Der Judenexkurs des Tacitus im Rahmen der antiken Ethnographie: Literarische Form, historischer Kontext, Rezeptionsgeschichte
| Rene S. Bloch Abstract:The purpose of this study is to examine the ethnographic approach in Tacitus' excursus on the Jews as an example of Roman ethnography. Previous studies of this long passage in Tacitus' Histories have focused on Tacitus' sources and his ethnographic reliability. This dissertation places this text within a larger context, the history of Greco-Roman ethnography and brings it into relation with other Ethnographica in Tacitus' oeuvre. Drawing on philological as well as historical evidence, this study shows that contrary to earlier digressions on the Jews such as the ones written by Hecataeus and Posidonius, Tacitus is not primarily interested in presenting the ethnographic reality of the Jews (as was Hecataeus) or in a philosophical understanding of their customs (as was Posidonius). Tacitus rather utilizes his sources with a view to various, mainly literary goals: The dark picture, for instance, he gives of some of the Jewish customs and the Judaean geography (the Dead Sea and the wasteland surrounding it) intends to introduce the report of the destruction of Jerusalem. The hard material of the Judaean asphalt becomes a sign of Jewish concordia and the strength of the Jewish fighters. While Tacitus, in fact, hardly contributes any new information, his somewhat artificial use of transmitted information does not reflect ethnography in a stage of decline, but exemplifies a different raison d'être of ancient ethnography: Information is not the aim of the argument, but the starting point of far reaching intentions. This meta-ethnographic approach is also present in Tacitus' digression on the Britains and in his monograph on the Germans as well as in other Ethnographica by other Roman authors as different as Caesar and Lucan. A detailed chapter on Tacitus' style argues that his digression on the Jews is by no means a confused and randomly compiled text, but that on the contrary Tacitus carefully conceived this excursus by using various stylistic embellishments. His argument is as coherent as it is in the Germania. Moreover, the numerous literary references to Vergil's Aeneid do not only intend to decorate the text, but are also important with regard to the contents. The description of the prodigies in Jerusalem preceding its destruction, for instance, imitates Venus' prodigies shown to her son Aeneas as a sign for his victory over the Rutulians in the near future. This study also analyzes the differences between ancient ethnographic comments about the Jews and about other peoples. Among other things, it shows that the geographic dispersion of the Jews had a great impact on the way they were described by Greek and Roman authors. Given that Diaspora Judaism could not be connected with any specific territory, the Jews did not fit into the topoi of ancient ethnography and therefore were not considered barbarians. Paradoxically, nonetheless, the Jewish Diaspora was never fully conceptualized in Graeco-Roman historiography and never became an ethnographic idion of the Jews. Tacitus's excursus on the Jews in the Histories is thus a curious example of Roman ethnography: It differs from its numerous Greek predecessors in its generally new approach, and it differs from other Ethnographica on other peoples in several peculiarities connected with the diasporic living of the Jews. A large chapter on the rezeptionsgeschichte of Tacitus' excursus on the Jews concludes the dissertation. Following the traces of this text from late antiquity to the twentieth century this final chapter shows the important impact of Tacitus' excursus on the transmission and commentaries of Tacitus' oeuvre as a whole.
*Publication forthcoming: Franz Steiner, Stuttgart 2001. Recent publications with regard to Josephus: Current research with regard to Josephus: |