P. LONDON
1912
LETTER OF
CLAUDIUS TO THE ALEXANDRIANS
H. I. Bell,
Jews and Christians in
Egypt,
London , 1924
10 November 41
This is a
translation from a papyrus copied out carefully by Nemesion in
Philadelphia. Nemesion and/or his source exhibited local and
perhaps quite common variations in pronouncing Greek in the first
century. These variations appear widely in the orthography of the
Greek text. One serious problem for us is the difficulty that
Nemesion had in distinguishing Greek "you" (h(mi=n)
from "us" (u(mi=n).
For a rather pedantic rendition of these, for us, curious
spellings have a look at:
http://www.yorku.ca/pswarney/3131/P-JEWSa.htm
Sebastos is
the Greek translation of Augustus. L in line 11 is the
symbol for "year." Columns 2-5 are numbered on the papyrus.
Letters between <.......> were accidentally omitted by Nemosion.
Letters between [....] are damaged in the papyrus.
Lucius
Aemilius Rectus
says:
Since all the
city was not able to
be
present at the revelation of the
most
sacred and beneficial letter
5
to the city because of its size,
I thought it
necessary to publish
the
letter that man by man each
understanding
the letter you may
wonder
at the majesty of our god Caesar
10 and for
his goodwill toward the city
be
grateful. L 2 of Tiberius Claudius
Caesar
Sebastos (=Augustus) Germanicus autokrator (= imperator)
month
of Neos Sebasto<s>
(= New Augustus) 14.
(Column) 2
Tiberius Claudius
Caesar Sebastos
Germanicus autokrator
archiereus (=Pontifex Maximus)
15
supreme, having the tribunician power,
consul designate, to the city
of
the Alexandrines, greeting. Tiberius Claudius
Barbillus Apollonios son of
Artimidoros,
Chairemon
son of Leonidas, Marcus
Iulius
Asclepiades, Gaius
Iulius Dionysio<s>,
Tiberius Claudius
Phanias, Pasion
son of Potamon,
Dionysios son of Sabbion,
Tiberius
Claudi<u>s,
Apolloni<o>s son of Ariston,
Gaius Iulius
Apollonios,
Hermaïskos
20 son of
Apollonios, tha
ambassadors from you, after delivering the
decree to me,
went
on extensively about the city drawing
my attention to the goodwill
towards
us, which for some time, as you should know well, has been held in
trust
with me; for you are respectful with regard to the
Augusti, as has
become
evident to me from many things, especially how you are both eager
about my
25 house
and how eagerness is returned, of which ‑ I mention the lat‑
est,
passing over others ‑ the greatest witness is my own brother,
Germanicus
Caesar, when he spoke to you publicly
in his own voice.
Therefore, I did
happily accept the honours granted me by you
even
though I am not prone to such things.
First of all I
leave it to you to
30 treat
my birthday as august in the manner
that you yourselves pro‑
posed,
also to the erection in several places of statues of
me
and my kin I agree; for I
see
you
are
eager
to establish everywhere reminders of <y>our pietas
towards
my house. Of the twin g[old]en statues,
however,
35 the one
of the Claudian‑Augustan Peace, as was
suggested
and
as my most hon[our]ed friend
Barbillus entrea[t]ed
while I demurred
on
account of s[ee]min[g] too arrogant,
shall be set up at Rome;
3
the
other, moreover, in a manner you see fit shall process on
eponymous
days
among you; moreover, a throne shall accompany it
40 adorned
with any decoration you wish. It
might, then, perhaps be silly
after
accepting such honours as these to refuse the establishment of a
Claudian tribe
and
groves according to the custom of Egypt;
therefore, I
also
grant these things to you; moreover,
if you wish
you
may erect an equestrian statue of Vitrasius
Pollio my procurator. Moreover,
regarding the
45
erecti[o]n of the four horse
chariots <at the en>trance into the
chora which you
wish to set up for me,
I
agreee to setting up one near the
place called Taposiris
in Lybia,
another
near Pharos in Alexandria, a third
near Pelusium
in
Egypt. But my own high priest and the
building of a temple
I
deprecate
, not wishing to be arrogant to
men of my own day,
50 for
sacred things and the like are granted by every
age
to the gods alone as special honours
in my opini[o]n.
About the requests,
however, which you have been eag‑
er
to get from me I decide as follows:
all who became epheboi up to
my
leadership I confirm, and I
protect for them the citizenship of
the
55
Alexandrines with the privileges and
indulgences of the polis,
to
all except any who have escaped your notice as born from slaves
while
becoming epheboi; and no less
with respect to other matters I wish
to be
confirmed
everything graciously granted you by leaders before my time
and
kings and prefects just as [the] god Sebastos(=Augustus)
had confirmed.
4
60
The neokoroi
of the the temple in Alexandria which
is of the god
Sebastos
I wish to be chosen by lot in the
manner as those
in Kanopos
of
the same god Sebastos are chosen by
lot. About the poli-
tical
offices becoming triennial you seam to me to have planned
quite
well; for <ar>chons out of fear of
rendering account of governing badly
65 will
behave more moderately with you for
the duration of their
offices.
About the boule, however, whatever may
have been your
situation
under the old kings, I would have nothing to say; that, however,
under the
Sebastoi
before me you had none you know
clearly. As a novel
business
now set before me for the first time
and as unclear whether it
70 will be
useful to the polis or my affairs, I wrote to
Aemilius
Rectus
to
investigate and to inform me if it is
necessary that the institution be
established,
and,
if it should be right to draw one together, the manner to do it.
But for the riot and
uprising against the Judaeans (=Ioudaioi),
rather, if the truth be
told,
the war, which of the two sides was responsible, even though
75 your
envoys strove for great honour from the confrontation,
and
especially Dionysios son of The[o]n,
still
I did not want to
have a strict investigation, while storing up
in me
unrepentant
rage against the ones starting again.
But I
announce frankly that, unless you put
a stop to this des‑
80
tructive, relentless rage against each
other, I shall be forced
to
show what a
benevolent leader is when turned toward righteous rage.
For this I yet again
still bear witness
that Alexandrines, on the one hand,
behave
gently and kindly with the Judeans, the
inhabitants
of the same city from a long time ago,
5
85 and not
be disrespectful of the customs used in the ritual
of
their god, but let them use their
customs
as
in the time of the god Sebastos even
as I myself, after hearing
both
sides, have confirmed; to the Judeans
I
give strict orders not to agitate for
more
than
90 they
had before, nor as though dwel‑
ling
in two cities to send in future two delegations,
which
had not ever been done before; nor intrude in the
gymnasiarchic
or kosmetic contests
reaping
the fruits of their households while enjoying
95 the
abundance of benefits without envy in
a foreign polis;
nor
to introduce or bring in Judeans from
Syria
or
sailing down from Egypt, from which I
shall
be
forced to have serious suspicions; or
else I
shall
take vengeance on them in every way as
though
100 rousing up
some common plague on the world.
If
after
you stand aside from these things you both should
wish
to live together with gentleness and kindness
towards each other,
I shall send forth
to the highest degree providence for
the city
as
belonging to our household from bygone times.
105 I bear
witness to my companion Barbillus
always showing regar[d]
for
us (you ?) before me, and who just now with complete zeal
for
honour has consult[ed] about the contest about you,
and
to Tiberius Claudius Archibios my
compan[ion.]
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