Roman Imperial Texts: A Sourcebook

21. Commerce

21 Commerce Rome also held sway over the world by its commerce, including its taxation. 86. DOMITIAN AIMS AT JEWISH FUNDS (ca. 90 ce)1 This selection is of interest not simply for showing how Domitian took money from the Jews but also for Suetonius’s description of those Jews who sought to avoid paying the tax on Jews. Could he be referring to Christians who did not pay the Jewish tax? Once again, if there is no antecedent for “he” and “him” in Suetonius’s biographies, they refer to the emperor he is chronicling, in this case, Domitian.§12.2. Inheritances of those completely unrelated to him were seized if one person would say that he had heard the deceased say while he lived that Caesar was to be his heir. Besides others, he most vigorously enforced the Jewish tax; those were handed over [for trial] who, though not claiming Jewish identity, lived such a life or hid their background, not paying the tribute imposed on [that] people. I recall being present as a young man when a ninety-year-old man was checked by a procurator in a crowded court [to see] if he was circumcised. 87. PLINY THE ELDER DESCRIBES ROMAN IMPORTS OF TREES AND FISH (70 ce)2 Aside from Roman management of Jewish funds that had originally been collected for the temple, Rome’s commerce spanned all the world that it knew. 1. Suetonius, Dom. 12.2; my translation from Latin text found in Suetonius II, trans. J. C. Rolfe, LCL (London: William Heinemann, 1914). 2. Pliny, Natural History 12.4; my translation adapted from Latin text in Pliny, Natural History, vol. 4, trans. H. Rackham, LCL (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968). 187 In this description of trees, Pliny seems rather matter-of-fact about the troubles taken for importing them, as well as exotic fish. Thereafter, trees with sap more charming than fruit brought tranquility to humanity, because trees provide olive oil that refreshes the limbs and wine that restores human energy, and actually all the tastes that come automatically through the year, and even desserts, though war must be fought with wild animals to obtain them and [though] the fish that feed on sailors’ corpses are [now] desired. 88. THE PROVINCES SUPPLY ROME’S KITCHENS (ca. 110 ce)3 Juvenal’s satire that follows seems to be self-conscious of the way that the Roman economy drains resources from the rest of the world. The master will have a red mullet fish that Corsica sent or one from the rocks of Tauromenium; for, our having consumed everything and now with our ocean spent in order to sate our gluttony, the nets from the market are always passing through our home seas, not allowing Tyrrhenian fish to grow [to full size]. Thus the provinces stock our hearth; from them are obtained what Laenas the inheritance-hunter buys, [what] Aurelia [then] sells. 89. THE MARKET AT POMPEII (ca. 75 ce)4 Roman power enabled the empire to draw goods from around the world. In the market, or macellum, of Pompeii, there is a room that was apparently devoted to the worship of the emperor. The architecture of this market is a clear sign that the commerce of Rome was symbiotically attached to its political power. In the portrait of the market below, note the variety of people depicted and the variety of commodities being exchanged. Roman commerce was surely a medium for the domination of a wide cross-section of the earth, an idea also evident in Rev. 18:3, 9-17. In typical fashion in which parody is played off against a divinely 3. Juvenal, Satire 5.92–99; my translation of Latin text in Juvenal and Persius, trans. G. G. Ramsay, rev. ed., LCL (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1940). 4. By Wmpearl (Own work) (Public domain), via Wikimedia Commons.http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/ File:Fresco_from_the_House_of_Julia_Felix,_Pompeii_depicting_scenes_from_the_Forum_market.JPG. 188 | Roman Imperial Texts ordained reality, Revelation also hints at how the nations will spontaneously bring their wealth into the new Jerusalem, thus continuing a theme from Isaiah (Isa. 60:11-13, 16; 66:12; Rev. 21:24). 90. DIVINE JUDGMENT FOR ROME’S ECONOMIC RAPACITY (32 bce)5 The Jewish critique of Rome’s commercial dominance began before the composition of the New Testament. In the following quotation, from the Sibylline Oracles, we read a Jewish critique of that dominance...