Riots in Alexandria, 38 CE
Desecration of Synagogues
45–48
For it was more than clear that the rumor of the destruction of the synagogues that started in Alexandria would spread immediately to the districts of Egypt and speed from Egypt eastwards to the oriental nations, and from the coastal strip and Mareia, which are the borders of Libya, westwards to the nations living there. For there is not one country that can contain all the Jews, so numerous are they.
It is for this reason that they settle in most of the wealthiest countries of Europe and Asia, both their islands and the mainland. However, it is the holy city where the sacred temple of the Most High God stands, that they regard as their mother city, but the regions they obtained from their fathers, grandfathers, great-grandfathers, and even more remote ancestors, to live in, [they regard] as their fatherland where they were born and brought up. There are also some regions where they came to as immigrants at the very moment of their foundation, much to the pleasure of the founders.
There was reason to fear that people all over the world would take their cue from there and treat their Jewish fellow-citizens outrageously by taking violent measures against their synagogues and their ancestral customs.
The Jews, however, were not going to remain quiet at all costs—even though they are by nature a peaceful people—not only since, as is the case with all humankind, the struggle to maintain one’s own traditions overrules the dangers to one’s own life, but also since they were the only people under the sun who by being deprived of their synagogues would at the same time be deprived of their means of showing their piety towards their benefactors [the emperors—Ed.], which is something they would have regarded as worth dying for many thousands of deaths. They no longer would have sacred precincts in which they could declare their thankfulness. [ . . . ]
53–62, 67–68
His [Flaccus’—Ed.] attack on our laws by means of a seizure of our synagogues, of which he had even the names removed, seemed to be successful to him. For that reason he proceeded to another project, namely, the destruction of our political organization. His purpose in that enterprise was that, if the only things to which our life was anchored were cut away, that is, our ancestral customs and our participation in political rights, we might be exposed to the worst misfortunes without having any rope left to which we could cling to for safety.
Loss of Rights, Homes, and Employment
For only a couple of days later he issued a decree in which he stigmatized us as foreigners and aliens and gave us no right to plead our cause but condemned us without trial. [ . . . ]
Well, what do people do when they get this license? [ . . . ] They expelled the Jews from four of the five quarters [of the city—Ed.] and drove them together into a very small corner of the one left.
Because of their great numbers they [the Jews] flooded the beaches, the dunghills and the tombs, deprived of all their belongings. The enemies, however, ran to the houses left empty and plundered them; they divided the booty among themselves as if it were war. Since no one hindered them, they broke into the workshops of the Jews, even though these were closed because of the mourning for Drusilla [Julia Drusilla, sister of Caligula; d. 38 CE—Ed.], and they brought out all they found there, which was quite a lot. They carried it to the middle of the marketplace, handling other people’s property as if it were their own.
The unemployment, which was the consequence of this, was an evil that was even more unbearable than the plundering. The financers had lost their capital and no one was permitted to practice his usual business, neither farmer, nor shipper, nor merchant, nor artisan. So, poverty was brought down on them from two sides: first they were robbed because in one day they were stripped of all their property and lost all they had, and second they were no longer able to make a living from their regular jobs. [ . . . ]
For the treatment of prisoners of war by their victors—who are usually and naturally implacable to their prisoners—would, in comparison to what happened here, seem to be kindness itself. [ . . . ]
After the plunderings and evictions and the violent expulsions from most quarters of the city, they [the Jews] were like a beleaguered garrison surrounded by enemies. They were oppressed by a terrible scarcity and even lack of necessary things and they saw their wives and little children dying before their eyes through a famine organized by men. [ . . . ] Some people became even more outrageous because of the immunity and license with which they could commit these catastrophic crimes. They discarded all blunt weapons and took up the most effective of all, fire and iron; and consequently they killed many with swords and not a few were exterminated by fire. On top of all that the most merciless of all burnt even whole families, husbands with their wives, infant children with their parents, and that in the centre of the city, without any compassion for old age nor for youth nor for the innocent age of childhood. [ . . . ]
Arrest and Flogging of Jewish Leaders
73–75
After he had broken into everything as a real burglar and had let no part of the Jewish community escape his exorbitant hostility, Flaccus [ . . . ] devised a monstrous and unparalleled attack.
Our council of elders had been appointed to manage Jewish affairs, after the death of the genarch, by our savior and benefactor Augustus. [ . . . ] Of this council of elders, Flaccus arrested 38 members, namely those who had been discovered in their own houses, and had them immediately put in bonds. Then he organized a fine procession, in which he marched these old men through the middle of the market place, their hands bound behind their backs, some with straps, others with iron chains, and took them into the theatre. [ . . . ] He ordered them all to be stripped and lacerated with scourges, an insulting form of treatment usually reserved for the worst criminals. [ . . . ]
Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 2: Emerging Judaism.
