Introduction

The focus of this essay is on the expulsions of Jews from Rome from the point of view of Roman power politics. Early imperial Rome saw several expulsions of Jews from the city. In 19 C.E., the senate passed a decree against the practice of foreign rites, dispatched some 4,000 Jews into military service, and ordered the rest to depart from the city. Some three decades later, Claudius issued an expulsion order for disorderly Jews at the instigation of one Chrestus. There has been much debate over the underlying reasons for, and the consequences of, these expulsions. While earlier studies viewed them as part of a general anti-Jewish policy, they are now more commonly understood as arising out of a momentary concern about the increasing influence of Jews in the city during the early Principate, which manifested itself in the actual or imagined success of Jews in winning sympathizers or converts to their ways. Other commentators have objected to a restricted focus on religious motives and emphasized that the authorities acted on concerns about law and order. Jews were, after all, not the only group to be ordered to leave the city. Other collective expulsions – sometimes alongside Jews – are recorded for Egyptians, astrologers, philosophers, and actors.

Whichever explanation for these expulsions one adopts, it must take into account the fact that the sources often do not articulate the precise background for taking action and that the practical consequences of the measures remain largely unclear. Given the apparent need to repeat expulsion orders and the continued presence of all of these groups in the city, the measure appears to have been quite ineffectual. The ineffectiveness of expulsions has been underlined in particular by Erich Gruen, who argued that these banning orders were not followed through but were of a symbolic character. In times of real or perceived crisis, the Roman establishment needed to reaffirm its commitment to ancient Roman values and distinguish these from alien practices. Jews and their conspicuous practices formed convenient scapegoats when the senate or the emperor wished to publicly polish their image: “the gesture alone mattered”.