>Dierk, if you wish to offer reasons for your Agrippa II role proposal, I
will consider them.<
>The proposal has been raised that sources on Essenes came from a
library of Agrippa II. What evidence supports it? It encounters
difficulties.<
Stephen,
Not at all, but first of all we have to understand the structural symbiosis
between Rome's imperial officium and the court of a clientele Kingdom; it
was, as a kind of joint venture, primarily based upon the principle of
periodical political reports (and the levy of troops if necessary vs support
of the court by Rome) send by the clienteles to the 'ab epistulis', the
chief of the Office. For the subaltern staff doubtlessly descended from the
servitutis condicio [1], the supervision of such activities came quite
naturally to a Greek slave or freedman [2], more than one time surnamed
Epaphroditus ('the beloved of Aphrodite') [3]. So it was in the time of the
first principes until Hadrian [4]. Only Caesar, founder of the office
principle, in his intentions to avoid Greeks in the campaign in the West,
commanded the patricius Pompeius Trogus into that still archaic position of
leading the office, this time as consular private secretary [5].
Now it is to be extracted from the Josephean sources that Agrippa II and the
whole Herodian family connection may have been a more than reliable
clientele source of information for the Office [6]. Acc. to Ant 18.2,
individual estates, such as, for example the balsam plantations in Jericho
continued to be imperial property since the time of the banishment of
Archelaus. Now Pliny states something important post mortem Marcus Vipsianus
Agrippa: The Jews tried to destroy these estates during the (very first
stage) of the Jewish War - a thing worth of reporting back to the Office by
Agrippa II - but were prevented from doing so (in the future!) by the Romans
[7]. The clumsy approach to the event implicates the assumption that Pliny
himself did not in fact take part in the siege nor did he use a military
report (or perhaps the De Iudais) of the procurator Antonius Julianus [8],
but had permission to the letters of Agrippa II. Now it would be interesting
to review Pliny's connection to both institutions involved, the Office led
by a certain Epaphroditus [9] and the staff of Vespasian, responsible for
the security of the eastern border at the Euphrates and the Syrian Limes. We
know that Vespasian commanded three legions - Leg VI Fulminata
(Rhaphaneai/Syria, later Melitene/Cappadocia), Leg X Fretensis
(Zeugma/Euphrates, later Rhaphaneai/Syria) and Leg XV Apollinaris
(Alexandria/Egypt, later Carnuntum/Illyria) and 15.000 auxiliaries from
Antiochus IV of Commagene, Sohaimos of Hemesa, the Nabataean sheik Malchos
(i.e. 'King') and - Agrippa II (part of the symbiotic joint venture) [10].
It is remarkable, then, that Pliny is locating a group he calls 'Nazerini'
in Northern Syria already in the early 70s, i.e., directly after the war
[11]. That would again refer to permission to the library of the Office, or,
likewise possible, to connections to Leg III Scythia that had followed Leg X
Fretensis in Zeugma/Euphrates 66 CE. The question is: In what legion had
Pliny served to debellare superbos? There had been only 28 in the 1st c. CE.
N.b. on trustworthiness: The dimensions of the island of Britain:
Dio 76.12.5 in length, 7132 STA/DIOI; in width, 2310 STA/DIOI at its
greatest, 300 at its narrowest
Pliny Hist Nat 4.102 a circumference of 4875 miles (though M. V. Agrippa
thought it to be 800 miles long and 300 wide).
In the hope of having shown sufficiently the relevant ancient channels of
information that aren't very different from the today,
Dierk
Notes
-------
[1] cf. the Celt Licinus in the Office of Caesar; Dio 54,21,2-8; Schol. Iuv.
1,109.
[2] For Cicero a certain Tiro did the job; cp. S. Treggiari, Roman Freedmen
during the Late Republic, Oxford 1969, 252-264.
[3] already archived here
[4] SHA Hadr. 22,8: "ab epistulis et a libellis primus equites Romanos
habuit"
[5] cp Th. Mommsen, Römisches Staatsrecht, Leipzig 1888, vol. II, 838 note
1.
[6] Vita 362 ff., c. Ap. 1.51
[7] Hist Nat 12.113
[8] Bell 6,238
[9] already archived here
[10] Bell 2.499 ff.; 3.64 ff. (Josephus' 'fifth', i.e. Leg V Alaudae or V
Macedonia, is a corruption of Leg VI Fulminata, for both Vs were stationed
in Moesia)
[11] Hist Nat 5.81
For private reply, e-mail to "Dierk van den Berg" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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