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An immigrant neighbourhood in ancient Rome

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 July 2019

Ryan R. Abrecht
Ryan R. Abrecht*
Affiliation:
History Department, KIPJ 265, University of San Diego, 5998 Alcalà Park, San Diego, CA 92110, USA
*
*Corresponding author. Email: rabrecht@sandiego.edu
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Abstract

This article examines evidence for community among immigrants in ancient Transtiberim (modern Trastevere), a section of Rome that was both socially and spatially distinctive for much of the city's history. The only part of Rome located on the west bank of the Tiber River, Transtiberim was the heart of Rome's Jewish and Syrian communities. These immigrants and their descendants maintained certain traditions, languages and customs from home; participated in civic institutions that helped foster community at the local level; and laboured in institutions that were vital to the capital's urban economy. Though marginal in some ways, Transtiberim was also a neighbourhood where immigrants and their descendants found community and made vital contributions to the life of the imperial city.

Type
Research Article
Information
Urban History , Volume 47 , Issue 1 , February 2020 , pp. 2 - 22
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

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References

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47 Juvenal 3.12–16, 3.296, 6.542–7.

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54 The motivation behind this edict of expulsion has been the subject of much debate. Food shortages and bread riots are well known in Roman history; other possible explanations include overzealous proselytizing, participation in disturbances and general hostility to the Jewish religion. See Rutgers, ‘Roman policy’, 64; Noy, Foreigners, 42.

55 Williams, Jews, 49–52.

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57 Suetonius, Claudius 25. See also Acts 18:2.

58 Rutgers, ‘Roman policy’, 65–6; Leon, Jews, 23–7; Cappelletti, Jewish Community, 60–89; Gruen, Diaspora, 34–41.

59 The Latin participle tumultantis can also be translated as ‘rioting’. Cassius Dio (60.6.6) maintained that Claudius chose not to expel the Jews because their numbers had grown too large, forbidding them to hold meetings instead.

60 Trastevere: Guida ai luoghi dove iniziòil cristianesimo a Roma (Rome, 2015), 9–22. For a discussion of discriminatory policies issues against the Jews of Rome by Domitian in the aftermath of the Jewish War, see Williams, Jews, 95–110.

61 The existence of a middle class is, of course, a modern concept ultimately derived from Marxist historiography. Nevertheless, a number of scholars have demonstrated that it can be fruitfully, if cautiously, applied to the ancient world; see Zanker, P., Pompeii: Public and Private Life (Cambridge, MA, 1998)Google Scholar; Veyne, P., ‘La plebe moyenne sous le haut-empire romain’, Annales, 55 (2000), 1169–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mayer, E., The Ancient Middle Classes: Urban Life and Aesthetics in the Roman Empire, 100 BCE–250 CE (Cambridge, MA, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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65 CIJ, vol. I, 457; Noy, Jewish Inscriptions, 142. The title mellarchon indicates that the deceased was designated for a leadership position in his synagogue but died before holding office.

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67 CIJ, vol. I, 353; Noy, Jewish Inscriptions, 72.

68 Leon, Jews, 46–50, 66; Cappelletti, Jewish Community, 143–51; Noy, Jewish Inscriptions, 1–2.

69 Williams, Jews, 179.

70 Rome's catacombs were all broken into long before professional excavations began in the nineteenth century. Inscriptions of uncertain provenance were traditionally assigned to Monteverde since it was the first catacomb discovered, but this may skew the evidence. Williams, Jews, 171.

71 Noy, Foreigners, 266.

72 Cappelletti, Jewish Community, 179.

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80 Leon, Jews, 140–59.

81 Williams, Jews, 171.

82 Ibid., 172.

83 Leon, Jews, 167, 193–4. For an index of all inscriptions with titles and names of synagogues, see Noy, Jewish Inscriptions, 538–40.

84 Cappelletti, Jewish Community, 190–1.

85 Rutgers, Jews, 199.

86 Associations based around a neighbourhood or shared cult or shared profession, or sometimes all three, collegia were an important source of patronage, opportunity and social connections for many Romans. On their various roles in Roman society, see Kloppenborg, J.S. and Wilson, S.G (eds.), Voluntary Associations in the Graeco-Roman World (London and New York, 1996)Google Scholar; Holleran, C., ‘Getting a job: finding work in the city of Rome’, in Verboven, K. and Laes, C. (eds.), Work, Labour, and Professions in the Roman World (Leiden and Boston, MA, 2017), 98Google Scholar.

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97 Isaac, Racism, 336–7. The story of the Syrophoenician woman from Tyre (modern Lebanon) in Mark 7:26 is one example. Lucian's treatise de Dea Syria provides useful insight into the entanglement of Syrian and Hellenic traditions; for a Syrian Greek's identity crisis, see Lucian, Revivescentes sive piscator 19.6.

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105 Lucian, De Dea Syria; Juvenal 6.511–16; Suetonius, Domitian 8.7.1.

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112 CIL, vol. VI, 423 = ILS, 4287; Goodhue, Sanctuary, 38. Jupiter Heliopolitanus was likely the chief deity worshipped in the Syrian Sanctuary; four of the five dedications discovered to him in Rome come from Transtiberim (CIL, vol. VI, 36793, 36791, 422, 423).

113 CIL, vol. VI, 36792 = ILS, 9282.

114 CIL, vol. VI, 36803 = IGUR, vol. I, 110.

115 Noy, Foreigners, 240–1; Ricci, Stranieri, 96; La Piana, Foreign Groups, 315.

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117 CIL, vol. VI, 32316 = IG, vol. IV, 1512 = IGR, vol. I, 89.

118 Palmer, ‘Topography’, 372; Savage, ‘Cults’, 29; Noy, Foreigners, 242–3.

119 Communal eating played an important role in building social bonds among co-worshippers and members of voluntary associations (collegia); see Tacoma, Moving Romans, 233.

120 Palmer (‘Topography’, 372) counts 32 inscriptions in total associated with this site.

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126 CIL, vol. VI, 710 = CIL, vol. VI, 30817 = Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum, 4 vols. (Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres: Paris 1881–1962), vol. II, 3.3903; Noy, Foreigners, 243.

127 Tacoma, Moving Romans, 229–31; Noy, Foreigners, 244–5; Ricci, Stranieri, 96; Coarelli, Rome and Environs, 346; Dyson, Rome, 242–57. The Aventine also housed a major temple to Jupiter Dolichenus, a god originating from the kingdom of Commagene on the border of Syria and Armenia. Dozens of inscriptions associated with this site, some of which include cult membership lists, indicate that many worshippers of Dolichenus were immigrants from the eastern Mediterranean. Regrettably, a full treatment of immigration in the Aventine region is beyond the scope of this article.

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