14 - The Good, the Bad and the Middling

Summary

Talmudic literature, throughout all its chronological phases, relates to various Roman emperors. Nine emperors are mentioned explicitly by name, and among these are six who are especially notable, from three different periods. First, the period of the major Jewish revolts: Vespasian and Titus are mentioned for the War of the Destruction of the Temple, Trajan for the Diaspora revolts and Hadrian for the Bar Kochba Revolt. These are the “wicked” emperors of Talmudic literature, with Hadrian presented as the worst of all. Second, the golden age of relations between Judaea and Rome in the Severan period: “Antoninus,” usually identified with Caracalla, is presented as the “good” emperor par excellence. Finally, in the middle of the scale between the “wicked” and the “good” emperors we find Diocletian, the interesting emperor whose presence is strongly felt, as he was responsible for the development of the whole region.

R. Naḥman opened his discourse with the text, Therefore fear thou not, O Jacob My servant (Jer. xxx,10). This speaks of Jacob himself, of whom it is written, And he dreamed, and behold, a ladder set up on the earth … and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it (Gen. xxviii,12). These angels … were the guardian princes of the nations … the Holy One, blessed be He, showed our father Jacob the prince of Babylon ascending seventy rungs of the ladder, the prince of Media fifty-two rungs, the prince of Greece one hundred and eighty, while the prince of Edom [= Rome] ascended till Jacob did not know how many rungs. Thereupon our father Jacob was afraid. He thought: is it possible that this one will never be brought down? Said the Holy One, blessed be He, to him: ‘Fear thou not, O Jacob My servant.’ Even if he ascend and sit down by Me, I will bring him down from there!¹

This midrash clearly shows both the unique role of Rome in Jewish history in antiquity and the central place it occupies in Talmudic literature. A comprehensive study of Rome’s role in the Talmudic literature would require us to collect, analyze and categorize all the sources referring to Rome, both directly and indirectly, as a collective political and cultural entity, through Rome as an empire (usually an evil one), down to details of toponomy in the place names from the city of Rome itself to the port of Brindisium, as well as the names of important Roman personae. As far as I know, there is at present no such comprehensive study, which would have to be vast. The present chapter is devoted to a narrow but important part of the Talmudic image of Rome: Roman emperors.

A methodological note: the Talmudic literature is ahistoric. It was created over a millennium, and even its earlier stages in Late Antiquity started at the beginning of the third century and continued to develop up to the seventh. There were two different centers – Palestine and Babylonia – which created two different Talmuds, and in Palestine especially rabbinic literature branched out into different genres. Nevertheless, many narratives and anecdotes about historical events and personae, in our case Roman emperors, were described, related and repeated throughout all the Talmudic literature over many periods. This is why it is so essential to analyze each text carefully in its context. Jewish religious regulations (halakhah) have to be understood in their religious, cultural, sociological and political framework; and when analyzing a tale, our reading should address the different contexts of interpretation: literary, generic, comparative and historical. I cannot, of course, go into every detail of the development of the character of Hadrian, for instance, but only draw the bottom line – or rather lines – of what Jews told themselves about a named emperor, in Palestine on the one hand and in Babylonia on the other. In some cases, usually in the Palestinian literature, we can trace different chronological phases that shift and vary the profile and role of a particular Roman emperor. All the sources which we relate to are from the late second to the early third centuries up to the sixth century CE. The earliest are from the Palestinian tannaitic literature (i.e. up to the middle of the third century), while the rest were produced by the Palestinian Amoraim in the Jerusalem Talmud (which was redacted or came to an end in the seventies of the fourth century), and the early Palestinian midrashei Aggadah, Bereshit Rabbah and Va-Yiqrah Rabbah from the fifth or sixth century. From the other side of the Euphrates we can hear the Jewish Babylonian voice, through the Babylonian Talmud, mainly from the fourth to the sixth centuries.

There are nine named emperors in the whole of the Talmudic literature,² but two of these are barely mentioned and will not concern us: Augustus appears usually as a title,³ and Tiberius is noted because of the city called after him.⁴ This holds true also for Nero in the Palestinian literature, although in Babylonia his role is more significant and positive.⁵ Thus, we are left with six emperors to deal with, who are categorized according to the Talmudic attitude to them and after Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood, as the Good, the Bad (at times they are also ugly …) and the Middling. Historically, we should start with the Bad.

The Bad are those emperors who fought against and crushed the great Jewish revolts in Palestine and the Jewish diaspora during the first and second centuries CE: Vespasian, Titus, Trajan and Hadrian. I shall confine myself here to dealing only with Hadrian.⁶

Hadrian, like the ‘bad’ emperors who preceded him, opens his Talmudic career in the Palestinian literature with a terrible reputation based on very solid historical grounds: he crushed the Bar-Kokhva revolt, causing a great disaster for the Jewish people in their land in antiquity. His cruelty surpassed the deeds and character of Titus, and even those of Trajan and his bloodshed (in Egypt and Cyprus): Hadrian, we are told, devastated the land; killed hundreds of thousands of people; murdered infants; and profaned the bodies of the dead, forbidding their burial right up to his own death:

R. Yose said … [that] Hadrian, the evil one, had come and devastated the entire land.⁷

Said R. Yoḥanan, The voice [= orders] of Hadrian Caesar is killing 80,000 myriads in Beitar; they kept slaughtering [the Jews] until a horse sank into blood up to his nose; they found three hundred babies’ skulls on a single rock; the evil Hadrian had a large vineyard, eighteen miles by eighteen miles. … They surrounded it by a wall made of those who were slain in Beitar. … And he did not decree that they could be buried, until another king came along and decreed that they may be buried.⁸

Unusually, the negative attitude towards Hadrian found its expression even in the halakhic field: Hadrianic earthenware is one of the things that belong to gentiles and is forbidden, and it is forbidden to have any benefit from it.⁹

Thus, fitting the punishment to the crime, Hadrian becomes the subject of the Talmud’s most negative imprecation: ‘May his bones be crushed!’ A special sort of damnatio memoriae.¹⁰

But now comes a surprise. From the late fourth century on, both the Palestinian midrashic literature and the Babylonian Talmud delineate a new Hadrian, an intellectually curious man, who mixes with the mob and talks to ordinary people: ‘Hadrian, may his bones be crushed, was walking on the paths of Tiberias and he saw an old man hew out an area in order to plant. Hadrian said to him: Old man, old man …’,¹¹ and in particular he converses patiently with rabbis. His conversation has a philosophical and theological aura: Hadrian wonders, how was the world created?¹² How was the human being created?¹³ What is the nature of the water of the ocean (okeanus)?¹⁴ In spite of the sharp change in the depiction of his character, this Hadrian is situated in the correct historical time, and usually his partner in dialogue is R. Yehoshua b. Hananiah. What brings this ‘odd couple’ together? Maybe this is a literary meeting between two moderate and enlightened figures, the very modest rabbi, a true successor of Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai in the first two decades of the second century, and the enlightened emperor Hadrian, as he is depicted in the classical sources, at least during his first years, up to the middle of the third decade of the same century.¹⁵

The cruel Hadrian, ‘may his bones be crushed’, has not vanished but from now on he has a second face. The sole sign that we are dealing with the same person is the mutual epithet ‘may his bones be crushed’ for both the ‘wicked’ and the ‘enlightened’.¹⁶ What is striking is the similarity between the two faces of the Talmudic Hadrian,¹⁷ and the double face attributed to the emperor in Roman historiography, especially the Vita Hadriani in the Historia Augusta, which is dated either to the time of Diocletian or to the late fourth century.¹⁸ The same characteristics of Hadrian are portrayed again and again throughout the second half of the fourth century up to the turn of the fourth and fifth centuries,¹⁹ in other words, at the same time as the earliest Talmudic traditions of this other, positive face of Hadrian.

The Vita Hadriani characterizes Hadrian clearly as double-faced: ‘He was, in the same person, austere and genial, dignified and playful, dilatory and quick to act, niggardly and generous, deceitful and straightforward, cruel and merciful, and always in all things changeable.’²⁰ In the words of Benario: ‘even a cursory reading of the life reveals a curious mingling of two traditions, one favorable to the emperor, the other quite the opposite. The former is sober and detailed, the latter anecdotal and miscellaneous.’²¹ At the turn of the fourth and fifth centuries, the Epitome de Caesaribus had the same impression: ‘He was changeable, manifold, and multiform; as if a born arbiter with respect to vices and virtues, by some artifice he controlled intellectual impulse. … he simulated restraint, affability, clemency, and conversely disguised the ardor for fame with which he burned.’²²

In two successive sentences the Vita relates to Hadrian’s attitudes and manners towards both ordinary and learned people: (1) ‘Most courteous in his conversations, even with the very humble, he denounced all who, in the belief that they were thereby maintaining the imperial dignity, begrudged him the pleasure of such friendliness. (2) In the museum at Alexandria he propounded many questions to the teachers and answered himself what he had propounded.’²³ The first sentence matches the Talmudic Hadrian who walks through the fields of Tiberias and has a conversation with an old man. The second sentence fits Hadrian’s philosophical and theological dialogues with R. Yehoshua – although here the emperor simply puts the questions and it is the rabbi who gives him the correct, meaningful answers.

The most interesting similarities between Hadrian both in the Vita Hadriani and in the midrash have been proposed and studied by Galit Hasan-Rokem.²⁴ Referring to Hadrian’s generous gifts and his fondness for the public baths, the Roman biographer told a well-known bathing joke, in two scenes. In the first scene, Hadrian sees a veteran, known to him from military service, rubbing his back and the rest of his body on the wall. When he realizes that this is because he does not have a slave of his own, he presents him both with slaves and with the cost of their maintenance. In the second scene, on a different day, several old men imitate the veteran, rubbing themselves on the wall in order to arouse the emperor’s generosity. But this time Hadrian orders them to be called out and rub each other down in turn.²⁵

Midrash Va-Yikra Rabbah tells a similar story, also based on two opposed scenes. In the first scene, Hadrian sees an old man near Tiberias planting a young fig tree and asks him for whom is he planting this tree. The old man answers that if he is fortunate, he will eat the figs himself; if not, his descendants will eat them. Hadrian tells him: ‘If you are fortunate enough to eat of them, let me know.’ When the figs ripen, the old man fills a basket with figs and brings it to Hadrian. The emperor orders his servants to empty his basket and fill it with dinars. In the second scene, a neighbour of the old man, instigated by his wife, imitates the old man, comes before Hadrian and says: ‘I have heard that the king loves figs and reimburses them with dinars.’ Hadrian’s reaction is very similar to his answer to the people in the bath house in the Vita Hadriani: he orders his servants ‘to put him in front of the palace gate and whoever enters or exits should throw [a fig] in his face.’²⁶

The Talmudic Hadrian, then, heads the Roman legions who destroy Palestinian Jewry, on the one hand, while on the other hand, holds philosophical dialogues with R. Yehoshua in the same narrative time. In this context we note that the Historia Augusta concludes its presentation of Hadrian’s dual face with a nice anecdote about an argument between the emperor and the eminent philosopher and sophist Favorinus, which reveals the inequity of such disagreement. Although Favorinus is correct, he gives way to Hadrian, and when rebuked by friends, replies, ‘You advise me badly, friends, since you do not permit me to believe that he who commands thirty legions is the most learned of all.’²⁷

What is the historical background for the ‘enlightened’ Hadrian in Talmudic literature? Many scholars point to the early years of Hadrian’s reign as a period of positive relationship between the new emperor and the Jews, at least with regard to some of his actions that were interpreted by the Jews as being in their favor.²⁸ This sounds logical at first glance, but in fact these scholarly conclusions totally neglect the clear distinction between two different chronological phases in the Talmudic literature which refer to Hadrian: both the tannaitic and amoraic literature up to the end of the Palestinian Talmud in the last quarter of the fourth century delineate only the wicked Hadrian; the enlightened Hadrian is a product of aggadic midrashim only from the early fifth century on.²⁹ There are some similarities between the enlightened Talmudic Hadrian and his depiction in fourth-century Roman literature, especially in his wide education and curiosity. Thus the Talmudic midrashim find him as the most convenient emperor to represent Rome in dialogues with Jewish rabbis of his generation, like Rabbi Yehoshua son of Ḥananiah.

To sum up: first of all, the ‘wicked’ Hadrian, ‘may his bones be crushed’, is a direct and immediate Jewish reaction to the historic role of this emperor in the most catastrophic event in Jewish antiquity. There is no connection between this phase of the Talmudic Hadrian and Roman historiography. On the contrary, Cassius Dio depicts Hadrian’s reactions to the Jewish rebellion and the measures he takes as rational and very cautious. In fact, Hadrian’s reign is usually remembered by the Romans as a period without wars. Secondly, Hadrian is already depicted in Roman literature as double-faced from the second and third centuries, but there is no positive hint about him at all in the contemporary Talmudic works. Thirdly, it is only from the early fifth century on, hundreds of years after the last revolt and its terrible consequences, that Jews could allow themselves to draw another Hadrian as well, an enlightened one, shown as a Roman representative who deals with the rabbis of his time, revealing, explicitly or tacitly, the advantage of Jewish culture and theology. Finally, there are similarities between the variegated and even unpredictable character of Hadrian in both the Vita Hadriani (and later fourth-century Roman history and biography) and the later Talmudic stories which were told from the early fifth century on.

We move now to consider the figure of the good emperor in the Talmudic literature. The one perfectly good emperor is called ‘Antoninus’, and he is usually identified with Caracalla.³⁰ He is presented as the intimate friend of Rabbi Judah ha-Nasi, the renowned Jewish patriarch of the late second and early third centuries (i.e. during the Severan period). Together they discuss business, politics and pleasure, to their mutual benefit, using biblical verses and hermeneutics. There are twenty-nine different Talmudic traditions, twenty-one Palestinian and eight Babylonian,³¹ which characterize their very positive relationship and their dialogues, shaping ‘Antoninus’ as a clever, learned and moderate man and emperor.

Thematically there are three groups of traditions:

1. I. A concrete relationship, usually in the field of economics, where Rabbi benefits from the emperor.

2. II. Rabbi as the political advisor of Antoninus. The emperor consults him as to whether or not to go to Alexandria, how to fill his treasury, how to manipulate the Roman aristocracy in order to achieve his goals, and so forth.

3. III. Philosophical and theological dialogues, where Antoninus is not only intellectually curious, learned, clever and witty, but also well versed in the Bible, Jewish regulations and hermeneutics.

Finally, one late Palestinian tradition even discusses the possibility that Antoninus became Jewish. This possibility is rejected, but Antoninus is still the non-Jew who nevertheless deserves the World to Come.³²

Generally speaking, the earlier traditions are closer to the historical arena and characters. Antoninus seems to be much more of a political figure who benefits Rabbi as his client, and his interest in Judaism is very simplistic. Over time he becomes a true philosopher and in consequence nearly a Jewish sage. As I shall try to argue, his character, as depicted in the Talmudic sources, develops into a hybrid of two different emperors who were both called Antoninus, Caracalla and Elagabalus. I should note here, however, that there are some scholars who fiercely refute, both methodologically and empirically, any historical identification with any historical emperor.³³

Now, within our very selective and narrow scope, I wish to point out another striking phenomenon: the way in which the Talmudic Antoninus (= Caracalla, as distinct from other candidates like Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius) is the complete opposite of the portrait of this emperor in Roman historiography, mainly characterized by the epitome of Cassius Dio, and by Herodian, both of whom were active during the years of Caracalla’s reign, and later on in the Historia Augusta. In these Roman sources, Antoninus Caracalla is capricious, cruel, bloodthirsty, anti-intellectual, and deaf to any advice and advisor.

Antoninus as Caracalla: There are at least three Talmudic traditions about Antoninus that have many resemblances to characteristics, anecdotes and events which are peculiar to the emperor Caracalla in the Roman historiography and biography of the third and fourth centuries.

The earliest traditions in the tannaitic Midrash known as the Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael, redacted in the mid-third century (i.e. a short time after Rabbi’s death),³⁴ associate Antoninus twice (out of four instances) with Alexandria, Egypt and Pharaoh.

Antoninus asked our Holy Rabbi, I want to go to Alexandria, but will a king stand there and defeat me? He answered, I do not know, at any rate it is written that Egypt could not appoint a king or a minister.³⁵

Rabbi gives Antoninus an indirect answer, and the whole issue appears innocent. But according to the Roman historians, Antoninus turned Alexandria into a bloodbath, as Dio writes:

1. (1) Now Antoninus, in spite of the immense affection which he professed to cherish for Alexander, all but utterly destroyed the whole of his [i.e Alexander’s] city. … (3) He slaughtered so many persons that he did not even venture to say anything about their number, but wrote to the senate that it was of no interest how many of them or who had died, since all had deserved to suffer this fate. 23,2: Antoninus was present at most of this slaughter and pillaging, both looking on and taking a hand.³⁶

In the Mekhilta, Antoninus is afraid lest ‘a king will stand there [in Alexandria] and defeat me’, which could be an echo to the story in Dio that a short time before the assassination of Caracalla a certain Egyptian, Serapio, had told the emperor that he would be short-lived and that Macrinus would succeed him.³⁷

Again, the Mekhilta, in the name of Rabbi himself, makes Antoninus the true successor of Pharaoh, at least in chariot warfare.

And shalishim over all of them [Shalishim means] that they were triply armed. Rabban Simon the son of Gamaliel says: It refers to the third man on the chariot. Formerly there had been only two who drove the chariot, but Pharaoh added one more so as to pursue Israel faster. Rabbi says: Antoninus added one more to them so that there were four.³⁸

It is interesting to note here that Caracalla is the Roman emperor par excellence who was portrayed as a Pharaoh, and four monumental ‘Pharaonic’ statues of him have been discovered in Egypt.³⁹ This was due to the fact that his favourite deity was the Egyptian god Serapis, whose son or brother he claimed to be.

One tradition from the Babylonian Talmud also connects ‘Antoninus son of Aseverus’ with Egypt:

R. Ḥama son of R. Ḥanina said: Three treasures did Joseph hide in Egypt: one was revealed to Korah; one to Antoninus the son of Aseverus; and the third is stored up for the righteous for the future time.⁴⁰

If we can rely here upon the name of the Rabbi R. Ḥama son of R. Ḥanina, and the pure Hebrew language (i.e. not Aramaic) attributed to him, this would seem to be an original Palestinian tradition from the middle of the third century, the same time as the Mekhilta, and only one generation after the death of both Caracalla and Rabbi Judah the Prince.

In several Talmudic traditions, the background of Antoninus’ consultations with Rabbi, as his political advisor and confidant, is the hostile relationship between the emperor and ‘the prominent Romans’ (i.e. the senators).⁴¹ Thus one Babylonian tradition tells about a hidden tunnel through which Antoninus used to come secretly from his house in Rome to Rabbi’s house in Palestine. In order to keep this completely secret, he would place two slaves, one at the Roman end of the tunnel, the other at the Jewish end, and when he accomplished his mission he would kill both of them.⁴²

Dio tells a story about Caracalla with very similar elements: the emperor had a special relationship with the Scythians and Germans, whom he trusted more than his own soldiers. He often conversed with Scythian and German envoys when no one else but the interpreters were present, and instructed them, in case anything happened to him, to invade Italy and march upon Rome.

‘To prevent any inkling of his conversation from getting to our ears’, writes Dio, adding his own personal voice and testament, ‘he would immediately put the interpreters to death.’⁴³

But contrary to the totally negative tone of Dio, the Talmudic tradition elaborates the ‘secret tunnel’ story into a very positive view of Antoninus and his attitude towards the Jews. Thus on one occasion, when Antoninus comes to meet Rabbi he found R. Ḥaninah b. Ḥama there. Antoninus sends him out to ask the sleeping slave outside to come in. The slave is, of course, already slain. R. Ḥaninah prays for him, he is restored to life, and Antoninus concludes: ‘I am well aware that the least one among you can bring the dead to life, still, when I call, let no one be found with thee.’⁴⁴

This is typical of the difference between the Roman stories, anecdotes and rumours about the most negative figure of Antoninus Caracalla and its mostly positive shift as seen in the Talmudic Antoninus.

In one Babylonian tradition, probably from the first half of the fourth century, Antoninus consults for the last time with his personal Jewish advisor,

This was the case with Aseverus the son of Antoninus who reigned [in his father’s place]. Antoninus once said to Rabbi: it is my desire that my son Aseverus should reign instead of me and that Tiberias should be declared a colonia. Were I to ask [the Senate] one of these things it would be granted, but both would not be granted. Rabbi thereupon brought a man, and having made him ride on the shoulders of another, handed him a dove bidding the one who carried him to order the one on his shoulders to liberate it. [Antoninus] perceived this to mean that he was advised to ask to appoint his son Aseverus to reign in his stead, and that subsequently he might get Aseverus to make Tiberias a colonia.⁴⁵

What is interesting here is not only the question whether and when Tiberias became a Roman colonia (which is beyond the scope of this chapter),⁴⁶ but the problematic consequences of the end of Caracalla’s life and reign and the succession of the Severan dynasty. We can see here, once again, the tension between the emperor and the Senate. Caracalla was murdered by Macrinus, the Praetorian prefect, who did not belong to the Severan family. He deported the family of Avitus, Caracalla’s cousin who later became the Emperor Elagabalus, to Emesa in Syria. From there his grandmother guided a successful campaign against Macrinus, which at last saw Avitus as Emperor. Now, Dio consistently calls Avitus/Elagabalus a false Antonine, and argues that the alleged connection between Caracalla/Antoninus and between Avitus, the false Antoninus, was simply propaganda from Avitus and his family.⁴⁷

But who is ‘Aseverus son of Antoninus’ in our story? The most plausible identification is Severus Alexander. According to Herodian, when Maesa realized that Elagabalus could not serve as an emperor she persuaded him to adopt his cousin Alexienus/Alexander as a co-emperor and successor and ‘invented’ the story that not only Elagabalus but also Alexander was born to Caracalla.

Alexianus changed his name from that inherited from his grandfather to Alexander, the name of the Macedonian so admired and honored by the alleged father of the two cousins. Both the daughter of Maesa, and the old lady herself, used to boast of the adultery of Antoninus (Severus’ son), to make the troops think the boys were his sons and so favour them.⁴⁸

It is important to note that the classical Talmudic traditions about the Severii never confuse the dynastic sequence: the regnal years of (Septimius) [A]severus are counted as eighteen years; most traditions refer to Antoninus, whom the Babylonian Talmud calls twice ‘Antoninus son of Aseverus’, and finally we find ‘Aseverus son of Antoninus’.⁴⁹

Many Talmudic traditions point to the interest of Antoninus in Judaism, his knowledge about it, and his ability to follow hermeneutic discussions and even to contribute his own independent insight.⁵⁰ Over time he becomes the ideal and most prominent gentile figure, and the only Roman leader, who is said to deserve the ‘World to come’. Again, it is the Babylonian Talmud that gives his full name: ‘Antoninus son of Aseverus’.⁵¹ But the next and last step is to be found quite surprisingly in the late Aramaic tradition, probably invented by the anonymous redactors of the Jerusalem Talmud, not earlier than the late fourth century.

[There are some indications that Antoninus converted, and some that he did not convert] Antoninus said to Rabbi: Will you let me eat of the Leviathan in the world to come? He [R.] said to him: Yes. He [Ant.] said to him: From the Paschal lamb you will not let me eat, but you let me eat Leviathan? He [R.] said to him: What can I do for you, when concerning the Paschal lamb it is written (Ex. 12:48) But no uncircumcised person may eat of it. When he heard this, he [Ant.] went and was circumcised [אזל וגזר]. He [Ant.] came back to him (and) said to him: My master, look at my circumcision [חמי גזורתי]. He [R.] said to him: Never in my life have I looked at my own; (shall I look) at yours? And why was he [R.] called by the name ‘Our holy master’? Because never in his life did he look at his circumcision [הביט במילתו].⁵²

At this point, historians usually refer to a single sentence in the Historia Augusta’s life of Caracalla.

Once, when a child of seven, hearing that a certain playmate of his had been severely scourged for adopting the religion of the Jews, he long refused to look at either the boy’s father or his own, because he regarded them as responsible for the scourging.⁵³

But this should be read carefully, because the context is the excessive humanity and tenderness of the younger Antoninus, who in the previous sentence cried whenever he saw criminals ‘pitted against wild beasts’, while in the next sentence he restores their ancient rights to the people of Antioch and Byzantium, after his father had punished them because they supported Niger.

Much more convincing is the plain circumcision that Dio related to Elagabalus, as showing what he saw as his absurd behavior, in both his religious policy and gender matters.

Closely related to these irregularities was his [i.e. Elagabalus the emperor’s] conduct in the matter of Elagabalus [i.e. the god]. The offence consisted, not in his [i.e the emperor] introducing a foreign god into Rome or in his exalting him [i.e. the god] in very strange ways, but in his placing him even before Jupiter himself and causing himself to be voted his priest, also in his circumcising himself and abstaining from swine’s flesh, on the ground that his devotion would thereby be purer. He had planned, indeed, to cut off his genitals altogether, but that desire was prompted solely by his effeminacy; the circumcision which he actually carried out was a part of the priestly requirements of Elagabalus [i.e. the god], and he accordingly mutilated many of his companions in like manner.⁵⁴

In the light of this, it seems to me that we can hear the sarcasm in the tone of the Talmudic account. The redactors of the Jerusalem Talmud do not seem to see the circumcision of Antoninus as a point in his favor, but they present it with much more gentle implied criticism than Dio.

If the comparison here between the Talmudic circumcision of ‘Antoninus’ and between the same action of Dio’s ‘false Antoninus’ is valid, then we can point towards a hybrid Talmudic Antoninus, which combines Elagabalus with Caracalla.

Dio, and most Roman writers of the third and fourth centuries, sincerely lament the brutality of Antoninus against the Roman aristocracy, especially the senators;⁵⁵ at the same time, the Jewish aristocracy presents us with an elevated and enlightened Antoninus. Whose history is right? Whose history is it? Maybe the histories of Rome – an empire of many nations.

The middling emperor is represented by Diocletian. There are several Talmudic traditions, all of them in the Palestinian literature, which deal with this emperor. They give us information about the emperor, which usually ties in with other historical, epigraphical and archaeological data. I shall sum up the main points.

The Jerusalem Talmud notes that Diocletian was linked to the city of Tiberias, telling us that in his youth his name was Diclot, and he was a swineherd in Tiberias. He got the name Diocletian only when he was crowned:

The children of R. Yehudah Nesiah scorned Diclot the swine[herd]. He became a king and went down to Paneas. He sent letters to the rabbis that they should be at his place immediately after the end of the Sabbath. … They said to him: We treated Diclot, the swine, with contempt. We do not treat Di[o]cletianus, the king, with contempt.⁵⁶

All the historiographical sources agree that Diocletian’s origins were lower class. See, for instance, the Anonymous Epitome about the Caesars (late fourth century):

Diocletian of Dalmatia, a freedman of the senator Anulinus, ruled for twenty-five years. His mother and hometown were both called Dioclea, from which name he was called Diocles until he took power; when he took control of the Roman world, he converted the Greek name to the Roman fashion.⁵⁷

Diocletian actually visited Tiberias in person on 31 May 286, and on 14 July in the same year, and again on 31 August when he and Maximianus were both consuls, namely in 287 or 290.⁵⁸ Two different Talmudic sources connect Diocletian with Paneas, the above-mentioned, and the following:

Diocletian oppressed the people of Paneas. They told him: We will leave. A sophist said to him: They will not go, but if they do go they will return. If you want to check, bring deer and send them to a distant land; in the end they will return to their [original] places. He did so, brought deer, covered their antlers with silver, and sent them to Africa. At the end of thirteen years they returned to their places.⁵⁹

There is no direct evidence that Diocletian was ever in Paneas, but there is an indirect link: inscriptions of the Tetrarchic land surveyors were discovered in the region of Paneas. As Millar has noted: ‘The erection of these inscriptions clearly reflects the Tetrarchic taxation-reform of AD 297’,⁶⁰ and it seems plausible that this tax reform is the background to the Talmudic statement: ‘Diocletian oppressed the people of Paneas.’

Two Talmudic sources connect Diocletian to Tyre. One mentions an inscription of his, dedicated to his partner Maximianus, whose religious title was Herculius:

R. Shimon b. Yoḥanan sent and asked R. Shimon b. Yoẓadak: Have you ever looked into the character of the fair held at Tyre? … He went up and found written there: I, Diocletian the king, have founded the fair of Tyre in honour of Herculi[u]s my brother, for eight days.⁶¹

Greenfield convincingly verifies the authenticity of this Talmudic passage as a reliable reflection of a formal inscription in Tyre.⁶²

The other source mentions R. Hiyya, an important rabbi who was also a priest, who was so eager to see Diocletian in Tyre that he even went through a graveyard to get to him:

R. Yannai said, A priest [may] defile himself in order to see a king. When King Diocletian came here, R. Ḥiyya was seen stepping over graves at Tyre in order to see him.⁶³

Avi-Yonah, followed by Barnes, dates the visit of Diocletian to Tyre to the early years of his rule, prior to 293 CE; Greenfield tends to the later period, 296–302 CE, when Diocletian spent most of his time in the Roman East.⁶⁴

Another source in the JT notes that Diocletian controlled the water source known as the lake of Emesa, probably the present-day Qattina lake on the Orontes to the south-west of Emesa:

Seven seas surrounded the Land of Israel: the Great Sea, Lake Tiberias, Lake Semakho, the Salt Sea, Lake Ḥulata, Lake Sheliat, Lake Apamea. But is there not also a lake at Ḥomṣ? Diocletian dammed up rivers and created it.⁶⁵

This is mentioned together with Hulata, Daphne of Antioch and the lake of Apamea. There is evidence that Diocletian was very active in this region: on 6 May 290 he was in Antioch, where he spent most of his time from 299 CE till 302 or 303, and four days later, on 10 May, he reached Emesa.⁶⁶

In connection with monetary matters, the Jerusalem Talmud discusses different kinds of gold, and ends with the Diocletian denarius. This appears to refer to his reform of the currency, which stabilized the imperial coinage and fixed the denarius, instead of the sestertius, as the common coin. The first phase of the reform dates to 286 CE and does indeed apply to the gold coins.⁶⁷

As an aside in a discussion about vows, the Talmud talks about a huge army headed by Diocletian, which it compares to the large number of Israelites who came out of Egypt in the biblical Exodus:

This is a vain oath: … if one said, (may I be punished) if I did not see walking on this road as many as went out of Egypt. … When Diocletian went down there, one hundred twenty myriads went down with him.⁶⁸

This may refer to Diocletian’s campaign against the revolt in Egypt in 297–8 CE, which included a long siege of Alexandria.

Turning now to Diocletian’s religious policy, the Jerusalem Talmud writes:

R. Abbahu prohibited their [Samaritan] wine. … When Di[o]cletian the king came up here, he issued a decree, saying, ‘Every nation must offer a libation, except for the Jews.’ So the Samaritans made a libation, and [that is why] their wine was prohibited.⁶⁹

This clearly refers to the anti-Christian persecutions, and it is very similar in wording to the original decrees, especially the Fourth Edict, which was published by Diocletian in spring 304 and reported by Eusebius in the long recension of the Martyrs of Palestine, composed in April 311 and preserved in a Syriac manuscript of 411:

There came then again the second time edicts from the emperor, … which compelled all persons equally: that the entire population of every city, both men and women, should sacrifice to dead idols, and a law was imposed upon them to offer libations to devils.⁷⁰

The Jews alone were exempted from the pagan libation, while the Samaritans (or some of them) offered libations like the gentiles. What is striking here is the fact that the Talmudic passage does not even mention the Christians. I shall return to this point at the end of my chapter.

To sum up: Diocletian did nothing exceptional, either for or against the Jews.⁷¹ Probably this is the reason why the Babylonian Talmud and the later Talmudic compilations ignore him almost completely. He is presented as the new broom who came to Palestine, restored order, initiated significant administrative, economic and fiscal reforms, and headed a huge army. He visited the local polis of Tiberias (probably a Roman colony), and the center of the most important Jewish institutions – the patriarchate and the central rabbinic academy – and stayed for a long time in the adjacent provinces. His name is carved on the coins and engraved in Greek, the lingua franca of the Roman East, on milestones and inscriptions of the land surveyors, so he left his mark on both urban centers and the rural environment. He is the middling Roman emperor of the Talmudic literature, between the ‘bad’ and the ‘good’.

But ‘middling’ or moderate is also the proper adjective for the Talmudic voice which characterizes Diocletian. This emperor and his modern scholars are trapped between Christian anti-Diocletian historiography and between his admirers, the so-called pagan anti-Christian historians.⁷² The Talmudic voice is much more temperate and moderate. In Tacitean mode, it is a good example of a tale told sine ira et studio.

Thus we come to the following preliminary conclusions.

The Roman emperors mentioned by name in Talmudic literature belong to three different periods of relations between Judaea and Rome, from the late Second Temple period up to the early fourth century: the ‘Bad’ belong to the time of the great Jewish revolts (66–136 CE); the ‘Good’ reflect the honeymoon of the Severan period, with Rabbi and Antoninus/Caracalla; while the middling relations that were neither very bad nor very good are represented by Diocletian.

The shifts and changes in the Talmudic images of each emperor over the generations are the products of the political and social world of these different generations which retell and reshape the traditions. The ‘Bad’ emperors (with the exception of Titus) are usually presented much more positively in the Babylonian Talmud, as part of the agenda of the Babylonian amoraim discouraging Jewish rebellion. Over time, the Palestinian literature also softens the character of the ‘Bad’, as the contributors get further away from the revolts themselves and their harsh consequences.

The wording of the narrative may also be affected, probably indirectly, by stories about the emperors which were current throughout the empire, such as those which found their expression in the Historia Augusta.

Roman emperors who figure in the Talmudic literature are generally those who were very active and effective in the Jewish arena, especially in Palestine, but also, as in the case of Trajan, in the Hellenistic diaspora – Egypt and Cyprus. This is true in particular of emperors who came to the area in person, leaving their own mark on Jewish territory and the immediate vicinity.

Who are missing from the picture? First of all, the Julio-Claudians before Nero. At first glance, it seems as if the reason for this is the length of time which elapsed between Augustus and his successors, and the creation of the Talmudic literature. But the fact that Hellenistic kings and dramatic events at the end of the Hasmonean and early Roman periods found their expression in Talmudic literature makes this answer hardly satisfactory. It is more likely that their absence is due to the significant representation of the Herodian dynasty in the Talmudic literature. Thus this Roman client kingdom and its kings served as a membrane between the empire and the Jews, so that the emperors of their time, who had no direct contact with Jews, do not appear in Talmudic literature. It is when we come to the direct confrontation between the Roman legions headed by Vespasian and Titus, and the Jews that the future emperors came to the fore. Josephus’ Bellum Iudaicum becomes the ‘polemos of Aspasianus’ for the Mishnah and all the later Talmudic traditions. After Agrippa II dies (between 86/7 and 100 CE), there is direct contact between Judaea and Rome, and the cooperation or confrontation is headed by the emperor, on the Roman side, and by the Jewish patriarchate and central aristocracy and the rabbis, on the Jewish side. Thus all the other emperors who did not come into direct contact with Jews and did not legislate to affect the life of the Jewish community were of no interest to the compliers of the Talmudic literature. And this is true for the majority of the Roman emperors.

Most significant by their absence are the Christian emperors, especially Constantine. This silence is all the more noteworthy because the Constantinian revolution is contemporary with the late and very intensive phases of the creative process of the Palestinian Talmud. On the other hand, it suits the Talmudic references to the religious policies of Diocletian only as a background to the Jewish ban upon Samaritan wine, without mentioning the Christians, the true target of Diocletian’s persecutions. There is a very strong scholarly tendency to search for any hint of Christians and Christianity in the Talmudic literature, especially the Palestinian literature, in order to stress their presence there, based on the supposition that Christians and Christianity played a significant role in the Jewish agenda. On the other side stand scholars who argue that the low profile of Christianity in the Tannaitic and Amoraic literature is a true representation of the limited role of Christians in the world of Palestinian Jewry during the third and fourth centuries.⁷³ I agree with this view, and the absence of Constantine and his successors from the Talmudic literature supports these conclusions.