AI Economy in Antiquity 24: The Jewish Tax

B - "The Jewish Tax" - Josephus unfolds before us the historical canvas in relation to the "Jewish Tax" following the suppression of the great rebellion by Vespasian and Titius from 70 CE to 81 CE (the years of the collection of the special tax) as follows: "...on the Jews in all A place where they were (the emperor Vespasian) imposed a tax (skull) of two drachmas (didrachm), which must be raised every year to The Capitol (Jupiter's Temple in Rome), just as they used to bring the tax to the Temple in Jerusalem. Such was the situation of the Jews at that time" (The Wars of the Jews in the Romans, Book 218, Chapter XNUMX, Section XNUMX)

A - Introduction - For many years, the Roman Empire faced the budget problem, the problem of the imperial coffers. This coffers dwindled over the years due to many wars, construction and infrastructure expenses, the expansion of the empire's borders and the maintenance of the legions throughout the length and breadth of the empire, the decrease in the value of the currency, and more. For these reasons, the emperors considered balancing the level of the imperial coffers by imposing direct and indirect taxes on the inhabitants of the empire as well as various forced labor.

Among the taxes we will distinguish the imperial, regional and provincial ones, and when the treasury of the empire was depleted of gold and silver coins, the Roman emperors turned to a new method, that is - forcing the provincial populations to perform forced labor and services for the authorities and the army such as arnona, angria, liturgy, hostel and more, as documented in the literature of the Sages And we will expand on them later, this phenomenon was especially acute after the great rebellion and Ben Kusaba's rebellion in Israel both as a punishment following the uprisings and following the relatively increased presence of Roman forces in the region. These charges were suppressed mainly after the suppression of Ben Kusaba's rebellion (135 AD), mainly following the era of urbanization in Israel which saw a boom in construction, the occupation of roads, the construction of bridges and more These requirements also reflected the production development policy in all the provinces. The same requirements were fulfilled by the agricultural and industrial products The "ancestral" principle of supply and demand. These requirements and their rights find an interesting echo, positive of course, in the literature of sages, where the latter explicitly emphasizes the legal recognition of the actions of the authorities, both out of choice and out of faith in their economic and social actions. Here lies an important proof of a normal and unusual demand on the part of the Roman authorities in the Land of Israel on this issue, when on the one hand they were guided by the production policy and on the other - the variety of political, military and economic problems mentioned above.

And interestingly for the matter in the same matter, we witness a change in the attitude of the sages (again in a combination of their lack of choice and recognition of the actions of the authorities) towards the issue of tax collection, duties and their collectors, especially since the thirties of the second century CE. This should also be attributed to the transfer of responsibility for tax collection from the conductores, that is, local tenants who undertook the collection of taxes and duties, to Roman officials authorized by the imperial authorities.

Another issue that is folded in here is the legal responsibility regarding the municipal authority regarding the performance of the liturgies (forced works) that were imposed on the municipal council and later, during the reign of Septimius Severus - on the wealthy bodies and property owners in this group as a process that is well understood against the background of the enrichment of many bodies during this period. And which burdened them was the fact that bodies such as professional unions that were exempted from the liturgies, such as those that President Rabbi Yehuda received on lease from the Romans and was as a conductor responsible for the issue of taxes and other coercive services, which raises questions and bewilderments about the extent of his commitment, even just the moral one. Is it towards the Jews or towards the Romans in terms of cooperation.

One of the problems arising in this issue is contained in the imperial decree of Caracalla dated 212 CE, known by its official name "Antonine legislation" (after the Antonine imperial family) and embedded in an Egyptian papyrus (Gissen no. 40) and indicating that the Roman emperor Caracalla grants Roman citizenship to all foreigners ( peregrini) in the (Roman) world that blows and all kinds of regions remain in their possession Except for dediticii-. Who are the "daddykeys"? Depends on who you ask. On the other hand, in the Greco-Roman historian Dio Cassius, we find that all the inhabitants of the Roman Empire were granted Roman citizenship in light of the aforementioned Antonine constitution. Some claim that all the members of the provinces, except for the members of the autonomous cities, did not receive full citizenship and were therefore condemned as "deditikei", while others maintain that The same provincials that were allowed to organize themselves in the form of polis citizens are not "Deditikei" rather "Peregrini" were foreigners, and the "Deditikei" are included in those areas where cities were not founded and are therefore directly controlled by the Roman government. In their opinion, because the Jews won Roman citizenship and became "cives" (respected citizens with rights and dignity). Others allege that Roman citizenship was granted to those communities in the empire that raised taxes (stipendiariae), and others who claimed that the "dediticae" were the conquered barbarians such as those who settled by order of the emperor Marcus Aurelius within the empire, and with them the lowest class among the free inhabitants.

My proposal is to examine the problem through the definition of the purpose of the aforementioned imperial decree, and this in light of Dio Cassius' statement that the purpose of the decree was to accumulate more revenue from the provinces, and mainly, it seems, to bite the inheritance tax that only Roman citizens were obligated to. And precisely during the time of Emperor Caracalla they raised the amount of the inheritance tax to 10%, which proves in my opinion that many did not receive Roman citizenship because otherwise It is difficult to understand the logic of this increase. The Roman government, like this, asked to increase the laying of the golden eggs without slaughtering the hen.

Some researchers believe that the Caracalla decree marked a line of imperial enmity towards the upper classes and one of its goals was to shrink their power and reduce the prestige and self-confidence that stuck to the ruling classes in the cities. Others claim that as a result of this law the liturgies gained considerable circulation on the backs of many convicts, since the exemption was not significant at all when everyone became Roman citizens. In my different opinion, it can be said that this is precisely how the order asked for a bridge between the urban aristocracy and the rest of the community and reduced the pressure on the rich, as we will see later, and in light of that positive policy towards the army this situation was ideal.

This issue encompasses an important matter, that is - the Syrian imperial dynasty has needed for years a means of encouragement that would attract as many recruits as possible to the army, and if so far the reward has been - receiving Roman citizenship, then Caracalla's decree closes the door to him and this because from here on all the people of the provinces are Roman citizens.

In my opinion, we can check the degree of implementation of the decree and its applicability in the Land of Israel as some kind of model for the other provinces, taking into account a number of variables such as location, the degree of cooperation with the authorities, various ethnic groups, and more. For the purpose of the examination, we cut off our feet for the sake of sage literature, and what did we find? First - we found no hint of this, and one has to assume that such an important law, if it had an important influence in the province, would have at least one testimony in its favor or against it, and this is compared to the privilege granted on behalf of the emperors Septimius Severus And Caracas for the Jews, which gives them the right to serve in municipal jobs, as you find an echo in the literature of the Sages. Second - the pressure of the liturgies on the rich in the Syrian period as appears in the literature of the Sages, rules out the spread of the aforementioned liturgies if Roman citizenship was granted to all. This is not because the "Deditike" are the same peoples who rebelled against the Romans, such as the last rebellion which involved taking a clear position in the struggle between Septimius Severus and Pascanius Niger at the end of the second century AD, and especially at a time when these peoples were close to the battlefield such as the Parthians.

B - "The Jewish Tax" - Josephus unfolds before us the historical canvas in relation to the "Jewish Tax" following the suppression of the great rebellion by Vespasian and Titius from 70 CE to 81 CE (the years of the collection of the special tax) as follows: "...on the Jews in all A place where they were (the emperor Vespasian) imposed a tax (skull) of two drachmas (didrachm), which must be raised every year to The Capitol (Jupiter's Temple in Rome), just as they used to bring the tax to the Temple in Jerusalem. Such was the situation of the Jews at that time" (The Wars of the Jews in the Romans, Book 218, Chapter XNUMX, Section XNUMX).

Well, a few conclusions arise from this: first - the amount of the annual tax was not oppressive, and its amount was the amount of an average wage of a laborer for two days; Second - the tax included all the Jews of the empire due to their support in the Great Rebellion and would certainly greatly increase its financial weight; Thirdly - the fiscal, symbolic punishment was proportionate - as a tax to the temple in Jerusalem known as the half shekel tax, which is also equivalent to a pair of drachmas and is collected from every Jew in the world aged 20 and over; Thirdly - Jupiter inherited the place and status of Yahweh, the God of Israel, as a psychological intensification of the punishment, and this also had a mythological connection, when in the same year the Capitoline Temple was burned in Rome, a kind of excuse was created to take revenge on the people's sanctuaries; Fourth - Vespasian confiscated the lands of the Jews who rebelled. Even here also out of economic goals beyond punitive ones.

For the purpose of collecting the tax money, Vespasian established an affiliated and organized system of those responsible for all financial issues, when these were collected into a special fund, the "Fiscus Iudaicus" and this institution was headed by a procurator, who together with a member of his assistants staffed the consilium (council) - the overall executive body Regarding the tax and its collection.

It should be noted that this move was unusual in the history of Roman institutionalism and in particular in the context of the scope of the drowning and its collection. For example, following the suppression of the Roman rebellions and wars in general, such as Germany and Hispania (Spain), where the coins of victory and Roman oppression were not minted in such a large scale and abundance, and this also applies to Roman Egypt and not to mention the variety of minting in bronze, silver and gold coins. Also, the coins of the suppression of the great rebellion were minted both in Latin Iudaea Capta, i.e. "captive Judah" in an imperial layout and in order to ensure that the inscription would indeed be understood by the Greek-speaking populations, a parallel coinage was issued, in Roman Caesarea, for the benefit of those populations, when the inscription in Greek was "Yudaiyai Aelokniaii", i.e. "The captive/enslaved Judah". Does this actually involve the suppression of a very powerful, extremely dangerous rebellion, or is there an exploitation here in order to fill Rome's coffers in view of the scattered Jewish diaspora in the Mediterranean basin.

In any case, this is a special stamp and a peripheral taxation that perhaps for the individual obligated to pay it does not have an oppressive economic meaning like the humiliation and humiliation that accompany that tax, and this despite the fact that archaeological finds (ostracons from Egypt) and even papyrological finds (from Egypt) report the value of the tax, at least in Egypt, which reached about 8 drachmas Egyptians, except that their value was finally 2 drachmas, and this with the exception of sources reporting half the amount The above, except that the charge was to collect males from the age of 3 years and even females, unlike the reports of Yosef ben Matathiu.

Moreover, this is surprising in light of, and contrary to the above interpretations, that tax and that coin have no record in the Sage literature, unlike the other Roman taxes that were imposed on the Jewish population.

It is interesting to note that in vain we will search and dig deep in the Sage literature, we will not find evidence of the didrachmon tax, the tax of the Jews above, and this is different from the sources of the Sages that discussed the course of the rebellion of Ben Kuseva and its results. And in general different, as we will mention in the next chapter, from the mention of quite a few other taxes.

and why? After all, the presence of the "Jewish tax" appears in Roman literature and even in archeological-numismatics in the form of the tax coins. Let us try to wonder about the explanations for this. Well, first of all - concealment also regarding the evidence about the rebellion between the 6 years and more, when the shock after the Holocaust and its economic, social and political consequences from the very human blow of the Holocaust and the question that remains constantly in the air - how God could reach such a situation, still struck every heart and soul of the Jews of the Land of Israel ; Second - the Pharisaic Jewish leadership after the revolt asked to restore the ruins and return to a healthy routine in all respects, and therefore completely ignored that "Jew tax" and its meanings, which, beyond all the difficult, physical consequences that followed the revolt, had a considerable psychological impact, and "quite" In those Sage testimonies regarding the feeling of bereavement and loss, which similarly led to suicidal thoughts among The public; thirdly - the expectation to return to normalcy while establishing the reconciliation with the Roman control, for all the accompanying difficulties, seek to suppress as much as possible the testimony about the "Jewish tax" which may grow seeds of revenge against the Romans in the form of a rebellion.

When the "Jew tax" was therefore abolished, it is impossible to know, neither precisely nor roughly, if at all. If we turn to the numismatic world, it appears that the coins of the discussed tax were minted in the Roman mints in the days of Vespasian and his son Titus (81-69 AD) and continued to be minted also in the days of Domitian the emperor according to the mint in Caesarea (96-81 AD). Perhaps following the wars of this emperor in Germany.

It can be argued that the "Jewish tax" was abolished during the reign of Nerva (98-96 CE), which reflects an improvement in the relationship between the Jews and the Romans, especially during the presidency of Rabbi Gamliel Dibna, whose presidency was probably confirmed during this period. This emperor ordered the issuance, as a rather unusual gesture in Roman historiography, of a special coin bearing the Latin inscription - Fisci Iudaici Calumnia Sublata, which means - "The reproach has been removed from the tax of the Jews". When the word calumnia also has the meaning of trickery, cunning, the violation of law and justice, a wrong idea, evil persecution and more of that kind. What may teach how emperors treated some thirty years after the revolt, and at least Narva himself, with some sense of disappointment, considering that perhaps a sin has been struck in relation to the interpretation of the Roman people, it is said, and also the Jewish one to the imposition of the condemned "Jew tax". However, it is not at all certain that the tax was indeed abolished, but only the shameful trail that accompanied it, and this against the background of the logical reason that Rome would not give up the goose that lays her golden eggs as the legend says. And perhaps the tax has since been called the "two-drachma tax" under the "Jewish tax".

Indeed, evidence from the time of Emperor Hadrian (138-117 AD) shows the collection of that tax, and according to Tertullian's testimony in his "Apologeticum" dated 197 AD, the Romans continued to collect the condemned tax.

Moreover, it must be assumed that the granting of Roman citizenship on behalf of the emperor Caracalla (212 AD) applied to some part of the Jews of the Roman Empire. However, the imperial decree did not cancel, so it seems, the tax in question.

According to Origen in his composition "Egret to the Africans" dated 240 CE, the reply to Julius Africanus, who asked about the "Deed of Shushana", how it is possible for the Jews of Babylon to have the authority from the Roman Empire to discuss the laws of souls, in this language: "Even now, when the governor of the empire Roman in the world, and the Jews raise for them, for the Romans, every year the (tax) of the two adrachms...".

From this date onwards, it should be noted, all Roman and other documents relating to the "didrachmon" tax are silent.

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