The Ituraeans and the Roman Near East: Reassessing the Sources (Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series)

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THE ITURAEANS AND THE ROMAN NEAR EAST

The Ituraeans, a little-known people of late first-century BCE SyriaPalestine, are referred to briefly in a number of early texts, notably Pliny, Strabo and Josephus, and the principality of Ituraea is mentioned in Luke 3.1. There is, as yet, no consensus among archaeologists as to whether certain artifacts should be attributed to the Ituraeans or not. Overall, they form a mysterious backdrop to what we know of the area in the time of Jesus, which remains obstinately obscure despite the enormous amount of research in recent decades on the ‘historical Jesus’ and Greco-Roman Galilee. Through reference to the early texts, modern scholarship has contributed to a claim the Ituraeans were an Arab tribal group known mainly for their recurrent brigandage. E. A. Myers challenges these presuppositions and suggests a reappraisal of previous interpretations of these texts and the archaeological evidence to present a more balanced portrait of this ancient people. E . A . M Y E R S is an independent scholar and alumnus with the Centre for the Study of Religion, University of Toronto.

SOCIETY FOR NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES MONOGRAPH SERIES

General editor: John M. Court

147 THE ITURAEANS AND THE ROMAN NEAR EAST REASSESSING THE SOURCES

SOCIETY FOR NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES MONOGRAPH SERIES Recent titles in the series 125. Jesus’ Defeat of Death PETER G. BOLT

126. From Hope to Despair in Thessalonica COLIN R. NICHOLL

127. Matthew’s Trilogy of Parables WESLEY G. OLMSTEAD

128. The People of God in the Apocalypse STEPHEN PATTEMORE

129. The Exorcism Stories in Luke–Acts TODD KLUTZ

130. Jews, Gentiles and Ethnic Reconciliation TET-LIM N. YEE

131. Ancient Rhetoric and Paul’s Apology FREDRICK J. LONG

132. Reconstructing Honor in Roman Philippi JOSEPH H. HELLEMAN

133. Theological Hermeneutics and 1 Thessalonians ANGUS PADDISON

134. Greco-Roman Culture and the Galilee of Jesus MARK A. CHANCEY

135. Christology and Discipleship in the Gospel of Mark SUZANNE WATTS HENDERSON

136. The Judaean Poor and the Fourth Gospel TIMOTHY J. M. LING

137. Paul, the Stoics, and the Body of Christ MICHELLE LEE

138. The Bridegroom Messiah and the People of God JOCELYN MCWHIRTER

139. The Torn Veil DANIEL M. GURTNER

140. Discerning the Spirits ANDRÉ MUNZINGER

141. The Sheep of the Fold EDWARD W. KLINK III

142. The Psalms of Lament in Mark’s Passion STEPHEN P. AHERNE-KROLL

143. Cosmology and Eschatology in Hebrews KENNETH L. SCHENCK

144. The Speeches of Outsiders in Acts OSVALDO PADILLA

145. The Assumed Authorial Unity of Luke and Acts PATRICIA WALTERS

146. Geography and the Ascension Narrative in Acts MATTHEW SLEEMAN

The Ituraeans and the Roman Near East Reassessing the Sources E.A. MYERS

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo, Delhi, Dubai, Tokyo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521518871 © E. A. Myers 2010 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provision of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published in print format 2010 ISBN-13

978-0-511-67541-6

eBook (NetLibrary)

ISBN-13

978-0-521-51887-1

Hardback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

To my grandchildren, the next generation Brandon Charles Jeffery Mitchell James Gordon Morgan Paige and Kai Lancelot the ‘little one’

CONTENTS

List of illustrations Preface List of abbreviations

page x xi xii

Introduction

1

1

Early scholarship

5

2

Literary texts

12

3

Archaeology

42

4

Coins

102

5

Inscriptions

115

6

Ituraeans and identity

133

7

The Ituraeans in history

147

8

Conclusions

169

Appendix 1: Two small finds and the Ituraeans Appendix 2: Inscriptions relevant to the Roman auxiliary units Bibliography Index

176 180 186 213

ix

ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure 1

The Golan Heights as seen looking to the south from the lower slopes of the Hermon (photograph by the author) Figure 2 Mount Hermon capped with snow as seen from the northern reaches of the Golan (photograph by the author) Figure 3a Looking to the north-west from the northern ridge of the upper cult enclosure, in the far distance the northern Galilee and Huleh valley with Lebanon beyond (photograph by the author) Figure 3b Looking to the north-east from the upper cult enclosure (photograph by the author) Figure 4 Facing north and part of the upper cult enclosure with Locus 17 in the foreground (photograph by the author) Figure 5a The two stelae in situ at Structure 7 (photograph by the author) Figure 5b The taller stele (photograph by the author) Figure 5c The smaller stele (photograph by the author) Figure 6 The remains of the temple at Majdal ‘Anjar (photograph by Hanswulf Bloedhorn, September 1999) Figure 7 Monimus, the Ituraean archer, from his gravestone now in the Mainz Museum (photograph by Jürgen Zangenberg)

x

43

68

72 73

74 75 76 76

91

116

PREFACE

This monograph is a result of research done for my PhD dissertation, the initial challenge being an attempt to add to our scant knowledge of a little-known people. In the process, however, it became obvious that certain ideas formulated in antiquity and carried through to the present were ideas repeated often without any significant change. In general these assumptions tended to be negative and at times disparaging, leaving the questions: how do we know, and why? This monograph attempts to address this dilemma, to look again at the few textual references mentioning Ituraeans, and to reassess what has been said about them. In the end there may be, as yet, no clear answer to any question, but it is hoped that in the questioning at least a new and more perceptive view will be taken in future scholarship. Once again I would like to say thank you to the committee for the Canadian Friends of the École Biblique; their generosity in awarding me a second grant to cover full residence at the École is much appreciated. My time in Jerusalem in the summer of 2008 enabled me to update my material and spend many productive hours in the library. I would also like to thank Liz Bettles and Steve Mason, who willingly read sections of the manuscript and provided useful comments and suggestions. I am grateful for your efforts on my behalf. The editorial staff at Cambridge University Press have been most helpful in sorting out any questions regarding the technical side, and I thank them all for guiding me through this process.

xi

ABBREVIATIONS

AAE AB ABD ADAJ AE AEHL AHL AJBA ANET ANRW AO ARAB ArOr BA BAAL BAIAS BAR BAR/IS BASOR BCH BE BGU BIFAO BMB BMC Syria BMC Galatia xii

Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy The Anchor Bible Anchor Bible Dictionary Annual of the Department of Antiquities Jordan Année épigraphique The Archaeological Encyclopedia of the Holy Land Archaeology and History in Lebanon Australian Journal of Biblical Archaeology James Pritchard, ed., Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt Archiv Orientální Daniel David Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia Vol. I Ars Orientalis Biblical Archaeologist Bulletin d’Archéologie et d’Architecture Libanaises Bulletin of the Anglo-Israel Archaeology Society Biblical Archaeological Review British Archaeological Reports International Series Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research Bulletin de correspondance hellénique Bulletin Épigraphie Berliner griechische Urkunden (Aegyptische Urkunden aus den Königlichen Museen zu Berlin 1895) Bulletin de l’Institut français d’archéologie orientale Bulletin du Musée de Beyrouth W. Wroth, Catalogue of the Greek Coins of Galatia, Cappadocia, and Syria W. Wroth, Catalogue of the Greek Coins of Galatia, Cappadocia, and Syria in the British Museum (1964)

Abbreviations CAH CANE CIG CIL CIS CMO CPL DaM Daris DCA EAEHL ESI FGH Hist. Num. HSCP HUCA IDB IEJ IGL IGLS IGR ILS INJ JANESCU JAOS JESHO JHS JJS JNES JPOS JRA JRAS JRASS

xiii

Cambridge Ancient History Jack M. Sasson, ed., Civilizations of the Ancient Near East Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum Collection de la Maison de l’Orient méditerranéen Corpus Papyrorum Latinarum Damaszener Mitteilungen Documenti per la storia dell’ esercito romano in Egitto Dictionary of Classical Antiquities Michael Avi-Yonah, ed., Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land Excavations and Surveys in Israel F. Jacoby, ed., Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker Barclay Head, Historia Numorum: A manual of Greek Numismatics Harvard Studies in Classical Philology Hebrew Union College Annual Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible Israel Exploration Journal Philippe Le Bas and William Henry Waddington, Inscriptions grecques et latines recueilles en Asie Mineure Inscriptions grecques et latines de la Syrie Inscriptiones Graecae ad res Romanas pertinentes Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae I–III Israel Numismatic Journal Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society of Columbia University Journal of the American Oriental Society Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient Journal of Hellenic Studies Journal of Jewish Studies Journal of Near Eastern Studies Journal of the Palestine Oriental Society Journal of Roman Archaeology Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Journal of Roman Archaeology Supplement Series

xiv

Abbreviations

JRS JSJ JSPSS JSS LCL MA MASupp MUSJ NEAEHL OCD OEANE OED OGIS OLA OLP PECS PEQ PEFQSt PIR PPUAES QDAP RA RB RE REG RIU RMD RMRP SAA SB SEG SCI

Journal of Roman Studies Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic and Roman Period Journal for the Study of Pseudepigrapha Supplement Series Journal of Semitic Studies Loeb Classical Library Mediterranean Archaeology Mediterranean Archaelogy Supplements Melanges de l’Université Saint-Joseph Beyrouth Ephraim Stern, ed., New Encyclopaedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land Oxford Classical Dictionary Eric E. Meyers, ed., The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East The Oxford English Dictionary Orientis Graecae Inscriptiones Selectae Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta Orientalia Lovaniensia Periodica Richard Stillwell, ed., Princeton Encyclopaedia of Classical Sites Palestine Exploration Quarterly Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statement Prosopographia Imperii Romani Publications of the Princeton University Archaeological Expedition to Syria in 1904–1905 and 1906 Quarterly of the Department of Antiquities in Palestine Reallexicon der Assyriologie Revue biblique Realencyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche Revue des études grecques Romischen Inschriften Ungarens Margaret Roxan, Roman Military Diplomas Roman Military Records on Papyri State Archives of Assyria Sammelbuch griechischen Urkunden aus Aegypten Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum Scripta Classica Israelica

Abbreviations SHAJ SIG SNTSMS TA TAPA TDOT Trans UF VT VTSupp WVDOG ZDMG ZDPV ZPE

xv

Studies in the History and Archaeology of Jordan Sylloges Inscriptionum Graecarum Society for New Testament Study Monograph Series Tel Aviv Transactions of the American Philological Association E. Johannes Botterweck et al., eds., Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament Transeuphratène Ugarit-Forschungen Vetus Testamentum Vetus Testamentum Supplement Series Wissenschaftliche Veröffentlichungen der deutschen Orientgesellschaft Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins Zeitschrift fur Papyrologie und Epigraphik

Unless otherwise stated, all Greek and Latin authors quoted are from the Loeb Classical Library.

INTRODUCTION

There is a certain elusiveness about history; always contingent on those who both shape and interpret events, it is subject to accurate and well-considered reporting or inaccuracy and distortion. In the first century BCE people of the ancient Near East were witness to the end of the Seleucid Empire, a consolidation of power and the rise of the Roman Empire in the East. For the ancient world of SyriaPalestine it was a period of inevitable change and accompanying instability in the midst of which, of the many peoples of the affected region, were the Ituraeans. Their involvement in and contribution to events of this period is portrayed in the historical record as relatively minor, the written sources that have survived to the present day being minimal, and often only a fleeting mention. As a result, in part, the Ituraeans remained largely obscure, occasionally acknowledged by scholars when in reference to affairs recorded by the classical writers. In recent history, from the nineteenth century to the present, it became an accepted belief that Ituraeans were an Arab, unruly people, usually associated with brigandage and robbery endemic to the ancient world. A more detailed history of these enigmatic and almost invisible people was yet to be written. This book attempts to reassess the textual sources relevant to Ituraeans, and how the sources are understood and interpreted in modern scholarship. It will endeavour to place the Ituraeans within the larger context of the ancient Near East as opposed to being understood as a people subordinate to the greater Hellenistic and Roman world of which they were an integral part. A brief history of scholarship over the past century outlines important contributions made by scholars to the study of ancient Syria-Palestine, and of Ituraeans who were a part of that world. The source material is divided into four main sections: literary texts, archaeology, coins and inscriptions. Until recent scholarship began to enrich our knowledge, it was only through texts of the classical writers that a people 1

2

The Ituraeans and the Roman Near East

called ‘Ituraean’ and a territory named ‘Ituraea’ were known to have existed. There is a risk, however, in relying entirely upon these diverse and varied texts, as often they reflect little more than the fundamental aims of the original authors, and ever present in the mind of the reader are questions of language and context, the author’s intended aim and audience. Both past and present scholarship frequently reflects a tendency to repeat early assumptions and ideas without adequate consideration of their reliability and context. The problem is whether to accept implicitly what the primary texts state, or attempt to understand the text in light of the original author’s intent and circumstance. Throughout the twentieth century archaeology has introduced a new dimension to historical studies, and in particular with reference to the Ituraeans. On this foundation modern scholarship has formulated new and occasionally challenging conclusions regarding Ituraean settlement. The inherent problems in formulating any comprehensive understanding of who the Ituraeans were, or even what language they spoke, are yet to be fully resolved. Both the challenge and the risk are in the interpretation: on what basis do we come to any conclusion in respect to a site or to a text? Mentioned in the early texts are three large geographical areas: the Biqa‘ Valley of present-day Lebanon, the Anti-Lebanon including the Hermon massif, and the region known today as the Golan Heights with its natural extension into what is now southern Syria. Surveys and excavations in each of these three regions, although varying in extent, have contributed in recent years to research on their settlement history. Each region presents its own unique geographical landscape in which, according to the early writers and modern scholars, the Ituraeans were present in the late Hellenistic and early Roman periods. Although certain specific sites have been identified as ‘Ituraean’, there is need to clarify what archaeology can or cannot say about an ‘Ituraean’ occupation of the land in relationship to the historical sources. Among the primary sources, coins preserve evidence for an Ituraean principality formed under rulers who bore the titles of ΤΕΤΡΑΡΧΟΥ ΚΑΙ ΑΡΧΙΕΡΕΩΣ, tetrarch and chief priest, both titles reflecting the prevailing cultural milieu in which Ituraeans interacted. In the late Hellenistic and early Roman period the title of tetrarch indicates the rank of a minor prince whose political power was less than that of a king. It was particularly popular in Roman Syria with the term ‘chief priest’ occurring frequently in inscriptions from the Roman provinces. In this context the translation of αρχίερεως as ‘chief priest’ is more suitable, the term ‘high priest’ used more

Introduction

3

specifically for Jerusalem. As well as confirming the names and titles of Ituraean rulers, the coins also provide a dating on which an Ituraean historical chronology can be framed. The corpus of Greek and Latin inscriptions offers a diverse and occasionally enigmatic assemblage of information. The majority of inscriptions that mention Ituraeans are concerned with Ituraean auxiliary units in the Roman military, the name for the unit being taken from the original Ituraean tribe or tribal leader. Initially these first units would have comprised Ituraean men recruited from their towns and villages, along with Syrians and other eastern tribes known for their skill in archery. These inscriptions offer a glimpse, albeit brief, into lives of individual soldiers, but do not elucidate a specific Ituraean identity. Along with archaeology, coins and the early texts, the inscriptions provide information which necessitates a careful interpretation within the context from which they originate. Most scholars of the past twentieth century, along with many today, assert that Ituraeans were of Arab origin, yet perhaps it is time to challenge this preconception. It is important to emphasize the need to examine how the early writers understood the terms ‘Arab’ and ‘Arabian’, and at the same time to acknowledge what the Arabs in antiquity considered their own self-identity, if in fact that can be understood. Determining ethnic identity through historical sources and archaeological finds is not without its obstacles and often results in vague and misleading conclusions. The relevant material presented here is meant to challenge some of these prior presuppositions. Questioning what the primary texts say and how they have been ascribed, how scholars both past and present have used these texts, and how we might best understand the information we have before us may lead to a new and enlightened perspective. The information here presented is intended to examine the Ituraeans in a neutral framework, reassess the texts in which they are mentioned, and discuss the archaeology in terms of what it may or may not reveal of an Ituraean people. In the early years of scholarship the various disciplines tended to be studied in isolation without integrating other contiguous areas of research into the examination. That approach is rapidly changing, and it is now understood that an appreciation of archaeology can give substance to texts, while the texts can provide context and historical precision to the archaeological evidence. Coins and inscriptions may reflect the religious and cultural trends of a society sometimes not revealed in other features of an archaeological excavation and often provide insight into

4

The Ituraeans and the Roman Near East

cultural and religious background. Together these various disciplines form a more complete picture, often if not always prompting the researcher with further questions. The following chapters will consider each of these topics in light of the Ituraeans, and in so doing question some of the prevailing ideas regarding Ituraeans.

1 EARLY SCHOLARSHIP

First published in German in 1874, Emil Schürer’s Geschichte des jüdischen Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu Christi includes a section summarizing a history of the Ituraeans.1 Schürer documented all the thenknown primary textual sources, inscriptions, coins and Roman military inscriptions relating to the Ituraean principality. An English translation, now substantially revised and updated, and reflecting the opinions and ideas of those who worked on the revision, remains an important resource.2 Treatment of the sources is well balanced and objective, and does not rest on unreasonable assumptions. This general historical outline with detailed references is a fundamental tool in any initial research for the historical Ituraean. Within a few years of Schürer’s first English publication between 1885 and 1891, George Adam Smith published The Historical Geography of the Holy Land.3 As a clergyman he was particularly interested in geography and its relationship to the history of Israel/ Palestine and the early church. Having made two trips to the Middle East, the first in the spring of 1880 and the second in 1891 when he travelled further into Syria, it was his first-hand experience of a new and varied landscape that inspired him to seek a greater understanding of the biblical and extra-biblical texts. Although this experience tends to colour his writing, it still affords a particular insight into the region, its geography, environment, climate and inhabitants. Though the writing is often subjective and occasionally outdated, references to early writers, surveyors and explorers of the region furnish a unique resource. His conclusions regarding the Ituraeans are to be noted when he states quite emphatically the ‘Ituraeans were Arabs’, describing them as ‘wild bordermen between Syria and Arabia’.4 Initially Smith published an article in The Expositer, a journal dealing mainly 1 2

Schürer 1874, vol. I, ‘Geschichte von Chalcis, Ituräa und Abilene’. Schürer 1973. 3 Smith 1902. 4 Smith 1974: 350–1.

5

6

The Ituraeans and the Roman Near East

with biblical and theological issues. Here Smith defends his position on the geographical limits to the territory of the Trachones and Ituraea, and at the same time discusses the territory of the Ituraeans in light of Schürer’s evidence. Much of this discussion centres on the reference to the territory of Ituraea as mentioned in Lk. 3.1.5 A more detailed and comprehensive study of Syria and surrounding regions which again concentrates on historical geography was published under the auspices of the Haut-Commissariat de la République Française en Syrie et au Liban in 1927. René Dussaud’s monumental Topographie historique de la Syrie antique et médiévale furnishes maps, an extensive bibliography, detailed footnotes with references, and a well-documented text.6 As the title suggests, Dussaud was primarily interested in the topography of ancient Syria, including what is presently known as Lebanon, the Hauran and the Golan. In chapter 6 he discusses the regions of the Hauran, the Hermon and the Biqa‘, all important in relation to the Ituraeans. The topographical maps are particularly useful as they include sites modern maps often overlooked. Arabic names, when known, are given for towns and villages, rivers, wadis and mountain ranges. As a guide to understanding the landscape of Syria-Palestine in the late Hellenistic and early Roman periods it is invaluable. A history of Rome’s control in the Eastern territories is the focus of A. H. M. Jones, The Cities of the Eastern Roman Provinces (1937), which makes extensive use of coins, inscriptional evidence and primary texts.7 In Jones’ view, the Ituraeans were one of two tribal principalities, the other being the Nabataeans. The Ituraeans are called an ‘Arab people’, and he suggests that they were ‘an unruly people, given to brigandage’.8 These valuations represent still a widely accepted view as will be demonstrated and challenged later. Although Jones gives extensive reference material, his writing, in general, tends to be subjective. In a previously published article on the Ituraeans he outlines the development, urbanization and history of an Ituraean principality which remains a basic reference point.9 Such early twentieth-century publications have been enhanced by evidence from archaeological excavations, and the textual historical record reinvigorated by renewed interest in the ancient world. In the 1980s Willi Schottroff expanded the study on Ituraeans through his article ‘Die Ituräer’ by including a detailed listing of Ituraean 5 8

Smith 1894: 231–8. See Jones 1971: 254.

6

Dussaud 1927. 7 Jones 1937. Jones 1931–1932: 265–75.

9

Early scholarship

7

auxiliary units recorded on Roman military diplomata.10 His article begins with a description of gravestones found in and around Mainz, Germany, on which names of soldiers enlisted in the Ituraean auxiliary units are inscribed. Two of the gravestones each have a sculptural relief of an auxiliary soldier. Here, for the first time, a picture is drawn of an individual whom we might assume to be an Ituraean, yet even in this context there is no way of proving it. Schottroff maintains the previously accepted view that Ituraeans were Arabs, describing them as Hellenized Arabs who gradually changed their lives from robbery to farming.11 Schottroff’s recording of Ituraean alae and cohortes auxiliary units in the Roman army lends yet another aspect to our scant knowledge of an unknown people. His pioneering work on the Ituraean auxiliary units forms a background to which others have since added. This field of study on auxiliary units of the Roman military is both varied and extensive, with significant contributions made by numerous scholars. As it remains a separate field of scholarship with a vast publication, only a few examples have been included in the bibliography. Since the 1970s and early 1980s increased activity in the archaeology of the Galilee and the Golan, and in particular that conducted by Shimon Dar and Moshe Hartal, has provoked substantial discussion and raised further questions.12 Their identification of sites as Ituraean based on a particular pottery type has given rise to a renewed interest in the Ituraeans and their history. Some have challenged previous views concerning the northern Galilee and its ethnic composition during the period of Hasmonean expansion in the late second and early first centuries BCE. Questions posed as a result of these enquiries have led to a greater consideration of whether a people called Ituraean formed a substantial part of the Galilean population, or whether they were merely one of many groups that may or may not have inhabited the region. The work by Dar and Hartal is significant, in part for the archaeological record it has produced, but also in terms of their designation of settlement sites in the Hermon and northern Golan as ‘Ituraean’. To date it is the only archaeological evidence on which such a claim rests, and it has yet to be fully understood and expanded. Since their determination of ethnic identity rests on a pottery type, this question is discussed in some detail in a following chapter. Ethnicity is a more deceptive but significant issue arising from pursuit of the Ituraeans, an issue which is often merely a matter of 10

Schottroff 1982: 125–52.

11

Schottroff 1982: 145.

12

Dar 1993; Hartal 1989.

8

The Ituraeans and the Roman Near East

perception. As one scholar framed it, ethnicity ‘can never be a single water-tight category’.13 It is a common fallacy to assume ethnic identity through names or language; in consideration of these issues Michael Macdonald suggests that both language and artifact are regrettably an insecure guide by which to determine the ethnic identity of a people.14 There are, in fact, inherent dangers in so doing. Many scholars assume the Ituraeans were Arabs; indeed, this is the standard and most widely accepted view. This is clearly evident in one publication, where it is confidently stated the Ituraeans were of Arabian stock and spoke Aramaic.15 From what little evidence we have in order to support either part of this statement, we must first ask the question, how do we know? There is no firm evidence upon which such statements can be supported; we can merely speculate. These misconceptions endure, however, where in a recently published travel book the Ituraeans are described as being of Arabian origin and Aramaic speaking.16 Unfortunately, there is nothing in the primary sources either to confirm or negate such statements with confidence, and only the essential ideas implied are misleading. A society that speaks Aramaic is not necessarily Arab; conversely Arabs do not necessarily speak Aramaic. These statements are made even more confusing by the absence of any clear definition of the term ‘Arab’. The question as to whether Ituraeans were Arab involves an understanding, first, of what the word ‘Arab’ implied in antiquity and, second, how the term is understood today. A work which offers a highly detailed history of the Arabs and attempts to understand this complex term is a recent publication by Jan Retsö.17 In his book Retsö presents a vast amount of detail with references to literary, historical and archaeological sources, along with an extensive bibliography and footnotes. This follows earlier works by Israel Eph‘al and Irfan Shahid, both writing specifically about Arabs and their place within the history of the ancient Near East.18 In a number of articles, Michael Macdonald has published some of the most significant work regarding the Arabs. With his expertise in Semitic languages, and in particular Ancient North Arabian (of which Safaitic is only one), along with a clear understanding of the historical sources and archaeological results, Macdonald’s research offers a rich and enlightening resource for any modern scholar.19 13 16 19

Macdonald 1998: 182. 14 Macdonald 1999: 256. 15 Hitti 1957b: 171. Mannheim 2001: 581. 17 Retsö 2003. 18 Eph‘al 1984 and Shahid 1984. See bibliography for complete listing.

Early scholarship

9

Nineteenth- and twentieth-century scholarship has tended to view the ancient Near East from a western classicist point of view often, but not always, with the result that the ancient Semitic world is coloured by an overlay of Greek and Roman dress. The drama of the classical world simply obscured the Semitic roots of SyriaPalestine. Eph‘al pointed to a lack of literary documentation for the Persian period which he describes as a ‘veritable dark age’.20 This ‘dark age’ is no longer, as the wealth of epigraphic sources which have come to light in recent years encouraged scholars to rethink previous assumptions relating to the years before Alexander’s conquest of Syria-Palestine. Archaeological finds of this past century support the ‘abundant evidence of considerable Greek influence in Palestine before the advent of Alexander the Great’, which has led scholars to recognize the even greater impact and influence of the Persian Empire upon the Near East.21 Significant also is a greater discernment for comprehending the ancient Near East in terms of its long history and the immense diversity in which East and West met and at times coexisted. Questioning these earlier preconceptions, in which the various stages of Near Eastern history were treated as separate and often unrelated events, are Susan Sherwin-White and Amélie Kuhrt, who focus mainly on contact between the Greek world and the non-Greek world of what became the Seleucid Empire. Their purpose is to emphasize this world as a ‘multiplicity of cultures’, in which the indigenous peoples maintained their own cultures and traditions while absorbing and reinterpreting those of the Persian, Hellenistic and Roman worlds.22 As a classical scholar, Fergus Millar’s emphasis on the frequency of Greek language in the inscriptional evidence from Syria-Palestine seems to contrast with this way of thinking.23 As a result, Millar provides a much less comprehensive understanding of the nature of the Semitic world upon which the Greek and Latin language was imposed. In describing the hinterland of the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, he points to the lack of much inscriptional evidence, and so declares this region to be ‘almost wholly obscure’, with any details that might remain in the texts ‘not worth pursuing’.24 If such a strict standard is to be used, possible insights into the indigenous populations are severely reduced. How we approach and understand the historical record and its nature, and what biases we bring to any interpretation, is not without 20 22

Eph‘al 1998: 107. 21 Eph‘al 1998: 118. Sherwin-White and Kuhrt 1993: 144. 23 Millar 1993.

24

Millar 1993: 273–4.

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The Ituraeans and the Roman Near East

its inherent complexities. In his publication on the Roman East, Warwick Ball questions the ways in which the Roman Empire of the East is frequently perceived. Early in his book he criticizes Millar for constantly labouring on the lack of native character in the Near East, and suggests that the ‘Romans in the East are almost universally viewed from an overlay of western cultural bias’.25 In support of his thesis, Ball considers the many works dealing with the Roman East, and in particular those usually written by the classicists whom Ball describes as being ‘necessarily Eurocentric’.26 Ball is critical of scholarship which has continued to interpret and understand the East, and in particular the Roman East, from a Western classicist viewpoint. If in an appreciation of the Seleucid Empire these biases exist (Kuhrt and Sherwin-White would probably agree), then scholars today must be aware of these along with any modern biases they might bring to the interpretation of material. The Ituraeans would have experienced both Seleucid and Roman, and possibly Achaemenid, rule. Yet, in attempting to gain an understanding of who the Ituraeans were as a people, it is also necessary that the researcher place them within the Semitic world they inhabited. What the Semitic world in turn imprinted onto the Seleucid and Roman empires is frequently overlooked in preference to a Greco-Roman view. Ball attempts to raise another important issue of terminology in his discussion on differences between the use of such terms as ‘Greek’ and ‘Macedonian’ or ‘Greco-Roman’, where each can be a source of cultural confusion. The question becomes even more critical with the word ‘Arab’, and Ball’s comment here is telling: ‘History’s attitudes to the Bedouin Arab range from uncivilised barbarians of the desert fringes, constantly threatening the civilisation of the Fertile Crescent, to the European Romantic era’s adulation of the Bedouin as the ultimate embodiment of nobility and environmental harmony.’27 There is certainly some truth to this statement, as such attitudes have coloured perceptions and consequent ideas relative to Arabs down to the present. How the term ‘Arab’ was perceived in antiquity, and how the word is presently used when describing Ituraeans, is an issue of considerable importance to any possible appreciation of both. Two recent publications add to the growing body of scholarship dealing with ancient Syria-Palestine. First is the publication, in French, of Maurice Sartre’s history of greater Syria from the time 25

Ball 2000: 2.

26

Ball 2000: 2.

27

Ball 2000: 32.

Early scholarship

11

of Alexander’s arrival to the rule of Queen Zenobia.28 At over a thousand pages it provides much information on an important subject, though his approach to the Ituraeans follows a conservative, traditional one in which they are involved in banditry and eventually lose their principality to the Herodian dynasty. Kevin Butcher’s publication is a wide-ranging history of ancient Syria, from its annexation by Pompey to the Muslim conquest in the seventh century CE.29 Amply illustrated with excellent drawings and photos, the book offers insight into the history, geography, economy and politics of Roman Syria in the Near East, as well as acknowledging the culture, religion and economic background of the people who inhabited this vast region. Accepting the difficulties inherent in any discussion of the Roman Near East, Butcher emphasizes the need for caution when attempting to define or understand the past, especially when using modern terminology. The age-old problem of perception, of how a region is best understood, is expressed as being neither East nor West, since both are ‘identities projected on to the past’.30 Butcher argues that those who lived throughout this long chronological period in such a vast and diverse landscape were ‘active participants in a network of social relations, imperial and otherwise, with a capacity for apportioning and using cultural symbols of different origin for their own ends’.31 Here Butcher expresses a well-considered concept of a region, where only by acknowledging the multiplicity of layers can we begin to understand the inhabitants. Although brief, in a section referring to Ituraeans at the time of final Seleucid rule, he suggests they became a serious threat to the cities along the coast during the period of Pompey’s annexation of the land. Although scholars have discussed primary source material in previous works – texts, inscriptions, coins, and archaeology – it is perhaps incumbent upon us to reassess this whole range of available information. This is becoming more apparent in the field of archaeology, where recent excavations have enriched the available information, and occasionally changed prior assumptions. The approach to historical material for the ancient Near East is invigorated under new direction, with a now conscious attempt to understand it in its broadest perspective. As scholarship is an ongoing process, the future holds much to explore and learn afresh in regard to Ituraeans, and to better understand their place in the historical record. 28 29

Sartre 2001. It is now available in English, see Sartre 2005. Butcher 2003b: 17. 30 Butcher 2003b: 17. 31 Butcher 2003b: 17.

2 LITERARY TEXTS

For many years the only basis on which scholars were able to attest to the existence and reality of the Ituraeans, and their principality known as Ituraea, was the early textual material. Based on the experience and preconceptions of the early writers, this historical/ literary material has been subject to various interpretations by modern scholars. Analogous to this was, for many scholars, a longaccepted approach when dealing with the ancient Near East, to look for ‘something Greek – almost to the exclusion of the existing cultures’.1 How do we look to the ancient Near East without imposing preconceived ideas or misinterpreting the primary source material? A brief mention by Strabo, and more frequent mention by Josephus, reveal in their writings the existence of a people named Ituraean. More frequently than not this led scholars to make assumptions about a relatively unknown people in which they are consistently viewed within a negative framework. In one instance Ituraeans are considered as ‘belligerent’, in another as ‘wild border-men between Syria and Arabia’.2 In an attempt to address this fundamental misconception, and at the same time to help bring about a more objective interpretation, this textual material will be reconsidered. Recent scholarship has challenged the way we have, in the past, viewed the ancient Near East and the Greco-Roman world, yet, in spite of this enhancement, many outdated and ill-conceived ideas still prevail. The Greek and Latin writers from antiquity left us with a wealth of information, occasional first-hand experience of travels to foreign lands, and accounts of witnesses to significant events. They do, however, frequently illustrate an author’s prejudice, or personal interpretation of events, which often reflects a bias in attitude toward other 1 2

12

Sherwin-White and Kuhrt 1993: 141. The first quote is Knauf 1998: 275; the second is Smith 1974: 544.

Literary texts

13

cultures. Compounding this are difficulties in translation of text, occasionally with our own inability to understand the nuances in the language of the author; what does the writer mean and why is this expressed in such a way? For example, caution is required in reading Strabo when he describes a landscape he has not visited, or when Josephus conveys information on events relied on through other sources. Nineteenth- and early twentieth-century scholarship often reflected the colonial/imperialistic attitudes of western culture, clearly illustrated in one comment made in reference to Ituraeans, where they are described as ‘another backward people of Syria’.3 Such a negative stereotype is difficult to dispel, with recent scholarship sometimes strengthening such an aspect as illustrated in the following statement: ‘One aspect of the Ituraean lifestyle which was their hallmark elsewhere, namely brigandage, is perhaps the closest that they came to leaving a direct trace of their ongoing presence in Galilee and its environs.’4 Elsewhere, in making a comparison to another group the author is more explicit: ‘the Nabataeans seem to have gained their wealth by trading, whereas the Ituraeans preferred robbing’.5 Such views are not uncommon among present scholarship, with one scholar seeing the Ituraean tribe as essentially being ‘infamous for its ferocity’.6 It is necessary to reassess these primary texts and attempt to understand both the writer’s intent and the context within which the text was written. Concurrent, as emphasized elsewhere, is ‘understanding the evidence in some plausible and comprehensive way’ as well as ‘admitting disagreement among interpreters’ to be one of the necessary stages we must enter into.7 Eupolemus According to Schürer the earliest mention of Ituraeans in the Greek sources comes from the Greek/Jewish historian Eupolemus who completed his History of the Jews in 158 BCE. He is mentioned in both 1 and 2 Maccabees as an ambassador to Rome for Judas Maccabaeus in 161 BCE.8 Recorded in his writings, of which only fragments remain, the Ituraeans are listed as being one among several groups whom David subdued: στρατευ̑σαι δ’ αυτὸν καὶ ἐπὶ Ἰδουμαίους καὶ ᾽Αμμανίτας καὶ Μωαβίτας καὶ Ἰτουραίους καὶ Ναβαταίους καὶ 3 6 8

Jones 1931–1932: 265. 4 Freyne 2001: 207. 5 Knauf 1998: 273. Knauf 1992: 583–4. 7 Mason 1998: 12. Schürer 1973: 561–2; 1 Macc. 8.17 and 2 Macc. 4.11.

14

The Ituraeans and the Roman Near East

Ναβδαίους9 (‘he also made expeditions against the Edomites, the Ammonites, and the Moabites, and Ituraeans, and Nabataeans, and Nabdaeans’).10 This fragmentary text includes the names of several tribes, but notably without reference to Arabians, although Eupolemus may well have understood these tribal groups as Arab, it being a common assumption in antiquity. Wacholder, in his study on the works of Eupolemus, suggests the inclusion of Nabataeans and Ituraeans to be noteworthy, and describes the Ituraeans as ‘a predatory Arab tribe, which occupied the Lebanon and the Hermon mountains whose capital Heliopolis (modern Baalbek) was in Chalcis’.11 It is difficult to understand what Wacholder is implying here; there appears to be an assumption that Heliopolis is the capital of the Ituraean kingdom, which would in fact clearly contradict Strabo’s statement (Geog. 16.2.18) that Chalcis is the acropolis of the Massyas Plain. Wacholder considers that the inclusion of both Nabataeans and Ituraeans in the list of Eupolemus might be significant because at the time these tribes, like the Jews, were attempting to gain independence from their Seleucid rulers. Eupolemus writes of the tenth century BCE but includes peoples he is familiar with from the second century BCE, and at the same time there is an idealization of David as ‘a perfect king’.12 While Eupolemus may be the earliest written reference in Greek for Ituraeans, he tends to reflect his Jewish Hellenistic background and milieu, and provides little for any further understanding of the Ituraeans. In a discussion on the southern Aramaean kingdom of Soba (Greek Σούβα) in the Biqa‘ valley, Lipiński suggests that Eupolemus, in his list of David’s enemies, substituted Ituraeans for the biblical Soba. The etymology of Soba links it to the meaning of ‘swamp land’, which according to Lipiński seems to indicate the historical centre of Soba as ‘close to the ancient marshy lake of the Biqa‘ valley and that Soba may have designated a region before becoming a city name’.13 It could be that by the early years of the tenth century BCE the Aramaean kingdom of Soba was in existence within the Biqa‘ valley, although the origins of Aramaean settlement in this region are still largely unknown.14 The most important site in this area of the southern Biqa‘ valley is Kamid el-Loz, ancient Kumidi, which was destroyed at the end of the Late Bronze Age. Recently renewed 9 10 12

Mras 1954: 538 = FGH 723 F2, p. 673 for the Greek text. Gifford 1903: 447 for the translation. 11 Wacholder 1974: 134. Wacholder 1974: 148. 13 Lipiński 2000: 320. 14 Lipiński 2000: 330.

Literary texts

15

excavations have begun to provide more information on its long history of settlement after this destruction, and support its importance during the Hellenistic and early Roman periods. Letters sent by the governor of the Neo-Assyrian province in the eighth century BCE to King Sargon II reflect the close relations between the Arabs and the region of Soba. It is in this light that we might speculate on the possibility of Ituraean tribes being descended from the Aramaeans who had settled within this kingdom. While the list Eupolemus provides gives us no clear evidence as to whom he understood the Ituraeans to be, a separate tribal group of Arabs or possibly Aramaeans, Schürer merely points to Eupolemus as making the earliest reference in Greek, and offers no further comment. Strabo Strabo, the late-first-century BCE historian and geographer, describes the Ituraeans as an identifiable group with lands they inhabit specifically mentioned. In the Geography, the second of his two major works, he locates the Ituraean principality within the Massyas Plain, today known as the Biqa‘ valley of modern Lebanon. The name of the first Ituraean ruler, and hints of the Ituraeans’ reputation as a people, are provided in two brief passages: and at no great distance, also, were Heliopolis and Chalcis, which latter was subject to Ptolemaeus the son of Mennaeus, who possessed Massyas and the mountainous country of the Ituraeans (16.2.10). The beginning of this plain is the Laodiceia near Libanus. Now all the mountainous parts are held by Ituraeans and Arabians, all of whom are robbers (κακου̑ργοι πάντες), but the people in the plains are farmers (16.2.18). The ancient name Massyas is, according to Lipiński, a possible transcription of the Semitic name meaning ‘something like marsh’, deriving from the same root verb found in Hebrew, Arabic and Aramaic, meaning ‘to soak in water’.15 Strabo makes a clear distinction between Ituraeans and Arabians, possibly implying that there were at least two distinct groups of people living within the mountains of the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, and the valley or plain below. There 15

Lipiński 2000: 307.

16

The Ituraeans and the Roman Near East

is general agreement that Strabo used the writings of Posidonius, along with other sources particularly in Geography 16. Though he travelled widely and wrote about a great many places, Strabo did not visit either Syria or Palestine during his travels, therefore any information he provides concerning the hinterland of Syria must be taken as second-hand. Strabo is unclear about who the Arabians were; for the Greeks they were usually the people who dwelt in regions to the east and south of the Anti-Lebanon mountains. In this respect perhaps we can be reminded of Macadam’s assessment of Strabo’s knowledge of Syrian geography, on which he considers it to be generally poor.16 Whether Strabo knew the landscape personally or not, he provides some interesting and detailed information on the people and their customs. In an earlier passage he describes parts of Mesopotamia towards the south as being inhabited by ‘Arabian Scenitae, a tribe of brigands (ληστρικοι) and shepherds, who readily move from one place to another when pasture and booty fail them’ (16.1.26). Such a statement may well reflect the situation in antiquity, and as Strabo understood it, however, modern scholarship has unfortunately often taken such statements as absolute and reinforced a negative stereotype of the nomad. Macdonald sees this pattern in modern works on the Roman period and Late Antiquity, where the terms ‘Arab’, ‘Arabic speaker’ and ‘nomad’ have often been ‘treated as synonymous’.17 It quickly becomes a standard, modern interpretation for the use of the term, derived uncritically from the ancient sources. That Strabo names both Ituraeans and Arabians is significant; he at least hints at the possibility the Ituraeans are distinct from Arabians, although without any further detail provided. Whether or not there was a difference between these two groups we can only speculate, except to lean on the side of the inevitable question: why mention both if there was no distinction? Geographical locations for Arabs were many: by the beginning of the Hellenistic period there were six different regions identified by the Greeks as referring to Arabia. One of the six was the region of the Anti-Lebanon. The list covers a large geographical area, diverse and varied in both language and culture, but all inhabitants were considered to be Arabians. In Book 16.3.1 Strabo describes the ‘whole of Arabia’ as being ‘above Judaea and Coele Syria, as far as Babylonia and the river country of the Euphrates towards the south’. The Arabians are known to be ‘not very good warriors even on land’ 16

Macadam 1986: 48.

17

Macdonald 1998: 179.

Literary texts

17

(16.4.23), appearing to be less civilized than the Syrians but ‘having governments that are better organized [than the Scenitae]’ (16.2.11). Although still considered ‘Arabian’, the Scenitae are ‘tent dwellers’ who are ‘divided off into small sovereignties and live in tracts that are barren for want of water’ (16.3.1). In an earlier passage mentioning ‘parts of Mesopotamia’, Strabo appears to understand the Arabian Scenitae as ‘a tribe of brigands and shepherds, who readily move from one place to another when pasture and booty fail them. Accordingly, the people who live alongside the mountains are harassed not only by the Scenitae, but also by the Armenians, who are situated above them and, through their might, oppress them’ (16.1.26). Continuing in the following passage, Strabo compares two caravan trade routes used by merchants, one crossing the Syrian desert, the other a much shorter route following the Euphrates. Travellers on either route would be expected to pay tribute; for those travelling the more difficult route across the desert it was exacted by the Scenitae, and for those taking the shorter, less risky route along the river, it was exacted by the local chieftains. There was no common standard of tribute set, as each group determined its own depending on particular circumstances. As the crossing of the desert took much longer (according to Strabo twenty-five days), water would be a fundamental requirement for the merchants. Essentially Strabo’s information is of the activity of merchants travelling varying routes, and dealing with an ever-changing payment in tribute, its arbitrariness due to ‘peoples that are self-willed’ (16. 1. 27), making it impossible for a common standard of tribute to be set. It is not unlikely that raiding also occurred; the caravans were always vulnerable to such activity, but as Strabo makes no direct mention in this passage it is perhaps too hasty to assume changes only as a result of banditry. Furthermore, it is evident that Strabo has a mixed view as to who the Arabians/Scenitae are: they are at the same time ‘brigands and shepherds’ (16.1.26) as well as ‘peaceful and moderate toward travellers’ (16.1.27). The Ituraeans remain a separate group from Strabo’s general description of the Arabians and are only mentioned in relationship to the geographical region of the Massyas Plain.18 Strabo provides information in terms of the Arabians: tribal names, habitat, livelihood and customs. However, the ethnicity that lies behind the terms cannot be discerned, nor can we know how the people themselves would have understood their own identity. 18

Strabo, Geog. 16.3.1–16.4.27.

18

The Ituraeans and the Roman Near East Arabs/Arabians

At this juncture it is worth clarifying the use of the term ‘Arab’, how it was used and understood in antiquity, and how it is reflected in present discourse, especially in light of today’s highly charged political implications. It first occurs in the Assyrian Annals of the ninth century BCE, used mainly in reference to nomadic peoples living in eastern and southern Syria and northern Arabia. In the present twenty-first century the term ‘Arab’ comes laden with ethnic, historical and modern political detritus, with the result that it is often difficult to define, and even more so when used in the context of antiquity. What do present-day scholars mean when they state that Ituraeans were Arabs? Do they use the term within its ancient context, or is it used in a modern sense? The difficulties are expressed in one comment in which the term ‘Arab’ is seen to trigger erroneous assumptions in the modern mind, including a readiness to accept the stereotypical image of the Arab as a nomad, mounted on a camel. Unfortunately this has been a dominant feature of Western thinking about the Middle East from antiquity to the present.19 The usual picture lacks any recognition of Arab diversity, whether in language, lifestyle or the various geographical locations in which they lived. The stereotype of the nomad as a ‘constant wanderer’, and an ‘incorrigible brigand and pillager, incurably violent’ was formed first within the written records of the Assyrian and Babylonian official documents, and contained in most of the biblical prophecies.20 These documents express the opinions of those who encountered the Arabs (or those who are referred to as Arab), and not of the Arabs themselves. The concept of ‘Arabia’ and by association ‘Arabians’ as it has come down through the historical sources was the name the Greeks and others gave to any place where ‘Arabs’ were found. The Assyrians considered the Arabians as merely inhabitants of ‘the land of the Arabians’, a vague and undefined region of nomadic peoples whom they encountered through trade and commerce in widely differing regions. However, as Macdonald emphasizes, it ‘did not prevent them from regarding each of these regions as “Arabia”, though inevitably this led to a certain amount of

19 20

Macdonald 2003: 308; see also Macdonald 2001: 1–46. Macdonald 1995: 1359.

Literary texts

19

confusion’.21 It remains unclear as to ‘how the word “Arabian” was defined by those who used it in antiquity’, so assumptions made in modern scholarship in any attempt to understand or define ‘Arabian’ or ‘Arab’ still require careful consideration.22 In a third-century CE Greek epitaph (IGR I 839) inscribed on a gravestone, a man describes himself as an ‘Arab of the city of Septimia of Kanōtha’. It is likely that this brief and enigmatic passage is the only expression of ‘Arab’ as a self-designation before the sixth century CE, and in Macdonald’s opinion any application of ‘Arab/ Arabians’ to groups before this period may well be misleading or incorrect.23 In part, the difficulty in providing the term ‘Arab’ with an identity or ethnicity is increased by the fact that, until the sixth century CE, the Arabic language was purely oral. If it became at all necessary to write it down, the script was borrowed from another language. The result was that Arabic speakers of antiquity became all but invisible in the written records.24 Recent scholarship is now beginning to revise long-held attitudes that portray both the nomad and the mountain peoples in consistently negative terms, although unfortunately this view has not disappeared entirely. It is well worth remembering Macdonald’s statement: Indeed for several centuries after they first encountered them, the Greek image of the ‘Arab’ was that of a rich merchant not a nomadic herdsman. This suggests that we should discard the stereotypical pictures which have filled the pages of political and literary works since the Assyrians, and refuse to make assumptions about the way-of-life or geographical origins of populations, simply on the basis of a term ‘Arab’ which is at present indefinable, but in fact seems to have nothing to do with how you live or where you are from.25 In discussing the many polities existing on the fringes of the Syrian desert, Hoyland reflects on how both Greco-Roman writers and modern scholars often describe these groups as Arab, and within these groups are included the Ituraeans around Mt Lebanon. In general, he considers that lack of evidence prevents any firm statement to confirm or refute the Arab character of these groups.26

21 23 25

Macdonald 2001: 1–2. 22 Macdonald 2001: 2. Macdonald 2003: 304 and fn. 3. 24 Macdonald 2003: 304–5. Macdonald 2003: 318. 26 Hoyland 2001: 69.

20

The Ituraeans and the Roman Near East

Apart from the few brief references already discussed, Strabo has nothing further to say on the Ituraeans. What little he does say, however, must be considered seriously in the light of his distinction between the Ituraeans and the Arabians. This distinction leads one to think, however speculatively, that he must have understood the Ituraeans to be other than Arabians. Those called Arabians are from lands called Arabia, presumably those regions to the east and south of the Anti-Lebanon. The Ituraeans are described as mountain dwellers, and it would seem safe to conclude that some were brigands, although not necessarily all. For modern scholarship to so readily accept that Strabo believed Ituraeans to be Arab is speculative and unverifiable. Strabo and brigands/robbers At the same time that we learn of two distinct groups, Strabo also speaks of the mountainous parts being held by Ituraeans and Arabians ‘all of whom are robbers’ (16.2.18). In this passage Strabo uses the Greek κακου̑ργοι to describe the Ituraeans, which Jones (LCL) translates as ‘robbers’, indicating they are different and somehow separate from the Arabian Scenitae who are named ‘brigands’ in 16.1.28, using the Greek ληστρικοί. The implication that all Ituraeans were ‘robbers’ has been assumed by most scholars while citing the above passage 16.2.18. According to Liddell and Scott, κακουργέω has the meaning of ‘do evil, work wickedness; to cheat, act badly’.27 One can only speculate as to why Strabo uses two different words, apart from his own emphasis on how he viewed each group and what he thought personally about them. There is an aura of personal feeling in describing someone as being wicked, or doing evil. Did Strabo merely repeat what others reported to him, or did he in fact see these brigands as ‘doing evil’? It is impossible to know, except that Strabo once again differentiates between Arabians and Ituraeans. The more common word for robbery, piracy, plunderering and brigandry, and used frequently by Josephus, is λῃστεία (Latin latrocinium). Mason contends that Josephus’ use of the Greek λῃστεία is entirely in keeping with contemporary Roman usage.28 Strabo, however, uses λῃστεία on only four occasions in speaking of brigands (Geog. 4.6.6; 4.6.8–9; 15.3.4–5;

27

Liddell & Scott 1994; see also Rengstorf 1975, II.

28

Mason 2001: 31.

Literary texts

21

16.1.24), and never in reference to Ituraeans where he uses the cognate κακουργοι. Brigandage is defined as ‘unlawful use of personal violence to maraud land’, and was ‘not condemned wholesale by the Classical Greeks’, whereas by the Hellenistic and Roman periods this situation had changed radically.29 Such activities were clearly a threat to the settled populations, and Strabo obviously sees these groups as such. Where we might question Strabo at this point is in taking too literally that ‘all’ Ituraeans were involved in such activity. It is important to consider Strabo’s aim in writing the Geography as he was primarily concerned with the inhabited world as it had been shaped by the efforts of generations of civilizing people. For Strabo, the ‘desert zones without important urban settlements and agriculture are backward regions, and a nomadic way of life is always a sign of a low level of civilization’.30 This attitude is reflected in Strabo’s statement: ‘These Scenitae are similar to the nomads in Mesopotamia. And it is always the case that the peoples are more civilised in proportion to their proximity to the Syrians, and that the Arabians and Scenitae are less so’ (16.2.11). These tribes then seem to represent disorder for Strabo, and as they also appear to have a nomadic lifestyle would undoubtedly be perceived as uncivilized. Added to the inherent difficulties in understanding Strabo’s terminology and meaning in reference to ‘Arab/Arabians’ and ‘robber/brigand’ is his reliance on earlier written sources, as well as the experiences of friends and contemporaries. It is agreed among scholars that he used Posidonius, although it has been argued it is almost impossible that Strabo knew Posidonius personally. Strabo did not visit either Syria or Palestine during his travels, and his descriptions of areas and regions he did not know first-hand were phrased in terms peculiar to his own time. Later writers who accepted Strabo’s account considered all inhabitants of the Massyas Plain to be robbers or criminals, then assumed they were Ituraeans. Strabo’s information on these tribes is far more negative than positive, and his second-hand descriptions have introduced a stereotype that continues to the present. In the Greco-Roman tradition, Arabs were generally regarded as plunderers, the prejudice being maintained into the modern era.31 It would seem that Strabo, to a large extent, reflects the common view from his contemporaries as much as anything.

29

OCD: 260–1.

30

Engels 2003: 3.

31

Graf 1997.

22

The Ituraeans and the Roman Near East Apuleius and the later writers

Almost two centuries later, Apuleius mentions both Ituraeans and Arabs in his description of India: Far away it lies, beyond the learned Egyptians, beyond the superstitious Jews and the merchants of Nabataea, beyond the children of Arsaces in their long flowing robes, the Ituraeans to whom earth gives but scanty harvest, and the Arabs, whose perfumes are their wealth (Florida 6).32 Here are two brief allusions, one to a landscape the Ituraeans inhabit producing nothing but ‘scanty harvest’, suggesting a harsh environment; the second to prosperous caravan traders moving north from the southern Arabian lands with their incense and other exotics. During the siege of Tyre, Alexander was forced to confront the native population, whom Quintus Curtius Rufus refers to in quite generalized terms: To meet this the Tyrians brought the boats to the shore, too far away to be seen by the enemy, and landing soldiers, butchered those who were carrying rocks. On Mt. Libanus also the peasants of the Arabians attacked the Macedonians when they were in disorder, killed about thirty, and took a smaller number of prisoners (History of Alexander 4. 2.24). These lines led Dar to propose that the Macedonians were confronted with Ituraean tribes – the peasants of the Arabians – seeing them as ‘well established in the region’ by the fourth century BCE.33 Plutarch supports Curtius Rufus in that he also mentions Arabians as being the perpetrators: ‘In the midst of this siege Alexander led a force against the Arabian tribes who inhabit the mountains of the Anti-Lebanon’ (Lives Alexander 24), yet it is important to recognize that neither writer specifically mentions Ituraeans, only the Arabians. Arrian, in his account of Alexander’s conquest, merely implies it without relating any confrontation: ‘While his engines were being fitted together, and his ships were being equipped for the attack and for trying the issue of a naval battle, Alexander with some of the cavalry squadrons, the Agrianes, and the archers, marched toward Arabia to the mountain called Antilibanus’ (Anabasis of Alexander 2.20.4).

32

Stern 1974–1984, II: 204–5.

33

Dar 1993b: 15.

Literary texts

23

Curtius Rufus and Plutarch both write of Arabians or Arabian tribes, a loosely defined term, whereas Arrian refers only to a geographical location, Arabia and the Anti-Lebanon mountains. These classical writers reflect the predominant view in antiquity that Arabia is toward the east, those places in which Arabians are found to be living, repeating the circular argument previously mentioned. Significantly, there is no direct mention of Ituraeans in any of these statements. None of the Latin historians of the first century CE make the claim that Ituraeans are Arabians, even though Dar seems convinced they are well established in the region at this time. He reasons that it would be a logical assumption for Ituraean tribes to have received permission from the Persians who controlled the region to live in this mountainous territory. Appealing to the same sources, Freyne suggests that these passages indicate the possibility that ‘Ituraeans had been able to gain a permanent foothold in the Biqa‘ region as early as the Persian period, since we hear of Arabs in the region of the anti-Lebanon harassing Alexander during his campaign against Tyre in 333 BC’.34 There is no direct evidence to establish a link connecting the Arabs mentioned by Curtius Rufus and Plutarch with the Ituraeans of the Biqa‘. As emphasized by one scholar, the claim that Arabs who fought Alexander were Ituraeans ‘cannot be established on the basis of the literary sources’.35 This is perhaps the crucial point, and by determining that they were Arabs we remain closed to other possibilities. Macdonald clearly demonstrates that the classical writers use the term Arabia/Arabians in a general sense, sometimes referring to varying geographical locations and sometimes to those who inhabit these regions. They may have considered Ituraeans as Arabians, but this is conjecture, not explicit statement. It appears, however, that from a very early period and even after Strabo’s Geography, no distinction was made between Arab and Ituraean. The fact that both Strabo and Dio Cassius describe some of the inhabitants of the hinterland as Arab led Millar to observe, ‘what they meant by this remains obscure’.36 The hinterland as referred to by Millar is the area at the northern end of Mount Lebanon, between the coast and the upper Orontes valley. It was an area of villages in antiquity and therefore remains crucial to an understanding of the dynamics underlying settlement in the regions.37 By the third century CE, Dio Cassius 34 36

Freyne 2001: 190. Millar 1993: 274.

35 37

Shatzman 1995: 184; see also Macdonald 2003: 313. Butcher 2003b: 135–45 discusses this problem.

24

The Ituraeans and the Roman Near East

assumes that Ituraeans were Arab when he comments that land granted to Sohaemus was land of the ‘Ituraean Arabians’ (Roman History 59.12.2). Kasher, who relies heavily on biblical sources for his identification of Ituraeans as Arabs, felt that the biblical sources already provided the important basic data for understanding the history of Ituraeans.38 The term ‘Arab’ primarily indicates people who inhabit a vaguely defined landscape called Arabia. In viewing antiquity, when various groups are called Arab rather indifferently, the modern interpreter needs to remain acutely aware of the ambiguities. Since, as Macdonald has suggested, the term seems not to appear as a selfdesignation until the sixth century CE, in considering these earlier periods it is the writer’s own beliefs about another group that we are required to understand and interpret.39 The term, as used by Arrian, Plutarch and Curtius Rufus, is in the words of Eph‘al ‘too general a designation for the exact identity of the nomads mentioned to be determined’.40 In referring to populations in the desert areas of northern Sinai, northern Arabia and Syro-Arabia, Eph‘al applies the term ‘nomads’ and includes the oasis dwellers as well. He recognizes the distinction made, particularly within the classical Arabic sources, between those who lived in temporary camps and those who cultivated land of the oasis, but adopts the terminology of the biblical and cuneiform sources, which do not distinguish between them.41 The association of Arab with the Ituraeans is in part due to how modern scholars have interpreted the early Greek and Latin authors and in part to an assumption that Ituraeans were descendants of the tribe Jetur (Hebrew ‫ )יטור‬mentioned in the biblical lists of Arab tribes. This issue will be discussed in a later chapter. Josephus Josephus first mentions an Ituraean ethnos (ἔθνος) in Antiquities 13.319 where he writes of conquests achieved by the Hasmonean king Aristobulus I – τὸ μέρος του̑ τω̑ ν Ἰτουραίων ἔθνους ᾠ κειώ σατο (‘he brought over to them a portion of the Ituraean nation’). It is generally accepted that this passage reflects the Jewish historian’s reliance on information provided by Timagenes and Strabo, and uses his sources to portray the Ituraeans as constituting an ethnos. 38 40

Kasher 1988: 12. 39 See Macdonald 2003: 304 and 2000: 25. Eph‘al 1984: 100 n. 337. 41 Eph‘al 1984: 5–6.

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25

Here I believe Josephus uses ἔθνος as it was understood in Hellenistic and Roman times, as referring to an outside group, of people living together, a company or body of men. The Jewish people were considered an ethnos in this sense, and by his own statement Josephus also accepts the Ituraeans as a separate group. In both War and Antiquities the Ituraeans are mentioned often in reference to their interaction with the Hasmoneans, their recurring disorderly conduct and general brigandage. Josephus, in language he frequently repeats, characterizes the Ituraean ethnos as nothing more than trouble for the Hasmoneans, and successfully portrays the Ituraeans in a clearly negative way. Having reported on the death of Aristobulus, Josephus provides two passages in which the king’s character and accomplishments are described. The differences in sources account for the variation in content. And scarcely had he spoken these words when he died; in his reign of one year, with the title of Philhellene, he conferred many benefits on his country, for he made war on the Ituraeans and acquired a good part of their territory for Judaea and compelled the inhabitants, if they wished to remain in their country, to be circumcised and to live in accordance with the laws of the Jews. Josephus continues by quoting from Strabo’s Historica Hypomnemata on the authority of Timagenes: This man was a kindly person and very serviceable to the Jews, for he acquired (προσεκτήσατο) additional territory for them, and brought over (ᾠ κειώ σατο) to them a portion of the Ituraean nation (Ἰτουραίων ἔθνους), whom he joined to them by the bond of circumcision42 (Ant. 13.319). It is widely accepted that Strabo used many written sources in the Historica. In Stern’s opinion, Josephus in Antiquities 13–14 depends more on the Historica than any of his explicit references to Strabo indicate. When considering the above passage (Ant. 13.319), Stern emphasizes that ‘without any qualms he [Strabo] quotes Timagenes, who praises Aristobulos I, thus allowing the latter to emerge as quite a different ruler and man than the one pictured by Nicolaus, whose

42

For Strabo, Historica Hypomnemata = FGH, II A88 F5.

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opinion has been preserved in the main narrative of Josephus’.43 Josephus does not precisely locate where the confrontation took place or what part of the land the Ituraeans occupied, although it is assumed by most scholars to be the northern Galilee. Referring to Josephus’ use of ᾠ κειώ σατο in this passage, Seth Schwartz argues that having ‘appropriated’ part of the Ituraean nation, it does not imply ‘conquest and forcible conversion, but some sort of agreement, the outward sign of which was the fact that both the Judaeans and the Ituraeans, an Arab tribe, were circumcised’.44 This of course assumes that the Ituraeans were an Arab tribe, and hence the acceptance of circumcision. Horsley, however, comes to a somewhat different conclusion. In his discussion on the Galileans’ identity at the time of the Second Temple, and prior to the Hasmonean expansion, he considers Ant. 13.318–19, where Aristobulus makes war on the Ituraeans, as the key text: ‘If we take Timagenes at face value and/or do not differentiate between Ituraeans and “the inhabitants” of the country, then the Ituraeans must have comprised a substantial portion of the population when Galilee was taken over by Aristobulos.’45 Again the conclusion is rather shaky as we cannot know from Josephus just who the population of the Galilee really were; we can only speculate which often leads up a rather insubstantial path. The territory acquired for Judea was, in Horsley’s opinion, part of Galilee. Elsewhere he is far more explicit when he asserts that the ‘Galilee had been dominated by the Ituraeans’, something we simply cannot acknowledge with any assurance.46 This ready acceptance that Ituraeans conquered the Galilee is taken one step further by two scholars, who, in citing Ant. 13.318 to support their claim, state in a recent article: ‘In 104 B.C. John Hyrcanus I’s sons, Antigonus and Aristobulus I, conquered Mt. Hermon, and probably forced the Ituraeans to convert to Judaism.’47 It is interesting that Mt Hermon is mentioned as opposed to the Galilee, especially as Josephus makes no reference to Hermon. Thus we are now confronted with several layers and three pieces of information: that Aristobulus acquired additional territory for the Jews, that he made war on the Ituraeans and that a portion of the Ituraean nation was converted through circumcision. The somewhat speculative reference to circumcision follows a pattern already set in similar circumstances with the Idumaeans. Stern has argued against the forced Judaization of the Ituraeans in the Galilee 43 46

Stern 1974–1984, I: 262. 44 Schwartz 1991: 19. Horsley 1996: 26. 47 Eshel 2002: 119.

45

Horsley 1995: 41.

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by Aristobulus.48 Recently Freyne has questioned the authority of Josephus on this issue and states: ‘The hypothesis of enforced Judaization of the Itureans has been developed by modern scholars to fill the gap, but without sufficient basis either in the literary or archaeological evidence.’49 I am inclined to agree with Freyne, and for the following discussion I consider the circumcision question to have little bearing on the question whether this happened or not. Being reminded of Josephus’ literary-rhetorical aims in his writings, Ant. 13.318–19 and War 1.76 will be considered separately rather than conflated as one. When recalling the duplicity that led to the death of Antigonus, in a passage quite unrelated to any confrontation with the Hasmoneans, Josephus describes Antigonus as having ‘procured for himself some very fine armour and military decorations in Galilee’ (War 1.76 = Ant. 13.308–10). The parallel passage in Antiquities does not mention the decorations or the location of Antigonus’ successful military campaign. The conclusion drawn by many scholars is that this particular military success, with its consequent decorations as mentioned in War, was achieved through victory won over Ituraeans in the northern Galilee, even though it is not explicitly stated. Nowhere in War does Josephus mention the Ituraeans by name. Kasher states it thus: ‘from an indirect hint in War, 1, 76, Marcus (the translator) assumed it took place in Galilee’ and continues by suggesting the possibility of one of the Hellenistic cities in the northern Sharon or the Carmel coast as being a likely place for any such confrontation, and in particular Strato’s tower ‘where everyone anticipated Antigonus would be killed’.50 But still the question must be asked as to why scholars have Josephus place the Ituraeans in the northern Galilee when he does not state it in the text. Since Josephus does not place the Ituraeans in the Galilee, the issue need not be a problem or considered as fact. By assuming Josephus has the Galilee in mind, scholars have constructed a view which may be entirely misconstrued. Although Kasher expresses serious doubts about how to interpret Josephus, he also raises another issue. From a detailed examination of the passage he suggests that evidence from Timagenes actually proves annexation of the Galilee by Judas Aristobulus rather than its conquest. In this sense he sees the expression ‘he acquired additional territory’ as not necessarily being interpreted as an act of military conquest.51 Lastly, 48 50

Stern 1974–1984, I: 225–6. 49 Freyne 2000: 128–9. Kasher 1988: 81. 51 Kasher 1988: 81.

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there is another argument which needs to be mentioned. In Antiquities the reference is made to Aristobulus, who has apparently ‘made war on the Ituraeans’; however, in War it is Antigonus who has been awarded the ‘decorations in Galilee’. The implication here cannot be overlooked, and suggests further the need to reassess these earlier assumptions. In modern scholarship these two passages are frequently conflated, resulting, with great regularity, in the assumption that Ituraeans occupied the northern Galilee, and were subject to Hasmonean aggression, which ended with a military victory and its consequent decorations for the Hasmoneans. The ‘decorations’ referred to are those worn by the soldier who has been victorious in battle. The Romans generally issued rewards on the basis of rank, the most common awards being the torque and the phalerae, the latter being sculptured disks displayed on the breastplate. Such decorations are displayed by Antigonus as reported by Josephus, and perhaps one might ask who in fact awarded these decorations. Is Josephus here suggesting it was the Romans? Knauf appears to readily accept Josephus and even adds to the conquest, although Josephus himself makes no mention: ‘In 104/3 BC, the Hasmonean Aristobulus conquered the Ituraean territory in Galilee and Transjordan and forcefully converted the inhabitants to Judaism.’52 Again, why, we must ask, at this juncture is the Transjordan included when there is no mention by Josephus? Schürer (according to the English translation) is rather more cautious in his description, where the Jewish king Aristobulus, having ruled the kingdom of the Ituraeans, ‘seems to have included the Galilee as well’.53 In agreement with both Knauf and Schürer, Overman also assumes the conversion and states, ‘Aristobulus conquered the Ituraean territory in Galilee and Transjordan and converted the people to Judaism’ (Ant. 13.318), but then adds that Ituraean territory ‘appears to have extended south into Upper and Eastern Galilee – at least as far as Lake Hulah and perhaps as far as the north shore of the Sea of Galilee’.54 At this early period, when the Hasmoneans were beginning to lay claim to territories, there is no explicit evidence the Ituraeans were moving into southern regions, and these passages in Josephus provide no support for such conclusions. Whether or not they eventually ‘conquered’ these territories is yet another problem as yet unresolved.

52

Knauf 1992: 583, and 1998: 271.

53

Schürer 1973: 564.

54

Overman 2001: 2.

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In regard to the above passages, one is reminded that ‘Timagenes does not specify the territories captured from the Ituraeans by Aristobulus’.55 Careful reading of the text would seem to indicate that Ituraeans and Hasmoneans encountered each other and interacted by the end of the second century BCE, but no specific geographical boundaries are given as to where this interaction took place. To some extent, archaeology, particularly in the latter part of the twentieth century, has clarified the texts but also presents new challenges. This is perhaps best illustrated in Andrea Berlin’s view on Hellenistic Palestine, where in a reference to Josephus’ comment that Aristobulus made war on Ituraea (Ant. 13.318) she admits, ‘it is difficult to reconcile the literary account with the archaeological evidence’. On the other hand, in taking into account surveys conducted in the region of the Hermon and northern Golan, as well as the question of unique Golan Ware pottery being named ‘Ituraean Ware’, she suggests that it is reasonable to assume that the presence of Golan Ware can be taken to indicate an Ituraean population.56 This again presupposes the Golan Ware pottery to be Ituraean. The first part of her conclusion demonstrates once more a continuing need to question Josephus, but the second part merely supports a very tenuous supposition that Golan Ware was the distinctive pottery of the Ituraeans. After consideration of the Galilee in the light of archaeological excavations, and a comparison of the evidence from the Golan sites, she then concludes that to date there ‘is no evidence for Ituraean settlement in Galilee itself’, and suggests that Josephus ‘misreported the conquests of Aristobulus’.57 A recently published report by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) on the results of two archaeological surveys in the western Galilee supports Berlin’s conclusion on the lack of evidence for Ituraean settlement in the Galilee. As a result of their analysis of pottery types, and other features, the IAA suggests that there is little or no evidence for Ituraean settlement in the Upper Galilee.58 Once again, however, this is based on the lack of any pottery clearly attributable to Ituraeans being found in surveys of the Upper Galilee. That ethnic identity be determined entirely through pottery is, in this case, rather speculative. As nothing is known regarding Ituraean culture, language or identity, the presence or absence of this specific pottery is not in itself an ethnic marker.

55 57

Stern 1974–1984, I: 225. 56 Berlin 1997: 36. Berlin 1997: 37. 58 Frankel et al. 2001: 110.

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The works of Josephus remain an indispensable resource for information on the lives and intrigues of those who controlled, or attempted to control, Syria-Palestine in the late Hellenistic to early Roman periods. Although the Ituraeans and their rulers get only a brief mention, their appearance in Antiquities is frequently cast in terms more derogatory than complimentary. Josephus, having lived within a few generations after the events, leaves the more detailed record for the Hasmonean dynasty, which is of course his main objective. From this record can be captured mere fragments of information about Ituraeans as an ethnos during this same period, and how he writes his history tells us as much about Josephus as about the history he relates. The Hasmonean Judah Aristobulus ruled for barely one year (104–103 BCE) but in that short period he apparently ‘made war on the Ituraeans’ (Ant. 13.318). In 103 BCE Alexander Jannaeus, who had been ‘brought up in the Galilee from his birth’ inherited the Hasmonean kingship (Ant. 13.323). Kasher has suggested that this may indicate a Jewish presence in the Galilee ‘and perhaps even Hasmonean control in parts of it (if not officially then in practice) as far back as the days of John Hyrcanus I’.59 The twenty years after the accession of Jannaeus were witness to the ongoing struggles within the Seleucid Empire at large, and those of the Hasmonean princes whose main ambition was to regain control of Judea. The Seleucid ruler of Damascus, Antiochus XII Dionysus, was defeated in battle by the (Nabataean) Arab ruler Aretas III in 85 BCE. Josephus relates how Aretas was called ‘to the throne by those who held Damascus because of their hatred of Ptolemy, the son of Mennaeus’ (Ant. 13.392). This is the same Ptolemy, son of Mennaeus, as mentioned by Strabo when describing Chalcis as ‘subject to Ptolemaeus the son of Mennaeus, who possessed Massyas and the mountainous country of the Ituraeans’ (Geog. 16.2.10). Ptolemy began his rule in 85 BCE and died during the Parthian incursions of 40 BCE. Prior to the establishment of the principality of Ituraea, Tigranes as ‘king of kings’ had maintained control over Syria, and Ptolemy would likely have been subject to him. Another change occurred during this same period resulting from the internal politics of the Hasmonean dynasty, when in 76 BCE, after the death of Alexander Jannaeus, his widow Alexandra appointed her elder son Hyrcanus as high priest. This action followed an already established pattern of hereditary succession set by the Hasmoneans in the 59

Kasher 1988: 80.

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previous century.60 Josephus, however, advances another reason for Hyrcanus being appointed, suggesting that the younger Aristobulus II was a ‘man of action and high spirit’ (Ant. 13.407). Obviously Josephus or his sources deemed him not fit to rule. This same young man of high spirit was later sent out in 70 BCE by his mother with an army to Damascus against Ptolemy, the son of Mennaeus. Josephus tells us Ptolemy was a ‘troublesome neighbour to their city’ (Ant. 13.418 = War 1.115–16), but provides no further information on this campaign except to say that Aristobulus returned without accomplishing anything noteworthy. Little was achieved it seems, and presumably Ptolemy succeeded in quashing the campaign. Alexandra was an astute ruler who recognized within her two sons both their strengths and failings; her reasons for initiating such a campaign must have been political. Sullivan interprets it as an indication of pressure put on Damascus by Ptolemy, and suggests that Alexandra sent her son with troops to Damascus because of Ptolemy’s ‘continual oppression’.61 Josephus is more enigmatic than informative, and there is little given which offers information on the internal strife of a region in conflict. Upon the death of Alexandra in 67 BCE there were several years of continued struggle between Hyrcanus and Aristobulus, along with alliances made with Aretas and Antipater, until in 64 BCE Pompey arrived in Syria to bring order to a vast and troubled land. On his way to Damascus in the spring of 63 BCE it is recorded that Pompey ‘demolished (κατέσκαψεν) the citadel at Apamea and devastated (κατεπόνησεν) the territory of Ptolemy, the son of Mennaeus, a worthless fellow …’ (Ant. 14.38–9). Ptolemy, however, escaped punishment for his sins by paying a thousand talents with which Pompey paid the wages of his soldiers (Ant. 14.38–9). In all these passages Josephus repeats the phrase ‘Ptolemy, son of Mennaeus’, possibly to clarify Ptolemy’s identity, but perhaps at the same time to remind us that this same Ptolemy was the same ‘troublesome neighbour’ and ‘worthless fellow’ he had alluded to previously. An impression of some hostility is presented here, perhaps on the part of Josephus himself, or the sources upon which he has relied. It may be a literary device constructed by Josephus for emphasis, but however we might perceive it, there is little doubt that Josephus, without further detail, imparts a negative picture which future writers will repeat and embellish. 60

Rajak 1994: 285–7.

61

Sullivan 1990: 71.

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The intervening years – fourteen all told – were years of continuous struggle, with the Hasmonean Aristobulus twice taken prisoner to Rome. Dio Cassius puts a slightly different slant on it: ‘Aristobulus he sent home to Palestine to accomplish something against Pompey’ (Roman History 40.18.2). In 49 BCE Caesar released Aristobulus and sent him to Syria with two legions, hoping he might win the support of the Syrians. Unfortunately, the partisans of Pompey succeeded in having him poisoned, and his body, after it had lain for some time preserved in honey, was sent back to Judea (War 1.184). Not long after, at the instigation of Pompey, Alexander the son of Aristobulus was beheaded in Antioch, and ‘his brother and sisters were taken by Ptolemy, the son of Mennaeus, who was prince of Chalcis at the foot of Mount Lebanon’ (Ant. 14.126 = War 1.185). Having accepted responsibility for the family of Aristobulus, Ptolemy sent his son Philippion to Ascalon to meet the widow of Aristobulus, along with the two sisters and brother, and escort them home. Philippion unexpectedly fell in love with the young Alexandra and quickly married her. Ptolemy, however, upon meeting his young daughter-in-law, coveted her for his own, ordered his son to be put to death and married the widow. Thus was forged a matrimonial link between the Ituraean dynast and the Hasmoneans. Within the year, in September of 48 BCE, Pompey was assassinated on the Egyptian shores. A mere eight years later Lysanias, the son of Ptolemy, succeeded and ruled from 40 to 36 BCE. It is worth noting that Lysanias inherited a territory referred to as a principality and not a kingdom. During this period, Lysanias made a pact of friendship with Antigonus, the son of Aristobulus (Ant. 14.330–2), who was also a supporter of the Parthians. A similar fate befell Antigonus, when in 37 BCE he also was beheaded in Antioch. This may have been, in part, a result of his popularity among his own people (Ant. 15.8–12), with Antony perceiving him as a potential threat.62 It was not long before Lysanias also fell victim to the ambitions of Cleopatra, for in 36 BCE she succeeded in persuading Antony to have Lysanias put to death and the lands under his domain given to her (Ant. 15.92–3). After Cleopatra’s suicide in 30 BCE, Octavian handed over her possessions to Zenodorus, (presumed) son of Lysanias, who bore the title of tetrarch and chief priest as depicted on his coinage.63

62 63

Plutarch, Ant. 36.2, and Dio Cassius, Roman History 49.32.5. Wroth 1899: 281, no. 7.

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Zenodorus is assumed to have followed the same policy of ‘holding the region without tribute’.64 Zenodorus died unexpectedly in 20 BCE, and from this point the history of the Ituraean principality is overshadowed by the increasing power of Rome and the rise of the Herodian dynasty. Josephus and the bandits/robbers The question of the brigand/robber in antiquity and how the term has been perceived is important if for no other reason than to better understand this phenomenon within the context of a study on Ituraeans. The subject of banditry is broad, with an ever-expanding body of information and many differing opinions. The most important point here is to emphasize that, in terms of the Ituraeans, brigandage/robbery must be seen within the context of antiquity and how it was understood at that time. It is also crucial, in reading both Strabo and Josephus, that we attempt to discern just how they understood these terms and used them in their writings. In the ancient world, brigandage (or piracy) was particularly prevalent along the Mediterranean coast and in the heavily forested, mountainous zones of the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon. Its causes were undoubtedly rooted in the social and economic conditions of the period. Isaac suggests that the destruction caused by passing armies would have likely increased rather than diminished banditry.65 van Hooff has expressed the phenomenon from a different perspective, where, in his opinion, the robber in many cultures might be seen as a representative of disorder.66 The instability which likely existed within the political and economic life of small kingdoms and principalities would have easily fuelled such enterprise, and in reality created disorder. Bandits usually operated within groups or gangs, and were often connected to the local elites or wealthy lords. It was even considered desirable to admit them into the Roman military. Yet Roman law did not know how to deal with this ‘fundamental subversion of social order’, and in the rhetoric of the period the term itself would have had ‘powerful political currency during times of social upheaval’.67 In highlighting Josephus’ recording of events concerning Ituraean rulers, there is another aspect one must consider: that of his repeated 64 66

Sullivan 1990: 208. 65 Isaac 1990a: 61. van Hooff 1998: 108. 67 Mason 2001: 32.

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reference to bandits/robbers. As mentioned earlier, Josephus uses the Greek λῃστεία where Strabo, especially in reference to Ituraeans, does not. Mason contends that Josephus’ uses of λῃστεία in his narratives are highly charged terms, ‘entirely in keeping with contemporary Roman usage’.68 In this sense they are perceived by urban populations as an all-pervasive threat, with bandits often having support from élite landowners. There was at this period a complex interaction in structures of power between tyrants, kings and bandits, which has been closely examined by one of many scholars. In interpreting these relationships Shaw points to Josephus’ use of λῃστεία in Ant. 14–17.69 Paralleling Josephus’ emphasis on ‘banditry’, in the later books Josephus provides a detailed treatment of the life, and rise to power, of Herod. Shaw argues that Josephus brings in banditry at this juncture because ‘there had to be some circumstantial explanation for Herod’s later rise to near-absolute authority. Herod therefore had to face a “test” that would demonstrate his personal power and his merit.’70 In Shaw’s opinion, the test would be a direct confrontation with the figure of a bandit seen as the embodiment of the anti-state. Here we are reminded of van Hooff’s comment on the robber/bandit being perceived as a sign of chaos.71 In order to establish power, it was necessary to restore order, and essentially the restoration of order would be needed in those regions that were considered order-less, promiscuous or troublesome. Herod’s first encounter with a brigand-chief (ἀαρχιληστήν) was with Ezekias (Hezekiah), whom he captured and put to death because he had been ‘ravaging the district on the Syrian frontier’ (War 1.205; Ant. 4.159–60), which took place in 47 BCE. Although Herod had to face a severe reprimand for his exploits, nevertheless, says Josephus, ‘Up and down the villages and in the towns the praises of Herod were sung, as the restorer of their peace and possessions’ (War 1.205). Herod had proved he could fulfil one of the main expectations of a ruler: the establishment of conditions of peace, and safe enjoyment of goods.72 These to a large extent are literary constructions and reflect quite dramatically on Josephus’ perception of the Ituraeans. Another insightful examination on banditry is the recent work of Thomas Grünewald, who begins his study with a semantic and Mason 2001: 31; and OCD: 260. Shaw 1993: 176–204. The frequency can be readily seen in Rengstorff 1975/1979, III: 28–9. 70 Shaw 1993: 184. 71 van Hooff 1988: 105–24. 72 Shaw 1993: 185. 68 69

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conceptual analysis of the Latin latro (Greek λῃστεία), the principal term used by the Romans and, as mentioned above, by Josephus.73 In his analysis Grünewald develops four main categories for the ‘robber’: the ordinary criminal, the political rebel, the rival political pretender, the avenger. In his discussion as to the use of the term by both modern scholars and writers such as Josephus, he attempts to dismantle ‘superficial interpretations of the nature of bandits and banditry’.74 In his examination of Josephus’ use of the term, he sees the author as using it in reference to individuals in order to label them as illegitimate and disreputable. Those who are held in great respect would be brought down through the labelling by language. Cast against the Hasmonean leaders, or any other group, the Ituraeans, for Josephus, are constantly demeaned in this way. Zenodorus had leased land from Cleopatra, once in the domain of Lysanias, but was not satisfied with the revenues accrued. That Cleopatra leased the land was not an unusual feature, as Sullivan states: ‘She also used in Ituraea the same technique she did with Herod’s balsam groves and her new holdings in Arabia. She leased the territories to their former owners.’75 But Zenodorus decided to increase his income by ‘using robber bands in Trachonitis’ (Ant. 15.344). Josephus does not actually accuse Zenodorus of being a robber himself, merely of making use of robber bands for his own benefit. By his association with these robbers, Zenodorus is considered one of them. The people who were being victimized by this policy complained to the governor, asking that Caesar (Augustus) be informed and some action taken. The result was suppression of the ‘robber bands’ by Varro, governor of Syria, and the gift to Herod of the territory of Trachonitis, Batanaea and Auranitis. The implications throughout are consistent with Josephus’ use and understanding of the robber/brigand as one who is not worthy, a disparaging title used to attack verbally the individual or the group. Although Zenodorus opposed the transfer of his lands and sought redress, he was not to recover his lands and died shortly thereafter at Antioch in 20 BCE. Herod was thus once again given the territory of Zenodorus, plus Ulatha and Paneas (War 1.395–9). This event is confirmed by Dio Cassius: ‘To Herod he entrusted the tetrarchy of a certain Zenodorus’ (54.9.3). At this point Shaw understands Josephus to mean that, although Herod had not been the one to rid the land of brigands, he was the one who received the honours; furthermore, the 73

Shaw 2000.

74

Shaw 2000: 1.

75

Sullivan 1990: 207.

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whole episode occurs at the same time that Herod seeks to restore the Jerusalem temple, another example of Josephus’ literary constructs by a comparison of the bandit to the superior other. On the fringes of the Roman Empire it was impossible to distinguish those who were deemed ‘bandits’ from those local inhabitants who lived a traditional life and were referred to as ‘barbarians’.76 In our understanding of the part played by the robber/brigand, and the implications understood in terms of the lands they inhabited, Josephus has perhaps retained more than any other the tradition of Ituraeans as unruly and bothersome neighbours. These passages in Josephus present a picture of the Ituraean principality, of its brief rise to power and its final absorption into the Roman Empire. Josephus never comments on the tribal or ethnic identity of the Ituraeans or whence they came. They may or may not have encountered the Hasmoneans in battle in the northern Galilee, but what Josephus states and repeats often is how difficult and troublesome a people they were. As emphasized previously, a satisfactory interpretation of Josephus’ writings must adequately understand his intention and the context within which he writes. We are reminded that in his Antiquities Josephus has an ‘immediate and serious purpose in mind’, in which he presents a ‘coherent and powerful message in spite of his ramblings’.77 How we interpret and understand these writings will undoubtedly influence our appreciation of the Ituraeans. The question of banditry in antiquity, and by association with Ituraeans, is highlighted in an inscription. In antiquity roads connecting the coastal city of Berytus (modern Beirut) and crossing the heavily forested mountainous terrain of the Anti-Lebanon into the Biqa‘ valley would have proved difficult to protect against the everpresent bandits. The small, settled populations of the region would probably have perceived this as an ‘all-pervasive threat’ which would occasionally require ‘an all-out campaign’.78 It was common for the Roman state to use its military strength in order to counter this seemingly difficult problem. The written sources are silent in providing any details on this perceived threat, yet a Latin inscription from the beginning of the first century CE, and originally set up in Berytus, records an expedition against Ituraeans in the Lebanon. One scholar van Hooff 1988: 109. On the use of the term ‘barbarians’, see also Christides 1969. Steve Mason, ‘Should Any Wish to Enquire Further (Ant. 1.25): The Aim and Audience of Josephus’ Judaean Antiquities/Life’, in Mason 1998: 101. 78 See ‘brigandage’, OCD: 260. 76 77

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has interpreted the inscription as demonstrating full-scale military operations ‘still going on in southern Syria in the early years AD, some seventy years after the formation of the province’.79 Perhaps this is pushing the data too far, as there is nothing to confirm any major disturbances over such a long period, though it is possible that many more expeditions took place for which there is no known record. It may well have been one of many incursions by the army meant to bring about order and peace to the outlying areas.80 The inscription in question honours an equestrian military officer, Q. Aemilius Secundus, records his expeditions in Syria, and refers to one of the auxiliary units he commanded.81 Lines 12–14 of inscription CIL III 6687 read: ‘missu Quirini adversus Ituraeos in Libano monte castellum eorum cepi’ (‘sent by Quirinus against the Ituraeans in the Lebanese mountains I captured their fortress/castle’).82 This inscription has been used to support a belief that Ituraeans were again nothing more than brigands and robbers, a constant menace to the local populations in the region. By the first century CE the Ituraean principality had ceased to exist in terms of its former self, and those whom Secundus defeated may well have comprised a remnant group roaming the regions of the Lebanon, Anti-Lebanon, and the Biqa‘. To assume that all Ituraeans were bandits, that this was their only activity and that Ituraeans were the only group involved in banditry goes beyond what little evidence we have, even though they are the ones most often mentioned by Josephus. Marfoe considered the threat to the local population by brigands throughout the late first century BCE as being directly related to the Ituraeans. In speaking of the consequences for the Biqa‘, after the colonization of Berytus to which the Biqa‘ valley was appended, he says: ‘The first consequence may only have been a continuation of a policy begun by Pompey but pursued later by Quintus Aemilius, the pacification of Ituraean brigands in the highlands.’83 Here he is stretching a point; Pompey’s policy in the Near East was not so much controlling piracy/robbers as it had been on the Mediterranean, but more to do with bringing order to a region increasingly threatened by internal strife and Parthian invasion. With such scarcity of information regarding the inhabitants of this region, especially within the Biqa‘, it is easy to assume Ituraeans as being the greater threat. Our scant written sources do not offer any additional information to what Strabo and 79 82

Millar 1993: 35. 80 Isaac 1990b: 63. 81 Millar 1993: 35. CIL III 6687 = ILS #2683 = PIR² A 406. 83 Marfoe 1982: 468.

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Josephus convey, both of whom see them only as bandits and troublemakers. We cannot assume this to be the complete picture, as in fact it is not. Roman historians By the mid-first century CE the Ituraeans had become known through the annals of Roman history, and another portrait was fashioned, one which presents a quite different picture of Ituraeans. In Bell. African, the report on Caesar’s African war, line 20 reads: ‘sagittariisque ex omnibus navibus Ityreis Syris et cuiusque generis ductis in castra compluribus frequentabat suas copias’ (‘From all his ships he brought archers into camp – Ityreans, Syrians and men of divers races – and thronged his forces with numerous drafts of them’). This is the first mention of Ituraean archers as part of the Roman military. Within a few years they formed significant units of the auxiliary forces, and well over two hundred years later they were still highly valued for their prowess, as we read from Valerian’s letter to Aurelian: I will be brief. The command of the troops will be vested in you. You will have three hundred Ituraean bowmen, six hundred Armenians, one hundred and fifty Arabs, two hundred Saracens, and four hundred irregulars from Mesopotamia; and you will have the Third Legion, the Fortunate, and eight hundred mounted cuirassier.84 In an earlier study of military warfare in the East, it was concluded that since very early times the East was archer country par excellence and, therefore, it was not surprising Rome had to adopt archery for its campaigns in the East. Included among those recruited and known for their skill in archery would have been Jews along with other people.85 The reputation of both Ituraean and Syrian archers spread across the ancient world; their importance was recognized by Caesar during the African Wars when he recruited native Syrians as auxiliary units for their skill as archers. It was because of this very skill, which western soldiers lacked, that eastern archers contributed greatly to the strength of the Roman military forces. Mark Antony it seems also had high regard for their skill and competence. Cicero was moved to attack Antony for having Ituraean archers among his personal 84 85

‘The Deified Aurelian’ 11.3, in Magie 1982, III, text dated to the third century CE. Gichon and Vitale 1991: 252–3.

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39

bodyguard, where even their very presence in the Senate was an affront: ‘Concordiae non patent, cur hominess omnium gentium maxime barbaros, Ityraeos, cum sagittis deducis in forum?’ (‘Why do you bring Ityraeans, of all tribes the most barbarous, down into the forum with their arrows?’).86 This passage can be misleading as account must be taken here of Cicero’s intense opposition to Mark Antony. Earlier, in the Philippics, Cicero accused Antony of being a fool and of having caused the order of the Senate to be ‘beleaguered by Ituraeans’: ‘dum confiteare hunc ordinem hoc ipso tempore ab Ityraeis circumsederi’ (‘if you only confess that this our order at this very time is beleaguered by Ituraeans’, Philippics 2.8 [19]). To Cicero these men were barbarians, hence unfit to take their place among the more civilized. This more than anything appears to reflect the tensions between those who lived in the mountains, and were considered to be ‘barbarians’, and those who inhabited the plain. Cicero had firsthand experience in dealing with this regional conflict and described such people as ‘wild savages beyond the pale of civilization’.87 The word ‘barbarian’ is originally an epithet for a people speaking any language other than Greek (DCA: 92); later it came to carry an association of hatred and contempt, implying vulgarity. On Cicero Although brief, these two passages from the Philippics are frequently referred to by scholars when describing Ituraeans, usually to indicate their barbaric nature. However, the events to which Cicero was reacting were not directed toward the Ituraeans so much as reflecting his intense dislike for Antony. The aftermath of Caesar’s assassination, and the ongoing intrigues and internal turmoil in Rome, created an atmosphere of distrust and hate. Cicero, although he took no part in the conspiracy, was favourably disposed to its outcome (Fam. 6.15). In mid July of 44 BCE Cicero left Rome for Athens. Unexpectedly, however, on 1 August Piso attacked Antony in the Senate, and upon hearing the news Cicero abandoned his trip, returning to Rome on 31 August. Piso was already an enemy of Cicero, but his attack on Antony confirmed a distrust of Antony among those who had supported Caesar. The Senate met the following 86 87

Cicero, Philippics 2.44.12. Shaw 1989: 225 n. 81 with reference to Cicero, ad Fam. 15.4.10.

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day, 1 September, at which time Antony challenged Cicero on his absence from the debate. Cicero pleaded tiredness, a consequence of his long journey home. The following day, 2 September 44 BCE, Cicero responded in a speech on which the First Philippic is based. Antony was absent on this occasion, and some days later (on 19 September) Antony rejoined in a vehement manner. By October Cicero had retired to Puteoli, and in November of 44 BCE, he published his Second Philippic against Marc Antony. His last Philippic was delivered on 21 April 43 BCE.88 The danger of taking information out of context is ever present. This incident, in which Cicero condemns Ituraeans for being allowed to be present in the Senate, is often used to support a negative perception of the Ituraeans. This is much the case in one article, where in support of a claim that Ituraeans are known for their ‘ferocity’ there is a reference to Cicero.89 This should not, however, be considered proof that Ituraeans were necessarily disreputable or dangerous and a threat to civilized society, even though it is probable some Ituraeans were involved in such enterprise and known for it. Regardless of Cicero’s angry condemnation, their reputation as archers was such that poets wrote of their prowess. Virgil speaks of ‘Ituraeos taxi torquentur in arcus’ (‘Yews are bent into Ituraean bows’)90 while Lucan in his Bellum Civile twice mentions the Ituraeans: ‘Ityraeis cursus fuit inde sagittis’ (‘from there the arrows of the Ituraeans took their flight’, 7.230); ‘tunc et Ityraei Medique Arabesque soluti, arcu turba minax, nusquam rexere sagittas’ (‘Next, the Ituraeans and Medes and free Arabs, formidable archers, shot their arrows at no mark, aiming only at the sky overhead’, 7.514).91 The textual sources present a varied and imprecise portrait, however brief, of a little-known people. Sifting through the historical layers and fragmentary written documents is a formidable task. Works of authors from antiquity are often interpreted within the framework of a scholar’s own presuppositions and knowledge. Eupolemus presents briefly a list of tribes, raising far more questions than answers concerning the Ituraeans. Has he, in fact, listed Ituraeans as one of David’s enemies among several, either through assumed knowledge or perhaps, as Lipiński suggests, substitution? Is See Philippics, trans. Walter C. A. Ker (LCL 1991), in particular pp. xii–xvi; also E. Rawson, ‘The Aftermath of the Ides’, in CAH, IX: 468–90. 89 Knauf 1992: 583. 90 Georg. 2.448 (trans. H. R. Fairclough, rev. G. P. Goold, LCL). 91 Trans. J. D. Duff, LCL. 88

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it possible to postulate here a connection between Ituraeans and Aramaeans, another Semitic peoples who occupied the region of Syria-Palestine before movement of the Arab tribes into the same geographical region? Strabo’s clear distinction between the Ituraeans and the Arabians cannot be overlooked. Yet many scholars emphasize only Strabo’s mention of robbery in association with Ituraeans. This is well illustrated in Butcher’s recent publication: ‘The Ituraeans seem to have resisted foreign domination and appear in the sources as aggressive conquerors of their weaker neighbours or, more negatively, as “robbers”.’92 Ituraeans are usually described as brigands and robbers as Josephus emphasizes, with frequent mention of their troublesome nature. In all likelihood, of course, Ituraeans were involved in such enterprises, since brigandage was endemic to the region and the period. However, to assume the Ituraeans were only brigands is to misinterpret the sources. It is particularly disturbing when Ituraeans are identified as being Arabs, who in turn become victims of the same unfortunate reputation. The interaction between the Ituraeans, the Hasmoneans, the Seleucids, the Romans and others was both complex and volatile. To look behind the outburst of Cicero is to understand more clearly his attack on Antony, and also his derision for Ituraean soldiers. It is important to understand the source material in the context of the author’s goals (in the case of Cicero as one man’s personal outrage), not as inherently true statements (in this case about the disreputable behaviour of a people). In contrast, the reputation of Ituraeans as skilled archers travelled far and wide, and their long service within the Roman military units helped to sustain their name. Highlighting these more positive primary textual sources underscores the inherent dangers and difficulties in modern readings and the importance of getting behind the sources as fairly and thoroughly as possible.

92

Butcher 2003b: 93–4.

3 ARCHAEOLOGY

The Golan and its Pottery They made all your planks of fir trees from Senir; they took a cedar from Lebanon to make a mast for you. Of oaks of Bashan they made your oars; they made your deck of pines from the coasts of Cyprus, inlaid with ivory.

Ezek. 27.5–6

In his Lamentation over Tyre, the writer here captures an essential quality of three geographic regions as they were known in antiquity. Each was recognized for its own unique woods: the fir trees of Senir (Mt Hermon), the great cedars of the Lebanon range and the oak forests of the Bashan. In biblical terminology, the Bashan is always preceded by the definite article and expresses the meaning of smooth or stoneless plain. To the Romans it was known as Batanaea, although Batanaea was only part of what comprised the Bashan of antiquity. Along with ancient Gaulanitis, Trachonitis and Auranitis, Batanaea forms part of the volcanic basalt region which lies to the south of modern Syria, and includes part of northern Jordan. The ancient names verify distinct districts within a varied and complex landscape. The uplands were known as Auranitis, today the modern Jebel Druze or Jebel al-‘Arab, and is composed of a mountainous central region unsuitable for agriculture. Its northern area provided good agricultural conditions where two cities, Philippopolis and Maximianopolis, developed. The lava flows which extended to the north-west formed the rugged, desolate landscape of ancient Trachonitis, known today as the Leja. Westward of Auranitis is the broad plain of Batanaea, the modern Nuqra, which eventually 42

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Figure 1 The Golan Heights as seen looking to the south from the lower slopes of the Hermon

reaches the eastern edge of the Golan plateau. During the late Hellenistic and early Roman period this region included the cities and settlements of Seleucia, Hippos, Gamala, Abila and Dion. The name ‘Golan’ appears in the biblical references as a settlement within the region of the Bashan (Deut. 4.43; Josh. 20.8) or as a city (Josh. 20.8; 1 Chron. 6.71), the first considered free, the latter a Levitical city.1 Almost nothing is known of this area in the Persian period, except that both the Golan and the Bashan were included within the greater satrapy of Karnaim. By the third century BCE in the early Hellenistic period an independent administrative district was formed separate from the Bashan and designated as Gaulanitis under control of the Ptolemies. The territory of Gaulanitis apparently excluded parts of what is now the northern and southern Golan. When the Seleucids took control after 200 BCE the name Gaulanitis remained, and it is under this name that most writers in antiquity refer to the region. The Golan Heights of the present day is only part of what in antiquity was recognized as the Bashan/Batanaea. As a modern geographical division, the name Golan Heights does not appear before the nineteenth century CE. The important issue as to how writers in antiquity such as 1

ABD I: 623–4, other biblical references include: Ps. 22.12; Amos 4.1–3; Isa. 2.13.

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The Ituraeans and the Roman Near East

Strabo and Josephus perceived these regions, whether or not the Golan is an independent physical-geographical region or part of a larger area, has been discussed by Urman.2 In his description of the situation in the Galilee after the fall of Jotapata (modern Yodefat), Josephus mentions Gamala as being on the ‘other side of the lake’ and forming part of the territory allotted to Agrippa. In the same passage he appears to have understood the Golan as two distinct areas, naming them Upper Gaulanitis and Lower Gaulanitis: ‘Gamala and Sogane were both in Gaulanitis, the latter belonging to what is known as Upper, the former to Lower, Gaulan’ (War 4.1–2). Somewhat later in his description of the districts of Upper and Lower Galilee, the eastern side of southern Galilee is described as being bounded by the territory of Hippos, Gadara and Gaulanitis, ‘the frontier of Agrippa’s kingdom’ (War 3.37). The repetition of these regions in a list of territories that includes Trachonitis would seem to indicate that Hippos and Gadara are separate administratively from Gaulanitis (War 3.542). Present-day Gadara (or Umm Qais as it is now known), situated south of the Yarmuk River, overlooks the southern end of the Golan as opposed to being geographically part of it. Hippos, however, on a western promontory of the southern Golan plateau overlooking the Sea of Galilee was considered separate from Gaulanitis by the political divisions of the period in that it was one of the ten cities of the Decapolis. Along with extensive surveys in the region, Urman studied the name Golan as used by Josephus in his writings and found that it appeared twenty-one times.3 As a result it became clear that Josephus distinguished between the Upper Golan and the Lower Golan, which scholars have tended to see as meaning Upper = north, and Lower = south. However, Urman suggests that in fact it is possible Josephus was using Upper in the sense of ‘higher’ meaning to the east, and Lower as ‘lower’ in the sense of the western slopes. Urman’s familiarity with the Golan, and his studies throughout the 1970s on the geology, hydrology, climatology and flora of the region, testified to him the ‘correctness of Josephus’ distinction’.4 Josephus mentions Batanaea/Bashan in the context of Herod’s rise to power and the gifts of land he received from Caesar Augustus: ‘he gave him the territory of Trachonitis, Batanaea and Auranitis’ (Ant. 15.343). Much later, after the death of Herod, Agrippa II is transferred from Chalcis and 2

Urman 1985.

3

Urman 1982.

4

Urman 1982: ii.

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assigned ‘Philip’s former province, namely Trachonitis, Batanaea, and Gaulanitis’ (War 2.247). In only two other places does Josephus refer to both territories Batanaea and Gaulanitis, in Ant. 17.189 and 18.106. Josephus seems to have understood the region of Gaulanitis as separate from the Bashan/Batanaea, and he divided it between Upper and Lower in much the same way he speaks of the Galilee. Paneas is named as a separate administrative area at the foot of the Hermon, granted to Philip and later to be renamed Caesarea Philippi as recorded by the New Testament Gospel writers Matthew (16.13) and Mark (8.27). Essentially the Golan Heights, as we understand it today as a modern geographical division under Israeli rule, is a broad volcanic plateau covering 1,200 sq km that slopes from an altitude of about 900 m above sea level in the north-east to about 250 m above sea level in the south. Its natural boundaries are more or less the same as in antiquity. The Yarmuk River, flowing on a south-west course, reaches the Jordan River at the southern end of the Golan plateau effectively forming its southern limit, and the modern boundary between Israel and Jordan. The western escarpment of the Golan plateau, along the eastern side of the Sea of Galilee in the south, and the Huleh basin to the north, provides a natural boundary along this section of the Jordan rift valley. In the north is the Nahal Sa‘ar, which divides the limestone foothills of the Hermon massif and the basalt plain beyond. This same river flows west along the foothills of the Hermon and through Banias to join the Jordan near its source. The eastern boundary is less clear, although it is generally accepted that the deep wadi of the Nahal Ruqqad forms a natural barrier separating the Golan proper from the easterly extent of ancient Bashan. This eastern boundary region now falls within an area controlled by the modern Syrian Arab Republic. A survey conducted in November 1973, and led by Israeli archaeologists G. Barkay, Z. Ilan, A. Kloner, A. Mazar and D. Urman, initiated a renewed interest in the Golan. At this time it allowed them access to territory in which they were able to assess remains of an area east of the present-day Golan – ancient Bashan/Batanaea. The south-central region, part of the larger area known as the Hauran, and now within Syria, was considered by the authors to be Ituraean territory during the Second Temple Period.5

5

Barkay et al. 1974: 173, 182.

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The Ituraeans and the Roman Near East

Although some distance from the coast, the climate of the Golan plateau is heavily influenced by the Mediterranean, with temperatures on average being warmer in the south than in the north. Precipitation is much higher in the northern Golan, sometimes up to 1,200 mm per annum, almost double that in the south. In spite of the heavy rainfall, as a result of its geological-geomorphologic formation the Golan Heights is a poor aquifer. Most precipitation becomes surface runoff, eventually draining into the major river gorges. Winter snows are a common occurrence, especially in the north, influenced in part by its higher elevation. The Hermon massif directly affects the northern territory, and along with its higher precipitation, rocky landscape and less arable soils, it has been more sparsely settled throughout its history. In antiquity the northern Golan was characterized by a covering of dense oak forest which in part still exists today. In contrast to the flatter and more fertile southern region, the northern region is, in general, little suited to agriculture. Due to the many differing factors of elevation, soil, precipitation, winds and geological makeup, the environment varies greatly within the region as a whole, and temperature variations between north and south can, at times, be dramatic. The large amounts of run-off water during the winter seasons form natural reservoirs in places where there are depressions without outlets on the surface of the landscape. The bottom of these depressions is usually composed of basalt soils mixed with clay, which eventually become fossilized and form a sealed container. These natural cisterns or reservoirs are known as bi’r (or birka) and are very abundant in the Golan, especially in the northern and central regions, as well as being extremely common throughout the Middle East.6 By holding water for most of the year, they provide an essential requirement for the local inhabitants. The most exceptional is Birkeh Ram in the northern Golan (site ref. 2216/2930) located near Majdal Shams, described by Josephus in War 3.509–13, and called by the Greek name Φιάλης (Phiale). In stark contrast, the southern Golan is rich in natural springs and, in combination with a fertile plain, enabled rapid growth in settlement. Throughout its history, topography and climatic conditions have determined settlement patterns in the Golan. The nature of the terrain made access difficult, with water supply restricted to natural springs and streams crisscrossing the basalt plateau. Human occupation is attested as early as the Paleolithic and Chalcolithic 6

The spelling of bi’r (pl. abyar) and birka according to Lent 1997: 45.

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periods, with a flourishing population during the Bronze Age, which by the end of the third millennium had diminished. A renewal of settlements seems to have occurred in the Iron Age. Except for a few exceptions in the south, surveys and excavations have revealed that the region as a whole was mostly unpopulated in the late Babylonian, Persian and early Hellenistic periods. Not until the late Hellenistic period, after the battle of Panion in 200 BCE, did settlements begin to reappear. In the southern Golan fertile soil and rich springs, combined with a temperate climate, provided all the right conditions. These early settlements of the southern Golan were established on the edges of plains, usually close to a natural water supply. According to surveys conducted in the region, a system of towers and fortresses, typical of Hellenistic military construction, was built in order to defend and control the region. The central Golan saw the beginning of settlement during this same period. It is, however, the settlements in the northern Golan that are crucial to this study. The north experienced a resurgence beginning in the second century BCE, having had almost no permanent agricultural settlements during earlier periods. These sites, established in the second century BCE, were concentrated in the north-east of the Golan. The northern village settlements were built, in general, on the edge of fertile valleys, on low hills and land that required the clearing of Mediterranean forest which at the time still formed a dense cover. Small in area, the sites were unwalled and comprised only a few isolated buildings of roughly hewn field-stone. It would appear the population subsisted mainly on agriculture. In these early surveys shards of a distinctive Golan Ware pottery were found at many of the sites. Prominent among these was a large handmade pithoi presumably used to store water, and of pinkish to light-brown clay with a considerable admixture of grits. Shards of this distinctive Golan Ware were collected, mostly from the surface, from sixty-seven sites in the north-eastern Golan, all above 700 m. The excavators dated thirty-three of these sites to the Hellenistic period. A small proportion of imported ware and pottery from the early Roman period was also noted.7 This typical Golan Ware pottery appears to have been prominent in the repertoire, and suggested to the excavators that during the Hellenistic period the northern Golan was settled by Ituraeans, and all sites in which Golan Ware together with imported ware were found indicated an Ituraean settlement. 7

Ma‘oz 1993: 534–6, which provides a good summary.

48

The Ituraeans and the Roman Near East Archaeological history

In the nineteenth century Oliphant (1879–1886) and Schumacher (1883–1885, 1914) visited the region and recorded sites they found. Schumacher’s detailed writing on sites he encountered resulted in the still valuable work The Jaulân.8 With the region’s political situation remaining unstable after the First World War, it was not until after 1967 that surveys were initiated by a number of scholars. Claire Epstein and Shemariah Gutman pioneered this work in 1967–1968, followed by Dan Urman in 1968–1972. Epstein continued with her surveys from 1973 to 2000 concentrating mainly on the Chalcolithic period. Zvi Ma‘oz worked in the area from 1977, and Claudine Dauphin in 1978–1988. Since 1983 Moshe Hartal has surveyed and excavated in the northern Golan, resulting in a number of published sites, many of which he identifies as Ituraean. As the political landscape changed and access to the Golan Heights was made possible, Epstein and Gutman were able to conduct the first archaeological survey in the Golan Heights region in 1967–1968. Over a period of four months they recorded approximately 200 sites. It was in the northern district that perhaps the most significant find was discovered, pottery shards otherwise known within Palestine or Syria, and subsequently designated as ‘Golan Ware’.9 Epstein commented on the uniqueness of the find, and with further surveys conducted in 1968 and 1972 more pottery of this type was found at sites concentrated in the northern Golan. In September 1971 Dan Urman, on behalf of the then Israel Department of Antiquities (Israel Antiquities Authority), conducted a rescue excavation at the site of Kh. Zamal (modern Zemel), located approximately 1 km south-east of the Druze village of Buq‘ata in the northern Golan. The site, which lies on a low flat hill, derives its name from the Druze Khakur el-Zemel. The excavations cleared half of a rectangular room in which fragments of three large pithoi, all of the Golan Ware type, were found at floor level in the excavated area. Some shards bore fragmentary Greek inscriptions, but all proved difficult to decipher. Along with these finds were two Seleucid coins and a bronze spearhead. On the basis of the coin finds, Urman determined the dating for the structure be attributed to the Hellenistic and the beginning of the Roman periods (third to first century BCE). In his conclusions he considered the Golan Ware to be 8

Schumacher 1888 and Oliphant 1880.

9

Urman 1985: 72.

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the work of Ituraean tribes who lived in the Golan during that period. On the basis of these finds, Urman determined that the shards from Khirbet Zamal ‘should be attributed to the Hellenistic period and the beginning of the Roman period (3rd to 1st century B.C.)’.10 He states, ‘This ware was probably the work of Ituraean tribes who lived at that time in the Golan’.11 According to Hartal, the finds were transferred from the storage facility at Quneitra to the Department of Antiquities in Jerusalem shortly after the end of the 1972 War. It is from this point that they are recorded as being lost. Not long after Urman’s initial work Gutman wrote an article (1973) suggesting that Golan Ware pottery should be attributed to the Ituraeans. A year later, in August/September of 1974, Urman conducted a rescue excavation at Kh. Nimra, also in the northern Golan. The excavated building was similar to the one at Kh. Zemel, and shards of Golan Ware-type pottery along with coins from the second century BCE and second to third centuries CE were found. Urman, writing ten years or so after these excavations took place, suggested that Gutman’s idea as presented in the 1973 article was basically acceptable, but did not elaborate. From later surveys conducted by Claudine Dauphin and Shimon Gibson in the years between 1978 and 1988, Golan Ware pottery was discovered and collected from the site of Farj in the southern Golan. It was concluded from this evidence that Farj represented the southernmost distribution point of this Golan pottery type. The work of Shimon Dar established the name ‘Ituraean’ in place of the former ‘Golan’ Ware. His initial explorations in the Hermon region began in the summer of 1967, after the Six Day War. Over the following years, and after spending a good deal of time in the area, he published a detailed description of these investigations, the first results of surveys previously having been published in Hebrew. After finding Golan Ware pottery at many of the Hermon sites, Dar was convinced that Golan Ware had been in use throughout the Hermon region from the Hellenistic until the late Roman period, and possibly through to the Byzantine era.12 After studying the pottery, 10 Urman in EAEHL: II, 464. See Urman 1985: 163, where he repeats this statement. Note Urman has ‘Zamal’ where Hartal uses the modern designation ‘Zemel’. 11 Ibid. See also Kasher 1988: 81–3 where he discusses Gutman’s decision on the ceramics. 12 Papers published in Hebrew entitled The Hermon and its Foothills: A Collection of Studies and Articles (Applebaum 1978); reference is from Urman 1985: 163 nn. 79 and 80. Urman emphasizes that Dar’s publication of the ceramics made it ‘clear’ Golan Ware continued to exist into the Byzantine period.

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The Ituraeans and the Roman Near East

Dar concluded it was locally made, although no kiln site was found, and confined to sites in the northern Golan and the Hermon. While still in the field, Urman and his colleagues had made an earlier comparison between the composition of the collected shard material and the different soils found in the northern Golan and Hermon regions. As a result of this experiment, they concluded that Dar’s statement was basically correct: the Golan pottery was of local origin. However, Urman did not accept the second part of the statement in which Dar concludes that the pottery was limited to the Hermon and northern Golan. Further evidence from regions east, north and west of the Hermon massif was considered necessary before coming to any conclusion regarding geographical distribution.13 The ongoing political situation has since made it impossible to determine with certainty the geographic boundaries for Golan Ware. It is important to note also that, beside the locally made Golan Ware, other types of ceramics from both the Roman and Byzantine period have been found at many of these sites, indicating their continued habitation and settlement activity. Golan Ware: early surveys and excavations Moshe Hartal, on behalf of the Qasrin Museum, was able to carry out and complete further excavations at the site of Kh. Zemel between 1985 and 1987.14 A large building on the northern edge of the site was excavated. The excavators were able to determine two phases of occupation; in the second and final stage the building consisted of five rooms. Another building, to the east of a courtyard and partially excavated, again indicated two phases of occupation. Large quantities of handmade ‘Ituraean’ storage pithoi shards, as well as four complete pithoi in situ, were found in the building.15 Two more pithoi from remains on the floor were restored. In addition to the pithoi, the floor contained shards belonging to imported cooking pots and ‘fish plates’ as well as shards from proposed locally made, light-coloured ware with large grits. Along with pottery finds were Seleucid bronze coins from the reign of Antiochus III (or IV) and two silver tetradrachms of Alexander Balas and Demetrius II, minted at Tyre in 146/ 145 BCE. According to these finds the excavators dated the building to the second half of the second century BCE. The storage jars found 13 15

Urman 1985: 163. Hartal 1987: 270.

14

Hartal 1987: 270–2; see also Hartal 2002.

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at Kh. Zemel differ from those found at the late Roman site of Kh. Nimra, which are dated to the third century CE. From his observations, Hartal concluded that the finds from Kh. Zemel made it possible to discern typological changes in ‘Ituraean’ ceramic forms. It was the first time a dating was possible for all those sites containing this type of pottery found in the northern Golan and the Hermon region.16 Excavations at the site of Tel Dan in the northern Huleh basin began in 1966, and continued until 1993. In the 1968 season it was decided to begin digging in the northern area around the springs, later to become known as Area T, or the sacred precinct. By 1976 they had reached the Hellenistic layer, which appeared to be in two phases. The second phase is dated through coins to the Seleucid period of Antiochus III (223–187 BCE), and Demetrius II (146–140 BCE). Discovered to the west of the sanctuary was a large assemblage of broken vessels including what were considered to be both locally made and imported vessels. Within this group were large, thin-walled amphoras, made locally by hand, which were also found in other parts of the sacred precinct. Biran ascertained that this material belonged to a ‘newly-identified pottery group of this period from the Golan Heights’, and attributed it to a ‘local tribe or people known as Itureans’.17 Prior to Biran’s claim of finding ‘Ituraean’ pottery at Dan, Moshe Hartal had published (in Hebrew) his findings from surveys conducted in the northern Golan. In the English summary Hartal clarifies the essential elements which led him to determine the identity of Golan Ware pottery as ‘Ituraean’. The spread of this pottery over a particular period of time, and the territories the Ituraeans are considered to have held, provided the essential points. Those sites in which this pottery constitutes the overwhelming majority of finds were then considered to be Ituraean sites.18 First proposed by Gutman, this determination is maintained by Dar, who labelled shards of the type found at surveyed sites in the Hermon region as ‘Ituraean’. Excavations at Tel Anafa provided additional insights into the region of the Huleh basin and the Upper Galilee during the Hellenistic period. Mentioned in the extensive published report on pottery findings is a type called ‘Everted rim baggy jar’ PW 484–87. This particular vessel is comparable to the one (amphora) found at

16

Hartal 1987: 272.

17

Biran 1994: 224.

18

Hartal 1989: 7.

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The Ituraeans and the Roman Near East

Tel Dan.19 PW 486 is of the same type, and marked with a graffito in Greek. A second form similar in size and body shape differs in its rim, which is here finished in a neatly scalloped pie-crust decoration. This is known as the Pie-crust rim baggy jar PW 488–91, with numerous parallels occurring at sites in the northern Huleh valley, the northern Golan and the flanks of Mt Hermon. The excavators identified this type as an Ituraean production, although no manufacturing site had yet been identified.20 Stating the problem As stated above, over the years there has been a shift in the name given to a particular pottery type. Initially labelled ‘Golan Ware’ pottery, the name reflected an identification with its location or provenance as it was found to be locally made in the Golan. In itself this material can say little more; it cannot tell us who fashioned it, nor can it explain fully why it is there. Through excavations and the study of accumulated finds, archaeologists are able to paint a picture, albeit a fragmentary one, of settlement patterns within the region. Enough pottery, both whole and fragmentary, has been found to enable a typology and chronology to be proposed. This chronology is significant as it presents us with a sure indication that these settlements first began to appear in the northern Golan in the late Hellenistic period. It would also suggest that the population of the region remained in the Golan well into the Roman period, and continued to produce this typical Golan Ware pottery albeit with later modifications. Until this pottery was first found and named little was known of the Golan during this same period, except to surmise an increase in habitation after 200 BCE. The shift which took place in renaming Golan Ware to ‘Ituraean’ remains, nevertheless, somewhat problematic. The problem is twofold: firstly, the difference in meaning when an object is labelled with an ‘ethnic’ name as opposed to the location/ region in which it is found; secondly, how to understand the textual evidence which is presumed to support this identification. To begin, the important and much discussed issue of ethnicity requires clarification. The Greek ethnos comes to our attention in Josephus, Ant. 13.319 in reference to an Ituraean nation (although Josephus is here quoting Strabo on the authority of Timagenes). Josephus’ use of the 19 20

Andrea Berlin, The Plain Wares, in Herbert 1997: 156 and pl. 58. Ibid. p. 157.

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term ethnos is typical of the classical writers of his period, and used to describe a company of men, a number of people living together, or being part of a group separate from others. In this sense the Jews were considered an ethnos as were the Arabians, and in the LXX it is used for Gentiles. The question as to how people in antiquity defined themselves remains dependent on the sources which are left to us. The Egyptians provided us with a multiplicity of recorded thoughts, and ideas, as did the Greeks and others before them. To date we do not have similar documents in which to more fully understand what made the Ituraean an Ituraean. Modern scholarship within the social sciences has developed complex sets of categories and attributes in order to help determine ways of understanding ethnicity.21 In this case it does not resolve the question as to who were the Ituraeans, but certain guidelines are worthy of consideration. In attempting to explain the phenomenon of ‘ethnic group solidarity’, some social scientists see allegiances ‘as a result of political or economic interests’, there being many levels of contact – political, economic, religious, familial or social.22 In this sense the Ituraeans constituted a group who were separate from others, and seen by others as such. From the limited literary texts it becomes apparent that they were viewed mainly as robbers and troublemakers. There are, however, two points worth noting. One is from the social scientist’s viewpoint which states that ‘overt ethnicity is most evident under economically difficult circumstances and is often used for political or defensive purposes’.23 In other words, if on looking back we perceive an Ituraean ethnos, its emphasis on brigandage may reflect the social and political environment of the period, and not necessarily the individual. Killebrew emphasizes the implicit difficulties in attempting to identify ethnicity within antiquity, or even if it existed. She explains her own approach as being in its broadest meaning and states: ‘Defining ethnicity based on material culture in modern-day societies has often proven challenging for social scientists. Far greater obstacles are encountered when archaeologists attempt to discern ethnicity and ethnic boundaries based on the very incomplete material record of the past.’24 This is well worth our consideration and brings me to the second point, the incomplete material record of the past.

21 23

See Dever 2003 and Killebrew 2005, especially pp. 8–9. 22 Killebrew 2005: 8–9. Killebrew 2005: 9 with reference. 24 Killebrew 2005: 9.

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The Ituraeans and the Roman Near East

Most archaeologists would readily admit that we cannot know everything about a region and the sites within it, no matter how much material evidence is discovered through excavations. Every site has its own story to reveal, some more than others. The excavations at Khirbet Zemel proved successful in that it enabled, from the amount of pottery both fragmentary and whole, along with other finds, the development of a chronology for the site. Thus it was concluded that Khirbet Zemel, a small settlement site, was established during the second half of the second century BCE in a previously unoccupied area. They were able to determine that the inhabitants would have been farmers who vacated the site in an organized fashion. Khirbet Zemel is only one of dozens of settlements which existed in the northern Golan during the Hellenistic period. Some apparently were abandoned, others continued and developed over several centuries. In spite of the information gathered regarding these sites, nothing was found to indicate who these ‘farmers’ were or where they had come from. In his discussion on the site Hartal proposes that Khirbet Zemel is one of the first Ituraean settlements in this region in the second century BCE.25 In reaching this conclusion Hartal outlines the process of moving from a nomadic to a sedentary lifestyle. In its pattern of development and building construction he sees that this process existed at Khirbet Zemel. By dating the settlement as beginning in the second century BCE Hartal assumed that Ituraeans were the most likely peoples, particularly as they are mentioned in the early texts. This, however, rests on an assumption presumed from the texts: that Ituraeans were a nomadic Arab tribe who moved into this region in the second century BCE. Why the Ituraeans? Most scholars appear to have accepted Josephus as their main authority at this point. In War 1.398–400 Josephus relates the demise of Zenodorus, who, having taken on the lease of territories once belonging to Lysanias, loses it to Herod. The territory in question is Trachonitis and the adjacent districts of Batanaea and Auranitis. This event occurs in the late first century BCE, and by this time the principality of Ituraea appears to be in decline. Ant. 15.343–4 gives a parallel account, but here Josephus uses the expression that Zenodorus had leased the ‘domain’ of Lysanias. The core of the issue here is how are we to understand what in fact Josephus is saying or implying? The territories and domain mentioned would have comprised large tracts of land, precise 25

Hartal 2002: 114–15.

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boundaries being indeterminate. Covering considerable distances, these lands would have been scantily populated, but what inhabitants there were would have been subject to the authority of whoever had control. By the late first century BCE it was from Rome that came the final authority, with petty kings and minor tetrarchs given powers to collect revenues. What we do not have in the texts is any suggestion that there were migrations of people into different regions or the establishment of new settlements and villages, in the similar way we have in the Assyrian records of an earlier period. That people travelled long distances is readily accepted; trade more than anything brought people into contact with each other. Unless we make the first assumption that those who settled on the northern Golan were Ituraeans, there is nothing in the textual sources or material culture which clearly supports this proposition. That the tetrarchs Lysanias and Zenodorus leased these lands simply indicates they had authority to take revenues, but we are given no information from whom those revenues will come. If in fact we accept the material evidence without making any assumptions, we clearly have some interesting settlement sites in the northern Golan, which may in the future offer further insight into their inhabitants. Golan Ware has apparent parallels at Tel Anafa and Tel Dan in the northern Huleh valley, and is found on the southern slopes of the Hermon. We have yet to fully comprehend the Biqa‘ plain during the late Hellenistic period, a region which is indispensable in terms of understanding the Ituraean. As an ethnos the Ituraeans remain still, much clouded by the scarce sources and contradictory or confusing written material. The Golan Ware pottery needs to stand alone until we can know without doubt that this material is indeed Ituraean. Excursus on Galilean coarse ware The Galilean Course Ware (GCW) has been compared to the Golan Ware pottery, although the two remain separate productions. Whereas the GCW is produced in the Galilee, the Golan Ware fabric has been established as having come from the Golan, although no production centre has yet been identified. As a pottery type, GCW first appears in the Persian period as determined through evidence from excavations at Tel Hazor and Mizpe Yamin. Recent excavations at Yodefat, where GCW was found in clearly defined Hellenistic contexts, confirmed that GCW was in use during this period.26 In the 26

Frankel et al. 2001: 62.

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The Ituraeans and the Roman Near East

past few years ongoing excavations at Tel Kedesh in the Galilee have identified a pottery type closely related to the GCW. The fabric for this ware is designated as Red Brown Gritty (RBG).27 Studies on the Galilean sites and pottery finds have determined that GCW is found primarily in the region of Mt Meron from both the Persian and Hellenistic periods, but it seems to be absent from the coastal plain where the Phoenician jar (Type 36) predominates. Earlier published material from Meron, in which the archaeologists had suggested it was still being used in the Roman and Byzantine periods, has now been disproved. This conclusion resulted from determining that published examples from Meron from the Roman and Byzantine periods were intrusive shards.28 The fact that GCW was discovered only at sites of the Persian and Hellenistic periods indicated to the excavators that its production did not continue into the Roman and Byzantine periods. It was also apparent through the surveys that a large percentage of sites in which GCW pottery was found did not continue into the Roman period. The abandonment of sites, and the changes in settlement patterns, led archaeologists to suggest that these changes took place during the period of ‘Hasmonaean aggression’.29 The GCW repertoire consists mainly of large vessels – bowls, kraters and pithoi. The various forms are of coarse grey and pink with large white grits. Occasionally wheel made, the vast majority are handmade. In some cases, the GCW vessels are similar in form to other vessels of the Persian and Hellenistic periods, but are completely different in ware and in the manner in which they were made. Regional parallels are to be found at various sites in the Upper Galilee. One suggestion made was to attribute GCW pottery to the Ituraeans, based on an association between the northern Galilee and Aristobulus, who is presumed to have forced the Ituraeans to be circumcised. This argument, however, remains problematical without any archaeological evidence to substantiate it. In the view of the authors who published the report on Galilean pottery, the pottery which has been identified as ‘Ituraean’ elsewhere is not identical to the GCW found in the Upper Galilee. The authors also suggest that none of what they call the ‘distinguishing features’ of the Ituraeans has been found in the Galilee.30 According to the authors, the mark of these ‘distinguishing features’ mentioned is the proliferation of temples close to settlements 27 29

Herbert, Berlin 2003: 28. 28 Frankel et al. 2001: 62. Frankel et al. 2001: 108–10. 30 Frankel et al. 2001: 110.

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that are found in the Hermon region.31 What is suggested here, first of all, is a concurrence that settlements on the Hermon are first of all Ituraean, and secondly, that the temple structures which proliferate on the Hermon, and stand close to settlements, are also Ituraean. That these structures are absent in the Galilee confirmed the authors’ belief that the settlement population of the Galilee in the Hasmonean period was not Ituraean. We are left with a circularity in this argument: it is difficult to accept that Ituraeans were responsible for the temples in the Hermon region based on Dar’s rather shaky assumptions, and then assume Ituraeans were not in the Galilee by virtue of the absence of similar temples. To date there is no thorough and definitive archaeological work done on the temples of the Hermon, with Dar’s conclusions regarding sites he surveyed and partially excavated resting mainly on the Golan Ware he found at the sites. In 2002 and 2003 surveys were conducted in the Syrian and Lebanese territories of Mt Hermon which concentrated on collecting and recording inscriptions from the temple sites. As a result of this investigative work it was established that various forms of cultic activity had continued from the Hellenistic period through to the Roman. Located at high elevation, and often associated with village settlements, these Roman sanctuaries with their inscriptions provide support for habitation within this mountainous and rugged terrain. In his discussion of these sites, Aliquot makes the firm statement that, although some temples may have had earlier forerunners, ‘it is of the utmost importance to stress that all were seemingly built under Roman rule’.32 Differing from those of the Lebanon and the AntiLebanon, the Roman temples of the Hermon are unique and have no parallels in the Galilee. Furthermore, as the inscriptions found tend to confirm the known sanctuaries of the Hermon as having been built between the end of the first century CE and the beginning of the fourth century CE, it still has to be proved if any stood on the Hermon during the Hellenistic period.33 Khirbet Zemel The final publication on excavations at Kh. Zemel is published in Eretz Zafon Studies in Galilean Archaeology.34 Kh. Zemel was a small settlement established in a previously unsettled area during the second 31 33

Frankel et al. 2001: 110. 32 Aliquot 2008: 80–1. Aliquot 2008: 80. 34 Hartal 2002: 74–117.

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The Ituraeans and the Roman Near East

half of the second century BCE. The coins and pottery finds testify to it being a one-period site existing for only a number of decades. From other finds it appears the inhabitants were farmers, and the site represents one of dozens of settlements established in the northern Golan during the Hellenistic period.35 In total five rooms of a large building were excavated and documented. Hartal lists each of the different types of ware found at the site, the most common being the Golan Ware. The pottery finds consisted of four types of ware: *

*

* *

Golan Ware, consisting of 85% of vessels, mainly pithoi as well as mortaria, cooking, serving and storage vessels Fine Ware, probably imported, mostly bowls and saucers; comprising 8% of vessels Gritty Ware, cooking vessels, 6% Spatter-painted Ware, named after typical colour decoration found at Tel Anafa originating in the Huleh valley. Two pots found at Kh. Zemel.

Over ninety rims from pithoi were found, along with seven complete vessels. Three of the vessels were almost entirely restored, and a fourth reconstructed to approximately two-thirds its height. The general characteristics for the pithoi are: *

*

*

body usually handmade, sack-shaped with rounded shoulders, pointed base neck, base and handles made separately and attached to the body before firing short narrow neck is wheel made.

The pithoi Until now it has been generally accepted that the pithoi are of local production, limited to the northern Golan and the northern Huleh valley. In Hartal’s opinion, because of their common characteristics we are justified in categorizing them as one type.36 Kh. Zemel, however, presents a unique find which as yet is perhaps not fully understood. Found in one house are five pithoi on the shoulders of which are personal names in Greek, incised before firing. Two also contain dates along with the personal name, the dates confirming that the pithoi were made within two decades. Of the names, five are pure 35

Hartal 2002: 111–14.

36

Hartal 2002: 93–102.

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Greek and one is Syrian; however, if we are to heed Macdonald’s warnings regarding names, this information may best be considered as secondary and not necessarily indicating an ethnicity for the one who incised the name. As Hartal so aptly points out, these Greek inscriptions do raise a number of questions, two obvious ones being: whose names are they and why are they Greek names? In answer to the first he suggests three possibilities: the potter’s name, the buyer’s name or an official’s name, similar to the case of handles of amphora from Rhodes. In answering the second question as to why they are Greek names, he makes a comparison to Rhodian amphora, where the name of the potter or an official was commonly stamped onto the handle. Significantly the Kh. Zemel pithoi were not stamped, but incised before firing. As these vessels are locally produced, it would seem unlikely that these are names of local potters. If they represent the names of buyers, it would then suggest that the inhabitants of the house were Greek-speakers, which again is unlikely. As determined by the excavations, the site was simply a small settlement in a marginal area, the homes constructed by people with knowledge of the local building tradition. In Hartal’s opinion, ‘It is not reasonable that such people used Greek names or even Hellenized Semitic names.’37 It is the third option which Hartal suggests as a possibility, that the names are of people who were in charge of producing the pithoi. This could explain the Greek names if one assumes these people are of Greek origin or Hellenized non-Greeks. This, however, invites more questions and raises more problems. Stamped Rhodian handles on amphora are not uncommon, the amphora being used for the marketing of wine or oil and often transported over long distances. At Kh. Zemel the inscriptions are, as mentioned before, incised on pithoi. Bearing in mind that pithoi were used for storage and not transport, an official’s name on the vessel would be unnecessary, and therefore one must question whether this is the correct assumption for the Kh. Zemel pithoi. Finally, as the majority of the pithoi found bear no inscription, it seems that the core to the dilemma goes back to the initial question: why are these few pithoi inscribed with a name in Greek, and found in one house only? The questions raised concerning this unique problem are important, and it is hoped the vessels will be studied further in an attempt to find a satisfactory answer, unless we are to be left with a puzzle. 37

Hartal 2002: 100.

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The Ituraeans and the Roman Near East

From the presence of locally made Golan Ware found mainly in the north and north-central areas and from sites identified within the same time period, and those which coincided with the Ituraean historical record, Hartal was led to conclude that Kh. Zemel was indeed an Ituraean settlement site. The second century BCE pithoi found at Tel Dan and Tel Anafa are similar to those found at Kh. Zemel and therefore support a Hellenistic dating. However, according to Hartal the vessels found by Dar in the Hermon region do not have the same characteristics typical of Hellenistic pithoi, and therefore cannot be older than the Roman period.38 Table 1 provides a simplified overview as to the development of the name Golan Ware, from its first appearance in archaeological reports through to its rapid change and acceptance as ‘Ituraean Ware’. As a result of this change in name, many sites in the northern Golan and Hermon regions are now identified as Ituraean. Gutman’s decision to attribute Golan Ware to the Ituraeans was based on the supposition that the pottery seemed to be concentrated within the northern Golan and Hermon, and, together with coin finds, the same sites were dated to the second century BCE through to the second to third century CE. That some scholars readily accepted the view in which pottery finds from Kh. Zemel are attributed to Ituraean tribes can be seen in an early article on the ‘Golan’.39 Biran also accepted the naming of the pottery as Ituraean, and referred to the works of Josephus to support the claim that Ituraeans had inhabited the region during the same period the pottery was produced. In Biran’s words ‘the Hasmonaean King Aristobulus conquered part of their country and forced them [the Ituraeans] to accept Judaism’ and so confirmed the fact that Ituraeans were in the region.40 I argue against this assumption, based as it is on a collation of two passages, one from Antiquities and one from War, which Josephus himself does not make. Dar reported finding a distinctive family of large clumsy vessels at sites in the Hermon region, previously named Golan Ware, and concluded that the pottery was of Ituraean provenance. In making this judgement he was in agreement with the earlier conclusions of Gutman, Urman and others, all of whom had conducted surveys within the Golan region. Furthermore, all sites discussed in the various articles in which this pottery type was evident were eventually to be designated as Ituraean sites. A later publication gave the results of Dar’s surveys and excavations on the Hermon, and the site of Har 38

Hartal 2002: 93.

39

Urman 1976.

40

Biran 1994: 226.

1974 1978 1987

1989 1992–3 1993 1994 1997

1968–72 1971

1974

1973–4 1985–6

1982

1983–7

1978–88 1968–82

1966–93 1968–70 1972–3 1985–7

Hermon surveys Rescue excavation at Kh. Zemal Kh. Nimra rescue excavation Hermon surveys Kh. Zemel excavations

Mt Hermon

Northern Golan excavations Golan surveys Hermon excavations and Har Sena‘im Tel Dan excavations Tel Anafa excavations

Kh. Zemel excavations

1972

1967–8

Golan survey

2002

1988

1972

Year

Survey/excavation

Date published Identification

Golan Ware found; in 1973 publication attributed Golan Ware to the Ituraeans Golan Ware found Golan Ware pithoi referred to as Ituraean; made locally Pottery referred to as Golan or Ituraean Ware; Ituraean provenance Attempts typology; identifies Ituraean pottery

M. Hartal

A. Biran A. Berlin

Large vessel found, identified as Ituraean Pithoi found parallel to Golan Ware; one pithoi type identified as an Ituraean production Kh. Zemel pithoi identified as Ituraean; provides typology

C. Dauphin S. Gibson Golan Ware found as far south as Farj S. Dar Golan Ware referred to as Ituraean Ware

M. Hartal

S. Dar

S. Dar M. Hartal

S. Gutman

C. Epstein S. Gutman Golan Ware shards found for first time; of local manufacture S. Dar Golan Ware found D. Urman Golan Ware identified at site

Archaeologist

Table 1 Development of the name Golan Ware to Ituraean Ware

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The Ituraeans and the Roman Near East

Sena‘im in particular, which focussed on the proposition that the area was a base for Ituraean settlement. These conclusions led to an assumption that the Hellenistic and Roman period culture within this region should be considered an Ituraean culture. The basis for Dar’s argument is encapsulated in his statement: ‘the incidence of these vessels corresponds with Ituraean country, the stronghold of which was Mt. Hermon’.41 Dar supports this claim with coins from the Ptolemaic and Seleucid periods (third to second century BCE) found at sites on the Hermon. As these coins were included along with what Dar claims is Ituraean material, he believed the coins were an indication of the activity of Ituraean tribes. However, this can only be speculation and inevitably a circular argument, as there is no way of knowing who brought the coins and subsequently left them behind. As noted by Ma‘oz, ‘coins may suggest activity of shepherds or hunters, or may be residuals from later periods, but are in no way proof of early settlement’.42 Although this information may provide an overview as to how archaeologists have come to designate a particular pottery type as Ituraean, there remain still many unanswered questions. Distinctive features characterize the Golan Ware: it is a coarse ware, in a pink to pinkish-brown clay, containing large and medium-sized grits, and locally made by hand. The variations in rims, handles and bases are a result of hand manufacture.43 These vessels are predominantly large pithoi/storage jars, which to date have been found in the northern Golan and the northern Huleh valley. Vessels that appear at Kh. Zemel, with parallels from Tel Dan and Tel Anafa, are dated to the second century BCE, during the Hellenistic period. Vessels similar to those found in the Hermon region do not appear at Tel Anafa until the early Roman period and therefore were used to support Berlin’s suggestion that the final phase of occupation at Anafa could not be attributed to the Ituraeans.44 Hartal’s latest article, in which he provides what he refers to as ‘the first full account of the Golanware pithoi from the Hellenistic period’, also reinforces the fact that these are of ‘local production, their distribution limited to the northern Golan and the northern Hula Valley’.45 Furthermore, evidence from material at Kh. Zemel led Hartal to conclude that the site 41

Dar 1993b: 80. 42 Ma‘oz 1997: 281. 43 Hartal 2002: 93. Berlin 1997: 29 n. 75; suggested by Berlin on the basis the Hermon vessels are Ituraean. Hartal 2002: 93, discusses pithoi discovered at these sites and concludes the material found on Mt Hermon is no older than the Roman period. 45 Hartal 2002: 98. 44

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‘represents one of the first Ituraean settlements in the area in the second century B.C.E.’46 The renaming of Golan Ware as ‘Ituraean’ is problematic and the argument somewhat circular, as I have already noted. The suggestion appears to rest mainly on taking as fact the historical textual sources, and assuming Ituraeans controlled the Golan, the Hermon, the Huleh and regions to the east. On this basis it is claimed that a pottery type presumed local, found in some of these same regions, should be associated with Ituraeans. From this association the sites in which this same pottery is found are then identified as Ituraean. However, as stated earlier, this assumption is untenable. As yet there is no clear marker that identifies any of the material on the Golan or the Hermon as being specifically Ituraean. It is still preferable to give this pottery the name Golan Ware, which identifies its origin and location, a provenance for which further study is required. To date there is no known site for its production, and the extent of its geographical distribution remains unknown. In light of how little is known or can be known from the textual sources in terms of culture, language, religion or ethnic identity for the Ituraeans, it is perhaps misleading to attempt to draw overly specific conclusions. The known geographical distribution for Golan Ware remains artificially limited by the nature of the terrain and political constraints. The eastern border of the Golan Heights, now controlled by modern Syria, cuts off the possibility of any additional survey and excavation in what was ancient Bashan/Batanaea. Much of the Hermon now lies outside the boundaries of modern-day Israel, with both Syria and Lebanon disallowing easy access for surveys and excavations. The result is that there is little likelihood of fully establishing the distribution pattern of Golan Ware in the foreseeable future. What the previous surveys and limited excavations in the Golan and Hermon have revealed is evidence of a resurgence of settlement in the Hellenistic period. During the late Hellenistic to early Roman period these settlements appear to have been small, each having adapted to the general environment within its location. Unique, it seems, to the Hermon is the proliferation of temple structures and cult sanctuaries; similar structures do not appear in the Golan. The manufacture of a locally made pottery would not be unusual, and Dar’s surveys revealed a well-constructed road system, making local trade

46

Hartal 2002: 93, 98, 115.

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The Ituraeans and the Roman Near East

and mobility possible. Distribution to the south-west into the Huleh valley and the Galilee, and hence the appearance of the Golan Ware pithoi at Tel Anafa and Tel Dan, would not have been impossible. But these are at present mere possibilities, and there is nothing in the pottery identifying it as Ituraean. The evidence is too fragile to make the assumption that gives the Golan Ware pottery an ethnic identity by naming it Ituraean Ware. Much more information regarding the Ituraeans is required in order to make this leap. The Golan Ware pottery remains enigmatic and its study incomplete, therefore its use as an ethnic marker continues to be unreliable. The Hermon and Har Sena‘im And they were, all of them, two hundred, who descended in the days of Jared onto the peak of Mount Hermon. And they called the mountain ‘Hermon’ because they swore and bound one another with a curse on it (1 Enoch 6.6).47 The above lines from 1 Enoch affirm an ancient belief in the mountain’s sacredness that is reflected in the Enoch tradition, the summit of Hermon being the place of assembly for ‘the angels or watchers, the children of heaven’ who descend to earth in order to swear an oath.48 Mount Hermon presents two aspects worthy of consideration: its enduring legacy within the mythology of the ancient Near East, and its awe-inspiring physical presence. The two are often interwoven. Each aspect has influenced the lives of those who have lived within its environs, both in antiquity and in the present. Acknowledged in text and oral tradition throughout antiquity, it has remained a dominant force within both the physical landscape and the religious thought of Syria-Palestine. In the ancient Near Eastern texts Saryan/Siryon is the ancient (Hebrew) geographical name for the Hermon massif: ‘the Sidonians call Hermon Sirion, while the Amorites call it Senir’ (Deut. 3.9). Named in reference to its ‘precious trees’, in one of the Ugaritic myths it is Sirion, while in a Hittite treaty it is Mount Sariyana.49 Although the name ‘Hermon’ does not itself appear in the ancient Near Eastern texts, it is found juxtaposed with other toponyms in the Bible.50 Known in Arabic as Jebel e-Sheikh, and 47

Nickelsburg 2001: 174. 48 Lipiński 1971: 17–18, 28–35. From a Hittite ‘Treaty Between Mursilis and Duppi-Tessub of Amurru’, A. Goetze, trans. in ANET: 205. 50 Arav 1992: 158. 49

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rising to a height of 2,814 m (9,232 ft), the Hermon is a truly commanding presence. That it was considered a sacred mountain is exemplified in its Semitic root hrm meaning ‘taboo’ or ‘consecrated’, seen also in the Arabic al-haram, ‘sacred enclosure’. The sacredness of Hermon, known throughout antiquity and in many different regions, has been compared to the inviolability of Mount Sinai as described in Exod. 19.12, where the people are forbidden to go near the mountain or to ascend it, for whoever touched the mountain would be put to death. Eloquently expressed in the words of Clermont-Ganneau, the Hermon became known as ‘the mountain of oath’.51 That its sacredness prevailed is also reflected in the writings of the Church Fathers when as late as the fourth century CE Eusebius, in his Onomasticon, fully recognizes the long tradition of sacredness this mountain holds: ᾽Αερμών ὄρος ὀνομάζεσϑαι καὶ ὡς ἱερὸν τιμα̑σϑαι ὑπὸ τω̑ ν ἐϑνω̑ ν καταντιχρὺ Πανεάδος καὶ του̑ Λιβάνου (‘Until today, the mount in front of Panias and Lebanon is known as Hermon and it is respected by nations as a sanctuary’).52 Arab geographers wrote of the Hermon and the Lebanon range, where the Hermon is known as the Jabal Sanir, and defined as the ‘mountain of snow’ with the Jabal Lubnan, the Lebanon mountains, famed for their covering of trees and variety of plants.53 The summit of Mt Hermon is comprised of three peaks within a few hundred yards of each other, and together they form a comparatively level, oval-shaped plateau. The highest of these peaks is in the south-west where the remains of a sacred enclosure of hewn stones surround what was once a temple/structure known as Qasr ‘Antar.54 In September 1869 Charles Warren reached the summit and made detailed notes of his observations, which he later submitted to the Palestine Exploration Fund. He describes finding the ruins of an unroofed rectangular building, the temple or sacellum, which appeared to be of more recent date than the stone oval. Warren compared the stone oval to the kaaba at Mecca and suggested it may well have been used for the same purpose.55 Among the limited finds from north-west of the oval was a stele of grey limestone incised with a Greek inscription. Its removal from the summit was not without incident, and in the difficult process it was broken into two pieces. It now rests in the British Museum, the two pieces once more together. 51 52 53

Clermont-Ganneau 1903: 233. Eusebius, Onomasticon, ed. & trans. Klostermann: 20 line 10. Le Strange 1890: 77–80. 54 Conder 1874: 52. 55 Warren 1869–1870: 213.

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Nickelsburg’s translation of the inscription reads: κατὰ κέλευσιν θεου̑ μεγίστου κ[αί] ἁγίου οἱ ὀμνύοντες ἐντευ̑θεν (According to the command of the greatest a[nd] holy God, those who take an oath [proceed] from here).56 In connection with recent surveys to complete the IGLS collection of inscriptions from the Hermon, Aliquot recently studied this inscription and mentions Clermont-Ganneau as being the first editor to publish the text.57 From his reading of the inscription, ClermontGanneau recognized the divine order of ‘the greatest and holy god’ (θεου̑ μεγίστου) and considered it to be the Ba‘al Hermon of the Bible under a Hellenized name: ‘and the Hittites who dwelt on Mt. BaalHermon’ (Judg. 3.3); ‘they were very numerous from Bashan to BaalHermon, Senir and Mt. Hermon’ (1 Chron. 5.23).58 In Aliquot’s opinion this oath fits well ‘with the ancient traditions that characterized Mt. Hermon as the mountain of oath’ and also reflects a similar order restricting access to another holy mountain, that of Mt Carmel.59 Nickelsburg, however, notes two parallels to the Enoch tradition. He first of all suggests that the oath is reminiscent of the oath of the watchers in 1 Enoch 6.6; while the title of the ‘greatest and holy God’ closely parallels a divine title in 1 Enoch ‘the Great Holy One’, often rendered in Greek as ‘the Great and Holy One’.60 That such an enclosure, as first reported by Warren, exists on the summit of Hermon lends credence to a long tradition of the sacred high place, and supports the textual evidence for Hermon as a holy mountain. It also provides evidence for the endurance of a people who must have made considerable effort to come and worship within such a harsh and cruel environment. That the mountain preserved its sacredness throughout is dramatically demonstrated by the presence of numerous temples and cult sites. During the years 2002 and 2003 two epigraphic survey campaigns were conducted covering the Lebanese and Syrian side of the Hermon. These surveys are part of a programme to collect all the inscriptions on the Hermon to complete the corpus of IGLS epigraphic material covering the whole of the Lebanon, Anti-Lebanon and the Hermon.61 The survey did not cover the southern (Israeli) side of the mountain, as Dar’s surveys on the Hermon have been included within the corpus. In total the corpus now lists at least twenty-five cult sites on the Hermon, spread over 1,500 sq km including Har Sena‘im and Qal‘at Bustra, 56

Greek text and translation in Nickelsburg 2001: 247. Aliquot 2008: 82. Aliquot provides a translation of the inscription based on Clermont-Ganneau. 58 See also Lipiński 1971: 27–8 and Nickelsburg 2001: 247. 59 Aliquot 2008: 82. 60 Nickelsburg 2001: 247. 61 Aliquot 2008: 74 and n. 7. 57

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previously surveyed by Dar and his team. Evidence from the epigraphic campaigns reveals the frequency of Roman sanctuaries situated at high altitude, and verifies that ‘Mt. Hermon was continually inhabited during the first three centuries AD’.62 These surveys have provided much additional information for the continued study of temples on the Hermon as well as the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon. There is still a need to better understand the reasons for so many temple structures in the Lebanon, Anti-Lebanon and Hermon during the Roman period, and Aliquot refers to Seyrig’s statement that these temples may well be ‘the clue to an important social and economic change that [would] deserve to be one day the focus of a study’.63 As a result of his surveys in the Hermon region, Dar identified several temple and cult sites, many with pools of water and stands of oak close by. The existence of so many temple sites in the Hermon area and the Anti-Lebanon merely confirms an observation made by Teixidor that a cult of the mountain gods was well preserved and at all times an important element in the religious life of the people. Mountains were the dwelling place of the gods, and sacrifices were made at the acknowledged cult sites.64 The recent surveys covering the northern regions of the mountain would support this view, and reinforce observations made by the explorers of an earlier period. After having reconnoitred the area of the southern Lebanon in the mid-late nineteenth century, Warren was convinced that the village temples about Mt Hermon were temples associated with the Wadi et-Teim, which runs along the western flank of the mountain. Warren argued that, because the wadi is closed at each end by a narrow gorge, it formed a natural defence against invasion, therefore preserving these structures where others in the plains had long disappeared. His observations led him to conclude further that the sacred enclosure on the Hermon summit had ‘nothing in common in its construction with the temples on the west below, and it may have had to do with a quite different form of worship’.65 Warren may well be correct in his observations, and the ongoing study of these many temple structures may help to clarify the significance of this sacred landscape. One important aspect of the recent surveys has emphasized their geographical, homogeneous distribution, which contrasts with those of sanctuaries in the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon which are less regular.66

62 64

Aliquot 2008: 77. Teixidor 1977: 33.

63 65

Aliquot 2008: 73, quoting Seyrig, (1939), p. 441. Warren 1869–1870: 214. 66 Aliquot 2008: 77.

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Figure 2 Mount Hermon capped with snow as seen from the northern reaches of the Golan

The Hermon The pre-eminence of Mt Hermon as a sacred mountain, an ancient Semitic high place, lends credence to this location as a place of ancient worship. As the southern extension of the Anti-Lebanon range, the Hermon massif covers an area c. 50 km from north to south and c. 30 km from east to west. Its sheer size, rugged terrain, deep ravines and high peaks have, to a large extent, helped to maintain it as ‘terra incognita’.67 The Nahal Sa‘ar acts as its southern boundary, effectively separating it from the volcanic region of the Golan Heights to the south. The Zebdani depression in which the Barada river flows is at the northern most extension of the Hermon proper providing an east–west passage through the Anti-Lebanon. From here the Anti-Lebanon continues up to the Homs basin. The Hasbani river, and its extension the Wadi et-Teim paralleling the western foothills of the Anti-Lebanon, is effectively the western boundary. Here the climate is heavily influenced by the Mediterranean, and, as a consequence, the natural flora on the western slopes of the Hermon differs from that on its eastern slopes. Most difficult to define is the eastern border with its steep inclines sloping downward into the Damascus basin.68 At its higher levels the Hermon is composed mainly of Jurassic limestone, similar to that of the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, with an abundance of basalt, sandstone and marl around the foothills and base of the mountain. Annual 67

Ma‘oz 1997: 279. The following information on its climate, topography and environment is from Dar 1993b, unless otherwise stated. 68

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precipitation of up to 1,800 mm, mainly in the form of snow at higher elevations, in combination with its geological formation helps to create a karstic landscape in which springs and water sources are found along its geological faults. The Dan, the Jordan and the Hasbani all have their source within this south-western region of the mountain, where this landscape is most prevalent. In those areas where water was not readily available, cisterns were constructed by the inhabitants. Due to its geological and geographical location, climate on the Hermon is not homogeneous, and there are significant differences which affect both humans and agriculture. The summit is treeless, its surface a layer of stones and loose boulders and, except for midsummer, usually covered in snow. In antiquity the inhabitants of this region, as in the present, collected snow and stored it in underground installations for use in the summer months. Dar suggested the possibility of the inhabitants transporting snow to distant places, thus providing economic benefit to the settlement. It is only within the past few years that the mountain’s unique climate has been fully understood and appreciated. Its fierce winds are notorious, particularly at high elevations where the wind pattern evolves, which combined with its ‘destructive climate’ creates ‘an extraordinary and powerful phenomenon’.69 Along its western slopes, influenced as they are by the Mediterranean winds, vines can be cultivated up to about 1,400 m (4,650 ft), with oak trees and bushes surviving at higher elevations. Surveys conducted by Dar and his team were able to establish that permanent human settlements in antiquity were not found beyond the 1,500 m level. In areas protected from the wind, those who chose to live on the slopes of the Hermon constructed their dwellings to withstand the extremes in climate, as well as to ensure their own survival. Dwellings made from the local limestone had walls averaging in thickness from 0.80 m to 1.20 m. The stones are well hewn and fitted without mortar. Windows were small, and flat roofs were constructed with a beam framework on which layers of plaster made from wattles and earth were placed. Most settlements were built near natural springs or, where there was no running water, they collected water in open reservoirs or cisterns. Ancient orchards have been detected up to the 1,000 m level. Dar and his group were able to trace many of the ancient roads connecting these small settlements, their surveys detecting a more frequent west–east direction than north–south. Four main longitudinal 69

Dar 1993b: 6–9.

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routes across the landscape were determined across difficult mountainous terrain, enabling connections to be made ‘between settlements in the foothills, the internal mountain settlements and more distant neighbors’.70 This route system of ancient roads has yet to be studied fully, but its significance cannot be overlooked. It would seem that, in spite of harsh conditions, both with physical landscape and uncertain weather, the Hermon was home to a number of settlements and inhabitants who were able to successfully adapt to the environment. The epigraphic surveys conducted by Aliquot and his team will undoubtedly contribute to enriching our knowledge of this region. Dar’s Hermon surveys and excavations The first surveys were carried out in the years 1970–2. In 1983 Dar and his team returned to the site after a stone, from a public building, was found in a thicket. As the stone was discovered to have a Greek inscription, it gave the impetus to renew their surveys and excavations. Archaeological excavations under the auspices of the Department of Land of Israel Studies at Bar Ilan University, and with support from the IAA, were carried out from 1983 to 1989.71 The documented sites numbered in total sixty-four, but due to the Hermon’s difficult terrain only a few were excavated. The team were also unable to carry out a complete systematic survey of the whole region, therefore not all archaeological sites are necessarily listed. Some sites have been destroyed in recent years while others have decayed naturally. The result of these surveys has, however, provided a wealth of information on an area little known beforehand, and provoked further interest to understand more fully this region in antiquity. Settlement sites connected by ancient road systems, agricultural areas protected by walls, water storage facilities, oil presses, evidence of mining and pottery making, all have revealed a rich and industrious habitation on this mountainous terrain. The few sites which were more fully surveyed and partially excavated exposed temple structures at Kafr Dura and Qal‘at Bustra as well as Har Sena‘im, and stelae and evidence for cultic activity from the Hellenistic period, or even earlier, and lasting well into the Roman period. 70

Dar 1993b: 10. Unless otherwise stated, most of the information on the site is from Dar 1993, with pp. 180–99 listing all sites surveyed and a brief description of each. 71

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Har Sena‘im First surveyed in the 1970–2 expeditions, Har Sena‘im became one of the ‘focal points’ of the 1983 to 1989 archaeological excavations conducted by Dar and his team. It is one of the larger and more significant settlement sites on the Hermon, situated only 4 km north of Paneas (modern Banias) and connected to an ancient road system. The site occupies an area 400 m from east to west and 150 m north to south, within the north-eastern part of the Sirion range, including the Hermon ridge. At an elevation of 1,146 m above sea level, the area is still covered to a large extent by oak forest which forms part of an ancient oak forest still preserved on the south-west slopes of the Hermon. The ancient name for Har Sena‘im is unknown, its present name given by the Israelis who explored the region in the 1970s. Local residents of the area still refer to Har Sena‘im by its various Arabic names: Ras Jabel Halawa (Head of Sweetness Mountain) or el-Hirbe (The Ruin). As a result of their excavations, the team were able to define four distinct areas at Har Sena‘im: an upper cult enclosure including Structure 7; a lower cult enclosure with the remains of two temple structures; a settlement area which covered approximately 10 dunams (2.5 acres); a structure with pillars and hewn grave at the southern foot of the hill. Upper cult enclosure The area designated as an upper cult enclosure has been described as the ‘most impressive of Dar’s discoveries’, and sits along the northern edge of an escarpment whose peak rises to 1,146 m above sea level.72 The area is divided by a saddle creating two sections, one to the west and one to the east. The northern edge of the escarpment affords a spectacular view of the Nahal Sion to the west, the Nahal Sena‘im on the north and surrounding mountains of the Hermon to the east. The survey and partial excavations were concentrated within the western section of the upper cult enclosure which revealed a natural rock sanctuary enclosed by crude walls. Along the western side a 40 m by 40 m section was measured and studied, which included quarried bedrock, the head-walls of courtyards and structures, round stelae and cult altars. Although the archaeologists who excavated the site were unable to determine the nature of the cavities hewn out of the rock 72

Jacobson 1994–1995: 67.

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Figure 3a Looking to the north-west from the northern ridge of the upper cult enclosure, in the far distance the northern Galilee and Huleh valley with Lebanon beyond

that create the varied geometric figures, they considered the whole enclosure to have been a cultic high place, typical of the ancient Near East. An apt description of the enclosure is provided by one archaeologist who saw it as ‘an agglomeration of rooms clustered against a natural rocky outcrop overlooking a spectacular view’.73 Finds from the site, including many fragments of vessels, along with numerous scattered and fallen stelae, led Dar to conclude that the enclosure had served as a cult area in which cultic feasts had taken place. Archaeologists are in agreement that rituals were practised here, in the open, and likely involved the veneration of large stelae and 73

Ma‘oz 1997: 281.

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Figure 3b Looking to the north-east from the upper cult enclosure

ceremonial meals. In total more than a dozen round pillars were discovered scattered about the site, some in pairs and some single, either standing or overturned. Dar refers invariably to these round pillars as ‘stele’, and concludes they were not an integral part of any building’s construction, therefore served another purpose. All of these round pillars are uninscribed. In only one area is a pair in situ, standing just 25 m south-east in what is known as Structure 7 Locus 17 of the upper cult enclosure. The pillars in Structure 7 were found upright, along the centre of a room (3.4 × 4 m), and on a dirt and stone foundation. They are made of local limestone with the heads flattened but not smoothed. One pillar stands 0.9 m high, the other 0.7 m, and together

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Figure 4 Facing north and part of the upper cult enclosure with Locus 17 in the foreground

they are 0.65 m apart on a north–south axis. Adjacent to the south pillar was a plastered basin full of ashes, designated not to be a stove, which is ordinarily made of clay. Half of the room to the west of the pillars had a white plaster floor, while the other half was paved with stones. In the opinion of one archaeologist, the finds from this room left no doubt that ‘the squatty “round pillars” of the Hermon were cultic in nature’ and suggested a possible Ugaritic origin.74

74

Ma‘oz 1997: 281.

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Figure 5a The two stelae in situ at Structure 7

Finds from Structure 7 include shards of local ‘Ituraean’ pottery (Dar’s designation) along with fragments of eastern terra sigillata that, according to Dar, matched ceramic finds from the early and late Roman periods. In his observations on the site Dar felt there was enough evidence to demonstrate the stelae were not an integral part of the building’s construction, and their main use was for ritual purposes. His statements in regard to the enclosure as a whole, and his observations on Structure 7 leave little reason to question his conclusions

Figure 5b The taller stele

Figure 5c The smaller stele

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that Har Sena‘im was an ancient cult sanctuary. Whether it can be considered an ‘Ituraean’ cult sanctuary is quite another question. The difficulty remains in the uncertainty of his initial claim that some of the pottery shards found at the site be identified as ‘Ituraean’. If we question this label and simply recognize it as Golan Ware, the original and far more acceptable label, then there is nothing that clearly identifies this site as Ituraean. Jacobson has suggested that in order to ‘justify such a firm identification with the Ituraeans, the author would have to demonstrate a distribution of this pottery throughout the Ituraean territories, and in particular in the Beqa‘a valley and the Anti-Lebanon Mountains’.75 Indeed this is a crucial point. The texts indicate that by the middle of the first century BCE the Ituraeans had established a principality within the southern Biqa‘ valley. Any excavations and surveys in this region to date have yet to provide specific evidence to support this, with the late Hellenistic period being little understood within this hinterland. The stone pillars, together with the possible cult practised, present an interesting aspect to the site of Har Sena‘im; as with the high place they are an expression of the aniconic tradition within ancient Near Eastern worship, and found throughout the environs of Syria-Palestine. The site of Har Sena‘im is considered by one scholar to be of particular importance because, ‘irrespective of its dating, it represents a virtual high place of relatively primitive and humble dimensions when compared with other rural sites in Syria’.76 Standing stones are well known through archaeological discoveries, and their possible connection to the tradition of the baitylos, regarded as holy, has been much discussed. That there are two in situ at Har Sena‘im may offer some clue as to cult practices at the site, but does not reveal any information that is specifically Ituraean. Excursus on the standing stone The use of the phrase ‘standing stones’ is dependent upon its meaning within the context of the ancient Near East, either as an ‘intentionally raised stone’ or ‘stones vertically set into the ground’. These are stones erected by human hands, yet not to be considered as having an architectural function.77 They can range from the rough, unhewn, natural stones to those that have been worked, but not inscribed either with a relief or an inscription. Unlike stelae, the standing stones 75 77

Jacobson 1994–1995: 68–9. 76 Freyne 2001: 193. J. Gamberoni, ‘masseba’ TDOT, III: 483–94.

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are usually neither decorated nor inscribed.78 The standing stones may vary in size and shape, may stand alone or in groups. It has been suggested by one scholar that where a typology has been attempted it remains unresolved as to whether or not there is any significant correlation between form and function.79 They are the ‫ מצבה‬of the Hebrew Bible, derived from the Semitic root nṣb, ‘to be stood upright’. In Aramaic they are known as ‘Ammūdā, meaning “column” or “standing stone”’.80 The ancient Semitic world appears to have preferred the cruder stones, shaped only by nature and usually freestanding following the precepts set down in Exod. 20.25: ‘And if you make me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of hewn stones; for if you wield your tool upon it you profane it.’ A different aspect is reflected in the Arabic nuṣub (plural anṣāb) with the meaning of blocks of stone on which the blood of victims sacrificed to idols was poured, or it may be a reference to those stones that mark a sacred enclosure.81 In most instances in the Septuagint, the ‫ מצבות‬are rendered as ‘stele’, interpreting the Greek στήλη as meaning ‘standing stone’.82 Significantly, the standing stones discovered at sites on the Hermon are referred to as stelae by Dar. However, according to Gamberoni, ‘Modern scholarship prefers to reserve the word “stela” for artistically worked columns or raised stones with inscriptions and/or pictures’, whereas Graesser distinguishes between the stele as inscribed and the maṣṣebot as uninscribed.83 This distinction is worth considering, particularly in light of the stones found at Har Sena‘im, and other sites on the Hermon. Inscribed stones are found occasionally within the same context as the uninscribed, as at Hazor. At times the standing stones have been considered to be structural, emphasizing the need on the part of the archaeologist to use caution when interpreting their function. Although Dar’s excavations were incomplete, he was led to an interpretation that they were for cultic purposes and not structural. In general the stones can vary in shape, size and function, depending on context; some are understood to be funerary/burial markers, some as commemorative stones or markers of a legal relationship. In terms of these various ‘overlapping’ functions, de Moor suggests there should be no ‘sharp differentiation of types’ and sees the commemorative

78 80 82

Avner 1999–2000: 97. 79 Graesser 1972: 48, see also n. 19. Lipiński 2000: 599. 81 Hoyland 2001: 183–7. See also Fahd 1993: 154. La Rocca-Pitts 2001: 265. 83 Gamberoni, TDOT, III: 484; Graesser 1972: 35.

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aspect as the one that ‘connects all’.84 Others are cultic, sometimes defining a sacred area in which the deity might possibly be perceived. In regard to the meaning and function of these stones, and the role they have played within the religious realm of the ancient Near East, there remains still much discussion and debate, and a topic worthy of its own study. If we consider Gamberoni’s definition, the stones found on the Hermon fall into the category of the ‫מצבות‬. They are uninscribed, as is typical for ancient Palestine where few inscribed stelae have been found. In this aspect the Palestinian stones differ markedly from those of the empires of Egypt and Mesopotamia.85 Since these stones are uninscribed, it is difficult to understand their specific function within the ancient world. Among the more well-known ‫ מצבות‬of Palestine are the standing stones at Gezer. Shortly after the Gezer standing stones were first published another publication described a group of large stones from Assur, some inscribed and others uninscribed. Bridging the gap of distance and time between these two sites are two other sites in which rough uninscribed stones were found, those at Tell Chuera and at Tell Halaf.86 The main difference – and what characterizes the stones at Har Sena‘im – is that they are all columnar as opposed to either blocks, or crude, natural stones. Any discussion on the meaning and function of the standing stones at Har Sena‘im (or at other sites on the Hermon) would require a much more detailed study. The local cult practices in the Hermon area are, as yet, not fully understood, although Aliquot’s surveys have supported a connection between these sanctuaries and the local communities nearby. Unique to Har Sena‘im are the stelae, and in particular the two in situ, and what might be said at this time is their natural affiliation with the religious world of Syria-Palestine from its early history through to the Roman era. One suggestion is to look to the pillars of Ugarit and the Lebanon for parallels to the standing stones of Har Sena‘im, and the Hermon region. That standing stones can be considered part of a long tradition within the ancient Near East is reasonably certain, and well supported by other sites. Excavations at the Ugaritic site of Ras Shamra determined that two temples with outer enclosures had stood on the acropolis; each enclosure also included an altar for sacrifice and a standing stone.87 A more extensive study of the site of Har Sena‘im and its environs is needed before 84 86

De Moor 1995: 3. 85 Graesser 1972: 35. Canby 1976: 113–28. 87 Curtis 1985: 88.

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one can say what these standing stones actually mean in terms of the cult practised or, for that matter, what might be said about the identity of the inhabitants who raised up the stones. Lower cult enclosure The lower cult enclosure is situated about 100 m south of the older, upper cult enclosure. Included within the temenos of the lower cult enclosure are the remains of two temples, a well-paved square in front, and a group of three stone altars. The remnants of what was an impressive gate into the temenos still stand. A narrow ancient path leads down from the enclosure to the foot of the mountain in the east. The upper temple was located in the centre of the enclosure, while the lower temple was built at an angle of 45° to the upper temple, its main axis running east–west. In the first year of excavations at the site the archaeologists were not aware of the existence of a lower temple on account of a thick covering of vegetation. Their excavations did not allow them to determine which of the temples was the earlier, and, therefore, they proposed that the two temples may have been part of a single cult complex. Both temples face a natural stone mass which showed no signs of quarrying or construction, leading the excavators to conclude that it ‘tends to affirm the sanctity attributed to the area; it is as if the temples are sitting at the foot of the rocks’.88 The finds from this area were among the richest produced at Har Sena‘im. They range from small objects, architectural pieces, votive objects, fragments of eagles to other sculptural figures, including human.89 Dar speaks with some confidence about Har Sena‘im being both an ‘Ituraean’ settlement and cult site. His assessment of the possible cult practices associated with the Syro-Phoenician world of the first century BCE is not unreasonable, yet there is nothing to support his contention of it being a specifically Ituraean site. His firm identification of Har Sena‘im as being Ituraean is based mainly on a pottery type found originally in the Golan, and discussed in the previous chapter. In his summary of the pottery finds from surveys, and partial excavations at Har Sena‘im, Dar emphasizes that due to the stony structure of the area they were unable to determine any stratigraphy. The objects were dated by comparison with objects from other sites, some found near the Hermon, and others at some distance away. Several different groups of pottery were identified, including some 88

Dar 1993b: 60.

89

See Dar 1993b: 60–81 for a discussion of the finds.

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imported ware (a Hellenistic bowl and fragments of eastern sigillata), along with a majority of local ware. The local ware consisted of wellcrafted and delicately wrought material, as well as a cruder type, with a large part of this pottery having no equivalent in any other site in Palestine. According to Dar, this seems to be of a distinctive local variety. The ‘Ituraean’ vessels constituted a large part of the finds, and although included within the locally made pottery, Dar considered them as a ‘separate group’.90 This ‘separate group’ paralleled the same locally made vessels first seen in the northern Golan, and subsequently named Golan Ware. Dar’s identification of these vessels as ‘Ituraean’ is based on his observation that the finding of these vessels appears to correspond with what he considers ‘Ituraean country’, with Mt Hermon as its ‘stronghold’.91 Further to this, the Golan ‘Ituraean’ pottery found in the southern regions of the Hermon could be dated to the Hellenistic period or even earlier, with production lasting until the Byzantine period or even the early Islamic. As a consequence of his work on the Hermon, Dar gave an ethnic identity to a pottery type that is mainly confined to a storage jar/pithoi and found in the northern Golan, the northern Huleh valley and the southern Hermon regions. He based his argument on ‘historical and archaeological considerations’ in which he believes the ‘Ituraean tribes arrived on Mt. Hermon before the Hellenistic Period, and that their connections with their neighbours in the Phoenician Syrian region date from before that’.92 Contradicting earlier views, Ma‘oz challenged Dar’s conclusion stating: ‘There is … nothing in the archaeology of Mount Hermon which carries an unequivocal stamp “Ituraean”; his definition of the Hermon settlement as such rests, therefore, on a chain of historical assumptions which, although based on previous scholarship, is by no means beyond doubt.’93 This challenge by Ma‘oz reflects a concern which needs to be taken seriously. The historical assumptions upon which Dar bases his conclusions are speculative and open to question. Our understanding of these three regions, the Hermon, the Golan and the Biqa‘, will require more detailed study in order to make a definitive statement as to the nature of the inhabitants who settled these disparate territories. The most compelling question raised is: ‘How can archaeology distinguish between the various ethnic groups?’94 A problematic question to 90 93 94

Dar 1993b: 80. 91 Dar 1993b: 80–81. 92 Dar 1993b: 41. Ma‘oz 1997: 279; see Freyne 2001: 192–3 who refers to Ma‘oz. Ma‘oz 1997: 280.

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answer easily if in fact it can be answered in regard to Ituraeans. Dar’s analysis of the pottery and other finds has been challenged, and he admits it does require further study.95 The site of Har Sena‘im and the archaeological finds it reveals will require more extensive study in order to better understand its significance as well as its place within the Hermon region as a whole. Its geographical location in such an inhospitable environment appears to suggest a people hardy and industrious enough to make it habitable, and of a cult which reflects a Semitic milieu within the Hellenistic and Roman world of the late first century BCE. These impressive discoveries, comprising unusual cult enclosures with evidence of temple structures and an accumulation of standing stones, are significant in themselves, and further study may well contribute to our understanding of the cults practised in this region. In order to understand more clearly the many settlement sites on Mt Hermon it is perhaps more productive to pursue the study from a more objective view, to see this region in the light of the Semitic world from which it came and the Hellenistic-Roman world into which it was thrust. As there is little known or understood regarding the indigenous population of the mountainous areas and those who settled these parts, it is perhaps too presumptive to assume that they were Ituraeans. Chalcis ad Libanum and the Biqa‘ After Macras one comes to the Massyas Plain, which contains also some mountainous parts, among which is Chalcis, the acropolis, as it were, of the Massyas (Strabo, Geog. 16.2.18). If Strabo’s information is accepted, then the acropolis or capital of the Ituraean principality was Chalcis, known from the classical texts as Chalcis ad Libanum to distinguish it from the north Syrian city of Chalcis ad Belum. Neubauer writes of Chalcis: ‘‫ – כלקיס‬Khalkis est sans doute la ville de Chalcis à l’est de Tripolis, appelée aujourd’hui Anjar.’96 In spite of this, much discussion still surrounds what might be considered the correct identification for the site of ancient Chalcis. Polybius, in his account of the march of the Seleucid king Antiochus III and his forces during the Fourth Syrian War (219–217 BCE), 95 Dar 1993b: 200; see also Israel Shatzman, review of Dar 1993b in SCI 14 (1995): 184–5. 96 Neubauer 1868: 296.

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describes how the Seleucid king ‘took the offensive with his whole army and crossing the desert entered the defile (aulon) known as Marsyas, which lies between the chains of Libanus and Antilibanus and affords a narrow passage between the two. Just where it is narrowest it is broken by marshes and lakes from which the perfumed reed (calamus = sweet-flag) is cut, and here it is commanded on the one side by a place called Brochoi (“Springs”) and on the other by Gerrha, the passage between being quite narrow’ (Hist. 5.45.7–46.2). In a later passage (Hist. 5.61.5–10) Brochoi and Gerrha are again mentioned in reference to the same war when Antiochus, having advanced his army, ‘encamped at the narrow passage near Gerrha by the lake that lies in the middle’. In these few passages Polybius presents us with a dramatic and recognizable picture of the Biqa‘ valley in antiquity. An ongoing debate has concentrated on attempts to understand Polybius’ geography merely adding to prolonged discussions on identifying either Brochoi or Gerrha as ancient Chalcis. This initial question is made further complicated when considering whether one of two present-day villages, ‘Anjar and Majdal ‘Anjar, both located in this same region, is the possible site of Chalcis. Some have suggested ‘Anjar as the Gerrha of Polybius, while others have claimed Gerrha as Chalcis. Initially both Brochoi and Gerrha were Ptolemaic defensive forts intended to guard the only accessible north–south routes through the Biqa‘. Perhaps the first question to be asked is whether Gerrha and Brochoi can be identified, and the second whether it is then possible to determine which might possibly be ancient Chalcis. The Amarna letters and Egyptian texts of the second millennium BCE provide us with the earliest mention of the Biqa‘. In the Old Testament the name Bqʿt hlbnm is given for Biqa‘ as opposed to the Late Bronze Age designation Amqu. The Biqa‘ valley, in contrast to the Hermon or the Golan/Bashan region, manifests a dramatically different landscape and environment. Averaging 10 to 15 km wide and 1,000 m above sea level, the Biqa‘ has at times been described as a plateau or plain, enclosed by high mountains, the Lebanon to the west and the Anti-Lebanon, with its geographical extension the Hermon, to the east. Historically and geographically this landscape forms part of a narrow cultural land-bridge between the Mediterranean on the western coastline and the Syro-Arabian desert to the east, providing also an important connection between the Nile valley in the south and the territories of Asia Minor and Mesopotamia in the north. Throughout antiquity the valley formed a natural passageway in

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every direction, allowing for traffic in goods and movement of peoples. In geological terms the Biqa‘ valley constitutes the northern end of the Great Rift Valley, running south from the Orontes valley in the north, and through the Jordan valley to the Red Sea at its southern end, and is in reality only part of the Great Rift extending into Africa. In its entirety the Biqa‘ lies within modern Lebanon and continues to be an important focal point for traffic moving across the length and breadth of the region. Its total length from Jubb Janin to the Homs basin is approximately 175 km, the average height above sea level in sharp contrast to its natural extension, the Jordan valley to the south. In the watershed region of the Leontes and Orontes rivers, within the environs of Baalbek, the valley is divided naturally between its southern and northern parts. Looking at the Biqa‘ from a ‘settlementgeographical point of view’, Hachmann was of the opinion that the ‘northern border of the Beqa‘ has to be at the edge of the plain of Baalbek’.97 The landscape to the north of Baalbek changes dramatically: the terrain is drier, sparse and rocky, with arid steppe merging into the Syrian flatlands. The region known to Strabo (Geog. 16.2.20) as the classical Massyas Plain was included within the greater geographical region of Coele Syria. In antiquity most of this southern area was covered in marsh and numerous lakes, the region where the lake of Polybius would likely have existed. The name Biqa‘ (pl. for baq’ah) itself is evocative of the landscape, its meaning denoting a depression between mountains, and applied especially to a place where water stagnates in contrast to a normal watering place. The word also appears frequently as a toponym, as exemplified here. Surveys have been able to substantiate human settlements in the Biqa‘ since the Neolithic Age.98 Extending west and south-west of Baalbek down to Jubb Janin, this area of the Biqa‘ is today almost exclusively fertile alluvial land. At its southernmost end, the Biqa‘ is divided by the Nahr al-Litani plate, and the north-west and western slopes of the Hermon. A vital connection between the Biqa‘ and the upper Jordan valley is formed by the Wadi et-Teim (or Wādī at-Taym) that runs east of the Nahr alLitani along the western base of the Hermon. In the early spring of 1870, Charles Warren, on behalf of the Palestine Exploration Fund, explored this region and wrote a vivid description as he viewed the pass from the western side at a height of 5,170 ft (1,575 m). This southern region had been visited before by travellers from the West, 97

Hachmann 1989: 17.

98

Marfoe 1999.

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as Edward Robinson and William Francis Lynch both wrote and published their impressions of the landscape, its terrain and accounts of the inhabitants. North-west of Baalbek the steep, well-watered eastern slopes of the Lebanon range reach to a height of over 3,000 m, and confine the western edge of the Biqa‘ valley below. Resulting from a geological shift, a fractured anticline, the Lebanon range slopes gently to the coast along its western flank. On its eastern side, the Biqa‘ valley is enclosed by the mountain ranges of the Anti-Lebanon and the Hermon. As the Anti-Lebanon is far more broken up than its counterpart, the Lebanon, it provides various east–west passages which allow for roads connecting the Mediterranean coast, through the Lebanon mountains into the Biqa‘, and then on to the east. In turn this allows access to the Damascus basin and the Syrian desert beyond, while the Wadi et-Teim offers a natural link between the southern Biqa‘ and the upper Jordan valley. Marfoe considered the lake mentioned by Polybius as undoubtedly the same marshy region still evident in the southern Biqa‘ today. In making this statement he made specific reference to an earlier article in which Rey-Coquais argues for the identification of this lake (that of Polybius) with the ‘lake of aromatic plants in the auloniskos of Theophrastos’.99 Sweet-flag and ginger-grass grow beyond the Libanus between that range and another small range, in the depression thus formed; and not, as some say, between Libanus and Anti-Libanus. For Anti-Libanus is a long way from Libanus, and between them is a wide fair plain called ‘The Valley’ but, where the sweet-flag and ginger-grass grow, there is a large lake, and they grow near it in the dried up marshes, covering an extent of more than thirty furlongs.100 Some years later Hafez Chehab, when studying the site of ‘Anjar, described these same marshes and lakes as extending over the whole width of a shallow plain, whose altitude varied only between 964 and 967.5 m above sea level. The medieval Arab geographer Abu-l Fidâ described it as a ‘sheet of stagnant water, full of thickets and reeds, lying, at the distance of a day’s journey, to the west of Ba‘albakk

99 100

Marfoe 1999: 630; with reference to Rey-Coquais 1964: 289–312. Theophrastos, Enquiry into Plants 9.7.1 (trans. Sir Arthur Hort, LCL).

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[A.F. 40]’.101 In their own descriptions of the Lebanon region, both Strabo and Ptolemy make no mention of a lake in the middle of the Biqa‘ valley; however, this does not preclude the existence of such a lake. Vast stretches of the marshland were first drained in 1320–39 CE with a second drainage as late as post 1860.102 Salient information regarding the first drainage in the fourteenth century CE is found in marginal notes from the Paris MS of Abu-l Fidâ’s Chronicle under the year 740 AH. Within the complete document names of those responsible for the drainage operation along with a description of the area before and after the draining are recorded. The picture of the draining remains clear and vivid: The lake of the Bikâ was a lowland, covered with reeds and osiers, which they used for making mats. It lay in the middle of the Bikâ Plain of Ba‘albakk, between Karak Nûh and ‘Ain al Jarr. The Amir Saif ad Din Dunkuz bought it for himself from the public treasury, and cleared the land of water by digging a number of channels, which drew off its waters into the Litany River. He then established here over twenty villages.103 It was the work of the Jesuits in the nineteenth century that led to the reclaiming of this land for agricultural use. German excavators later found evidence that this swampy environment in the southern Biqa‘ was not completely devoid of settlements in antiquity. Notwithstanding this reclamation, at the time both Strabo and Polybius describe this region of a low-lying valley or plain it would have been a shallow lake and/or marsh, and in parts difficult to cross. Polybius’ description of Brochoi as ‘the place that lies on the lake and commands the passage’ (5.61.9) is identified by M. Chehab as ‘Ayn Barakah. The site lies at the foot of the Lebanon range, between Jdita and Qab Elias. ‘This source is a counterpart to ‘Anjar, on the other side of the Biqa‘, and is located at a crossing of the Beirut– Damascus road with the road which passes between Lebanon and the swamplands of ‘Ammiq going toward the south of the Biqa‘.’104 Marfoe contended that the Hellenistic site of Brochoi could be identified with Qala‘at es-Salūk (or Al Mudik), which lies at the foot of the Jebel Barouk (in the Lebanon range), and Gerrha with Majdal ‘Anjar. However, in a more recent article (2001) it was suggested that Gerrha 101 103

Le Strange 1890: 69. Le Strange 1890: 69.

102 104

Chehab 1963: 19. Chehab 1963: 19.

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might have been located near ‘Anjar (ain al-Jarr) and Brochoi as possibly on the opposite (western) side, the eastern slopes of the Jebel al-Baruk. Hachmann, in his studies of the terrain, attempted to understand the region, the extent of the marsh/lake area and what it would have been like in antiquity. According to the results of his study, he was able to determine that the lake would have extended to the west, to the mountain edge near Qal‘at as-Salūk, the same site mentioned by Marfoe as the possible Brochoi. Describing the route likely taken by the Seleucid forces, following Polybius Hachmann suggests that there must have been two routes leading south: one which ran along the foot of the Lebanon range passing by Brochoi, and the second which did not, apparently, ‘enter the Wādī at-Taym between ‘Anjar and Majdal ‘Anjar – as one may have expected – because in that case the march of Antiochus could not have been halted near Gerrha and at the lake. It must have led south along the western foot of the Antilebanon and did not turn into the Wādī atTaym (called Sahl ‘Izz in its northern part), until just southeast of Kāmid el-Lōz, through the pass of Wādī Abū ‘Abbād.’105 There appears to be some general agreement as to the location of ancient Brochoi. Its location affords a very narrow passage, barely 200–300 m wide, between the foothills and the lake, while Gerrha overlooked a narrow defile, less than 1 km wide, at the northern end of the Wadi et-Teim. What has indeed provoked greater discussion is the location of Gerrha. Dussaud had much earlier identified Gerrha with the ruins at ‘Anjar based mainly on the similarity of the name Gerra, and the jar of ‘Anjar. However, ‘Anjar is not situated in a strategic spot, and Dussaud’s identification was challenged by H. Chehab. ‘Majdal ‘Anjar, two kilometres to the south, is a more likely site for Gerra, since its promontory does indeed advance into the plain (which is at its narrowest at that level) and controls the passes along the eastern foothills of the Biqa‘.’106 There is agreement from Hachmann where, in considering its geographical location, he sums it up: ‘The name of the town Gerrha may correspond to ‘Ain alGarr = ‘Anjar. Whether this name is identical with modern ‘Anjar remains questionable. Its location and name, indicating a fortified position, points rather to Majdal ‘Anjar. If Gerrha lay east of the lake, Brochoi must be looked for west of it.’107

105

Hachmann 1989: 21.

106

Chehab 1993: 42.

107

Hachmann 1989: 20.

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The Ituraeans and the Roman Near East Recent excavations in the Lebanon

In 1997, after a fifteen-year break, excavations at the site of Kamid elLoz were revived under the direction of Marlies Heinz, University of Freiburg. Kamid el-Loz, known as Kumidi in the Egyptian Amarna archive, is situated at the south-eastern end of the Biqa‘ plain, comprising one of the largest and highest tells of the region. The present objectives are to investigate the Hellenistic-Roman settlement area which was exposed in 2000. These renewed excavations have provided evidence for the existence of a large Hellenistic settlement at the site.108 Included among the pottery finds are parallels with pottery from Tel Anafa, although no definitive conclusions have yet been made. It may, after further study, reveal the possibility of close relations between the two regions during the second century BCE. This recent work, refocussing on Kamid el-Loz, has contributed to the larger investigation of settlement patterns in the Biqa‘ plain during the Hellenistic period and early Roman period. It is hoped that these renewed excavations will provide evidence to understand more fully the settlement patterns at the site, and its larger implications for the Biqa‘ as a whole. Marfoe’s 1972 and 1974 surveys mainly concentrated on earlier period sites in the Biqa‘, with the Hellenistic and Roman periods little known at that time. However, his work has been an invaluable resource for any continued investigation into the history of the Biqa‘, and as a result of this the Biqa‘ is, according to some recent archaeologists, the most systematically and comprehensively surveyed area in the Lebanon.109 In 2001 and 2002 surveys were carried out in the region east of Kamid el-Loz, towards Yanta in the Anti-Lebanon mountains. These surveys identified seventeen sites from which Hellenistic pottery was found. Although a precise chronology was not possible from the finds, analysis of the pottery allowed the excavators to make connections for the Hellenistic period with the Huleh valley and the upper Jordan.110 This would seem to support the claim for Kamid el-Loz being an important centre which witnessed a resurgence in longdistance trade during the Hellenistic and early Roman periods. Heinz, in her summation of the Biqa‘ plain during the Hellenistic period, sees this as a time when the Ituraeans infiltrated the region, eventually settling in the Biqa‘, the Hermon and the Anti-Lebanon 108 110

Heinz et al. 2007–2008: 168. 109 Sader and Van Ess 1998: 259. See Heinz et al. 2007–2008: 178.

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regions. She suggests they later ‘took up residence in the Lebanese mountains and in the hills of Galilee’.111 The reference to the Galilee is, I would suggest, far too speculative and contradicts Berlin’s argument for there being no material evidence to indicate any Ituraean settlement in the region of the northern Galilee. The material evidence coming from the site of Kamid el-Loz is undoubtedly providing much new information, but to date no definitive conclusions can be made. Indications of renewed trade between the Biqa‘ and settlements to the south are enough to suggest people were not isolated in spite of political instability and an inhospitable landscape, and maintained extensive trade routes. What this evidence does not present, however, is firm identification with Ituraeans. Unless we accept all prior assumptions and interpretations, there is as yet no clear and specific evidence to make such claims. The territories Ituraeans were given, the domains under their control, are and remain elusive. After 64 BCE, when Roman rule became paramount, boundaries were ill defined and territories much disputed among the many ‘client’ rulers. Josephus is the only writer who gives any information as to Ituraean territories at this period of the second half of the first century BCE. It is difficult to determine just what Josephus actually means or how we are to understand his writings. In reality, those who are given the power to lease lands would have the powers to extract revenues from the local populations. Josephus never mentions settlements of villages by Ituraeans, nor do we read of movements of large populations. For Josephus the Ituraeans remain a separate group, little more than a constant menace in terms of their banditry, and generally an ethnos seemingly without stability. Although the Ituraeans were organized enough to form a principality and participate in the ongoing political struggles of the period, whatever else that can be known must be filtered through the rather negative reports of Josephus. Kamid el-Loz will undoubtedly add to our knowledge of the Biqa‘ valley and offer insights into its economic and social life during the Hellenistic and early Roman periods. It may even settle the question of the location of Chalcis, as Kamid el-Loz has also been suggested as a possible site for the Ituraean acropolis as opposed to Majdal ‘Anjar.112

111

Heinz et al. 2007–2008: 178.

112

Reynolds 2003: 125.

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The Ituraeans and the Roman Near East Majdal ‘Anjar

Majdal ‘Anjar sits on a promontory at the northern end of the Wadi et-Teim. The term ‘majdal/mejdel’ corresponds to the ancient Hebrew ‫( מגדל‬migdol), commonly used for tower or fortress, suggesting the possibility of Majdal ‘Anjar as having served in that capacity. The term is used equally as a place name for military stations. The promontory advances into the plain at its narrowest point, where passes along the eastern foothills of the Biqa‘ valley could be easily controlled. ‘One narrow pass, the Wadi at-Taym, branches off the eastern edge of the main valley at Madjdal ‘Andjar and eventually reaches the Hule Valley in northern Palestine.’113 The village of Majdal ‘Anjar, situated on the eastern slope of the promontory, overlooks the northern extremity of the Wadi et-Teim. Although the site is at a point where several caravan routes converge, it could not have supported a caravan station in antiquity as it lacks a sufficient supply of fresh water. On the heights of the promontory are the ruins of a Roman-period temple which would indicate its significance as a cult site, the characteristic high place of Semitic tradition. Fullscale excavations at the site have yet to be undertaken, so what little information is available is gained from the remains still standing, and the detailed descriptions left by several early travellers to the region. Excursus on the temple If we accept the proposal that Majdal ‘Anjar was ancient Chalcis, then it is reasonable to reconsider its significance through the remains of a temple which still stands on the promontory. The temple is built of local limestone with what Butcher refers to as a ‘locally-occurring conglomerate’ used in the columns and pilasters.114 The term ‘locallyoccurring conglomerate’ refers to deposits of a Miocene conglomerate found in the Biqa‘ valley and the region south-west of Damascus. With its combination of mottled pink colouring and a rather rough quality, seen from a distance this conglomerate has a vague resemblance to that of Egyptian granite. Found throughout the Biqa‘, it is frequently seen being used in columns and pilasters. The ruins at Majdal ‘Anjar indicate that the original building was in the form of a large peripteral temple, a form described by one author as ‘the most perfect of the temple forms’.115 The peripteral 113

Marfoe 1998: 22–4.

114

Butcher 2003b: 205.

115

Taylor 1967: 11.

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Figure 6 The remains of the temple at Majdal ‘Anjar (photograph by Hanswulf Bloedhorn, September 1999)

temple consists of columns round all four sides creating a peristyle or colonnade. In plan the temple is in antis, the pronaos (or entrance porch) formed by two antae (or pilasters), and two columns with the antae forming the end of the walls of the cella. The structure sat on a podium within a temenos, or courtyard, a feature common to many temples of the Syria/Palestine region. An outer wall, the peribolos, created the temenos or sacred space in which stood an altar, the focus of the sacrificial ritual, and an enclosed area for worshippers to congregate. The temple at Majdal ‘Anjar is one of approximately one hundred cult sites situated in the Lebanon, Anti-Lebanon and

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Hermon region.116 Frequently placed at a high elevation providing an imposing view over the surrounding countryside, many of these temples are raised on an immense substructure or podium increasing their height and possibly indicating a desire to elevate the holy above the more profane of everyday life. These temple structures tend to be characteristic of the Roman temples of ancient Syria from the first century CE onwards; they were, however, merely following in a long tradition of architecture within the greater Semitic world. A large court or temenos surrounded by a wall in which the temple stood with a flight of steps leading up to the entrance all gave the illusion of a high place. During the seventh and eighth centuries CE the Abbasids converted the temple at Majdal ‘Anjar into a fortress in order to guard the pass and caravan route through the Anti-Lebanon. As a result the outer courtyard (temenos) was dismantled for construction of defensive walls. The fact that the temple at Majdal ‘Anjar remains unexcavated, as do the majority of other temples in the region, does not diminish its significance. It is reasonable to speculate that the structure rests on an older cult site, important to the local population during the Seleucid and possibly the Persian period, or perhaps even earlier. Descriptions of its present remains indicate that the original was well built from hard local limestone and finely crafted. If indeed the site of Majdal ‘Anjar was Chalcis, the acropolis of an Ituraean principality, it would be entirely probable that much interest and care would be taken for this, its main cult sanctuary. Although considered Roman in style, the influence of Semitic culture and tradition is apparent in both the temple’s design and decoration. The architectural concept within the Near East was one of immensity: the internal space of the temple a forbidden precinct, and only the external area accessible for public ceremony. The inclination to locate these temples in the high places of the countryside is uniquely exemplified by the temples of the Lebanon, the Anti-Lebanon and the Hermon. Often these temples are located in harsh, rugged and forbidding landscapes, occasionally backing on to rocky outcrops reminiscent of ancient Hittite open-air sanctuaries. The temple of Zeus at Fakra in the Lebanon mountains is cut into a karst limestone outcrop with a rectangular temenos surrounded by a high wall in the centre of which stands an altar. Similarly at Niha, also in the Lebanon range, the west end of the temple is described as ‘running into the side of the hill’.117 Dar 116

Aliquot 2008: 73.

117

Warren 1890: 204.

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describes the two temples in the lower cult enclosure of Har Sena‘im as ‘facing natural stone masses’, with the absence of any quarrying on the rocks giving the appearance they are ‘sitting at the foot of the rocks’.118 More recently, Aliquot notes the two sanctuaries at Qasr Chbib in the Anti-Lebanon as both having their northern walls carved out of the rock scarp; at the western sanctuary, in place of the adyton, the back part was also hewn out of the rock.119 As all of this region is rugged, mountainous country with elevation remaining consistently high, it is perhaps as Butcher suggests, ‘a lending of the temples closer to the gods’, and at the same time giving ‘the gods and their cults a commanding position over rural society’.120 The position of the Majdal ‘Anjar temple is without doubt very striking, as Robinson observed in his writings. He took time to measure its dimensions, 82 ft (25 m) by 46 ft (14 m), and noted the position of the portico to the north with the altar at the south end. He also remarks on the immense Doric capitals scattered amongst the fallen columns, along with fragments of a sculptured pediment. Although the Corinthian capital was common to this period, temples in the Lebanon/Anti-Lebanon region are predominantly of the Ionic order. The Doric order appears in some of the smaller Hermon temples, as at Majdal ‘Anjar. Another feature common to temples in the East was the development of an adyton (ἄδυτον) at the rear of the cella. This comprised a flight of steps leading up to a raised dais on which the cult statue stood, sheltered by a canopy. In the period during which the temples of the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon were constructed, the form of the adyton was almost unvarying, and is described by Ragette as a ‘specifically oriental element’.121 Butcher, on the other hand, views the adyton as classical, and the Syrian tripartite adyton more in keeping with the Greek term thalamus.122 In both the Greek ἄδυτον and Latin adytum the meaning is of an innermost sanctuary, one which none but the priests could enter. Essentially it formed part of the temple from which the public were excluded, and to which only the priests of the cult had entry. In the development and addition of the adyton, and the creation of a crypt by vaulting under the cella floor, each became a feature typical to these temples. The eventual addition of side chambers in the adyton has been suggested as the prototype for the later sanctuary in the Christian church.123 It is perhaps not difficult to understand Taylor’s 118 121

Dar 1993b: 60. 119 Aliquot 2008: 78. 120 Butcher 2003b: 352. Ragette 1980: 56. 122 Butcher 2003b: 358–9. 123 Murray 1917: 5.

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summation where in his view these temples were the product of ‘a single master builder’, a view not entirely without merit.124 The western wall of the temple at Majdal ‘Anjar has remained the best preserved, where it is still possible to see the finely bevelled stone of the upper courses. The technical term ‘bevel’ is often used in reference to architecture, and Robinson’s use of the term is paralleled by the modern technical term ‘drafted margins’ as used in describing masonry. In this sense the edges are chiselled (or dressed) at the margins without the slope, and a tooled border around the face of the stone is cut approximately to the width of the chisel, hence the drafted margin. This decorative feature is at its most impressive in the foundation stones of the Herodian temple platform (Haram al-Sharif) in Jerusalem and the Herodian wall which surrounds the Haram elKhalil in Hebron. Robinson compares this feature at Majdal ‘Anjar to the masonry in Jerusalem: ‘The bevel is the same as at Jerusalem, and perhaps a little deeper; it is well cut and entire.’125 That it appears here at Majdal ‘Anjar would seem to indicate a knowledge of the architectural fashion of the time, and perhaps even an intent to impress. The use of drafted masonry as a decorative feature in the Levant has its origins in the Bronze Age. Dated to the tenth and ninth centuries BCE marginal drafting can be seen on Palestinian, Syrian, Assyrian and Urartian monumental buildings. In this early period it was crudely executed and entirely functional.126 As a decorative feature it reappeared in the seventh century in Lydia and Ionia. One of the finest examples from this time is found in the terrace platform at Pasargadae. Drafted margins were also used in the cella of the great temple of Artemis at Sardis (c. 300 BCE) and in the domestic architecture at Pompeii.127 In significant aspects of its architecture and decoration the temple at Majdal ‘Anjar reflects a long tradition within both the Near East and the West. In his discussion of ‘oriental elements’ in the arts of ancient Palestine during the Roman period, Avi-Yonah believed that the ‘oriental vitality remained unimpaired’, and local artisans continued the tradition in execution of decorative detail.128 This interior space at Majdal ‘Anjar appears to reflect something of this tradition. As the internal arrangement within the temple is more important, there developed a need to embellish. The interior walls of the Majdal ‘Anjar temple were adorned with alternating fluted half columns (or 124 126 128

Taylor 1967: 17. 125 Robinson, Smith et al. 1856: 493. Jacobson 2000: especially 136. 127 Jacobson 2000: 139–41. Avi-Yonah 1940–1942: 106.

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pilasters) and decorated niches, which were a common feature in the Roman East, described as ‘purely Eastern’.129 Still visible in one of the niches is a shell decoration (Krencker and Zschietzschmann (1938) use the term ‘conche’ translated from the German Halbkuppel, a half dome or cupola), the key at the top with the lines of the shell forming a downward movement. This effect is in sharp contrast to the normal eastern style, where the key of the shell is always at the bottom with lines of the shell splaying upwards. This eastern-style pattern can be seen in a niche of the temple at Hibbariye in the Hermon.130 In his discussion of the lower temple in the lower cult enclosure at Har Sena‘im, Dar lists the many architectural fragments found at the site. Among these he mentions finding three large, sculpted ‘conch shells’ hewn from large blocks of stone at the foot of the stairway of the lower temple. From the drawings provided it is possible to discern their characteristic eastern style.131 At Majdal ‘Anjar there are elements of decorative expression visible from both eastern and Roman influence. This eastern feature with the key at the bottom is even more dominant in the second to third century CE, in the basalt temples and kalybe of the Trachon and Hauran regions.132 One cannot help but speculate on the cultural/ artistic backgrounds of the craftsmen involved in the construction of these many temples, and in particular that at Majdal ‘Anjar. The fluted column was an unusual feature in Syria, yet amongst the rubble is a fragment of a double-fluted column in rose-coloured limestone, which again is in contrast to the unfluted columns of the exterior. The sparse remains of this temple were impressive enough to inspire the early travellers to write eloquently of its richness: ‘This antique temple, next to the lesser one at Ba‘albek, is the finest and best preserved ruin in or near the great valley. It is simple, massive, and beautiful; and obviously of a severer and earlier type than any we had seen, and also than those of Ba‘albek.’133 This description, both eloquent and enduring, is matched only by Captain Warren: As we went up the hill to it, it appeared to be quite a small ruined building, and it was only on standing close to it that I realized its noble proportions. It is the finest piece of masonry 129

Murray 1917: 110. For the Hibbariye temple, see Krencker and Zschietzschmann 1938: 216. For an article on the history of the scallop shell as a decorative feature, see Wheeler 1957: 33–48. 131 Dar 1993b: 69–73. 132 Segal 2008; at Hebran, Is-Sanamen, Mismiyeh, Philippopolis, Kanawat, Bostra. 133 Robinson, Smith et al. 1856: 494. See also de Forest 1853: 363–4, who describes the wall stones as being ‘singularly cut and bevelled’. 130

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The Ituraeans and the Roman Near East I have seen in the country: the courses are about 4ft. high each, and are beautifully bevelled … There are bases of columns about, similar to those of a larger temple at Baalbec.134

Nearly a hundred years later, the ruins of the temple at Majdal ‘Anjar remain just as impressive: ‘This temple was, with Baalbek, the most magnificently decorated of all Lebanese temples.’135 Although Butcher has suggested the location of Chalcis as possibly Majdal ‘Anjar, he claims that this identification is by no means confirmed, emphasizing the lack of any clear evidence for any settlement on the site apart from the temple. His statement ‘The last days of Ituraean Chalcis languishes in almost total obscurity’ perhaps best describes what is known of ancient Chalcis.136 The possibility that the temple at Majdal ‘Anjar, and not Baalbek as assumed by many scholars, was the centre of an Ituraean cult remains open for discussion. The following statement reflects a common belief among scholars: ‘Chalcis, today’s Majdal Anjar, was the political capital of the Beqa‘a, while Heliopolis (Baalbek) was its religious centre.’137 This is made even more emphatic where in another statement Ptolemy, the first Ituraean tetrarch, is described as the ‘High Priest of the sun’, who ruled his principality in ‘two capacities from two capitals, the sacred city of Baalbek-Heliopolis and the administrative centre of Chalcis …’.138 Such an assertion becomes quite insubstantial when one looks carefully at the passage in Strabo, Geog. 16.2.10 753, the reference used by the author to support this thesis. In translation the passage says, ‘and at no great distance, also, were Heliopolis and Chalcis, which latter was subject to Ptolemaeus the son of Mennaeus’. Strabo simply does not suggest anything else but that Chalcis came under the jurisdiction of the Ituraeans. There is nothing in the texts that explicitly states Heliopolis was the religious centre for Ituraeans. The claim that Baalbek was the main religious centre in the Hellenistic period is also supported by Freyne, who refers to coins of Ptolemy displaying the titles ethnarchos and archiereus. He believes Ptolemy regarded himself as controlling all the important cult sites, a claim not without some merit but which cannot be proved either one way or the other. This claim, however, need not reflect an assertion for Baalbek’s superiority.139 The archaeological record is problematic in regard to Baalbek, with much further study and excavation needed in order to gain a clearer understanding of the site. The 134 137

Charles Warren 1870: 231. 135 Taylor 1967: 93. Ragette 1980: 16. 138 Greenhalgh 1980: 161–2.

136 139

Butcher 2003b: 93. Freyne 2001: 190.

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status of Heliopolis/Baalbek was made more important when it received Roman veterans under Augustus, initiating a gradual Romanization of the area. This is depicted first and foremost in the building of the great religious complex and illustrated through its architectural elements. The architectural decoration displayed in temples is merely one example of the diversity of cultural elements coming together, expressed in different ways after Roman occupation of the land. Baalbek, as the largest cult centre, is just one example.140 The absence of concentrated excavations and research on the many temple sites throughout the hinterland does not permit a detailed and comprehensive picture of its religious life. To assume that Heliopolis/Baalbek was the ‘PreRoman Ituraean sanctuary’ during the late first century BCE is not without difficulty, unless, as has been suggested, we accept the great complex as a ‘rebuilding’ of what had previously been an Ituraean sanctuary.141 The temple at Heliopolis-Baalbek The Greek appellation Heliopolis, ‘City of the Sun’, came into use during the Seleucid period and survived until the Arab conquest in the mid-seventh century CE. However, ‘While the origin and meaning of Heliopolis as well as the time span during which this name was in use are fairly well established, those of the modern toponym are not.’142 It is probable that the toponym Baalbek came into use during the Hellenistic period and was used by the local population along with the official Greek name. Baalbek seems to indicate a clear association of the site with a deity Baal, ‘whose main attribute cannot be determined with certainty in the absence of a clear-cut etymology’.143 That the site became a prominent religious cult centre in the Roman period led scholars to suppose it had served as such also in the pre-Hellenistic period. However, there is nothing to support the existence of a major cult centre in the Bronze or Iron Ages.144 It was only after the conquest of the area by the Seleucids that it developed into a prominent religious centre, and that plans for extending and building on the site were first undertaken. The reasons for such a decision may well have been political, the choice being dictated by ‘favorable natural conditions and by the creation of new communication routes’.145 140 143 144 145

Tracey 1998. 141 Tracey 1998: 340 n. 12. 142 Sader and Van Ess 1998: 248. Sader and Van Ess 1998: 248 and n. 6. Sader and Van Ess 1998: 249 and 255; and Hoffman 1998: 279–304. Sader and Van Ess 1998: 259; Grainger 1991: 113.

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Evidence for an ancient tell, which was covered later by the Hellenistic and Roman architecture of the Great Courtyard, was revealed during limited excavations. Archaeologists, in discussions on the recent history of the excavations and the difficulties presented in understanding the finds, have concluded, ‘The lack of scientific data does not allow an exact evaluation of the importance of the settlement in pre-Hellenistic times, and the heaps of pottery found in the storage rooms do not unfortunately betray any clue about Baalbek’s political and religious role in that period.’146 The examined pottery belongs to a common and simple household ware, which indicated to the archaeologists that it came from simple dwellings and by no means from a forerunner of the later Hellenistic and Roman religious complex. The great complex, of which many remains still stand, consists primarily of a sanctuary to Heliopolitan Jupiter and the Temple of Bacchus adjoining it to the south. According to one scholar, ‘They were built on imperial initiative, perhaps begun by Augustus himself’, the overall plan of the buildings with their cult installations, successive enclosures and arrangement of cellas conforming to the ‘ancient Oriental traditions’.147 In a detailed discussion on the history of German and French archaeological and architectural studies of the site, Hoffman suggests the dating of the foundation phase for the Baalbek temples is now generally thought to be connected to the founding of the colony. He supports this with reference to inscription CIL III 202.6685 as confirmation of its founding as Colonia Julia Augusta Felix Heliopolitana. Furthermore, he claims that ‘decisive evidence about important questions of the sanctuary’s protohistory can be gained only from a complete evaluation of the excavation findings of the 1950s, and perhaps only from new excavations’.148 According to Hoffman, results from excavations in the 1950s remain significant. The site confirms the endurance of its Semitic roots, and Roman influence is apparent in the architecture, design and execution, but it was ‘local oriental factors that largely determined the planning and final shape of the sanctuary’.149 Construction of the entire complex continued over several hundred years and was completed only well into the third century CE. A dedicatory inscription from the reign of Nero substantiates that the 146

Sader and Van Ess 1998: 262–5. 147 Rey-Coquais 1976. Hoffman 1998: 300 and 285. See Butcher 2003b: 116, on the question of when Heliopolis became a colony and its first issue of coinage. 149 Hoffman 1998: 303. 148

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Temple of Jupiter was standing by 60 CE.150 A site which began in antiquity as a Semitic cult centre became over time a monument to Roman architectural genius. As commented on by Kennedy, ‘it was surely Roman wealth and determination that finally completed the vast sanctuary’, but the scale of its monumentality was not a Roman innovation.151 In this aspect it sits well into the Semitic tradition. There is nothing, however, to suggest that Heliopolis was the dominant cult site of the Biqa‘ in the early part of the first century BCE. Strabo makes one brief reference to Heliopolis, including Chalcis (16.2.10), but in the same passage neither is described as being a major cult centre. In fact, in his description of the Massyas Plain and surrounding country, Heliopolis is never mentioned. In Antiquities, when Josephus recalls the passage of Pompey through the land on his way to Damascus, Pompey is described as merely passing by the ‘cities of Heliopolis and Chalcis’ in order to cross the Anti-Lebanon (14.40). Interestingly, Josephus here names both Chalcis and Heliopolis as cities, yet as Butcher states, ‘the only settlement in the Massyas (Bekaa) valley to achieve city status was Heliopolis; Chalcis did not’.152 There is no indication that these settlement areas were approached or attacked. Its eventual size and grandeur suggest wealth, dominance and power for Heliopolis, yet the texts reflecting this same period in the first century BCE offer nothing to support this for Heliopolis. As Butcher adds, ‘In spite of the richness and monumental remains, many things about Heliopolis remain enigmatic … not least the question of when it acquired civic status.’153 Heliopolis is considered by some to have been part of the territory of Berytus until the reign of Septimius Severus (193–211 CE), although others consider it to have been founded by Augustus.154 In 150 Segal 2000: 53. See also Rey-Coquais 1976: 381 in which he mentions a graffito dated to 60 CE as providing evidence for its construction; Lyttelton 1974: 87 with reference to Seyrig 1937: 95ff. in which the inscription is discussed; Ward-Perkins 1985: 314; Hoffman 1998: 285. 151 Kennedy 1997. 152 Butcher 2003b: 115. 153 Butcher 2003b: 116, and also pp. 230–1, 365. 154 Ball 2000: 39, who says it was a Roman veteran colony after 15 BCE as part of Augustus’s foundation; the date for the founding is disputed, see Isaac 1992 who states it was settled by Agrippa. Fergus Millar (1993: 124) says Heliopolis had been part of the territory of Berytus since 15 BCE; and also pp. 279–80 where he discusses the significance of Latin being the language used on the coinage of Berytus and the many Latin inscriptions found at the site; Bowersock 1965: 66 emphasizes Heliopolis did not mint coins until the reign of Septimius Severus, with reference here to Sherwin-White who supports Bowersock. See also Negev, Gibson 2001: 225, where Heliopolis is again described as being the religious centre for the Ituraeans; also Segal 2000: 52, who writes that Heliopolis was founded as a Roman colony in 16 BCE at the behest of Augustus.

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discussing this question, Isaac comments, ‘there is a substantial gap in time between the establishment of the veteran settlements and the earliest epigraphic documents related to the physical development of these towns’.155 Although Heliopolis may not have become independent until late in the second century CE, it appears that a settlement had long been in place, and its role as a religious centre along with its attendant cult of Baal-Hadad well established. Excavations revealed a temple associated with Baal-Hadad dating back to the Phoenician settlement, and according to Ball, it is ‘for this temple, rather than as a minor Roman colony, that Baalbek is famous’.156 The assimilation and syncretism of Semitic and Roman deities created, in time, a religious centre of great diversity. The religious centre that Baalbek became lasted well into the Islamic period. Ball, however, emphasizes what Baalbek was not: ‘Baalbek was no great capital or the centre of any great dynasty. It was not a Roman provincial capital, nor even a town of any significance … Baalbek in antiquity was nothing more than it is today: a minor provincial town of little more than local significance.’157 Considering the lack of textual and archaeological evidence for any large settlement or major cult centre at Baalbek/Heliopolis in the early Hellenistic period, there is some merit to Ball’s final statement. Furthermore, there is nothing to indicate that Chalcis was not an Ituraean cult centre as well as the acropolis, although this once more contradicts a recent publication in which Baalbek is considered to be the capital.158 The prescription for Baalbek becomes even more speculative in another statement in which it is said to have been ruled by a ‘hellenized Arab dynasty, the Ituraeans’, between the years 100 to 75 BCE.159 Chalcis in the Biqa‘, and the Ituraean principality that it controlled, had, by the mid-first century CE, ceased to be a political force in the region. Although underlying the very nature of the cult practised at Baalbek were the ancient Semitic deities, it was, as previously stated, Roman munificence and genius that created the great sanctuary. From the descriptions of early travellers to the region of Chalcis and the Biqa‘ it is known that the temple at Majdal ‘Anjar must have been equally rich in decoration and execution, and of an impressive size. It is possible to assume that both the site and the temple were 155

Isaac 1990b: 153. 156 Ball 2000: 39. Ball 2000: 43, see also pp. 39–47 for a discussion on Baalbek, its architecture and cults. 158 See Wilson 2004: 8. 159 Badre 1997. 157

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of some significance, with Baalbek not necessarily taking precedence. Once again, however, it is unreasonable to make any conclusions without thorough excavations at both sites, and we should be aware of assumptions made based more on speculation than evidence. The Golan, the Hermon and the Biqa‘ constitute three distinct regions into which the Ituraeans are thought to have infiltrated and settled. From the texts there is support for the Biqa‘ as being their centre, where they came to be known as having a principality governed by one titled tetrarch and chief priest. This is a dynasty aligned with Seleucid thought and language, their coins all depicting a Greek legend. To date any further material evidence is elusive, and the texts open to interpretation. It is still inconclusive as to how assured we can be in terms of Ituraean control of territory: what in fact does it mean to the writers in antiquity when they declare a ruler has control over a certain domain? Are we correct in assuming that ‘acquiring territories’ implies that these regions become something other than what they were? There are still more questions than answers. There is a need to review more thoroughly assumptions made regarding the pottery, and whether or not such assumptions can sustain a belief which upholds Ituraean occupation of a particular region. The diversity in climate, geography and environment between these regions is such that one must consider how vital an influence this would have on a settled population, and whether the inhabitants themselves were a mixed population. Religious identity presents yet another challenge in terms of whether or not the proliferation of temple structures within the surrounding regions of the Lebanon, Anti-Lebanon and the Hermon is in any way a result of Ituraean control of the land. Dated as they are to the Roman period, these first-century CE temples began to appear after the end of the Ituraean principality. Or do the temples express an explosion in population, and exhibit in design and execution a Semitic/Hellenistic background and culture of an indigenous, mixed population now benefiting under Roman control and protection? The Golan, surveyed by Israeli archaeologists, offers no evidence for such temple structures, and only further to the east in ancient Batanaea and the Hauran do we find the remains of any temple structures, but these constitute a different type. It is important to observe as an essential part of the evidence that wherever inscriptions have been discovered the deities mentioned relate both to an ancient Near Eastern and Hellenistic/Roman tradition. The Ituraeans are a distinct part of this tradition, yet to a large extent remain still in the shadows, perceived only in negative terms.

4 COINS

Coin as defined in the OED has the meaning of making money by the stamping of metal, the word itself having its origins in the Old French term coignier, to strike, to mint money, to coin. Coinage from the Roman province of Syria includes issues from many different cities, among which are the coins of Chalcis, generally considered the political capital of the Ituraean principality. These Ituraean coins constitue just a small portion of the corpus of Syrian coinage dating from the late Hellenistic to the early Roman period. Pompey’s annexation of Syria into the Roman world virtually brought to an end the Seleucid Empire, and with change of governance came a gradual change in what had been the Hellenistic world of the East. However, this shift in power brought no immediate changes to the coinage of the area, and those changes which did take place were often subtle, and were to continue over a long period of time.1 The coinage of Roman Syria had its own distinctive character, both similar to and different from that of other parts of the Roman Empire. In the broader picture, this coinage reflects the three main geographical divisions of Syria. As Antioch dominated the north both in the production of silver and bronze coinage, the central regions were dominated by Tyre, with Sidon producing silver on a much smaller scale. Both these cities minted bronze coins, and each retained in great strength its earlier identity. Silver coins were minted at Tyre (the Tyrian shekel), with tetradrachms produced in Antioch. The third area of Syrian coinage is that of Judea where bronze coins are more varied.2 As it is situated geographically on the western side of the AntiLebanon, Chalcis falls into the region of Tyre. Its coinage was described first by de Saulcy in 1870.3 The Seleucid era coinage began in 312 BCE when, according to Butcher, the Seleucids 1 3

Burnett 2002: 115. 2 Burnett 2002: 115–16. De Saulcy 1870: 1–34; see also Burnett, Amandry and Ripollès 1992: 662.

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‘imposed a new reckoning of time on the regions that they ruled’.4 It proved remarkably successful and lasted well into the medieval period. Enhancing and adding to the brief accounts recorded in the texts, coins issued by the rulers of Chalcis offer some evidence of Ituraean economic strength and power. It was during the final years of the Seleucid era that Ituraean tetrarchs first issued coinage, and as such the coins reflect Seleucid style and habit. The issue of coinage by Ituraean tetrarchs suggests a legitimate commercial concern for economic power, and reflects both the Seleucid and Roman environment which they inhabited. Excavations at sites on the Hermon, the Golan and the northern Huleh valley have revealed only one Ituraean coin, and even if many more were to be found in excavations, it would not necessarily secure an Ituraean identity for these sites. The majority of Ituraean coins available for study are without provenance, mainly obtained through coin markets, and reside now in museums and private collections. Regrettably, without extensive excavations in the southern Biqa‘ and the Anti-Lebanon, little can be said in terms of coins coming directly from that region. During the 1990s the Kadman Numismatic Museum in Tel Aviv acquired a number of Ituraean coins enabling numismatists to study in greater detail this coinage. At the beginning of his article on this subject, Kindler described the Ituraeans as an ‘Arab nomad tribe from the Arabian peninsula’ who lived in the Lebanon during the second and first centuries BCE.5 He accepts the two commonly held interpretations concerning the Ituraeans: that they invaded the Galilee and were subsequently converted by Aristobulus; that Heliopolis was their cult centre with Chalcis as their capital. All the Ituraean coins in the Kadman Collection, for which Kindler was responsible, are bronze representing issues from each of the known Ituraean rulers: Ptolemy (son of Mennaios), Lysanias and Zenodorus, three generations of what is assumed to be one family. Included in the collection are coins of Cleopatra, who issued a series in the years 36–30 BCE, a period when she acquired the territory of Ituraea. Coins of Ptolemy are dated mostly to the Seleucid era with a series of three dated according to the Pompeian era starting in 64/63 BCE. Those of Lysanias and Zenodorus are dated mainly to the Seleucid era. The evidence provided from dates of issue indicates that the Ituraean coins were struck between 73 and 25 BCE, a period of only 4

Butcher 2003b: 122.

5

Kindler 1993: 283.

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forty-eight years, which according to Kindler was a relatively short span. Coins of the Roman colonies and municipia use Latin legends, and reflect themes appropriate to their status and origin. The coins of non-chartered cities use Greek legends and types similar to those used in the Hellenistic period, and reflect the religious cults practised in the cities.6 The use of a Greek legend is one of the common features of Ituraean coins. The titles ΤΕΤΡΑΡΧΟΥ ΚΑΙ ΑΡΧΙΕΡΕΩΣ ‘tetrarch and chief priest’ are consistent on all coins of the Ituraean tetrarchs.7 From the evidence we can surmise that the leaders had both political and religious concerns. The late second to first centuries BCE witnessed the gradual demise of the Hellenistic kingdoms, particularly in Syria-Palestine. Currency systems existing throughout the Seleucid period had remained stable since Alexander’s death in 323 BCE, but over time Seleucid power after the Battle of Panion in 200 BCE eventually faded, with continuing internal conflicts becoming ever more a burden. Control of the territories was eventually handed over to the Roman general Pompey in 64 BCE. It was in this troubled transition period of the late first century that the issuing of coins by some of the Hellenistic cities continued, with Chalcis ad Libanon being one such centre. As the power to mint coins seems to have been a royal prerogative in the Hellenistic world, Chalcis may well have received royal permission to do so from Tigranes, who ruled Hellenistic Syria from 83 to 69 BCE. There is no information as to who controlled coinage for the provinces in the Roman Republic, but after 64 BCE it is possible that authority to issue was often granted by the Roman proconsul. However, it is known that the Romans were prepared to allow existing systems to continue, as was the case in many other aspects of local administration. The eventual breakdown of the Hellenistic kingdoms of Syria during the first century BCE certainly helped to bring about change within the hinterland. The question as to the causes of the final demise of the Seleucid kingdom was, according to one historian, as much related to a region without internal unity of race and culture as it was to the disorder created by rival dynasts.8 It was during this uncertain period that ‘authority over coinage seems to have reverted to the individual cities to which autonomy was granted’.9 Soon afterwards many of these cities 6 Burnett, Amandry and Ripollès 1992, 1999; both volumes provide good introductions to the coinage. 7 Burnett 2002: 118. 8 Sherwin-White 1994: 260. 9 Burnett, Amandry and Ripollès 1992: 1.

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produced their own coinage, Seleucia in Syria being an example. In light of these many changes and internal disruptions of power, it is informative that Chalcis issued coins as early as 72 BCE. Many Hellenistic cities asserted their own independence and declared individual eras of autonomy.10 Chalcis was such a case, with their first production in the Seleucid year 240 = 73/72 BCE, followed later by two issues in the name of the chief priest and tetrarch, Ptolemy. Pompey’s entry into Syria in 64 BCE appears to have met with little resistance, and as a consequence of his annexation many cities were moved to issue new coinage resulting in the Pompeian eras. As one historian has expressed it, Pompey’s annexation of the region was at least partly because of ‘the lack of any effective and trustworthy ruler who could manage the whole country in the interest of Rome’.11 A far more negative notion is frequently expressed in the claim that Pompey conquered Syria and devastated the land; perhaps a more apt description for Pompey’s action might be subdue or reduce. The annexation of the region was not all peaceful, nor was it necessarily a ‘devastation’, which tends to lead to a clearly negative impression. The events surely were far more complex and calculated; paramount at this time would be Rome’s concern over the possible intervention of Parthia into Syria. Because Syrian coins generally bear precise dates, the change in eras does not confuse the ability to use the coins for understanding the various periods of Ituraean rulers. Along with the creation of new eras for the coinage, in both the Roman and non-Roman communities, the imperial portrait (head of the Roman emperor) was adopted. Many coins were also pseudo-autonomous in that they were without the imperial portrait, its adoption in Syria being from a late date. A far greater proportion of these pseudo-autonomous types were produced in Syria than in any other region, possibly reflecting the various changes in political circumstance. One aspect of Syrian coinage which allows scholars to correctly identify the emperor depicted is that it always contains the date. A further distinction in the coins of Syria was the continued use of the sign L to designate the word ‘year’. The custom had prevailed in the Hellenistic period under the Ptolemies and was continued by the tetrarchs of Chalcis, as well as other rulers. It remained constant in Palestine and the Decapolis, down to the Flavian period.12 According 10 12

Butcher 2003b: 122. 11 Sherwin-White 1994: 260. Seyrig 1950b: 31–2. See also Butcher 2003b: 122.

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to Seyrig, L preceding the date is a characteristically Ptolemaic sign, and in regions where the sign L is found on coins it also appears in inscriptions.13 The area in which this sign is common is, in fact, the area formerly occupied by the Lagids (Ptolemies) in the third century BCE: Palestine, Coele Syria, the Decapolis and Phoenicia south of the Eleutherus. Coele Syria in the larger sense included the Massyas Plain (the Biqa‘ valley). It does not appear in Phoenicia north of the Eleutherus, indicating Phoenician independence throughout the Hellenistic period. In regard to its coinage, it is of some significance here to note that ‘Syria retains its identity and traditions longer than neighbouring regions’.14 Moshe Hartal’s excavations at Khirbet Zemel revealed a total of twenty-seven coins, of which only nine were identifiable.15 Those coins which were identified date from 159/158 BCE through to 144/ 143 BCE. Thus, the coins would seem to indicate a settlement in the second century BCE, the Seleucid period. Although the isolated site of Khirbet Zemel is identified by Hartal as an Ituraean settlement on the basis of a pottery type, no Ituraean coins were found. During the surveys and excavations at Har Sena‘im a total of seventy-one coins were found. They were catalogued into three different groups: from the temple, the settlement and the cult enclosure. Of a mere sixteen coins from the temple site, none were Ituraean. In Kindler’s view the coins from Har Sena‘im provide evidence for an unbroken numismatic continuity of some 700 years, and show that the ‘cult place was continuously visited by pilgrims, up to the 5th century C.E.’16 This supports similar evidence of occupation from pottery finds, but does not offer anything further in terms of ethnic and cultural background for the site. A coin of Agrippa II was found in the temenos of the temple corresponding in time period to one found at Qal‘at Bustra during the first Hermon survey. In the upper cult enclosure were coins from the second century BCE through to the first century CE. Included was a coin of John Hyrcanus (135–104 BCE), noteworthy as it is the first Hasmonean coin found in excavations on the Hermon. Dar interpreted the finding of this coin as an archaeological indication of Hasmonean activity in what he identifies as Ituraean territory. For Dar, this single coin find lent credence to the idea that the Hermon was a ‘meeting ground for the Hasmoneans and Ituraeans’.17 This is speculation which perhaps stretches beyond any 13 16

Seyrig 1950b: 33. 14 Burnett 2002: 115. 15 Ariel 2002: 118–21. Dar 1993b: 83 n. 85; and the table on p. 84. 17 Dar 1993b: 83.

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evidence, and reaches an ill-conceived conclusion. The settlement site of Har Sena‘im revealed thirty-nine coins in total, dating from the second century BCE to the fourth century CE, the most noteworthy a coin of Agrippa II from the temenos. Unfortunately, the coins from Har Sena‘im cannot shed any light on Ituraean identity, nor provide evidence to support Dar’s theory of Ituraean occupation. They merely confirm human occupation, or at least visitation to the site. Other sites on the Hermon have been surveyed and partially excavated, and offer some evidence for habitation during the Seleucid period up to as late as the third century CE. At Qal‘at Bustra eleven coins dating from the third century BCE to the third century CE were found in the temenos of a small temple. At Kafr Dura the coins indicate a later settlement, while at Hurvat Hawarit coins date from the second century CE to the Ottoman period. Mazra‘at Jabel Siri, a military enclosure, had coins from the fourth century BCE through to the Mamluk period, and at Nebi Hazuri, a large number of coins were found from the third century BCE to the fifth century CE. Notably most of these coins were not found in situ, ‘but in surveys carried out after the site was damaged in building operations’.18 To date Bir anSobah is the only site on the Hermon in which an Ituraean coin has been found. This single Ituraean coin is one of Ptolemy Mennaeus (85–40 BCE), the first of the Ituraean tetrarchs. In total, twenty-six coins were recovered during surveys and excavations carried out at Bir an-Sobah. However, these coins found on the Hermon offer no information as to who occupied these sites. At best, they attest to movement of coinage, and a possible time period for occupation. The sites themselves remain independent of whatever coinage has been found, and a single Ituraean coin discovered on the Hermon does not support an assumption of Ituraean occupation in the region. This is affirmed by Jacobson, who suggests the need to demonstrate a far greater distribution of the pottery, especially in the Biqa‘ and AntiLebanon, before one can make a firm identification for the site. At the same time he emphasizes that finding an Ituraean coin does not provide proof of Ituraean dominance within the Hermon region.19 Some years after de Saulcy described the Ituraean coinage of Chalcis, Seyrig discussed the coin eras of Cleopatra and Antony.20 Burnett argues that Seyrig’s ‘brilliant attribution of Cleopatra’s coins’, along with the large number of coins of Chalcis that have 18 20

Dar 1993b: 131. 19 Jacobson 1994–1995: 66–9. De Saulcy 1870: 1–34; Seyrig 1950a: 44–6.

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appeared in the coin trade, has allowed for a tentative reconstruction of this coinage.21 The first are two autonomous coins, one listed in BMC Galatia 279 no. 1, and one mentioned in the Kadman Collection, Kindler 285 no. 1. On the obverse of both is the head of Zeus to the right, laureate, and without legend. The reverse is of particular interest as each has a distyle temple, and within it a conical stone bound with a fillet.22 The distyle temple is one with a porch and two columns in front. Depiction of the stone is reminiscent of an ancient Mesopotamian belief in the sacredness of trees to which round metal bands were fastened with fillets attached. Each coin bears the legend ΧΑΛΚΙ ΔΕΩΝ on the reverse, and both are dated to the first century BCE.23 Coins of Ptolemy son of Mennaeus, contained in older collections, again depict the head of Zeus on the obverse.24 The Kadman Collection, however, with its more recent acquisitions has coins portraying Hermes (nos. 4, 6a), a bust of Artemis (no. 8), a bust of Pallas Athene (no. 9), along with three depicting a head of Zeus (nos. 2, 5, 7) on the obverse, with all but one (no. 9) without legend. The legend identifying Ptolemy as tetrarch and chief priest appears on the reverse of coin no. 5 and reads ΠΤΟΛΕΜΑΙΟΥ ΤΕΤΡΑΡΧΟΥ ΚΑΙ ΑΡΧΙΕΡ, whereas coin no. 7 is inscribed as ΠΤΟΛΕΜΑΙΟΥ ΤΕΤΡΑΡΧΟΥ ΑΡΧ.25 Three coins, nos. 5, 6 and 6a, are dated to the Pompeian era (63/62 BCE) which, according to Kindler, indicates Pompey’s submission to the political circumstances prevailing.26 The others are dated to the Seleucid era. All the coins are bronze. In his assessment of Ituraean coins, Herman grouped those of Ptolemy into three types: the obverse depicting the head of Zeus, the head of Artemis, or the head of Hermes. As the divinities are Greco-Roman who possess traits in common with local deities, he suggests further that these deities depict a form of triad. The triad – Zeus, Artemis, Hermes – is then compared to those from Phoenicia and central Syria.27 In developing his argument, Herman proposes Heliopolis as the central place of worship for Ituraeans, the triad on the coins paralleling many other forms of the cult of the triad found throughout Syria/Lebanon. He states, ‘Heliopolis was a religious center for the Itureans as well’, and referring to Strabo 16.2.18 asserts, Burnett, Amandry and Ripollès 1992: 662. 22 BMC Galatia: pl. 33:10 and p.lxxiii. Head 1887: 655, under Chalcis sub Libano. 24 BMC Galatia: 279–80, nos. 2, 3, 4, 5; and Hist. Num. (1911): 783. 25 Kadman Collection nos. 5, 7; Hist. Num. (1911): 783; (1887): 655; BMC Galatia: 279 nos. 2, 3, 4, 5. 26 Kindler 1993: 283. 27 Herman 2000–2002: 85–6. 21 23

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‘in the days of Ptolemy, son of Mennaios, the Itureans ruled Heliopolis’.28 The difficulty in accepting this is that Strabo does not mention Heliopolis in the passage, or in passages that come directly before and after. The text cannot substantiate Herman’s assumption, nor does the archaeology provide any evidence for the sanctuary at Heliopolis being a major cult centre during the reign of Ptolemy. The coins themselves may simply reflect the diversity of public worship at a time when various cultures came into contact within the region of the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon: Greek, Roman and Semitic. A change occurred through the coins of Lysanias (40–36 BCE), although these coin types are consistent with Seleucid coinage as a whole.29 In excavations at Tel Anafa, one Ituraean coin of Lysanias was found in a modern stratum, with the obverse bearing the head of Lysanias, diademed. The reverse depicts Athena standing left, holding Nike.30 Another coin bearing a diademed head on the obverse and dated to 40 BCE is also attributed to Lysanias, although Burnett suggests that the monogram behind the head is ‘a posthumous portrait of Ptolemy’ rather than Lysanias. In his comment regarding this coin he expresses surprise at the portrait being depicted with diadem, as neither Ptolemy nor Lysanias had the rank of king.31 The assertion that Lysanias was not king contradicts statements made by Herman. In his discussion on the Ituraean coins Herman contends that Antony had acknowledged the status of Lysanias as king. In emphasizing this point he speaks of Cleopatra as having been presented with the ‘head of their king’ referring to War 1.248–9, even though Josephus makes no mention of Cleopatra in this passage.32 Once again, it is difficult to know just what is intended here. The title of tetrarch did not bestow the same power or prestige as that of king, and Hermon’s references are puzzling.33 Another coin with 28

Herman 2000–2002: 90. See Butcher 2003b: 93. 29 Sullivan 1990: 207. Meshorer 1994: 249. A parallel can be found in BMC Galatia: 280 no. 6; Burnett, Amandry and Ripollès 1992: Part I, 662, no. 4768. Other examples are in Hist. Num. (1887): 655; (1911): 784; and Kadman Collection 287, nos. 10, 12, 13. Number 11 attributed to Lysanias depicts the bust of Artemis to the right on the obverse. 31 Burnett, Amandry and Ripollès 1992: 662, in commentary on coin no. 4768. 32 Herman 2000–2002: 85. 33 Herman 2000–2002: 85. Herman refers to Antony as having imposed a ‘heavy tribute’ upon the Ituraean king, when in fact Appian records that a ‘heavy tribute’ was the same for all parts of Syria, not just the Ituraeans; see Appian, Bella Civilia 5, 7. Ant. 15.88–95 merely records the cunning ways Cleopatra managed to persuade Antony to have Lysanias put to death; War 1.248–9 does not appear to have any bearing on this issue. Plutarch in Antonius 36 makes no mention of Lysanias. The only reference to Lysanias as ‘king’ is in Cassius Dio, where he states: ‘for he executed Lysanias, whom he himself had made king over them’, Rom. Hist. 49.32. 30

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the head of Lysanias diademed, though undated, bears the legend: ΛΥΣΑΝΙΟΥ ΤΕΤΡΑΡΧΟΥ ΚΑΙ ΑΡΧΙΕΡΩΣ.34 Kadman coin no. 12 displays one of the most unusual features on the coins of Lysanias. The reverse bears the legend in ‘barbaric type’ ΛVCANIOV TETPAP K APXI and in the right field what appears to be the letters ‫ בם‬but written in the ‘Palmyrene script’.35 Kindler suggested that the letters could stand for ‘Ben Ma’anai’ – son of Mennaios – although this would not be applicable to our Lysanias, son of Ptolemy. In the end, Kindler saw it merely as ‘an interesting novelty’.36 More recently this coin was reconsidered by another scholar who agrees with Kindler’s translation and confirms the two letters as being Aramaic. However, she sees no reason to qualify the script as Palmyrene, and suggests a more satisfactory qualification as ‘Ituraean Aramaic’.37 These two small letters on a coin, along with an inscription found at Yanouh in the Lebanon, may well be the first inklings in helping to revise our accepted understanding of Ituraeans. The inscription in question is discussed in the following chapter. The last of the Ituraean rulers was Zenodorus, who followed a similar pattern in the legend on the reverse: ZHNOΔOPOY TETPAPXOY KAI APXIEPEΩΣ, with the bare head of Zenodorus. Significantly, there is also an issue depicting the imperial portrait with the bare head of Octavian on the obverse.38 The date of issue is according to the Seleucid era (32/31 BCE) shortly after the battle of Actium. Possibly Zenodorus felt compelled to acknowledge the new imperial rule, as at this same time Octavian had just restored his territories, lands that had previously been taken away and given to Cleopatra. Another coin bearing the legend ZHNOΔΩPOY depicts Athena standing, holding victory with spear and shield on the reverse, and a diademed head on the obverse.39 Zenodorus’ tenure as tetrarch would seem to have been fragile, yet the presence of the imperial portrait may be seen also as a trend in southern Syria where both Chalcis and Damascus adopt the portrait of Augustus straightaway, contrasting as it does with northern Syria where it does not appear 34

Burnett, Amandry and Ripollès 1992: 662, coin no. 4770, and Kadman Collection 287 no. 13. 35 Kindler 1993: 284 and 287 no. 12. 36 Kindler 1993: 284; see also Aliquot 1999–2003: 190, and n. 97. 37 Briquel Chatonnet 2005: 8. 38 Burnett, Amandry and Ripollès 1992: 662–3 nos. 4774 and 4775; Kadman Collection 289 no. 14, plus 15, 16 both undated; Hist. Num. (1887): 663; BMC Galatia: 281 no. 7; Sawaya 2002: 127, and n. 63. 39 Burnett, Amandry and Ripollès 1998: 46 and pl. 10, coin no. S-4776A.

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before 5 BCE. It might also be seen as in keeping with the gradual Romanization of coins, and in particular those of the ‘Herodian kings who were the clients of Rome’.40 Burnett points to a similar contrast in the coins of Antony and Cleopatra, where as early as the 30s BCE their portraits appeared on coinage. ‘These portraits occurred promptly for both Antony and Cleopatra, presumably at their instigation like that of Antiochus IV a century earlier, and make the contrast with Augustus more emphatic.’41 It has also been suggested that the portrait heads of Lysanias and Zenodorus on their coins were the example which Herod Philip (Philip the Tetrarch) followed in his early issues. As early as 1–2 CE Philip issued coins bearing his own effigy on the reverse with legend and the bust of Augustus on the obverse. Philip retained the title TETPAPXOY and the L preceding the date.42 For a brief period between the rule of Lysanias and Zenodorus, Cleopatra controlled parts of Ituraean territory. The coins depict her portrait, sometimes with Antony on the reverse, but give no indication of the city in which they were minted.43 Her legend reads BACIΛICCHC KΛEOΠATPAC ETOYC KA TOY KAI [ ] ΘEAC NEWTEPAС.44 Another feature on coins of Cleopatra is the use of ἐτους and its abbreviations, which according to Seyrig is always a late appearance on coins, and is first found under Cleopatra at Chalcis ad Libanum.45 Dating on the coins of Cleopatra uses eras according to her Egyptian year 21, and her Phoenician year 6, equivalent to 32/31 BCE.46 Excavations lasting from 1994 to 1996 were undertaken in and around the Souks of Beirut. Two sites, BEY 006 and BEY 045, produced over 7,000 coins, most of which were illegible or too corroded for identification. Out of this total just under half were identified and assigned to a period. Of those classified under Syria were two coins of Chalcis issued under Lysanias and Zenodorus, with a possible unidentified third.47 The coin of Lysanias follows the same pattern of diademed head on the obverse, with Athena standing left on the reverse, and the familiar legend ‘tetrarch and chief priest’.48 A similar 40

Burnett 2002: 115. Burnett 2002: 1231 and n. 59 in particular referring to Markholm. 42 Kindler 1971: 161–3. 43 Jidejian 1975: 21. 44 Burnett, Amandry and Ripollès 1992: 662, nos. 4771, 4772, 4773. Note here that the omega is written as depicted. 45 Seyrig 1950b: 34. 46 Burnett, Amandry and Ripollès 1992: 662, nos. 4771–3. 47 Butcher 2001–2002: 21–289, 297–304 containing full report and catalogue of coins. 48 Butcher 2001–2002: 141; catalogue coin no. 280, BEY 045, with parallel to Burnett, Amandry and Ripollès 1992: no. 4770. 41

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pattern occurs in a coin of Zenodorus: the imperial portrait, head of Octavian, on obverse, head of Zenodorus with legend on reverse.49 A third coin, tentatively identified as that of Lysanias, again depicts the diademed head. The reverse is illegible.50 ‘It is not only as a means of economic exchange that coins are important. Their issuing also constitutes a declaration of political power, or at least a pretension to political power.’51 Hoyland’s statement reflects an attitude which may well have existed in the minds of the Ituraean rulers. That Chalcis issued coins lends a degree of credibility to both its wealth and status, an indication of economy and trade, and probably, as Hoyland has suggested, a pretension to political power. At the time Chalcis first issued coins, Tigranes controlled Syria. It was after his occupation in 83 BCE that the Greek cities who had sided with him were given autonomy and coinage rights.52 Usually the coins of Chalcis are classified as autonomous and follow the Ptolemaic pattern of displaying L before the date. In another sense, the early coins of the tetrarchs are considered pseudoautonomous, meaning without the imperial portrait. This fine distinction is clearly stated by Burnett: ‘Imperial coins without portraits are generically known today as “pseudo-autonomous”, a convenient (although misleading) term used to distinguish them from “autonomous” coins, coins of the cities produced before the imperial period.’53 In Syria the adoption of the imperial portrait on coinage was, in general, late. Although Antony’s portrait had appeared on the coinage of Cleopatra before the empire, here he is depicted as consort and not ruler. Only coins of Zenodorus bore the imperial portrait, with the head of Octavian/Augustus on the obverse and the head of Zenodorus on the reverse. This contrasts with a general reluctance on the part of northern Syria, where portraits do not appear on coins until as late as 4/3 BCE, and at Laodicea even as late as the reign of Caligula.54 Among the deities, Zeus is particularly well represented, not unexpectedly, as he was the Greek equivalent of the Semitic storm god, Hadad. Artemis, Hermes, Athena and Nike were all deities that the Semitic world adopted and incorporated into their own. As Athena 49 Butcher 2001–2002: 141; catalogue coin no. 282, BEY 006, parallel in Burnett, Amandry and Ripollès 1992: no. 4774. 50 Butcher 2001–2002: 141; catalogue coin no. 281, BEY 006, identification uncertain but parallel to Burnett, Amandry and Ripollès 1992: no. 4768? 51 Hoyland 2001: 193. 52 See ‘Tigranes’, OCD: 1525. 53 Burnett, Amandry and Ripollès 1992: 41. 54 Burnett 2002: 121.

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was the principal deity for many of the cities, again it was a common feature to have her depicted on city coins. The Ituraean coins reflect the fact that ‘Syria was generally slower to adopt Roman forms’, and indicates a self-identity among the cities that was much more traditional than in other parts of the empire.55 Butcher is cautious to remind us that eliciting meaning from coins still remains problematic. Questions as to why coins were minted, how many, in what circumstances, and the process of issue and supply often remain unknown, as in the coins of Chalcis. ‘The civic bronze coins produced in the Hellenistic and Roman East may have been produced independent of the concerns of the Hellenistic kingdoms and the Roman state, and instead reflect interests at work within the cities that made them.’56 In all likelihood, such a situation could have existed for Chalcis. The very fact that they were initially producing autonomous issues and following a Ptolemaic pattern of dating indicates a sense of independence from the governing power to which they were subject. Ituraean coins supply names and dates for rulers of their territory and conform to Seleucid standards, thereby suggesting they were a people well acquainted with current established patterns. In light of the fact that Dar puts such emphasis on the Hermon, considering it to be Ituraean territory, the lack of significant coin evidence from the area helps to maintain this assertion as tenuous. The place of minting for Ituraean coins is usually accepted as Chalcis; however, there is no certain answer to this question. In a short study on some of the dated inscriptions relating to the Hermon region, it was determined that several different coin eras were used. The most prevalent is the Seleucid era, with the era of Paneas common to the southern slopes of the Hermon, and that of Sidon to the west. Di Segni, who studied the inscriptions, concluded that the difference in eras used, or even the occurrence of two at some sites, seemed to be a result of economic and cultural factors, and not political. There was no reason to suspect the presence of a Pompeian era or of the era of Provincia Arabia.57 The significance for the use of different eras on coins would indicate more an influence from the cities of the Phoenician coast and the Syrian hinterland, than any strong presence of Ituraeans. The known Ituraean coins are all consistent in having eras either Seleucid or Pompeian, and all come from Roman Syria.

55

Burnett 2002: 122.

56

Butcher 2001–2002: 23.

57

Di Segni 1997: 280.

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In his article, Herman is mainly concerned with the cult as portrayed through Ituraean coins. Considerable discussion is given to the various deities as illustrated on the coins, with much emphasis on comparison with the Heliopolitan triad, and its centre at BaalbekHeliopolis. Initially, he admits there is little agreement among archaeologists in regard to Ituraean material culture or religious practices.58 This is an extremely important point, and I would stress that the archaeological record presents us with more evidence, and at the same time raises further questions. As mentioned above, the fact that Ituraeans issued coins offers some indication of their political power, economic strength and cultural/religious sensibilities, but gives no clear indication of who they were. In the greater picture, their adherence to accepted Seleucid standards helps to confirm Syria’s resistance to immediate change. Romanization came only gradually. As Syrian coinage maintains a secure dating, those of the Ituraean tetrarchs enable scholars to use this coinage to support the relevant historical sources. Although we cannot determine ethnicity, the coins do confirm the existence of a people more cohesive than simply mere robbers. That we have Ituraean coins provides a far more positive picture of an unknown people than the misconception that they were simply brigands.

58

Herman 2000–2002: 85.

5 INSCRIPTIONS

Greek and Latin inscriptions Monimus. ⁄ Ierombali. f[ilius]. ⁄ mil[es]. c[o]hor[tis]. 1. ⁄ Ituraeor[um]. ⁄⁄ ann[orum]. L stip[endiorum] XVl ⁄ h[ic]. s[itus]. e[st]. Monimus, son of Ierombalus, soldier of the First Cohort of Ituraeans, age 50, served 16 years, lies here. CIL XIII 7041 = ILS l 2562 (Dessau) = CIL XIII 12451 The Greek and Latin inscriptions presented in this chapter offer an important insight into quite another aspect concerning Ituraeans, even though they cannot satisfy the question of ethnicity. Considered as a complete corpus, these inscriptions preserve the name of a people and allow a glimpse into the relationship between Ituraeans and the Roman military. They do not, unfortunately, present us with any clear information as to the identity and origins of the Ituraeans. Regardless of this factor, the information provided by Strabo, Josephus and Cicero, and those primary texts which mention Ituraeans as skilled archers, can only be enhanced. The criteria remain the same, however, that both context and content be fully appreciated before any conclusions are drawn. Funerary inscriptions The few inscriptions considered funerary are found on gravestones set up in memory of individual soldiers who were recruited into the auxiliary units of the Roman army. Monimus, formerly a soldier in the cohort of an Ituraean auxiliary unit, is known only through the above inscription, dated to the first century CE. Inscribed on a gravestone, it was discovered in Mainz, Germany in 1795. Sculptured in relief above the inscription is the head and torso of a soldier, beardless, with hair cut short, and wearing a broad heavy cloak with hood. Arched over his head and within a niche is the scallop shell 115

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decoration, the key toward the top in typical Roman style. Under his coat the soldier wears a tunic which is visible around his neck; on his left hand can be seen a ring on the little finger; he holds a bow with a sheaf of arrows held tightly in his right hand. From the inscription we know that he belonged to a unit of archers garrisoned at Mainz in the first half of the first century CE. The Semitic names of both the soldier and his father are recorded within the inscription. The soldier would have been a local recruit from a village or town, possibly within the principality of Ituraea, although the unit designation does not necessarily indicate his ethnic identity. Archers from Ituraea served with Caesar during the Civil Wars and within the Roman army from the time of Pompey’s eastern campaigns. Along with the Syrians, the

Figure 7 Monimus, the Ituraean archer, from his gravestone now in the Mainz Museum (photograph by Jürgen Zangenberg)

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Ituraeans came to be known for their skill with the composite bow, and the Roman army continued to recruit specialists (archers) from their original homelands. This particular unit was stationed at or near Mainz in the early Julio–Claudian era, though its later movements remain unknown. Although unconnected to our Ituraean archer, the name Monimus also appears in a Greek inscription found at Capernaum, on one of the interior columns of the synagogue, where it indicates this Monimus as the father of two sons, Herod and Justus. Two more gravestones, both attesting to the presence of soldiers in Ituraean auxiliary units, were also found at Mainz. These auxiliary soldiers were members of the ex coh(orte). I. Itu / raiorum. In translation CIL XIII 2,1 7040 reads: Caeus the son of Hanel, soldier of the First Cohort of the Ituraeans, 50 years old, 19 years of service, was buried here. The stone was set up by his brother Iamlicus. The oldest of these gravestones is of particular interest. The soldier named is from the same cohort as Monimus, a relief similar to the first depicts him with short hair, wearing a tunic and cloak. This soldier, however, holds a musical instrument in his right hand and is called a tubicen, the name given to a military musician. The instrument he is holding was common in Asia Minor, and appears to be a tuba or military trumpet. It was used on the battlefield as a means of communication, an auditory signal to draw attention to the visual ones which were the standards.1 Under the portrait the soldier’s personal name is given as Sibbaeus. The inscription as recorded in CIL XIII 2,1 7042 reads: SIBBAEVS • ERON IS • TVBICEN•EX COHORTE • I • ITVRAEORUM MILES • ANN • XXIV STIPENDIORVM VIII • H • S • E Sibbaeus, the son of Eron, the trumpeter of the first cohort of the Ituraeans, soldier, 24 years old, 8 years of service, was buried in this place.2

1 2

See ‘Hierarchy and Command-Structure in the Roman Army’, in Isaac 1998: 396. CIL XIII 2, 1 7042. See Schottroff 1982: 126 for Tubabläser.

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Another gravestone discovered in the quarry at Mainz-Weisenau, also dated to the first century CE, reads: Molaecus/ Samuti. f(ilius). /an(norum). L. ex. co(horte). III/ Ituraius. // stip(endiorum). XIII/ h(ic). e(st). Molaecus, the son of Samuti, 50 years old, from the third cohort, an Ituraean with 13 years of service, was buried here.3 Mention of the third cohort of Ituraeans is important as this unit also appears in a military diploma from Upper Egypt (CIL XVI 29). According to Pflaum, ‘La première mention de la presence de cette unite se lit dans le texte du diplòme militaire de 83, CIL, XVI, 29.’4 Information given in a papyrus fragment indicates the unit was longserving. It provides a partial list of decurions and centurions with their unit and rank, given in the order of their seniority. The place of origin for the papyrus is unknown, but as it was one of many fragments coming from the Fayum, and in particular Tebtunis, it is assumed to be from Egypt.5 A more recent transcription and commentary on this fragment establishes the date of the event recorded as most probably being between April 243 and April 244 CE.6 Although the papyrus fragment implies that Ituraean units continued to serve until well into the third century CE, we can only surmise whether there were by that time still individuals who identified themselves as Ituraean. Ituraean auxiliary troops also served in Mauretania, which had been annexed by Claudius in 40 CE. A funerary stele from Tipasa dated to 147 CE records the name of one, Beliabo.7 D(is) M(anibus) | Iulius Galianus eq(ues) | Alae I Aug(ustae) Itur (aeorum) (sagittariorum vix(it) a(nnis) XXXXV mil(itavit) an(nis) XXIII | C( ) Beliabo heres et | M( ) Intaeius sec(und)us | her(es) Exer(citus) Panon(iae) Inferior(is) | To the spirit (lit. spirits) of the departed. Julius Galianus knight of the first unit ‘Augusta’ of Ituraean archers lived 45 years, served 23 years. 3 6

Schottroff 1982: 127. 4 Pflaum 1967: 354. Fink 1971: 137. 7 Baradez 1954: 115.

5

Winter, Papyri, 2, pp. 145–7.

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C(aius) Beliabo (his) heir, M(arcus) Intaeius (his) second heir. The Army of Lower Pannonia. According to Baradez, this is ‘la première prévue incontestable trouvée en Afrique de la venue en Maurétanie de l’Aile I des Archers Ituréens’.8 A gravestone, dated to the second half of the first century CE and found in Hungary, records the career of Acrabanis, a soldier of the ala Augusta Ituraeorum. Acrabanis apparently served for twelve years, having died at the age of forty-five years. On the gravestone above the inscription is carved the scene of a cavalryman, with bow and arrow, shooting at a target on the right-hand side of the stone.9 Military diplomas Tomb and grave inscriptions form just a small part of the epigraphic material that records names of Ituraean auxiliary soldiers, the major corpus consisting of Roman military diplomas (diplomata). From the late Republic onwards the army drew on local tribes to augment their legions. Named for the tribes or districts in which they were originally raised, the auxiliary units were, by the Claudian period, recognized as full members of the Roman army. This new element of raising local units gave rise to the diplomata or discharge certificates. Consisting of two bronze plates, they were engraved with an accepted discharge formula: a list of units receiving discharges at that time in that particular province, name of the recipient, unit commanding officer and date, and names of witnesses.10 Ultimately they provide documentary evidence of the soldier’s status, proof of service and conubium. By the end of the first century CE it was not uncommon for an auxiliary soldier to be awarded Roman citizenship after twenty-five years of service. Monimus, however, died before he could receive this privilege having served only sixteen years. It is worth considering these diplomas as being a significant part of the inscriptional evidence in the light of the detailed record they preserve. Names of the alae (cavalry) and cohortes (infantry) for auxiliary units were taken originally from the tribal leader, or from the tribe in which the men were initially recruited. Usually these men served in lands some distance from their home, a tactic initiated to ensure loyalty to Rome, although in the early days of this recruitment 8

Baradez 1954: 115.

9

CIL III 4367 = RIU 2 53.

10

Webster 1985: 142.

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Augustus tended not to send the units too far away. The ethnic character of the auxiliary units was gradually diluted over time, except perhaps in specialist units such as archers and slingers. Only in the case of some eastern regiments, and especially archers from Syria and the Levant, is it possible to ‘detect a continuing flow of recruits from their native districts’.11 Monimus could have been just such a recruit. By the time of the Roman emperor Claudius (41–54 CE), the units were regularized with many still maintaining their tribal name, or place of origin. After 69–70 CE local links were decisively broken, yet units such as the oriental archers retained their name along with their traditional equipment. As one scholar of the Roman Army expresses it, ‘The chief strength of the oriental armies were their bowmen, especially in the late periods, so much so that one has to regard the Syrian and Arab archers as elite soldiers of the Roman empire second only to the Illyrians.’12 What is meant here by the term ‘Arab archers’ is not explained, but the Ituraean archers can well be considered part of those called ‘Syrian’. A military diploma of an auxiliary soldier belonging to a unit of the II Ituraeorum cohors gives the name of this ex pedite as M • SPEDIO • M•F • CORBVLONI13 The information written within the diploma indicates that this auxiliary soldier had apparently come originally from HIPPO. This is the spelling as it appears on the diploma, the commonly accepted translation being Hippos, one of the Decapolis cities east of the Sea of Galilee, on the Golan escarpment. Geographically it brings Corbulo within close proximity to Ituraeans of the Biqa‘. The diploma records the unit as having served in Egypt as late as September 105 CE. In this particular case the name of the recruit is of some significance. As the name Corbulo is relatively rare, through a series of military inscriptions it has been possible to trace the family.14 The dating of the diploma is too late for the Ituraean principality to still be a significant factor in the region, but it does illustrate the length of time this particular unit existed as well as the survival of a family name. It is not an uncommon feature to find Semitic names recorded for individual soldiers, and even those of family members, but as often 11

Keppie 1991: 185. 12 Speidel 1977: 722. See Roxan 1978: no. 9 = AE 1968: no. 513 and Pflaum 1967: 339–62. Note the variation in the spelling of Ituraeorum as it occurs in different inscriptions. 14 ‘Military Diplomas and Extraordinary Levies’, in Isaac 1998: 428–30. The inscriptions mentioned are: CIL XVI 33; RMD 3; CIL XVI 35, 42; RMD 9. 13

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repeated, these names do not give any indication of ethnic identity for the individual soldier. Occasionally there has been a tendency for scholars to make assumptions regarding identity, or to vaguely hint at possibilities for ethnicity. Typical of diplomas in which Semitic names are mentioned: CIL XVI 57 – from Dacia (110 CE) with the name Thaemo ALAE • I AVG ITVRAEOR • CVI PRAEST C • VETTIVS PRISCVS EX GREGALE THAEMO HORATI F ITVRAEO CIL III 4371 = ILS 2511 – from Pannonia Superior mentioning Bargathes son of Regebalus BARGATHES REGEBALI • F • EQ • ALAE • AVG • ITYRǼORVM • DO MO • ITYRAEVS • AN XXV • STIP • V • H • S • E A third example is the inscription already mentioned above: CIL XIII 7040 – on a gravestone near Mainz mentioning Caeus and Iamlichus sons of Hanelus. These diplomas represent only a few of many which record Semitic names for Ituraean soldiers, and offer clear examples of how easily inscriptions can be misconstrued. In and of themselves, the names cannot establish ethnicity of the recruit. Macdonald clearly emphasizes the danger of attributing too much importance to names when he reminds us of how names can go on being used for centuries, can be carried far from their place of origin, yet not necessarily give any information on those who bear these names, and more significantly the language they spoke. He continues by saying that ‘if language is an insecure guide to ethnicity, how much more so are names’.15 Many of the Ituraean auxiliary units serving in the Roman military found themselves serving in the northern territories of the empire. A diploma found in a small village in Pannonia details the honourable discharge, along with Roman citizenship, given to a member of the Cohort I Augusta Ituraeor(um). The date of his discharge is 98 CE.16 Another is the oldest military diploma issued for the province of 15

Macdonald 1999: 256.

16

CIL XVI 42; see Sherk 1988: 111 for the translation.

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Dacia, dated to 14 October 109 CE.17 Apart from its evident significance in terms of dating, this particular diploma adds to a limited body of knowledge regarding the Dacian wars. According to Garbsch, a list of the auxiliary units active in Dacia between 109 and 110 CE include the coh. I Ituraeorum, the coh. I Aug. Ituraeorum (sag.) and the ala I Aug. Ituraeorum.18 As noted previously, coh. III Ituraeorum is well attested in Egypt, the first unit beginning in 83 CE, and the last until 243/244 CE.19 Preserved is a copy of an original Latin letter from the praefect in Egypt, C. Minucius Italus, dated to 103 CE. It provides information concerning recruits of a cohort either II or III Ituraeorum and about the units named in the diplomas.20 The last two lines of the letter record: (Docketed) Received on February 24, in the sixth year of our Emperor Trajanus through Priscus, orderly. I, Avidius Arrianus, adjutant of the third cohort of the Ituraeans, state that the original letter is in the archives of the cohort.21 The III Itura[eorum] along with the II Ituraeorum are also mentioned in a fragment of an Egyptian diploma found in Bulgaria. This fragment adds to one of only four Egyptian auxiliary diplomata having been published.22 Taking into consideration the location of where the fragment was found, it is generally accepted that the recipient of the diploma came from Thrace or Moesia Inferior. Another important aspect to this diploma, however, is mention of the III Itura[eorum], a unit already known as serving in Egypt over a long period. These same units are also known to have served in Roman North Africa, with the coh. III Ityraeorum listed in a diploma from Numidia.23 None of the above inscriptions allow us to ascertain the origin or ethnicity of the soldiers recorded. In this regard the soldiers themselves are unknown apart from a name. That the auxiliary units in which they served bore the title Ituraean sheds no light on their 17

Garbsch 1991: 281–4. 18 Garbsch 1991: 284. CIL XVI 29, and P. Michigan III 161 = RMRP 20. 20 A. S. Hunt and C. C. Edgar, Select Papyri II no. 421; see also Fink 1971: 352, no. 87; = CPL III = POxy. VII 1022. 21 Translation A. S. Hunt and C. C. Edgar, Select Papyri II, p. 575. 22 MacDonald 2000: 271–4. Other four published are: CIL XVI 29, RMD I 9, CIL XVI 184, RMD III 185. 23 CIL VIII supp. 2 no. 17904. 19

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personal identity. Nor is it safe to say, as one scholar has stated, that ‘ethnic Ituraeans’ are detected through personal names, whether the names are Arabic or Aramaic.24 Writers in the ancient world felt compelled to praise the skills and abilities of Ituraean archers, as shall be demonstrated in a following chapter. One can perhaps agree with Knauf, that Ituraean auxiliary units gained a reputation as ‘elite soldiers’, and as such the name and reputation was preserved ‘well into the 3rd century CE’.25 All that can be said with certainty is that the name itself survived over many years as individual soldiers travelled great distances, and perhaps even occasionally marked the descendant of an original recruit. Inscriptions by or about members of units As demonstrated, the dispersal of Ituraean auxiliary units throughout the Roman Empire can be traced through the inscriptions. Along with the gravestones and diplomas are those inscriptions that refer to the units and their activities, and occasionally inscriptions left by individual soldiers. From Galatia comes a long Greek inscription, which according to Saddington confirms the participation of the coh. I Ituraeorum in Judea during the time of Vespasian (inscription IGRR III 230). The inscription concerns A. Ti. Claudius Heras, who was a member of this unit during the principate of Vespasian, and ‘probably served in the Jewish War’.26 Occasionally there is a brief glimpse into the life of an individual soldier. A Latin inscription reveals that a vexillatio alae Ituraeorum made a dedication in Rome to Jupiter Heliopolitanus as recorded in ILS 2546 = CIL VI1 421 I. o. m. Heliopolitano, vexillatio alae Iture⎟orum, praebe⎟ntibus Cla. ⎟ Rufino et Ur⎟sione, decuriones posuerunt.27 To Jupiter optimus maximus Heliopolitanus (or, of Heliopolis) the auxiliary cavalry detachment of Ituraeans. Paid for by their excellencies Rufinus and Ursio, erected by the officers. This inscription obviously reflects a continued commitment to the popular Heliopolitan cult of the time. It seems reasonable to speculate 24 26 27

Knauf 1998: 275–6. 25 Knauf 1998: 275. See also Aliquot 1999–2003: 183–4. Saddington 1982: 72 and n. 107; and Dabrowa 1986: 227 n. 52. Schürer 1973: 570 and n. 53. 1; Schottroff 1982: 148.

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that individual soldiers, as members of the vexillatio, were acquainted with the great cult at Baalbek or associated centres. The vexillatio comprised a detachment of soldiers numbering a century or less. It is perhaps even safe to assume that being familiar with the Heliopolitan cult, some of the soldiers were originally from the eastern provinces. Some of the most varied inscriptional material originates in Egypt, where ‘from the time of Augustus to at least the mid-second century three cohorts were consistently stationed at Syene and Pselchis, cohorts that provided the garrison for the forts and stations in Nubia’.28 One unit already discussed, which appears frequently, is the III cohort Ituraeorum. The largest garrison was at Syene in Upper Egypt. A long inscription dated to 99 CE comes from the principia of the camp and provides information about the command, and according to Speidel ‘shows that almost 130 years after Augustus’ initial deployment of such a force at Syene, the garrison there still consisted of three cohorts’ (see CIL III supp. 2 no. 14147² = AE (1896) no. 40 = ILS III 8907).29 Another of the units mentioned is the cohors II Ituraeorum equitatae, known at Syene from as early as 39 CE, which may have stayed on the southern frontier throughout the history of Roman Nubia. As other cohortes tended to be replaced, it appears that the cohors Ituraeorum provided continuity at the garrison. Without revealing any information on individual soldiers, these inscriptions still offer some insight into the long history of the units, their activities and areas of operation. A great majority of the inscriptions are in Latin, the language of the Roman army, yet Greek does not disappear entirely. Perhaps the most impressive is an epigram of Iunius Sabinus, carved into a victory relief on the South Pylon of the Isis temple at Philae, described by one scholar as ‘boastful’.30 Ἰούνιος ἔνθα Σαβι ̑νος, ἔχων Ἰτυραΐδα κόραν, ̑ ἱκτο, Συηναίας ἑσμὸν ἄγων στρατια̑ς, ἅ παν(εο)ρτεύουσα νέοις ἐγάνωσεν ἰάκχοις εἶσιν ἐκσώζειν κόσμον ἐπισταμέναν. [Αἰθιόπων γὰρ? ø]υ̑λα μεμηνότα Ῥωμυλίδαισι [νικάσα πολλ?]ὰς ἡ̑κεν ἔχων ἀγέλας. [ ––––––– κατὰ?] μω̑ λον, ἐρει ̑ς, τότε Kαίσαρος ἀνήρ, [ ––––––– κ]αὶ στέϕας ἁρμόσατο.

28

Speidel 1988: 784.

29

Speidel 1988: 776 and n. 27.

30

Speidel 1998: 778.

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Iunius Sabinus commander of the Ituraean cohort(?) came here leading the multitude of the Syene forces, solemnly celebrating with new chants Isis who knows how to save the world. Having conquered the Nubian tribes that raged against the sons of Romulus, he came here with his troops. [– – – ] in the fray, you will say, then, Caesar’s man [– – – –] put on the crown.31 REG 89 (1976) no. 772 = Bernand (1969) no. 15 Numerous dedicatory inscriptions found in Egyptian temples, all in places along the borders of Upper Egypt, provide evidence for individual soldiers stationed at Talmis and Pelchis as having concern for religious sensibilities. IGR I 1303; IGR I 1348 = SB V 8521 from a temple IGR I 1363 = SB V 7912 mentions Ituraeans IGR I 1370 = SB V 8537 the cohors II Ituraeorum at Hieran Sykamion CIL III supp. 2 141477 provides an Aramaic name CIL III pars I 4367 mentions the ala Augusta Ituraeorum On a cippus from Philae is a soldier’s dedication to Isis, dated 135 CE. Λιβερα̑ρις Σαραπίων στρατιώτ- ης σπείρη[ς] β’ Ἰτουραίων (κεντουρίας) Oὐα- λεντῖνος ἀνέθηκε ὑπὲρ εὐχα[ρι]στείας χάρ[ι]ν ἐπ̕ ἀγαθω̑ (ι) [π]αρὰ τη̑ς κυ- [ρί]ας Ἴσιδος [ἔ]τους κ’ ζ’ μη[ν]ὸς ‘Aδριανοῦ Liberaris Sarapion, soldier of the second cohort of the Ituraeans. Centurio Valentinus dedicated for thankfulness for good by the Lady Isis. In the year 20, at the sixth day in month Hadrian (= 4 December 135).32 Also from Philae, Σαβίνος ἔχων Ἰτυραιίδα̣, mentioned in the rededication of a temple.33 The epikrisis of a Roman veteran, Valerius Clemens, dated to 188 CE and written in Greek, records his wish to reside at that time in the 31

Speidel 1998: 778–9 for text and translation. A. Roccati: BIFAO suppl. 81 (1981) 437–8 no. 1 pl. 65a = BE 1983, no. 475 = SEG 31, 1981 (1984) no. 1532; see also Speidel 1988: 786. Translation Hanswulf Bloedhorn. 33 IGR I 1299; Saddington 1982: 227 n. 103. 32

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Arsinoite nome. The purpose of the epikrisis before a delegate of the praefect was to obtain a certificate of legal status as a Roman citizen, which would then be useful if the veteran intended to change his residence. This particular individual was a veteran of the second cohort of Ituraeans, and presented a letter from Pactumeius Magnus, his former praefect. The epikrisis provided proof of his service in the cohort, and of his official discharge on 31 December 188 CE, in the consulship of Aurelius Commodus Antoninus Augustus Pius and Quintillus. There are three witnesses, all veterans who have sworn a declaration to say that the information given was true.34 Insight into one of many activities in which auxiliary soldiers were involved during their periods of active duty is shown in another brief inscription. The cohors III Ituraeorum based in Upper Egypt apparently provided guards at the quarries:35 ILS I 2611 = CIL III 12069 – from Ptolemais Hermiu, Egypt omnibus / commilitonibus / qui hic fuerunt ad / custodias felic.! / coh. scut. c. R. feliciter! / coh. III Itur. felicit.! To all the comrades-in-arms who have been on guard duty here: Good luck! The cohort of heavy-armed troops (c.R.): Good luck! The third Ituraean cohort: Good luck! From an ostracon Further evidence of auxiliary units maintaining a presence in Egypt comes from an ostracon found at the Imperial quarries and mining centre of Mons Claudianus. Ostracon no. 7363 contains a dedication by a ‘Cohors II Ituraeorum to Zeus Helios Great Sarapis and the gods who share the temple in gratitude to the emperor Severus Alexander’.36 This establishes a dating for the cohors II Ituraeorum at the garrison as late as 225–235 CE. The quarries at Mons Claudianus were an important source of granodiorite used in the front columns of the Pantheon, for Trajan’s column in Rome, Hadrian’s villa at Tivoli and Diocletian’s palace at Split. The cohors II Ituraeorum would likely have been part of the Syene command, 34 Hunt and Edgar, Select Papyri II no. 315, pp. 346–7; = SB IV 7362 = Daris 1964: no. 97. 35 ILS I 2611 = CIL III 12069. See Schürer 1973: 571 n. 53.6. 36 Cockle 1996: 27 n. 24.

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where, along with Alexandrian units, they remained throughout the principate. Maxfield comments, ‘It is notable that half of all the auxiliary units known to have been based at any time in Egypt appear on duty in quarries both in the desert and in the Nile Valley.’37 Military correspondence was not always recorded on ostraca, as occasionally papyri was used. Such is the case when the centurion Cassius Victor, of the cohors II Ituraeorum, wrote of events that took place at the fort of Patkoua on 17 Phamenoth 118. The fort was ‘attacked by 60 barbaroi and fighting took place over several hours on that day and the next, resulting in several casualties including women and children’.38 Ambiguous inscriptions A number of inscriptions that mention or refer to Ituraeans, once again, do not necessarily offer a clear insight into Ituraeans as an ethnic group. Because of their ambiguity, they do not support any claims for understanding the Ituraean principality, or its culture, religious identity, or ethnicity. Yet occasionally scholars refer to these inscriptions to support or explain the presence of Ituraeans. North of the Hauran, between the eastern edge of the Leja (ancient Trachonitis) and the northern edge of the Jebel al ‘Arab is the village of al-Hit/Eitha. During the Herodian period Eitha served as the main military base for a region known by some scholars as the ‘lava lands’.39 Here, in the interior of a house, was found the fragment of a memorial inscription ‘dedicated to a man named Praxilaus, commander (?) of a cohors Ituraeorum which had once done a tour of duty in Moesia’.40 The dating, according to Waddington in his commentary (IGL p. 498) of the inscription, is considered to be from the time of Agrippa, although there is no indication as to which Agrippa is intended. Inscriptions connected to Ituraeans because of provenance Har Sena‘im is, in Dar’s estimation, an Ituraean site. During the years in which the site was surveyed and excavated, nine fragmentary Greek inscriptions were discovered, all coming from the courtyard 37

Maxfield 1996: 18. 38 Bowman 2007: 635–8. The term ‘lava lands’ is used by both Macadam (1986) and Peters (1980: 110–21). 40 IGR III 1139 = IGL 2120 (Waddington) = IGR III 1139. See Macadam 1986: 62 and n. 59; Schürer 1973: 571 and n. 53.10; and Aliquot 2003: 183–4. 39

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of the lower cult area. Because of their fragmentary state, any reading remains speculative. Through palaeography, however, the inscriptions were found to belong to the Roman period, the earliest being dated to the mid-second century CE.41 Most of the inscriptions are inscribed on stone altars and appear to be dedications. Inscription no. 2 (Locus 91) is among the longest, incised on hard limestone, and now in two fragments: ‘Yπὲρ σωτηρίας τω̑ ν κυρα[κ]– ω̑ ν αύτοκρατόρων κὲ ν{ε}ίκα[ς] κης μνησθη̑ Νέτιρας Σαχού[ου] [τεταγμένος] ἐπὶ τὰ ἄκτ[α] For (the) safety and victories/ry of the Lor[d]s Emperors – may Netiras son of Sachou[os] be remembered (by the deity), [placed?] in charge of the (military?) recor[ds].42 The inscription has been dated to c.161–9 CE, and the name Netiras (Νέτιρας) noted as being of Semitic origin. The name was not uncommon within this region and appears under various spellings. Josephus even speaks of a Galilean Netiras (Νετείρας), one of two brothers from the village of Ruma who had fought bravely to defend Jotapata against the Roman legion (War 3.233). Speculation on the possibility that the Netiras of Har Sena‘im was a Roman auxiliary soldier of Ituraean origin is perhaps overstating the case. Dar’s surveys and partial excavations at sites in the Hermon region led him to conclude that these settlements flourished in the first to third centuries CE. The Har Sena‘im inscriptions go some way to support this conclusion, the earliest (no. 3) being dated to 148/149 CE, yet they reveal nothing in terms of Ituraean identity. Dar’s suggestion that these inscriptions indicate a cultic importance for Har Sena‘im, enough to attract pilgrims from far and near, might well be considered, albeit with caution, but we cannot yet say with any great assurance just who these pilgrims were or where they came from. These sites may have served only the local settlements, as the evidence seems to show the Hermon settlements thriving at this period. Although the evidence, both archaeological and inscriptional, appears to support Dar’s

41 42

Dar and Kokkinos 1992: 23; and Dar 1993b: 76. Inscription and translation: Dar and Kokkinos 1992: 13; Dar 1993b: 77.

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theory regarding the period of occupation, it cannot as yet provide us with any direct link to the Ituraeans as a people or their origins. This inherent difficulty in the interpretation of inscriptions, of too readily assuming identity/ethnicity, can be further demonstrated by an inscription considered ‘too fragmentary for any meaningful restoration’, which by this very statement leads one to believe that little can be gained.43 In a very obscure line within inscription no. 6 there is what appears to be a name, first translated with a suggested reading of the name Anias. The translator makes claim that Anias (which, it must be remembered, is not clear enough to be without doubt) is an ‘Ituraean name widespread among Ituraean enlistees in the Roman army’.44 It was simply a popular name, but it offers no more. Another reading of the same inscription suggests this obscure line might make reference to an empress, possibly Julia Domna, since palaeographic evidence dates it to the end of the first century CE.45 It is well worth reflecting on Macdonald’s warning on the use of names and of making too hasty a conclusion. In a personal comment to the translators of these inscriptions, Millar summed it up well when he stated, ‘The fact that we cannot understand everything about these fragmentary inscriptions is less important than the fact they are there, at almost 1200 m height, in Greek, paralleling those from the villages of the Hauran.’46 There is much truth to this, and a consideration of the implications stated here might be well worth pursuing. The cumulative evidence from both texts and coins supports Strabo’s statement that the Ituraean principality was centred within the southern Biqa‘. Although until recently little had been published that might throw more light on Ituraean occupation of the region, a few years ago an inscription was found within the temple at Majdal ‘Anjar. Inscribed on a column drum made from local limestone, it appears within the foundation of a staircase leading to the cella of the great temple. Determination of the era is problematic; is the inscription to be dated to the Seleucid era beginning in 312 BCE, to the Hellenistic Sidon era beginning in 111/110 BCE, or to the Hellenistic Berytus era beginning in 81 BCE?47 To date the question is unresolved, although Aliquot’s preference for the latest dating may 43

Dar and Kokkinos 1992: 20. 44 Dar 1993b: 78. Dar 1993b: 78; and Dar and Kokkinos 1992: 20. 46 Dar and Kokkinos 1992: 23 and n. 9. 47 Aliquot 2003: 234–5; SEG 37 (1987): 453 no. 1446, the commentary dates it to the Seleucid era 312/311 = 69/68 BCE; for an earlier publication on the inscription, see Ghadban 1985: 300–301, with inscription. 45

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be the most likely. The inscription, however, is difficult to read, and makes no mention of Ituraeans. Its significance is understood more readily in terms of the cult practised at the various temple sites located along the slopes of the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon mountains. Without a thorough archaeological excavation at the temple site of Majdal ‘Anjar any hypothesis regarding the inscription, particularly in context of a discussion of the Ituraeans, is inconclusive. Aramaic inscriptions During an archaeological survey carried out by Israeli archaeologists after the October 1973 war, an Aramaic inscription was found in the village of El Mal, now in southern Syria, to the east of Quneitra. Carved into a basalt block, it is partly damaged and now in secondary use within the arch of a modern building. The inscription is considered to be of special interest for two reasons: it is similar, but not identical, to the Palmyrene script, but almost identical to an archaic inscription from Dura Europos, dated to 32 BCE. As the inscription provides a date of 305 in the Seleucid era corresponding to 7/6 BCE, this allows for a firm time frame in terms of when the inscription was written. Joseph Naveh (who was asked to provide a transliteration of the text), in offering several reasons as to why it could not be Palmyrene, posited the idea that it might have been written by an Ituraean. In forming his hypothesis he considered the geographical location of El Mal, which by the late first century BCE was inhabited by Nabataeans, and that two of the names in the inscription occur in Nabataean as well as Safaitic. As he accepted that the Ituraeans were an Arab peoples, he supported his thesis by making reference to the biblical name Yetur, the German edition of Schürer’s outline of Ituraean history, and Littman’s recording of Nabataean inscriptions from Umm el Jimal.48 This, of course, brings into question once more the use of names for any type of identification, and although interesting, the El Mal inscription cannot offer any real insight into Ituraean identity. Perhaps far more significant is the recent second publication of an Aramaic inscription first discovered during the 1960s excavations at the site of Yanouh in the northern Lebanon range, and within the hinterland of Byblos. The inscription was originally carved into a sandstone block, found in secondary use. The block was removed 48

Naveh 1975: 117–23.

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before the Lebanese war and eventually lost. Fortunately, photographs had been taken and proved clear enough for a reading and translation to be made. This Aramaic inscription is comprised of two incomplete lines; however, enough is evident to determine its purpose as a dedication of a temple. After the first publication, a study of its palaeography concluded that the script was not identical to any already known writing, but could be compared to the El Mal inscription. The inscription has been tentatively dated to the year 203 BCE, its dating most probably in reference to the Seleucid era. This would put it within the Hellenistic period, a hypothesis strengthened by the fact that it was inscribed on sandstone as opposed to the later use of limestone. Considering factors indicating Phoenician as still being spoken and written in this general area during this same period, the translator has posited a new hypothesis – that it was engraved by Ituraeans. The implications within this hypothesis are significant: ‘This supposes the presence of another political authority, if not population, not subjected to the authority of Byblos.’49 In presenting such a proposal, however, the translator takes pains to emphasize that we still have little and incomplete information in regard to the Ituraeans. Nonetheless, her argument is compelling. The site being excavated at Yanouh is a sanctuary site, one of many within the Lebanon range. If we accept the possibility that this early, secondcentury sanctuary was established by Ituraeans, it then requires us to consider the possibility they were in the region at an earlier date than previously thought. Textual information, along with coins, points to the early first century BCE for their political beginnings. This considered, she concludes with a statement of even greater significance: ‘It also reveals that they were sufficiently settled and politically organized to build and dedicate a temple in this region. They cannot have been the wild population of plunderers that some ancient authors describe.’50 It is perhaps the most stimulating suggestion yet, and I would agree, a quite dramatic revision of just how we view the Ituraeans. A rather different picture must be drawn from our coins and inscriptional evidence when compared to the primary textual material, as will be seen in the following chapter. There is nothing in the numismatic evidence that characterizes an Ituraean as a robber or 49 50

Briquel Chatonnet 2005: 3–10; and Briquel Chatonnet and Bordreuil 2001: 148–52. Briquel Chatonnet 2005: 9.

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brigand, or supposes a livelihood of raiding and threat. The issuing of coinage indicates a sense of independence, a declaration of wealth and power, or as phrased by one scholar, ‘a sure sign of political maturity and sophistication’.51 The coins and inscriptions offer vague hints of a community, or even an ἔθνος, but provide no clear picture of identity. In terms of the apparent disparity between how the primary texts have been interpreted, and what the coins and inscriptions might suggest, the following chapter will reconsider the difficult question of Ituraean identity.

51

Briquel Chatonnet 2005: 9.

6 ITURAEANS AND IDENTITY

Identity isn’t given once and for all: it is built up and changes throughout a person’s lifetime. Amin Maalouf1 Perhaps these words, written by Amin Maalouf in his book On Identity, will help to remind us of the complexities involved in determining identity, whether it be of those in antiquity or those in the present. It is a reminder that in our efforts to ascertain identity those same principles, concerns and deliberations that exist today are as valid as when attempting to determine the same for the past. How we make these decisions, what myriad factors come into play are no less significant for conclusions about the past than they are about the present. Whether an ethnic identity can be determined for a people called ‘Ituraean’ remains inconclusive, and for lack of clear evidence remains fraught with difficulties. Conclusions drawn mainly on the basis of epigraphic evidence can be misleading, offering no precise information for origins or ethnic identity. Some of the soldiers named in military diplomata may well have identified themselves as Ituraean, but the visible record before us provides only a name, rank and military history and says nothing about the individual soldier’s ethnic origin. There is some certainty in assuming that a people known as Ituraean were recruited initially into the ranks of the Roman auxiliary forces whose units bore their tribal name, but this is all that is known. The epigraphic material considered is crucial, as occasionally it has been used to support statements about Arabs and/or Ituraeans for which there is no corroborative evidence. Assumptions are made on the basis of specific texts/inscriptions which help to formulate an interpretation of the early source material. This is exemplified in the way scholars have, in the past, interpreted the writings of Strabo, 1

Maalouf 2000: 20.

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Josephus and Cicero, and those inscriptions that mention Arabic names. This chapter will reconsider these pitfalls and subsequent confusion, and what might be learned afresh about Ituraeans. In a cogent and well-considered article, Michael Macdonald offers some reflections on epigraphy and ethnicity when he writes: like the historian, the epigraphist must always be aware that his material may be being economical with the truth, or even presenting an entirely false picture. Thus, epigraphy, when it is not balanced by literary sources, can produce an extremely distorted picture of a society; more so, in some ways, even than archaeology without the written word.2 This illusion of direct contact challenges the scholar to go beyond the script and to attempt some understanding of the nature and context of the material, though there is always the danger of too readily accepting prior judgements and merely adding to what is possibly a mistaken conclusion. The following two passages from the genealogical lists in the Hebrew Bible, and their transliteration in the LXX, are generally accepted among scholars as indicating origins for the Ituraeans.3 The ‫( יטור‬traditionally transliterated as Jetur/Yetur in translations of the Hebrew Bible) are named among the lists of tribes as descendants of Ishmael. Gen. 25.15 ‫ – יטור נפיש וקדמה‬Ἰετοὺρ καὶ Ναɸὲς καὶ Κεδμά 1 Chron. 1.31 ‫ – יטור נפיש וקדמה‬Ἰεττοὺρ Ναɸὲς Κεδμά Not withstanding the writers’ purpose in both Genesis and Chronicles, the sources and their use in the past, the information provided here is misleading and possibly inaccurate. The genealogies contained within the Hebrew Bible, although generally considered to preserve an ancient oral tradition, lack sufficient data from which to trace origins. It remains uncertain whether they can actually be proved to preserve an oral tradition. Genealogies are not an uncommon feature in the ancient Near East, where they appear in Mesopotamian king lists, in Safaitic inscriptions and in the genealogical lists from Ugarit and Egypt. However, within scholarship there has been a long tradition of identifying Yetur, son of Ishmael in the 2

Macdonald 1998: 178. See Dar 1993b: 15; Knauf 1992b: 821–2; Saunders 1976: 773; Pauly-Wissowa, RE IX: 2378–9; Schürer 1973: 561; Dussaud 1927: 176–8; Trimingham 1979: 19 n. 23. 3

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Hebrew Bible genealogies, with one of the Arab tribes said to have inhabited the Syria/Lebanon region. In an extensive article that addresses the issues of language, among much else, Aliquot rejects the association of the biblical Yetur with the historical Ituraeans, along with Dar’s hypothesis (1988: 20) that the Druze are descendants of the Ituraeans.4 His conclusions are well considered and contrast strongly with an opposing view, which offers little in the way of constructive analysis: ‘There is no reasonable doubt that the Ituraeans (Greek Ἰτουραι̑οι, Latin Ituraei) entered history under the tribal name of Yetūr, which in turn is nothing but the Aramaic form of their native Arabic self-designation, Yazur.’5 In 1 Chron. 5.19 the writer mirrors the shifting situation of his time with differences that appear in names of the tribes, reflecting political and geographical changes. That the Yetur are mentioned here has supported a claim that they were a North Arabian nomadic tribe later known as the Ἰτουραίων, but an important technical point needs to be considered in regard to this particular passage. Myers reminds us that the Chronicler is a ‘Midrashist’ and not a historian in the modern sense, and here Yetur is translated in the LXX, not transliterated as in the first two examples.6 In perhaps a more radical view, one scholar has suggested that 1 Chron. 5.19 ‘shows signs of having been composed as Hasmonaean propaganda’.7 The problem is twofold: how reliable are the genealogies for making such identification and, secondly, how clear is the distinction between Arab and Aramaean within the text, if indeed there is any difference? In the Assyrian sources, both Arabs and Aramaeans are mentioned as being tribal groups, each having migrated into the region of Syria-Palestine. The earliest datable biblical reference to Arabs is in Isa. 13.20, from the second half of the eighth century BCE, in which the Arab is pictured as a tent dweller – the nomad.8 Similarly Jer. 3.2 harkens to the nomadic Arab: ‘By the waysides you have sat awaiting lovers like an Arab in the wilderness.’ But this is not the only portrait drawn, as other writers describe encounters with Arab kings with great wealth at their disposal, or pastoralists trading their lambs, goats and rams.9 In the case of the biblical genealogies, it must be remembered that these were first an oral, fluid tradition, and only later became transformed 4

Aliquot 1999–2003: 161–290. 5 Knauf 1998: 269. 6 Myers 1965: 38. Ma‘oz 1997: 279. 8 Eph‘al 1976: 227. 9 For reference to the kings of Arabia, see 1 Kgs 10.15, 2 Chron. 9.14, Jer. 25.24; for the Arab as pastoralist, see 2 Chron. 17.11, Ezek. 27.21. 7

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into the written word. In so doing they took on a fixed form, in which the writer’s own understanding of history is reflected, but possibly the immediate context in which it was written was also reflected. Wilson puts it quite succinctly: ‘This fact has important implications, not only because writing has a tendency to modify somewhat the informal characteristics of oral genealogies, but also because the literary control of the Old Testament modifies the purposes that the genealogies can serve.’10 Although 1 Chronicles mentions various nomad tribes, details of their histories remain obscure. The information it provides reflects a period from the ninth century BCE to the first half of the eighth century BCE, although the generally accepted date for the composition of 1 Chronicles is the fourth century BCE.11 In other words, the author is looking back to his own history as he understands it. There is nothing in the genealogies to confirm the ethnicity of the Yetur as either Arab or Aramaean, or even Syrian. Yet there has been a predisposition within the study of the ancient Near East to assume an Arab identity for Ituraeans. Josephus, at the beginning of Antiquities, repeats the history of Abraham and Isaac and lists among the sons of Ishmael the Jetur, written as Ἰετου̑ρος.12 Along with other tribes of the region, the Jetur are designated as descendants of Ishmael. In reflecting on this same passage from Josephus, Millar comments on its ultimate consequence where its designation for contemporary Arabs as the descendants of Ishmael is of momentous significance.13 The idea of the Arab has taken on many diverse meanings, and is often captured in descriptions of Ituraeans. They have been described as an ‘old Arab people’ or as ‘an Arab tribe’ who emerged as a political power during the latter part of Seleucid rule.14 As a land/region Ituraea is said to be a ‘region NE of Galilee in the Anti-Lebanon country settled by Arab people of Ishmaelite stock’, or Ituraeans described as a ‘community of Arabian stock speaking Aramaic’.15 These typify the general interpretation given for Ituraea/Ituraeans. In her study of the Jews under Roman rule, Smallwood has perhaps one of the most strongly expressed viewpoints when she states: ‘Beyond Samarites lay the Ituraeans, a turbulent and warlike race, originally of the Lebanon and 10 11 12 13 14 15

Robert R. Wilson, ‘Genealogies’, ABD, II: 931. See ‘Chronicles’ in ABD, I: 995. Ant. 1.220. See also Mason 2000: 83. Millar 1993: 8, in reference to the fifth-century CE writer Sozomenus. Shahid 1984: 5 for the first quote; and Grainger 1990: 183 for the second. The first quote from Saunders 1976: 773; the second from Hitti 1968: 246.

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Antilebanon area, who by this time had extended their power over Galilee, over Abilene north of Damascus, and to the coast of Botrys and Arca.’16 Linked in with an appreciation of the difficulties involved when interpreting the use of the term ‘Arab’ is the complementary issue of how to understand the history of a people acknowledged as Arabs. It is known from the historical material that the first contact between Arabs and Assyrians was made in Syria on the borders of the territorial state of Damascus, and not in Arabia proper. It was from here that caravan routes from all directions converged.17 Potts stresses the fact of a ‘profound geographical difference between Assyria’s first contacts with the Arabs, and the frequent incursions into Arabia’.18 These early contacts are attested from the mid-ninth century BCE, during the reign of Shalmaneser II (c. 854 BCE). The oldest document that mentions Arabs (Aribi) by name is the Assyrian Kurkh Monolith Inscription of Shalmaneser III concerning the Battle of Qarqar in 853 BCE. Among the names of the coalition leaders who opposed the Assyrian army is Gindibu, the man of Arabia.19 It is the only documentation of the battle providing names for most of the leaders and their allies. Not only does it mention the Aribi, the inscription also throws light on the alliances that had been made in order to challenge Assyrian aggression. It has been suggested that these leaders were probably united by their interest in the trade which passed through Syria from Arabia, Egypt and Anatolia, which Assyrian expansion was apparently disrupting.20 The territory of Gindibu is thought to have been in the northern part of the Syro-Arabian desert. Mention of Ba‘śā following immediately after Gindipū suggested to Lipiński that the Arab Gindipū was ‘most likely moving with his tribe between summer pastures in the Orontes valley or the Antilebanon and winter quarters to the east and southeast of the mountain range’. Ba‘śā is thought to have been in the central part of the Biqa‘; the name could even possibly be Ancient North Arabian. Lipiński further suggests that the previous phrases mentioning Arabs who come and go seem to confirm the close relationship between the Arabs and the region of Soba in the eighth century BCE.21 In the following century the Arabs are mentioned frequently in the Assyrian documents, always in 16

Smallwood 1976: 14. 17 Potts 1988: 128–9. Potts 1988: 128. See also Macdonald 1995: 355–69. 19 Luckenbill 1926: 223, col. 611: ii 90–96 (94); A. Leo Oppenheim, ANET: 277–9; Eph‘al 1982: 21. 20 Macdonald 1995a: 364. 21 Lipiński 2000: 343–4. 18

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reference to tribes and tribal confederations. Along with the biblical and Assyrian sources are the Babylonian and Achaemenid records, adding to the primary textual material and providing a fragmentary and often disconnected history. Descriptions by the Greek and Latin writers, who often relied on earlier sources, and the inscriptions by the people themselves together constitute this complex written material on the Arabs. Under Sargon II (721–705 BCE) Assyria dominated half the civilized world. The texts and fragments of text that constitute the correspondence of Sargon II number approximately 1,300 making it ‘the most extensive political correspondence of a major ruler extant from ancient Mesopotamia and probably from ancient times’.22 Among this corpus are letters from Damascus, Hamath and Zobah (or Sobah), with many referring to Arabs. These letters from the extensive Assyrian correspondence illustrate interaction between Arabs and Assyrians with a sense of regularity and sobriety. In other words, there is from the Assyrian view a record of daily observance and business in which the Arabs are perceived as unthreatening. Evidence for Arabs within the Biqa‘ valley is illustrated in Letter no. 175, detailing a raid having taken place.23 Lipiński describes the possible location and route taken by the Assyrians when attempting to respond to the raid, a route still used by pilgrims in the Middle Ages. The events portrayed from these Assyrian documents paint scenes of commercial trade, of merchants moving with their goods through mountainous passes to centres of trade along the coast. However, apart from the presence of Arabs in this region, there were Aramaeans who also inhabited the fertile Biqa‘ valley, having established the kingdom of Soba (transcribed into Greek as Σουβα) in the early years of the tenth century BCE.24 Although Aramaeans occupied the Biqa‘ and the mountainous regions from an early period, they have not been much discussed relative to the Ituraeans, the emphasis always being on the assumption that the Ituraeans were Arab. Aliquot has recently challenged this proposition, suggesting the possibility that the Ituraeans were of Aramaean origin.25 The sources, however, offer no confirmation for

22 23 24 25

Parpola and Reade 1987: xl. Parpola and Reade 1987: 136 for the letter; and Lipiński 2000: 332 and n. 69. Lipiński 2000: 319–45, where he discusses the kingdom of Soba. Aliquot 1999–2003: 190–1.

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ethnicity, and it remains a topic in which most scholars have tended to repeat earlier assumptions. The Aramaeans The oldest datable portrait of an Aramaean appears on bronze gates erected by Assurnasirpal II (883–859 BCE). The first written references, however, are found in the Assyrian Annals of Tiglath-pileser I (1115–1077 BCE), and from this time through to the ninth century BCE the Assyrian documents remain the only written source for the Aramaeans.26 The annals list names of Aramaean political units, cities and states, and record from the Assyrian viewpoint battles fought and victories won. Considered to be originally a tribal group of nomadic flock herders, by the end of the second millennium BCE they had infiltrated and settled into regions of what is now Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Jordan. They carried with them their old tribal forms, their religion and language, a west Semitic dialect that was to prove the most enduring of all their contributions. In considering the geographical landscape and physical environment associated with the Aramaeans, one scholar has suggested they had an economy related to nomadic pastoralism.27 Over time they were to have a profound influence on the indigenous populations. Aramaean dominion of the land was manifest by the first millennium when the Biqa‘ valley was divided into northern and southern districts under their control. By the tenth century their kingdom extended to Damascus, the Hauran and the Golan, establishing it as the most significant Aramaean power in the region. The origins of the Aramaeans are thought to be in the Late Bronze Age, as by the first millennium they were well established throughout inner Syria, and along the shores of the Tigris and Euphrates, having gained control over vast areas of Mesopotamia.28 As another scholar has aptly phrased it, it was an ethnic movement ‘unparalleled in the ancient Near East until the arrival of the Arabs more than a millennium and a half later’.29 It has been suggested that Aramaean wealth and power came from their large numbers as well as their activity in long-distance trade made possible through the domestication of the camel.30 Notably, the Aramaeans appear not to have had any association 26

Dion 1995: 1281–94. 27 Schwartz 1989: 281. Lemche 1995: 1209. 29 Snell 1985: 326. 30 Suggested by Snell 1985: 327. For further discussion on the significance of the camel at this time see Schwartz 1989: 282–3. Mazar 1986a: 155. 28

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with the use of the camel within a military context. As Schwartz states, ‘The Assyrian evidence indicates that the only Assyrian opponents who made extensive military use of camels were Arabians (Aribi).’31 The Aramaean culture was eclectic, easily absorbing Phoenician, Syrian and Neo-Hittite as well as Assyrian elements. Among the many states formed by the Aramaeans was that of Aram-Zobah, which included within its boundaries Damascus, the Anti-Lebanon, and the Biqa‘. The name Zobah (Sobah) is preserved in the Hermon settlement of Bir an-Sobah, the site where a coin of the Ituraean tetrarch Ptolemy was discovered.32 That the territory of AramZobah covered much of what was later to be associated with the Ituraeans merely substantiates the span of time over which this hinterland was occupied. This raises the possibility of an Aramaean origin for Ituraeans as opposed to an Arab one. The names of Arab tribes are also included in the Assyrian documents from this period onwards, without any mention of Ituraeans. Safaitic inscriptions One of the main sources used to claim that Ituraeans were Arabs is the corpus of Safaitic inscriptions. Safaitic inscriptions, as Macdonald succinctly suggests, provide ‘information on a section of the population which is otherwise largely ignored in the available sources, they are brief, enigmatic and difficult to handle’.33 The vast majority of well over 20,000 inscriptions known so far are virtually all graffiti, and written in an ancient North Arabian dialect. The first graffiti were discovered by Europeans in an area next to the lava fields south-east of Damascus; because this region is referred to as the Safa, the inscriptions were named Safaitic. They are found almost entirely in the basalt desert of south-eastern Syria, across north-eastern Jordan, and into northern Saudi Arabia. Only a few hundred are known from as far away as Dura Europos to the east, Palmyra in the north, and one from the coast of Lebanon. Very rarely have any been found in or around settled areas. Macdonald emphasizes this point when he argues that some scholars have recently claimed that the authors of these texts may well have been sedentaries rather than nomads.34 A particularly unique find comes from a field in the foothills of the 31 32 33

Schwartz 1989: 283. Dar 1993b: 114–33. The spelling of Bir an-Sobah is according to Dar. Macdonald 1993: 303. 34 Macdonald 1993: 311.

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Hermon. It is a basalt stone incised with a Safaitic inscription that Dar has interpreted as ‘interesting evidence of an Arabic nomad population in the Hermon foothills’.35 Macdonald underlines the importance in acknowledging that, at present, all the evidence we have points to the vast majority of those who used these scripts as being nomadic. It does not mean, however, that it was not used by people who were settled, but simply that there is very little evidence that it was. Hoyland supports this belief when he considers that from both the content and distribution of the graffiti, it is clear the writers were nomadic pastoralists.36 The brief messages incised in stone speak of many subjects, all revolving around their daily lives: herding and pasturing, raiding and hunting, prayers and sacrifices, sorrows and loves, hardships and comfort, genealogies and tribal affiliations, summer and winter migrations. The term ‘Safaitic’ is itself a misnomer and bears no relation to what the authors of these inscriptions actually called themselves. The confusion arising from taking the name Safaitic and assuming an ethnicity is thoroughly discussed by Macdonald. The word Safa relates to a small distinctive region north-east of the volcanic area of the Leja, and to the north-west of the Ruhba, where to date no inscriptions have been found, hence the name is totally inappropriate.37 Furthermore, it has led to a labelling of the authors of these inscriptions as ‘Safaites’, providing an ethnic identity for an unknown group supposedly living within the Safa and Hauran regions. This hypothesis cannot be accepted, though there are still scholars who use the term, a fact that merely confuses the issue.38 Macdonald has attempted to clear up this confusion by reminding us, ‘There were no ancient people who went by this name, and there is no indication that all those who used the Safaitic script were members of one distinct community, which is what these terms suggest. A script is not the exclusive property of one particular group.’39 After a wellconsidered argument, Macdonald refutes the claims of other scholars who support the idea of the authors as being sedentary and contends that those who wrote the Safaitic inscriptions were nomads, finding no evidence to support the idea that they lived among the sedentary populations of the Jebel Hawrān.40

35 37 39

Dar 1993b: 17, and 248, pl. 7. 36 Hoyland 2001: 65. Macdonald 1993: 305–8; and also 1998: 183. 38 See Sartre 2005: 69, 233, 359. Macdonald 1993: 307. 40 Macdonald 1993: 322–39.

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Since several scholars have claimed that the Safaitic ʾl yẓr refers to Ituraeans, it is necessary to consider the Safaitic inscriptions and their possible relationship to Ituraeans. More importantly, these inscriptions must be understood within ‘les études historiques et philologiques sur le Proche-Orient hellénistique et romain’.41 The formula these inscriptions generally follow is another essential consideration. Macdonald states: References to events in the Safaitic take two forms: those in which an author says he was involved and those by which he dates his inscription. This distinction is extremely important … References in dating formulae, therefore, are evidence for the spread of news, or rumour, but not necessarily for contact or involvement.42 The relevant inscriptions are:43 CIS V 784 I mġ/.yr bn ʿmm bn ʾd/-nt d/- ʾI yz/.r w- ʾs2rq … By Mġ/.yr son of ʿmm son of ʾd/-nt of the lineage of Yz/.r and he migrated to the inner desert …44 According to Macdonald this is the only inscription by someone claiming to be a member of the ʾl yz/.r, the other inscriptions refer to their activities.45 CIS V 2209 I gd bn frs1 d/- ʾI gfft w qyz/. s1nt h/.rb yz/.r By Gd son of Frs1 of the lineage of Gfft. And he spent dry season [here] the year of the war of Yz/.r [or, less likely (because grammatically more difficult), ‘the year in which Yz/.r made war’] Knauf claims that CIS V 784 and CIS V 2209 were written in Safaitic by Ituraeans, and that CIS V 2209 refers to ‘the year when the Ituraeans waged war’.46 Macdonald, however, refutes this claim as there is no basis for this speculation.

41

Aliquot 1999–2003: 179. 42 Macdonald 1993: 329. The inscriptions as recorded in CIS are in Hebrew. All the above transliterations and translations of the Safaitic inscriptions are by Michael Macdonald using the standard fonts. 44 On this translation, see also Macdonald 1992b: especially 4–6. 45 Macdonald 1993: 336 n. 216. 46 Knauf 1998: 272; see also ABD, III: 583. 43

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CIS V 4677 I ks1t/. bn rnh/. bn ʿIq w dt/.ʾ h- ʿrd/. s1nt h./. wI ʾI yz/.r By Ks1t/. son of Rnh/. son of ʿlq and he spent the season of the later rains in this valley, the year of the removal of the ʾl Yz/.r47 Knauf considers this Safaitic inscription as one of three (CIS 784, 2209 and Ox 58) written by Ituraeans. In the same article he identifies the ‘predatory bedouin’ who inhabited the regions of the Huleh, Paneas and Trachonitis as being the ‘same people who left the majority of the Safaitic inscriptions’.48 This is refuted by Macdonald as there is no evidence that those who wrote the Safaitic inscriptions were the robbers of Trachonitis. CIS V 2156 I d/.hd bn ʿdY bn mt{.}y w wgdʾ t/-r gs2-h qbrn d/-w ʾI yz/.r f-ngʿ By D/.hd son of ʿdy son of Mt{.}y and he found the traces [probably graffiti] of his raiding-party, members of the ʾI Yz/.r having performed the burial, and so he was grieved.49 The inscriptions CIS V 784, 2209, 2156, and 4677 come from a relatively small area in the midst of the lava desert approximately 100 km east of the eastern most village of al-Rushayda on Jebel Hauran. This area is, without doubt, a very long way from regions normally associated with the Ituraeans, and clearly demonstrates the difficulties which can arise in conclusions derived from these inscriptions. At best these conclusions are tenuous, and misleading, or even incorrect. The graffiti of a predominantly nomadic people of the eastern deserts contributes to a larger picture of nomadic tribes; however, the Ituraeans cannot be considered as necessarily part of these tribal groups. Strabo’s account of placing Ituraeans within the Biqa‘ and the regions of the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon forces us to concentrate more on this area where, it is hoped, the future might reveal inscriptions from this region. In reviewing the difficulties posed by the Safaitic inscriptions, the pitfalls which lurk in translation/transliteration and interpretation of the primary material become evident. As we are so frequently reminded, our terminology must first be accurate and concise, determined by broad parameters rather than too narrow. By conceiving of 47 48

Macdonald 1992a: 2–3 on the translation of d-tʾ. Knauf 1992: 583–4. 49 See also Macdonald 2004: 508, 527.

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a people, ‘the Safaites’, and giving an ethnic identity to a name of a script (or region) scholars have been led to make incorrect observations and conclusions. Having said this, we are now better able to understand these inscriptions in terms of where they are found and those who wrote them. This in turn should make us aware of other dangers in handling texts, whether they be historical or inscriptional. Assumptions made about the Yetur can also be misleading. There appears to be a readily accepted view they were a nomadic Arab tribe, identified with the Ituraeans, and associated with the yz/.r as mentioned in the Safaitic graffiti. This leads to an understanding of the Ituraeans as being one of many nomadic Arab tribes who infiltrated the Lebanon and the Anti-Lebanon in the ninth and eighth centuries BCE. There is a tendency to accept these early textual sources in which accounts are given of Arabs living in the hinterland of the mountainous regions as defining Ituraeans, a people then generally described as brigands and robbers or, as Knauf so succinctly claims, ‘predatory Bedouin’.50 Perhaps it is time to re-evaluate these perceptions. Table 2 outlines the development of this long-standing view on Ituraeans, considered both Arab and brigands, assumed to speak Aramaic, and even acknowledged as being Hellenized. Hoyland’s recent statement on the dearth of information with regard to our knowledge of Arabia and Arabians in antiquity is worth reflecting upon: ‘The many centuries of Arabian history that precede the death of Muhammad are little studied and little known in the West.’51 There are two main reasons he gives for this lack: the Greco-Roman sources are only fragments of their writings, and the majority of Muslim sources tend not to focus on the period before Muhammad. In the past western scholarship has been concerned with the Greco-Roman impact on the Near East to the exclusion of its Semitic origins. The impact of Arab and Aramaean incursions into this region has often been misunderstood both in geographical as well as historical terms. However, as stated earlier, there are inherent difficulties in understanding the term ‘Arab’ as it was used in antiquity. Our modern term comes with a ‘rather emotive modern nationalistic sense’, yet it should not deter a pursuit of the Arabs’ place in the history of the ancient Near East, if only to ‘counterbalance the “Greek character” which is so often imparted to the region throughout the Roman period by modern scholarship’.52 50

Knauf 1992: 584.

51

Hoyland 2001: 1.

52

Ball 2000: 31.

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Table 2 Development of opinions regarding the Ituraeans Quote

Source

They were wild border men … The Ituraeans were Arabs an unruly people, given to brigandage … an Arab people … the Ituraeans, of Arabian stock … The former [Ituraeans] were a predatory Arab tribe … the Ituraeans, who terrorized caravan trade from strongholds in the mountains. Ptolemy, a Hellenized Arab … the pacification of Ituraean brigands Hellenized Arabs … rugged and predatory Ituraeans Ituraean Arabs of the Biqa‘ Valley … those mountain Arabs … known for their bellicose nature. In the Lebanon mountains the Ituraean Arabs emerged as a political power … The Ituraeans pursued an expansionist policy. the Ituraeans, an Arab tribe … Ituraea … founded by an Arab tribe … an Arab nomad tribe … Arab extraction the Ituraeans, a semi-nomadic Arab people …

Smith 1902: 544–5 Jones 1971: 254 Hitti 1957b: 171 Wacholder 1974: 134 Ragette 1980: 16 Greenhalgh 1980: 161 Marfoe 1982: 77 Schottroff 1982: 145 Bowersock 1983: 25 MacAdam 1986: 50 Isaac 1990a: 60 Grainger 1990: 183

Sullivan 1990: 71 Schwartz 1991: 19 Knauf 1992: 583 Kindler 1993: 283 Dar 1993b: 42 S. Freyne in Meyers 1997, II: 372 The Ituraeans, a tribe probably of Aramean stock Z. Ma‘oz in Meyers 1997, II: 421 Ituraeans, who were notorious brigands Isaac 1998: 91 the Ituraeans preferred robbing … Knauf 1998: 273 Belligerent Ituraeans … Knauf 1998: 275 Ituraean Arabs … Macadam 1999: 280 Aramaic speaking … Mannheim 2001: 581 The Ituraeans were an Arab tribe based primarily to Chancey 2002: 44 the north and northeast of Galilee, on or around Mount Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon had come from the south of Arabia Sommer 2001: 77 Arabian Ituraeans … Sommer 2001: 83 the local Arab Ituraeans … van Ess 2003: 110 Two Ituraean Arab principalities … Reynolds 2003: 125 seemed originally to be nomadic or semi-nomadic … Wilson 2004: 7 Ituraean Arabs in Lebanon made the central Beqaa Sartre 2005: 33 a true principality

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It is apparent that the question of Ituraean origins and ethnic identity remains both enigmatic and problematic. Established preconceptions are always difficult to change, and attempting to understand sources afresh merely adds to the uncertainty. The fact that earlier assumptions are being challenged may assist in helping to bring Ituraeans more clearly onto the historical map. The basic question remains: who were the Ituraeans? Is it even possible to answer this question? A past tendency to simply place them into the historical record as mere robbers/brigands offers nothing in regard to identity, culture, religion or social structure. The historical record, sparse as it appears to be, does suggest rulers capable of forming a principality, who fought and interacted with Hasmonean, Seleucid, Arab and Roman rulers of their time. Their tribal name, associated as it is with the Roman auxiliaries, remained within the public realm over a period of at least two centuries. Along with the Syrians, their skill as archers was enough for even the poets to acknowledge. In the end, the question of their ethnicity may remain unresolved, but the important issue is to reconsider the current assumptions made about them.

7 T H E I T U R A E A N S IN H I S T O R Y

In the Lebanon mountains the Ituraean Arabs emerged as a political power during the last fifty years of the Seleukids. They were an Arab tribe who began by raiding from the mountains into the Biqaa Valley and towards the west, and then moved into those areas as conquerors.1 History, as in the Greek ἱστορία, has the meaning of inquiry, or of knowledge so obtained. It acquires a more nuanced sense when referring to a written narrative, which constitutes a continuous methodical record in order of time, of important or public events especially those connected with a particular country, people or individuals.2 It is then a matter of inquiry, to seek knowledge, to interpret and record, and then to write without prejudice. Influenced as we are by our own experiences, both past and present, the objectivity required is often difficult to achieve. As suggested in previous chapters, any pursuit in an attempt to construct an unbiased ‘history’ of the Ituraeans is fraught with obstacles, and in fact may never be fully achieved. The quotation above testifies to a long-accepted view of the Ituraeans, an understanding of their history as interpreted from the written documents. That they emerged as a political power beginning in the mid-first century BCE, that they were an Arab people known mainly for their raiding, and that they conquered the region of the Lebanon/Anti-Lebanon, the Biqa‘ valley and areas to the east and south are commonly held perceptions. Such impressions and statements are difficult to disassemble, and when repeated over time tend to become accepted as fact. There is nothing factual with regard to Ituraean ethnic identity, only speculation and assumption. Facts are rare and even then do not display an entire picture, and so the images, provided by writers of long ago, become filtered down and in part 1

Grainger 1990: 183.

2

See the OED for this meaning.

147

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reconstructed through modern scholarship, and begin to take on an even greater immediacy. What might we know about the history of a little-known people; how much can we know without distorting it through the lens of our own preconceptions and prejudices? When Susan Sherwin-White and Amélie Kuhrt wrote From Samarkand to Sardis, it was to express a ‘firmly held view’ that the Seleucid empire as it extended over a vast territory was essentially an ‘eastern empire’. It challenged the long-established belief of many scholars who continued to perceive the ancient Near East only in terms of its encounter with Greeks and Romans. The ‘Hellenization’ of the land and its people became the focal point on which most presuppositions rested. According to Sherwin-White and Kuhrt, the view required serious modification, particularly when one realizes ‘that the area conquered by Alexander included places with a reconstructable history stretching back over three thousand years, which had experienced immense political and social changes and developments within that time’.3 In other words, Hellenistic Syria did not suddenly appear, but was a product as much from Greek/ Macedonian occupation as from the indigenous cultures it encountered. Their work, and the research of others, made evident the importance that for a greater understanding of the Near East we should appreciate the significance of the Achaemenid Empire, and that it be fully realized and accepted. It was during the Achaemenid period that for the first time a diverse state and a people under ‘one imperial system’ was created.4 It was this creation Alexander and his successors first conquered and then adapted. As a result, this approach has also emphasized the need to remember the extent to which the Achaemenid kings adopted and restructured the rich heritage of Assyrian and Babylonian kingdoms they had conquered. It is upon this greater background that the Ituraeans were to later gain some prominence. Not usually mentioned by scholars when considering Ituraean origins are the Aramaeans. Both Aramaean and Arab tribes were an integral component in the mosaic of politics and power that characterized the ancient Near East, but it is the Aramaeans who were to bequeath a heritage of language that survives to this day. A tribal people, the Aramaeans appear in cuneiform records of the twelfth century BCE, and by the eleventh century BCE had attained considerable power and influence. The scattered evidence indicates 3

Sherwin-White and Kuhrt 1993: 1.

4

Sherwin-White and Kuhrt 1993: 1.

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they were active players in Near Eastern history for some 200 years before they emerged as a threat against which Assyria and Babylon had to defend themselves.5 Yet, as much as we know about the Aramaeans, there is much that remains unknown, and we are reminded that the ‘nature of their takeover’ of Syria and northern Mesopotamia remains largely undetermined.6 In the following centuries the land and its people saw the end of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, first through victory by the Achaemenids, followed with victories by the Macedonians, and eventually the Romans. Recently scholars of the ancient Near East have acknowledged that during this long period of upheaval and change, and with the introduction of new cultures, the indigenous populations retained much of their tradition, religion and language. This initial freedom to remain ‘independent’ was allowed by both the Achaemenids and the Seleucids respectively. In particular, it is the Seleucids who have often been perceived as having imposed Hellenization on an ancient Semitic culture, and by so doing created a new Hellenistic Syria, whereas the Achaemenids are left unrecognized for their enduring legacy. The need to reconsider has been strongly asserted by SherwinWhite and Kuhrt when they state: ‘The old image of Alexander the Great and the Greeks resuscitating a moribund and bankrupt “oriental” despotic state by introducing new forms of economic and social life, such as cities, markets, slavery and coinage, which still lingers in some approaches to the Hellenistic world, can now be seen to be untenable.’7 It is a powerful statement well worth acknowledging, and by so doing may help us to discover the hidden hinterland of Syria-Palestine so often forgotten. Alexander governed his empire in accordance with Persian traditions, one factor which helped to maintain its Semitic roots. The conflicts and complexities of controlling an empire, particularly beginning in the second century BCE, were to involve the Seleucids in political struggles with Parthians, Romans, Arabs and the emerging client states which included the Hasmoneans of Judea. The historical record gives no direct mention of Ituraeans at this stage, but doubtless they were part of a mixed population at large. The Aramaeans by now had been absorbed into the greater community, and it is the Arabs who are often mentioned in the classical sources.

5 7

Lipiński 2000: 50. See also Schwartz 1989: 275–91. Sherwin-White and Kuhrt 1993: 1–2.

6

Schwartz 1989: 275.

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The principal sources for the history of the Hasmoneans and their interaction with the Seleucids are 1 and 2 Maccabees, and Josephus’ Antiquities, although it is important to remember that Ant. 12.137–361 ‘is almost exclusively derived’ from 1 Maccabees.8 Both sources are highly subjective with the central text of 1 and 2 Maccabees ‘extremely hard to analyse because of their highly emotive, biased and even, at times, fictitious character’.9 2 Maccabees was written originally in Greek, whereas 1 Maccabees is a Greek translation from an Aramaic original. Although it has been emphasized that each book in its own way is ‘highly tendentious’, it has also been recognized that each retains information of such value it ‘hardly needs underlining’.10 Against this backdrop Josephus presents a history of the Hasmonean dynasty and its emergence as a client state within the Seleucid Empire. However, Sherwin-White and Kuhrt have a notable point to make regarding Maccabees, for ‘[a]lthough the latter provide very useful information about the Seleucid state, their vision tends to be bounded by the comparatively narrow interests of the tiny region of Judaea, which was not a part of the Seleucid empire until the end of the third century’.11 The Ituraeans are never mentioned in Maccabees, and it is Josephus who brings them dramatically into the picture, usually in opposition to the Hasmoneans. The Arabs appear as powerful allies or at times forceful enemies. 1 Maccabees 2.15–20 recounts the confrontation between the Seleucid Alexander Balas and Ptolemy Philometor, which resulted in the flight of Alexander Balas to Arabia. Josephus (Ant. 13.118 ) offers a parallel description, the main difference being in the name of the Arab chieftain to whom Alexander had fled for safety. Maccabees has Zabdiel and Josephus has Zabeilus. No further details are given concerning him, nor any information as to the location of the battle or the geographic location of the ‘Arabia’ mentioned. Dar assumes that Alexander Balas died in the Biqa‘ valley, as he makes a connection with the Ituraeans, suggesting they were related to the same tribe as that of the Arab Zabeilus/ Zabdiel.12 According to Strabo 16.2.8 the battle took place on the plain of Antioch: Now below Pagrae lies the plain of the Antiocheians, through which flow the Arceuthus and Orontes and Labotas Rivers; 8 10 12

Habicht 1989: 346. 9 Sherwin-White and Kuhrt 1993: 226. Rajak 1994: 277. 11 Sherwin-White and Kuhrt 1993: 3. Dar 1993b: 19 with reference to Kasher 1988: 37.

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and in this plain the palisade of Meleager, as also the Oenoparas River, on the banks of which Ptolemy Philometor conquered Alexander Balas but died from a wound. The next mention of an Arab leader comes almost immediately. Alexander Balas left a young son, later known as Antiochus VI (Theos Epiphanes Dionysos), who had been given into the care of Malchus, the Arab. one of Alexander’s generals Diodotus … he went to Malchus the Arab, who was bringing up Alexander’s son Antiochus, and after revealing to him the army’s dissatisfaction with Demetrius, persuaded him to give Antiochus over to him, saying that he would make him king and would restore to him his father’s throne (Ant. 13.131–2). Josephus repeats the information given in 1 Macc. 2.38–40.13 It has been suggested that Malchus could have been the successor to Zabdiel and that he was an Ituraean.14 If one assumes that Ituraeans were Arabs, this would fit well into the picture, though it would also have to be assumed that the Arabia mentioned by both the writer of 1 Maccabees and Josephus is indeed the Biqa‘ valley; no other writer from antiquity makes this association. Strabo is quite specific that the Ituraean territory is the Massyas Plain, between the Lebanon and the Anti-Lebanon. Arabia is beyond the Anti-Lebanon, to the east and south where the landscape is desert and/or volcanic plateau. Considering the emphasis that Josephus later puts on the Ituraeans as an unruly people, it seems unusual at this point that he does not make any connection, if in fact there really was one to make. A third mention of Arabians comes when Jonathan the Hasmonean ‘turned aside against the Arabs who are called Zabadaeans, and he crushed them and plundered them. Then he broke camp and went to Damascus, and marched through all that region.’15 In Josephus’ reporting of this event there is a slight change. Jonathan is said to have ‘turned back from there to Arabia and made war on the Nabataeans, driving off many of their cattle and taking captives, and then went to Damascus, where he sold them all’ (Ant. 13.179). The change in name here remains unclear. Did Josephus understand a different tribe from that reported in Maccabees or, as Kasher 13 14

1 Macc. 2.38–40 has the name Imalkue; Diodorus 33.4 has Iamblichus. Kasher 1988: 38. 15 1 Macc. 12.31–2.

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believes, are the Zabadaeans related to Zabdiel, which puts them within the area of the Biqa‘ valley and possibly related to the Ituraeans?16 Having served as high priest for ten years, an honour bestowed upon him by the Seleucid ruler Alexander Balas, Jonathan died in 143/2 BCE. He had ruled since the death of his brother Judas Maccabaeus in 161 BCE. The Seleucid king Alexander Balas presented Jonathan with the purple cloak along with his protection (1 Macc. 10.62), securing his safety against those who seemed ready to ‘accuse him’, and at the same time allowing Jonathan to return to Jerusalem ‘in peace and gladness’ (1 Macc. 10.61, 66). ‘And so great was the friendly interest in Jonathan shown by King Alexander that he even inscribed him as his First Friend (τω̑ ν ϕίλων).’17 This naming of ‘first friend’ conveys the impression of a Seleucid ruler who, apparently, was intent on maintaining cordial relations with the Hasmonean ruler or, as Rajak contends, it was by favour of the Seleucids that the Hasmoneans were able to govern Judea.18 The sources offer no mention of the Ituraeans for this same period. Upon the death of Jonathan he was succeeded by his brother Simon, who ruled for a mere eight years. Although short, Simon’s rule was marked by one significant change: in 140 BCE he was declared High Priest by the people as well as governor (στρατηγός) and leader (ἡγούμενος) of the nation (1 Macc. 14.41–2). This change came as a confirmation of the titles now being ‘internally sanctioned’; they required no external approval, giving Simon all the powers of a king without using the name.19 The event was a great public occasion before the assembled people. Hinted at in Josephus’ eloquent description (Ant. 13. 213–14) is the growing prominence of the Hasmonean dynasty in the political affairs of the Seleucid Empire. And Simon, after being chosen high priest by the populace, in the first year of his high-priesthood liberated the people from servitude to the Macedonians, so that they no longer had to pay tribute to them … The Hasmoneans were to make their largest territorial gains under Simon’s successors.20 Simon’s third son, John Hyrcanus, assumed the High Priesthood on the death of his father and ruled for thirty-one years (135–104 BCE). During this long period he issued his own 16 18

Kasher 1988: 36. Rajak 1994: 282.

17 19

The scene is repeated in Ant. 13.83–5. Rajak 1994: 285. 20 Rajak 1994: 287.

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bronze coins, of which one was found at the site of Har Sena‘im.21 He introduced the practice of hiring mercenaries and as a result the dynasty’s military capacity grew, as did the extension of Jewish territory. Although his exploits brought him into contact with Seleucids, Romans, Parthians and Nabataeans, as both friend and enemy, there is no mention of any confrontation with the Ituraeans. His activities have been described as being restricted to ‘carefully judged campaigns’ with ‘limited targets’ perhaps motivated as a way to increase resources or protect trade.22 In one of these campaigns Josephus tells of his ‘subduing all the Idumaeans’ and permitting them ‘to remain in their country so long as they had themselves circumcised and were willing to observe the laws of the Jews’ (Ant. 13.257). This particular passage has no parallel in War but it is a foretaste of the analogous passage later in Antiquities where the Ituraeans are said to have met a similar fate (Ant. 13.318). The circumcision passage presents us with another dilemma, as mentioned previously. If we take Josephus at face value, then we also accept the Ituraeans as being either forcibly circumcised or choosing to do so voluntarily. Either way it assumes the Ituraeans were occupying the northern Galilee at this time, or at the very least were in the general vicinity. The archaeological evidence does not, at present, support this claim nor do we know and cannot know what actually happened. I have taken this position particularly because of the second issue raised here, that of assuming Ituraeans occupied this territory, which rests on another assumption, that of conflating Ant. 134.318–19 with War 1. 76 and concluding that the Ituraeans were in the northern Galilee. The debate on the circumcision issue continues, with scholars taking differing views, and will likely continue for some time to come. This parallel passage fits more into Josephus’ literary construct and his emphasis on Hasmonean expansionist goals. The importance of a careful, well-considered approach to the historical/ literary texts is clearly elucidated by Rajak, who reminds us of the inherent dangers in making assumptions that go beyond the evidence: We are not entitled to assume, as modern writers are inclined to do, that destruction and expulsion were the preordained lot of all those who, unlike the Idumaeans, would not convert; still less to imagine that Hyrcanus, and perhaps others

21

See Dar 1993b: 83.

22

Rajak CAH 9: 291–2.

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The Ituraeans and the Roman Near East of the later Hasmoneans, were seeking to ensure for every part of their holdings a purely Jewish occupation.23

Once again the important point being made here is not to assume what we cannot know. After the death of Hyrcanus in 104 BCE, the eldest of his five sons Aristobulus ‘saw fit to transform the government to a kingdom, which he judged the best form’, and was the ‘first to put a diadem on his head’ (Ant. 13.301). Josephus’ description of the character of Aristobulus is brief but telling. Of his four brothers Aristobulus ‘loved only Antigonus’ while the others were kept ‘in chains’ and his mother ‘imprisoned’ until his cruelty ‘caused her to die of starvation in prison’ (Ant. 13.301–2). This comment is in stark contrast to the picture both Strabo (on the authority of Timagenes) and Josephus draw in their lament over the untimely death of Aristobulus. One cannot help but wonder at the transformation; someone who was willing to plot the death of his mother and brothers not long afterwards is eulogized as being a ‘kindly person’ and a man ‘wholly given to modesty’ (Ant. 13.319). Even modesty is questionable for someone who previously has acted without consultation and then been the first to put the diadem upon his head. We are, however, reminded by Josephus that these are comments made by Strabo, on the authority of Timagenes. Added to this is the enigma presented by the passages in Ant. 13.317–19, and the question of which geographic region was the Ituraean territory that Aristobulus is said to have acquired. As both Strabo and Josephus are ultimately dependent on Timagenes, the question also needs to be asked as to what Timagenes means when he speaks of an ‘Ituraean nation’ (̕Ιτουραίων ἒθνους). There is no clear answer to these queries, and we can only speculate as to what Timagenes means when he speaks of an Ituraean ἒθνους except to understand it as being a group separate from the Hasmoneans. At the very least it would seem the Ituraeans exist as a cohesive, identifiable group which Timagenes has identified as an ἔθνους. Strabo and Josephus merely repeat the sources at hand, which in this case can be traced back to Timagenes. Equally significant, it is worth considering, in light of recent archaeological reports, that it is perhaps spurious to assume Antigonus campaigned in the Galilee against the Ituraeans from which he returned ‘with glory’ (Ant. 13.304) .

23

Rajak 1994: 292–3.

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Alexander Jannaeus, assuming the titles of High Priest and king upon the deaths in quick succession of Aristobulus and Antigonus, ruled for twenty-seven years (103–76 BCE). During this period the dynasty’s military force grew and the extension of Jewish territory continued. The policies Jannaeus pursued have been seen as being ‘unequivocally aggressive’ with the motivation for his campaigns, for the most part, lost.24 This was an era when Seleucid rule was being challenged by a multiplicity of varying groups, small principalities and client kingdoms, Arab tribes and Roman interests, with the Seleucid dynasty becoming ever more weakened by its own internal struggles. The emergence of the Ituraean principality during the same period is not documented in any detail, and can only be speculated upon. The instability of the Syria-Palestine region would likely have contributed, allowing strong leaders to gain power and challenge any perceived authority. The Seleucid king Antiochus XII Dionysus launched two separate campaigns against the Arabs c. 86/85 BCE, in the second of which he was defeated and died in battle (84 BCE). Earlier, Alexander Jannaeus had failed in an attempt to stop Antiochus outside Joppa. During this brief time Damascus had been left without a ruler, Philip the brother of Antiochus having been driven outside the gates. With the death of Antiochus XII, it was Aretas, king of the Nabataeans, who was eventually ‘called to the throne’ (Ant. 13.392 = War 1.103) and took control of Damascus. The reason Josephus gives for the Damascenes’ appeal to Aretas was their hatred of Ptolemy, son of Mennaeus. This is the first mention of Ptolemy, who was at that time (it is presumed) tetrarch of the small principality of Ituraea. Confirmation of this can be found in the issue of coins of Ptolemy, with the legend bearing his name and title. Josephus does not elaborate or provide any details as to why the people of Damascus hated Ptolemy, although it is easy to assume his unpopularity may have had something to do with the way he ruled his territory. Josephus may well be expressing an opinion he has heard from other sources, or one he has formed on his own. Since Josephus is the only one who gives any information, there is nothing to either deny or confirm the reasons for Ptolemy’s unpopularity. This difficulty is compounded by the fact that Josephus relied on sources relating to events that had taken place in the century previous to his writing.

24

Rajak 1994: 291.

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Circumstances in Seleucid Syria at this time would have undoubtedly created an uncertain atmosphere; with Tigranes having entered Syria in 83 BCE the leadership of the empire was once again under threat. Those Greek cities that had sided with Tigranes were given autonomy and coinage rights. In this same period, Ptolemy the son of Mennaeus must have gained authority and consent from Tigranes for permission to issue coins that bore his legend: ΠΤΟΛΕΜΑΙΟΥ ΤΕΤΡΑΧΟΥ.25 According to Kindler, some coins are dated to the Seleucid era, others later to the Pompeian. Bowersock contends it was the decline of the Seleucids and the Ptolemies that was a factor in emboldening the smaller states of the Near East to mint their own autonomous coins.26 There is nothing in the coins to indicate a digression from the accepted Seleucid order, with the head of Zeus a common feature on the obverse. Similarly, when Aretas III succeeded in taking control of Damascus, his issue took on the familiar pattern of Greek legend and the Seleucid era.27 The Seleucid Near East during this period was in fact on the brink of changes that were to continue down to the end of the century. The Armenian king Tigranes, having occupied Syria with his forces in 83 BCE, on reaching Antioch was offered the Seleucid throne, which he accepted. An apt description of Tigranes’ entry into Syria is recorded in Appian’s Syrian Wars 8.48. Tigranes, the son of Tigranes, king of Armenia, who had subdued many of the neighbouring nations which had kings of their own, and from these exploits had acquired the title of King of Kings, attacked the Seleucidae because they would not acknowledge his supremacy … Tigranes conquered all the Syrian peoples this side of the Euphrates as far as Egypt. At this same time, and once in control of Damascus, Aretas ‘felt strong enough to launch an offensive of his own against Alexander Jannaeus and he invaded Palestine’.28 Having defeated Jannaeus in Palestine, Aretas returned to Damascus only after losing some of his territory in the Transjordan to Jannaeus. A digression from the accepted inherited succession by the eldest son occurred when, upon Jannaeus’ death in 76 BCE, his widow Alexandra succeeded him. This event is considered by some scholars to reveal a Hellenistic 25 26 28

Head 1887: 655; Wroth 1899: 279 no. 2; Kindler 1993: 283–6. Bowersock 1983: 22. 27 Bowersock 1983: 25 and n. 49. Bowersock 1983: 25; Ant. 13.392.

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influence among the ruling Hasmonean dynasty.29 By 72 BCE, some twelve years after taking control, Aretas lost Damascus to Tigranes. Almost immediately ‘Tigranes took over the coinage at Damascus from Aretas and thereby took upon himself the mantle of the Seleucids’.30 The issue of coins by Tigranes continues down to 69 BCE, and, whether through coincidence or design, dating on the coins of Ptolemy, son of Mennaeus, begins in 73/2 BCE, the same year as those of Tigranes.31 During his siege of Ptolemais-Ake in 69 BCE, Tigranes was compelled to recall his army after hearing that Lucullus, commander of the Roman army, had invaded his homeland and captured the city of Tigranocerta. It is in this somewhat confused period that Alexandra sent her son Aristobulus II with an army to Damascus (War 1.115; Ant. 13.418), and it may well have been an attempt on her part ‘to make capital of this crisis’.32 In War Josephus suggests it was done on the pretext that Ptolemy had been putting constant pressure on the city, where in Antiquities it is less clear as to when the event takes place, though Josephus repeats the same formulaic statement that it was an action taken against Ptolemy the son of Mennaeus, who was a troublesome neighbour. We are left to speculate once again as to why Ptolemy was such a troublesome neighbour, although it fits into an overall picture whereby one group is constantly contrasted with another. At the same time it had much to do with the ongoing power struggles between various dynastic groups, the Hasmoneans, Arabs, Romans and Seleucids, as well as Josephus’ own interpretation of his sources. As a literary device used by Josephus, it reflects his own subjective understanding of Ptolemy and the Ituraeans. The Hasmoneans were only one group among several struggling to regain power and control of territory, and inevitably came into contact with the Ituraeans. Ptolemy, as a tribal ruler of a rival principality, would, at the same time, be attempting to maintain a tenuous grip on territory, and without further information it is difficult to fully understand the complexity of his rule. It is little more than an unfortunate presupposition of some scholars to simply take Josephus at his word, and conclude that Damascus once again fell ‘to the ravages of the Ituraeans’.33 The years between 69 BCE and 66 BCE left Damascus without any direct rule and the rest of the land equally troubled. The Hasmonean 29 31 32

Rajak 1994: 296. 30 Bowersock 1983: 26. Kindler 1993: 283–6 and coins nos. 2, 3, 4, all of the Seleucid era. Bowersock 1983: 26 and n. 55. 33 Bowersock 1983: 26.

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Alexandra died in 67 BCE while the bitter rivalry between her two sons continued, with opportunistic moves by Aretas attempting to take advantage of the rift. In 66 BCE Rome was finally moved to give Pompey Lex Manilia, command to sort out the difficulties in Asia.34 The Lex Manilia originates with the tribune Manilius Gaius who in 66 BCE conferred on Pompey the command against Mithradates VI and Tigranes II, including imperium over all the provinces of Asia Minor. This move abrogated all powers given to Lucullus to resolve the enmity between Tigranes and Mithradates in Armenia; they were now superseded by Pompey’s. Tigranes surrendered to Pompey at Artaxata, the formulation of Pompey’s response being ‘the normal phraseology of the Hellenistic world, avoiding the cruder Roman style of a demand for deditio, or unconditional surrender’.35 Pompey claimed for Rome all the provinces of the former empire of Tigranes allowing for the central kingdom to survive as a dependent state, and at the same time revealing Pompey’s intention in the Roman East. It was to initiate the method by which Rome gradually took control.36 Pompey’s actions at this time had as much to do with his personal ego as with politics, nonetheless, these actions had a longlasting effect on Rome’s control over the East. As Holland so eloquently says, ‘When Pompey raised Tigranes from the dust, he did so as the stern protector of the Republic’s interest.’37 It was in the late summer of 64 BCE that Pompey began his move southward into Syria. At Antioch Pompey was met by Antiochus XIII, the last of the Seleucid kings, who had come to claim the throne. Recognizing his kingship, Pompey then proceeded on to Damascus. The route taken by Pompey is described by Josephus (Ant. 14.38–40), and lends much support to a claim by scholars of Ituraean expansion and aggression within Syria: And on the way he (Pompey) demolished (κατέσκαψεν) the citadel at Apamea, which Antiochus Cyzicenus had built, and he also devastated (κατεπόνησεν) the territory of Ptolemy, the son of Mennaeus a worthless fellow, no less than was Dionysius of Tripolis, a relative of his by marriage, who was beheaded … He also destroyed the fortress of Lysias, of which the Jew Silas was lord. And passing the cities of Heliopolis and Chalcis, he crossed the mountain See OCD: 917; also Sartre 2001: 441–7. 35 Sherwin-White 1994: 253. See Sherwin-White 1994: 253, for these assessments; also Green 1990: 658; Holland 2003: 177–9. 37 Holland 2003: 179. 34 36

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that divides the region called Coele-Syria from the rest of Syria, and came to Damascus. From this description it is clear Pompey marched south through the eastern hinterland to Apamea, then moved on to Lysias, a site which remains unknown but must have been to the north of Heliopolis and likely somewhere in the northern Biqa‘. In another description of Pompey’s march south it is claimed that Pompey suppressed the Arabs of the Libanus and eventually visited the Ituraean cities of Heliopolis and Chalcis, which contradicts Josephus in Ant. 14.38–40.38 The only other information Josephus reveals is that Lysias was controlled by a Jew named Silas (Σιλας ὁ ̕Ιουδαι ο̑ ς) whom Josephus actually refers to as τύραννος (tyrant).39 In the same passage Josephus refers to Dionysius as being a ‘relative’ (by marriage) of Ptolemy, which has occasionally been taken to mean that Dionysius was Ituraean. This would be to stretch the evidence, as there is nothing particularly unusual in Dionysius being a relative since dynastic marriage was a common occurrence, no doubt intended to solidify control over a particular region. It had been an accepted fact among monarchies of the Near East for over a millennium, and was later to be exploited by Augustus.40 In this case it appears to have been ineffective in offering any protection against an invading power. Josephus gives no indication that Heliopolis and Chalcis posed any immediate threat and describes Pompey as merely passing them by. Pompey’s route across the AntiLebanon is likely to have been through the Zebdani pass, and following the Barada River to Damascus (Suk Wadi Barada), the same route used throughout antiquity and still used today. Strabo’s description of the Massyas Plain and the robbers who inhabited the mountainous parts of the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon clearly suggests the presence of Ituraeans in this region (Geog. 16.2.18). As stressed previously, Strabo distinguishes between Ituraeans and Arabians, and however he understands these groups they are at least to be interpreted as distinct from each other. In comparing Strabo’s description with the above passage from Josephus, it is safe to conclude that the Ituraean territory was centred in the southern Biqa‘. As he continues his description of the Massyas Plain, harassed as it was by robbers, Strabo (Geog. 16.2.18) names towns and fortresses in the 38 39 40

Greenhalgh 1980: 140–1 and 161–2. Ant. 14.40, where Marcus has translated τύραννος as ‘lord’. Jacobson 2001: 23.

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Lebanon region and along the Phoenician coast which were later destroyed by Pompey: These robbers use strongholds as bases of operation; those, for example, who hold Libanus possess, high up on the mountain, Sinna and Borrama, and other fortresses like them, and, down below, Botrys and Gigartus and the caves by the sea and the castle that was erected on Theuprosopon. Pompey destroyed these places … Now Byblus, the royal residence of Cynyras, is sacred to Adonis; but Pompey freed it from tyranny by beheading its tyrant with an axe; Although Strabo does not state specifically that any of these particular towns were Ituraean strongholds, it has long been assumed they were on the basis of the preceding passages. It is plausible that Ituraeans and Arabians controlled strongholds in the mountains of the Lebanon and the Anti-Lebanon, but it does not necessarily follow that the robbers who overran Byblos and Berytus were Ituraeans. Since brigandage and robbery were endemic to the region, and difficult to suppress at this time, as well as a constant threat to travelling merchants and the sedentary population, it is not unreasonable to speculate the existence of many disparate groups of brigands operating in the region. Only with Roman military strength and governance was brigandage gradually brought under control, and this not until the early part of the first century CE, although even then not entirely, as can be seen in the inscription of Q. Aemilius Secundus.41 In all likelihood Pompey’s destruction of cities as described by Strabo and the ensuing chaos and instability of the region would have done more to enable brigandage than alleviate it. Many years later the Romans restored Berytus after it was ‘razed to the ground by Tryphon’, and Agrippa settled two legions there. It was at this same time that ‘Much of the territory of Massyas, as far as the sources of the Orontes River’ was added to that of Berytus (Strabo 16.2.19). This implies that the source of the Orontes, as it emerges in the Biqa‘ valley north of Heliopolis, was within Ituraean territory, and supports evidence already mentioned of Ituraean territory being incorporated into the environs of Berytus at the time Augustus made it a colony. The textual and archaeological evidence for the hinterland of the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon region and its inhabitants is limited for the Persian and Hellenistic periods. As a result of his surveys in the 41

ILS 2683.

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region, Marfoe believed that under the Ptolemies and the Seleucids the hinterland had remained largely neglected. In the Biqa‘ valley the expanse of wooded hill slopes survived until the later centuries of the first millennium BCE as cultivation was confined to a long band of alluvial and colluvial plain roughly 700–800 km2 in area. In his assessment Marfoe concluded that ‘the first appearance of the modern pattern as an effective ecosystem does not appear to have taken place until after the Roman annexation of Surai’.42 Any clear definition of where boundaries lay in antiquity between the various territorial regions is difficult to assess. The extent of territory considered to be part of Ituraean lands, and under their control, by the latter part of the first century BCE has been determined mainly on the limited information Josephus records. Any details as to how this tetrarchy functioned have been lost. Although the presence of robbers and bandits in the area was not an uncommon occurrence, to claim they were in fact all Ituraeans is far too general and cannot be verified. Both Strabo and Josephus would have us believe these assumptions, their descriptions concentrating only on the disruptive aspects of the region and its people. We are compelled to consider a much broader picture. As the historical record for this time period is silent on Ituraean society, their numbers and strength, any definitive conclusions cannot be made on such limited evidence. Yet statements in a recent publication appear to contradict this, and a far different theory for the Biqa‘ in the late Hellenistic and early Roman periods has been proposed. This suggestion comes as a result of recent surveys conducted in the southern Biqa‘, and in particular the ongoing excavations at Kamid el-Loz. Archaeologists who work at these sites now claim that when the Romans eventually took control of the Biqa‘ they found a ‘flourishing and stable settlement-system’, and furthermore suggest that this settlement system had been established under the Ituraeans. It is an exciting proposal, for until now we have had little evidence or opportunity to fully understand the Biqa‘ during this period. It may yet be some time before any definitive conclusions can be made, but it opens the way to possibly seeing the Ituraeans in a more positive light. Their suggestion that Heliopolis-Baalbek was the religious centre for the Ituraeans as it ‘reflected the prosperous state of the area’ is still open to question.43 At this time I believe it is too early to draw such a firm conclusion. 42

Marfoe 1982: 467.

43

Heinz et al. 2007–2008: 179.

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Ptolemy, son of Mennaeus, seemingly had access to enough funds to pay 1,000 talents to Pompey, thus enabling him to retain his tetrarchy, and possibly his life as recorded by Josephus (Ant. 14.39). In the political game of the period this was not an unusual manoeuvre, and certainly lends credence to the wealth that Ptolemy apparently had at hand. Pompey’s personal objectives and motivations at this point appear to support the idea that his intentions were ‘to secure as much by military diplomacy as by naked force’.44 Several years later (c. 49/48 BCE) Ptolemy is known to have made another significant move by taking in the sisters and brother (Antigonus) of Aristobulus II who, on the orders of Pompey, was executed at Antioch. Shortly thereafter the Hasmonean dynasty and the Ituraean principality were bound together through the marriage of Ptolemy to one of the sisters. The consequences of this union are never fully revealed in terms of attrition of land or power gained, yet in considering the need for client kingdoms to constantly reinforce their autonomy it could not have gone unnoticed. In relating the incident, Josephus describes Ptolemy as ‘prince of Chalcis at the foot of Mount Lebanon’ (Ant. 14.126), with a slightly different emphasis in War: ‘Ptolemy, son of Mennaeus, prince of Chalcis in the Lebanon valley’ (1.185). The statement in War appears to support Strabo’s assertion of Chalcis being located in the Lebanon valley (or the Biqa‘), and it being the acropolis of the Ituraean principality.45 By the spring/summer of 41 BCE Herod and his brother Phasael gained recognition in affairs of the Roman Near East when Antony acknowledged each as tetrarch. Antony had toured the eastern provinces, imposed further levies, and begun his reorganization of the administration. The implications for the Ituraeans would be played out in future years. Events escalated when in 40 BCE the Parthians invaded Syria, Ptolemy died and was succeeded by his son Lysanias, and Herod was recognized as king of Judea. In recording the death of Ptolemy, Josephus provides further significant information. At the same time Ptolemy, the son of Mennaeus, died, and his son Lysanias on succeeding to his throne made a pact of friendship with Antigonus, the son of Aristobulus, in which matter he found the satrap useful, for he had great influence with him (Ant. 14.330).

44

Sherwin-White 1994: 252. The inscription PIR2 I 467 indicates that under Lysanias I, son of Ptolemy, Chalcis was the capital of the Ituraean territory. 45

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The passage reveals the ongoing close association between Ituraeans and Hasmoneans, a friendship that in the end was a possible contributory factor in their later contact with Antony. The passage is made even more revealing as Josephus continues: And Antigonus promised to give the Parthians a thousand talents and five hundred women if they would deprive Hyrcanus of power and give it over to him (Ant. 14.331). In War, however, Josephus gives a quite different picture and appears to contradict the above. Lysanias … induced the satrap, by the promise of a thousand talents and five hundred women, to bring back Antigonus and raise him to the throne, after deposing Hyrcanus (War 1.248–9). Yet a short time later Josephus once more changes the emphasis and here is in agreement with what he states in Antiquities. There they heard of the promise of the thousand talents, and that the five hundred women whom Antigonus had devoted to the Parthians included most of their own (War 1.257). The episode is significant in that it illustrates the political intrigues of both the Ituraeans and Hasmoneans during the early days of the Parthian incursions. The confusion that Josephus brings to these passages is difficult to understand. Regardless of who offered the bribe, it is reasonable to assume that both Antigonus and Lysanias were involved in some type of negotiation with the Parthians. As the Parthian war dragged on for the next two years without Antony in the region, by the spring of 37 BCE, Herod had returned to successfully take Jerusalem and become king. Antigonus was captured, and when Antony eventually returned to the East he yielded to Herod’s pressure and had Antigonus publicly executed at Antioch. When the Parthians invaded Syria in 40 BCE, Antony was in Rome. He had spent the winter of 41–40 BCE in Alexandria with Cleopatra, and in the following year he left Rome never to return. By 37 BCE he arrived back in the East to spend the winter with Cleopatra, this time in Antioch. As part of Rome’s triumvirate, and now in control of the East, he was involved in a desperate power struggle to maintain and expand his authority. The policies that he undertook in the East inevitably helped in the creation of a number of

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client kingdoms.46 Some of those policies and decisions were a possible result of his close relationship with Cleopatra. Opinions vary as to whether Antony was completely under the spell of Cleopatra or if in fact he conceded to her demands for his own purpose. Cleopatra’s request for land in 40 BCE came at a period when Rome had not yet gained full control of the region, and many other petty tyrants/rulers were still vying for territory. Antony had, by now, given Cleopatra Coele Syria rather than the territory she had asked for, which according to Marcus was Chalcis in Lebanon.47 Cleopatra was not one to forget, as Josephus states that she was a woman who was enslaved by her appetites, clearly illustrated in the lines ‘when she passed through Syria with him [Antony], she thought of ways to get it into her possession’ (Ant. 15.92). In the year that Ptolemy died, Lysanias and Antigonus pledged their friendship, and one would assume mutual support. In 36 BCE, several years after her initial request for territory, and with Antigonus now dead, Cleopatra succeeded in accusing ‘Lysanias, the son of Ptolemaeus, of bringing in the Parthians against the interests of the (Roman) government, and had him killed’ (Ant. 15.92).48 It is interesting to speculate as to what really motivated Antony in his decision to execute Lysanias. The execution of Antigonus was likely the result of the many intrigues surrounding Herod, the Hasmonean dynasty and the apparent popularity that Antigonus held among his own people.49 That Antigonus and Lysanias died within a year of each other enabled Cleopatra to gain land and power at their expense, but, as one scholar has suggested, through his support of Cleopatra, Antony also gained recognition in Egypt.50 This could well have been a strong factor in the ultimate demise of Lysanias. The innovation that Lysanias introduced onto his coinage perhaps indicates his presentiment to power. Placing the diadem on the obverse of his coinage expresses the self-definition of his own aspirations at that time. As mentioned previously, another remarkable feature in his coinage is the appearance of the letters ‫בם‬, on which we might speculate two possibilities: what has already been suggested, that it is Aramaic reflecting an Ituraean association; or that it reflects a close Pelling 1996: 28. 47 Ant. 15.79 and note ‘a’, p. 38. See also Dio, Roman History 49.32.5. 49 Ant. 15.8–9 and note ‘b’ p. 7 where it is suggested that the beheading probably took place after the fall of Jerusalem in 37 BCE; see also War 1.357; and Bowersock 1983: 40–1. 50 Pelling 1996: 30. 46 48

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association with the Hasmoneans, and Lysanias being influenced by that friendship. This is mere speculation, and to date the reason for these letters has not been resolved. From the scant textual references in Josephus and others, and without making too specious a statement, the Ituraean principality at this time seems to have held a position crucial in the manipulations of power. By 34 BCE Cleopatra had managed to acquire large tracts of land, ‘her ambitions extending to Judaea and Arabia’ (War 1.360). Upon the death of Lysanias she took control of his territory, and her coinage provides proof of her status. Antony gave her parts of lands belonging to Herod and Malchus, the cities between Eleutherus and Egypt with the exception of Tyre and Sidon, along with ‘the palm-grove of Jericho where the balsam grows’ (War 1.361–2 = Ant. 15.96).51 Somewhat later both Herod and Malchus leased back these lands at an annual fee of 200 talents apiece, a considerable sum to be added to the coffers of Cleopatra. Rather than see this in the light of Antony’s weakness at the demands of Cleopatra, Pelling contends that ‘the grants still fitted Antony’s policy of strengthening loyal monarchs, and so far nothing suggests that Antony was favouring her unduly’.52 The fortunes of both Antony and Cleopatra changed dramatically, however, when in 31 BCE Octavian defeated Antony at Actium. Herod, a past supporter of Antony and in Rome during this crucial stage, quickly changed sides and went in haste to greet the new Caesar. Since the death of Lysanias, and during the period of Cleopatra’s rule, there had been no apparent strong leadership to govern the Ituraean principality. Although technically the territory had been under Cleopatra, it is not without some doubt that she did anything to maintain its cohesiveness, nor is there any evidence to support such actions. The region as a whole was fraught with internecine struggles, and the evident rise in the problems of robbery/banditry at this time can be better understood in the light of this backdrop. It has been generally accepted that Zenodorus, who succeeded Cleopatra as tetrarch of the Ituraean principality, was the son of Lysanias, although this remains open to question. A fragmentary inscription from an elaborately carved architrave found at Baalbek/ Heliopolis mentions a ‘Zenodorus, son of the tetrarch, Lysanias’.53 51

These grants were probably given in 37–36 BCE; see Pelling 1996: 29 and note 133. See Bowersock’s comment (1983: 40–1). 52 Pelling 1996: 30. 53 IGLS VI 2851 = IGR III 1085 = Waddington IGL III 1880 = CIG 4523; and PIR2 VL 467. See also Gatier 2002–2003: 120–7; Seyrig 1970b: 251–4.

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The inscription, broken as it is into four sections, is incomplete. Schürer considered the inscription to refer to the son of Lysanias, the same Lysanias executed by Antony, but also supporting a theory that ‘there were several dynasts by the name of Lysanias’.54 Seyrig agrees with Schürer in accepting this Zenodorus to be the son of Lysanias, former tetrarch of Ituraea. However, Butcher is more cautious when he states that Zenodorus was ‘probably, but not certainly, a relative of Lysanias’.55 Coins issued with his name and legend as tetrarch and chief priest testify to the rule of Zenodorus. There is no specific text that states when Zenodorus took over the tetrarchy, but it is assumed that it was by 30 BCE, after the death of Cleopatra. In all likelihood it was Caesar (Octavian) who formally gave Zenodorus back his inherited lands, which may explain the appearance of the imperial portrait on his coinage. During his tenyear rule he gradually lost control over certain territories. In 23 BCE Caesar (Octavian) had added Trachonitis, Batanaea and Auranitis to Herod’s realm. We learn of the reasons from Josephus (War 1.398) who describes quite clearly: Zenodorus, who had taken on lease the domain of Lysanias, was perpetually setting the brigands of Trachonitis to molest the inhabitants of Damascus. The latter fled for protection to Varro, the governor of Syria, and besought him to report their sufferings to Caesar; on learning the facts Caesar sent back orders to exterminate the bandits. Varro, accordingly, led his troops, cleared the district of these pests and deprived Zenodorus of his tenure. This is paralleled in Ant. 15.343–4: There was a certain Zenodorus who had leased the domain of Lysanias, but not being satisfied with the revenues, he increased his income by using robber bands in Trachonitis. For the inhabitants of that region led desperate lives and pillaged the property of the Damascenes, and Zenodorus did not stop them but himself shared in their gains. From what Josephus reports it appears that all the territory granted to Herod had previously been under the realm of Zenodorus. This would seem to indicate that lands under Ituraean control had 54 55

Schürer 1973: 566; also Rey-Coquais, IGLS VI 2851: 150 n. 1. Butcher 2003: 93.

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been expanded beyond the Biqa‘ into territory south and east – Trachonitis, Batanaea and Auranitis. In what sense are we to understand ‘the domain’ of Lysanias? Does it have the meaning of exacting more than revenues (if indeed they did so) from the indigenous population? Are we to accept that large numbers of Ituraeans have gone into these regions to settle and establish homes and villages? Since to date there is no cultural material identifiable as Ituraean, to assume that all the lands were heavily settled by Ituraeans is perhaps presuming more than is known. Through Josephus we learn of the difficulties the people around Damascus experienced in dealing with the endemic brigandage. To make matters worse, the leader of the neighbouring territory, the tetrarch Zenodorus, had not made any effort to stop it, and in fact appears to be heavily involved in promoting the affairs. There is little doubt that Zenodorus took advantage of the situation in order to gain profit for himself, but whether or not his misdeeds involved the whole of his nation is quite another matter. As considered in a previous chapter, banditry in antiquity was a complex and multilayered phenomenon. The territory Herod inherited after the death of Zenodorus included the area between Trachonitis and Galilee, containing Ulatha (the Huleh), and Paneas/Banias (later Caesarea Philippi), and the surrounding country (Ant. 15.360). Unfortunately, we know very little about its composition or who the indigenous peoples were, nor do we have the material evidence which explicitly indicates the presence of Ituraeans actually living in these regions, unless we agree that Golan pottery was Ituraean. It is perhaps reasonable to assume that these lands were, and had been, occupied by any number of different tribes at the time Ituraean rulers took control. There is every reason to assume that the indigenous peoples continued to inhabit these areas without necessarily being overrun or expelled. In fact there is no mention by the early writers of an aggressive Ituraean occupation in any of these territories, merely that the rulers took control of land and thereby gained the power to exact tax. Lack of any evidence to support active Ituraean aggression in terms of conquering another people must be considered when making assumptions that need not be appropriate. In part this lies at the root of the dilemma regarding the renaming of the Golan Ware pottery as Ituraean Ware. That this region of the northern Golan came under the domain of the Ituraean rulers does not provide confirmation that the indigenous population was in fact Ituraean. As argued earlier, the

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designation of an ethnic identity to a pottery type simply stretches credibility. The absence, therefore, of material evidence on which a cultural identity for Ituraeans might be constructed remains a prime obstacle to any complete and thorough understanding of their history.

8 C O N C L U S IO N S

Our knowledge of the Ituraeans as a people/nation, their language, ethnicity, religion and culture is obscured still, through past assumptions and the fallibility of the historical textual material in which they are presented. The centuries that have passed since the Ituraean principality had its existence have clouded what little information can be known, and along with misconceptions inherited from the past the Ituraeans are all but relegated to the realm of Arab brigands and troublemakers. In the political world of today this becomes seriously problematical and highly charged. Although the intent here was not to discuss this issue in light of today’s world politics it is, nonetheless, essential to reassess such a subjective, derogatory label. In dealing with inquiry, hence history, the notion cannot be dismissed entirely as we keep in mind that terms common in antiquity take on quite different meanings in the modern world. Such is the diversity of language over long periods of time and between cultures that the reader’s interpretation of the written word is of paramount importance. It can be stated with some certainty that the Ituraeans were a small yet notable component of the Semitic world of ancient SyriaPalestine. In all probability the region they inhabited was of mixed culture and language, in fact a complex society, as it remains so today – Aramaean, Arabian, Armenian, Syrian, Greek and Roman. Their identification as skilled archers in the Roman auxiliary units contrasts sharply with that of brigands/robbers living in the mountainous regions of the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon. Yet the inquiry must search beyond these narrow categories in order to place a people within the larger context of the cultural milieu in which they lived, and the varied geographical landscape that would have helped to shape them. Concurrent, however, must be an approach whereby the area as a whole is seen as multilayered, with assimilation and reinterpretation part of its broader history. What the Greeks and Macedonians contributed simply added to what had come before, and Roman rule 169

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extended it while underneath remained the foundations of a Semitic world that never entirely disappeared. As previously stated, our first knowledge of the Ituraeans as a people comes through the writings of the ancient authors and the texts they bequeathed to us. From a brief mention by Eupolemus to the later references of Strabo a picture is formed of a people who constitute a small fraction of a mixed, multicultural society within what was later to become Roman Syria. Strabo’s hints elude any clearly detailed description; the Ituraeans are simply named alongside Arabians as inhabiting the mountainous regions of the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon. Strabo’s affirmation of two groups here is often overlooked, yet the fact that each is mentioned as distinct from the other leads us to surmise there was a difference, or at least that Strabo saw each as independent of the other. Strabo does not extend his mention of these two groups, only placing them in contrast to those who are settled along the lower slopes of the mountain ranges and the plains below. Strabo’s almost off-hand comment on the first-century BCE Biqa‘, a region he had never visited, seems to forecast the present-day research of German archaeologists. Directing their study towards reconstructing the local, regional and supra-regional history of the Biqa‘, they hope to gain some knowledge of settlement patterns in the Hellenistic through to the early Roman periods.1 The unique geography of the Biqa‘ plain allowed it to be both protected and separated from its neighbours, yet at the same time it served as a main north–south passage route for both economic and political reasons. Even if Strabo’s understanding of the Arabians is somewhat enigmatic, and the picture he presents is conflicting, he leaves us wondering about the nature of the settlements, their numbers and identity. Since all that has been said about this passage, both in classical literature and modern scholarship, is to repeat a belief in the Ituraeans as being an Arab tribe, it is to the future we must look for change. The basic challenge in discerning information the early texts offer is always apparent: what is the writer attempting to say? What does he mean when he uses a particular term and how does he understand it in the context of his own situation? How is the text to be understood and interpreted? And is the writer’s knowledge first-hand or otherwise? 1 This is the work of the German team directed by Prof. Dr Marlies Heinz, AlbertLudwigs University, Freiburg, which is concentrating on the site of Kamid el-Loz. The groundbreaking work of Leon Marfoe is also significant. Both are listed in the bibliography.

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These questions are particularly significant when attempting to sift through the historical information provided by Josephus. The complexity of his works only adds to the many layers already covering a distant history in his mention of Ituraeans. His somewhat negative attitude in any reference to Ptolemy, the first of the Ituraean tetrarchs, leads one to ask on what basis is he making his judgement? Later writers and scholars have taken Josephus at his word when they take for granted events that may not have occurred, as seen in the question of whether or not Ituraeans occupied the northern Galilee, and the Ituraeans were later confronted with the possibility of forced circumcision. It is also necessary to consider how the words of Cicero, in a speech castigating Mark Antony, have been alluded to in support of Ituraeans as barbarians. Foremost, it is necessary to ask what Cicero is really saying in the immediate context at this point, and secondly, how scholars have viewed and interpreted this material. In drawing attention to the problems that arise in reading these early writers, it is evident that any understanding of Ituraeans requires a reassessment of these early texts, and of the way this material has been adapted in later scholarship. From the information provided by Strabo and Josephus, to the brief mention of Ituraeans by Cicero and others, it is incumbent upon us to fully assess these writings in the context of when and why they were originally written. The wholly negative views that are disseminated through these works require a thorough reappraisal. Only then can we begin to appreciate the Ituraeans in a more balanced light. In a far more positive vein, the Ituraeans were recognized as skilled archers, well known throughout the East. Along with the Syrians they were recruited by Caesar, praised in the poetry of Virgil and Lucan, and hired by Mark Antony to be his personal bodyguard. It is worth noting that in the account of Caesar’s African Wars they are mentioned as a separate group alongside the Syrians. Josephus’ detailed history of the Hasmoneans’ rise to power and their interaction with Rome emphasizes the apparent unrest the Ituraeans created within the region of Syria. However, he also offers glimpses of co-operation between Ituraeans and Hasmoneans, even intermarriage, all played out on the larger stage of politics and power within the ancient world. Antony’s skill in establishing and exploiting the client kingdoms to his advantage, and his ready acceptance to employ the Ituraean archers for his personal protection, would have been in keeping with such interaction. The details are innumerable in terms of what events shaped the firstcentury BCE region of Syria-Palestine. It was complex, multilingual,

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multicultural and fraught with internal struggles for power. What glimpses are given by the early writers who mention Ituraeans must be seen against this backdrop as well as the writer’s own intentions. Although the information given is critical to an understanding, however fragile, of a people from antiquity, it remains information too often misinterpreted. The Greek and Latin inscriptions add to this body of written material that mentions Ituraeans, and support a more favourable aspect. Although they cannot resolve the fundamental issues of ethnicity, the inscriptions from the Roman diplomas provide an enduring legacy of Ituraean auxiliary units lasting well into the third century CE. Those recruits who ventured into the Roman world, whether serving in Asia Minor, North Africa or Egypt, took with them the title of their unit, and bore the legacy of what originally would have been units of Ituraean tribesmen and their leaders. It is not without some interest that we read of soldiers from Ituraean auxiliary units making a dedication to the Semitic deities of the Heliopolitan triad, and speculate as to whether or not they had ever visited the cult site at Heliopolis, or even one of the other temples scattered throughout the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon. What we cannot do, however, is to assume ethnicity through their personal names. Those names that are found in military, funerary or dedicatory inscriptions tell us nothing about the ethnic and cultural background of the individual. As emphasized earlier, the common occurrence of a name and its appearance in an inscription at Har Sena‘im does not prove that the individual was an Ituraean, or that the site was occupied or settled by Ituraeans. In spite of the lack of specific information, the Ituraeans as a people are still made visible because the name endured within these inscriptions. The coins also provide a distinctive legacy, giving names and dates of individual rulers of the Ituraean tetrarchy. They affirm a cohesiveness that allowed for coinage to be minted, an assertion of autonomy and political power, they are evidence for economic wealth, and they provide insight into cultural and religious tendencies. Deities represented on the coinage reflect Greek, Roman and Semitic religious ideas, with the Greek language predominant in the legend. Ituraean coins follow the accepted Seleucid pattern and, as with the coinage of most of Syria, were slow to change. The appearance of the imperial portrait on coins of Zenodorus presents a significant change, and as previously mentioned it may well have been the result of Octavian’s victory and new role as Caesar. Zenodorus required at this time all the

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support he could get. Although provenance for the bulk of Ituraean coins remains unknown, as does the location they were minted at, it does not diminish their importance in establishing a body of evidence that serves to strengthen our knowledge of the Ituraean principality. That the coins exist is significant. However, it is unreasonable to suggest that a site was Ituraean based on the evidence of one coin find. A single coin cannot tell us anything more than that it had evidently been carried there and dropped or placed in a particular spot. It is worth repeating the importance of archaeology in the twentieth century, and how it has both enhanced and challenged the textual evidence. Strabo’s description of the Massyas Plain (the Biqa‘), bounded by the mountains of the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, indicates this region as an area of Ituraean settlement by the first century BCE. Yet to date there is no clearly defined archaeological evidence for Ituraeans to support this claim. The proliferation of temples on these mountainous slopes is unique, and reflects a mixed culture of Semitic, Greek and Roman. The ready acceptance of HeliopolisBaalbek as the main cult centre for the Ituraeans is unproven, and might well be challenged by considering the site of Majdal ‘Anjar, or even Yanouh. Yet this must also be counter-balanced by acknowledging that the temples are all dated to the first to second century CE, even Baalbek, a period long after the Ituraean tetrarchy had ceased to exist. Whatever cult centre the Ituraeans did utilize, there is as yet no evidence to confidently identify a site as Ituraean. The same questions asked of a text might be asked of a site: how do we know and understand the information we have before us; how do we interpret this within its context? The archaeological excavations and surveys conducted in the regions of the Hermon and Golan have brought these questions into focus. With both these areas now accepted as having Ituraean sites/settlements based on the very tendentious naming of a pottery shard, it has merely added to the often vague and confusing historical record. The renaming of Golan Ware to Ituraean Ware is unfortunate and illjudged, a too insecure basis for the consequent naming of sites. It has made for even further unproven assumptions, which can only cloud what is already a murky issue. Our evidence for the Ituraeans perhaps lacks any specific details of their language, culture, religion or origins. However, in considering this apparent lack of substantial evidence, it can be confidently assumed that the Ituraeans were of Semitic origin, one of many tribal groups who inhabited the world of Syria-Palestine during the first century BCE, and played a significant role within the

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politics of Roman Syria in the first century BCE. It is only in recent scholarship that the Ituraeans are being seriously considered in terms of archaeological research, and perhaps this is now the time to explore the Ituraeans as a parallel study to that of the Nabataeans. The question must be asked: what does Josephus mean when he speaks of various tracts of land coming under Ituraean control? Are we to assume that large groups of Ituraeans were settled into these areas in order to claim this land as Ituraean, or was this merely land with arbitrary boundaries being assigned to a particular ruler of the moment? Control implies payment of taxes from the indigenous population to whomever was in power, it does not necessarily indicate the ethnicity of those who were being taxed. The ambiguities remain and obscure any clear understanding of just who was living where and at what time, nor can the pottery tell us anything specific about the Ituraeans. At the present time, what the Hermon and the Golan have revealed adds to our knowledge of these regions in a broader sense. It is perhaps prudent to consider a return to the Biqa‘ region, to concentrate on securing through archaeology an identification for ancient Chalcis, or even evidence for an Ituraean culture. Continuing excavations at Yanouh and Kamid el-Loz are likely to offer new information in the future. It has been stressed how the interpretation and re-interpretation of the early texts by scholars over the past century has often repeated an accepted belief that Ituraeans were Arabs/Arabians, known only for their brigandage. The language applied is colourful and long-lasting: predatory, belligerent, wild, backward, ferocious, troublesome. Unfortunately, particularly in the present context of the twenty-first century, these words are always used in association with Ituraeans as being Arabs or an Arab tribe. Such a subjective approach to an unknown people is unacceptable, especially in light of modern-day attitudes. Strabo speaks of Ituraeans and Arabians and considers them all in terms of being ‘robbers’. Josephus says the tetrarch Ptolemy is ‘troublesome’, and speaks of Ituraean brigands causing chaos in the region of Trachonitis. Yet a clear understanding of what these writers from antiquity meant when they spoke of Arabs/Arabians is never explicitly clarified. Experience in the world of today tells us more clearly than ever that to speak of a few is not to speak of the whole. There is little doubt that some Ituraeans were involved in brigandage – it was endemic to the region and the time – but to label all Ituraeans as nothing more than brigands is to go beyond what we can know, or even assume. Modern scholarship needs to reassess these

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very volatile descriptions and terms, otherwise, one is inevitably caught up in the circular argument of assuming Ituraeans were Arabs and also notorious robbers, and hence all Arabs at this period were robbers. These same circular arguments were made when the Greeks named anyone from Arabia as Arabian, with all Arabians coming from Arabia without any clear and definitive knowledge of where Arabia was situated geographically. In making and accepting these assumptions, scholars have also assented to the belief that the Arabians known to have harassed the Macedonians during Alexander’s long siege at Tyre were likely Ituraeans. Our attempt to gain further knowledge and insight into Ituraean origins and ethnicity may, in the end, be too focussed on what might be called a ‘red herring’. This is expressed in regard to the difficulties encountered in defining terms such as ‘Arabs’ or ‘Aramaeans’, both terms having been used by present-day scholars to identify Ituraeans. The written primary sources mentioning these groups are both unreliable and imprecise, offering no assurance as to how the terms were defined by the early writers of these documents. The implied negative connotations given in modern scholarship to an ancient peoples offer little to advance our knowledge of the Ituraeans. This is made more problematic with the added terms of ‘brigand’, ‘robber’ and ‘troublemaker’. Such subjective language merely enhances the unfortunate prejudices of the modern world, and offers nothing that might enlighten our knowledge of the Ituraeans. The role of the brigand/ robber in antiquity was complex and at times, under certain circumstances, unavoidable. Where it might be safe to say there were Ituraeans involved in such activity for a variety of reasons, we cannot know or assume that all Ituraeans were involved. In light of what has been discussed, it would be a fairly simple matter to consign the Ituraeans to the role of a minor player on the historical playing field. However, this would be both negligent and unjustified. Because we cannot at this time determine anything of their culture or ethnicity does not permit us to ignore their presence within the ancient world, nor does it justify any misleading assumptions and conclusions. The fact that they were capable and powerful enough to form a principality, organized enough to mint their own coinage, and strong enough to threaten various other groups justifies a more open appreciation, and an effort for continued investigation. Most significant is the need to address the old and misused assumptions of past scholarship which has, unfortunately, tended to label the Ituraeans in such a negative light. There is more to be learned.

APPENDIX 1: TWO SMALL FINDS AND THE ITURAEANS

Although the two small finds discussed here are in themselves unable to affirm or support Ituraean identity, each in its own unique way offers some insight into the cultural milieu Ituraeans inhabited. One find is from the designated Ituraean site of Har Sena‘im, the other is from a site several hundred kilometres to the north-west, within a strikingly different context. Each of these small finds has its own ‘story to tell’, albeit a tenuous one relative to the Ituraeans. Kulullû: the Assyrian fish-man Excavations conducted at Har Sena‘im from 1983 to 1989 investigated four areas where two cult enclosures were identified, one upper and one lower. Within the lower cult enclosure were the remains of two small temple structures. From excavations at the lower temple area, in the lower cult enclosure, an intact ornamental brass ring was found. At its widest point the ring has a diameter of 19 mm, is 1.5 mm wide at its narrowest, with the face 9 mm at its maximum. Described as ‘lentil-shaped’, the face is engraved with what ‘appears to be an erect fish with a triangular head from which a hand extends leftward and upward, while a right hand extends to the bottom of the image and ends in two intersecting lines resembling a star’.1 On closer examination of the photograph in Dar’s book (p. 74) the ‘right hand’ in fact would appear not to be connected as it comes down from the triangular ‘head’. For the purposes of this brief section I have accepted Dar’s interpretation. Above the head are two dots, with three dots below indicating a ‘face’, with the body outlined in ‘paired dots’. The exact location of the find was near the threshold of the lower temple, in Locus 90. The small brass ring with its iconographic image of a ‘fish-human’ is not unusual in the art and mythology of ancient Mesopotamia. From the Old Babylonian period onwards the fish-man was named Kulullû by the Assyrians, and along with the ‘carp-goat’ was ‘known among the apotropaic figurines and named in the appropriate rituals’.2 Kulullû or the fish-man/ merman figure has the head, arms and torso of a human with the lower body and tail of a fish. The fish-man depicting a human above the waist and 1 2

Dar 1993b: 75. Green 1985/86: 25, with a reference to S. Dalley in Dalley and Postgate 1984: 162.

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fish below occurs on seals, and Late Assyrian reliefs in art of the first millennium.3 It is thought by some to have a special relationship to the water god Ea (Enki), although not all would agree with this designation.4 The most expansive texts prescribing the types of figurines for apotropaic ritual come from Assur.5 Having defined the purpose of the ritual intended to avert evil from the house, the text prescribes types of figures to be fashioned and buried at set locations. Along with protection against illness, the figures were also used as foundation figurines. In Neo-Assyrian art they were for the purpose of protective magic, in both monumental palace and temple sculpture, and as small figurines.6 Such figurines have been found at Assur, Nineveh and Nimrud. Similar to Kulullû both in content and context is the fish-garbed figure: a bearded human figure with a human face and a fish-head drawn over the scalp, the full body of a fish hanging down the back complete with caudal and dorsal fin. It is a common feature within the glyptic art of Mesopotamia, the figure first appearing in the Kassite period.7 As with Kulullû, the fishgarbed figure is known to have an apotropaic function, and by the seventh century BCE was a popular motif on Neo-Assyrian seals, often depicted in association with the sacred tree. There is, however, a significant difference between the fish-man and the human figure wearing a fish-cape.8 The fishman has been considered the only composite creature that does not appear in scenes of conflict, suggesting that he is unsuited to conflict. The main attributes endowed upon the fish-man of Assyrian glyptic art are as protectors against evil, a quality which it shared with almost all supernatural beings.9 From the fourteenth to the tenth century BCE the human figure was represented as clothed in a fish-skin reaching to the ground, which by the ninth century BCE had been shortened to form a cape terminating in a fishtail just below the waist. By the eighth century BCE it had reverted to its longer form, known and copied by both the Persians and Seleucids. Excavations at Karmir-blur, a Urartian site, revealed several figurines, some with ‘heads and backs covered with fish-skins’.10 Locus 90, the find spot for the brass ring, is just inside the enclosure of the lower temple. Supported by the numerous small finds, the excavators concluded that the lower temple was a cult sanctuary site; what remains unclear is the nature of the cult practice and a precise dating for its use. In Dar’s estimation, most of the ceramic material from the lower temple at Har Sena‘im seems to date from the early and late Roman periods, the first to the fourth centuries CE. Evidence from a fragmentary Greek inscription suggests that the temple was constructed at the end of the second century CE, but on the site of a much earlier cult centre, although the dating of the temple was according to its ‘classical decoration’ rather than the plan.11 It is possible the 3

Lambert 1980–1983: 324. 4 Black and Green 1995: 131. For the script, see Ebeling 1923: KAR no. 298; and also Rittig 1977: 151–62. 6 Green 1983: 87–8. 7 Teissier 1984: 38. See also Porada 1981/82: 53; Porada 1948: 63–5, and Kawami 1972: 146 n. 25. 8 Lambert 1980–1983: 324. 9 Frankfort 1939: 202. 10 Barnett 1959: 4. 11 Dar 1988: 35. 5

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brass ring belonged to someone who frequented the sanctuary, though whether it was lost or given as an offering remains a mystery. The wearer may well have believed in its apotropaic attributes, its fish-like design fitting well within the ancient mythology of the ancient Near East.12 Although this find has come from what has tenuously been named an Ituraean site, it is unclear whether it should be considered to reflect any aspect of Ituraean cult or belief. It tells us a little about the site itself, yet reflects well within the mythology of the ancient Near East, and perhaps in more general terms the religiosity of those who came to worship at the site. The archer The second small find, which may have some bearing on Ituraeans, is still highly speculative. Yet, even with this in mind it offers an intriguing glimpse into one individual’s artistic creativity. The Roman army drew on local tribes to augment their legions from the late Republic onwards, with these men being eventually regularized into auxiliary units of cohortes and alae under Augustus. Ituraeans, known for their skill as archers, along with the Syrians, were among those recruited from the East. Through evidence recorded on military diplomas of auxiliary soldiers, it is sometimes possible to trace the movements of these regiments. It is known that Ituraean auxiliary archers were stationed at Mainz in the first century CE. During the 1960s, while work was being carried out in the area of the Roman camp at Mainz, a fragment of a Neo-Babylonian seal was found in a trench on the south-east side of the camp.13 Dated to the thirteenth century BCE, the seal is made of chalcedony (broken), and depicts two figures, one with bow and arrow. Between these two figures is depicted a lion attacking a stag, while above the animals is a crescent moon, and at the base on each side of the scene is a plant. The original seal has apparently been reworked, as the human figures appear to be a later addition. A close parallel scene, of two animals with a plant/tree on each side, is found depicted on a Middle Assyrian cylinder seal of the thirteenth century BCE.14 In this particular scene the lion is shown attacking a stag, the Mainz seal repeating the positioning of the animals along with the plant/tree on each side. The addition of the two figures on the Mainz seal, and in particular the figure of the archer, prompted Schottroff to consider the possibility of the seal having belonged to an auxiliary soldier garrisoned there in the early 70s CE.15 Perhaps an auxiliary archer had the two figures inscribed onto an already existing scene? The bow which the archer on the seal is holding appears to be a double convex bow, also known as the ‘B-shaped’ bow or composite bow. Its very distinctive profile is the result of ‘the combination of different materials or the use of fire to shape the body’.16 The Persians were known to have adopted this type of bow, though its origin is uncertain, as the Persians used On the sacredness of fish in the ancient Near East, see Smith 1894: 165–84. Schottroff 1982: 128–30. Also Von Klumback Moortgat-Correns 1968: 36–40 in which the seal is discussed; and Collon 1987: 138 no. 578 and n. 2. 14 Porada 1948: 69 no. 603, pl. LXXXV. 15 Schottroff 1992: 128–30. 16 Zutterman 2003: 120–2. 12 13

Appendix 1

179

and adopted bows from both the Scythians and Cimmerians. The Medes are also known to have used the B-shaped bow, although it is not certain ‘if the Medes used the Scythian double convex bow or adopted it and modified it to their own needs’.17 It appears that the Achaemenid army used successfully the Median/Scythian B-shaped bow, whereas the more conservative Assyrians and Babylonians continued to use their triangular composite bow. Known in the Near East and Egypt from very early times as a weapon of hunting and warfare, the bow also functioned as an ‘extremely important symbol of monarchial power’, and appears in the glyptic art of Mesopotamia down to the Persian period.18 Along with the military diplomas (diplomata) mentioning Ituraean auxiliary units are the gravestones, occasionally inscribed with names of those buried and the units under which they served. Monimus, an archer from the cohors I Ituraean, holds a B-shaped bow in his left hand with quiver containing arrows in his right.19 Although Monimus is wearing a different garment from the figures on the small seal, the bows are remarkably similar. Schottroff’s suggestion that the seal was refashioned at the request of an Ituraean auxiliary soldier serving his tour of duty at the Mainz garrison is enticing, but elusive. It is impossible to know if this is the correct explanation of the seal, and all that can be derived from these two figures is a confirmation of the long tradition in the use of archery within the ancient Near East. Perhaps the archer can be more closely associated with the Ituraeans, as their reputation as skilled archers is documented in the texts. While these two small finds are unable to offer any direct information on Ituraeans, they provide some texture to an almost barren landscape; each illustrates a long history of cultural artifacts and weaponry within the Near East.

17

Zutterman 2003: 141.

18

Wilkinson 1991–1993: 83.

19

CIL XIII 7041.

APPENDIX 2: INSCRIPTIONS RELEVANT TO THE ROMAN AUXILIARY UNITS

Cohors I Augusta Ituraeorum (sagittaria) The title Augusta was, on occasion, given to an auxiliary regiment as an honorary epithet by the emperor. Those regiments with this title were therefore ‘prestigious’. According to Holder, more than half the units having Augusta have an early origin.1 The cohors I Augusta Ituraeorum were in Pannonia during the first century CE, and then transferred to Dacia at the time of the creation of the province. CIL XVI 26 – based in Pannonia, 80 CE, raised at the same time as ala I Augusta Ituraeorum CIL III 27 – based in Pannonia, 98 CE CIL XVI 47 – in Pannonia, 102 CE CIL XVI 123 – Pannonia Inferior, 167 CE CIL XVI 57 – in Dacia, 110 CE name Thaemo Horati f. CIL XVI 158 – in Dacia, 158 CE CIL XVI 108 – Dacia Superior, 158 CE CIL XVI 107 – Dacia, 157 CE? CIL XIII6 12451 [XX] – Dacia, 110 CE CIL XIII2,1 6278 – fragmentary CIL XIII 6817 – second century CE AE (2000) 1237 – re Ituraean troops in Dacia RMD (1978) 123 – Dacia Superior, 79 CE RMD (1985) 81 – 98 CE? (restoration problematical) RMD (1985) 107 – 161 CE RMD (1994) 148 – I Ituraeorum and I Augusta Ituraeorum, 109 CE = ZPE 70 (1987), 189–94. Alae I Augusta Ituraeorum CIL XVI 42 – based in Pannonia, 98 CE, records the commander of this unit as L. Callidius L. f. Ste. Camidienus de Vettona2 CIL XVI 99 – 150 CE, in the 140s the unit was seconded temporarily to Mauretania; between 150 CE and 167 in Pannonia

1

Holder 1980: 14.

180

2

Sherk 1988: 111 for translation.

Appendix 2

181

AE (1955) 31 – Dessau ILS 9056; stele of an Ituraean soldier; from Tipasa3 CIL XVI supp. 163 – in Dacia, 110 CE I Augusta Ituraeor CIL XVI 107 – Dacia, 157 CE? CIL XVI supp. 175 = AE (1960) 19 – in Pannonia, 139 CE CIL XVI supp. 179/180 – 148 CE CIL XVI 112/113 – 151/160 CE CIL VI 421 = ILS I 2546 – a dedication in Rome to Jupiter Heliopolitanus by a vexillatio alae Ituraeorum CILIII1 4367 = RIU 253 – ala Augusta Ituraeorum – grave inscription from Pannonia Superior; second half of first century CE CIL III 4368 CIL III 4370 – Pannonia Superior CIL III 4371 = ILS 2511 – from Pannonia Superior; name Bargathes CIL III 11083 – fragmentary CIL III 1382 CIL III 3446 CIL XIII 6278, 12451 – Germany Superior CIL III 15171 – m(i)l(e)s a(lae) p(rimae) E(turaeorum) Seve[r]i an(a)e?4 CIL III 10222 RMD (1985) 102 – 157 CE RMD (1985) 103 – 157 CE RMD (1985) 110 – 154/161 CE Cohors I Ituraeorum (sagittaria) CIL XVI 35 = AE (1939) 126 – based in Syria, 88 CE = Syria 9 (1928): 25–31 – nouveau diplôme militaire relatif à l’armée de Syrie; mentions the Coh. I Ituraeorum CIL XVI 57 – based in Dacia, 110 CE (see above) CIL XVI 90 = AE (1978) 691 – in Dacia Superior, 144 CE, mentions cohors I Ituraeorum sagittariorum CIL XIII2,1 7040 = AE (1901) 86; (1929) 131 – gravestone at Mainz first century CE name Iamlicus CIL XIII2,1 7041 = ILS I 2562 – gravestone Monimus inscription, first century CE; Mainz CIL XIII2,1 7042 = AE (1901) 86 – gravestone at Mainz, first century CE with the name Sibbaeus the tubicen CIL XIII 7043 – gravestone CIL XIII 12451 – in Germany Superior CIL XIII 12451 – mentions cohors I Ituraeorum sagittariorum CIL XIII 7515 – troops in Germany in reign of Augustus CIL III 8176 AE (1907) 50 = IGR I 1462 – from Thrace AE (2003) 1223 – fragment of military diploma from Dacia; 136 CE mentioning I Itur(aeorum) sag(ittariorum) 3

Baradez 1954: 89–126.

4

Schottroff 1982: 148.

182

The Ituraeans and the Roman Near East RMD (1994) 157 – 13 CE RMD (1994) 185 = ZPE 82 (1990): 137–53 – probably found in Egypt, 179 CE I and III Ituraeorum – oldest military diploma from Dacia, 109 CE – mentions I Ituraeorum; same witnesses appear on CIL XVI 1615 [see also RMD 184, 123] IGR III 230 – confirms coh. I Ituraeorum in Judea at time of Vespasian6 AE (1901) 86 = RA 38 (1901): 59, 62 – mentions I Cohorts Itur. IGL III 2120 (Waddington) – fragmentary; from el-Hit in the Hauran, reference to despatch of Ituraean troops to Moesia; name of praefect for this unit: Praxilaos Cohors I Ituraeorum (c)ivium (R)omanorum ‘civium romanorum – an honorary title’ CIL XVI supp. 161 = AE (1960) 103 – first recorded in province of Mauretania Tingitani in 109 CE; last record in Not. Dig. Oc. XXVl 16 – mentioned as being at Castra Bariensi = Banasa; cohorts registered in Notitia Dignitatum7 Oc. XXVl 16 – cohors I [I]tyraeorum in Mauretania Tingitani – Comes Tingitaniae … Tribunus cohortis primae [et] Ityraeorum, Castrabariensi8 CIL VIII 11176 – second century CE; name of [Fl] avius Quadratus Laet[-] mentioned in an inscription from Segermes; praefectus of the coh. I I[t]u[rae]or. in the province of Mauretania Tingitani9 CIL XVI supp. 165–114/117 CE CIL XVI supp. 169, 170 – 122 CE CIL XVI 173 CIL XVI supp. 181, 182 – 156 CE – troops in Mauretania Tingitani 100–160 CE RMD (1978) 53 = CIL XVI 38 = AE (1960) 103 – 159 CE Egyptian garrison – cohors II and III Ituraeorum (equitatae) The main outline seems clear insofar as from the time of Augustus to at least the mid-second century three cohorts were consistently stationed at Syene and Pselchis, cohorts that provided the garrison for the forts and stations in Nubia. Speidel 1988: 784.

5

Garbsch 1991: 281–4. 6 Dabrowa 1986: 227 n. 52. Roxan 1976: 59–79; ‘True and False: Order of Battle in the Historia Augusta’, in Birley 1988: 44–52. 8 Schottroff 1982: 151. 9 Pflaum 1978: 143, no. 3; Dabrowa 1986: 223. 7

Appendix 2

183

II and III Ituraeorum The cohors II Ituraeorum was always part of the Egyptian garrison. CIL III2 141471 = AE (1896) 39 = ILS 8899 (Dessau) – cohorts without number; at Syene garrison by 39 CE; cohors Ituraeor (um) cui prae‹e›st L. Einus L. f. Fal. Saturninus10 CIL XVI 29 = PMich. III 164 = RMRP 20 = CPL 143 = Daris Doc. 27 – at Syene in 83 CE; cohors II and III Ituraeorum, served in Upper Egypt (Coptos) until 243/244 CE – in Notitia Dignitatum Or. XXVIII 44 (Late Roman Empire) IGR I 1348 = SB V 8521 = CIG 5050 – from Talmis, 146–147 CE, mentions cohors Ituraeorum AE (1978) 562 – ex co(horte) III Ituraius; served in Germany Superior then transferred to Egypt with cohors III Ituraeorum REG 89 (1976) 772 = Bernand (1969) no. 159 – re inscription of Iunius Sabinus commander of a unit of Ituraean cohort without number11 CIL III2 141472 =AE (1896) 40 = (Dessau) ILS III 8907 – from the principia of the camp at Syene, with information about the command on the Nubian frontier in 99 CE; mentions the coh (ortis) II Ituraeor(um) equit(atae)12 IGR I 1249 – name Gabinius Thaemus IGR I 1236 – name Mammogais Bataei BGU XI 20242 – from the Thebaid, November 204 CE, receipt for barley received by a centurion sent by the prefect of cohors II Ituraeorum which would suggest the length of time the cohors II Ituraeorum served in Egypt RMRP (1971) 81 = POxy IV 735 = CPL 134 – from the Fayum, 4 September 205 CE: receipt written by an optio recording wheat given to fifty horsemen of the Syene garrison, implies more than one unit was stationed at Syene during these years; these are likely the same troops as mentioned in the above inscription13 RMD (1978) 9 = AE (1968) 513 = Syria 44 (1967) – 105 CE, provenance uncertain; Egyptian diploma; name of ex pedite M. Spedio M F Corbuloni of Hippo[s] (Qal‘at el-Höṣn) CIL XVI supp. 184 = AE (1952) 236 = PMich. 441 – Egyptian diploma from Karanis; 157–161 CE; cohors II and III Ituraeorum, and cohors V, VII Ituraeorum; dubious restoration14 SB IV 7362 = PMich. 2930 = Select Papyri II 315 – from Karanis, in the Fayum, 156/161 CE – epikrisis of Valerius Clemens; name Schottroff 1982: 151; M. P. Speidel, ‘Nubia’s Roman Garrison’, ANRW II 10.1 (1988), 786. 11 Speidel 1988: 779, who suggests that Iunius Sabinus was likely the prefect of the unit. 12 Speidel 1988: 772 n. 13 and 776; the units were stationed at the head of navigation on the Nile. 13 Speidel 1992: 781. 14 Henry A. Sanders, ed., Latin Papyri in the University of Michigan Collection, Henry A. Sanders, ed., vol. II: 47–55. 10

184

The Ituraeans and the Roman Near East also appears in CIL III 141477 – in late empire unit based in Lower Egypt = Notitia Dignitatum Or. XXVIII 44 CIL III 12069 = ILS I 2611 – evidence that cohors III It. provided guards for quarries at Ptolemais Hermiu CIL III 1035 – cohors III Itur. – mentioned as being in Egypt in 83 CE CIG I 1370 – Hieraskyaminos CIG I 1340 – Pselchis CIG I 1348 – Talmis CIG I 1299 – Philae CIL IX 1619 = ILS II 5502 – coh. III Ityraeor CIL III supp. (XV 1962 Domitianus supp.) Coptos, 83 CE, cohorts registered in Notitia Dignitatum15 Or. XXVIII 44 – cohors II It[u]raeorum at Aiy, Egypt, as early as 39 CE, or possibly earlier. CIL VIII1 2394; 2395 – Provincia Numidia; coh. III Ituraeorum CIL VIII2 17904 – Timgad; coh. III Ituraeorum CIL IX 1619 = ILS 5502 – coh. III Ityraeor RMRP 87 (Fink) = POxy VII 1022 = Daris Doc. 4 = Select Papyri 421 = CPL 11116 concerns enrolment of recruits to cohors III Ituraeorum – c. 24 February 103 CE based in Upper Egypt; see also CIL XVI 29 RMRP 20 (Fink) = Mich. Pap. III 164 = CPL 143 = Daris Doc. 27 unit in Egypt, 230 CE; list of decurions and centurions, dated April 243 – April 244 CE; mentions coh. III Ituraeorum RMRP 78 (Fink) – 157 CE or 217 CE, from Pselcis (modern Dakkeh) – receipts for food and wine on ostraca Bernand (1960) 26 = CIL III 59 – mention of cohors VII Ituraeorum inscribed on statue of Memnon at Thebes – likely a mistake for the It. III (see also AE (1952) 236) Bernand (1960) 63 – between the legs of a colossus; [c]oh(ortis) II I [tur(aeorum) eq(uitatae)] AE (2000) 1850 = ZPE 133 (2000): 271–4; 98–105 CE, provenance unknown; a fragment of an Egyptian diploma which lists II Ituraeorum and III Ituraeorum17 AE (1976): 497 – stele from Mainz-Weisenau, Germanie Superior mentioning ex coh(orte) II Itur(aeorum) this is corrected in AE (1978): 562; see above. IGR I 1339 – from Talmis IGR I 1340 – from Talmis Ostracon no. 7363 – from Mons Claudianus; a dedication by cohors II Ituraeorum to ‘Zeus Helios Great Sarapis and the gods who share the temple, in gratitude to the emperor Severus Alexander’

This establishes a dating for the cohors II Ituraeorum at the garrison as late as 225–235 CE. 15 Roxan 1976: 59–79; ‘True and False Order of Battle in the Historia Augusta’, in Birley 1988: 44–52. 16 Watson 1985: 42–3. 17 MacDonald 2000: 271–4.

Appendix 2

185

Military correspondence from Egypt’s eastern desert provides information on security and difficulties experienced with the barbaroi. From the area of Mons Claudianus come dossiers and related texts, one from Cassius Victor, a centurion of the cohors II Ituraeorum, who reports that ‘on Phamenoth 17, 118 the fort of Patkoua was attacked by 60 barbaroi and fighting took place over several hours on that day and the next, resulting in several casualties including women and children’.18 Temple inscriptions in Greek from the time of Hadrian and Antoninus Pius SB I 4601, 4603, 4613 – from Talmis, 144 CE SB I 4570 – undated, from Talmis IGR I 1363 = SB V 7912.3 – from Pselchis, 136 CE; dedication IGR I 1303 – Pselchis CIL III2 141477 – from Pselchis, Egypt; c. first century CE; coh. II Itur. – dedication of soldier with Aramaic name IGR I 1370 = SB V 8537 = CIG III 5110 – Hiera Sykaminos, c. 132 CE, soldier’s dedication SEG (1981) 1532 – cippus Greek dedication to Isis at Philae, Egypt, 135 CE IGR I 1299 = CIG 4935 – Greek inscription from Philae, Egypt – a re-dedication of a temple at Syene under Gaius IGR 1236 = CIG 4716 = OGIS 660 – Greek inscription from Hamamât, c. 18 CE CIL III 135788 – rebuilding of camp at Euniko, Egypt, 150–152 CE AE (1952): 249 = AE (2001): 2036 = I Pan 53 = BIFAO 96 (1996): 91–101 – from Wadi Samna; fragments; from 150 CE, with proposed restitution mentioning II Ituraeor(um) Bernand (1969): 159 = Bull. Epigr. (1976): 772 – Iunius Sabinus inscription, commander of the Ituraean cohors at Syene19 OGIS 540 = IGR III 230 – from Phrygia; mentions the σπείρης Ἰτουραίων JRS XIV (1924): 188 no. 9 = AE (1926): 80 – found in 1914 at Gemen, south-east of Antioch in Pisidia, on a bridge; a gravestone erected by decuriones of the colonia to a soldier from Antochia mentioning the cohors I Aug. Ituraeorum Sag.; unit known in Pannonia about 80–98 CE, which was in Trajan’s Dacian army in 110 CE – see IGL III 2120.20 Inscription from a rock near a watchtower, 1.5 km upstream from Talmis:21 coh(ortis) II Itur(aeorum) 7(centuria) Marini Valeri(u)s Ammonian(us) 18

Bowman 2007. Speidel, ANRW II 10.1 (1988): 776–83; 786–7 especially in regard to the Ituraean units. 20 Ramsay 1924a: 188–9. 21 Speidel 1998: 791 for the transcription and translation. 19

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INDEX

Abu-l Fidâ 85–6 Achaemenid Empire 10, 21, 148 African wars 38 Agrippa II 44–5, 107, 160 re coin 106 Alexander the Great 22–3, 148–9, 175 Alexander Jannaeus 30, 155–7 Alexandra 30–1, 156–8 Aliquot, Julien 57, 66–7, 92–3 Ancient North Arabian 8, 137 ‘Anjar 83 Antigonus (brother of Aristobulus I) 26–8, 154 Antioch 32, 102, 156–8, 162–3 Antiochus XII Dionysus 30, 155 Antony (Mark) 38, 41, 107, 109, 162–5, 171 Appian 156 Apuleius 22 Arab/Arabs/Arabians 3, 5, 7–8, 10–12, 14–15, 18ff., 135–8, 144, 148–50, 175 according to Strabo 15ff. geographical regions 16 in inscription 19, 137 mentioned by Arrian, Plutarch, Curtius Rufus 22–4 as robbers and plunderers 20–1 Arabia 18 Aramaean/s 14, 41, 135–8, 139ff., 144, 148–9, 175 Aramaic 8, 136 inscriptions 110, 130–2, 136 archer/s 38, 116, 120, 178 Aretas III 30, 155–6 Aristobulus I (Hasmonean king) 24–30, 154 Aristobulus II (son of Alexandra) 31–2, 157, 162 Arrian 22–4 Assyria/Assyrians 137–40, 148–9 Augustus (Caesar) 35, 44, 99, 110, 112, 120, 124, 178

Auranitis 35, 42 auxiliaries 3, 6–7, 116, 119–23, 171, 178 B-shaped bow 178–9 Baalbek 84–5, 95–7 excavations 111–12 on the temple 97ff. Ball, Warwick 10, 100 banditry, re inscription 36–8 bandits/robbers 33ff. Bashan/Batanaea 35, 42ff., 63, 166 Berlin, Andrea 29, 89 Berytus/Beirut 36–7, 99, 129, 160 re inscription 98, 165 Bir an-Sobah 107, 140 Biran, Avraham 51, 60 Biqa‘ valley 2, 14–15, 36, 81, 82ff., 90, 101, 120, 138–9, 150–1, 159–61, 170 coins from Souk 111 excavations 88ff. name and physical geography 83ff. Bowersock, Glen 156 brigandage 6, 21, 35, 160 brigands/robbers 16–17, 20ff., 32–3, 55–7, 114, 144–5 Burnett, Andrew 111 Butcher, Kevin 11, 41, 90, 93, 96, 99, 102, 113 Caesarea Philippi 45 Chalcis 14–15, 30, 44, 89, 99–100, 102, 110, 113, 159 on coins 105 Chalcis ad Libanum 82ff., 89, 104, 111, 162, 164 Chehab, Hafez 85, 87 chief priest 2–3, 32 1 Chronicles 134–6 Cicero 38ff., 171 circumcision 26–7, 153

213

214

Index

Cleopatra 32, 35, 107, 109, 111, 163–5 re coins 111 Clermont-Ganneau, Charles 65–6 client kingdom/s 164 Coele Syria 16, 84, 106, 164 coins of the Ituraeans 102ff., 172 of Cleopatra 111 of Lysanias 109–10 of Ptolemy 96, 107, 140 of Zenodorus 110–11 re imperial portrait 112–13 re Seleucid 50, 62, 102ff. Damascus 30–1, 110, 155–7 Dar, Shimon 7, 22–4, 49–51, 57, 60–2, 127, 135, 176 on Hermon surveys and excavations 70ff. on pottery as a ‘separate group’ 81 on temples 95 re coin of Hyrcanus 106–7 Dauphin, Claudine 48–9 decorations (military) 27–8 Dio Cassius 23–4, 25, 32, diplomata/diplomas 119–23, 133, 179 Dussaud, René 87 on topography of Syria-Palestine 6 Eph‘al, Israel 8–9, 24 Epstein, Claire 48 ethnic identity 29, 81 ethnicity 7–8, 17, 19, 52–3 ethnos 24–5, 30, 52–3, 55, 132, 154 Eupolemus 13–15, 40, 170 Eusebius 65 Farj 49 fish-man 176–7 Freyne, Sean 23, 27 Galilean Coarse Ware (GCW) 55ff. Galilee 26–9, 89, 153–4 Gamberoni, J. 78–9 garrison/s 124 Gaulanitis 42 genealogies 134–6, 36 Gibson, Shimon 49 Golan 29, 42ff., 81, 101, 173 Golan Heights 43, 45ff. Golan Ware 29, 47–9, 60, 167 on archaeological history 48ff. on renaming 63–4, 167, 173 surveys and excavations 50ff. Grainger, John D. 147

Greek and Latin writers 12–13, 24 Gutman, Shemariah 48–9, 51 Hachmann, Rolf 84, 87 Har Sena‘im 60–2, 64, 80, 172, 176–7 as cult sanctuary 77 on surveys and excavations 70ff. re coins 106–7 re inscriptions 127–9 Hartal, Moshe 7, 48, 50ff., 106 Hasmoneans 24–32, 150ff., 163, 171 Heinz, Marlies 88–9 Heliopolis/Baalbek 14–15, 96–7, 99ff; 109, 159, 161, 172–3 inscription 98, 165–6 on temple 97ff., 165 Herman, Daniel 108–9, 114 Hermon, Mt. 26, 45, 62–5, 81, 101, 113, 173 on physical geography 68ff. on surveys and excavations 70ff. re Golan Ware 60–4 re inscription 65–6 Herod 34–5, 44, 162, 165–7 high priest 2–3 hinterland 9, 23 Hoof, Anton van 33–4 Horsley, Richard 26 Hoyland, Robert 19, 112, 141, 144 Huleh Valley 51–2, 55, 58, 62, 64, 88 Hyrcanus (son of Alexandra) 30–1 identity 17, 81, 133 Idumaeans 26 inscription, re Arab/s 137 inscription, Aramaic 130–2 inscription, Latin 37 inscriptions (Greek and Latin) 3, 37, 115ff., 172 by individuals 123–6 from Biqa‘ 129–30 from Har Sena‘im 127–9 from ostracon 126–7 funerary 115–19 military 119–23 miscellaneous/ambiguous 127–30 on pithoi 58–9 re Arab 19 re Heliopolis/Baalbek 165–6 Isaac, Benjamin 100

Index Ituraea 2, 6, 12, 29–30, 54, 136, 166 Ituraean/Ituraeans 1ff., 12–13, 16, 52–3, 100, 146–8, 150, 162–3, 170 as an Arab tribe 26, 170 as an ethnos 24 as bandits/robbers 33ff. as Hellenized Arabs 7, 15 as robber/brigands 20–1 on identity 133ff. re auxiliary archers 38, 40, 115–19, 178, 180ff. re coins 102ff. re Galilean coarse ware 55–7 re inscriptions 115ff. re Ituraean territory 28, 89, 165–8 re Secundus inscription 37 Ituraean Ware 29, 167 Jacobson, David 77, 107 Jetur/Yetur 24, 134–6 John Hyrcanus I 26, 30, 152–4 re coin 106 Jones, A. H. M. 6 Josephus 12–13, 20, 24ff., 89, 136, 151, 158, 171 re bandits/robbers 33ff. on use of λῃστεία 34–5 Jotapata/Yodefat 44, 55 Judas Aristobulus I 25–8 Judea 16, 150 Kadman Numismatic Collection (Museum) 103ff., 108, 110 κακου̑ργοι 20 Kamid el-Loz (Kumidi) 14–15, 87, 161, 174 recent excavations 88ff. Kasher, Aryeh 24, 27, 30, 151–2 Kennedy, David 99 Kh. Nimra 49–51 Kh. Zamal/Zemel 48–50, 54, 59–62 re coins 106 the pithoi 58ff. surveys and excavations 57ff. Killebrew, Ann 53 Kindler, Arie 103–4, 106, 156 Knauf, Axel 28, 123, 142–4 Kuhrt, Amélie 9, 148–9 Kulullû 176–7 Kurkh Monolith inscription 137 Lebanon recent excavations 88ff. λῃστεία 20, 34–5

215 Lipiński, Edward 40 on Arabs 137–9 on name Massyas 15 on Soba 14–15 lower cult enclosure 80ff., 176 Lucan 40, 171 Luke 3.1 6 Lysanias 32, 35, 54–5, 103, 109–11, 162, 164–7 Maalouf, Amin 133 Macdonald, Michael C. A. 8, 16, 18–19, 23–4, 121, 134 on Safaitic inscriptions 140ff. Mainz 7, 115–18, 121 re seal 178 Majdal ‘Anjar 83, 87, 89–90, 100, 173 on temple 90ff., 100 re inscription 129 Ma‘oz, Zvi 48, 62, 81 Marfoe, Leon 37, 85–8, 161 Mark Antony (see Antony) Mason, Steve 20, 34 Massyas Plain 14–17, 30, 82, 84, 99, 151, 159–60, 173 as Marsyas 83 military diplomas 119–23 Millar, Fergus 9–10, 23, 129, 136 re Latin inscription 37 Mizpe Yamin 55 Monimus inscription 115–16, 119–20, 179 Mons Claudianus 126–7 Nabataeans 6, 13–14, 153, 155 Nickelsberg, Charles 66 Octavian 32, 110, 165–6, 172 Oliphant, Laurence 48 Overman, Andrew 28 Parthia/Parthians 32, 149, 162–3 Persia/Persians 23, 177–8 pithoi 47–8, 50 from Kh. Zemel 58ff. Plutarch 22, 24 Pompey 11, 31–2, 37, 99, 104–5, 116, 158–60, 162 Polybius 82–6 Posidonius 16, 21 Potts, Daniel 137 Ptolemy, son of Mennaeus 30–2, 96, 103, 155–7, 162 re coin 107–8, 140, 171, 174, 187

216

Index

Q. Aemilius Secundus inscription 36–7, 160 Qal‘at Bustra 66, 70 re coin 107 Qasr ‘Antar 65 Quintus Curtius Rufus 22–4, 58–9 Rajak, Tessa 153–4 Retsö, Jan 8 Rey-Coquais, Jean-Paul 85 robber/brigand 6–7, 20ff., 55–7, 144 Safaitic 8, 134 inscriptions 140ff. Sargon II, King 15 Sartre, Maurice 10–11 de Saulcy, Félix 102, 107 Scenitae 16–17, 20–1 Schottroff, Willi 178–9 on Ituraean auxiliary units 6–7 Schumacher, Gottlieb 48 Schürer, Emile 5, 13, 28, 166 Schwartz, Seth 26 Seleucid Empire 1, 9–10, 30, 150 Seyrig, Henri 67, 106–7, 111 Shahid, Irfan 8 Shaw, Brent 34–6 Sherwin-White, Susan 9, 148–9 Sibbaeus inscription 117 Smallwood, E. Mary 136–7 Smith, George Adam 5–6 Soba (Zoba) 14, 138, 140 standing stone/s 77ff. stele/stelae 72–4 as identified by Dar 78 or stone pillars 72–7 Stern, Menachem 25–6 Strabo 12–13, 15ff., 20–1, 25, 143, 150–1, 154, 159–60, 170–1 on brigands/robbers 20ff. re the Biqa‘ 86 Sullivan, Richard 31, 35

Tel Anafa 51, 55, 58, 60–2, 64, 88, 109 Tel Dan 51, 55, 62 Tel Hazor 55, 78 Tel Kedesh 56 temples 57 at Baalbek/Heliopolis 97–101 at Majdal ‘Anjar 90ff., 101 on the Hermon, Lebanon, AntiLebanon 67 tetrarch/s 2, 35, 55, 104–9, 165–6, 174 Theophrastos 85 Tigranes 30, 104, 156–8 Timagenes 24–9, 154 Trachonitis 35, 42, 44, 166–7, 174 Tyre 22–3, 42, 50, 102, 165, 175 upper cult enclosure 71ff. structure ‘7’ 73 Urman, Dan 44, 48–50 Valerian 38 Virgil 40, 171 Wacholder, Ben Zion 14 Wadi et-Teim 67–8, 84–5, 87, 90 Warren, Charles 65, 67, 84, 95–6 Yanouh 110, 130–1, 173–4 Yetur 130, 134–6, 144 Yodefat 44, 55 Zenodorus 32–3, 35, 54–5, 103, 110–11, 165–7, 172 re coins 110–11 re inscription 165–6