Roman Berytus

Beirut in Late Antiquity

Linda Jones Hall

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2004
• eBook ISBN: 9781134440122
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: History

Examining the numerous primary sources, including inscriptions, religions, histories, literary references, legal codes, and archaeological reports, Linda Jones Hall presents a composite history of late antique Berytus - from its founding as a Roman colony in the time of Augustus, to its development into a center of legal study under Justinian.

The book examines all aspects of life in the city, including geographical setting, economic base, built environment, political structures, religious transitions from paganism to Christianity, and the self-identity of the inhabitants in terms of ethnicity and occupation.

This volume provides:

* the first detailed investigation of late antique Phoenicia
* a look at religious affiliations are traced among pagans, Jews, and Christians
* a study of the bishops and the churches.

The full texts of numerous narratives are presented to reveal the aspirations of the law students, the professors, and their fellow citizens such as the artisans. The study also explores the cultural implications of the city's Greek, Roman and then Syro-Phoenician heritage.

1 Introduction

From the third through the sixth centuries AD the ‘Roman’ law schools in Berytus trained numerous legal, bureaucratic, and religious authorities of the Later Roman Empire. The city was known as the ‘most Roman city’ in the East; Latin inscriptions survived there longer than anywhere else in the Greek-speaking half of the empire, and Latin legal rescripts poured forth from Berytus. Greek at all periods was the language used by all classes in every mode of verbal expression. Yet references to the Phoenician–Punic heritage marked the literary and religious writings of the second and third centuries, and the Syriac language gradually gained importance as a vehicle of theological and historical writings.

This book attempts to present not only an urban history of the city of Berytus but also a reconstruction of the self-identification of the people of Berytus.¹ The physical layout of the city, the geographical setting, the political past, administrative structures, religious belief and organization, and the economic bases of trade, agriculture, and textile production will be presented as in any traditional urban history.²

Such self-identifiers as cultural heritage, ethnic identification, religious practice and belief, linguistic choice, naming practices, and literary and artistic expression will be presented also in the context of a social history. However, not only the self-identification of individuals will be considered, but also the expression of solidarity or disagreement with larger social units, such as the provinces and other cities, religious groups, ethnic groups, and occupational alliances.³

Placing the historical emphasis on self-identification should alert us to the priorities of the people themselves.⁴ Instead of looking for ‘structures’ in a society, the emphasis will be on listening for self-expression by the members of that society. This technique is not unlike that of an ethnographer, but in this case the interviewees are written sources, with all the pitfalls that a fragmentary record involves.⁵ The effort to understand what mattered to the people of Berytus avoids characterizing their culture as ‘basempire' or ‘debased’ and assumes that they created a city which met their changing values. This approach should lead us to a better understanding of the social influences on the legal codes, the forces involved in conversion from paganism to Christianity, and the collapse of the imperial coalition called the Roman Empire in the face of Islamic ‘invasion.’⁶

Historiographical background

A traditional approach to the history of a Late Roman city is well exemplified by J. H. W. G. Liebeschuetz’s study Antioch: City and Imperial Administration in the Later Roman Empire.⁷ Drawing on the rich literary sources of Libanius and John Chrysostom, the legal codes, ecclesiastical historians, and the archeological reports, Liebeschuetz’s study is balanced and ground-breaking in its presentation of the functioning of the administration of the Late Antique city. Similarly, Ira Lapidus, in his study Muslim Cities in the Later Middle Ages, demonstrated how urban history could be written by pressing literary and religious sources for information on the social and administrative organization of the city.⁸ These studies, although providing valuable social information, focus on the role of the cities in the setting of Empire. Such an emphasis is part of the long historiographical tradition focusing on the imperium exerted by major powers, such as Alexander’s Empire, the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and of course, the British Empire.⁹

Some historical works about the East have been shaded by a bias that ‘Western’ was superior to ‘Eastern.’ Of course, the relentless attacks on ‘Syrian’ or ‘Punic’ faults were a topos in ancient literature, notably in Cicero, Vergil, and Juvenal.¹⁰ As Edward Said demonstrated in Orientalism, the Occidental observer of the Orient brought his own paradigm of excellence with him. For many historians, the contemporary events of their own period suggested that superior ‘Western’ empires brought unity, order, and harmony to the disparate populations of inferior ‘Eastern’ societies. For the most blatant expression of Western superiority to ‘Oriental’ or Levantine culture, Gibbon is non pareil in his contempt, deriving in part from his conflating contemporary Ottoman practices with ancient Syrian mores.¹¹

Writing in the period of German imperialism which he helped in part to inspire, Mommsen revealed his bias against the native Syrian element in comparison to the outside Greek and Roman influences:

The interpenetration of the East and Hellenism, which has nowhere been carried out so completely as in Syria, meets us predominantly in the form of the good and noble becoming ruined in the mixture.¹²

Mommsen saw the original Greek culture, Hellenism, as a golden ideal which when combined with other cultures became a debased alloy. Like many other ancient historians of the eighteenth through the twentieth centuries, Mommsen was further influenced in his attitudes by the struggle to free Greece from Turkish control. In an atmosphere where anything Greek of the classical period was idealized and any thing non-Greek was scorned, contempt for the Ottoman Empire became politically correct. Linked to this was a distaste for any other culture perceived as primarily Islamic (certainly Arabic culture). Thus, Mommsen conveyed his contempt for both Turks and Arabs in his comment on the ‘utmost luxuriance’ of the Syrian ‘fertile coast-plain north and south of Gaza, [which] neither the Bedouins nor the Pashas have hitherto been able to make desolate.’¹³

As reasonable and thoughtful an historian as A. H. M. Jones could suggest that a major contribution of the Roman Empire was the imposition of a superior culture on ‘backward’ areas such as Syro-Phoenicia.¹⁴ Citations from virtually any modern historian of the Roman Empire who emphasizes the ‘control’ and ‘unity’¹⁵ that the Roman Empire brought would reveal similar viewpoints which implicitly value the Roman or Greek culture over conquered indigenous cultures.

However, in the period of collapse of western empires after the Second World War, historians have taken new views of factors leading to a ‘post-colonial' world. Increasingly, historians have tried to write history from the viewpoint of the native peoples.¹⁶ An effort has been made to trace the rise of indigenous cultures as expressed in linguistic, social, economic, and religious outlets. Some ancient historians who have written with sensitivity to the native element include Rostovtzeff,¹⁷ Bowersock,¹⁸ and Momigliano.¹⁹ In particular, Fergus Millar has addressed issues of cultural identity in a variety of studies.²⁰

One especially instructive modern example for historians has been that of Algeria; the inversion of political and linguistic dominance in a very bitter post-colonial struggle has led to a serious examination of relations between ‘natives’ and ‘conquerors.’ The Algerians suffered an ‘identity crisis’ in relation to their French ‘masters.’ Initially rewarded by advancement socially and administratively for acquiring competence in French language and culture, the Algerians minimized the meaning of their roots in Berber and Arabic language and culture. Schools taught French but not Arabic. But as the hold of the French waned in Algeria, the desire to be part of the Arab world resurfaced. Arabic was taught in the schools; French cultural identification became in some ways a liability. The Algerians had begun to ask themselves who they were culturally and politically; and as the self-identification changed, the use and dominance of language changed.

Algerians had to identify themselves through choice of language; in the period of transition from French to Arabic, it was not uncommon to find ethnic identification as Arabs or Berbers expressed in the French language.²¹

In the study of Berytus, although the greatest part of our written evidence is in Greek and Latin, it is possible to find references to ethnic identity as Berytians or Phoenicians or Syrians expressed in a language of imperial domination.²² By the end of the period under study, the increased use of Semitic languages, especially Syriac,²³ may suggest a fuller expression of ethnic identification. Such a development of an indigenous language should be of more than passing linguistic interest. The increase in both quantity and quality of written Syriac attests to improved status for the language and the speakers of it. The production of hymns, theological writings, the Syro-Roman Lawbook, and religious histories in Syriac suggests an increased identification by the people of Phoenicia and Syria with the Semitic linguistic heritage. It may also indicate a changed social climate in the part of the Greek East which ‘succumbed’ most readily to the Islamic invasions of the seventh centuries.²⁴

Aspects of self-identification

Self-identification by individuals is shaped by many factors. The ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of illustrations
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• List of abbreviations
• 1 Introduction
• 2 The geographical setting
• 3 The economic base of the city
• 4 Berytus as Colonia and Civitas
• 5 The built environment of Berytus
• 6 Provincial organization in the Roman and Late Antique eras
• 7 Paganism and cultural identity
• 8 Christianity as change in religious identity
• 9 A city of lawyers, professors, and students
• 10 Artisans, occupational identity, and social status
• 11 Conclusion
• Appendix I: Province of Syria
• Appendix II: Province of Phoenicia
• Appendix III: Lawyers, law professors, and law students
• Appendix IV: Coins attributed to the mint in Berytus
• Bibliography
• Index