Thus, after three generations of title holding, the Faustinus family must rely exclusively on the titles of others in their inscriptions. The epitaph of fifth generation children Andronicus and Rosa trace their paternal line through the untitled Bonus to grandfather Sebbetius and great-grandfather Vitus, both fathers of fathers. By the next generation, ancestry through the Faustini line is abandoned in favor of titled in-laws. Sixth generation Faustinus family member Agnella referenced her titled maternal grandfather along with her spouse’s titled grandfather rather than going all the way back to her great-grandfather Sebbetius, the father of fathers.395

The change in commemorative habit of the Faustinus family has been noted and explained by Williams as resulting from a decline in the family’s financial resources.396

As the number of titled Faustinus family members declined, those outside the family were engaged. For Williams, inscriptions such as that of Agnella demonstrate a continued desire to participate as much as was possible in the benefits of connection to titled individuals.397

While Williams’ vision of the “…rise and fall of the Faustini family…” accounts for many of the trends observable in the Venosan inscriptions, others appear to tell a different story. For example, Agnella’s parents Ioses and Maria do not make any attempt

395JIWE I 90. 396Williams, “Faustinus I,” 48. She cites the work of Alastair Small, “Late Roman rural settlement in Basilicata and Western Apulia,” in Graeme Barker and John Lloyd (eds.), Roman Landscapes: Archaeological survey in the Mediterranean Region (London: British School of Archaeology, 1991), 204- 222, who argues for a general economic downturn in the region. 397Williams, “Faustinus I,” 48 comments that the family surely continued to want the prestige associated with titles – a desire demonstrated by the appropriation of non-Faustinus family titles for use in epitaphs.

132 to reference their titled ancestry, despite having Ioses’s grandfather Sebbetius and

Maria’s father Sarmata, both fathers of fathers, to draw upon.398 Nor is the choice to refrain from the use of titles in epitaphs limited to the later generations of the Faustinus family. Vitus himself, arguably the most lauded member of the Faustinus family, does not reference his titles in his own mortuary inscription.399 Noy argues that Vitus’ titles (and, presumably, that of patriarch Faustinus I) would have appeared in the Latin portion of the inscription, which was not preserved, but the adjacent grave of Vitus’ daughter Pretiosa does not assign Vitus titles either.400

The Faustinus family epitaphs at Venosa display differing, perhaps competing, conventions in the display of family titles. The non-participation of Vetus, Ioses and

Maria constitutes a silence or gap, which disrupts Williams’ narrative of the Faustinus family’s fortunes. If Vetus, the gerousiarch, father of fathers, and leading citizen, chose not to declaim his status or that of his father in his own inscription, the rise and fall paradigm is disrupted.

Another way to interpret the changes in patterns of inscriptions at Venosa is by focusing the emphasis in the later generations on marital relationships and matrilineal descent in addition to patrilineal descent.401 The mortuary inscription of Ioses and Maria,

398JIWE I 88. This inscription constitutes the main break in Noy’s and Williams’ differing interpretations of the Faustinus family. Noy, JIWE I, 123, reads JIWE I 88 as stating that Ioses was the son of a Boninus rather than the Bonus that appears in JIWE I 85 as the father of Andronicus and Rosa. Williams, “Faustinus I,” n.33, notes that Noy’s commentary admits that the “i” is reconstructed from a slight gap in the oddly spelled “Bonni” of JIWE 88. Williams’ argument is more convincing to me. 399JIWE I 82. 400Noy, JIWE I, 109; JIWE I 84. It is possible that the epitaph belongs to a different Vitus, son of Faustinus, but its proximity to JIWE I 86 in arcosolium D7, which gives a title-specific lineage for Faustina, suggests that the titled and untitled Vituses refer to one and the same man. 401It is interesting to wonder whether the emphasis on mothers is part of Judaism’s move to matrilineal descent. This argument would be hard to make on the basis of this evidence alone, in that although 133 discussed above, is the first in the family to display a marital relationship.402 This trend continues with their daughter Agnella, whose joint inscription with her husband Gesua includes information about the mother and father of each.403 Similarly, Agnella’s cousins

Sarra and Asella include the names of both their mother and father, as well as that of

Sarra’s husband Hintius, although the latter does not appear to have been buried in the same tomb as his wife and sister-in-law.404 Compare these inscriptions to that of Faustina, daughter of Faustinus (II) the father. Although it references “her parents” twice, the name of Faustina’s mother is never mentioned.405

The later generations of the Faustinus family demonstrate an increasing focus on their marital relationships and both matrilineal and patrilineal descent in the text of their inscriptions. Emphasis moves from acclimation of a single family’s prestige to integration with the broader community. Whether the change was related to economic factors affecting the Faustinus family cannot be determined with certainty. Another possibility is that the conventions by which inscriptions produced meaning shifted. The later Venosan inscriptions date to the sixth century, by which time the propensity to commemorate titles in inscriptions appears to have been waning in a more general sense.

Perhaps these changes in the conventions of the genre at Venosa indicate that solidarity began to trump prestige in the epigraphic production of meaning making.

Epigraphy as a Genre: Conclusions information about mothers seems to become more important in later Venosan inscriptions, fathers are not slighted as a result. 402JIWE I 88. Faustina, daughter of Faustinus II mentions both paternal grandparents, Vitus and Asella, as leading citizens in JIWE I 86. Ioses and Maria are the first in the reconstructed family tree to have a joint epitaph. 403JIWE I 90. 404JIWE I 89. 405JIWE I 88.

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The preceding section discussed three types of epigraphic conventions found in

Jewish inscriptions: names, ethnic or religious identifiers, and titles. The ubiquity of naming in both funerary and Diaspora dedicatory inscriptions indicates the primacy of this form of identification, by means of which an individual is associated with a larger group. Such associations can operate on both immediate and long term scales by enhancing prestige in the present moment and memorializing participants among future generations.

In contrast, the use of verbal ethnic or religious identifiers in inscriptions, although a practice located within the bounds of convention, was not utilized with anywhere near the same frequency. While several suggestions have been made to explain why some Jewish inscriptions identify individuals as Ioudaios/a or other terms indicating various affiliations with the Jewish community, our understanding of the implications of these terms remains uncertain. Such cases are a useful reminder that, within certain bounds, inscriptions were a site of individual expression. In addition to the requirements of convention, individuals had the opportunity to represent themselves or their loved ones the way that seemed best to them.

Finally, consideration of Jewish titles as conventions of genre in the commemorative practice of the Faustinus family at Venosa revealed complicated and inconsistent patterns of usage. Representation of one’s own title or those of one’s patrilineal relatives appear primarily as a value among earlier generations of the Faustinus family. Later generations emphasized marital and matrilineal relationships, at times choosing to commemorate such connections instead of hearkening back to other, titled relatives. As a convention of genre, titles are thus a popular, though not universally engaged, means of representation.

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As noted above, the structures of inscriptions are a product of the tension between what conventions permit and circumscribe. Those conventions are themselves conditioned by circumstances specific to time and place. Thus Mannine, as a third generation Faustini, commemorates her own title of elder in addition to those of her father and grandfather, but, in conformity with standard Venosan practice, does not offer a verbal indication of religious or ethnic identity. Perhaps invocation of the Faustinus name was sufficient to establish her place in society. Faustina the mother, on the other hand, represents her relationship to her titled husband Auxanios, father and patron of the city rather than connecting herself specifically to her natal family. Perhaps her name alone was sufficient to express her lineage within the Venosan community. The examples of Mannine and Faustina demonstrate two types of narrow variety by which titled women at Venosa were represented in inscriptions.

3.5: Synagogues and Catacombs

The discussion of names in inscriptions addressed in the previous section indicated that meaning is, in many cases, mediated by context. That is, the purpose of a name in a dedicatory inscription in a synagogue might be somewhat different than that same name in a funerary inscription in a catacomb. The relationship between text and context has been addressed in a more theoretical way at the beginning of this chapter. The current section moves that discussion to a more concrete level by discussing the specific provenances in which title bearer inscriptions are found – tombs and synagogues – with the goal of elucidating how the location of an inscription’s text might influence its meaning. Although the same titles, for example, can appear in both locations, the

136 question remains whether it is safe to assume that their meaning remains static and unaffected by context.

In archaeology, as in many disciplines, it is a truism to note that context really is everything. Without context from which to extrapolate meaning, most of the finds on an archaeological excavation are no more than ancient trash and equally worthless.406 Yet, as noted above, context fell into disrepute in some circles as an explanatory model for history. Disagreements concerning context’s explanatory utility result, I have argued, from the misperception that context is or should be singular.407 Derrida’s example of

Nietzsche’s isolated statement, “I have forgotten my umbrella,” does not seem to me to illustrate that contextualism does not have explanatory force, but rather that it does not have universal applicability and cannot provide a full range of possible meanings.408 That contextualism is neither universal nor comprehensive does not invalidate it as an explanatory model, but instead renders it as one tool in an arsenal, to be applied as appropriate to address certain questions. The following discussion of synagogue and catacomb as context does so in the sense of (multiple) locations of textual production.

The present study will, in fact, insist upon context, if not as an explanatory model, as a category of analysis through which inscriptions must be studied.

In point of fact, all things that exist do so in a multiplicity of simultaneous contexts.

Chapter Two considered the chronological and geographical contexts of inscriptions’

406Some finds, of course, are not so worthless, which is why looting from archaeological sites is such a problem. On the question of unprovenanced objects and scholarship, see the ongoing debate concerning L.E. Stager’s Statement of Concern regarding the policies of the American School of Oriental Research and the Archaeological Institute of America, as well as the latter’s response, noted in Michael Balter, “NYU gift kicks up more dust,” Science 312.5773 (2006), 513. 407Whether champions of contextualism consider context to be singular, I cannot discern. It is hard to imagine a serious claim that contexts are always or usually easily identifiable. 408Clark, History, Theory, Text, 143; Jacques Derrida, Spurs: Nietzsche’s Styles (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), 122-139.

137 creation and original display. While that chapter was concerned with time and place of production, its interest in chronology and geography could carry through the intervening centuries until today, as viewers from the fourth century onwards have, in various capacities, interacted with inscriptions. Likewise, an inscription’s geography might change over time as artifacts are preserved ex situ in museums or are transmuted to the pages of library volumes. Chapter Four will carry on this line of inquiry, by engaging the question of Jewish title inscriptions from the perspective of the people who viewed them and the contexts in which such viewings occurred. The current section of Chapter Three considers instead what influence the context in which inscriptions are located might have upon their textuality. Specifically, this section addresses synagogues, in which Jewish title inscriptions appear most often as dedications, and catacombs, in which most mortuary inscriptions are located, as well as the interesting cases of inscriptions that serve both dedicatory and mortuary purposes. The goal of this section is to better discern how the locations of inscriptions with titles affect their formulation and import.

Synagogues and Dedicatory Inscriptions

Synagogue dedicatory inscriptions are, in the absence of the synagogue buildings themselves, one of the primary ways by which the existence of a synagogue in a particular location can be ascertained. Moreover, the relationship between dedications and titles goes back to the earliest extant example, that of Theodotus, the head of the synagogue in Jerusalem, whose dedicatory inscription memorializes, among other things, that he built the synagogue. This section on synagogues as a locative context of inscriptions makes two main claims: first, that synagogues were locations in which social status was inscribed and reinforced using inscriptions, which were modeled after

138 comparable Greco-Roman examples; second, that synagogue dedicatory inscriptions, and specifically the titles used in them, reflect a deliberate, though contested, interest on the part of Jewish communities to map themselves onto the Greco-Roman cultural landscape.

The claim that synagogues were a location for social enhancement is not particularly original or surprising. As early as the first century CE, New Testament writers convey prominent pious activity in the synagogue as a method of garnering social prestige.409

The hypothesis posited in Chapter One – that Diaspora synagogues were deliberately modeled on Greco-Roman voluntary associations – would also suggest that synagogue inscriptions functioned comparably to the sorts of inscriptions characteristic of voluntary association benefaction.410 The following three Roman dedicatory inscriptions are compared with three synagogue dedicatory inscriptions, with which each shares certain attributes. In each of these cases, the permanent, public record of benefaction was a primary means by which patrons received returns on their investments, through the publicity of her/his generosity and social superiority.411

The second century CE association of Asclepius and Hygia in Rome praises its benefactors Marcellina and P. Aelius Zeno (possibly brother and sister) for their financial support in a lengthy inscription, in addition to pledging its members’ obligation to perpetuate the memory of Marcellina’s husband, imperial procurator Flavius

Apollonius.412 The idea of benefaction having an ameliorative effect on family members

409Behavior which should, therefore, be avoided, e.g. Matthew 6:5. 410See also Anne Fitzpatrick-McKinley, “Synagogue Communities in the Graeco-Roman cities,” in John Bartlett (ed.), Jews in the Hellenistic and Roman Cities (London: Routledge, 2002), 55-88. This is not to say that these inscriptions are similar in all respects, but rather than they accomplish similar goals. 411Saller, Personal Patronage, 10. 412CIL VI 10234; John Kloppenborg, “Collegia and Thiasoi: Issues in Function, Taxonomy, and Membership,” in Kloppenborg and Wilson, Voluntary Associations, 16-30. Bradley McLean, “The 139 finds a parallel in an inscription from Philadelphia in Lydia, in which Eustathios, together with his sister-in-law, dedicate the synagogue’s purification basin in memory of his brother Hermophilos.413 While the directive to perpetuate memory is left implicit in the

Philadelphia inscription, the implication of benefit to the deceased brother is clear.

A first century CE inscription from Rome describes the work done by two association administrators thanks to the generosity of their patron, Titus. His sponsorship allowed for construction and decoration at the association’s communal burial property, and the inscription commemorating his patronage was erected to preserve the occasion.414

Construction projects are one of the most common expressions of patronage, either of voluntary associations or larger municipal organizations.415 Likewise, almost all Jewish dedicatory inscriptions involve building programs, such as those of Theodotus and the

Aphrodisias inscription cited above. In fact, the sole female title bearer inscription which comes from a synagogue context, that of Theopempte the head of the synagogue, records her dedication of a chancel screen post for the synagogue at Myndos, along with her son

Eusebius. While there are numerous differences between Theopempte’s inscription and that which records Titus’ benefaction, both serve as examples of the architectural manifestation of association patronage.

Agrippinilla Inscription: Religious Associations and early Church formation,” in Bradley McLean (ed.), Origins and Method: Towards a New Understanding of Judaism and Christianity (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993), 239-270, indicates that Flavius Apollonius was Marcellina’s father. 413IJO II 49. 414CIL VI 10237. 415van Bremen, Limits of Participation, 195 offers a partial list of construction projects funded by women, noting that the number of projects financed by women is dwarfed by those funded by men; Kloppenborg, “Collegia and Thiasoi,” 19 notes that fortunate collegia might receive architectural gifts from patrons.

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A third, more complex example is that of a second century CE inscription created by an association of Dionysus worshippers.416 The inscription was incised on the base of a statue dedicated to Pompeia Agrippillina, a priestess and member of the association, in recognition of her patronage. The inscription records the names of the 402 members of the association, listed hierarchically, who made contributions to the cost of the statue.

The list of contributors starts with Agrippillina’s immediate family who appear to have been leading members within the group.417 The Agrippillina inscription shares several features with that of the Jewish dedicatory inscription from Aphrodisias. As discussed in

Chapter Two, the Aphrodisias inscription lists, in seemingly hierarchical order, those members of the community who made financial contributions towards a collective burial structure for the Jewish community.418 Both inscriptions display an interest in establishing hierarchy within the group, while simultaneously making efforts to recognize publically all those who contributed to the collective project.

416McLean, “The Agrippinilla Inscription,” 241-245. 417The dual level of reciprocity exhibited by this statue is very interesting: on one hand, it commemorates Agrippillina herself as a patron of the association through the statue, but then also celebrates those association members who contributed to the cost of the statue. McLean, “The Agrippillina Inscription,” 246 notes that the listed donors represented only a portion of all association members. 418It is not coincidental that examples of benefaction in voluntary associations repeatedly involve aspects of burial. Burial is one of the best documented activities of Roman collegia, leading to an early understanding, by Mommsen among others, of the existence of collegia funeraticia dedicated exclusively to funerary activities. See Wendy Cotter, “The Collegia and Roman Law: State Restrictions on Voluntary Associasions,” in Kloppenborg and Wilson (eds.), Voluntary Associations, 74-89, and John Patterson “Patronage, collegia and burial in Imperial Rome,” in Steven Bassett (ed.), Death in Towns: Urban Responses to the Dying and the Dead, 100-600 (London: Leicester University Press, 1992), 15-27. A more balanced understanding of the activities of collegia has prevailed, wherein concern for proper burial is now seen as one among many facets of membership. See Frank Ausbüttel, Untersuchungen zu den Vereinen im Westen des Römischen Reiches (Kallmünz : M. Lassleben, 1982), and Jean-Marc Flambard, “Éléments pour une approche financière de la mort dans les classes populaires du Haut-Empire : analyse du budget de quelques collèges funéraires de Rome et d’Italie,” in François Hinard (ed.), La Mort, les morts et l'au-delà dans le monde romain : actes du colloque de Caen, 20-22 novembre 1985 (Caen : Centre de publications de l ‘Université de Caen, 1987), 209-244.

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These examples are, unsurprisingly, disparate in many respects. At the same time, however, all share specific priorities – commemoration of family, architecture as a manifestation of patronage, and recognition and reinforcement of social hierarchies – and hold common expectations of how patronage should be rewarded. This brief discussion clearly does not do justice to the topic, and the question of patronage will be engaged again in the final section of this study. For the moment, these examples support the argument that patronage of Greco-Roman voluntary associations and of Jewish synagogue communities engaged similar understandings of how and to what ends patrons should enact their patronage and how beneficiaries should reward that behavior.419

Van Nijf’s analysis of professional associations in the Roman East highlights the similarities in language and practice among personal patronage, civic euergetism, and association benefaction.420 Two of van Nijf’s points are instructive for the study of

Jewish dedicatory inscriptions. First is his insistence that epigraphic commemoration played an active role in the formation, maintenance, and continuation of relationships between patrons and private associations. Second, he explores the use of titles as part of the reciprocity system, arguing for a broader interpretation of technical terms bestowed upon patrons.

419As will be discussed in greater detail in Chapter Five, the Greco-Roman habit of epigraphic commemoration becomes significantly less prominent by the end of the 3rd century and, as Chapter Two noted, Jewish inscriptions come into their own beginning in the 4th century. The two corpora are thus chronologically disparate. Nevertheless, it is reasonable to conjecture that the prominence of Roman epigraphy would remain influential on populations who had lived under its influence for centuries and, perhaps, it is the increasing dis-interest in the practice among Romans that opens up the field to Jewish emulation. 420Onno van Nijf, The Civic World of Professional Associations in the Roman East (Amsterdam: J.C. Gieben, 1997), 75-81. The subject was pioneered by Jean Pierre Waltzing, Étude historique sur les corporations professionnelles chez les Romains depuis les origines jusqu’à la chute de l’Empire d’Occident, I-IV (Louvain: C. Peeters, 1895-1900).

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That the relationship between patrons and associations was carried out in large part by means of inscriptions is of central concern to van Nijf, who comments:

I do not, however, think it sufficient to approach inscriptions only as evidence of social and economic history, as passive reflections of specific social relationships. Inscriptions were also active elements in such relationships; they helped to create and shape the experiences and expectations of the people involved in them.421

That is, inscriptions give material expression to the network of social and political relationships that maintain society. By making those relationships fixed, permanent, and public, inscriptions reinforce the obligations incumbent upon each party and encourage the development of relationships by enhancing the prestige of all involved.422

The degree to which benefactors received any “real” benefit as a result of their financial outlay is viewed with skepticism by Veyne, who sees a significant difference between elite patronage of civic projects versus associations.423 While there were likely differences between these types of patronage, it is not necessarily the case that the latter therefore were of no value to patrons. Instead, van Nijf notes that associations were able to use alternative or additional strategies of recompense above and beyond dedicatory inscriptions, including elaboration of patrons’ personal virtues, banquets, and seats of honor.424

Moreover, while benefaction of private associations might be considered less prestigious than other types of euergetism, members of those private associations were no less important as potential clients than other members of society. Several studies have

421Van Nijf, Professional Associations, 81. 422Van Nijf, Professional Associations, 126-127 offers a few interesting cases in which one party or another welched on their end of the deal, leading to a sort of damnatio memoriae of the offender. 423Paul Veyne, Le pain et le cirque. Sociologie historique d’un pluralisme politique (Paris: D.L. Seuil, 1976), 16. 424Van Nijf, Professional Associations, 120-125.

143 emphasized that patrons needed clients as much as clients needed patrons, and that clients have more than a small degree of power over how much benefit patrons could derive from their benefaction.425 Dismissing the significance of association members as potential clients seems unwarranted.

Further, the status of the institution and its members was likewise enhanced by public association with notable patrons. By emulating the practices of euergetism as enacted between patrons and cities, associations were able to identify themselves as part of the wider culture of the city.426 Since many associations were composed of more marginalized members of society, the conduct of associations added legitimacy to their standing within the broader community.

Van Nijf’s second point of interest to the present study concerns the misleading specificity of terms awarded to patrons as part of the reciprocity system. He argues that while many of the terms used in reciprocal exchange do, in other contexts, have specific, technical meanings, when they are awarded to patrons those technical meanings are not necessarily appropriate. An inscription from Thyateira in Lydia records the erection of a statue of a certain Aurelius Artemagoras by a guild of dyers, in honor of his being

ἐπιστησάμενον τοῦ ἔργου βαφέων.427 This inscription has been interpreted as meaning that Aurelius Artemagoras was the president of the dyers’ association and was actively

425Van Nijf, Professional Associations, 118-119. See also Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, “Roman arches and Greek honours,” Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 36 (1990), 143-181, the essays in Wallace-Hadrill, Patronage in ancient society, and the review by Mary Beard, “Delicate Relationships,” Times Literary Supplement, 19 January 1990, 71. 426Van Nijf, Professional Associations, 121. 427Tituli Asiae Minoris 5.2, 945.

144 involved in the textile industry.428 Louis Robert, however, challenged the translation of ergon as association, noting that the term in fact indicates a building or construction.429

To be president of a building does not seem logical, thus van Nijf concludes that in the case of Aurelius Artemagoras, epistesamenon should be taken in the sense of the compound verb ergepistateo, which appears elsewhere at Thyateira in the sense of being one who oversees the construction of a building.430 That elsewhere the term does appear to refer to collegium officials indicates the terminology used in the language of patronage was far from precise: in fact, quite the opposite. Van Nijf suggests that inscriptions were deliberately vague in their selections of terms by which association patrons were honored.431

Van Nijf’s observations concerning the intentionally imprecise language used in reference to association donors are particularly interesting in light of Jael’s and

Theopempte’s titles of prostates and head of the synagogue, respectively. Similar to the case of epistesamenon discussed above, prostates is a term that appears in a variety of contexts, and has been variously translated as president or patron.432 In Jael’s case, unlike that of Aurelius Artemagoras, there is no helpful genitive to assist in determining which translation is more appropriate. As van Nijf notes, in Roman contexts prostates is used

428H.W. Pleket, “Urban Elites and the economy of the Greek cities of the Roman Empire,” Munstersche Beitrage zur Antiken Handelsgeschicte 3.1 (1984), 3-35. 429Louis Robert, Études épigraphiques et philologiques (Paris: Champion, 1938), 47, n.2. 430Van Nijf, Professional Associations, 104-106. 431Van Nijf, Professional Associations, 106. 432Which are the two options offered in Brooten, “Jael προστάτης.” On translations of prostates, see the discussion in Ameling, IJO II, 93 and Margaret Williams, “The Structure of Roman Jewry Re-Considered: Were the Synagogues of Ancient Rome Entirely Homogenous?” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 104 (1994), 129-141.

145 both for officials within an association and donors who stood outside it.433 Whether or not

Jael’s title makes specific reference to her behavior as a patron, however, the action commemorated in the inscription is one of benefaction. Likewise, in Theopempte’s case, the ambiguous language of “head of the synagogue” implies a similarly deliberate vagueness as that van Nijf ascribes to association patronage terminology. In the context of synagogue dedicatory inscriptions, Jewish communities appear to be emulating the type of language used more generally among Roman associations to praise patrons.

Though these choices of terminology and epigraphic commemoration on the part of

Jewish communities were deliberate, they were by no means uncontested. Seth Schwartz has described the strategies of resistance and accommodation with which Jewish writers in Palestine, specifically Ben Sira, Josephus, and the rabbis, confronted Greco-Roman systems of institutionalized reciprocity.434 He notes that the values of solidarity and charity among Jews are idealized in these writings while, simultaneously, each source displays a conditional and, at times, reluctant acceptance of some aspects of systemic euergetism.435 At the same time, however, he notes that the subtext, particularly of rabbinic literature, carries an implicit acknowledgement and rejection of Jewish adoption of Greco-Roman style epigraphic memorialization.436

The examples cited above attest to synagogues as locations of social enhancement, synagogue dedicatory inscriptions as participatory elements of a patronage system

433Van Nijf, Professional Associations, 106. 434Schwartz, Mediterranean Society, 45-165. This topic will be engaged in greater detail in Chapter Five. 435Schwartz, Mediterranean Society, 167-169. 436Schwartz, Mediterranean Society, 110-165. Although Rabbinic attitudes are not directly relevant to Diaspora practices, it is interesting to note that the influence of Roman systems of reciprocity, euergetism, and epigraphic commemoration permeated Palestine sufficiently to catch the attention and disapprobation of the rabbis. If Jewish populations in Palestine were this affected, it is likely that Diaspora Jewish populations would have even more readily made use of such practices.

146 modeled upon Greco-Roman exemplars, and titles in inscriptions as specific examples of benefaction in action. That Diaspora synagogues were engaged in the practice and language of patronage receives additional confirmation from the objections raised in

Jewish literature of late antiquity. This discussion of context will now shift underground to the realm of Jewish funerary inscriptions, with the goal of elucidating whether and how title inscriptions convey meaning differently in catacombs than in synagogues.

Catacombs and Funerary Inscriptions

As noted in Chapter Two, the vast majority of Jewish title inscriptions, like the vast majority of Jewish inscriptions generally, are funerary inscriptions. Among inscriptions featuring female title bearers, 21 out of 24 are mortuary in nature.437 Most of these mortuary inscriptions have been preserved in subterranean burials, ranging from the vast catacombs of Rome to smaller hypogea such as that in Tripolitania within which

Mazauzala’s inscription was found. Myrina’s grave at Nocere Superiore, on the other hand, was a simple double inhumation. In other cases, such as that of Sophia of Gortyn, the inscription is preserved ex situ with no information on the type of burial it marked.

Tombs are clearly a location of significant communication, given the ubiquity of funerary inscriptions and the expense and effort such memorialization required. This recognition raises the question of why and for what purpose this investment was made.

As noted above, Greco-Roman inscriptions were clear in their intention that the memory of the deceased be recalled by passers-by, thus making the dead immortal through stone and collective remembrance.438 Christian inscriptions, on the other hand, are

437Rufina, as has often been the case, is exceptional in this regard, combining dedication and funerary genres in one inscription. 438Recall, for example, Clarke, Ordinary Romans, 181-219; Carroll, Spirits of the Dead, 30-58; Koortbojian, “In commemorationem mortuorum,” 210-234.

147 unambiguous in their aim to identify the deceased as part of the community of the faithful, in anticipation of a world to come for the saved.439 Jewish funerary inscriptions are less transparent and consistent in their intent.

While Jewish apocalyptic literature of the Hellenistic and early Roman period articulates various understandings of reward and punishment in the afterlife, it is unclear how widespread these views were.440 Rabbinic literature also engages concepts of resurrection and afterlife, but does not articulate a systematized understanding of the subject. Even if this literature did display a clear position on the subject, it is difficult to say the degree to which such understandings would have been shared by members of

Diaspora Jewish communities.441 During the fourth and fifth centuries, no extant literary source provides reliable insight into Jewish conceptualizations of afterlife which might elucidate the reasons that funerary inscriptions were of such importance.

Funerary inscriptions, which constitute most of our knowledge on the subject, articulate a variety of wishes for the dead. The most common concept that the Jewish inscriptions of the Mediterranean Diaspora display is a desire for the deceased’s peace or peaceful sleep.442 As peace is likewise a Christian benediction for the dead, its use in

Jewish contexts does not offer much insight into belief in afterlife. A related type of statement, that the deceased sleeps with the just, hedges closer to a conceptualization of

439See Galvao-Sobrinho, “Funerary Epigraphy.” 440See Richard Bauckham, “Early Jewish Visions of Hell,” Journal of Theological Studies 41.2 (1990), 355-385; Martha Himmelfarb, Tours of Hell – An Apocalyptic Form in Jewish and Christian Literature (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985) and Ascent to Heaven in Jewish and Christian Apocalypses (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993); Joseph Park, Conceptions of Afterlife in Jewish Inscriptions: With Special Reference to Pauline Literature (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000); Leonard Rutgers, “Death and Afterlife: The Inscriptional Evidence,” in Alan Avery-Peck and Jacob Neusner (eds.), Judaism in Late Antiquity Part Four: Death, Life-After-Death, Resurrection and the World-To-Come in the Judaisms of Antiquity (Leiden: Brill, 2000). 441Simcha Raphael, Jewish Views of the Afterlife (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2009), 117-162. 442Instances occur in Greek, Latin and Hebrew.

148 afterlife, but is also reminiscent of Biblical understandings of sleeping with ancestors.443

More interesting are the numerous appeals that the deceased have courage, often with the additional observation that no one is immortal.444 In contrast, some inscriptions, specifically among those which utilize Hebrew or Aramaic, make reference to the soul of the deceased and the desire that he or she have eternal life.445 Still others follow the

Greco-Roman practice of invoking memory as a means of immortality.446 These examples make the case that Jewish funerary inscriptions varied widely in their expression of wishes on behalf of the deceased. The preponderance of neutral or even negative attitudes towards afterlife in many Jewish inscriptions hints that the investment in memorialization stemmed from other interests.

One possible interest, articulated above, is that naming in Jewish funerary inscriptions constituted a simultaneous invocation of memory and belonging. I contend that reading the smaller subsection of funerary inscriptions with titles as participating in a different, though related, sense of belonging might better explain the presence and purpose of titles in mortuary contexts. Specifically, I argue that titles in mortuary inscriptions served not only to bolster a sense of belonging to Jewish communities, but to signal the affluence and prestige of those communities. The question remains: signal to whom?

443Examples include (but are not limited to) JIWE II 235, 342, 406, 544. 444Examples include (but are not limited to) IJO III Syr 5 and JIWE II 99, 187, 557, 172, 31, 326, and 586. 445Examples include (but are not limited to) JIWE I 3, 81, 82, 118, 183. For mortuary inscriptions in Palestine which articulate belief in the afterlife, see Jael Wilfand, “Aramaic Tombstones from Zoar and Jewish Conceptions of the Afterlife,” Journal for the Study of Judaism 40 (2009), 510-539. 446Most obvious here is Sophia of Gortyn, but see also (but not exhaustively) JIWE I 120, and IJO I Cre1 and Cre2. Interesting also is that memory is invoked even more frequently in dedicatory inscriptions, see IJO I Mac15 and IJO III Syr41, Syr87, Syr90 and others. Likewise, Jason Moralee has noted the habit of fifth-seventh century synagogue dedicatory inscriptions in Palestine and Syria to invoke the salvation of the donor, see “For Salvation’s Sake,” 90-92.

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That belonging is invoked by the use of titles in mortuary inscriptions is predicated on the transference of titles’ significance from the realm of the living to that of the dead.

That is, while I would argue that title bearers, and inscriptions generally, have different meanings in catacombs than do inscriptions in synagogues, for example, the two are not entirely unrelated. The affiliation of title bearers with synagogues, to their mutual social advantage, was not a link severed at death. The continuation of the connection is illustrated by frequent references in Jewish mortuary inscriptions from Rome to the specific synagogue/s with which an individual was affiliated, such as Marcella, mother of the synagogue of the Augustesians, and Sara Ura, mother of the synagogues of Campus and Volumnius.447 The inclusion of these details indicates some significance that the deceased be remembered as belonging to a specific community or communities.

The relationship between titles and belonging in Jewish inscriptions operates, I would argue, on an internal level within individual Jewish communities. The invocation of prominent community members promotes a sense of corporate coherence in a manner similar to the Faustinus’ family’s habit of referencing their lineage.448 At the same time, however, I do not think the language of status and prestige in Jewish mortuary inscriptions was directed wholly at an internal audience.

The argument that Jewish titles in mortuary inscriptions were intended for a wider audience than co-religionists requires accepting that religious interaction occurred in mortuary contexts: a much debated subject. The heterogeneous nature of Christian and

447It should be noted that many titles are offered without reference to specific synagogues – a practice most typical of Roman inscriptions. In most communities there was likely only one synagogue, making reference to a specific synagogue community in an inscription unnecessary. 448Or even the modern appeal to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (and Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, and Leah, among feminists).

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Roman burials is increasingly recognized as a practice in defiance of prescriptive

Christian texts advocating strict separation.449 That being said, Rutgers’ analysis of

Jewish burials at Rome argues that Jews, Christians, and polytheists were always separated in burial, despite sharing common burial architectures, workshops for sarcophagi and other grave goods, inscriptional languages, and onomastic practices.450

The growing recognition that Christians and Roman polytheists were buried in proximity encourages a degree of skepticism that Jewish burials alone were segregated.

There has been growing recognition among scholars in recent decades of the integrated nature of Jewish Diaspora communities into the larger fabric of Greco-Roman cities. That burial must constitute an exception to this view seems based on modern concepts of religious exclusivity, particularly in death, and is unwarranted given the tenuous evidence. Many of the Jewish catacombs in Rome were excavated very poorly and thoroughly looted; leaving open the possibility that evidence challenging the unambiguous religious affiliation of catacombs was destroyed.451 On Malta the vast majority of burials cannot be assigned any specific religious identity. Where symbols or inscriptions do permit identification of burials as Christian, polytheist, or Jewish, all three can occur in the same complexes, such as those of St Agatha and SS Paul/Agatha.452 At

Nocere Superiore, only one of the nine graves assigned by excavators to Late Antiquity

449See Mark Johnson, “Pagan-Christian Burial Practices of the Fourth Century: Shared Tombs?” Journal of Early Christian Studies 1 (1997), 40-49 and Éric Rebillard, The Care of the Dead in Late Antiquity (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2009). Rutgers, Late Ancient Rome, 52, explains the overlap of Christian and pagan burials in catacombs as part of the organic expansion of private pagan hypogea into larger catacomb networks which increasingly came to be filled with Christians. Galvao-Sobrinho, “Funerary Epigraphy,” 442 notes that only one fifth of early “Christian” inscriptions from Rome actually have discernible Christian features – the rest are categorized by their proximity to that fifth and states, “Archaeology refutes the myth of exclusively Christian cemeteries.” 450Rutgers, Late Ancient Rome, 262. 451See Amy Hirschfeld, “Catacomb Archaeology,” 28-38. 452Buhagiar, Christianization of Malta, 25.

151 was definitively Jewish: as elsewhere the rest are presumed so based on their proximity to

Myrina and Pedoneious.453

To be clear, I am not suggesting that Jews, Christians, and polytheists were buried together without reference to religious affiliation. Archaeological evidence clearly indicates concentrations of burials that can be identified with one or another group. At the same time, however, the oft stated, a priori assumption that “…the [Jewish] epitaphs would probably not have been seen by non-Jews…” is not supported by evidence.454

Perhaps the persistence of this assumption is related to the idea of catacombs as places of secrecy and hiding – an idea created by Victorian novels – particularly when seen in contrast to the well-known Roman streets of the dead.455 Subterranean burial was not utilized out of a need for privacy or isolation, but rather, at least in Rome, due to the limitations of available space.456 In a world where Christian women attend synagogue festivities, polytheist donors fund synagogue buildings and receive seats of honor, god- fearers (whoever they are) affiliate themselves with Jewish communities in public inscriptions, and Jews take their seats alongside the rest of the population at the odeion, the assumption that non-Jews would never have seen Jewish epitaphs is unwarranted.457

Acknowledging, at least, the possibility that Jewish mortuary epitaphs could have been seen by non-Jews permits the possibility that their words were in part directed

453De’ Spagnolis, “Una testimonianza ebraica,” fig. LVII, 2. 454Louis Feldman in his review of Rutgers, Jewish Quarterly Review 86.3/4 (1996), 439-443. See below, n. 806. 455On the literary history of catacombs, see Hirschfeld, “Catacomb Archaeology,” 22-27. 456See Bodel, “From Columbaria to catacombs,” 178-181. 457John Chrysostom, Adversus Iudaeos 2.3.3-6 and 4.7.3; IJO II 168 for the Julia Severa inscription and IJO II 36 for Tation, IJO II 14 for the Aphrodisias inscription; IJO II 15 and 16 for the Aphrodisias odeion seat inscriptions.

152 towards that non-Jewish audience.458 In particular, the language of titles in epitaphs offered viewers continuing evidence of Jewish communities’ prestige and affluence.

Moreover, since Jewish title language emulates that of Greco-Roman patronage, this status was placed firmly within the broader social arena. That is, title language in Jewish epitaphs helped establish synagogue communities as locations of prestige and respectability within Roman society. As such, epitaphs were in a sense competitive, perhaps even polemical, in their assertion of the wealth and vitality of Jewish communities. The impetus for such language in mortuary inscriptions will be discussed in the conclusion of this study. At this point it will suffice to say that the concentration of title language in inscriptions of the fourth and fifth centuries places them squarely within an atmosphere of broader ideological competition between Jews and Christians.

Synagogues and Catacombs: Conclusions

In what ways, if any, can title inscriptions be said to have different meanings depending upon their context? Is Theopempte head of the synagogue in the same sense that Sophia of Gortyn is? The arguments presented above advocate that inscriptions in both synagogues and catacombs offered opportunities for Jewish communities to represent prominent members using established language of prestige and patronage to enhance the status of both parties. In so doing, I am challenging preconceptions

458Beth She‘arim is an unusual case. While there are numerous examples of prominent public tombs from earlier periods, particularly in Jerusalem, it would be difficult to argue that the Beth She‘arim catacombs would have had any significant non-Jewish exposure. As noted previously, there are many fewer references to titles among the Beth She‘arim inscriptions, and those titled individuals who do appear in inscriptions often hailed from Greco-Roman cities or further afield in the Diaspora. To some degree, the practices at Beth She‘arim reflect customs imported from other regions, thus borrowing the form without necessarily the corresponding function.

153 concerning relative public (synagogue) and private (catacomb) space.459 In both locations, these texts operated at internal and external levels.

At the same time, however, it is not necessarily the case that because inscriptions in each context convey similar ideas that they go about it the same manner. One possible way of thinking about the means by which synagogue and catacomb inscriptions differ in practice is that while in the former women might be said to constitute the subject of representation, in the latter they are the object of representation. That is to say, dedicatory inscriptions commemorate action, regardless if the action in question was directly tied to the title of the acting subject. Theopempte was not necessarily head of the synagogue because of the specific action of benefaction that the Myndos chancel post commemorates. Nevertheless, she, as head of the synagogue, is the subject of the action represented. In contrast, Sophia of Gortyn is an object of commemoration.460 Rather than being the subject of action, Sophia, as head of the synagogue, is being remembered for who she was rather than what she did.461

The premise that titled women in funerary inscriptions are relegated to the status of objects might raise questions among feminist historians, for whom women’s subjectivity was a hard won and crucial victory. In this case, however, women are no worse off than their male counterparts: titled men are also objects of representation in funerary inscriptions. Nor, at least in this case, is object status necessarily negative, but rather the

459Cynthia Baker offers a similar critique of public/private space in her analysis of Jewish households in Rebuilding the House of Israel. 460Were the data better, a conversation regarding who chose or authored inscriptions might be possible. Among Jewish inscriptions, records of commemorators are less frequent than in Greco-Roman inscriptions, though by no means infrequent; see, for example, JIWE II, index III b. Jewish inscriptions rarely speak in the first person voice of the deceased. 461This is a paraphrase of Rajak and Noy, “Archisynagogoi,” 89.

154 result of differing techniques. Therefore, I argue that funerary and dedicatory inscriptions accomplish similar ends – the enhancement and advertisement of Jewish communities’ social prestige – through different means: representation of titled individuals as subjects of commemorated action, on the one hand, and representation of titled individuals as objects of commemoration, on the other.

3.6: Conclusions

Chapter Three engaged the genre of epigraphy through three areas of inquiry: textuality, literacy, and context. By exploring the ways in which inscriptions are texts, exploration of ideological and rhetorical influences on their representations of women become possible. By considering ancient literacy, the ways and means of interaction between texts and readers becomes clear. By engaging context, the locations in which texts communicate and readers construct meaning are made apparent. Chapter Four will continue this line of inquiry by focusing on the non-verbal aspects of inscriptions, that is, as texts without, or apart from, words.

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Chapter Four: Materiality and the Visual Reception of Inscriptions

4.1: Introduction

As an undergraduate, I was told that archaeology is for those unable to master the

Greek. The attitude displayed in this witticism is, perhaps, old fashioned, but remains pervasive in disciplines that investigate ancient but literary cultures.462 While most scholars pay at least lip service to the fact that texts and artifacts convey different information, that each are subject to their own limitations, and that both are most effective when used in combination, the bias remains: texts trump artifacts as witnesses to history.463 To further complicate the issue, inscriptions occupy a liminal position between text and artifact. The textual aspect of inscriptions has received the preponderance of attention in scholarly analyses.464 Rarely is the materiality of inscriptions considered when their meaning or significance are under discussion.465 In fact, as Werner Eck has

462This bias is not limited to ancient data, see McDannell, Material Christianity. 463The relationship of the Dead Sea Scrolls to the nearby site of Qumran is a good example. Attempts have been made to understand both the scrolls and the site independently, but none is convincing which does not take both into account. See Jodi Magness, The archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002) as well as the essays in Debating Qumran: collected essays on its archaeology (Leuven: Peeters, 2004). 464At most, the pictorial elements of inscriptions are engaged in studies of art or symbols, such as Rachel Hachlili, Ancient Jewish art and archaeology in the Diaspora (Leiden: Brill, 1998) and Ancient Jewish art and archaeology in the land of Israel (Leiden: Brill, 1988). 465As noted by Tessa Rajak, “Inscription and Context: Reading the Jewish Catacombs of Rome,” in van Henten and van der Horst, Early Jewish Epigraphy, 226-241. See also Alexandra Pappas, “Arts in Letters: The Aesthetics of Ancient Greek Writing,” in Marija Dalbello and Mary Shaw (eds.), Visible Writings: Cultures, Forms, Readings (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2011), 37-54, esp. n.2. noted, “…an inscription without an object to which it belonged was scarcely conceivable.”466

Michael Squire has traced the academy’s fundamental logocentrism, which privileges words over images as cultural signifiers and subjects of study, to the Protestant

Reformation and Martin Luther’s dogma of sola scriptura.467 By elevating words over images as more authentic means of representing the true nature of an invisible God,

Luther reduced images’ possibilities of significance to illustrations of verbal realities.468

The next result, according to Squire, is a form of conditioning, whereby text and image exist in an antithetical binary in which the former controls and conditions the latter.469

Such a binary is anachronistic: “…one simply could not be a Protestant in the Graeco-

Roman world.”470 Squire argues that texts and images existed in symbiotic relationship in the ancient world, each medium working simultaneously to reinforce and undermine meanings created by the other. Most significantly, this work is not an end in itself, but actively participates in cultural construction and commentary.471

The fact that inscriptions are valued by historians primarily for their words is reflected and reinforced by the conventions of the publication of inscriptions.472 Figure

466Werner Eck, “Senatorial self-representation: developments in the Augustan period,” in Fergus Millar and Erich Segal, Caesar Augustus: seven aspects (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), 129-167. 467Michael Squire, Image and Text in Graeco-Roman Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 15-89. 468Not unlike the way in which the JIWE volumes’ use of exemplification renders images as illustrations of textual realities. 469Squire, Image and Text, 190. 470Squire, Image and Text, 89. 471Squire, Image and Text, 189-193. 472See a similar comment by Zahra Newby, “Introduction,” in Zahra Newby and Ruth Leader-Newby (eds.), Art and Inscriptions in the Ancient World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 1-16.

157

Six depicts a typical entry in Noy’s Jewish Inscriptions of Western Europe v. II (JIWE

II).473

Figure Six474

473JIWE II 345. 474Reproduced from David Noy (ed.), Jewish Inscriptions of Western Europe II (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 291. “Cambridge University Press grants permission freely for the reproduction in another work of a short prose extract (less than 400 words), a single figure or a single table in which it holds rights (see the important caveat in the Notes below). In such cases a request for permission need not 158

A transcription of the text is offered in the original language with reconstructions indicated by brackets. A translation of the inscription in a modern research language follows. The text is sometimes accompanied by line drawings of the inscription and any decorative elements.475 The provenance and date are noted, along with a bibliography of prior editions and references to the inscription. Finally, a discussion highlights the significant elements of interest to researchers. The result is highly legible, organized, and useful to modern scholars interested in using epigraphic sources in their constructions of history. This manner of presentation, while practical, almost completely divorces inscriptions from their original context and material character.476 Mortuary inscriptions from catacombs are not differentiated from dedicatory inscriptions in synagogues.

Carefully engraved marble plaques are represented no differently than red finger paint scrawled plaster. Symbols are dutifully noted and ignored, at most used to determine an ambiguous inscription’s “Jewishness.” Symbols are otherwise isolated from the other constituent parts of the inscription and instead studied along with symbols from a host of other Jewish contexts.477

Figure Seven (JIWE II Pl. XVII) represents the same inscription discussed in Figure

Six (JIWE II 345). A number of elements previously described are now visible: the serifs on the lettering; the triangular space markers between syllables, the large ethrogs that be submitted, but the reproduced material must be accompanied by a full citation of the original source.” http://www.cambridge.org/home/page/item6662971/?site_locale=en_US accessed March 22, 2012. 475The inclusion of line drawings varies by volume. JIWE I and II, as well as IJO II and JIGRE contain no line drawings within entries, but have photographs of some inscriptions in the plates section at the back. IJO I and III are more helpful, locating photographs and line drawings in proximity to discussion of the relevant inscription. In this regard, Frey, in his CIJ volumes, was ahead of his time. 476See Roger Bagnall, Everyday Writing in the Graeco-Roman East (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011), 3. 477On symbols used to identify “Jewishness” see above, Chapter Two. I am not denigrating the traditional study of Jewish symbols, merely pointing out the peculiarity of cataloguing inscriptions in one set of volumes and the symbols used with them in a different set of publications.

159 could be interpreted as elaborate hederae; and the large vacant spaces on the second line.

Other elements are not as apparent from the inscription’s technical description as they are from its image: the lettering on the first three lines is larger, clearer, and has more

Figure Seven478 elaborate serifs than the final two lines, which appear cramped. The empty spaces in the second line seem all the more strange, given the squeeze of letters in the fourth and fifth lines. Perhaps the age at death was a last minute addition to the text.479 The menorah and ethrogs appear to have been carved prior to the lettering, which might partially account for the epigrapher nearly running out of space in the final lines. It is possible that the plaque came with the decorative elements already in place and was then personalized

478AN2007.57 from the Ashmolean Museum’s Wilshere Collection; used by permission. Image taken from David Noy, Jewish Inscriptions of Western Europe II (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), Pl. XVII. 479On the custom of recording age at death among the Jewish epitaphs in Rome, see Rutgers, Late Ancient Rome, 100-138.

160 according to Dulcitia’s instructions. In any case, analysis of this inscription’s image raises several questions that consideration of catalogue information alone does not.

David Morgan has articulated three main reasons why scholars include images in their publications: exemplification, in which an illustration is an example attesting to a broader phenomenon; demonstration, wherein an image shows a specific object of analysis; and comparison, in which images are used to create taxonomies or to highlight variations.480 The inscription image recorded in Figure Seven serves all three purposes simultaneously. When paired with its catalogue entry, Figure Six, the inscription image is used for demonstration: the actual object of analysis is provided, allowing readers to evaluate the various claims made by the catalogue entry’s author. In its context as Plate

XVII, Figure Seven participates in both exemplification and comparison. Of the 600

Jewish inscriptions recorded in JIWE II, only 20 (3.3%) are illustrated by photographs.

These twenty images must serve as examples of the broader phenomenon which is the focus of the book. At the same time, these twenty images demonstrate the great degree of variation that exists between specific examples of this larger phenomenon.

Although Figure Seven can be seen as serving all three purposes articulated by

Morgan, JIWE II image plates I-XX as a group are only really successful at exemplification: they give readers an idea of how the other 580 inscriptions listed in the book might appear. Comparison between images is possible, but the onus is on viewers to carry out the task. Finally, although Figure Seven is a good demonstration of Figure Six’s discussion, the primary purpose of images in JIWE II cannot be purely demonstrative, given that 96.7% of inscriptions have no associated image.

480Morgan, Sacred Gaze, 35-38.

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The foregoing discussion is not intended as a criticism of the JIWE volumes. Many inscriptions are no longer extant or accessible. Images are expensive to produce and copyright permissions are not always easy to obtain. At the same time, however, the substance of what we are actually studying is, to some degree, at stake. The net result of current publication practice is that most scholars who use epigraphic evidence in their constructions of history use Figure Six, not Figure Seven, as their primary data source.

The additional research questions that just a quick perusal of Figure Seven reveals, and which Figure Six obscures, illustrate the utility of holistic analyses of inscriptions. Such analyses rely upon visual and textual elements of inscriptions, rather than text alone, to make their arguments.

Embracing the materiality of inscriptions in the process of interpretation is one way to broaden our understanding of them. A second, perhaps more significant, shift is to integrate the perspective of inscriptions’ original viewers.481 In other words, the construction of meaning does not simply begin with the inscription and end with the scholar, but is mediated in the interim by those who viewed it. Returning to Figures Six and Seven, consider the radical difference between the experience of a scholar viewing an inscription in the pages of a publication, on the one hand, and the experience of original viewers, on the other. Even Figure Seven does not convey adequately the inscription’s actual size, viewing angle, or lighting conditions in situ. This is to say, both images depict the same inscription, but whether each conveys the same meaning is less apparent: the experience of viewing participates in the construction of meaning/interpretation. In

481In IJO III, 133-212, Noy and Bloedhorn offer a welcome exception to the norm by thinking about Dura Europos synagogue inscriptions from the point of viewers. See also Karen Stern, “Mapping Devotion in Roman Dura Europos: A Reconsideration of the Synagogue Ceiling,” American Journal of Archaeology 114.3 (2010), 473-504.

162 other words, Figure Six is the “image” of the inscription which most modern scholars receive and use to construct meaning, regardless of the fact that it bears little resemblance to Figure Seven. If the aim of history is to construct what most probably occurred in the past, making an effort to see what was actually there is a start.482

Chapter Four will begin by introducing two theoretical perspectives which will inform the discussion of inscriptions as images: reception theory and visual culture theory. Whereas Chapter Three emphasized inscriptions as texts, in part by engaging post-structuralist theoretical views of textuality, Chapter Four will explore inscriptions in light of what Mitchell has called “the pictorial turn.”483

As distinct from asking what a picture means – which implies that encoded clues are the cause of interpretation, asking how a picture means implies that meaning is produced – that it is an achievement of meaning making rather than a response… 484

Whereas previous studies have focused almost exclusively on what inscriptions say to puzzle out what they mean, this chapter will focus on what was seen in order to continue to discern how title bearers mean. The shift from what to how reinforces this chapter’s divergence from previous modes of discourse by locating the production of meaning with the viewer at the point of her reception of that which is seen.

The utility of considering inscriptions as images and focusing on inscription/images, along with viewers, as agents in meaning production is immediately apparent when we remember that the vast majority of these viewers would not have been able to read. 485 As

482On history as a project of determining the most probable, see above, n. 91. 483W.J.T. Mitchell, Picture Theory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 9. 484Gretchen Barbatsis, “Reception Theory,” in Ken Smith, et al. (eds.), Handbook of Visual Communication: Theory, Methods, and Media (Mahwah: Laurence Erlbaum, 2005), 271-294 (274) emphasis in original. 485I use the phrase inscription/image(s) in a manner parallel to W.J.T. Mitchell’s imagetext, which he defines in Picture Theory, 89 as designating “…composite, synthetic works (or concepts) that combine image and text.” Note that I am not following his typographical conventions – his image/text denotes a 163 noted in Chapter Three, the intention of those inscribing inscriptions could not have been primarily for their words to be read. Chapter Four extends the argument, positing that most viewers’ construction of meaning could not solely, or even principally, have derived from what inscriptions said, given the pervasive illiteracy of the late Roman period.

Instead, inscription/images must have communicated successfully with viewers through non-textual means.486 As neither reception nor visual studies are commonly used in the study of inscriptions or Jewish antiquity generally, this first section takes time to discuss the background of each theoretical school and offer a few examples of their application in related fields. In so doing, my aim is to demonstrate the utility of considering issues of reception and visuality in ancient history.

Second, the bulk of Chapter Four attempts to balance the overwhelming emphasis on inscriptions as text with an analysis of inscriptions as material culture. Just as using both textual and material evidence in conjunction offers a more complete picture than either can alone, considering the material as well as the textual aspects of inscriptions will better inform our understanding of how they functioned. Chapter Three began this process by examining how an inscription’s locative context could influence the meanings it conveys, noting that inscriptions in synagogues and tombs communicated similar messages using different means. The current chapter will continue this line of reasoning by looking at the material facets of inscriptions. What, if anything, is conveyed by an elegantly carved marble epitaph that is not conveyed by red finger paint? If the presence

“problematic gap, cleavage, or rupture in representation.” On the question of literacy see Chapter Three as well as Catherine Hezser, Jewish Literacy in Roman Palestine (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001); Harris, Ancient Literacy; Humphrey, Literacy. 486That is, Chapter Three thinks about words in inscriptions from the creator/commemorator side of the equation, while Chapter Four thinks about inscriptions from the point of view of their viewers.

164 of a menorah with a mortuary inscription symbolizes the deceased’s distinctively Jewish identity, what should we make of Jewish burials that lack such symbols? This second section will explore the use of the non-textual in the production of inscriptions, including medium, execution, and decoration, to determine what non-verbal messages inscriptions convey.

Context, materiality, and words are all essential facets of inscriptions. When considered as such, the combination of these elements renders each inscription more akin to an image than a text. The advantage of thinking about inscriptions as images, albeit images which contain text, is to open a new and broader set of questions by positioning inscriptions as participating in Jewish visual culture, as “…objects that deploy particular ways of seeing and therefore contribute to the social, intellectual and perceptual construction of reality.”487 Having shifted inscriptions from the realm of text to the realm of image, the final section of this chapter will use two female title bearer inscriptions as case studies to discuss what inscriptions as a whole meant to those who viewed them originally and how inscriptions participated in those viewers’ constructions of realities.

Having introduced reception theory and visual culture studies as theoretical frameworks through which to examine title bearer inscriptions, this study continues to expand possibilities for understanding how representations of title bearers functioned in Jewish communities.

Thus, the third section of the chapter will take the concept of inscriptions as material images as articulated in the first and second sections and reframe the discussion of how inscriptions create and convey meaning by examining two specific examples of female

487Morgan, Sacred Gaze, 27.

165 title bearer inscriptions. Close analysis of these inscriptions will explore the different interests and priorities that a material/viewer oriented approach brings to the material.

Such an approach permits a closer emphasis on the ways that inscriptions functioned in

Jewish society.

The question could be raised at this point of how much a discussion of inscriptions’ materiality and reception can really advance current understandings of female title bearer inscriptions. After all, if inscriptions’ textuality has lost its privilege as a reflection of a knowable past and must instead be relegated to a representation of constructed history, as argued in Chapter Three, how much more lost to historians are the meanings created through the practice of viewing? Such potential criticism is valid: to study inscriptions as images and to assess their reception by viewers are also practices that create constructed histories. Even so, the attempt to think about how inscriptions functioned from the point of view of those who interacted with them is warranted. This approach will not only balance the prevailing assumption that the meanings scholars derive from inscriptions are the only or most significant meanings inscriptions can have, but also add the benefit of bringing ancient Jewish inscription/images into broader conversations about the relationship between images and texts.

As part of the analytic process, the chapter will step away, at times, from Jewish female title bearer inscriptions specifically – a move made necessary by the limited data.

The reorientation of the discussion on ancient constructions of meaning through the interaction of images and viewers paves the way for the work of Chapter Five, which questions the appropriateness of modern articulations of gender and authority for ancient

Jewish communities, and seeks instead to understand how these concepts were defined

166 and represented. The current chapter continues, however, with an introduction to the fields of reception theory and visual culture studies, which will ground later discussions of inscriptions as images which construct meaning in conversation with viewers.

4.2: Where art and text collide: Reception Theory and Visual Culture

Using reception theory to underpin a chapter that explores the non-textual aspects of inscriptions might seem counterintuitive. Reception theory began as a set of methods in literary criticism that sought to focus attention on the construction of meaning between text and reader rather than between author and text or within the text itself.488 Hans

Robert Jauss and Wolfgang Iser are most typically cited as the major theorists responsible for developing reception theory as an interpretive model.489

Jauss, a Romance scholar and literary historian at the University of Constance, gave a lecture in 1967 entitled “What is and for what purpose does one study Literary History?” in which he advocated an integration of history and aesthetics.490 Jauss found middle ground between Marxism and Formalism by adopting the former’s insistence on historical mediation and the latter’s theory of aesthetic perception, but by rejecting what he saw as Marxism’s historical determinism and Formalism’s ahistoric valuation of art for its own sake.491 His Rezeptionsästhetik grounds readers’ aesthetic perceptions of texts

488For a basic introduction to reception theory, see Robert Holub, Reception Theory: A Critical Introduction (London and New York: Routledge, 1984), though note the disagreement of James Machor and Philip Goldstein with Holub’s assessment of the American response to German reception theory in Reception Theory: from literary theory to cultural studies (London: Routledge, 2001), ix. 489Holub, Reception Theory, 13-52 identifies Russian formalism, Roman Ingarden, Prague structuralism, Hans-Georg Gadamer, and sociology of literature as influences and precursors to Jauss and Iser. 490“Was heißt und zu welchem Ende studiert man Literaturgeschichte?” This lecture was subsequently renamed “Literaturgeschichte als Provokation der Literaturwissenshaft,” and published as “Literary History as a Provocation to Literary Scholarship,” in Hans Robert Jauss, Toward an Aesthetic of Reception, trans. Timothy Bahti (Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press, 1982), 3-45. 491Charles Martindale, “Thinking through Reception,” in Charles Martindale and Richard Thomas (eds.), Classics and the Uses of Reception (Malden: Blackwell Press, 2006), 1-13.

167 in the specific historical moment of each individual reader’s reception, which taken together constitute a type of literary historiography that mediates between past and present.492 Jauss used the metaphor of the “horizon of expectation” to articulate the historically and culturally determined mind-set of readers, which conditioned their reception of a text.493

Iser, a professor of English Literature also at the University of Constance, shared

Jauss’s interest in prioritizing the experience of the reader, but concentrated on individual texts and their meaning as constructed through the process of reading.494 He explained this process through three conceptual frameworks. First, Iser noted that a text’s content, which he calls the repertoire, reflects the reader’s reality sufficiently to be familiar, but reorganizes or reshapes that reality to make its point. Various structural elements, called strategies, govern the communicative options of the repertoire for the reader. Second, Iser articulated a phenomenology of reading to explain how the reader participates in the construction of a text’s meaning. Using the trope of the “wandering viewpoint,” he suggested that the reader is constantly formulating and reformulating expectations based on past experience and present unresolved inconsistency.495 The production of meaning is therefore individuated in each reader’s repeated process of expectation, conflict, and resolution. Third, Iser identified the communicative system of literature, the conversation between text and reader, as regulated by the first two frameworks. The text’s structural strategies intentionally leave blank spaces for the reader to fill through the act of

492Holub, Reception Theory, 58. 493Lorna Hardwick, Reception Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 8. 494Wolfgang Iser, The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978). 495Iser, Act of Reading, 118.

168 reading.496 The text limits the reader’s options through its structural components, but the reader resolves the indeterminate spots in the text. Meaning is constructed through this give-and-take between text and reader.

In the years since Jauss and Iser first developed their theories of reception, their insights have been distilled to what has been called the founding claim of the broader field of reception studies: “All meaning is constituted or actualized at the point of reception.”497 So long as this claim is upheld, reception studies is willing to embrace a wide variety of interpretive strategies and literary types.498 As a result of this flexibility, ideas about what can constitute a text and who can constitute a reader have expanded broadly.499 This expansion of definition allows methods, developed originally to reintroduce history and context to literary studies, to illuminate other disciplines as well.

Classics and art history are two disciplines whose use and modification of reception theory will inform its applicability and utility for Jewish title bearer inscriptions.

496Holub, Reception Theory, 92, observes that Iser borrows Ingarden’s concept of the ‘spot of indeterminacy’ to define the blank in “Indeterminacy and the Reader’s Response in Prose Fiction,” in J. Hillis Miller (ed.), Aspects of Narrative: Selected Papers from the English Institute (New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1971), 1-45. 497Charles Martindale, Redeeming the Text: Latin Poetry and the Hermeneutics of Reception (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 3 as described and quoted in William Batstone, “Provocation: The Point of Reception Theory,” in Martindale and Thomas, Classics and the Uses of Reception, 14-20 (14). Whether such a distillation is appropriate, fair, or universally agreed upon is beyond the scope of this work. A variation on Martindale’s statement is Phillip Goldstein and James Machor (eds.), New Directions in American Reception Study (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), xii: “an audience’s interpretive practices explain a work’s meaning.” Katie Fleming, “The Politics and Morality of Appropriation,” in Martindale and Thomas, Classics and the Uses of Reception, 127-138, sees occasional tension in the literature between the constitutive elements of reception studies: reception theory and reception history (128). 498See, for example, Machor and Goldstein, Reception Study; Goldstein and Machor, New Directions; Smith, et al., Handbook of Visual Communication, 271-328. 499For example, Martingale, “Thinking through Reception,” 3 states, “I am using [text] in the extended poststructuralist sense, that could mean a painting, or a marriage ceremony, or a person, or a historical event” or Hardwick, Reception Studies, 4 n. 9, “‘Text’ is used in its broadest sense throughout this discussion to include oral sources, written documents and works of material culture such as buildings or sculpture.”

169

The use of reception in the field of classics has been valorized as an opportunity to return classics to its position of primacy in the humanities by rejecting its current historicist-positivist agenda in favor of one that seeks to make ancient texts relevant by focusing on their influence on the present.500 In a slightly less vehement iteration, classical reception is interested in the reciprocal relationship between a classical work and its culture and the received work and receiving culture.501 Reception theory’s emphasis on the construction of meaning in more recent, better documented contexts shone a bright light of possibility in a field becoming discouraged by the growing realization that “the past” as such was less accessible than previously thought.502 Studies on a wide range of topics, such as the Renaissance reception of the Argonautica of

Valerius Flaccus, the Fascist reception of Augustan ideals, and the reception of Greek drama in modern Diasporic communities, has broadened and reinvigorated the field.503

Once classical literature found a new and rewarding intellectual framework in reception theory, only a few modifications were needed to adapt a reception-based mindset to classical art and art history. As noted above, the concept of text has become very malleable, so the methodological step from the reception of Homer to the reception

500Martindale, “Thinking through Reception,” and Redeeming the Text. 501Hardwick, Reception Studies, 4. 502See Chapter Three as well as Michael Maranda, “Facts,” New Literary History 29.3 (1998), 415-438. Likewise, for pessimism on accessing authorial intentions, see Barbara Graziosi, Inventing Homer: the early reception of epic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 6. Note, however, Fleming’s caution on assuming that recent history or the present moment is any more knowable than antiquity, in “Politics and Morality,” 136. 503See Andrew Zizzos, “Reception of Valerius Flaccus’ ‘Argonautica,’” International Journal of the Classical Tradition 13.2 (2006), 165-185; Fleming, “Politics and Morality;” and Lorna Hardwick, “Remodeling Receptions: Greek Drama as Diaspora in Performance,” in Martindale and Thomas, Classics and the uses of Reception, 204-215, respectively.

170 of the Aphrodite of Cnidos or the Venus de Milo is almost unnoticeable.504 As in classics, reception theory’s appeal to art historians lies in the opportunity to return relevance and urgency to a field that had emphasized description, categorization, and attribution: endeavors focused primarily on the “text” or “author.”505

The majority of reception studies on both classical texts and art focus on points of reception in the post-antique world, for the reasons discussed briefly above.506 A growing number of scholars, however, are focusing on reception in antiquity, with the goal of examining what meanings are constructed, for example, by Herodotus about Homer and what that construction process reveals about Herodotus or by the Roman imitation and emulation of Greek statuary and how that practice reflects Roman interests and values.507

Although one branch of classical reception studies decries what it sees as a reinsertion of historicist interests into the practice of reception studies, others remain confident in the possibility for reception to facilitate a dialogue between receivers and received that illuminates both.508 It is with this sort of cautious optimism that the present chapter will

504Rosemary Barrow, “From Praxiteles to De Chirico: Art and Reception,” International Journal of the Classical Tradition 11.3 (2005), 344-368; Elizabeth Prettejohn, “Reception and Ancient Art: The Case of the Venus de Milo,” in Martindale and Thomas, Classics and the Uses of Reception, 227-249, respectively. 505Prettejohn, “Reception and Ancient Art,” 228. 506Including all the essays in Martindale and Thomas, Classics and the Uses of Reception and Ellen Greene, (ed.), Re-reading Sappho: reception and transmission (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996); Nicklaus Himmelmann, “Archaeology and Modern Culture,” in William Childs (ed.), Reading Greek Art (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998); Richard Hunter, On coming after: Studies of post-classical Greek literature and its reception (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2008). 507For example, Graziosi, Inventing Homer, and the essays in Elaine Gazda (ed.), The Ancient Art of Emulation: Studies in Artistic Originality and Tradition from the Present to Classical Antiquity (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002), particularly those of Michael Koortbojian, “Forms of Attention: Four Notes on Replication and Variation,” 173-204 and Ellen Perry, “Rhetoric, Literary Criticism, and Roman Artistic Imitation,” 153-171. See also Barrow, “From Praxiteles to De Chirico,” 345. 508Martindale, Redeeming the Text, and “Thinking through Reception,” is most vehemently opposed to historicist-positivist interests in antiquity, most vehemently Jerome McGann, The Beauty of Inflections: Literary Investigations in Historical Method and Theory (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), but also Simon Goldhill, Who Needs Greek? Contests in the Cultural History of Hellenism (Cambridge: Cambridge 171 proceed in its attempt to shift attention away from both the verbal content of title inscriptions (“text”) as well as the title bearers, patrons, and/or artists (various “authors”).

Instead, we will turn to those who would have seen the inscriptions (“reader/viewer”) to investigate what sorts of meaning readers might have constructed in their reception of title inscriptions and what that meaning might reveal about how and why inscriptions present title bearers in particular ways.

The foregoing has implied but still not addressed specifically the question of why reception, with its emphasis on the reader/viewer and the production of meaning at the particular moment of the process of reading/viewing, has been chosen as the framework with which to discuss the non-verbal aspects of title bearer inscriptions. Reception offers an opportunity for what Mitchell has called indiscipline: a provocative break with the status quo.509 As noted above, scholarship tends to prioritize textual sources over other types of data. This prioritization is exemplified by the way in which inscriptions are collected and published. The implication from most volumes, such as the JIWE example in Figure Six, is that what is most important about an inscription is what it says. In contrast to modern scholars, the individuals who viewed these inscriptions in their original setting did not receive them as words on a page, formatted to a uniform typeset and size, grouped with others from thousands of miles away, and all from the comfort of library carrel or home office. Instead, inscriptions were painted or etched in stone, carefully executed or hastily scrawled, written in Greek or Latin or Hebrew or some

University Press, 2002); Christopher Rowe et al., Application to AHRB under Subject Areas for Ring- Fenced Doctoral Awards scheme, 2003; and Hardwick, Reception Studies. 509W.J.T. Mitchell, “Interdisciplinarity and Visual Culture,” Art Bulletin 77.4 (1995), 540-544, who offers this notion as an alternative to interdisciplinarity, with its implied harmonious blending of methods and purposes.

172 combination thereof, located in Greece and Turkey and Italy and Libya, accompanied by pictures or alone, and presented in tombs and synagogues. In short, the context in which the inscriptions are received by modern scholars, on the one hand, and ancient viewers, on the other, are completely different, which reemphasizes what should already be clear: the meanings each group constructs from its reading of title inscriptions will be equally different.510 There is much that cannot be known about ancient readers’ reception of these inscriptions, but trying to construct more of the whole that they received is a start. This chapter is about context; reception theory argues that context affects meaning, insomuch as the context in which a text is received influences its reception and therefore its meaning as constructed by the reader.

The fluidity of the term “text” should make the progression from reception theory to matters of visuality a smooth one. I have argued that inscriptions, specifically the title bearer inscriptions of interest in this project, are more than simply words. In fact, they incorporate a great deal of non-verbal information which participates in meaning making.

If inscriptions are more than the words they contain, then what are they and how can their various aspects be given equal weight in scholarly discourse? Inscriptions are simultaneously text and image, word and material. A solution can, perhaps, be created by momentarily removing ourselves from the domain of modern scholarship, where text and image are often the subjects of separate disciplines, and ask whether this seeming dichotomy was such a problem for others in the past as it is for us today.

The complicated relationship between text and image, as described by Squire above, is recognized and explored also in a pair of volumes on Greek and Roman culture,

510For similar observations on the disconnect between scholarly reception and original context, see Valerie Huet, “Stories one might tell of Roman art: reading Trajan’s column and the Tiberius cup,” in Elsner, Roman Culture, 9-31.

173 respectively.511 The essays in these volumes examine inclusions of words on vases, descriptions of images in literary works, and the combination of word and image in theatrical performance.512 To frame the justification for his project, Elsner offers the following example. Virgil in Aeneid 6.34 uses the term perlegerent oculis (literally, “they read with their eyes”) for looking at the images on the doors made by Daedalus for the temple at Cumae. In his fourth-century AD commentary on this passage, Servius

Grammaticus discusses this use of ‘reading’ for looking at pictures and remarks that it is not incongruous to ‘read’ a picture since the Greeks use the verb grapsai meaning both

“to draw an image” and “to write a text.”513 Elsner’s emphasis on word and image as not simply concurrent but interdependent forms of representation finds validation in the ancient world for challenging modern categories and practices.

One academic field which might join in such a challenge offers an interesting location from which to analyze liminal objects such as inscription/images. Visual culture emerged as a discipline in the 1990s out of the mid-20th century field of cultural studies.514 “Visual culture is what is seen…What is seen depends on what there is to see and how we look at it.”515 Although clear boundaries are difficult to discern, visual culture most often differs

511Simon Goldhill and Robin Osbourne (eds.) Art and Text in Greek Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994) and Elsner, Roman Culture. 512François Lissarrague, “Epiktetos egraphsen: the writing on the cup,” in Goldhill and Osbourne, Greek Culture, 12-27; Yun Lee Too, “Statues, mirrors, gods: controlling images in Apuleius,” in Elsner, Roman Culture, 133-152; Norman Bryson, “Philostratus and the imaginary museum,” in Goldhill and Osbourne, Greek Culture, 255-283; and Froma Zeitlin, “The artful eye: vision, ecphrasis and spectacle in Euripidean theater,” in Goldhill and Osbourne, Greek Culture, 138-196, respectively. 513Elsner, Roman Culture, 1, emphasis in original. A similar perspective is reflected in the title of Claude Gandelman, Reading Pictures, Viewing Text (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1991), although he approaches the material from a different direction. 514James Elkins, Visual Studies: A Skeptical Introduction (New York: Routledge, 2003), 3. 515George Roeder, “Filling in the Picture: Visual Culture,” Reviews in American History 26.1 (1998), 275- 293 (275).

174 from art history in two ways.516 First, it tends to embrace a wider array of subject matter by including in its purview what is often referred to as “low” art.517 Second, visual culture is often self-consciously, albeit inconsistently, interdisciplinary in its methodologies and proclivities.518 The value of interdisciplinarity is, however, contested; as noted above, one of the early founders of visual culture, W.J.T. Mitchell, advocates opting out of the academic rage for interdiscipline in favor of the more transgressive indiscipline.519 Like many emerging fields, visual culture has experienced a variety of disciplinary uncertainties and critiques.520 Regardless, it offers a relevant position from which to examine inscriptions in their role as images.

Visual culture theory offers the most suitable theoretical lens through which to deal with inscriptions’ liminal character. The flexibility of visuality permits a wide range of viewable objects to fall under its purview.521 As is discussed in greater detail below, many of the Jewish inscriptions in question are of dubious aesthetic value and questionable artistic quality. Traditional art historical methods have little relevance for their interpretation. As viewable objects, however, inscriptions’ visuality is not dependent upon any inherent characteristic. “Culture” acknowledges the artifactual nature of inscriptions as a specific type of material culture belonging to a particular historical

516Naturally, overlap and exceptions abound. Elkins, Visual Studies, 24 is careful to note that much of the distance which both sides posit results from distrust rather than real disagreement. 517See the discussion on the high/low debate in Elkins, Visual Studies, 45-62. 518See Elkins, Visual Studies, 25-30. 519Mitchell, “Interdisciplinarity and Visual Culture,” 541 calls indiscipline, “…a moment of breakage or rupture, when the continuity is broken and the practice comes into question.” 520See Elkins, Visual Studies, 18 for a description of a survey about visual culture in a 1996 volume of the journal October. 521For a discussion of non-art images, see James Elkins, The Domain of Images (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999). Of particular interest is his section on allographs, 95-119. See also David Freedberg, The Power of Images (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989) and Paul Zanker, The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus, trans. Alan Shapiro (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998).

175 context. Moreover, defining inscriptions as a manifestation of culture highlights both their constructedness as well as their complicity in constructing and reinforcing the culture(s) they reflect.522

Visual culture is therefore appropriate on several levels. As a term, visual culture emphasizes continuous recollection of the whole even as individual elements of title bearer inscriptions are discussed. As a theoretical model, visual culture serves as a reminder that viewed objects are constitutive participants in the creation of social realities. Along with reception theory’s focus on the experience of the reader/viewer, visual culture offers an opportunity to challenge the status quo through investigation of the artifactual character of inscriptions.

By introducing some of the theoretical perspectives offered by reception and visual culture, my aim is to offer ways of thinking about title bearer inscriptions that break from standard practice. Shifting the priority of focus from author to viewer and from word to image has begun this process. The next shift is a move from text to material. Thus,

Chapter Four continues with the issue of materiality and an examination of how inscriptions’ medium, execution, and decoration convey meaning.

4.3: Materiality: Medium, Execution, Decoration

Title Bearer Location Medium Decoration X Nevşehir stone undetermined523 Jael Aphrodisias marble undecorated Theopempte Myndos marble architectural

522Morgan, Sacred Gaze, 27 offers the following definition for the practice of studying visual culture: “that form of inquiry undertaken within a number of humanistic and social scientific disciplines whose object is the conceptual frameworks, social practices and the artifacts of seeing”. 523As noted above, the Nevşehir inscriptions are yet to be systematically published and no information is available regarding their appearance.

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Rufina Smyrna marble undecorated Rebeka Bizye marble ethrog, menorah Sophia Kastelli Kisamou marble undecorated Marin Tell el-Yehoudieh stone undecorated Coelia Paterna Brescia limestone undecorated Myrina Nocera Superiore marble menorah Veturia Paulla F Rome stone sarcophagus menorah, lulav, shofar Sara Ura Rome (Monteverde) marble with inscribed, menorah red painted letters Gaudentia Rome (Monteverde) marble menorah, torah shrine ...]ia Marcel[la] Rome (Monteverde?) marble sarcophagus hederae or ethrogs Simpli[cia] Rome (Randanini) marble menorah שלום Alexsandra Venosa red paint over inscribed plaster Beronikene Venosa undetermined524 undecorated Mannine Venosa red paint on plaster undecorated Faustina Venosa marble undecorated (mother) שלום Faustina (elder) Venosa red paint on plaster Mazauzala Oea undetermined525 menorah, lulav, palm Eulogia Malta marble menorah Lady Maria Beth She'arim red paint undecorated Sambathion Byblos painted ? on house wall undecorated Peristera Phthiotic Thebes stone menorah

Figure Eight526 Medium Materials and techniques used for title bearer inscriptions fall in two general categories: engraved stone and painted plaster.527 Of the 14 mortuary inscriptions

524JIWE I 59 notes “Inscribed (?)” for Beronikene’s inscription. Most of the inscriptions (58-68) from the same location (arcosolium D2) are red paint on plaster. JIWE I 65 also reads “Inscribed (?).” 525Romenelli, “Una piccola catacomba,” 112-113, describes the tombs in the Jewish hypogeum as closed with pieces of tile, marble, and other similar materials and the inscriptions as either painted or scratched. 526Figure Eight charts medium and decoration; execution is difficult to summarize in table form.

177 inscribed on stone, nine appear in marble, one in limestone, and four in stone of indeterminate type. Five inscriptions are painted in red on plaster. In each group, one inscription combines elements from both techniques: Sara Ura’s marble engraved inscription preserves traces of red paint in the letter grooves; Alexandra’s inscription was first impressed into wet plaster before being painted.528 The discussion of medium in

Jewish funerary epitaphs quickly becomes one of marble versus painted plaster. The key question is whether and what conclusions can be drawn regarding decedents from their choice of medium.

Availability of stone, such as marble, for use in inscription plaques is difficult to judge with certainty. The discovery of the Carrara marble quarries near Ravenna ended the Roman Republic’s complete dependence on foreign, predominantly Greek, marble.529

The Carrara source supplied the majority of Rome’s building materials from the mid-first century BCE to the early second century CE.530 The insatiable need for stone created by the continual expansion of the capital, however, meant that foreign sources of stone were mined as well. As Rome acquired territory, many of the Mediterranean’s quarries were taken into state control. 531 Thus, marble would have been plentiful at Rome and its

527This section will consider only the material aspects of mortuary inscriptions. The dedicatory inscriptions of Jael, Theopempte, and Rufina each belong to a different type of monument and are anomalous in comparison with the others. 528It is possible that additional stone inscriptions could have been painted as well and the paint is not preserved. 529See Peter Pensabene, “Some problems related to the use of Luna marble in Rome and western provinces during the first century AD,” in Yannis Maniatis et al. (eds.), The Study of Marble and other Stones used in Antiquity (London: Archetype, 1995), 13-16. 530J.B. Ward-Perkins, “Materials, Quarries, and Transportation,” in Hazel Dodge and Bryan Ward-Perkins (eds.), Marble in Antiquity: collected papers of J.B. Ward-Perkins (London: British School at Rome, 1992), 13-22. 531See, for example, J. Clayton Fant, Cavum antrum Phrygiae: the organization and operations of the Roman imperial marble quarries in Phrygia (Oxford: B.A.R. International, 1989). For an argument against 178 immediate environs. Likewise, the prevalence of marble in the inscriptions of Asia

Minor, for example, probably results from the fact that numerous marble quarries existed in the area.532 One pattern the data in Figure Eight suggest, therefore, is a higher concentration of marble either in locations proximate to where marble was quarried, such as Asia Minor, or in Rome, to where most marble was exported.

Estimates of the cost of memorialization vary over time and location. In Italy, a marble monument might range anywhere from 250-10,000 sestertii depending upon the size and quality of the stone. 533 There does not appear to be a strict or universal correlation between the use of a specific medium in mortuary epigraphy and the status or finances of the decedent. It appears, instead, that the choice of medium was governed primarily by availability, which in turn influenced local convention.534 This conclusion remains speculative, of course, given the limited amount of evidence. Rome and Venosa are the only locations from which sufficient examples exist to analyze.

Williams, among others, has noted qualitative differences between the three major

Roman catacombs, based primarily on layout and density of burials and the preferred

imperial ownership of the marble quarries of Thasos, see Jean-Yves Marc, “Who owned the marble quarries of Thasos during the Imperial Period?” in Maniatis et al., The Study of Marble, 33-38. 532See Appendix 1 in Dodge and Ward-Perkins, Marble in Antiquity, 153-159, esp. figs. 140 and 141. 533Carroll, Spirits of the Dead, 77. The sestertius went out of use in the 4th century, so is not the best unit to imagine the majority of our 4th/5th century inscriptions’ cost. The available information about burial costs comes primarily from the 1st-3rd centuries CE, when sestertii were a common monetary unit. During this time the value of the sestertius fluctuated significantly, making it difficult to provide an accurate way to know how these costs correspond to modern prices. 534It is necessary to recall at this point that only a small percentage of burials are preserved for archaeological discovery and this percentage is often skewed towards the more well-to-do segments of society. The discussion below of the “wealthier” Randanini catacomb in comparison with the “poorer” Monteverde and Torlonia catacombs is therefore somewhat misleading. See Bodel’s Appendix in “From Columbaria to Catacombs,” 235-242, particularly his comments on individual surface inhumations and mass graves as well as Carroll, Spirits of the Dead, 69-71.

179 language.535 Her claim that the Randanini catacomb was the burial spot of choice for wealthy, Latin speaking, Roman Jews, is clinched, in her opinion, by three particularly large marble funerary plaques which indicate familial affiliation at Roman synagogues some distance from the Via Appia, where the Randanini catacomb is located.536 Her observations regarding the size and quality of particular marble inscriptions in Rome have relevance for the discussion of execution, below, and will be presented in greater detail there. For the moment it is sufficient to note that marble, whether monumental or not, appears to be the norm in Rome, even in the “poor” catacombs of Monteverde and

Torlonia.537 The ability of many catacomb occupants to have some type of marble mortuary plaque is understandable, given the volume of stone concentrated in Rome.

At Venosa the situation is very different. Almost all the catacomb inscriptions are painted or inscribed in plaster, whether they exhibit titles or not.538 In fact, only five of the 75 inscriptions known from Venosa were inscribed on marble. The general paucity of marble at Venosa makes the few instances of its usage all the more interesting. Four of the five Venosan marble inscriptions come from a single hypogeum. 539 Among them is

535 Williams, “Jewish Burials,” 165-182. I am suspicious of the characterization of the Randanini catacomb as higher class based on our perceptions of its spaciousness and privacy, as these values are culturally conditioned rather than universal. 536These inscriptions are JIWE II 288, 338, and 547. The provenance of the last inscription is debated. According to Noy, JIWE II, 430, Marongoni, the only person to view the now missing inscription, saw it in a church in the Trastevere district. The CIL VI 29757 commentary notes that it was found in the catacomb of Praetextatus near the Via Appia, but Ferrua objects on the grounds that no evidence for this provenance exists. Williams follows the Praetextatus provenance, calling it the earliest (170), and noting that assigning the inscription to Randanini is logical given its use of Latin, which is more common there than at Monteverde or Torlonia. 537Noy, JIWE II, 341, notes that the relative paucity of marble funerary plaques from the Torlonia catacomb is a result of extensive looting. 538It is important to note that just having a burial slot in a catacomb would have required financial investment regardless of whether marble was used for an inscription. Burials of the truly poor are largely lost to history, see Bodel, “From Columbaria to Catacombs,” 235-242. 539The Lauridia hypogeum is about 100m away from the main Venosa catacombs. See Noy, JIWE I, xvii for justification of these graves as Jewish. 180 the inscription of Faustina the mother – the only marble inscription among the five female title bearer examples from Venosa. Two other occupants of the hypogeum,

Marcellus and Auxanius, Faustina’s husband, are both identified as patrons of the city on their marble inscriptions, with Auxanius identified as such again on Faustina’s epitaph.540

The general use of painted plaster at Venosa makes Faustina’s choice of medium noteworthy.

It is possible that at Venosa, status did influence choice of inscription medium.

Venosa is not in an area where we would expect to find quantities of marble, and the general use of painted plaster for mortuary inscriptions conforms to this expectation. One small, slightly separate burial area contains most of the few marble inscriptions and the only individuals identified as patrons of the city. Although definitive conclusions are difficult to draw from so few examples, it appears that Faustina and the other occupants of the Lauridia hypogeum were purposefully differentiating themselves from standard

Jewish burial practices at Venosa, in part through choice of medium.541

This brief examination of mortuary inscriptions argues that significance can best be determined in cases of exceptions to local customs. In Venosa, marble would not likely have been a common commodity. Ninety three percent of inscriptions use other epigraphic materials, making the 7% which do use marble potentially more informative.

In Rome, on the other hand, the use of marble is not significant in itself; we would anticipate marble being relatively more abundant and most inscriptions use it. If Roman

540JIWE I 114, 115, and 116, respectively. The fourth Lauridia hypogeum marble mortuary inscription is, interestingly enough, that of Marcus, a fifteen year old teuseves. 541On the other hand, the practice of “recycling” marble architectural pieces for use in grave inscriptions was widespread and might account for the use of marble in unanticipated areas. The epitaphs of Myrina and her husband Pedoneious, for example, clearly repurposed fragments of previously carved marble for use in their tomb, see De’ Spagnolis, “Una testimonianza ebraica,” 250-251.

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Jews wished to make an impact, visually, with their mortuary plaques, they could not rely on marble alone.

Execution

This section returns to the question of execution, which was addressed in a tangential way in Chapter Three in the context of discussing the various ways in which written words functioned in antiquity. By investigating the admittedly subjective topic of inscriptions’ quality of production, we may begin to consider the visual impact of inscriptions’ execution.

Ancient inscriptions ran the gamut from the monumental Res Gestae of Augustus inscribed on the wall of the Temple of Augustus and Rome at Ankara and elsewhere, to the ubiquitous, often ribald, graffiti in towns and cities throughout the empire.542 The disparate functions of public writing dictate, in many cases, the effort and expense taken to render them. Even within the narrower confines of mortuary inscriptions, however, there is an apparent spectrum. Compare the following inscriptions of two Jewish archons from Rome, Figures Nine and Ten.

It is difficult to resist forming immediate aesthetic judgments and extrapolating from the quality of an inscription’s execution an impression of the decedent.543 Such assessments are inevitable and, to some degree, not inappropriate. Members of Roman

542See Jaś Elsner, “Inventing imperium: texts and the propaganda of monuments in Augustan Rome,” in Elsner, Roman Culture, 32-56, fig. 9; for graffiti, see the essays in Baird and Taylor, Ancient Graffiti as well as the first chapter of Bagnall, Everyday Writing. 543Unsurprisingly, these scholarly impressions dictated, for a long time, the types of monuments worthy of study. See Clarke, Ordinary Romans, 2-7. See also Angelo Chaniotis’ comments on the varying “quality” of graffiti at Aphrodisias in “Graffiti in Aphrodisias: Images – Texts – Contexts,” in Baird and Taylor, Ancient Graffiti, 191-208.

182 society would have also been able to evaluate the quality of workmanship and to form judgments about the individuals involved.544

Figure Nine545

At the same time, however, it is important to resist falling sway to the assumption that our assessments of quality and aesthetics would conform to those of the ancient world, being steeped, as the western academy is, in a predominantly classical heritage.546 A quick recollection of the ancient penchant for gaudy coloration of what we perceive as the austere beauty of white marble should remind us otherwise.547

These warnings notwithstanding, imperial and elite inscriptions do conform to

(having helped create) many modern perceptions of how a well-executed inscription should appear. The dedication on Trajan’s column, for example, is carved in large,

544See Jaś Elsner’s discussion of ancient connoisseurship in Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), 62-66. 545JIWE II 2. Photograph by P. Carrasquillo. 546See Clarke, Ordinary Romans, 12 for discussion of the assumption that Romans were “just like us.” 547On color in classical antiquity, see Vincenz Brinkmann et al., Gods in color: painted sculpture of classical antiquity (Munich: Stiftung Archäologie Glyptothek, 2007).

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Figure Ten548 legible, neat letters, which become slightly smaller towards the bottom to account for perspective of the viewer looking up.549 The inscription fills the allotted space without undue crowding or blank spaces. The marble slab upon which the inscription is carved is purpose cut with decorative molding. This monument epitomizes a well-executed inscription, as was appropriate for an imperial project.

High quality inscriptions were not restricted to the uppermost echelons of society.

The tomb built by freedwoman Naevoleia Tyche at Pompeii is one example of a non-elite

548JIWE II 100. Photograph by P. Carrasquillo. 549See Davies, Death and the Emperor: Roman imperial funeral monuments, from Augustus to Marcus Aurelius (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 27-34.

184 monument that is executed in fine style.550 The monument is very large, elaborately decorated, and features a sizable dedicatory inscription in the center of the front façade.551 While non-elite in the sense that both Naevoleia and her husband Munatius were not free-born Roman citizens, Munatius held a number of civic offices and honors.552 Moreover, the family was obviously well off, given that the tomb in question was built for the couple’s freedpersons; Naevoleia and Munatius were buried in a separate tomb elsewhere at Pompeii. In this case, it appears that social status did not limit access to quality workmanship when sufficient money was available. This conclusion is not surprising, particularly in light of Petronius’ mockery of the subject in the Satyricon, which implies that freed nouveau riche might be able to buy a fancy tomb, but could not purchase a corresponding sense of taste.553

The Satyricon articulates the attitude that some members of Roman society made clear distinctions between monuments of the true elite and those with lesser status but money to spend. It is regrettable that the one female title bearer inscription that might shed light on Jewish participation in the immediately sub-elite use of funerary monuments is preserved only in transcription.554 Rufina’s dedicatory inscription on the tomb of her freedpersons in Smyrna is reminiscent of that of Naevoleia Tyche, albeit with the added threat of fines for unlawful burial. The similarities in language raise the

550See Clarke, Ordinary Romans, 4-7 and figs. 1-2 discussion of social status and the difficulties defining it. 551For photographs, see Clarke, Ordinary Romans, fig. 100; Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, “Housing the Dead: the tomb as house in Roman Italy,” in Brink and Green, Commemorating the Dead, fig. 2.1. 552Clarke, Ordinary Romans, 184; 553Wallace-Hadrill, “Housing the Dead,” 40 notes that the decoration of Naevoleia’s tomb is precisely the sort mocked by Petronius’ character Trimalchio in the Satyricon. 554JIWE I 26 and JIWE II 62 and 218 also indicate burials by patrons, but only of individuals and not entire households. An inscription very similar to Rufina’s is that of Gaius Julius Justus the gerousiarch from Castel Porziano (JIWE I 18 and pl. X), which is inscribed on a large marble plaque in very nice letters.

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(unanswerable) question of whether the two inscriptions would have been similar in form. Unfortunately, Rufina’s inscription was found as part of a private collection in the late nineteenth century and is described only as inscribed in deep letters on a 0.36 x 0.26 x 0.02m marble plaque, with horizontal lines beneath each line of text.555 The lack of lines in the published image of the text (Figure Eleven) indicates that the image depicts a

Figure Eleven transcription rather than a squeeze or a rubbing. It is therefore unclear how the inscription originally appeared and whether it was once part of a larger edifice.556 Based on the

555Reinach, “La Juive Rufina,” 11. 556It is possible that Rufina’s inscription was positioned in a manner comparable to that of Titus Claudius Eutychus and Claudia Memnon, where the marble plaque is set into a brick façade, see Carroll, Spirits of 186 similarity of this inscription to others in the Greco-Roman world, it is reasonable to imagine that Rufina intended for the non-verbal aspects of her mortuary monument to speak with equal clarity to her social status and largesse as a patron.

Despite a recent surge of interest in the lives and art of non-elite Romans, particularly

the freedperson class, the mortuary remains of the elite and/or wealthy continue to dominate studies of funerary monuments.557 It could be argued that more modest inscriptions are simply not sufficiently interesting or visually informative to merit the same type of study.558 The general lack of interest in the materiality and appearance of modest inscriptions means that there are limited examples with which to compare Jewish female title bearer inscriptions, the vast majority of which could be characterized as modest.

As mentioned in the previous section, Williams has argued for qualitative differences between the three main Jewish catacombs in Rome. The Vigna Randanini catacomb, she contends, was recognized as the preferable Roman burial location for Jews of means.559

Her argument is based, in part, on the three large marble plaques mentioned above and their placement within the Randanini catacomb, despite the decedents’ affiliation with

the Dead, fig. 32. I have been unable to find information about the funerary monuments of ancient Smyrna. The inscriptions are collected in Donald McCabe et al., Smyrna Inscriptions (Princeton: Institute for Advanced Study, 1988). No information regarding context is provided in this volume. 557Along with Clarke, Ordinary Romans, see Lauren Petersen, “The Baker, his Tomb, his Wife, and her Breadbasket: the monument of Eurysaces in Rome,” Art Bulletin 85 (2003), 230-257 as well as the essays in Eve D’Ambra and Guy Métraux (eds.), The Art of Citizens, Soldiers, and Freemen in the Roman World (Oxford: B.A.R. International Series, 2006). 558Carroll, Spirits of the Dead, is atypical in including photographs of several modest inscriptions, such as figs. 36, 37, 43, 45, and 47. 559Williams, “Jewish Burials,” 182. I agree with Williams’ larger argument that burial was not necessarily organized according to synagogue affiliation, but question some of her characterizations of the various burials and individuals involved.

187 synagogues from elsewhere in the city.560 She notes, moreover, that all three plaques commemorate title bearers or relatives of title bearers, confirming that these individuals represent community members of wealth and status.561

Given Williams’ position that these three inscriptions clinch the status of the

Randanini catacomb as the burial place par excellence of Jewish Rome, we might expect these inscriptions to display a quality of execution commensurate with the large size of their marble plaques.562 Surprisingly, this expectation is not met. Photographs of the two extant inscriptions among Williams’ group of three show indifferent execution at best.

JIWE II 288, inscribed upon a 0.52 x 1.11m plaque, crowds its three lines of text into the upper third of the block.563 JIWE II 338, which Noy estimates would have originally measured 0.62 x 2.0m, spreads its text out over almost the entire face of the plaque in large, distantly spaced, sans serif letters.564 Neither stone displays beveling, molding, or any other treatment. Given the large investment which the stones themselves must have required, it is surprising that more care was not taken with their craftsmanship.565

Conclusions: Medium and Execution, Wealth and Status

A final comparison investigates the intersection between medium and execution as analytical categories for inscriptions. As mentioned above, only a few inscriptions at

560Williams, “Jewish Burials,” n. 91 notes that marble plaques are “…a sure sign of prosperity.” 561Williams, “Jewish Burials,” 182. JIWE II 288 commemorates Annianus, a child archon and son of a father of the synagogue; JIWE II 338 memorializes Maronius, the grandchild of an archon; JIWE II records Marcus Quintius Alexus, grammateus and mellarchon, aged 12. 562Williams, “Jewish Burials,” 181 characterizes the evidence as establishing her case “beyond all doubt.” 563JIWE II 288 = CIJ 88, which displays the photograph. Space could have been left in anticipation of another family member’s epitaph on the same stone. 564JIWE II 338 = CIJ 140, which displays the photograph. 565Several examples of marble inscriptions from Monteverde, for example JIWE II 20 and 176 (= CIJ 309 and 378 for photographs) among others, are skillfully and decoratively inscribed. Considering the fragmentary preservation of many of Roman inscriptions, Williams’ argument regarding the three large marble plaques from Vigna Randanini confirming that catacomb’s primacy seems a stretch.

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Venosa were inscribed on marble; the vast majority were etched in or painted on plaster.

It is tempting to conclude, based in part on the paucity of marble in southern Italy and the civic honors held by several of the decedents memorialized on marble plaques, that their choice of marble signified a higher status or access to resources. A closer look renders this conclusion suspect.

JIWE I 113 and Pl. XVIII display the mortuary inscription of Marcus, a fifteen year old godfearer from Venosa. Like Faustina the mother and the two patrons of the city

Auxanius and Marcellus, Marcus’ inscription was found in the Lauridia Hypogeum and was inscribed on marble.566 As one of the few with the ability or interest to preserve his epitaph on stone, execution equal to the investment might be expected. As in Rome, this expectation is not met. The inscription is etched with plain letters in a somewhat crooked, uneven manner. Based on a consideration of medium alone, Marcus’ inscription would indicate his wealth and high social status. When the question of execution is brought into consideration, the effect of the marble is somewhat mitigated.

The character of Marcus’ inscription is quite different from that of a different

Faustina, daughter of Faustinus the father and another member of the prominent

Faustinus family of Venosa.567 Inscribed in plaster rather than on stone, Faustina the daughter’s lengthy bi-lingual inscription displays relatively neat rows of serif letters, some with rather decorative flourishes.568 Despite its more humble medium, Faustina the

566Marcus’ is the only marble inscription from Venosa for which I can find a photograph; apparently the inscription is now lost along with the rest of the Lauridia Hypogeum inscriptions. Frey does not have any photographs from the Venosan inscriptions in CIJ. 567JIWE I 86 and Pl. XIII. See Williams, “Faustinus I,” fig. 2. The Faustina of JIWE I 86 will be referred to were needed as Faustina, daughter of Faustinus the father to distinguish her from Faustina the mother, wife of Auxanius of JIWE I 116. 568F and X often appear with decorative lengthening. The Latin letters are more finely carved than the Hebrew characters.

189 daughter’s inscription was executed with greater care and precision than Marcus’. With the exception of Faustina the mother, all six generations of the Faustinus family for whom inscriptions are extant elected to memorialize themselves in plaster, despite being among the more prominent, titled, and, presumably, wealthy members of the Jewish community.569

The inscription of Faustina, daughter of Faustinus the father, and those of the rest of the Faustinus family, challenge simple correlations between medium, execution, social status, and title bearing. Williams claims that monumental marble plaques, particularly coupled with family or personal titles, confirm decedents’ status and wealth. Indeed, it is difficult to argue that anyone who could afford a two meter block of marble was not wealthy. The significance of the Faustinus family’s inscriptions rests in their refutation of the counter-side of Williams’ argument: that individuals with non-marble inscriptions were not of high social status or financial means.570 The well-executed plaster inscriptions of the titled Faustinus family of Venosa testify to the ability of wealthy, high status individuals to make alternative choices.571 This conclusion runs counter to the general opinion, revealed in the earlier discussion of Trajan’s column and the tomb of

Naevoleia Tyche as well as in much of the literature on Roman funerary monuments, that individuals and families invested in mortuary monuments to the fullest extent of their means.

569Williams, “Faustinus I,” comments that Vitus, Faustina’s grandfather, appears to have achieved the apogee of Jewish social status at Venosa – he was admitted to the curial class as a member of the town council. Another (plaster) inscription (JIWE I 107; Pl. XVI) commemorates the wife of a vir laudabilis. 570Williams, “Jewish Burials,” 176 does not make the corollary argument explicitly, but it is implicit in her characterization of the Monteverde and Nomentana catacombs as reflective of a poorer segment of Jewish society based in part on their paucity of marble inscriptions relative to the Randanini catacomb (n. 91). 571Williams, “Jewish Burials,” 179 actually uses the language of choice, but only in the context of wealthier Jews choosing bigger and better funerary accommodations.

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Williams’ invocation of titles as supporting the high status of the individuals commemorated on monumental marble inscriptions, and the Randanini catacomb by extension, is likewise problematic. The Monteverde and Randanini catacombs preserve an almost equal number of inscriptions, ca. 200, and among these the percentage of titles is nearly identical: 13% and 14%, respectively.572 Numerous large, if not monumental, finely executed marble inscriptions commemorate individuals with no title, while some title bearer inscriptions, such as that of Gaudentia in Figure Twelve, are inscribed rather casually. Title bearers are commemorated in inscriptions with wide variety of both media

Figure Twelve573

572These statistics were compiled using Noy’s JIWE II Index V b, using the titles (in both Greek and Latin) of archigerousiarch, archisynagogos, archon, exarchon, gerousiarch, mother of the synagogue, mellarchon, father of the synagogue, father, and prostates. It is interesting to note that the highest density of titles occurs in the category “Other sites in Rome” at 9/20 and the next highest among the unprovenanced inscriptions at 14/36. The low percentage of titles in the Torlonia catacomb (9/119 = 7.56%) might result from the extensive looting of this catacomb noted by Noy in JIWE II. 573JIWE II 11. Photograph by P. Carrasquillo.

191 and skill of execution. Conversely, an inscription’s medium and execution appear to bear no relationship to the decedent’s possession of a title.

Given the wide variations between Jewish mortuary inscriptions in terms of materials and quality of execution and the lack of correlation between these variations and the individuals being memorialized, it appears that what mattered most to most people was the inscription’s physicality. Whether monumental or small, marble or plaster, neatly inscribed or roughly scrawled, the most important facet of inscriptions, from a visual point of view, was their physical presence. If we take seriously Morgan’s position that objects participate in the creation of social realities, Jewish inscriptions appear to be making those contributions successfully without reference either to their specific material or to their quality of execution.574

Decoration575

Figure Eight indicates that of the 23 female title bearer inscriptions for which information about decoration is available, 12 display some type of decoration.576 As has often been the case, Rome and Venosa offer the best possibilities for making general

574Goodenough, Jewish Symbols v. 4, 67-68 makes a similar observation with regard to symbols on mortuary epitaphs, namely, that the crudity with which they are often executed argues against their having a primarily decorative purposes and hints, instead, of a symbolic, i.e. efficacious purpose. 575The terminology used to discuss the pictures which sometimes accompany Jewish inscriptions is fraught with value judgments. Calling this section Decoration immediately implies that the inclusion of a menorah or ethrog is merely ornamental – which is not the case. If the section were called Symbols instead, this would betray an a priori belief that these pictures have symbolic value. Pictures implies that all are as a case of verbal imagery. Images will interfere with the שלום pictorial, and I shall argue below for concept articulated in the second half of the chapter that an inscription as a whole – its material, verbal and non-verbal aspects – are collectively an image. Therefore this section remains Decoration, with the disclaimer that no mere ornamentation is implied by the section heading. 576These numbers should be treated skeptically as they rely upon the accuracy of descriptions in several cases. For example, the fact that Rufina’s inscription is characterized as “undecorated” relies upon Reinach’s description and the fact that he does not mention any decoration. Whether this is because there was none or because he did not think it worthwhile to describe cannot be known. As noted above, the Nevşehir inscription is listed as undetermined since no description of any kind beyond its text is currently available.

192 observations within the corpus. Decoration appears to be popular in Rome and is featured on all five female title bearer inscriptions found there, while at Venosa only two of the five inscriptions from the female title bearer corpus are decorated, and then with the

rather than with any pictorial images. The lack of pictorial decoration of שלום Hebrew female title bearer inscriptions at Venosa is at odds with the site more generally, which displays roughly 36 individual images, including an elaborately frescoed arcosolium decorated with a full complement of symbols.577

None of the dedicatory inscriptions – those of Jael, Theopempte, and Rufina – display decoration. As noted in Chapter Two, Marin’s undecorated inscription at Tell el-

Yehoudieh is typical for the site, while Eulogia’s decorated plaque is characteristic of the emphasis on symbols in the catacombs of Malta.578 Although the inscription mentioning

Lady Maria is undecorated, the Beth She‘arim catacombs generally display a wide variety of images; the most common are menorot and Torah shrines.579 Of the inscriptions which utilize pictorial images, only one does not include a menorah.580

This brief survey demonstrates the variety of decorative strategies employed in

Jewish inscriptions and makes clear that, while decoration was not a necessary component of epigraphic representation for all, for some it was an essential element. Nor, as might be expected, do trends in decorative habit fall along clear contextual lines. For example, it might be expected that Tell el-Yehoudieh and Beth She‘arim would share a

577Noy, “Leontopolis and Venosa,” 173. 578See above, Chapter Two as well as Noy, “Leontopolis and Venosa,” and Buhagiar, Christianization of Malta. 579See Goodenough, Jewish Symbols v.1, 89-102. The description in Mazar, Beth She‘arim I, 97-107 of Catacomb 1 Hall K indicates that while two of the rooms in Hall K were decorated, Room ii, where the Lady Maria inscription was located, did not have any decorative elements. 580Marcella’s inscription (JIWE II 542) is only partially preserved and might well have depicted a menorah on the missing left side, see picture in CIJ 496.

193 similar pattern of decorative display, in so much as each necropolis housed a predominantly or exclusively Jewish population. In reality, the former site is nearly bereft of pictorial decoration while the latter uses a wide variety of images.581 This difference in practice, given the religious exclusivity shared by the sites, is intriguing and will have bearing on the discussion of the meaning and purpose of imagery in inscriptions, offered below.

Decoration in Jewish inscriptions takes a variety of forms. Most common is the menorah.582 Other, specifically Jewish, symbols include the lulav, ethrog, Torah shrine,

in an שלום and shofar.583 As noted above, the inclusion of the Hebrew benediction inscription otherwise written in Latin or Greek can be considered a decorative choice as well. Additional floral decorations used in title bearer inscriptions include palms and ivy leaves (hederae).

As hinted above, the main premise of this section is that decorative elements in

Jewish inscription are symbolic rather than ornamental. Indeed, I would argue that it is a conceit of the logocentrism described by Squire and discussed above to imagine otherwise. By symbolic, I mean that these elements convey meanings that are irreducible to verbalizations but are no less meaningful than those expressed verbally.

581Noy, “Leontopolis and Venosa,” 171 characterizes the Jewish population at Tell el-Yehoudieh as “…Ptolemaic or Roman Egyptians first and Jews second.” 582Treated most thoroughly by Rachel Hachlili, The menorah, the ancient seven-armed candelabrum: origin, form, and significance (Leiden: Brill, 2001). 583Another specifically Jewish symbol not included among the corpus of female title bearer inscriptions is the incense shovel, which according to Goodenough appears only once in a funerary context, from the inscription of Tychicus in the Monteverde catacomb (JIWE II 107; Goodenough, Jewish Symbols v. 3, n. 703).

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Goodenough warns against the expectation of finding precise, verbal definitions of meaning for symbols.584 That is, it is impossible to say what symbols mean. “There is, however, a meaning, a very definite meaning, in the symbol, which is grasped by the devout quite as directly as verbal language, in the great majority of cases far more directly.”585 By releasing symbols from discursive requirements of meaning, the constellation of associations a symbol can generate is more readily appreciable. The following discussion of specific symbols found in association with inscriptions of female title bearers will follow Goodenough in trying to elucidate the “lingua franca” of inscriptions better to discern how they appeared to ancient Jewish viewers.586 The increasing emphasis on viewers will help this section to lead into the latter part of

Chapter Four, which will consider the entirety of inscriptions as images and objects of visual culture.

Menorah

The menorah at its most literal represents the seven branched candelabrum described in Exodus 25:31-40, which God instructed Moses to make for the Tabernacle. 2

Chronicles 4:7 describes Solomon as making 10 lampstands for the Temple and Jeremiah

52:7 records the Babylonians taking them after the sacking of Jerusalem in 586 BCE. The continuing significance of the menorah is confirmed by its appearance on the Arch of

584Numerous critics of Goodenough and his methods of symbolism exist, see below n. 640 as well as Fine, This Holy Place, 5 and Richard Brilliant, “’Jewish Symbols’: Is That Still Good Enough?” in Commentaries on Roman Art: Selected Studies (London: Pindar, 1994), 233-244. Although dated, Goodenough’s analysis of Jewish symbols remains the most thorough work on the subject. Despite his reliance upon psychology and heavily Christian vocabulary, Goodenough’s analysis situated Jewish symbolism within its broader religious and social context, emphasizing the fluidity and adaptability of symbolic language between religious systems. Despite not agreeing with all his specific conclusions, Goodenough’s general method strikes me as continuing to be more useful than that of more recent and narrowly constrained analyses. 585Goodenough, Jewish Symbols v. 4, 38. 586Goodenough, Jewish Symbols v. 4, 38-41.

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Titus as one of the items looted from the Temple after its sack by the Romans in 70

CE.587

Goodenough argues that the menorah served to symbolize YHWH on several levels when depicted in inscriptions.588 He draws a parallel between the symbol and the

Septuagint’s translation of Zechariah 4:10, which refers to the seven eyes of the Lord that look upon the earth.589 In addition, the flames generated by the menorah are reminiscent of Moses’ vision of the burning bush in Exodus 3:1-6. The rabbinic prohibition on reproducing or depicting the seven branched menorah supports Goodenough’s theory that the menorah was recognized as a symbol of God’s presence in the world.590

Hachlili argues that the depiction of menorot in inscriptions functioned primarily as an indication of Jewish identity.591 In the wake of the Temple’s destruction, she argues, the menorah took on the status of national symbol, which transitioned successfully from the Temple to synagogues and probably participated in the process of transferring a sense

5871 Maccabees also describes lampstands as among the items taken by Antiochus IV in the 2nd century BCE. While clearly a lampstand made of precious metal would have made for choice booty, the trope of the Temple lampstand/s theft by foreign invaders is an interesting literary repetition. 588Goodenough, Jewish Symbols v.4, 71-98. For a similar interpretation of the menorah, see Jodi Magness, “The Arch of Titus at Rome and the Fate of the God of Israel,” Journal of Jewish Studies 59.2 (2008), 201- 217. 589ἑπτὰ οὗτοι ὀφθαλμοὶ κυρίου εἰσὶν οἱ ἐπιβλέποντες ἐπὶ πᾶσαν τὴν γῆν 590BT Menaḥoth, 28b; BT Abodah Zarah, 43a; BT Rosh Hashanah 24a-b. PT Rosh Hashanah on M. Rosh Hashanah 2:8 does not appear to discuss the depiction of menorot, nor does PT Avodah Zarah, as noted by Steven Fine, Art and Judaism in the Greco-Roman World: toward a new Jewish Archaeology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 153, who comments that these passages are misinterpreted as forbidding any representation of a seven-branched menorah when in fact they prohibit three dimensional, functional constructions for fear of violating the principle of centralization of cult; see Goodenough, Jewish Symbols v.4, 95. Goodenough’s further interpretation of the menorah as a sign of God’s provision for salvation, while not outside the realm of possibility given the development of Jewish articulations of afterlife in the Second Temple and Late Antique periods is written in sufficiently Christian terms to render it suspect. 591Hachlili, The Menorah, 187.

196 of sacrality to the latter institution. As such, its primary symbolism invoked the Jewish people as a whole.592

Fine emphasizes that in Late Antiquity the menorah was increasingly used to invoke

Jews’ minority status along with, and linked to, the divine power which continues to guide their fortunes.593 In particular, Fine cites the sixth century poem of Yannai, Shabbat be-Ha’alotkha, as understanding a mystical or cosmic relationship between the lamps of heaven and the menorot on earth, which is an interpretation of Zechariah 4:1-14.594 In the poem, the earthly lamps of Israel (here called Zion) are extinguished by those of Edom (a reference to Christianity), but God’s heavenly lamps would continue to shine as evidence of his care for Israel. Fine sees Late Antique interpretations of menorot as, therefore, encompassing loss and earthly defeat as well as renewal and heavenly triumph.595

The previous discussion of how symbols function makes it unnecessary to adjudicate between these several, or the many other interpretations of what menorot symbolized in

Late Antiquity.596 Nevertheless, I agree with Goodenough that it seems unlikely that the menorah’s only purpose was to demarcate Jewish identity. Were this the case, the prominent menorot at Beth She‘arim would be rather redundant. Moreover, were menorot

592Hachlili, The Menorah, 280. Hachlili’s book, while very heavy on data, is light on interpretation. She names numerous interpretations of the menorah that have been posited (albeit without references), but does not evaluate those interpretation or offer justification for her own. 593Steven Fine and Bruce Zuckerman, “The Menorah as Symbol of Jewish Minority Status,” in Steven Fine (ed.), Fusion in the Hellenistic East (Los Angeles: University of Southern California Fisher Gallery, 1985), 23-30 and Fine, Art and Judaism, 146-164, which seems preoccupied with establishing specifically Jewish antecedents for Jewish symbols, perhaps in (implicit) reaction to Goodenough’s methodology. 594Fine, Art and Judaism, 159-160. 595Fine, Art and Judaism, 162-163. Schwartz also discusses Yannai’s interpretation of the menorah in Imperialism, 268-270. 596See also Lee Levine, “The history and significance of the menorah in antiquity,” in Levine and Weiss, From Dura to Sepphoris, 131-153.

197 solely a declaration of identity, the inconsistency with which they are depicted would imply a sort of spectrum or continuum of Jewishness that the evidence belies.

Lulav, ethrog, and shofar

Along with the flask, these three images represent what Hachlili characterizes as ritual objects associated with the harvest festival of Sukkot.597 The holiday was mandated in Leviticus 23:39-44 as a week-long festival which elides a celebration of the harvest with fruits and branches and the building of booths with those materials as a reminder of the Israelites’ wilderness journey.598 The elaboration of the holiday’s ritual activities and associated objects occurs in post-Biblical literature such as Jubilees as well as in the rabbinic literature.599

The lulav is represented in a variety of ways, commensurate with the various descriptions of boughs, branches, and leaves cited in the Leviticus passage in association with the Sukkot holiday. The most common depiction displays a single vertical stem, either straight or bent to one side or another, from which smaller branches or leaves emerge at a slightly upward angle.600 The lulav is sometimes described in a similar manner in the literature, as a palm branch, but the term is also used by the rabbis for the bundle created by the combination of palm, willow, myrtle, and citron used in the procession.601 Goodenough compares this bundle to the Greco-Roman thyrsus, noting

597Hachlili, Diaspora, 347-360. 598Ernst Kutch, Louis Jacobs, and Abram Kanof, “Sukkot,” in Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik (eds.), Encyclopaedia Judaica 2nd ed. v. 19. (Detroit: Macmillan Reference, 2007), 299-302. 599Jubilees 16:21-31; Tractate Sukkah, obviously, contains the bulk of information on the holiday. 600See illustrations in Hachlili, Diaspora, figs. VII-33-35. 601M Sukkah 3:4. PT Sukkah 53d notes that different types of myrtle are appropriate for construction of the lulav and the Succot booth, respectively.

198 that both Josephus and 2 Maccabees use this term to render lulav in Greek.602 Plutarch takes the use of thursi as indicating, along with other clues, that the Jews were worshippers of Dionysius.603 Given the predilection of Roman authors to associate

Sukkot with Dionysian festivals, the willingness of Jewish authors to use vocabulary that strengthens this association is striking.

The ethrog, or citron fruit, originally had a strong association with the lulav/palm as one of the items included in the lulav/bundle. Hachlili observes that in Palestine the ethrog is often depicted as tied to the lulav, while in the Diaspora the two are only sometimes displayed in the same composition and more often appear independently.604

The ethrog is typically depicted as round or heart-shaped with a small stem.605 Although the Hebrew Bible is general in its description of the fruit associated with the Sukkot holiday, by the rabbinic period the ethrog had become a specific type of fruit: the species citron medica.606

602Antiquities 13.372; 2 Maccabees 10:7. 603Plutarch, Table Talk, 4.6.2. Goodenough, Jewish Symbols v.4, 157, also cites Tacitus as an author who makes connections between Sukkot and polytheist festivals. 604Hachlili, Diaspora, 350. 605See, for example, Hachlili, Diaspora, figs. VII-33-34. I have not found a reliable way to distinguish between ethrogs and hederae (ivy leaves). Hachlili, Diaspora, appears to limit ivy to multiple specimens on a vine, as in the Sardis synagogue mosaic (her fig. IV-18). All individual occurances of this symbol are considered ethrogs, and Hachlili does not discuss any possible overlap or confusion between the two. 606Both Talmuds cite Leviticus 23:40, “…the fruit of a goodly tree…” in support of the citron, or ethrog, as the only fruit that can be used in construction of a lulav. PT Sukkah 53d interprets the verse to indicate that both the fruit and the wood of the tree must be good: a pomegranate has good fruit but not wood, the carob has good wood but not fruit. Only the ethrog has both. In BT Sukkah 34b-35a, on the other hand, the Leviticus verse is interpreted to indicate that a goodly tree must have fruit and wood of similar taste. The pepper tree is suggested as another possibility, but ultimately dismissed based on the unsuitability of a pepper seed, size-wise, for use in a lulav, leaving the citron as the only viable alternative. On the ethrog as species citron medica, see Jehuda Feliks, “Etrog,” in Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik (eds.) Encyclopaedia Judaica 2nd ed. v. 6. (Detroit: Macmillan Reference, 2007), 540-541.

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The shofar, or ram’s horn, is schematically rendered in inscriptions, usually with some indication of its curvature and tapered shape.607 Hachlili notes that in Palestine the shofar is typically paired with the incense shovel, while in Diaspora settings it stands alone or with the lulav and ethrog.608 Although used during Sukkot and other festivals, the shofar is most closely associated with the high holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom

Kippur as well as with the story of the binding of Isaac.609

Goodenough notes that, given their festival associations, the prevalence of the lulav and ethrog in funerary contexts seems surprising.610 Based on the similarities between various aspects of Sukkot and Dionysian harvest festivals, he hypothesizes that the lulav and ethrog came to have soteriological symbolism in Jewish mortuary inscriptions.611 The shofar likewise symbolizes salvation: rabbinic literature likens Israel to the bound Isaac, whose place was taken by a ram, while the horn blasts that mark the beginning of Rosh

Hashanah and end of Yom Kippur also invoke concepts of judgment, death, and renewal.612 Hachlili, on the other hand, comments only that depictions of ritual objects were intended to recollect Temple rituals and the celebration of Sukkot.613

Torah Shrine

607Hachlili, Diaspora, figs. VII-33-38 608Hachlili, Diaspora, 352. It is curious that Hachlili, Diaspora, 347-348, mentions the shofar only in association with Sukkot, which she calls the most important of the three pilgrimage festivals to Jerusalem. If the association of the shofar with the lulav and ethrog in the Diaspora is the reason for Hachlili’s linkage of the shofar with Sukkot only, this reasoning is not made explicit. It is, perhaps implied on pg. 360, when Hachlili mentions that Sukkot was the only holiday in which the whole community participated. 609The use of trumpets at Sukkot is another parallel drawn by Plutarch in his comparison of Dionysian festivals with the Jewish holiday, cited in Goodenough, Jewish Symbols v. 4, 170. 610Goodenough, Jewish Symbols v. 4, 145. 611Goodenough, Jewish Symbols v. 4, 165. 612Goodenough, Jewish Symbols v. 4, 172-185. 613Hachlili, Diaspora, 360.

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The depiction of Torah shrines on funerary monuments is an interesting development in Jewish symbolic practice, insomuch as it accords an object of non-Temple origin similar cachet to those associated with Temple rituals.614 Hachlili comments on the curious tendency for Torah shrines in the Diaspora to appear with open doors while those of Palestine are depicted as shut.615 She notes that as depictions from Palestine are primarily from synagogue contexts while those of the Diaspora are found on funerary monuments, it is difficult to discern whether this divergence results from differences between Palestine and the Diaspora or between synagogue and mortuary symbolic practices.

Hachlili’s explanation that representations of the Torah shrine symbolize simultaneously the prominence of the object within the synagogue as well as the spiritual character of the Torah is, perhaps, satisfactory to understand its representation in synagogues, but is insufficient to explain the depiction of Torah shrines in funerary contexts.616 Goodenough sees the Torah shrine as falling into a long tradition of ancient

Near Eastern shrines, dating back to the Sumerian period. In a general sense, the shrine can symbolize a demarcation of space and movement from a profane exterior to a sacred interior. In Jewish mortuary contexts, he argues, the presence of the Torah within the shrine is indicative of the belief in the divine character of the Law.617

Date Palm

614It is possible that these images are intended, instead, to represent the wilderness Tabernacle and Ark of the Covenant. Several of the images display circles within the shrine or tabernacle, which might be intended to indicate scrolls. See Goodenough, Jewish Symbols v. 3, nos. 706, 707, and 710. 615Hachlili, Diaspora, figs. VII-45-46 compared with fig. VII-49. Noted also by Goodenough, Jewish Symbols v. 4, 128. 616Hachlili, Diaspora, 373. 617Goodenough, Jewish Symbols v. 4, 99-103; 136.

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Trees generally, and date palms specifically, have a long history in ancient Near

Eastern art.618 The use of palms in Jewish contexts is often traced to Phoenician antecedents, which are evident in the iconography of coins minted at Tyre during the

Hellenistic period as well as by the dual meaning in Greek of φοῖνιξ as both “Phoenician” and “palm tree.”619 The Phoenician use of palms as a common motif is confirmed by the continuation of the image’s use in Punic colonies around the Mediterranean, most prominently Carthage.620

Discussions of date palms in Jewish iconography center most frequently on the appearance of this symbol on Jewish and Roman coins.621 Citing Pliny’s extensive paean to the dates of Judea, Fine argues that the date palm came to personify Judea and its people both in their own eyes and those of the Romans.622 That the palm held this position from a Jewish perspective is testified by the use of palms on coins minted or re- struck by Alexander Jannaeus and Herod Antipas as well as on coins of the First and

Second Jewish revolts.623 The Roman association of Jews and Judea with date palms is testified by the Judaea Capta series issued by Vespasian after the destruction of

Jerusalem, most specifically in variants picturing a bound Judean man standing or a mourning woman sitting under a laden palm.624 Subsequent emperors, including

618Goodenough, Jewish Symbols v. 7, 87-134. 619Fine, Art and Judaism, 141. 620Goodenough, Jewish Symbols v. 7, 89; Fine, Art and Judaism, 141. 621Hachlili, Diaspora, 381 mentions the palm tree briefly among her discussion of “motifs.” 622Pliny, Natural History 13.26-46. 623Fine, Art and Judaism, 141-142; figs. 54 & 56. 624Fine, Art and Judaism, fig. 55.

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Domitian, Trajan, and Nerva, continued to use palms on coins commemorating Roman possession of Judean cities and control over Jewish populations throughout the Empire.625

Goodenough rejects the interpretation of the palm as representative of Judea or the

Jewish people on the grounds that its prominence in Phoenician and Punic imagery negates a specifically Jewish or Judean significance.626 He argues, instead, that the appearance on both Jewish and Roman coins, particularly those associated with the revolts, are intended on both sides to symbolize power, blessing, and victory.627 This interpretation, he notes, has the advantage of explaining simultaneously the presence of palms in Jewish funerary contexts as symbolizing the tree of life.

The case of Jewish representations of the palm tree is one in which Goodenough should have heeded more clearly his own call to respect the polyvalence of meanings which symbols convey.628 The use of palms on Phoenician coins does not obviate a more specifically Jewish allusion, particularly on coins which were minted either in Judea or in commemoration of events related to Jews. For Goodenough, the clear fecundity of the palm on the Judea Capta coins precludes its association with subjugated Judea and instead must represent a more generic concept of Rome victorious. For Fine, the palm represents a type of trophy for the Romans, representing Judea’s destruction no differently than the bound prisoner sitting beneath it. There is no reason that the palm cannot encompass both meanings: the healthy tree stands for the victorious appropriation

625Fine, Art and Judaism, 144 notes that Nerva’ s coin commemorated his reorganization of the fiscus Judaici tax and that the coins’ circulation served as a warning to other provinces. 626Goodenough, Jewish Symbols v. 7, 89. 627Goodenough, Jewish Symbols v. 7, 90. 628Goodenough, Jewish Symbols v. 4, 41.

203 of a most lucrative asset. Victory, to be sure, but specific rather than generic; Judea, but not its destruction so much as its wealth: wealth which is now Roman.

שלום

Although images dominate the discussion of decoration and symbolism in Jewish mortuary inscriptions, the inclusion of words or phrases in a language other than that of the main inscription is also relevant. One example, which appears in two female title

In choosing to depict this 629.שלום bearer inscriptions from Venosa, is the phrase

שלום ,benediction in Hebrew rather than translating the sentiment into Greek or Latin acquires symbolic, perhaps even apotropaic, resonance alongside its literal meaning.630

The Venosan inscriptions are conspicuously multi-lingual, mixing Greek, Latin and

Hebrew in various combinations. Over time, language use shifts from predominantly

Greek and Hebrew to Latin and Hebrew, with a clear transitional period in which Greek inscriptions were written by people thinking in Latin.631 The consistent use of Hebrew to render “peace” or the longer expression “Peace to his/her resting place” indicates a sense of traditionalism reinforced by the spelling errors which betray the epigraphers lack of fluency with even stock Hebrew phrases.632

629JIWE I 63 and 71. 630Other examples from Venosa do translate the peace benediction into the language used otherwise, see JIWE I 95 for Greek and 113 for Latin. 631Noy, “Leontopolis and Venosa,” 175. JIWE I ;(משכהבו) ”in their rendering of “his resting place ה 632JIWE I 75, 87, and 111 include a superfluous as well; JIWE I 111 does not use the plural ending necessary for the double inscription; JIWE I י adds a 75 in rendering “her resting place.” At least three inscriptions include an ו includes a superfluous 87 .שלום in א unnecessary

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as שלום Most intriguing in this respect is a Greek inscription which transliterates

σάλωμ rather than translating it εἰρήνη.633 Noy considers this example to be confirmation that shalom, whether in Hebrew or transliteration, was considered “something different” than the Greek eirene or Latin pax.634 One possibility is that the expression as rendered in

Greek and Latin had, by the time the Venosan inscriptions were written in the fourth and fifth centuries, assumed Christian overtones which the Jews of Venosa wished to

in otherwise Greek or Latin inscriptions at Venosa could שלום avoid.635 The use of therefore be considered symbolic of a specifically and purposefully Jewish benediction of peace.636

Decoration: Conclusions

The interpretation of Jewish symbols is fraught with uncertainty. The two most substantive scholarly attempts from the last 75 years are almost totally dissimilar, both in their approaches and in their conclusions. Hachlili’s analysis of Jewish symbols’ forms, although exhaustive, does not venture far in its attempt either to explain regional variations in symbol depiction and meaning or to differentiate significance among the various decorative options. For Hachlili, these symbols operate on two levels: first, to mark the Jewish identity of specific individuals; second, to conjure a sense of Jewish

633JIWE I 72. 634Noy, JIWE I, 96. 635Noy, “Leontopolis and Venosa,” 175. in the funerary שלום 636Wilfand, “Aramaic Tombstones from Zoar,” 518-526 interprets the inclusion of inscriptions of Zoar as signifying simultaneously the expectation of future resurrection and current peace of those waiting for resurrection. Given the prevalence of expressions concerning afterlife in this specific corpus, this interpretation stands to reason. In Diaspora contexts, where attitudes towards afterlife expectations are mixed, expressions wishing peace upon the dead only should not be presumed to imply that the deceased is in peace while waiting for resurrection.

205 collective identity.637 She specifically denies the possibility that symbols borrowed by one group would retain any cultural memory of their significance from earlier usage.638

Goodenough’s approach, on the other hand, uses a broad comparative analysis of literary and material antecedents. Working on the principle that social and religious groups appropriate and modify images from the general cultural milieu, he traces the transformation of general images into socially specific symbols. These symbols carry culturally particular (though not fixed) connotations which, nonetheless, retain echoes of their past usages. Goodenough’s interpretation of Jewish funerary symbolism was colored by his understanding of a widespread, mystical, non-rabbinic strand of Judaism, which seems to share nascent Christianity’s soteriological emphasis.639 In this light, it is not surprising that he interprets most Jewish images as symbolizing hope in salvation and triumph over death.640 Nevertheless, his insistence that symbols in mortuary contexts must have had mortuary import gives greater weight to the choices made by individual

Jews to display (or not) a particular symbol/s.

637Needless to say, this is my interpretation of Hachlili’s attitude in The Menorah, Land of Israel, and Diaspora. As noted above, it is difficult to find sustained arguments for specific interpretations in her work. While it is possible that she finds cataloguing to be the best contribution to the field, as one of the only and most prolific scholars working on the subject of Jewish symbolism, greater emphasis on interpretation would be welcome. 638Hachlili, Diaspora, 379. In my opinion, Hachlili is wrong in this regard. Funerary symbolism is too narrow in scope to make a compelling case, but the same cannot be said for the Jewish adoption of Helios symbolism in Late Antique synagogues. The Jewish recasting of Helios/Sol Invictus as the Jewish mystical figure Metatron relies upon the cultural memory of earlier, non-Jewish symbolic meaning to make its case, as does the continued use of this image by Christians in the guise of Christ Pantokrator. See Magness, “Heaven on Earth,” 45-48. 639For a full description of Goodenough’s approach, with relevant bibliography, see Jacob Neusner’s forward to the abridged Goodenough, Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman period (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), 640Morton Smith, “Goodenough’s Jewish Symbols in Retrospect,” Journal of Biblical Literature 86.1 (1967), 53-68, quoted in Neusner’s forward (xxxii-xxxiv), criticizes Goodenough for positing a unified anti-rabbinic form of Judaism rather than recognizing the multiplicity of viewpoints standing between these two extremes.

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The evidence does not support the premise that symbols primarily, or even secondarily, stood as assertions of individual Jewish identity. First, symbols abound in locations such as Beth She‘arim, where the Jewish identity of the deceased was not a matter of doubt or question.641 Second, symbols cannot have been thought necessary to identify individuals as Jewish, given the large number of undecorated Jewish burials, particularly in mixed religious communities. This is to say, the idea of symbols as asserting individual Jewish identity implicitly questions the Jewish-ness of individuals without such symbols, leading to unproductive conversations regarding the relative piety of specific people.642 Third, the suggestion that a symbol would have the individual as its primary subject of signification is indicative of a modern preoccupation with individuality at odds with the familial and community priorities of Late Antiquity.643

More tenable is Hachlili’s suggestion that Jewish symbols worked to communicate a sense of group identity. The difference between these positions is subtle, but significant.

The choice to project corporate identity through use of symbols eliminates most of the issues raised regarding individual identity. At Beth She‘arim, for example, the use of symbols can evoke a sense of community without reference to the status of individuals.

The question of individual piety – that inscriptions with explicit Jewish symbolism mark

641A different interpretation of funerary symbols at Beth She‘arim is offered by David Kraemer, The meanings of death in Rabbinic Judaism (London: Routledge, 2000), 54-55 who suggests that these symbols are meant to evoke Temple pageantry and eschatological pilgrimage. Wilfand, “Aramaic Tombstones from Zoar,” 528-530 adopts a similar view, made more credible by the Zoar tombstones’ habit of using the destruction of the Temple as a dating formula. It is more difficult to imagine the Temple as the primary referent of these symbols in Diaspora mortuary contexts; I have been unable to find a reference to the Temple in the funerary inscriptions outside of Palestine, or, indeed, at Beth She‘arim. 642The suggestion of a connection between individual piety and the use of funerary decoration is implicit, rather than explicit, in Fine’s brief examination of Jewish Diaspora tombs in Art and Judaism, 124-134. For example, he characterizes the inscription of one Eupsychus (JIWE II 164), which reads in part, “Eternal home. Here lies Eupsychus, twice archon, archon of all honor and phrontistes,” with a depiction of an open Torah shrine, as reflecting a “synagogue-focused Jewish family” (128). 643See below, Chapter Five.

207 epitaphs of more observant/non-acculturated Jews – is obviated in favor of questions about individual contributions to group solidarity. Finally, viewing Jewish symbols as evocative of Jewish corporate identity locates their significance in a culturally credible group context.644

The question remains, however, of how corporate Jewish identity was conceptualized in mortuary contexts, specifically. Why would a sense of community belonging be necessary or significant in death? In the absence of corroborative literary evidence, it is difficult to follow Goodenough in understanding the use of Jewish symbols in funerary contexts as predominantly or consistently representing concepts of salvation and immortality.645 Instead, I would argue that the use of symbols in funerary contexts was directly related to the role of Diaspora synagogue institutions as civic associations and, consequently, as caretakers of the dead.646 In mortuary contexts, symbols were intended to maintain a sense of continued solidarity among community members, living and deceased.

644The conclusion that Jewish symbols in funerary contexts were intended to foster a sense of Jewish corporate identity does not obviate the near certainty that these symbols communicated other, more specific, associations as well. It is these more specific meanings, which were not necessarily universal even among ancient Jewish populations, that are difficult to tease out as historians. Where Goodenough overreaches, in my opinion, is in his attempt to define specific meanings for specific symbols. I agree those meanings were there, and I agree, contra Hachlili, that those meanings were related to each symbols non- Jewish as well as Jewish contexts, but I do not think that in most cases historians have the means to construct them. 645Hints of a Jewish soteriology emerge first in Daniel and other apocalyptic literature of the Second Temple period, see George Nickelsburg, Resurrection, Immortality and Eternal Life in Intertestamental Judaism (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972); Bauckham, “Early Jewish Visions of Hell,” 355- 385. For a chronologically comprehensive, albeit popular, view, see Raphael, Jewish Views of the Afterlife. While it is clear that some or even many Jews had developed concepts of salvation and immortality, it strikes me as unlikely that these views were in any way uniform or consistent among Jewish populations in Late Antiquity. See the discussion above (where?) regarding “common Judaism.” 646The presence of numerous Diaspora Jews at Beth She‘arim could account for similar decorative practices at this non-Diaspora location.

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Chapter One discussed the hypothesis that Diaspora Jewish communities organized themselves and their synagogues along the lines of Greco-Roman civic associations. As numerous examples have shown, attention to mortuary facilities is an important, although not exclusive, goal of membership in an association. Seen in light of the civic association parallel, the desire for continued evocation of corporate Jewish identity makes clear sense. Members of Jewish communities expected to remain in community after death.

Some communities and some members chose to use symbols to heighten that sense of belonging, but even undecorated epitaphs participated by association, in the corporate identity which was evoked.

Mannine and Faustina were both elders in fifth century Venosa.647 Both belonged to the prominent Faustinus family and the epitaphs of each were written in red paint on their plastered tomb wall. Faustina’s inscription concludes “Peace!” while Mannine’s does not.

Sara Ura and Gaudentia were each buried in Rome’s Monteverde catacomb and were memorialized on marble plaques. Sara Ura’s inscription includes a menorah while

Gaudentia’s displays a menorah as well as a Torah shrine. Parsing the significance behind these differences is an impossible task. At the same time, however, that these choices were significant should not be overlooked just because we cannot understand their particulars. Goodenough’s insistence on the polyvalence of symbolic meaning/s cautions against conclusions which invoke ideas of “not” or “only.” Therefore, among other possibilities of meaning, I argue that the use of symbols in Jewish mortuary contexts conveyed a sense of Jewish corporate identity, which was itself tied to the community’s collective responsibility to the deceased.

647This is the third Faustina mentioned in this chapter and should not be confused with Faustina the mother in the Lauridia hypogeum or Faustina, the daughter of Faustinus.

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Medium, Execution and Decoration: Conclusions

Analysis of the medium and execution of Jewish mortuary inscriptions, offered above, demonstrated no discernible relationship between choice of medium, quality of execution, and social status, as inferred from the inclusion of a title. The conclusion drawn from this analysis is that the visual significance of inscriptions does not inhere primarily in either their medium or in the quality of their execution. That is not to say that these features do not communicate information, but rather that whatever those messages are, they are secondarily important to the meaning conveyed by the physicality of the inscription itself. This conclusion is strengthened by reference to Goodenough’s argument that the indifferent execution of images in funerary contexts argues for their symbolic, rather than decorative, function. That is, symbolic value derives from the fact of an image’s inclusion rather than any aesthetic worth it imparts.648

The significance of these conclusions lies in their intentionality. Inhabitants of the

Roman empire would have appreciated a neatly inscribed, beautifully decorated inscription on a large block of Carrara marble. The medium, execution, and decoration of such an object would each have conveyed a range of concepts to its viewers. The Jewish inscriptions shown here are of a lesser caliber. While economics is surely a factor in this discrepancy, evidence from Venosa and Rome indicates that at times those who might have invested more heavily in one or more of these three facets chose otherwise. Their choice indicates that the meaning produced by the inscription as a whole – as an image – is more than the sum of its parts. The work done by inscription/images to create social

648Goodenough, Jewish Symbols v.3, 44.

210 realities required neither a particular medium nor a high degree of quality. Instead the constitutive power of inscriptions resides in their materiality – their physical existence.

The particular social reality in question here is that of Jewish women who bear titles.

Chapter Four will end with a close examination of two female title bearer inscriptions as a final illustration of the concepts and perspectives raised in this chapter. My aim in this section is to convey how issues of reception, visuality, and materiality coalesce in offering ways of thinking about ancient inscriptions that more closely approach the interests and priorities of the ancient world than of modern scholarship. Inevitably, such a project raises more questions than it can answer. Nevertheless, the value of the process rests in its challenge to standard scholarly practices in the study of ancient inscriptions and constructions of history based upon them.

4.4: Sophia of Gortyn and Marcella of Rome

“Sophia of Gortyn, elder and head of the synagogue of Kisamos lies here. The memory of the righteous one forever. Amen.” Sophia’s inscription was found in 1959 in the remote town of Kastelli Kisamou in western Crete where, as of 1963, it was in the museum.649 According to the original publication, the inscription’s “carefully and well cut” letters were incised on a roughly hewn white marble plaque measuring 0.45m tall and 0.30m wide.650 White marble is not native to Crete, but is found on the Greek mainland and several Aegean islands to the north.651

649See above, Chapter Two. 650Bandy, “Early Christian Inscriptions,” 227. 651Ward-Perkins, Marble in Antiquity, 153-155 and Fig. 141.

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Figure Thirteen652 The inscription covers only the upper part of the stone, leaving the rest blank. No decoration was included. The left side of text conforms to the unevenness of the stone, indicating that this was the state of condition at the time the inscription was carved.

Damage to the omega and nu on the rightmost side of the third and fourth lines, respectively, indicates that the stone was slightly damaged at some point after it was inscribed. Nevertheless, as the text is preserved completely, it seems that the inscription as it appears in Figure Thirteen is close to its original state.

No information is available regarding the inscription’s original context. No other

Jewish inscriptions or material culture of any kind have been found at Kastelli Kisamou, so there is no way of knowing how Sophia’s inscription would compare to those of others

652Anastasius Bandy, "Early Christian Inscriptions of Crete," Hesperia Vol. 32, No. 3 (Jul.-Sep., 1963), pp. 227-247; pl. 64 no. 1. Used by permission of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens.

212 from her synagogue. Neither context nor comparanda are of assistance in establishing patterns of commemoration in Sophia’s community. Despite being the sole extant representation of Jewish life at Kastelli Kisamou, this inscription suggests several ways in which it might have been seen.

First, Sophia’s inscription was inscribed on a relatively large, roughly hewn, marble block, which was certainly imported. The lack of other marble epitaphs at Kastelli

Kisamou suggests the possibility that most funerary inscriptions from the area were recorded using more transient materials. It is possible that Sophia’s marble epitaph was the exception to the norm, much like the inscriptions of Auxanius and Faustina the mother at Venosa. It is possible that Sophia’s choice of medium alone made a statement regarding her position in the community.

Second, the epitaph’s lettering, although neat, was not fancy. The stone does not display molding or other indications of finishing. The large blank area on the bottom half of the stone suggests the possibility that a longer inscription was originally intended, that a second epitaph was meant to follow Sophia’s, that the area was reserved for decoration which was not completed, or that this was a tombstone, the lower part of which was set into the ground. Alternately, it is possible that the choice was made to leave the space unused: although many inscriptions display an interest in filling unused space, there are sufficient examples that do not for Sophia’s not to stand out in this regard. The execution of Sophia’s is competent, not elaborate.

As mentioned, Sophia’s inscription is devoid of decorative elements. Were a viewer not able to read, he or she would have to rely upon context or corporate memory to know that the epitaph commemorated a member of the Jewish community. Perhaps Sophia’s

213 burial location indicated this affiliation. Perhaps her reputation preceded her. In any case, it is evident that, for Sophia, symbols were not necessary to accomplish the aims her inscription intended at Kastelli Kisamou.

Figure Fourteen653

“Here lies …ia Marcella, mother of the synagogue of the Augustesians. May she be remembered. In peace her sleep.” Marcella’s inscription was found at the end of the nineteenth century in the Trastevere section of Rome near the Porta Portese and is currently housed in the Palazzo dei Conservatori at the Capitoline Museum.654 It is often

653Photograph courtesy of the International Catacomb Society archive, image #2090. 654Noy, JIWE II, 426.

214 associated with the Monteverde catacomb complex, which is roughly 1.25 miles to the southwest.

The inscription was originally part of a marble sarcophagus, but only the right side of the inscription and part of the strigilated decoration are preserved. The extant piece’s maximum height and width are 0.52m and 0.48m, respectively. At the end of the fifth, seventh, and eighth lines, where the text does not reach the edge of the frame, ethrogs are added in the available space.655 The inscription appears to be missing approximately 4-6 letters from each line, but is sufficiently standard in its language to be reconstructed with reasonable certainty.

The synagogue of the Augustesians is known from five other inscriptions, most of which were found in the Monteverde catacomb.656 Other titles awarded by the

Augustesians include gerousiarch, archon, grammateus, mellarchon, and life-officer.

Marcella is the only recorded mother of the Augustesians’ synagogue but, as discussed in

Chapter Two, this is a popular title for women in Rome. Thus both synagogue and title would have been familiar to viewers of Marcella’s inscription. It is, again, instructive to ask what else they would have seen when looking at it.

First, a sarcophagus is an immediate indication of greater wealth relative to a mortuary plaque, given the greater mass of stone involved.657 In fact, only eighteen of

655Noy, JIWE II, 425 characterizes the decoration as hederae, or ivy leaves. It is unclear why these symbols should not be considered ethrogs, considering their similarity to examples such as Goodenough, Jewish Symbols v.3, figs. 711, 713. 656These include JIWE II 96, 169, 189, and 194. JIWE II 547 is one of Williams’s monumental inscriptions discussed above, and as mentioned is of undetermined origin. 657Too little of Marcella’s sarcophagus remains to discuss its form in greater detail, but for studies on various specific types of sarcophagi, see Dodge and Ward-Perkins, Marble in Antiquity, 31-61 and Manuela Wurch-Kozelj and Tony Kozelj, “Roman quarries of Apse-Sarcophagi in Thassos of the second and third centuries,” in Maniatis et al., The Study of Marble, 39-50.

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Rome’s 600 Jewish inscriptions come from sarcophagi.658 In Rome, where marble plaques were relatively frequent, Marcella further distinguished herself by investing in a marble sarcophagus upon which to inscribe her epitaph.

Marcella’s inscription was cut into a tabula inscriptionis framed by a double groove and adjacent to a panel of strigilated geometric design. In all likelihood, the sarcophagus was mass-produced in a shop that catered to Jews, Christians, and polytheists. The generic, multi-purpose sarcophagus was personalized with Marcella’s inscription and decoration upon purchase.659 The lettering is evenly sized and spaced, taking up most of the frame. Although not ornate, some letters such as alpha and nu display serifs. On the whole, the execution of Marcella’s inscription seems in character with its medium.

Finally, several of the blank spaces in the tabula inscriptionis were filled with small, stylized ethrogs. Although decoration is common in Roman inscriptions, particularly those of female title bearers, ethrogs are seldom the only symbol pictured.660 It is possible that additional decorative items were displayed on the right hand side of the inscription.

In any case, Marcella’s personalization of her sarcophagus included incorporation of

Jewish symbols. This individualization marks an interest on the part of Marcella or her family to articulate a sense of corporate Jewish identity in Rome’s religiously diverse environment.661

4.5: Conclusions

658According to JIWE II Index I.a. 659See Rutgers, Late Ancient Rome, 77-81 on sarcophagus production in Rome. 660Exceptions do exist, such as that of Julianus, a Hebrew, which displays ethrogs at the beginning and end of each of the inscription’s two lines (JIWE II 44 = Goodenough, Jewish Symbols v. 3, fig. 708). 661The question of language use is one I have not addressed, except in the context of “Peace” blessings written in Hebrew and other variants. Rutgers, Late Ancient Rome, 176-191, argues that Jews in Rome, for example, slowly moved from use of Greek to Latin in inscriptions over time and disputes the suggestion that Latin inscriptions were a mark of a decedent’s greater prosperity or social status.

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These close, viewer-oriented analyses of inscriptions’ visual impact were intended to draw together the various aspects of materiality, visuality, and reception discussed in the chapter as a whole. Many of the issues raised regarding viewer’s perceptions and individual constructions of meaning are impossible to address with the information at hand. The sheer volume of what cannot be known on these matters has, I would argue, led to reluctance even to ask such questions.

The main premise of this chapter has been that inscriptions, as material examples of visual culture, participate in the construction of social realities. This participation is inextricably linked to the experience of viewing and the production of meaning that occurs during that process. While inscriptions’ meanings have commonly been thought to inhere only in their words, I have argued that for many viewers medium, execution, and decoration are equally communicative.

My analysis of inscriptions’ materiality led to the conclusion that their physical existence was more significant than whether they were made of a specific material, executed in a certain fashion, or displayed particular symbols. While this physicality doubtless had benefits for the decedent, as discussed in Chapter Three, I contend that the physicality of inscriptions also impacted viewers. If, as I have argued, inscriptions contributed to a larger sense of what it meant to belong to Jewish communities, the inclusion of titles also served this purpose.

By memorializing Marcella as a mother of the synagogue, Marcella’s funerary inscription helped shape what it meant to be a mother of the synagogue. When viewers looked as Sophia’s epitaph, their conceptualizations simultaneously created and reinforced what it was to be an elder and head of the synagogue. Regardless of what these

217 women did in life to merit such titles, in death, in stone, title bearer inscriptions offer physical embodiments of Jewishness, which contributed to the social realities of Jewish communities in late antiquity.

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Chapter Five: Women Leaders

5.1: Introduction

It has surely not gone without notice that relatively little has been said up to now regarding issues of women and gender as they relate specifically to inscriptions which feature titled Jewish women and, more generally, women in the Jewish communities of late antiquity. Whereas this project began by conceiving of itself as one on Jewish women in the ancient world, it quickly became less about women per se and more about when, where, how, and why inscriptions were used to create and represent a variety of

Jewish identities. Gender is one facet in this prism, but only one among many. To plunge directly into consideration of women exclusively risks missing the significance of their inclusion by ignoring the broader social phenomena in which they participate.

Previous chapters have, therefore, analyzed the broader geographical and chronological contexts in which female title bearer inscriptions appear. These analyses concluded that the inscriptions appear primarily in fourth-fifth century CE Diaspora contexts, which witnessed a significant degree of religious competition between Judaism and Christianity. Investigation of the textuality of Jewish inscriptions suggested that the significance of the written word transcended the ability to read and that the language used in inscriptions reflected issues of wealth, status, and prestige. Likewise, the impact of inscriptions’ extra-verbal attributes, particularly on viewer/readers, served to create and maintain a sense of corporate belonging, which was particularly necessary in light of perceived challenges to that cohesion. With the issues of geography, chronology, textuality and visuality explored, Chapter

Five turns to questions of women and gender as they relate to female title bearer inscriptions and Jewish inscriptions more broadly. Even here, however, women will not be studied in isolation. Titled women in inscriptions are not a separate phenomenon from titled men in inscriptions. The significance of women bearing Jewish titles is not that women bore titles but that titles were awarded both to men and to women. Choosing not to single out female title bearers for study by themselves does not detract from their significance or obscure their importance. Instead, female title bearing will be discussed as one aspect of title bearing more generally. Women with titles will not be overlooked or explained away as was done in the past, but will be seen to operate within synagogue communities as those communities were constituted: by women and men.

Chapter Five will be begin by addressing the relationship between history and the past, specifically as that history pertains to feminist scholarship on ancient women. The clash between objectivism and presentism as approaches to historical work offers interesting challenges to the practice of feminist history-making, as present day discursive practices construct, and sometimes impose upon, historical subjects. Examples from both the modern and ancient world will illustrate some problems and possibilities of the feminist historical project.

The chapter will continue with a discussion of why the question of leadership and, more specifically, women’s access to leadership roles, is of such concern to feminist scholars working in the ancient world. Recent work in gender archaeology has explored the ways in which scholarship historically has measured power and prestige in terms of control. The question of whether women were leaders in ancient synagogues has been

220 predicated on a specific idea of what leadership looks like and how it is constituted. This section explores the questions of what it is about women’s leadership that appears so important to establish and how expectations for women leaders are conditioned by expectations of what constitutes leadership.

The next section continues the discussion of leadership by investigating one area for which there is a reasonable quantity of information: financial leadership. Chapter Three examined the issue of patronage in the context of the language used in title bearer inscriptions. This topic will be discussed in greater detail here, expanding on the history of patronage, and specifically female patronage of Judaism during the Second Temple period. Jewish participation in Greco-Roman forms of euergetism and patronage networks offers a way to conceptualize leadership in terms of influence and negotiation rather than control and dominance.

The chapter will close by offering my conclusions regarding what titled Jewish women and their inscriptions were doing in and for Jewish communities in the

Mediterranean Diaspora. This section will, therefore, step away momentarily from the project’s insistence on speaking of women in terms of representation and discuss “real” women and what they did in Jewish synagogue communities. Ultimately, the question which has driven this project is what titled women’s inscriptions did. My contention is that inscriptions were one material forum, among many, in which Jews and Christians competed in the construction of identity and staking of ideological space in Late

Antiquity.

5.2: Objectivism, Presentism, Feminism

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On its surface, the desire to approach historical subjects from an objective viewpoint appears reasonable. Preconceptions and bias would risk coloring interpretations of evidence and injecting the interests of the historian anachronistically and prejudiciously on to history. To use an archaeological example, good methodology dictates that architectural remains be dated on the basis of excavated ceramic and numismatic evidence rather than on an excavator’s idea of what the date should be. Only when historians remove themselves from the equation can the data speak for themselves in historical constructions.662

Post-structuralist thinkers have pointed out problems with the ideal of historical objectivity. First, it is unlikely, or even impossible, that anyone is able to divest all preconceptions and biases, even if they could be known on a conscious level. More significantly, the concept of objectivity is itself an ideological construction, conditioned by a homogenized white male elite perception of what is normative. According to this viewpoint, those with interests or investments in ideas outside of this objective perspective, such as feminists, Marxists, post-colonialists, queer theorists, etc., evince bias and color their interpretation of the past with the concerns of the present. Instead, post-structuralism would argue, it is those who espouse objectivity who fail to recognize the influence of their own political and social commitments.

Against those who would claim that historians must study the past “…in its own right, for its own sake, and on its own terms,” critics, such as Dominick LaCapra, observe

662Historians such as Arnaldo Momigliano, “History in an Age of Ideologies,” American Scholar 51 (1982), 495-505 and Gertrude Himmelfarb, On Looking into the Abyss: untimely thoughts on culture and society (New York: Knopf, 1994) espouse this mindset, the latter commenting that history requires “a continual extinction of the personality” on the part of historians – a viewpoint which Clark, History, Theory, Text, 210 n. 124, traces back to Ranke’s idea that historians must “extinguish” themselves in favor of documents.

222 that the past possesses none of these attributes.663 In fact, historians write for their own sake and use their own terms in their constructions of history. Moreover, according to some theorists, the inevitable influence of the present on historical inquiry is not necessarily negative. Instead, the historical endeavor is broadened by research on issues such as class, race, gender, and sexuality – all of which are conceptualized radically differently in the modern world than they were in the ancient. Rather than seeing the past as a single event or history as a monolith, questions of whose past is being written or for whom such a history is intended arise.

Attention to and acceptance of modern questions and concerns in historical projects is referred to as presentism. If history is understood as a scholarly endeavor in the present which engages but does not actually access the past, it is inevitably shaped as much by present interests as past events. Modern language, modern concepts, modern questions are the terms by which historians accomplish their work. Thus feminist concerns, which are most relevant of presentist issues for this study, are and should be acknowledged as legitimate perspectives by which history is constructed. If this is the case, why does this study take exception to the feminist approach to history taken by Brooten on the subject of female title bearers in Jewish inscriptions?

Elizabeth Clark has commented that “any view of the past that assumes it exhibits the same features as perceivable things misconstrues how history is constituted.”664 On one hand, this observation demands recognition of the past’s imperceptibility and meaningful separation from history – legitimizing, as a consequence, the influence of present

663Dominick LaCapra, Soundings, 195. See also Geoffrey Elton, The Practice of History (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002). 664Clark, History, Theory, Text, 18.

223 concerns as part of the latter. At the same time, however, the presentist view of the past and history requires acknowledgement that historians create histories inevitably foreign to the subjects of their work. It is this latter corollary which has, in my view, received insufficient credence in feminist constructions of women’s roles in early synagogue communities. The legitimacy of feminist concerns, questions, and discourse in historical construction does not extend to postulating, even implicitly, that people of the past, and most specifically women, conceptualized themselves, their choices, or their world in similar terms.

The following example illustrates different ways in which feminist concerns have shaped research on women in the ancient world. Beginning around 150 BCE, an increasing number of women are represented as holding civic titles – titles previously restricted to men – in the public inscriptions of Greco-Roman communities in Asia

Minor.665 Women long had access to a variety of priesthoods in various Greco-Roman cults, but most civic roles, such as eponymous magistracies, had previously been the purview of men.666

Many of the early (and not so early) explanations proposed to explain this phenomenon were negative in their attitude towards the cause and necessity of women’s participation in civic life.667 The change in office holding practice was considered as evidence marking a period of decadence and decline, hence women’s involvement.

Alternatively, civic roles must have lost any real significance or importance once they

665van Bremen, Limits of Participation, 1. 666van Bremen, Limits of Participation, 30-34. 667See, for example, Victor Chapot, La province romaine proconsulaire d’Asie (Paris: É. Bouillon, 1904); Veyne, Le pain et le cirque; Friedemann Quaß, Die Honoratiorenschicht in den Städten des griechischen Ostens (Stuttgart : F. Steiner, 1993).

224 were available to women. Whatever circumstances occasioned women’s participation in civic affairs, according to this mindset, it must have been bad for the cities and communities involved. These explanations are united in their effort to explain away any significance to female civic office holding with the scholars discussed in Chapter One, who sought in a variety of ways to excuse or dismiss Rufina and other Jewish women who held titles related to the synagogue.668

On the other hand, the rise in women holding civic office has also been taken as evidence for the general improvement of women’s social status during the early Roman

Empire. Many scholars interpret this numerical increase in female civic title bearers as evidence for women’s enhanced influence and autonomy.669 Particular interest is devoted to women credited with financing major events or monuments from their own monetary resources and without reference to a male relative: situations that Paul Trebilco and others describe using the phrase “in her own right.”670

In the most common form of early Roman marriage, a woman became part of her husband’s familia and any property which belonged to her was absorbed into her husband’s estate and was legally his.671 By the first century BCE, the popularity of this

668van Bremen, Limits of Participation, 3-4. 669Sarah Pomeroy, “Technikai kai Mousikai: The Education of Women in the fourth century and in the Hellenistic period,” American Journal of Ancient History 2 (1977), 51-68. See also Bruce Winter, Roman Wives, Roman Widows (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003). For a more balanced approached to a tangentially related topic, see Elizabeth Carney, “‘What’s in a Name?’: The Emergence of a Title for Royal Women in the Hellenistic Period,” in Sarah Pomeroy (ed.), Women’s History and Ancient History (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991), 154-172. 670Trebilco, Jewish Communities, 105-126 and throughout. This phrase was discussed in Chapter One, in the context of whether female title bearers held their titles “in their own right” or by virtue of being married to male title holders. 671Suzanne Dixon, The Roman Family (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), 75, who notes that by the second century such property was treated as dowry and returned to the woman upon her husband’s death. See Jane Gardner, Family and Familia in Roman Law and Life (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), on the important distinction between familia and family.

225 form of marriage had waned and was replaced by the practice of marriage in which a woman retained membership in her natal familia and the property of husbands and wives was kept separate.672 A marriage of this type, in which a woman and her property did not pass into the legal control of her husband, had potential advantages for both sides.

Families could allow daughters to inherit without fear of alienating property; husbands could expect wives to contribute, at least in part, to their self-maintenance and even make financial contributions towards mutual goals.673

A woman who married but remained financially independent of her husband often did remain under the authority of her father until his death or, according to the Augustan marriage laws, until she bore three living children.674 In the former case, a woman would be appointed a tutor mulieris to approve her legal transactions in the absence of her father. In practice, however, the power of a tutor, originally intended to safeguard property, was negligent from the second century BCE when approval was only a formality.675 Free from the authority of husbands and only nominally controlled by other family members, women did, in effect, have the ability to act independently in financial matters beginning in the Hellenistic Period.676

The significance of action “in her own right” rests on its countering statements regarding women’s infirmity and fragility found in Roman literature – statements which

672With the exception of dowry, which was controlled by the husband during the duration of the marriage and could not be sold by either party. See Antti Arjava, Women and Law in Late Antiquity (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1996), 134. 673Gardner, Family and Familia, 40-41. 674Arjava, Women and Law, 114; 124. 675Suzanne Dixon, Reading Roman Women (London: Duckworth, 2001), 76-80. 676Arjeva, Women and Law, 142-154 notes that in Late Antiquity husbands again become authoritative over wives, likely because of Christian influence on perception of marriage and the relationship between husbands and wives.

226 appear to increase in proportion to women’s realized autonomy.677 Many ancient authors were invested in painting women as subordinate to male authority in financial and legal matters and, more generally, as the physically, mentally, and morally, weaker sex.678

Inscriptions appear to defy this literary trope, providing evidence for an increasing number of women acting in their own right. Upon closer consideration, however, the situation becomes more complicated. Independence and autonomy, although valuable in modern conceptualizations of social status, are of questionable worth in the ancient world.

Riet van Bremen has challenged these two facets of current scholars’ methodological approaches to Greco-Roman civic inscriptions. First, the enumeration of women with titles is offered frequently as evidence for significance, as if by accumulating a certain quantity of female office holders it is possible to make a qualitative point regarding women’s social circumstances: women were prominent or women had greater freedom, for example.679 Such conclusions are vulnerable to the epigraphic bias discussed in

Chapter Three. An increase in the number of inscriptions featuring female civic office holders does not necessarily prove that women were more prominent, only that they were represented more prominently.

On the second point, that of independent action, it seems only normal to modern western ears for a woman to have control of her own money, to use it as she sees fit, and

677Dixon, Reading Roman Women, 82-88. 678Tacitus, Suetonius, Sallust, and Cassius Dio, among others, offer a variety of negative stereotypes of women, see Suzanne Fischler, “Social Stereotypes and Historical Analysis: The Case of the Imperial Women at Rome,” in Léonie Archer, Susan Fischler, and Maria Wyke (eds.), Women in Ancient Societies: An Illusion of the Night (London: Macmillan, 1994), 115-133. For earlier periods, see Tom Hillard, “Republican Politics, Women, and the Evidence,” Helios 16.2 (1989), 165-182. 679van Bremen, Limits of Participation, 43 who criticizes Treblico specifically and others, such as Pomeroy implicitly, as can be deduced from the latter’s negative review of Limits of Participation in The American Historical Review 103.2 (1998), 491.

227 to receive public accolades for her efforts: to act “in her own right” without reference to husband, father, brother, or other male authority. Is it necessarily the case that women in the ancient world would have understood their situation in these terms? The fact is, while independence is a modern criterion for assessing status and authority, it is anachronistic when applied to antiquity. In the ancient world, a person’s status and power were measured by the family and community to which he or she belonged, not by his or her ability to act independently from them.680 The following example illustrates this difference.

Plancia Magna of Perge, high priestess of the imperial cult, eponymous magistrate, and holder of other offices and liturgies, is credited in numerous inscriptions with funding the construction of a large gate complex in the city of Perge in Asia Minor.681 Although married to a prominent senator from the family Iulii Cornuti, her husband is not mentioned in any of the dedicatory inscriptions from the gate complex. Instead, Plancia has been taken as a preeminent example of the amelioration of women’s status in Greco-

Roman antiquity: a woman acting in her own right by independently financing numerous civic projects and receiving all the credit as her due.

Studies which stop here, with the validation of the prominent woman, overlook the question of what circumstances led to this historical moment. What was happening in the late Hellenistic and early Roman periods which made it possible, or even necessary, for

Plancia to assume the offices and responsibilities previously held by her male forebears?

680van Bremen, Limits of Participation, 45. 681Mary Boatwright, “Plancia Magna of Perge,” in Pomeroy, Women’s History, 249-272 and “The City Gate of Plancia Magna in Perge,” in Eve D’Ambra (ed.), Roman Art in Context: an Anthology (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1993), 189-207; Christopher Jones, “The Plancii of Perge and Diana Planciana,” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 80 (1976), 231-237.

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One plausible answer is the rise of the imperial model of governance in the wake of

Alexander the Great’s conquest and concomitant decline in the independent city-state.

Wealthy provincial families were increasingly required to split their resources between maintaining a presence in their local power base and investing in Rome: the new power center. Plancia, for example, is acting as the local representative of her natal family.682

Her father and brother had senatorial careers in Rome, and so it fell to Plancia to represent the Plancii in their home-city of Perge by assuming the family’s financial responsibilities and civic obligations and, perhaps most significantly, commemorating those actions publically via inscriptions.683

Such a conclusion does not detract from the significance of these responsibilities falling to Plancia. That social pressures opened a new avenue for women’s participation in Greco-Roman civic institutions is fascinating. Instead, Plancia’s actions are situated in the more culturally credible context of her family’s civic responsibilities to the city of

Perge. Just because Plancia’s financial undertakings did not, apparently, require permission or approval by any of the men in her life does not mean she acted independently of her family.684 Ultimately, analysis of gender representation in Greco-

682van Bremen, Limits of Participation, 108, following Werner Eck, who argues that among provincial senatorial families, women serve as a family’s representatives in their home city by assuming offices, liturgies, and responsibilities as benefactors while the male family members pursued careers in Rome and other areas of the empire in “Die Präsenz senatorischer Familien in den Städten des Imperium Romanum bis zum späten 3. Jahrhundert,” in Werner Eck, Hartmut Galsterer, and Hartmut Wolff (eds), Studien zur antiken Sozialgeschichte; Festschrift Frederich Vittinghof (Cologne and Vienna: Böhlau, 1980), 283-322. See also Anthony Marshall, “Roman Women in the Provinces,” Ancient History 6 (1975), 109-127. 683On titles in Roman dedicatory inscriptions more generally, see Werner Eck, “‘Tituli honorarii’ curriculum vitae und Selbstdarstellung in der Hohen Kaiserzeit,” in Heikki Solin, Olli Salomies, and Uta- Maria Liertz (eds.), Acta colloquii epigraphici Latini Helsingiae 3-6 sept. 1991 habiti (Helsinki: Societas Scientiarum Fennica, 1995), 319-340. 684Gardner, Family and Familia, 268-279 emphasizes that legal and financial independence of individuals does not imply alienation or disaffection among such individuals and legally affiliated family members. She notes that the legal system was manipulated and used by families to derive the greatest benefit to the group through machinations of individual (official or unofficial) group members.

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Roman civic inscriptions reveals complicated networks of familial and community interests that influenced the bestowal of titles to women, always to the benefit of said family and community rather than the individual title bearer.

My aim in including this material is not to draw a direct connection between Greco-

Roman civic titles and Jewish titles related to the synagogue. These are separate phenomena. It is my contention, however, that van Bremen’s critiques are equally germane to the study of female title bearers in Jewish inscriptions as they are for Greco-

Roman civic inscriptions. Moreover, van Bremen models a method of approaching the past in which present-day feminist interests shape, but do not impose upon, historical subjects. Greco-Roman female civic office holders are neither dismissed as evidence for social decline nor lauded as early feminist revolutionaries. Instead they are explored as one aspect of a larger trend affecting Asia Minor at the turn of the era.

Michel de Certeau offers a clear articulation of how scholarly interests and the reality of the past can be mutually respected and protected – an approach which I would argue van Bremen effectively models. He argues that history is “a return of the past in present discourse.”685 The historical subject stands as other in present day discourse by virtue of its ineluctable alterity. That is, no attempt should be made to familiarize the past. As

Clark has noted, “… for de Certeau, history means permanent temporal displacement.”686

De Certeau finds a way to navigate between objectivism and presentism by validating the aims and discourse of the present and while insisting on the alterity of the past.

685Michel de Certeau, Heterologies: discourse on the other (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986), 214. He notes, “In broader terms, [the] mixture (science and fiction) obscures the neat dichotomy that established modern historiography as a relation between a “present” and a “past” distinct from one another, one being the producer of the discourse and the other being what is represented by it, one the “subject,” the other the “object’ of a certain knowledge. The object, presumed to be exterior to the work of the laboratory, in fact determines its operations from within.” 686Clark, History, Theory, Text, 278, n.155. Emphasis in original

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Conclusion: Objectivism, Presentism, Feminism

The issue which Plancia Magna illustrates is the way that feminist scholars who use culturally situated (modern, western, academic, etc.) language, concepts, and interests can engage historical subjects without imposing those same modes of discourse and understanding upon their subjects. In other words, it was no more possible to be a feminist in the ancient world than it was to be a Protestant.687 This conclusion does not render Plancia as a victim or lacking in agency, but as an individual operating from a world view entirely distinct from our own.

Rather than remaining satisfied with counting the number of Jewish women with titles and recognizing that their titles were held “in their own right,” this chapter will explore the social circumstances which made representation of female title bearers possible, or even necessary, in the Jewish communities of the late Roman period. Before doing so, however, the concept of independent action will be considered in the context of examining how concepts of power, prestige, and leadership are (or are not) defined in the scholarship which invokes them. This discussion will occur in two steps. First, the next section will examine feminist critiques of standard ways of conceptualizing power and leadership, which rely upon dominance and control. Second, the section will engage a post-colonial critique of feminist understandings of power and agency, which rely upon autonomy and individuality. My aim is to disrupt the very notion of leadership which has dictated all conversations on Jewish women with titles and to challenge the aspirations which have been naturalized as universal and innate for all women throughout time and space.

687Referring back to the quotation cited in Chapter Three from Squire, Image and Text, 89.

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5.3: Power, Prestige, Leadership

As noted in earlier chapters, the primary question asked of Jewish title bearer inscriptions featuring women is whether they constitute proof that women acted as leaders within the synagogue communities of Late Antiquity. Those scholars who answer in the affirmative cite the general scholarly acceptance that men with comparable titles were leaders. There is no evidence to support thinking that a specific title – head of the synagogue, for example – would have one meaning when applied to a man and another when applied to a woman. Both must have acted as synagogue leaders, however much such a conclusion might disrupt accepted views of Jewish society in the ancient

Mediterranean.

Since the publication of Brooten’s monograph, which made this affirmative argument, few scholars have come out with an explicitly negative response to the question of women leaders in the ancient synagogue.688 Scholars who are unconvinced by the affirmative argument usually leave the question open.689 Such caution is only appropriate where the evidence remains unclear, but it seems likely that political correctness has also played a part in the treatment of this question. While feminist concerns remain marginal or segregated in academic discourse and gender has not become the mainstream critical analytical category once envisioned, most scholarship balks at making what could be perceived as an explicitly anti-feminist argument.690

688Burtchaell, From Synagogue to Church, 245, is the only author I have found who explicitly disagrees with Brooten on the basis of gender, that is, women could not have been synagogue officers because they are women. Rajak and Noy, “Archisynagogoi,” offer a more nuanced critique of Brooten’s argument. 689Levine, The Ancient Synagogue, 499-518 exemplifies this position. 690Nelson, Gender in Archaeology, 14 comments, “Gender research should in my view not be ghettoized into research done by women about women, though such has been largely the result so far…” (emphasis in original). Examples of the kind of ghettoizing to which she refers include isolated panels or sessions at conferences, a single chapter (or just a “box”) on women or gender in broad subject textbooks, etc.

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Brooten’s monograph had the effect of making it awkward to argue that women were not or could not have been leaders in ancient Jewish communities.691

What remains most interesting to me throughout the ongoing discussion of women and leadership in late antique Judaism is the consistently western, andro-normative conceptualization of leadership used by all parties.692 The concept of andro-normativity builds on Bem’s definition of androcentrism as “the belief that whatever is male is natural, normal, central, and right.”693 Andro-normativity takes this belief a step further by unquestioningly permitting men and maleness to represent humanity as a whole; in contrast, women constitute aberrations, exceptions, and/or distractions.694 Determining whether women had access to synagogue leadership is deemed a critical question because access to political, or more broadly, administrative power one of the most substantial ways in which we assign individuals value and assess their status. In other words, whether women could assume public roles controlling people, resources, and property determines whether women were or were not significant members of synagogues.695 The equation of leadership with control undergirds the arguments on all sides of the female

691As noted in Chapter One, Rajak and Noy, “Archisynagogoi,” were the only ones to offer a substantive response to Brooten’s argument, but one based on specifically historical grounds related to patronage. Their critique of Brooten’s unquestioning acceptance that male title bearers were leaders and their defense of the legitimacy of “honorary” titles are completely correct, in my opinion. The related point I am making here is specifically to do with the gendered assumptions of the category of leadership itself. 692Kraemer, Unreliable Witnesses, 237-241 gives a brief discussion of the lack of theorization given to concepts of leadership, but does not consider the subject in depth. 693This is Nelson’s paraphrase of Sandra Bem, The Lenses of Gender: Transforming the Debate on Sexual Inequality (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), in Gender in Archaeology, 25. 694A modern example of andro-normativity which comes to mind is the tendency of news reports to differentiate between soldiers and female soldiers when relaying casualty reports, or when mentioning that civilians were killed to specify that a civilian group included women (and children – a separate, though related issue). Both “soldiers” and “civilians” are gendered male until specified otherwise. Nelson, Gender in Archaeology, 25 comments that “…the male point of view is presented as the human point of view.” Emphasis in original. 695Joyce Linnekin, Sacred Queens and Women of Consequence: Rank, Gender and Colonialism in the Hawaiian Islands (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1990), 56.

233 title bearer discussion, from the avowedly feminist to those who disallow the possibility of female synagogue leaders. This understanding of leadership is grounded firmly in a modern, andro-normative understanding of power as control.696

Must leading the synagogue mean controlling it: its members, resources, and/or property? It is the understanding of leadership as dominance which informs the conversation, discussed in Chapter One, about whether women’s titles were functional or honorary. Recent research questions the ubiquity of control as the main concept by which leadership roles are defined. In many cases, leadership is as effectively embodied through negotiation and other non-coercive forms of influence. The insistence upon seeing women as “controlling” leaders eschews the possibility of more nuanced understandings of leadership and overlooking or devaluing alternative ways of leading. Two brief examples will illustrate conceptualizations of leadership. The first exemplifies how modern conceptualizations of leadership and control mask their andro-normative presumptions. The second offers an example of activities which, although non-coercive, constitute a leadership of negotiation and influence that is, arguably, equally effective.

Both examples are far removed from the realm of Jewish title bearer inscriptions; the first by both time and space and the second by time. Their utility rests not in any direct parallel with the phenomenon of Jewish female title bearing, but rather in their ability to destabilized assumptions brought to conversations on leadership more generally. That is, my aim for these examples is to influence the mentalities, not the facts, of the case.

Sarah Nelson narrates the explanation offered by archaeologist Howard Winters for the fact that at an inland Native American burial site, Indian Knoll, women were buried

696Kelly Hays-Gilpin and David Whitley, Reader in Gender Archaeology (London: Routledge, 1998), 293- 294; Nelson, Gender in Archaeology, 132-133.

234 with marine shells, an imported luxury good, while men were not.697 Winters observes that men, apparently satisfied with retaining control over procurement and trade of this trade item, were content to allow women to serve as the “observable symbols” of men’s wealth: a practice for which Winters finds correlates in American society of his own day.698 Nelson’s critique of Winters, particularly that of his final observation, is worth quoting in full.

With the final twist, Winters has turned his speculation into a fact that can be compared with the present, effectively concealing the fact that it is derived from the present in the first place. And note that what is seen to be important is control, a particularly masculine concern in our culture.699

Winter’s explanation for why women were in possession of the marine shells and men were not is forced, at best. At worst, as Nelson notes, he subverts attention from any significance of women’s possession of imported grave goods. This subversion is accomplished by turning the conversation to the issue of men’s control of procurement and distribution, which although not in evidence for the situation at Indian Knoll is verified, for Winters, by comparison with his understanding of contemporary social practice. Leadership is located in control, which he genders as male and finds significant, and not display, which he genders female and finds insignificant. The significance and power of display is a question which will be addressed in greater detail below. For the time being, Nelson’s example of Winters’ interpretation of marine shells from Indian

Knoll exemplifies how andro-normative prioritization of control narrows the array of potential ways of understanding social relationships.

697Nelson, Gender in Archaeology, 133, discussing Howard Winters, “Value Systems and Trade Cycles in the Late Archaic in the Midwest,” in Sally Binford and Lewis Binford (eds.), New Perspectives in Archaeology (Chicago: Aldine, 1968), 175-222. 698Winters, “Value Systems and Trade Cycles,” 205. 699Nelson, Gender in Archaeology, 133.

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A second example, which illustrates a non-coercive version of leadership, is Livy’s etiology of the cult of Plebian Modesty.700 Again, this example pre-dates the phenomenon of Jewish female title bearing by many centuries and is not intended to argue directly for their import. Instead, I find this example valuable in its exemplification of a type of leadership that is effective, yet is not predicated upon domination or control of others.

Establishment of the cult of Patrician Modesty (Pudicitiae Patriciae), likely during the fourth century BCE, was probably one episode among many in the larger class struggle between patricians and plebians during the early centuries of the Roman

Republic.701 Requirements for participation in the cult included patrician descent, chaste behavior, and marriage to a single husband. According to Livy’s account, a patrician woman, Virginia, married to Lucius Volumnius Flamma Violens, a wealthy general and politically active plebian, was rejected from participation in the cult of Patrician Modesty because she had married outside of the patrician class.

Maehle notes that the stakes are higher than simply the prohibition of an individual woman from worshiping at a particular shrine. Participation in religious cults was one method among many in which networks of influence and relationship among families were established. The more informal relationships created between women offered opportunities for preliminary or behind-the-scenes negotiations between their husbands.

700Livy, History, 10.18-19.The historicity of this account is not ultimately relevant. 701Ingvar Maehle “Female Cult in the Struggle of the Orders,” in Anders Rasmussen and Susanne Rasmussen (eds.), Religion and society: Rituals, resources and identity in the ancient Graeco-Roman world: the BOMOS conferences 2002-2005 (Rome: Quasar, 2008), 61-69, notes that the cult of Pudicitia is unlike the cults of Salus and Concordia, which do not segregate classes, and suggests that the separation must be a deliberate provocation on the part of patrician matrons. A series of laws were passed, beginning with the Lex Canuleia in the mid-fifth century, which permitted marriage between patricians and plebians, and culminating with the Lex Hortensia in the early third century, which required laws passed by the Plebian Assembly binding upon all citizens without requiring ratification by patrician senators. Additional laws include the Lex Licinia Sextia (367 BCE) and Lex Ogulnia (300 BCE), each of which reserved specific numbers of seats in governmental, civic, and religious organizations for plebians.

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Seen in this regard, the rejection of Virginia from the cult of Patrician Modesty had the effect of excluding Lucius Volumnius from the networks of patronage and relationship that existed among the matrons’ husbands. Virginia’s expulsion from the cult of

Pudicitiae Patriciae would have had repercussions for the status and prestige of her entire household.

As Livy’s account reveals, however, the story does not end here. Having been rejected by the patrician matrons, Virginia sectioned off part of her own house and erected an altar to the cult of Plebian Modesty, inviting other matrons barred from the patrician cult to participate in the new one. In so doing, of course, Virginia created a new forum for social networking among the increasingly influential plebian class and an avenue of enhanced prestige for her household as a whole.

According to Livy’s tale, Virginia appears to embody a leadership role, albeit not a leadership born of control.702 She had no control over her rejection from the cult of

Patrician Modesty, despite the fact that technically she violated none of the membership tenets – she did not lose her patrician rank upon marrying a plebian under the terms of marriage without manus.703 While it could be argued that Virginia took control by her actions in establishing the cult of Plebian Modesty, the leadership she exhibits is in the style of negotiation, as described by Nelson.704 Virginia could not have forced the plebian matrons to join the new cult; she had to convince them doing so was worth their while.

702It is also doubtful that Livy intends to valorize Virginia per se, given his final line of the story bemoaning the eventual degradation of the cult by “…polluted worshippers, not matrons only but women of all kinds of station…” in History 10.19. 703Traditional patrician confarreatio marriage transferred a woman and her property from the absolute legal control of her father to her husband. In a marriage without manus, a woman’s property and rank would remain with her natal family. 704Nelson, Gender in Archaeology, 148-149 notes that a more nuanced, gendered examination of public roles for both men and women will consider leadership in terms of negotiation rather than of dominance and power.

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Should Virginia be considered a religious leader of the Roman Republic? Yes, if our definition of leadership encompasses strategies beyond dominance to gain or guide a following.

The aim of this first half of the section has been to expose the underlying assumption of leadership as control that has dictated conversations about women’s roles in early synagogues and to broaden possible conceptualizations of leadership to include non- coercive influence and negotiation as viable mechanisms of leadership. My goals are to reveal the andro-normativity inherent to equating leadership with control or dominance and offer alternative embodiments of leadership. The second half of this section will add an additional layer of critique by engaging a post-colonial perspective to challenge western, even western feminist, assumptions regarding the naturalization of individuality and autonomy as innate human values.

Naturalization has, from the time of Marx, been recognized as one means by which the domination of one group by another is rationalized in the former’s ideology: dominance as a consequence of nature rather than of society.705 Criticism of naturalization has been particularly effective in illuminating ideologies of gender that pervade the religious writings of late antique Judaism and Christianity.706 Chrysostom, for example, attributes women’s weakness and delicacy to nature, a term which he uses

705As noted in Elizabeth Clark, “Ideology, History, and the construction of ‘Woman’ in Late Ancient Christianity,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 2.2 (1994), 155-184, whose discussion of naturalization is synopsized here. 706For Judaism, see Baker, Rebuilding the House of Israel, 34-76, who discussed the rabbinic essentialization of woman as “house”; Clark, “Ideology, History,” in addition to naturalization, identifies stereotyping, universalizing, and appealing to the past as other techniques used by church fathers in their construction of gender ideology.

238 synonymously with God.707 Any woman who appears other than weak and delicate is, consequently, unnatural. Likewise, women’s subordination to men becomes an unalterable consequence of nature as designed by God.708 The task of the critic is to de- naturalize the characteristics attributed to subject bodies by showing them to be products of specific, un-natural social mechanisms.709

Naturalization is most often seen as a means by which negative qualities are associated with a specific subsection of a group in a way that makes those attributes appear innate. Is it equally possible, however, that a dominant group might naturalize what it considers positive qualities upon populations over which it enjoys a perceived power advantage? I would suggest that a similar process of naturalization can be seen in western feminist attitudes towards women who reject western feminism in favor of participation in conservative religious movements. In this case, rather than (perceived) negative qualities like weakness or delicacy, the (perceived) positive qualities of autonomy and individuality are naturalized upon western feminists’ (perceived) non- western and/or non-feminist intellectual subordinates. Ideological constructions that naturalize positive qualities are, in some manner, better than their opposites, but still are not innocent of the inequitable power dynamics inherent to “fixing” what is innate to others.710

The inclusion of the following example, coming from feminist research on women in conservative Islamist movements in the modern world, may seem strange, insomuch as

707“...but when I say Nature, I mean God.” John Chrysostom, Homily 26 on 1 Corinthians, 4; Homily 8 on Matthew, 4; Homily 55 on Matthew, 6. 708Chrysostom, Homily 10 on Colossians. 709Clark, “Ideology, History,” 160, 165. 710“Fixing” here in the sense of making static or unchanging, per Clark, “Ideology, History,” 160.

239 ancient Jewish women and modern Muslim women have no direct bearing upon one another. I find this material particularly useful, however, in disrupting the pervasive feeling that people in the ancient world, and specifically women, were really just like us; consciously or subconsciously, all women – all people, for that matter –desire equality, autonomy, independence, control, power, influence, and authority (as defined in the modern, western imaginary). Objections that ancient women are not being given sufficient credit as agents or that, had they been exposed to these modern values, ancient women would immediately embrace them, lose their force when faced with a modern example that contradicts such assumptions. The choice on the part of some contemporary women to reject the “natural” values listed above challenges the innateness of these values even among inhabitants of the contemporary world, let alone the ancient world.711

The positive valuation of action “in her own right,” discussed above in relation to women’s status in Greco-Roman antiquity, has its root in the feminist discourse of the

1970’s. A key area of focus is the workings of individual agency within the confines of a subordinating social or religious structure. Data are analyzed with the goal of detecting how women were able to subvert hegemonic cultural norms to serve their own interests and agendas.712

This action is characteristic of what feminist scholar Saba Mahmood calls “positive freedom,” which she describes as “…the capacity to realize an autonomous will, one generally fashioned in accord with the dictates of ‘universal reason’ or ‘self-interest’, and

711This argument is not intended to paint Muslim women, or even conservative Muslim women, as being unified or monolithic in their acceptance and/or rejection of some or all of these ideals or to imply that any rejection constitutes a negative reflection on Muslim women individually or as a group. I simply find the rejection of some or all of these values on the part of some women to serve as a useful disruption to the assumption of those values’ universality. 712Mahmood, The Politics of Piety, 6.

240 hence unencumbered by the weight of custom, transcendental will, and tradition. In short… the capacity for self-mastery.”713 This positive notion of freedom often appears in feminist historiography as the basis upon which specific instances of women’s self- directed actions are uncovered.714 Mahmood’s work on women’s participation in and support of Islamist movements exposes previously held assumptions regarding women’s universal desire for individuality and autonomy. Her research reveals women asserting themselves within male-dominated power structures, but with the goal of supporting the very discursive strategies that normalize and reify their subordination.715 This insight encourages a reconsideration of the conclusion that female title bearers accrued, or even sought to accrue, equal power, authority, and responsibility within the synagogue community.

In her study of female participation in the women’s piety movement in Egypt, part of the larger Islamic Revival movement, Mahmood has had to contend with the paradoxical fact that large numbers of Muslim women actively and of their own volition support and strengthen cultural systems that reinforce their subordinate status. In the 1970s, Egyptian women began organizing neighborhood religious lessons focusing on the Qu’ran and other religious literature and the application of the tenets therein to everyday life, leading to an increase in veiling, in the production of religious media, and in rejection of perceived secularism and western culture in favor of the principles of Islamic piety and virtuous behavior.716 Mahmood notes that the seeming paradox of Egyptian women’s

713Mahmood, Politics of Piety, 11. 714See Joan Scott’s discussion of her-story in Gender and the Politics of History, 15-27. 715Mahmood, Politics of Piety, 4-5. 716Mahmood, Politics of Piety, 3.

241 support for subordinating structures can be resolved if we discard our assumptions about the universal valuation of positive freedom. Rather than locating agency in political and moral autonomy, as feminist scholarship tends to do, she suggests that, “the meaning of agency must be explored within the grammar of concepts within which it resides.”717

Mahmood’s method, therefore, has clear similarities to van Bremen’s, insomuch as it relies upon context to create meaning.

To illustrate her method of analysis, Mahmood offers the example of Abir, who joined the piety movement against the wishes of her husband, Jamal.718 Abir’s increasingly pious lifestyle included adopting the full body veil, performing routine religious observances, and attending religious lessons, as well as voicing objections to

Jamal’s use of alcohol and pornography, and his lax observation of religious rituals. In defying the wishes of her husband by participating in the piety movement, Abir was actually violating the very tenets the movement espoused. Her defiance was successful for two reasons: first, because although Jamal did not support Abir’s pious behaviors, he did at heart share the beliefs that undergirded them; second, because through the instruction Abir received from the piety movement, she had the upper hand in their arguments about proper Islamic conduct.

Mahmood summarizes the situation, “Abir’s ability to break from the norms of what it meant to be a dutiful wife were predicated upon her learning to perfect a tradition that accorded her a subordinate status to her husband.”719 While a traditional feminist reading might interpret Abir’s behavior as a subversion of her patriarchal cultural norms through

717Mahmood, Politics of Piety, 34. 718Mahmood, Politics of Piety, 176-180. 719Mahmood, Politics of Piety, 179.

242 the pursuit of her own agenda, such a reading would not take into account the grammar of concepts with which Abir conceptualizes her actions. She does not, for example, defy

Jamal’s authority because she objects to it as such. Rather, she defies his impiety, exemplified both by his own behavior as well as his attempted restriction of her pious practices, using persistence and superior knowledge of virtuous conduct to achieve specific ends.720

Power, Prestige, Leadership: Conclusions

The goals of this section have been to illuminate some of the assumptions brought to discussions of female title bearers and to challenge the validity of those assumptions. The concept of leadership engaged by all those interested in women’s roles in the synagogue has hinged on the idea that in order to be leaders, it is necessary that women were in control and dominant over others (specifically, men). First, this section has argued that a model of leadership built on control is itself andro-normative, making it odd, to say the least, for feminist purposes. The story of Virginia and the cult of Plebian Modesty offered one example of a different type of leadership based on negotiation rather than coercion. A feminist critique of conceptualizations of leadership opens the door to a variety of other possibilities for understanding women’s synagogue activities.

Second, this discussion has challenged the particularly modern, western assumptions that naturalize the desire for personal power in the forms of autonomy and individuality.

These assumptions have dominated discussions of women in both ancient and the modern worlds. To question the validity of these assumptions is neither to deny these women agency nor to articulate an anti-feminist agenda: quite the opposite. By de-naturalizing

720Mahmood, Politics of Piety, 180; 187-188.

243 the innateness of individuality and autonomy (which does not disallow their possibility, just their inevitability), we are better prepared to see clearly the variety of other goals towards which agency can work, including the good of family and community.

It is possible that, despite explicit intentions to the contrary, the foregoing discussion will be read as anti-feminist. As noted above, one of the reasons that Brooten’s position regarding women leadership in synagogues has stood unchallenged for so long, despite not being wholly-heartedly endorsed by most scholars, is the desire to avoid such a label.

Does the lady protest too much? I do not think I do. Scholars who overlook the past’s alterity are not straw creations or relicts of bygone days reanimated for argument’s sake, but rather continuing contributors to the ongoing discussion.721 Instead, the issue is one dividing feminist scholarship itself, as Nelson describes in the context of gendered archaeology.

...two kinds of feminist uses of the past may be at odds with each other. One use intends to empower and inspire women with heroic examples of women from the past, while the other is more conscious of the need to adhere to rigorous standards of archaeological interpretation, whether or not women are empowered by the results. Advocates of the second strand are eager to deconstruct the ways in which the study of gender itself has been muted and in general strive for more subtlety and variety in their work, rather than simply universalizing gender roles. Women, after all, are not considered to be a category about whom statements can be made that are applicable to all women in all times and all places. A nuanced understanding of women in the past is thus beset on two sides – first by the thoughtless application of present gender roles to the past, and second by the attempt to invent a glorious past for women, sometimes by misapplying or distorting the archaeological record... reconstructions of the past that either reproduce present gender stereotypes or merely invert them are not only inaccurate, they are also dangerous, because they imply that gender roles and behaviors cannot change.722

721I would group Brooten, Trebilco, Pomeroy, Eisen, and even Kraemer in this category, among many others. 722Nelson, Gender in Archaeology, 23.

244

If feminism seeks in part to free women from the burdens of stereotype and naturalization, it would seem important not to re-inscribe those practices in a different, albeit positive, guise.

Having addressed these important conceptual issues, Chapter Five will continue by returning to a topic touched on in a variety of ways in preceding chapters: financial patronage. The next section will discuss Jewish financial leadership in synagogues and the use of titles as part of the mechanism of exchange that such leadership entailed. In so doing, the groundwork will be laid for the final section of the chapter, which will make an argument for the ultimate purpose and significance of the representation of titled women in Late Antique Jewish inscriptions.

5.4: Financial Leadership in Synagogues

Chapter One challenged the theory that women were leaders in ancient synagogues based solely on the evidence of female title bearer inscriptions. The challenge is based in part upon my understanding of this theory’s definition of leadership as a position of dominance or control over others. If, as the current chapter advocates, a broader conceptualization of leadership is engaged, the question of women’s (and men’s) synagogue leadership is open to continued discussion. As previous chapters have noted, it is my contention that women were financial leaders in synagogue communities.

This conclusion is, on one hand, not surprising. Scholars have long recognized that women from a variety of religious and cultural groups acted as financial patrons of many institutions. The idea of titles awarded in exchange for benefaction was, in fact, the basis of the entire honorary vs. functional debate that has dominated the subject for more than a century. Brooten herself recognizes the significant role that women played as patrons of

245

Jewish communities.723 What is significant in concluding that women acted as financial leaders of the synagogue is the insistence that financial patronage constituted a valid form of leadership, recognized and valued in the social imaginary in which Diaspora Jewish communities operated. That any power derived from such leadership was born of negotiation and influence rather than domination and coercion does not make it any less real or significant.

In Chapter Three, patronage and titles were discussed in the context of inscriptions’ textuality. I argued there that titles, as part of the language of inscriptions, were used to convey messages of corporate prosperity and social prestige. The current chapter will engage in greater detail the issue of Jewish adoption and manipulation of Greco-Roman reciprocity systems and return to the specific cases of Jewish women with titles to illustrate how these systems worked in Jewish contexts.

As noted briefly in Chapter Three, Seth Schwartz has argued that Jewish communities were participants, albeit partial and sometimes reluctant participants, in the systems of reciprocity and patronage that were the foundation of Roman society. Using the textual sources of Ben Sira, Josephus, and Rabbinic writings, Schwartz concludes that although the unequal power dynamic inherent to patronage was considered antithetical to Torah- idealized equality among Israelites for whom God could be the only legitimate patron, the two worldviews can be seen to co-exist in some sort of tension in most Jewish sources.

Among the sources which Schwartz uses, it is the writings of Josephus that seem most relevant to the present study. One could argue, conversely, that Rabbinic writings are a more appropriate source for ideas regarding Late Antique Jewish reciprocity and

723Brooten is most specific on this point in “Jael προστάτης”.

246 patronage practices, as they correlate better chronologically with the inscriptions under consideration here. While it is true that Josephus’s writings pre-date the corpus of female title bearer inscriptions by several centuries, Josephus is the author with the greatest exposure to the conditions of Diaspora Jews and to Roman social practices, lending his perspective of the relationship between reciprocity and Judaism greater authenticity.

Moreover, Josephus, unlike the rabbis, addresses the topics of Jewish and non-Jewish women acting as patrons. Although Josephus does not comment specifically on the relationship between patronage and titles, his discussion addresses the precedent of female patronage in Jewish communities in the first century of the era. Neither Josephus nor rabbinic writings are ideal textual sources to engage in a discussion of Jewish women’s patronage practices. As noted in Chapter One, the dearth of Late Antique

Diaspora Jewish writings is one of the realities of the field. Of the sources available, I find Josephus most useful for thinking through patronage by Jewish women, despite his chronological distance from the title bearers themselves.724

Josephus is not uniform or consistent in his attitude towards Roman forms of reciprocity and euergetism among his several works.725 In one of his more explicit passages, in Jewish War, Josephus describes the wide variety of building projects Herod

724That is, the title bearers who feature in my corpus of inscriptions. As I have noted elsewhere, it is possible that female title bearers existed in the early centuries of the era, even during the time of Josephus, but they are not yet represented in literary or epigraphic texts. For additional discussion of reciprocity in rabbinic texts, see Zvi Novick, “Charity and Reciprocity: Structures of Benevolence in Rabbinic Literature,” Harvard Theological Review 105.1 (2012), 33-52. An additional difficulty in using Josephus is his singularity – we have no comparable source by which to keep him honest. His exceptionalism notwithstanding, Josephus is an invaluable source for the late first century CE Diaspora, not just for the information he provides but for the attitudes he takes which are revealed in his writing. 725On the differences between Josephus’ various works, see Shaye Cohen, Josephus in Galilee and Rome: His Vita and Development as a Historian (Leiden: Brill, 1979).

247 the Great undertook, both in his own territories and in other regions.726 Schwartz observes that whereas Herod’s activities in foreign cities are described as benefaction

(euergesia), Josephus is careful not to use wording associated with euergetism in his descriptions of specifically Jewish projects or those carried out in Palestine.727 Moreover,

Schwartz challenges the notion that construction projects at Caesarea or Antipatris should be considered as examples of benefaction.728 While his observation regarding the change in language is interesting, it is difficult to believe that Josephus’s readers, whether Roman or Jewish, would fail to recognize this description of Herod’s construction of the harbor at Caesarea, “…wherein he especially demonstrated his magnanimity…” by providing a safe haven for ships along the coast.729

In contrast, when describing Herod’s construction projects in Jewish Antiquities,

Josephus emphasizes Herod’s paranoia and desire for personal safe havens.730 Even his description of the harbor at Caesarea, although more detailed, retreats from the language of generosity and concern for the people apparent in the earlier rendition.731 The change in tone regarding Herod’s construction projects between the two works is not so much a rejection of euergetism as a whole, but a refinement in Josephus’ later years, in which he appears to adopt the attitude that benefaction is best expressed through pious action rather than public construction projects. Thus, Schwartz observes, Herod’s actions in providing

726Josephus, War, 1.401-429. 727Josephus, War, 1.428. 728Schwartz, Mediterranean Society, 96-97. 729Josephus, War, 1.408-409. On the disagreement regarding Josephus’ intended audience, see Steve Mason, “Of Audience and Meaning: Reading Josephus’ Bellum Judaicum in the Context of a Flavian Audience,” 71-100, and Jonathan Price, “The Provincial Historian in Rome,” 101-118, both in Joseph Sievers and Gaia Lembi (eds.), Josephus and Jewish History in Flavian Rome and Beyond (Leiden: Brill, 2005). 730Josephus, Antiquities, 15.292-298. 731Josephus, Antiquities, 15.331-341.

248 food during a drought are, for Josephus, a more genuine, specifically Jewish, adaptation of euergetism that emphasizes charity over construction.732 Between War and Antiquities, a refinement of Josephus’ attitude towards benefaction can be observed, which retreats from a general acceptance of Roman style euergetism, comprised of civic construction on the part of a patron such as Herod, to advocating for a particularly Jewish adaptation of benefaction comprised of piety and charitable acts.

Another striking contrast observable in Josephus’ discussion of patronage is the disparity in attitude taken towards non-Jewish female patrons of Judaism, on one hand, and Jewish women acting as patrons, on the other. Matthews notes that in Antiquities,

Jews received favors and intercession from female imperial patrons before every Julio-

Claudian emperor.733 In fact, Josephus appears quite deliberate in his intention to demonstrate several examples of patron-client relationships existing between prominent members of Jewish society and female members of the imperial family, including Livia,

Antonia, Agrippina the Younger and Poppaea Sabina.734 Moreover, according to his autobiography, Josephus was himself a recipient of patronage from the empress Domitia, in addition to the male members of the Flavian dynasty.735 Perhaps his personal circumstances account for his desire to establish female imperial patronage as an acceptable and normative expression of Jewish participation in the patronage system.736

732Schwartz, Mediterranean Society, 101; Antiquities, 15.299-316. 733Shelly Matthews, First Converts: Rich Pagan Women and the Rhetoric of Mission in early Judaism and Christianity (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001), 30. 734Matthews, First Converts, 30-36. 735Josephus, Life, 428-429. 736Matthews, First Converts, 37-40, notes that Josephus also uses his retelling of the story of Moses in Antiquities to praise other non-Jewish women. Another figure of interest is Queen Helena of Adiabene, who is praised by Josephus in Antiquities 20.17-99 for her charity towards the inhabitants of Jerusalem. It is interesting that, although a convert to Judaism, Helena is described in the more positive manner 249

In contrast to his attitude towards imperial women, Josephus is quite negative in his assessment of prominent Jewish women and their attempts at influence, particularly in

Antiquities. While Salome Alexandra was praised both for her sagacity and piety in War,

Josephus’ later assessment blamed her for all subsequent Hasmonean misfortune, noting that although an intelligent and strong leader, she had no care for right and wrong.737

Likewise, although Herodias is credited with urging Herod Antipas to seek favor from the emperor in War, Josephus emphasizes her greed and envy in Antiquities, commenting that Antipas’ downfall was punishment from God for heeding the specious arguments of a woman.738 Therefore, not only does Josephus display a striking difference in his treatment of gentile and Jewish women in Antiquities, but also his tone towards Jewish women becomes increasingly negative between the writing of War and Antiquities.

Ilan explains Josephus’ negative appraisal of Jewish women as deriving from his source material, most prominently Nicolaus of Damascus, “… who wrote drama and firmly believed that women were the root of all evil.”739 She notes that when left to his own devices – that is, when he had no source other than himself to use – Josephus’

characteristic of Josephus’ approach to Roman imperial women rather than to Jewish women. For more on patronage among Roman women, see Suzanne Dixon, “A family business: women’s role in patronage and politics at Rome 80-44 B.C.,” Classica et Medievalia 34 (1983), 91-112; Ramsay MacMullen, “Women in Public in the Roman Empire,” Historia 29 (1980), 208-218 and “Women’s Power in the Principate,” Klio 68.2 (1986), 434-443. On patronage more generally, see David Johnston, “Munificence and Municipia: Bequests to Towns in Classical Roman Law,” Journal of Roman Studies 75 (1985), 105-125; Marc Kleijwegt, “‘Voluntarily, but under Pressure’: Voluntarity and Constraint in Greek Municipal Politics,” Mnemosyne 47.1 (1994), 64-78. 737Josephus, War 1.107-119; Antiquities 13.430-432. 738Josephus, War 2.181-183; Antiquities 18.240-255. It is interesting to note that in the latter account Josephus does allow Herodias to be a dutiful wife, refusing Gaius’ offer to retain her own property and avoid exile. 739Tal Ilan, “Josephus and Nicolaus on Women,” in Hubert Cancik, Herman Lichtenberger, and Peter Shäfer (eds.), Geschichte – Tradition – Reflexion: Festschrift für Martin Hengel zum 70. Geburstag v. 1 (Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1996), 221-262.

250 preference was to ignore women as much as possible.740 According to Ilan’s argument, the more negative assessments of Salome Alexandra and Herodias in Antiquities, along with those of other Jewish women, are the verbatim work of Nicolaus, which Josephus inserts uncritically into his narrative. Although Ilan disclaims any intent to exculpate

Josephus from charges of misogyny, in cases where Nicolaus is not available to blame for negative accounts of women in Josephus’ writings, a different misogynist source is proffered.741 Moreover, appeal to Nicolaus does not account for the change in attitude between War and Antiquities, both of which, Ilan admits, contain Nicolaus’ material.742

While Josephus was undoubtedly influenced by the biases of his sources, it is difficult to absolve him completely from having very different attitudes towards influential

Roman and Jewish women who acted, or had potential to act, as patrons and benefactors, or to ignore the difference in tone used towards Jewish women in Antiquities in contrast to War. Although these observations will likely never be accounted for with any degree of certainty, it is striking in the context of this study to consider the possibility that

Josephus’ many years in Rome were at least as influential as Nicolaus on his opinions on the Roman patronage system, Diaspora Jews’ adoption of it, and their participation in similar practices.

Although it was not yet commonplace for inscriptions to express gratitude for benefaction in the first few centuries of the era, in either Palestine or the Diaspora, there

740Ilan, “Josephus and Nicolaus,” 224-225. Ilan’s premise is built on the thesis of Daniel Schwartz in “Josephus and Nicolaus on the Pharisees,” Journal for the Study of Judaism 14 (1983), 157-171, who contends that Josephus used Nicolaus as his main source on the Pharisees. 741For example, in the case of Berenice, whose generally neutral account is colored by sexual slander in Antiquities 20.145. Ilan cites an anti-women priestly source on the basis of Daniel Schwartz, “KATA TOYTON TON KAIPON: Josephus’ Source on Agrippa II,” Jewish Quarterly Review 72 (1982), 241-268. 742Ilan, “Josephus and Nicolaus,” 234.

251 is every reason to think that benefaction did, in fact, occur at the time of Josephus.743 The

Theodotus inscription forces recognition of title-holding Jews acting as benefactors in a specifically Jewish reciprocity system: a Diaspora family acting as patrons of a synagogue in first century CE Jerusalem. While epigraphic evidence for the practice of

Jewish benefaction in the first to third centuries is sparse, the most likely scenario is that the practice continued. Perhaps Jewish communities during these centuries used more ephemeral methods of remuneration than epigraphic commemoration.

In any case, I think it worthwhile to consider that Josephus’ negative attitude towards elite Jewish women, apparent particularly in Antiquities, stemmed from his observation of Jewish women participating in systems of reciprocity and patronage in Rome during his time as a Diaspora Jew. This theory accounts both for the change in Josephus between

War and Antiquities and the difference made between Roman and Jewish women: however much Josephus himself appreciated the patronage of imperial gentile women, similar behaviors on the part of Jewish women would not necessarily have been so readily accepted.

As noted above, Josephus pre-dates female title inscriptions by several centuries. My aim in discussing his attitude towards Jewish reciprocity and participation in patronage systems is to illuminate how the arguably most Romanized of extant Jewish authors felt about Jewish adoption and adaption of such practices, particularly among women. His hostile attitude towards women like Salome Alexandra and Herodias in his later work argues for an increasingly negative appraisal of the behaviors of elite Jewish women. I

743Schwartz, Mediterranean Society, 89-92 contrasts Josephus on benefaction with epigraphic practices in Jerusalem during the same period, and concludes that the city was eccentric in its epigraphic habit by expressing memorialization through public feasting and private funerary monuments (104). I think the “privacy” of monumental tombs is exaggerated, as Schwartz himself admits in n.62.

252 would suggest that this hostility could result from observing and objecting to similar practices among the Diaspora Jewish communities of the Mediterranean. As Jewish systems of reciprocity continued into subsequent centuries, with the addition of more frequent inscriptions memorializing the practice of benefaction, conscientious objectors, like the rabbis, focus on the practice of epigraphic commemoration as a particularly undesirable aspect of such behaviors.744 This section on financial leadership will, therefore, turn to the practice of patronage among Jews: systems of benefaction and exchange both internal to the Jewish communities and external among the broader social milieu of the Diaspora. It will conclude with a discussion of titles and epigraphic commemoration as part of the Jewish system of reciprocity in Diaspora communities.

The clearest and most concise summary of the position of female financial leaders in synagogues is offered in a short, seldom cited article by Collins.745 He observes that, in the Diaspora, synagogues functioned generally in a manner similar to collegia or private associations, that collegia were patronized by wealthy donors, that wealthy donors gave money in return for public praise and honor, that women acted as patrons of Greco-

Roman institutions, and that synagogues had patrons, both men and women, who were treated commensurately to one another and to patrons of other types of Roman institutions.

Collins notes that financial benefaction was remunerated in a number of ways in addition to bestowal of titles, including special seating at events, choice portions of food

744Schwartz, Mediterranean Society, 135-139. 745Collins, “Money, Sex, and Power,” 5-22. It is surprising that Collins’ article is not mentioned in subsequent relevant pieces such as van Bremen, Limits of Participation, Brooten, “Female leadership,” Rajak and Noy, “Archisynagogoi,” or Kraemer, Unreliable Witnesses. Tessa Rajak. “Benefactors in the Greco-Jewish Diaspora,” in Cancik et al., Geschichte – Tradition – Reflexion, 305-319 cites the article (n. 7), but inexplicably credits its authorship to an M. Lewis.

253 at festivals, public respect and defense against slander, occasionally gifts of precious metals, and, not least, the commemorative inscription itself. Given that only about one quarter of Jewish dedicatory inscriptions associate the benefactor with a title, these alternative modes of gratitude were themselves significant.746 Several of the inscriptions cited earlier in this study, such as those of Tation from Phoecea and Capitolina from

Tralles conform to this pattern. While neither woman receives a title in exchange for her benefaction, Tation, the gentile patron, is awarded a gold crown and a seat of honor.747

Capitolina, in contrast, makes her donation in fulfillment of a vow and, apparently, receives the commemorative inscription as her recompense.748 Methods of reciprocity towards male benefactors vary likewise. Cosimianus, also called Joseph, paid for the decorated mosaic floor at the 3rd century synagogue at Plovdiv in Thrace and is memorialized in two inscriptions within the mosaic.749 C. Tiberius Polycharmus, who donated the entirety of the synagogue at Stobi, is commemorated in a monumental inscription as both the synagogue’s patron and its father as well.750

The cases of untitled benefactor inscriptions, which as noted are the majority, are seen as the main objection to the idea that titled benefactors were also/only financial leaders of synagogues. That is, there must be a difference between a donor like

Polycharmus who, like Theopempte and Jael, is commemorated in a dedicatory inscription as a title bearer, and Cosimianus who receives only his commemorative

746This statistic is taken from Baruch Lifshitz, Donateurs et fondateurs dans les synagogues juives (Paris: Gabalda, 1967), who lists 26 titled individuals among the 102 dedicatory inscriptions. I do not believe this proportion has changed significantly based on discoveries since its publication in 1967. 747IJO II 36. 748IJO II 27. 749IJO I Thr1. 750IJO I Mac1.

254 inscriptions; moreover, this difference must be one of kind rather than just of scale.

Polycharmus, according to this theory, must have had responsibilities in addition to his financial obligations.751

The relationship between benefaction and titles is, therefore, a clear stumbling block on the road towards understanding title bearers as financial leaders of synagogues. This problem is made more apparent by the fact that most titles are preserved in funerary rather than dedicatory inscriptions and are, consequently, one step removed from any specifically patronage related context. It is this set of relationships which must be teased out in order to substantiate the claim that title bearers, even those commemorated in funerary inscriptions, were being memorialized as financial benefactors and, consequently, as leaders of synagogues.

Collins addresses titles in only a general manner, but one which cuts to the heart of the honorary/functional debate.

Titles of leadership, given in relation to patronal actions, may appear to modern readers to be “honorific”, indicating no “real” function being attached to them. However it can be noted from the discussion above that wealthy patrons in both private associations and in public were accorded a number of benefits that were anything by “honorific” in the sense of having no function… The title may indeed have been “honorific” but given that honor was the standard of social rank, privilege, and influence in the Greco-Roman society of that period, such “honorific” titles meant a great deal.752

Rajak and Noy develop the argument for titles as rewards for benefaction in greater detail, noting that as the titles in question derive from Greco-Roman antecedents and appear almost exclusively in Diaspora Jewish contexts, it is within the Greco-Jewish

751This is the opinion of, among others, Pieter van der Horst, Ancient Jewish Epitaphs: an introductory survey of a millennium of Jewish funerary epigraph, 300 BCE-700 CE (Kampen: Kok Pharos, 1991), 93- 94; 107. 752Collins, “Money, Sex, and Power,” 17-18.

255 milieu that their meaning must derive.753 Their analysis follows Collins in seeing the synagogue institution modeled upon Greco-Roman associations and embracing systems of patronage to support and sustain it.754 Both studies find that in both Jewish and non-

Jewish contexts any “jobs” which titles imply do not correlate with skills and tasks, but rather with social standing and wealth and, instead, that in both contexts titles function as recompense for financial support. Several factors contribute to these conclusions.

First, a small but striking minority of title bearers include those who cannot possibly have performed administrative functions in associations. Such individuals include gods, the deceased, and children.755 Second, titles were held by people outside the group’s membership, who would have had little or nothing to do with its day to day operations.

Inscriptions from Cyzicus record that emperors Gaius, Hadrian, and Antoninus Pius all served as eponymous hipparchos.756 At Acmonia, gentile benefactor P. Tyrronios Klados is memorialized as head of the synagogue.757 Third, the addition of the phrase διὰ βίου

(for life) to many titles mitigates the likelihood that individuals so designated would be responsible for perpetual managerial duties. Finally, the occasional tendency of a title to be repeated in successive generations of the same family, which led some to suggest that titles were somehow inherited, makes dubious sense were the titles indicative of

753The term Greco-Jewish is used by Rajak and Noy in the title of their article and is intended, as far as I can tell, as an alternative for Diaspora Judaism. The phrase would seem to have the disadvantage of hearkening back to the Hellenized vs. non-Hellenized Judaism debate of the early-mid 20th century, I believe the intent is to differentiate between the Judaism of the rabbinic texts versus the more integrated Judaism of Greco-Roman cities. 754Rajak and Noy, “Archisynagogoi,” 84. 755Rajak and Noy, “Archisynagogoi,” 85; see David Magie, Roman Rule in Asia Minor, to the end of the Third Century after Christ (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950) on divine office holders. 756van Bremen, Limits of Participation, 62, who notes that four women were also posthumous holders of the hipparchia at Cyzicus. 757IJO II 168. On the Tyrronii as a pagan family from Acmonia, see Rajak, “Benefactors,” 314; Rajak and Noy, “Archisynagogoi,” 88.

256 administrative jobs.758 Thus, association titles cannot, as a rule, have been awarded based on fulfillment of practical tasks.

Each of these four types of circumstances is more readily explained by the theory that titles were awarded as part of the reciprocal exchange between patron and institution.

Divine treasuries, decedents’ estates, and the trusts of children were all potential sources of wealth. Patrons need not belong to the group receiving their beneficence. A donor “for life” might indicate financial support of long duration or exceptional degree. Multi- generational title holding marks a family’s enduring wealth and social status, making possible their continued patronage and continuity of compensatory honor. Rajak and Noy conclude, “The archisynagogos… was who he or she was, rather more than what he or she did.”759

The idea of a title as indicative of an individual’s identity within the community helps support the connection between titled individuals in dedicatory inscriptions with explicit ties to patronage and titled individuals in funerary inscriptions. Perhaps the best example of bridging this gap is the inscription of Rufina of Smyrna.760 Mentioned several times in various contexts over the course of this study, Rufina’s inscription is unique among the corpus of female title bearer inscriptions as it is simultaneously both a dedicatory and a funerary inscription.

Rufina provided a burial place for her household’s freedpersons and slaves. Her inscription memorializes this typical Greco-Roman example of beneficence on the part of

758The lingering appeal of the idea of hereditary office might derive from the hereditary nature of the Jewish priesthood, but there are too many examples of discontinuity in title holding among families to make the idea of hereditary administrative office practical. 759Rajak and Noy, “Archisynagogoi,” 89. 760IJO II 43.

257 a patron towards social dependents.761 Two additional pieces of information about

Rufina, which are otherwise unrelated to the actions described in the inscription, are included: she is a Jew (or Judean) and she is an archisynagogos.762 Neither detail appears at all relevant to the matter at hand. Rufina’s inscription is, in fact, striking in its complete disassociation with activities specifically pertaining to the synagogue. Were

“head of the synagogue” to connote primarily an administrative role within the synagogue – that is, what Rufina did – its inclusion in this inscription would have little relevance. If instead, as Rajak and Noy surmise, the title is instead primarily indicative of

Rufina’s prestige and social status – that is, who she was – its place in her inscription makes perfect sense.763

If it seems reasonable that Rufina, like other Greco-Roman patrons, included prestige-enhancing information on otherwise unrelated commemorations of benefaction, it is only a small additional extrapolation to think that other Jewish patrons would include similar information in their own epitaphs. The exercise of financial leadership and titles garnered in reciprocal exchange for beneficence constituted significant aspects of a patron’s social identity. In this context, “honorary” titles bestowed on the basis of financial patronage were arguably much more significant, both to bearers and beneficiaries, than any administrative label could be.

761On the problem of lower class burial and patrons as suppliers of burial sites, see Bodel, “From Columbaria to Catacombs,” 235-242. 762Clearly, Rufina’s being a Jew is related to the fine to be paid to the Jewish people should the tomb be violated, but there is nothing inherently Jewish about building a tomb for one’s social dependents – quite the opposite, it is a quintessentially Roman activity. 763As noted in Chapter Three, the comparison with the inscription of Naevoleia Tyche is striking, particularly in Naevoleia’s careful description of her husband as augustalis and paganus, who was decreed the honor of the bisellium by the decurions and citizens. See Clarke, Ordinary Romans, 184.

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Jewish women were, naturally, not alone in providing financial support for their communities’ religious institutions. Wealthy Christian women also served as patrons of the Church and its affiliated establishments, such as monasteries. As noted briefly in

Chapter One, exploration of women and their roles in early Christian and Jewish communities, respectively, has been carried out in tandem and, in some cases, in a spirit of competition. Just as the small corpus of female title bearer inscriptions was interpreted as evidence for women’s heretofore unrecognized leadership status in early Jewish communities, a corpus of inscriptions in which women are named as elders, deacons, widows, and teachers testify to some that Christian women too held religious offices and, thus, exercised religious leadership in early Christian communities.764 The topics of women’s leadership, patronage, and title bearing in early Christianity merit independent investigation. Nevertheless, given the geographical and chronological proximity of the

Jewish and Christian material, a brief exploration of the similarities and differences in

Christian and Jewish women’s patronage and title bearing is warranted.

In some ways, the Christian and Jewish evidence seems very similar. Both Jewish and

Christian women acted as financial patrons of their respective religious institutions; both

Jewish and Christian women appear in inscriptions bearing titles seemingly associated with those institutions. I would argue, however, that whereas in Jewish communities patronage and titles were part of the same system of benefaction and reciprocity, among

Christians, women’s titles represent strategies of containment separate from, albeit related to practices of patronage.

764Eisen, Women Officeholders, 18-20, who notes that her catalogue of female officeholder inscriptions is illustrative, not exhaustive. The Christian evidence is different from that for Jewish title bearers in the staggering amount of literary sources for these Christian titles and women’s use of them.

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A great deal of literature is devoted to the various institutions to which literary sources reveal that early Christian women belonged.765 Sources as early as Paul’s letter to the Romans mention a female deacon, and subsequent Christian sources discuss various widows, virgins, deacons and, with increasing severity, regulations regarding what these ladies could and could not do as part of an official Church body. The popularity of women’s organizations within the Church meant that these groups became difficult to regulate as church officials sought to limit their influence. Susanna Elm argues that, by the late fourth and fifth centuries, the Church found an effective way to regulate women’s participation in the clergy by subsuming the originally independent orders of widows, virgins, and deacons into an amalgamated category of deacon, which took on the characteristics of all three.766 Thus, whereas in the third and fourth century Didascalia

Apostolorum and Constitutiones Apostolorum gave female deacons specific roles in safeguarding the modesty of women during the performance of church rites and in other male-female interactions, in subsequent centuries the term became generalized to mean one who oversees an ascetic community: what Elm characterizes as an honorific designation, awarded in return “for services rendered.”767

In some cases, the services in question were financial. The founding and administration of monasteries was a prime method by which wealthy Christian women

765Bonnie Thurston, The Widows: Women's Ministry in the Early Church (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989); Jean LaPorte, The Role of Women in the Early Church (New York: E. Mellon Press, 1982); Kevin Madigan and Carolyn Osiek, Ordained women in the early church: A documentary history (Baltimore; Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005). Patricia Cox Miller, Women in Early Christianity (Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 2006); Carolyn Osiek, “The widow as altar: The rise and fall of a symbol,” The Second Century 3.3 (1983), 159-169; Carolyn Osiek and Margaret MacDonald, A Woman's Place: House Churches in Earliest Christianity (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2006); Kate Cooper, The virgin and the bride: idealized womanhood in late antiquity (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996). 766Susanna Elm, ‘Virgins of God’: the Making of Asceticism in Late Antiquity (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), 137-183. 767Elm, ‘Virgins of God,’ 170-171; 182

260 exercised practices of patronage. Olympias, friend of both Chrysostom and Gregory of

Nazianzus, is a preeminent example of a wealthy deacon who founded and presided over a monastic community.768 Her relative, Elisanthia, inherited her position as head of the monastery and, presumably, a sizeable share of the family fortune which, as a deacon, she gave to the Church.769

On the other hand, many of the famous women who established monasteries and made other financial gifts to the Church were not honored with the office of deacon.770

Jerome’s friend Paula, lauded for countless merits in Jerome’s letter to her daughter

Eustochium, is not called a deacon, either in the text of his encomium or in the epitaph he records there.771 More important than appointment to an office such as deacon, at least in many male-authored literary sources, is the embodiment of a rigorous ascetic ideal accompanied by generous benefaction.772 Thus the Life of Melania the Younger alternates between tales of Melania’s unceasing efforts to give away her entire fortune and stories detailing the physical austerities she imposed upon herself.

As was the case with Jewish patronage and titles, where some female donors received titles while others who gave did not, Christian women’s financial benefaction was rewarded in a variety of ways: some like Olympias were ordained as deacons, while

768Elm, ‘Virgins of God,’ 178-179. 769Elm, ‘Virgins of God,’ 180. 770For numerous examples, see Clark, “Patrons not Priests: Gender and Power in Late Ancient Christianity,” Gender & History 2.3 (1990), 253-273. 771Jerome, Epistle 58 to Eustochium. 772For asceticism as a social alternative for wealthy Roman Christian women, see Clark, “Patrons not Priests.”

261 others like Paula were not.773 Clearly, there were many similarities between Jewish and

Christian practices and this is not particularly surprising. As Clark notes, changes in patronage practices in the Roman Empire more broadly meant that the prestige once garnered through municipal benefaction was, in Late Antiquity, derived from patronage of private institutions instead.774 The Church became the private institution par excellence to patronize.775

Given these similarities, wherein lies the difference between Jewish and Christian female patronage and title bearing? This very brief look at the Christian material offers a few possibilities.776 First, Elm’s discussion of women’s offices in the Church frames the role of female deacon, the most numerous epigraphic title among Christian women’s inscriptions, as one created to contain and control women’s attempts to achieve clerical authority.777 Patronage, on the other hand, is seen as a positive opportunity for wealthy

Christian women to defy social norms and to escape male authority.778 There is a tension between title and patronage that is not apparent in the Jewish evidence.

Second, whereas patronage and title bearing in Jewish communities appear as a means by which both men and women achieved enhanced status for themselves and their communities, these practices among Christians appear to divide and separate men and

773See Karen Britt, “Fama et Memoria: Portraits of Female Patrons in Mosaic Pavements of Churches in Byzantine Palestine and Arabia,” Medieval Feminist Forum 44.2 (2008), 119-143, for female patrons who were honored with portraits. 774Clark, “Patrons not Priests,” 259. 775On the conversion of the Roman upper classes to Christianity, see Michele Salzman, The making of a Christian aristocracy: social and religious change in the western Roman Empire (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002). 776It is my hope to expand upon this topic in a subsequent treatment of the subject. 777As noted above, Eisen, Women Officeholders, does not give specific numbers or statistics regarding female officeholders in inscriptions but, given that she offers more examples of deacons than other titles, it is reasonable to extrapolate that this is the most common title given to women in inscriptions. 778Clark, “Patrons not Priests,” 263-264.

262 women. By late antiquity, for example, male deacons and female deacons were assigned significantly different roles.779 Male patrons of the church might also adopt ascetic lifestyles, but the two actions do not seem correlated to the same degree among men as they were for women: men had numerous options in Christianity for accruing honor and prestige.780 Men and women appear to have different motivations for patronage of the

Church.

These observations are preliminary at best and merit sustained exploration. The very similarities apparent among women’s patronage and title bearing in Christianity and

Judaism necessitate careful analysis lest their commonalities obscure important differences in how beneficence and awarding of titles were carried out in each groups’ respective communities. Just because Jewish and Christian communities seem to conceptualize and perform patronage and the awarding of titles differently does not necessarily mean the phenomena are entirely unrelated. As the next section will show,

Jewish and Christian mortuary inscriptions are distinctly different in the articulation of their respective corporate identities, yet those articulations occur, I argue, in conversation with one another. Perhaps the similarities and differences between Christian and Jewish women’s patronage and titles should be understood in a similar way.

Financial Leadership in Synagogues: Conclusions

Building on the previous section’s expansion of ways to view leadership, this discussion of financial leadership in synagogues has traced briefly the tradition of Jewish participation in Greco-Roman patronage systems. The writings of Josephus indicate that

779There is, as usual, probably a difference between what the Church’s directives say each group should do and what they might really have been doing. Most Christian authors, at least, thought of male deacons and female deacons as very different types of deacons. 780Clark, “Patrons not Priests,” 263.

263 men and women, both Jewish and gentile, acted in the capacity of patrons towards Jewish individuals and institutions, albeit evincing a degree of disapproval for Jewish women doing so. Moreover, patronage of synagogues appears to differ very little in practice from that of other types of private associations found in Diaspora cities, where wealthy donors receive a variety of honors and accolades from grateful recipients. The wide variety of individuals who received titles (gods and humans, the living and the dead, adults and children, association members and non-members) makes it infeasible to conclude that titles were awarded primarily on the basis of administrative, clerical, or ritual responsibilities within the group; instead, given the spectrum of recipients, titles make sense as one of the many ways by which the gratitude of beneficiaries was expressed. In this way, titles became part of the social identity of donors, as demonstrated by the

Rufina inscription. I would suggest the inclusion of titles in mortuary inscriptions served the same function: to display the prestigious social identity of the bearer.

Two questions remain: why here (the Diaspora) and now (the fourth and fifth centuries CE)? That is, we know that women acted as patrons as early as the Hellenistic period and that titles were in use at least two generations prior to the Theodotus inscription. Why, then do inscriptions with titles figure almost exclusively in the

Diaspora and concentrate mainly in these two specific centuries? The final section of this chapter will return to an argument made briefly in Chapter Two regarding the atmosphere of religious competition between Judaism and Christianity that characterized the late

Roman period. I contend that inscriptions with titles played an active role in the material dialogue between Jews and Christians as each group sought to create and display its ideological identity vis-à-vis the other.

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5.5: Inscribing Identity

As noted in Chapter Two, the fourth and fifth centuries have increasingly been recognized as a period of intense interaction between Judaism and Christianity as the latter achieved, first, recognition by and finally, control over, the Roman Empire. Seth

Schwartz has argued that it is only with the Christianization of the Empire that a corresponding Judaization occurred.781 This process of Judaization witnessed a previously latent sense of Jewish corporate identity to emerge in response to

Christianity’s claims to the inheritance of Israel and to exclusive possession of religious truth. While Schwartz’s position has seemed extreme to some, the fourth century marks a watershed moment in terms of monumental construction and artistic representation for both groups.782 The competitive interaction between Judaism and Christianity took many forms and engaged numerous media, including literature, art, and architecture.783 The goal of this section is to locate the practice of memorializing title bearers in inscriptions as part of this interaction. Specifically, I see inscriptions as one of several physical media used to create and maintain religious identities.

To illustrate the type of religious competition that characterizes this period and to demonstrate that religious claims were made using material means, this section will first discuss how Judaism and Christianity both made claim to the sanctity of the Jerusalem

Temple using art and architecture. In consequence (and/or because), synagogues and churches came to be recognized as loci or physical embodiments of their respective

781Schwartz, Imperialism, 240-274. The terms “Christianization” and “Judaization” are borrowed from Schwartz, see Imperialism, 179; 240. 782See above, n. 22. 783The phrase “competitive interaction” is borrowed from Martha Himmelfarb, “Mother of the Messiah in the Talmud Yerushalmi and Sefer Zerubbabel,” in Peter Schäfer and Catherine Hezser (eds.), The Talmud Yerushalmi and Graeco-Roman Culture v. 3 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998), 369-390.

265 constituents and those constituents’ collective religious identities.784 Next, the section will address the ways in which both Jews and Christians used mortuary inscriptions as an additional physical location through which to articulate particular notions of community.

This section will conclude by arguing that titles, those of Jewish women and men, were displayed with the goals of creating, promoting, and strengthening the status of Jewish communities in an increasingly competitive religious environment.

While literature, primarily polemic Christian literature, has long dominated conversations about Jewish-Christian relations in late antiquity, the contributions that materiality can offer on the topic are increasingly recognized. Jaś Elsner makes the following observation.

As students of late antique religion have long recognized, one key aspect of the rich plurality of cults in the Greco-Roman world lay in their need for self-definition. This is no less the case in the visual decorations of the sacred spaces which art appropriates for cult status and activities than it is in matters of ritual, writing, theology, or initiation. While visual claims to cult identity need hardly be defined as resistant, the use of methods of sacrifice, kinds of dress, or other ritual features specifically and structurally differentiated from those of other cults or from the state cult offered the potential for the affirmation of identity to be more than merely a claim for attention. It could also be implicitly a comment on how being, say, a Jew or a mithraist was different from (dare one say, better than) being the adherent of another cult. Although this self-differentiation was partly a matter of competition for custom and even of advertising… such differentiation did imply a negative commentary on (a form of resistance to) the other cults in the very act of self- affirmation.785

Material claim to Temple sanctity exemplifies the type of self-definition and advertisement that Elsner describes and constitutes one of many examples that illustrate the competitive interpretation in which Jews and Christians were engaged during these

784I am thinking of Spiegel’s notion of simultaneous cause and consequence in “History, Historicism,” 78. 785Elsner, Roman Eyes, 258-259.

266 centuries.786 Religious competition played out in a material forum in the transference of

Temple sanctity into post-Temple religious structures of synagogue and church.

In its first several centuries, Christianity’s claim to legitimacy was staked in large part on the Church’s argument of being the true Israel and legitimate inheritor of God’s promises to his people in the Hebrew Bible.787 The Roman world in which Christianity first emerged was highly suspicious of religious innovation. The new religion sought to legitimate itself in part by association with Judaism’s venerable antiquity and respect for ancestral customs.788 Christianity’s political need to represent itself as the true Israel lessened once the religion gained official recognition in the fourth century. The trope remained theologically useful in casting the Jews as a people abandoned by God and

Christians as the legitimate successors to their place as God’s chosen people.789 Making a

786Another example would be the competing Jewish and Christian visual claims to the Aqedah, which features prominently in the art of both early synagogues and churches. See Edward Kessler, “Art leading the story: The ‘Aqedah in early synagogue art,” in Levine and Weiss, From Dura to Sepphoris, 73-82; Joseph Gutmann, “Revisiting the ‘Binding of Isaac’ mosaic in the Beth Alpha synagogue,” Bulletin of the Asia Institute 6 (1992), 79-85; Kurt Weitzmann and Herbert Kessler, The Frescoes of the Dura synagogue and Christian art (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 1990); Joseph Gutmann, “The Sacrifice of Isaac: variations on a theme in early Jewish and Christian art,” in Dieter Ahrens (ed.), Θιασος των Μουσων. Studien zu Antike und Christentum. Festchrift für Josef Fink zum 70. Geburtstag (Cologne: Böhlau, 1984), 115-122. Noah is an additional example, see Naomi Koltun-Fromm, “Aphrahat and the Rabbis on Noah’s Righteousness in light of the Jewish-Christian Polemic,” in Judith Frishman and Lucas van Rompay (eds.), The Book of Genesis in Jewish and Oriental Christian Interpretation (Leuven: Peeters, 1997), 57-71; Joseph Gutmann, “Noah's Raven in Early Christian and Byzantine Art,” Cahiers archéologiques; fin de l'antiquité et moyen âge 26 (1977), 63. 787The phrase “true Israel” derives from Marcel Simon’s Verus Israel (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986). 788The relationship between Judaism and Christianity in the early centuries of the era is a much discussed topic. See Boyarin, Border Lines; the essays in Karl Donfried and Peter Richardson (eds.), Judaism and Christianity in First-Century Rome (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998); the essays in James Dunn (ed.), Jews and Christians: the parting of the ways, A.D. 70 to 135 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999); Marius Heemstra, The fiscus Judaicus and the parting of the ways (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010). 789The classic study is James Parkes, The Conflict of the Church and the Synagogue: A Study in the Origins of Antisemitism (London: The Soncino Press, 1934). See also Wilken, John Chrysostom and the Jews; Wolfram Kinzig, “‘Non-Separation’: Closeness and Co-operation between Jews and Christians in the Fourth Century,” Vigiliae Christianae 45 (1991), 27-53; Thomas Robinson, Ignatius of Antioch and the parting of the ways: early Jewish-Christian relations (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2009); Elizabeth Boddens Hosang, Establishing boundaries: Christian-Jewish relations in early council texts and the writings of Church Fathers (Leiden: Brill, 2010).

267 convincing claim to possession of the Jerusalem Temple’s sanctity was one means by which the inheritance of Israel was made manifest. Such claims were made by both Jews and Christians by means of architectural developments in synagogues and churches.

As noted in Chapter One, first century synagogues were small and almost always unadorned.790 Christians held services in private homes or other locations indiscernible in the archaeological record. In contrast, the fourth century witnessed widespread construction of monumental synagogue and church buildings. Many of these buildings displayed a variety of distinctive religious artwork and liturgical furniture. The explosion of Christian construction at this time makes sense, given the religion’s official recognition and imperial sponsorship.791 Some scholars have argued that the rapid increase in and monumental character of synagogue buildings constitutes a direct response to this emergent Christian architectural hegemony.792 It is within these buildings that a material competition over Temple sanctity occurred.

Joan Branham has suggested that the position and use of chancel screens in churches and synagogues constitutes a direct parallel to the low parapet wall, or soreg, which demarcated increasing levels of sanctity within the Jerusalem Temple complex.793 The

Christian understanding of chancel screens working in parallel with the Temple soreg and invoking Temple sanctity is confirmed by both literary and visual sources. For example,

790As Chapter One notes, the exception to this general rule is the 1st century synagogue at Magdala, which although small is decorated. The Magdala synagogue has yet to be published in even preliminary form. 791See L. Michael White, The social origins of Christian architecture v. 1-2 (Valley Forge: Trinity Press, 1996-1997) and Building God’s House. 792Schwartz, Imperialism, 203-214. 793Joan Branham, “Sacred Space under Erasure in Ancient Synagogues and Early Churches,” The Art Bulletin 74.3 (1992), 375-394. See also Gideon Foerster, “Decorated Marble Chancel Screens in Sixth Century Synagogues in Palestine and Their Relation to Christian Art and Architecture,” in Actes du XIe Congrès International d’Archéologie Chrétienne, II (Rome: Ecole française de Rome, 1989), 1810-1820.

268 the fourth century Christian writer Eusebius, in his description of the church at Tyre, uses

Temple vocabulary to describe the internal divisions within the church and the separation of the holy of holies from areas of lesser sanctity.794 The sixth century mosaic floor in the

Church of the Theotokos at Mount Nebo expresses the same sentiment visually by depicting the Jerusalem Temple and its altar – and positioning the image immediately behind the church’s chancel screen.795 These examples make clear that Christian architecture and iconography were deliberately making the claim that churches had inherited the sanctity of the Temple.796

Contemporaneous to Christian visual expressions of church sanctity, an increasing sense of Torah and, consequently, synagogue sacrality is apparent in synagogues beginning in the fourth century. Construction of permanent Torah shrines on the

Jerusalem-oriented wall and the restriction of access to this area of the synagogue using chancel screens signal a demarcation of sacred space absent in earlier synagogue architecture.797 That this sense of sacredness newly imbued in Torah and synagogue is intentionally and specifically tied to Temple sanctity is indicated by the prominence of the Temple and its related paraphernalia in the decorative layout of synagogue mosaics.

The panels of the fifth century Sepphoris synagogue are the most explicit in this regard,

794Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 10.4.1-3, 25, 69. 795Branham, “Sacred Space,” figs. 11-12; Michele Piccirillo, The Mosaics of Jordan (Amman: American Center of Oriental Research, 1993), 151, n. 200. 796For an early approach to this subject, see Hugh Nibley, “Christian Envy of the Temple,” Jewish Quarterly Review 50.2-3 (1959-1960), 97-123; 229-240. 797The sanctity of the synagogue is a popular topic of discussion, see, among others Fine, This Holy Place; Joan Branham, “Vicarious Sacrality: Temple Space in Ancient Synagogues,” in Dan Urman and Paul Flesher (eds.), Ancient Synagogues: Historical Analysis and Archaeological Discovery v. 2 (Leiden: Brill, 1995) 319-346; Francine Cardman, “The Rhetoric of Holy Places: Palestine in the 4th Century,” Studia Patristica 17 (1982), 18-25; Steven Fine (ed.), Sacred Realm: The Emergence of the Synagogue in the Ancient World (New York: Oxford University Press and Yeshiva University Museum, 1996); Baruch Litvin, The Sanctity of the Synagogue (Hoboken: Ktav, 1987); Kurt Schubert, “Sacra Sinagoga’-zur Heiligkeit der Synagoge in der Spätantike,” Bibel und Liturgie 54 (1981), 27-24.

269 devoting three entire registers to Temple related imagery as described in the books of

Exodus and Numbers.798 Elements include an image of the Temple or wilderness

Tabernacle flanked by menorahs, Moses’ brother Aaron, the sacrificial altar and water basin along with animals, flour, and oil for daily sacrifices, the showbread table and basket of first fruits.

Synagogue chancel screens continue the visual demarcation of sacrality by repeating images from mosaics, such as menorot. In some cases, the visual invocation of sacred space is reinforced verbally. A chancel screen from a seventh century synagogue at

Ashkelon features a dedicatory inscription, which commemorates that “Kyros has presented [it] to God and the Holy Place for his salvation.”799 Branham notes, “In the fourth and fifth centuries, synagogue space ultimately merges with ‘memorialized

Temple space’ when Temple ingredients permeate the art of synagogues.”800

Architecturally and artistically, synagogues make unambiguous claims to Temple sanctity beginning in the fourth century. As others have convincingly argued, this emphasis occurs precisely because such claims materialized in contemporary Christian art and architecture.801 In the rivalry between Jews and Christians to be the true inheritors of Israel, successful claims to Temple sanctity were essential – and these efforts were played out on a material stage in synagogues and churches.

798On the Sepphoris synagogue and its decoration, see Ze’ev Weiss and Ehud Netzer, Promise and Redemption: A Synagogue Mosaic from Sepphoris (Jerusalem: Israel Museum, 1996) and the many essays in Levine and Weiss, From Dura to Sepphoris. 799Eleazar Sukenik, “The Ancient Synagogue of el-Hammeh,” Journal of the Palestinian Oriental Society 15 (1935), 101-180. 800Branham, “Sacred Space,” 387. 801As argued by Branham, “Sacred Space,” Schwartz, Imperialism, and Magness, “Heaven on Earth,” all with slightly different emphases. See also Bianca Kühnel, “Jewish Symbolism of the Temple and the Tabernacle and Christian Symbolism of the Holy Sepulchre and the Heavenly Tabernacle: A Study of their Relationship in Late Antique and Early Medieval Art and Thought,” Jewish Art 12-13 (1986-1987), 147- 168.

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The concept of synagogues and churches as loci of religious competition, in which each edifice represents the collective identity of its constituents, is picked up occasionally in literature as well.802 A fifth century work of Christian polemic, incorrectly attributed to

Augustine of Hippo, narrates a conversation between female personifications of

Synagoga and Ecclesia.803 The anonymous author takes aim at what he perceives as a weak spot in Jewish theology vis-à-vis gender. Unlike Christianity, which baptizes men and women as equals in the body of Christ, Judaism’s ritual of initiation is restricted to men. Without being circumcised, Lady Church wonders, how can Jewish women be included in God’s covenant and concomitant salvation?

802Christian Adversus Judeos literature is well known and oft-discussed, see Paula Fredriksen, Augustine and the Jews: A Christian Defense of Jews and Judaism (New York: Doubleday, 2008); the essays in Ora Limor and Guy Stroumsa (eds.), Contra Iudaeos: ancient and medieval polemics between Christians and Jews (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1996); John Gager, The Origins of Anti-Semitism: Attitudes toward Judaism in Pagan and Christian Antiquity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983). A lack of response Jewish response in Greek or Latin might result from there being no preservation of a late antique Philo or Josephus who engaged with Christians as these earlier authors did with polytheist Romans. Anti-Christian engagement in Hebrew and Aramaic is preserved in a variety of sources, for example in the oral or unpreserved written antecedents to the Toledot Yeshu texts of the medieval period. See Samuel Krauss, Das Leben Jesu nach jüdischen Quellen (Berlin: S. Cavalry, 1902); Riccardo di Segni, Il vangelo del ghetto (Rome: Newton Compton editori, 1985); Peter Schaefer, Michael Meerson, and Yaacov Deutsch, Toledot Yeshu (“The Life Story of Jesus”) Revisited (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011); Hillel Newman, “The Death of Jesus in the Toledot Yeshu Literature,” Journal of Theological Studies 50 (1999), 59-79; Morris Goldstein, Jesus in the Jewish Tradition (New York: Macmillan, 1950). On Rabbinic writings about Christians, see Richard Kalmin, “Christians and Heretics in Rabbinic Literature of Late Antiquity,” Harvard Theological Review 87 (1994), 155-170. On poetry and piyyutim, see Ophir Münz-Manor, “Carnivalesque Ambivalence and the Christian Other in Jewish Poems from Byzantine Palestine,” in Robert Bonfil, Oded Irshai, Guy Stroumsa and Rina Talgam (eds.), Jews in Byzantium: Dialectics of Minority and Majority Cultures (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 831-845 and “Liturgical Poetry in the Late Antique Near East: A Comparative Approach,” Journal of Ancient Judaism 1.3 (2010), 336-361; Joseph Yahalom, Poetry and Society in Jewish Galilee of Late Antiquity (Tel Aviv: Ha-kibbutz Ha-me’uhad, 1999); Wout van Bekkum, “Anti-Christian Polemics in Hebrew Liturgical Poetry (Piyyuṭ) of the Sixth and Seventh Centuries,” in Jan den Boeft and Ton Hilhorst (eds.), Early Christian Poetry (Leiden: Brill, 1993), 297- 308; Hayim Schirmann, “Hebrew Liturgical Poetry and Christian Hymnology,” Jewish Quarterly Review 44 (1953), 123-161. 803De Altercatione Ecclesiae et Synagogae: Dialogus, in PL 42.1131-1140, discussed in Lukyn Williams, Adversus Judeaos: a bird’s-eye view of Christian Apologies until the Renaissance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1935), 321-338; Cohen, Why aren’t Jewish Women Circumcised?, 78-80. This text is mentioned in Brooten, Women Leaders, 63-64 in the context of its using the phrase “mothers of the synagogue” when discussing how Jewish women can participate in salvation without having received the mark of the covenant.

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The specific topic of the dialogue, though interesting, is not particularly relevant in the present context. Nor is the fact that the personifications are female the most significant aspect of the work. Instead, I would draw attention to the fact that it is Church and Synagogue which are used as embodiments of Christianity and Judaism, to represent and to defend social practices and their theological ramifications. Although it would be imprudent to generalize from this one example, it is nonetheless striking that the author considers churches and synagogues to be the most apt materials by which to personify each group and argues for the centrality of these structures to the essence of each community.804

The preceding discussion of religious competition between Judaism and Christianity in the realms of architecture, art, and literature had two aims. First, to establish that such competition was carried out in concrete, material ways. That is, Jewish/Christian dialogue was not restricted to verbal exchanges, but engaged physical media as well. Second, to emphasize that churches and synagogues came to represent the collective identity of both

Jews and Christians, tangibly and, at least occasionally, literarily.

Inscriptions were, likewise, physical locations for the creation and advertisement of religious identity. Whereas in the case of Temple sanctity both Jews and Christians wished to lay hold of the same theological construct, in the case of mortuary inscriptions each group choose a different way to inscribe and display their (eternal) corporate identity. My contention is that inscriptions commemorating Jewish women with titles

804There is certainly a degree of word play with the polyvalence of synagoge and ecclesia meaning both buildings and their congregations. In the case of synagogue, however, by the fifth century it is my impression that, particularly in Christian writings, the term is used primarily to indicate a building rather than the Jewish people themselves. While the Hebrew/Aramaic knesset continues to have a dual structural/community meaning, it is unclear the degree to which this usage would have affected Greek- speaking Diaspora Jewish populations.

272 operate within a similar competitive environment, using material display to claim ideological space in the rapidly Christianizing Roman world. I argue that Jewish and

Christian inscriptions of this period spoke to one another in making their unique claims to religious identity.

The idea that Christian and Jewish funerary inscriptions had a dialogic relationship is not commonly voiced. On one hand, this oversight is due to the practice of uncritical reading of epigraphic sources generally, as discussed in Chapter Three. Even when inscriptions are acknowledged as purposefully constructed representations of the past, there seems to be a lingering reluctance to envision any Christian/Jewish interaction in a mortuary context.805 Any such reluctance, as Chapter Three argues, is based upon the outdated notion of Jewish communities as insulated and isolated from their non-Jewish neighbors and modern ideas of death as a private matter, which it was not.806 The artistic and architectural rivalry discussed above was predicated upon access – access which was not limited to the world of the living.

There is no reason to discount funerary epigraphy as an additional forum in which ideological competition between Jews and Christians occurred. Each group used commemorative practices to articulate and to broadcast particular and distinct self- understandings. By looking at what each group was saying in their inscriptions, the ways in which those inscriptions spoke to one another becomes clearer.

805Again, see Chapter Three and the influence of Rutgers, Late Ancient Rome. 806For arguments supporting the mixed burial of Jews and non-Jews, see Tal Ilan, “Kever Israel: Since when do Jews bury their Dead Separately and What did they do Beforehand” in Albert Baumgarten, Hanan Eshel, Ranon Katzoff, and Shani Tzoref (eds.), Halakhah in Light of Epigraphy (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011), 241-254 and David Noy, “Where were the Jews of the Diaspora buried?” in Martin Goodman (ed.), Jews in a Graeco-Roman World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 75-89.

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For reasons perhaps related to the universal grant of citizenship in 212 CE, the Greco-

Roman habit of funerary epigraphy declined beginning in the third century.807 After a hiatus of about one hundred years, the practice of epigraphic commemoration experienced an intense resurgence, but the inscriptions produced were of a very different character. Unlike Plancia’s inscriptions memorializing her beneficence to the city of

Perge, late Roman period inscriptions are overwhelmingly funerary in nature, leading some to characterize the late Roman epigraphic habit as an epitaphic habit.808 One reason for this surge in funerary epigraphy is the rapid increase in explicitly Christian epitaphs.

The total number of Jewish inscriptions from the late Roman Mediterranean is roughly

2000; late Roman period Christian inscriptions are conservatively estimated at 50,000.809

Not only are late Roman inscriptions mostly Christian and overwhelmingly epitaphs, but they tend to express distinctly different sentiments than those attitudes which characterized the mortuary inscriptions of polytheist Romans. For example, Christian inscriptions do not typically provide information about a decedent’s life. Among a sample of approximately 4000 Christian inscriptions from the city of Rome, only 162 mention the occupation of the person memorialized.810 These inscriptions suggest that

807This topic is still debated, the best summary being that epigraphic trends differed region to region. See Meyer, “Explaining the Epigraphic Habit,” 74-96; Cherry, “Re-Figuring the Roman Epigraphic Habit,” 143-156. 808Galvao-Sobrinho, “Funerary Epigraphy,” 445. See, however, Elizabeth Forbis, Municipal Virtues in the Roman Empire: The Evidence of Roman Honorary Inscriptions (Stuttgart: B. G. Teubner, 1996), 101, who argues that, at least in Italy, Roman honorary inscriptions continued apace throughout the 3rd century. See also Forbis’ earlier publication, “Women’s Public Image in Italian Honorary Inscriptions,” The American Journal of Philology 111.4 (1990), 493-512. 809Galvao-Sobrinho, “Funerary Epigraphy,” 435, who acknowledges the great difficulties inherent to attempts at estimating these numbers. 810Brent Shaw, “Seasons of Death: Aspects of Mortality in Imperial Rome,” Journal of Roman Studies 86 (1996), 100-138, who notes that this sample includes 91 secular occupations and 71 ecclesiastical office holders. These numbers indicate that church office was a more important occupation to include in an epitaph than a secular one.

274 among Christians, one’s occupation or daily activities were not of sufficient importance to include routinely in an epitaph. This tendency stands in marked contrast with earlier

Greco-Roman funerary inscriptions, which emphasize achievements and status garnered during life.

Instead, Christian inscriptions reflect a new emphasis on death and afterlife. Careful attention is given to the date, and even the time of death, in addition to the more common inclusion of age at death.811 Most characteristic of Christian epigraphic practice is the expression of faith in resurrection and eternal life.812 Whereas many Greco-Roman inscriptions called out for the decedent’s remembrance and Jewish inscriptions express hope for the deceased’s peaceful sleep, Christian inscriptions voice sentiments such as,

“Live in eternity,” and “I expect the Lord himself… to revive these ashes.”813

The differences noted in this specifically Christian epigraphic habit are clearly related, on one level, to theological tenets. Christian conceptualizations of death and existence afterwards, if not entirely new, were newly framed and articulated. These beliefs were influential on practices of memorialization. The writings of Church fathers, including Chrysostom, Gregory of Nyssa, and Augustine, betray a degree of anxiety on the part of some Christians about how, exactly, resurrection was going to work.814 Their concern centers on making sure to be clearly identifiable in the jumble of bodies –

811Shaw, “Seasons of Death,” 103. 812Shaw, “Seasons of Death,” 105. 813Galvao-Sobrinho, “Funerary Epigraphy,” 453-454. See also Iiro Kajanto, “The Hereafter in Ancient Christian Epigraphy and Poetry,” Arctos 12 (1978), 27-53. 814Gregory of Nyssa, On the Soul and the Resurrection, PG 46.85-88; Augustine, Sermons 227.4, PL 38, 114; Chrysostom, Homily 85 on the Gospel of John, PG 59.464.

275 including those of pagans, heretics, and Jews – which will be raised from the dead.815 A clearly marked epitaph could go a long way towards ensuring a spot among the saved.816

At the same time, however, fear of being missed in the post-resurrection crowd seems insufficient in itself to explain the surge in Christian funerary epigraphy in the fourth century. Galvao-Sobrinho argues that by revolutionizing the content of epitaphs,

Christians were engaged in a deliberate strategy of self-definition in terms of faith in afterlife.817 That is, Christian mortuary inscriptions were purposeful in their articulation of self-definition as “the saved” in the atmosphere of religious competition that characterized the fourth and fifth centuries. The intentional de-emphasis on lifetime achievements and focus on hopes for the afterlife constituted a construction of Christian religious identity deliberately distinct from that of their interlocutors.

For Galvao-Sobrinho, those interlocutors were predominantly polytheist.818 I do not dispute that, for Christians in the late Roman period, the polytheist majority from which most converts originated were the primary cultural group against which Christians defined themselves. 819 At the same time, however, the evidence cited above indicates that by the fourth century, polytheists were not engaged to any significant degree with

815Augustine, Epistle 102.2, PL 33.371. 816Galvao-Sobrinho, “Funerary Epigraphy,” 456. 817Galvao-Sobrinho, “Funerary Epigraphy,” 456-457. 818Galvao-Sobrinho, “Funerary Epigraphy,” 457 and n.112, which does list some anti-Jewish polemical texts among the primary sources cited to demonstrate “…the conflict at the intellectual and visceral levels…” 819Although Christian and Jewish art focused on depicting biblical characters, Greco-Roman artistic conventions continued to be influential in the figural art of both Christians and Jews, as can be seen in the appropriation of Helios imagery for Metatron and Christ Pantokrator, the depiction of the zodiac and personified seasons in synagogue and church art, etc. See Magness, “Heaven on Earth.”

276 mortuary epigraphy.820 On the other hand, Jewish funerary epigraphy was abundant.821 I would argue that in the realm of mortuary self-definition, Christians were defining themselves vis-à-vis Jews and vice versa.

In contrast to Christian emphasis on resurrection and afterlife in epitaphs, Diaspora

Jewish inscriptions of the fourth and fifth centuries emphasize lifetime achievement: the holding of offices and affirmations of having lived a good or blameless life. In other words, Jewish epitaphs express sentiments similar to those found in Greco-Roman funerary inscriptions from earlier periods. These similarities are not particularly surprising, given the position supported throughout this study that Diaspora synagogues and their organizational structures were modeled upon the lines of Greco-Roman civic associations, wherein individuals linked by common occupation or religious conviction banded together for mutual support and social engagement. As discussed in earlier chapters, the titles under discussion here – head of the synagogue, mother and father, archon – were borrowed and adapted from Greco-Roman models. In their efforts to articulate an epitaphic self-definition, Diaspora Jews continued the practice of commemorating lifetime achievements, including titles awarded within synagogue communities, as part of their strategy to claim religious space in the face of Christian encroachment. In so doing, Jewish epigraphy of the fourth century and later capitalized upon an established mode of advertising religious identity in the form of social cachet.

820Sarcophagus decoration featuring Dionysus, seasons, and theatrical masks continue to be used by both Jews and Christians, see Rutgers, Late Ancient Rome, 77-81 for a discussion of Jewish sarcophagi at Rome. Again, my argument here is not that Roman polytheists were not numerous or influential in the fourth century, but rather than their decreasing interest in epigraphic commemoration opened the door for Jewish and Christians to appropriate and modify customary practices. 821Numerically, of course, Jewish epitaphs are dwarfed by those of Christians, as the statistics cited above demonstrate. Nonetheless, I would argue that just as Jews had an influence disproportionate to their population upon the polytheist and Christian majorities, so too did their epigraphy.

277

Just as Plancia Magna’s financial support of the city of Perge bought social prestige for the Plancii family, I would argue that by memorializing title bearers in inscriptions

Jewish communities accomplished the same aim: to advertise their social prominence and the financial support and patronage they enjoy. Not unlike Plancia, Jewish women of financial means acted in the best interest of their community by conveying epigraphically the wealth and vitality of the Jewish community. I contend that Jewish title inscriptions spoke to the emergent Christian hegemony in the same language that monumental, competitively decorated synagogues did. In response to Christian mortuary self-definition in terms of afterlife, Jews of the Diaspora chose, perhaps defiantly, to commemorate the achievements of their lifetimes and thereby promote and solidify the social prestige of the

Jewish communities of the Christian Roman Empire.

Inscribing Identity: Conclusions

This section has argued that Jewish inscriptions featuring female title bearers participated alongside those of male title bearers in an articulation of Jewish identity.

That identity capitalized on social notions of wealth and prestige and occurred in conversation with contemporaneous efforts on the part of Christians to formulate and express their own self-understanding using inscriptions. I have suggested that, along with art and architecture, epigraphy was a physical locus of ideological competition between

Jews and Christians, most specifically in the fourth and fifth centuries. Sophia of Gortyn and other female title bearers demonstrate one way in which Jews claimed space and inscribed identity in a rapidly changing world.

5.6: Conclusions

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This chapter has sought to dislodge some of the assumptions brought, consciously and unconsciously, to discussions of women and their roles in early synagogue communities. The goal of objective analysis is unattainable and present day questions and concerns are of relevance to historians. The past must be left in its alterity and its inhabitants engaged according to their own grammar of concepts – a grammar that does not necessarily articulate desire for independent action, autonomy, or leadership born solely of dominance. We cannot know who “led” synagogues in our sense of the term.

In the ancient world, however, financial patronage was leadership. Titles awarded in gratitude for beneficence were functional precisely because they were honorary. Titles were displayed in inscriptions for the benefit of both patrons and beneficiaries, as they defined and enhanced the social identity of both parties. Social identity, inherently public, would be meaningless in a vacuum: such displays were meant to be seen and, thereby, to participate in creating the social realities surrounding them.

Where, then, does this conclusion leave Jewish female title bearers? The driving thesis behind Brooten’s monograph was that titled women should not be treated differently than titled men: an archisynagogos is an archisynagogos. Fair enough, but what is an archisynagogos? It is my contention that titles such as this were awarded in recognition of social prestige and financial patronage, in the expectation that individuals so honored by the community would continue in their benefaction. Titled men and women, whatever else they did, held positions of financial leadership in Jewish communities. Does this conclusion make Sophia, Marcella, Mazauzala, et al. and their titles insignificant, uninteresting, or meaningless?

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Women should not be studied in isolation from their social and cultural contexts. To talk about Jewish women in antiquity it is necessary to talk about Jewish society in late antiquity as a whole. Likewise, a small corpus of inscriptions should not be studied without considering broader epigraphic trends. The practice of commemorating Jewish women with titles must be analyzed as part of a more general Jewish epigraphic habit, which is itself conditioned by broader commemorative customs. The inscriptions of female title bearers, and those of men, were material participants in the ideological competition between Jews and Christians: a dialogue that shaped the self-definition of each group. This conclusion does not strike me as meaningless at all.

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Chapter Six: Conclusion

This study began as an exploration of women and their roles in ancient synagogues and in the Diaspora Jewish communities of Late Antiquity. Where did synagogues originate and what occurred within their walls? Did women act as leaders in synagogues?

Did they hold positions of authority? Was that authority formal, official, and acknowledged by the community? Why are so many sources silent on such a potentially significant subject?

Unsatisfied with the answers of others and unable to create alternatives readily, the study quickly came to focus instead on the inscriptions used as evidence in the discussion of women leaders. When and where were these inscriptions created? Who read them and what larger significance did ancient readers derive from inscriptions’ concise language?

Where were inscriptions located and how would they have been viewed by those who saw them? Why were inscriptions an important vehicle for communicating information, textually and visually, about members of the Jewish community?

Ultimately, it became clear that the assumptions, biases, and perspectives of modern scholars were a concomitant subject of inquiry, having conditioned the framework and terms of the discussion itself. What is it we really want to know when asking whether women were leaders in ancient synagogues? Why is it important to answer this question and can we assume the issue was of similar importance to and conceived of in commensurate terms by ancient Jewish women themselves? How can historians reconcile the concerns of the present and the alterity of the past? Chapter One began with an overview on the origins of the synagogue and the early history of scholarship on synagogue titles. Linguistic and epigraphic evidence suggest that whatever its time or location of origin, synagogue buildings were first and foremost communal space for members of Jewish communities. In the Diaspora, these communities appear to have organized themselves and their properties as a type of private or voluntary association. Titled individuals, such as heads of the synagogue, archons, elders, etc. were seen as fulfilling the necessary administrative and religious leadership roles that synagogues would inevitably have required. Early scholars balked at seeing titled female individuals operating in roles comparable to those of men, but

Brooten rightly demonstrated that without evidence to the contrary, an archisynagogos is an archisynagogos. At this point the chapter differentiated its aims and goals from those of previous analyses, by considering titled women not as subjects themselves but as objects of representation in the inscriptions in which they appear. Subsequent chapters sought to explore the question of women’s epigraphic representation through a variety of analytical lenses, shifting the focus from women per se to inscriptions.

Chapter Two, after acknowledging various difficulties inherent to categorization, began with relatively straightforward chronological and geographical analyses of inscriptions which feature female title bearers. Surprisingly, the location and date of these inscriptions had never been considered at length in investigations of their meaning or significance. Diachronic analysis revealed that inscriptions in which women are associated with titles date predominantly to the fourth and fifth centuries CE. Geographic analysis indicated that these inscriptions were found almost exclusively in Mediterranean

Diaspora contexts, in both rural and urban sites and often in locations with significantly

282 diverse religious populations. The results of chronological and geographical analyses imply that the phenomenon of commemorating female title bearers occurred in locations of religious diversity in centuries which witnessed significant religious competition between Judaism and Christianity.

Chapter Three shifted to a textual analysis of title bearer inscriptions. While these inscriptions had typically been taken as straightforward, unproblematic documentary witnesses to past events, the argument was made, instead, that inscriptions were no less constructed than any other textual source and required interpretation. This discussion led to the question of who, in the ancient world, would have been reading inscriptions given widespread estimates of illiteracy. In many contexts, including inscriptions, the significance of the written word transcended the majority’s inability to read. Conventions typifying epigraphy as a genre and a variety of strategies employed between readers and non-readers allowed inscriptions’ words to have significance for both literate and non- literate audiences. Finally, the chapter addressed the varying locations in which inscriptions with title bearers appeared: in synagogues as dedicatory inscriptions and in catacombs as funerary inscriptions. The chapter concluded that, while in each context the strategy differed, in both places the function of titles in inscriptions was to enhance the reputation and status of both individual Jews and the Jewish community as a whole.

Chapter Four explored the notion of a non-reading majority in greater depth by considering the non-textual aspects of inscriptions and their material components.

Modern scholars are often divorced from the materiality of inscriptions, as inscriptions are most readily available in organized editions with little information provided about their original appearance or context. The conventions of publication create an

283 unavoidable disconnect between ancient and modern viewers. By engaging techniques of reception theory and visual culture studies, the perspective of ancient viewers is brought back to the fore. Likewise, when inscriptions appear on a printed page, their physicality is diminished. Chapter Three discussed what non-verbal messages the medium, quality of execution, and decorations on inscriptions would have communicated to viewers. Modern scholars are wary of allowing any significant degree of meaning to that which cannot be read, but the effects of the pictorial turn will inevitably reinforce the importance of inscriptions’ materiality.

Chapter Five returned to the beginning of the project by questioning the assumptions, motivations, and goals of those who seek to find female leaders in ancient synagogues.

Their project is revealed as being conditioned by androcentric, western concepts of control and domination as the locations whence leadership derives. Feminist theory offers a critique of androcentric definitions of leadership, while post-colonial analysis questions the prevailing assumptions of autonomy and individuality as values naturalized and innate to all humanity. It is possible that women were administrative and/or religious leaders in synagogues: the evidence provided by title bearer inscriptions cannot support this theory, but neither can it be disproved. What the existence of female title bearers does indicate is that Jewish women, along with Jewish men, were financial leaders of synagogue communities, receiving titles honoring them for patronage in return for financial benefaction. Far from meaningless, honorary titles were the currency by which status and prestige were purchased in the Roman patronage system adopted and adapted by Diaspora Jewish communities. By including titles in inscriptions, Jews were

284 advertising their communities’ social cachet in response to contemporaneous, aggressive self-definition by Christians in terms of death and resurrection.

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