The economic situation in the Land of Israel from the second century AD onwards - first chapter - Villas in the literature of the Sages

A new series on the economy in the Land of Israel from the second century CE onwards. The opening chapter will discuss an interesting topic - the villas in the Land of Israel in the literature of the Sages

The following episodes in the series:

• Chapter Two - Agriculture: Capital and Government
• Chapter three - intensive farm: a real agricultural revolution
• Chapter four - literal royal cradling
• Chapter four - literal royal cradling
• Chapter Five - Ceramics as a sign of capital and rule
• Chapter six - the glass and the presidency

The word/term/expression "city", whose ancient origin was Sumerian and Akkadian, is not an invention or a linguistic innovation of Talmudic terms. This word appears in the ancient sources, i.e. in the Bible, hundreds of times in different contexts and with different inflections, but it always refers to an urban settlement containing a population of many tens, and sometimes hundreds, and in certain cases such as central cities, chiefs, which at their peak contained several thousand people such as Chashon, Jericho, Megiddo , Samaria, Jerusalem and more. The cities were fortified, some more, some less, and within them there existed an economic and social center, a legal center and of course a political one. At the head of each city stood a royal leadership and under it stood a military force, sometimes in the framework of an actual army and a bureaucratic and ritual administration. Almost every central city had peripheral control over several settlements. These were called "daughters" (such as "the city and its daughters") or yards/courtyards, and a famous phrase was the "cities of Judah". It should be noted that the term "city" in Syriac and Assyrian, without the Yod as its medium, refers to the same urban settlement that appears in the biblical sources.

During the Second Temple period - the Hellenistic one and the Roman one - the same urban, "biblical" framework continued and existed, and it finds expression both in external literature and in that of Josephus. Hela uses the Greek phrase - polis or the Latin - urbs or civitas.

During the Roman period, which is reflected in the literature of the Sages, the use of the word city in the urban sense continued, such as: "... and the rest of the twenty-three law houses (members of the Sanhedrin) were in the cities (plural of cities) of the Land of Israel... legal and its clarification), goes to a court in his city..." (Tosefta Sanhedrin 1:1), when in most cases the word city is omitted before its pronunciation and it is It was called by its "casual" name such as Yavneh, Osha, Tzipori, Lod, Geder (the city) and more This was programmed according to the Sages of the urban framework called "State", such as "State of the Sea", "From State to State..." (such as in the Gitin and Adi matters Gitin: "And the leader (of the divorce) and the bringer from country to country in the country of the sea..." (from the book of Gitin XNUMX:XNUMX)), and the city of Kabbalah took on the meaning of a special community settlement. It is interesting, by the way, that the word "state" in Arabic means a city, or some kind of urban setting. It should be noted that under the influence of Hellenistic urbanization, a multitude of words and terms were absorbed in the language of the Sages, such as "bulots", or "bulotin" which means cities, after the Greek-Hellenistic city council called "boli".

It is impossible to know exactly when it happened, why it happened and on what linguistic background the expression "city" grew in the literature of sages, such that it does not have an urban meaning but a relatively limited communal one.

For the sake of full disclosure, I will mention that the idea was first formulated by Prof. Shimon Appelbaum many years ago (in his article 'The Village in the Land of Israel in the Roman Period' in 'The Roman Period in the Land of Israel' p. 2), and I have come here to develop and expand it.

According to him, the "city" that appears in the Sage literature, which begins in the Mishnah, was an agricultural settlement, sometimes a single farm and sometimes a settlement with several houses, that is, a farm, or in the Roman nomenclature - a villa. This form of settlement became acclimatized in the Roman province of Judea with the influx of settlers Non-locals from the first century C.E. These invested their wealth in the work of the land, and the villa form - the single farm And his annexes were popular with them, and maybe the ville in French, which means city, is nothing more than the more modern configuration of the Roman villa?

The Mishnah tells us the following: "A city of the individual (which belongs to one person and he rents out his houses to tenants) and is made of (the many) (who bought it from the individual) mixing the whole (all the yards or porches participate in the sharing of the city), and of e) The plural and the singular do not include the whole, unless he made a transgression of it as a new city in Judah (which was added to an existing city and called 'new', and it was considered as a to the existing city, and the whole existing city was involved. If it is the name of a place about which the scholars are divided, there are fifty dwellings in it. Rabbi Shimon says: "Three yards of two houses"

In order to find clear Roman influences on the structure of the Jewish economy, we must present some key questions, and try to paint the above picture more clearly based on them:

1. When does the individual economy appear in the landscape of the country and when does it spread and become a wider phenomenon?

According to the anonymous evidence in the sage literature regarding the "city", its beginnings can be dated to the period after the destruction of the Second Temple, or close to it. From Ben Kusaba's revolt (135 CE) onwards we witness the expansion of this phenomenon.

2. What is the evidence regarding the settlement of Roman estates and farm owners or foreigners in the Land of Israel after the Roman occupation?

In one of the Midrashim, Rabbi Yehuda talks about "king and rule" when referring to the commissioners or officials of the emperor who buy "holidays" in the provincial Land of Israel. Before us is an interesting evidence of the use of the term "villa" with the Hebrew suffix. After Ben Kusaba's rebellion (135 AD onwards) the "tsikkim" (the "conductoras", they are the tenants who cooperated with the Romans in accepting land areas that were confiscated from the Jewish public) disappeared and with them the "rapists" (occupying land by force) and Jews took their place.

On the other hand, we witness the rise of the foreign agrarian element in Judah and its preoccupation with the work of the land to the point of interesting cooperation between Jews and non-Jews and Sages who showed a compromising position, for example on the issue of renting fields to foreigners. All this promoted the bilateral, somewhat symbiotic relationship between the two parties.

In this regard, the Talmud testifies in one thing "... that he took one city (villa) of barren slaves from the Gentiles in order to settle them and they returned to them" (Yerushalmi Yavemot 8:4 p. 4) and in another place - about joint sitting on the lands between the two parties.

All these testimonies and many more testify to the settlement of foreigners in the province of Judah after the rebellion of Ben Kusva on the one hand and Jews living with them or near them in terms of acceptance with the new situation after the suppression of the rebellion.

3. Is there any resemblance between the conditional "city" and the Roman villa?

A number of well-known Roman writers such as Cato, Varro, Columella, Palladius, Vitruvius and Plinius wrote about the Roman villa.

Well, first of all - there is a nice parallel between the general conditions of the "city" and the "villa". Second - it is also nice to say about the division of the two parallel farms, namely - the residential unit, the agricultural unit and the storage and preservation unit of the produce, and this is how we find ourselves learning from books of Chaz" to: "The seller of the city sold houses, cisterns, bushes and caves, baths and latrines, Beit al-Bedin and Beit HaShalchin, but not the movables, and at the time he said to him (to the buyer): 'It and everything in it', there were even animals and slaves in it, after all, they are all prostitutes. Rabban Shimon ben Gamaliel says: He who sells the city has sold the chin" (Bava Batra 4:7). This is probably a saltuarius, meaning the overseer and supervisor. Rabbi Yehuda notes in the supplement that "Chin is an addict, Onkolmus is not an addict" (Bava Batra GG. 5). That is, another official in the villa. The use of expressions of Latin origin undoubtedly shows the connection between the villa and the city, but above all the comparison stands out in essence, namely in the various Latin instructions of the aforementioned Roman writers regarding the sale of the villa.

Another important facility that appears in the villa and in the city involves the animal enclosures and fish ponds, called by the Sages by the name "beaver", and in plural - "bibrin", as the phrase taken from the Latin - vuvarium - vivaria, which we are talking about - enclosures and water ponds where animals, poultry and fish were nurtured and fattened. And it goes without saying that here lies important evidence of the enrichment of the city of Tanait, because for this the ranchers needed capital investments And if the literature of the Sages provides much evidence of the "beaver" and its equipment, whose adaptation to Roman agricultural literature is amazing, then we have a good testimony of a clear Roman influence. Next to the "Beaver" were found "Piscine", the origin of the name is firmly rooted in Latin, because piscina is a fish pool, and more than that - its size corresponds to the Roman one.

Beside the pool were also found beehives in "City" and "Villa".

Additional parallels between the two can be found in livestock, such as a milking cow, and the Mishnah tells of a barn in the "city", and this one's dimensions are very close to the archaeological findings on the one hand and the Roman agricultural literature on the other, as well as all those mentions of the Sages such as the "Cattle House", The house of rubbish, the "house of hay", the thicket (when pigeon excrement is considered a good source of fertilizer), the "house of trees", the great necessity of the dog and more.

In relation to the threshing floor, the Mishnah states that "a permanent threshing floor is at a distance of fifty cubits from the city (approximately 28 meters)..." (Baba Batra XNUMX:XNUMX) just as it appears in the Roman agricultural historian Waro, and it is interesting that the distance between the "Villa Urbana" and the threshing floor is almost same.

Another Roman sign in relation to the "villa" is found in Varo and Columella, who mention the area (place of the dish) and in the literature of the Sages - "and those who conceive with it (with the city). Rabbi Yehuda says... they are interbred with her... for the priests (from the Roman - cumera which is a treasure of fruits and a storehouse of grain) and the Oriyas (from the Roman - area) and the treasures in the field..." (Tosefta Irubin 6:4). And there are other parallels on the topic of threshing tools, such as the morgue identified in the literature of Chaz "L" with "treble" (which is the Roman tribulum), as well as the threshing cart and more. There are also many parallels regarding crops, plowing, care and weeding, sowing, harvesting and more.

The "city" has undergone an interesting social development compared to the "villa", as appears in the literature of the Sages: "A city of an individual and made by many, unites the whole, and that of many and made by an individual does not unite the whole, unless he made a cross to it as a city A new one in Judah, which has fifty dwellings according to Rabbi Yehuda. Rabbi Shimon says: Three courtyards of two houses" (Erubin 5:6). The Jerusalem Talmud expands - "As a new city in Judah such as Tzanan and Hadesha and Migdal Gad, which has five dwellings, even men, women and children" (Yerushalmi Talmud Erubin chapter 5 22 p. 4).

Every matter of increasing or reducing the area of ​​the city reveals to us a social problem that is subject to interpretation one way or another. However, when comparing the archaeological evidence that was uncovered in the villas in the province of Roman Syria, or in Italy (in the Vesuvius region - Campania), we can follow an interesting and complex phenomenon that has the potential to shed light on the same social problem, and on its roots, which similarly involve a change in attitudes and essences economic-agricultural.

In the Katura region of Roman Syria, the villa was the fruit of the development of the ancient village, and it expanded and grew towards the end of the second century CE, and was ruled by an aristocratic family that underwent a process of Romanization and served as a reception center for peasants from the surrounding area.

In my opinion, the same nobleman, or the same aristocratic family, is included in the Sage term of "an individual's city", and even in cases such as "one who took one city of slaves from the Gentiles" (Yerushalmi Yavmot 26 p. XNUMX), or the one who leased "Eir" is one of its components (Tosefta Baba Metzia XNUMX:XNUMX).

And lest, as a well-known historian named Chalenko, who studied the Roman villas in Syria, assumes, that the places whose names begin with the spelling "ba", such as "Babola", "Bamuka", "Bashmishi" and others are derived from the word house (and I also add the spelling Aramaic "bi"). And here lies proof of private ownership, a kind of private property of the owners of the villa. This is how we can, in my estimation, understand the geographical evidence in the Yehuda province such as "Beit Natza", "Beit Anah" and more.

Over time, the villa grew and expanded its territory, and the surrounding farmers were absorbed into it, and between them and the owners of the villa, mutual relations were forged, and towards the third century CE (in Syria) new buildings were added to the villa and around it a group of farms-estates formed, each of which had an enclosed yard, in addition For the residential building and its annexes - a barn, a barn and an agricultural field. Those farmers-farmers, who took care of those "small villas", which were founded on the side of the first large villa, constituted a class of quasi-independent land workers, that is, a social group that still belonged in certain respects to the embryonic mother villa. And that small villa, which was at the disposal of the heirs (the farmers) is gradually entering an independent framework.

A result of that development - "a city of one that becomes a city of many" - involved a transition to a small and intensive farm, as could be seen beautifully in the Campanian villas in light of the nature of the crops, the accessories in the farm and the rest of the facilities.

A similar picture is also revealed in the Land of Israel sources, when Rabbi Yossi HaGalili informs that the field of Beit Kor (ie 143.3 m x 143.3 m) that was inherited and "gardens and trees and gardens" were planted in it (Mechilta Darbi Ishmael, Parashat Beshalach) and they even developed springs in it, when the spacing Between tree and tree fits well with the Roman instructions and descriptions, we were maximum utilization of the area intended for sowing grain and other crops.

It is interesting to point out the possible analogy between the two developments of the terms discussed: just as the villa became a city in French and even as a suffix of many cities throughout the Anglo-Saxon world, including the American one, so too did the "city" in the days of the Sages become an urban city in terminology the modern.