David A. Fiensy
There are two similar tales—perhaps legendary in nature—about bandits who lived five hundred years apart. In the first one, told by Augustine, Alexander the Great asks a pirate who has been captured what he meant by keeping hostile possession of the sea. The pirate answers that he means the same thing by his action that Alexander meant by his. “Because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, while you who do it with a great fleet are styled emperor” (Augustine, Civ. 4.4; trans. Oates, 1948: 52).1
In the second story, the famous bandit chief, Bulla Felix (early third century CE)—whose very name, “Lucky Charm,” seems something from a fairy tale—was captured and taken to a praetorian prefect. The prefect asked Bulla, “Why did you live the life of a bandit?” The classic answer: “Why are you a praetorian prefect?” (Dio Cassius, Hist. rom. 70.10).2
Interesting stories, but what do they mean? Some take them to mean that bandits were insisting on justice. They were, in this view, campaigners against the big guys of the earth. If Alexander and the Romans, represented by the praetorian prefect in the story, insist upon conquering people, these bandits, champions of the weak, will rise up to oppose them (Shaw, 1984: 52).3
But I see it differently. That interpretation is a superimposition of a certain cultural value on cross-cultural texts. To me, the answers are based on an ancient—and sometimes contemporary as well—value system. That value is: if one can gain power, one should. Why would you not? This is the value system of a warrior culture. Your mission in life is to conquer, to grasp for power. Thus, the praetorian prefect has risen in his world, in his system of power, just as Bulla Felix rose in his. The two are alike. Also, the pirate sought to rule the seas just as Alexander sought to rule the earth.4 Each has sought power. What is the difference after all?
The stories illustrate one important feature. We can impose modern values and perspectives on ancient texts and persons. Such an imposition may be the model of social banditry invented by Eric Hobsbawm (1965; 2000) and advanced in New Testament studies by Richard Horsley (Horsley, 1979; 1981; 1987; 1988; and Horsley and Hanson, 1985) and others (Crossan, 1991; Hanson 2002). It is a model that has come under steady criticism—by social scientists (Blok, 1972; Dodds, 2011; Leloup, Rousseaux, and Vrints, 2014), by classical historians (Shaw, 1984), and by both New Testament scholars and historians of Judaism (Donaldson, 1990; Freyne, 1988; Isaac, 1992; Kloppenberg, 2009; Rumple, 2005)—since it first appeared and that has been examined thoroughly in lengthy essays, in at least one master’s thesis (Lincoln, 2005), and in at least one monograph (Grünewald, 1999).5
Horsley had started out, in his publications on social banditry, to counter the views of Hengel (1989 [orig. 1961]) and Rengstorf (1967 [orig. 1942]). They had maintained that in Josephus the bandits and the Zealots were one and the same. Horsley also took issue with the assertion that Josephus had used the term λῃστής as a polemical term to discredit persons who were not, in actual fact, bandits. For Horsley, the bandits of Josephus were real bandits—and not freedom fighters or rebels—albeit a specific kind of bandit, the social bandit. Throughout his seminal essay of 1979, Horsley seems to assume that if he can credibly counter the first claim6—that the bandits were the same as the Zealots—he has also disproven the second—that many persons labeled bandits by Josephus were not actually bandits but were being tarred by the poisonous pen of the erstwhile Galilean general turned historian (Horsley, 1979). Since this article, Horsley has published numerous essays and monographs on the subject.
No one can discuss banditry in late Second Temple period Galilee and Judea without at least a respectable nod in Hobsbawm’s and Horsley’s direction. Both scholars are very creative and refreshing interpreters of history, and we, the scholarly world, owe them a large debt as we should owe anyone of equal creativity and innovation. However, one can both admire and critique.7
Did the economic situation in late Second Temple Galilee and Judea press young men (they were almost always men) into a life of banditry? Horsley argues that banditry arises in agrarian societies when peasants are exploited through economic crises (e.g., taxation, loss of land, famine, debt) and social disruption (e.g., war, foreign conquest, ineffective government).8 He sees such exploitation in first-century CE Galilee and Judea: Many peasants fell into debt and had to forfeit their land. Vast numbers of peasants formed a proletariat and became day laborers. The Jewish ruling class and the Romans levied higher taxes (Horsley and Hanson maintain there was a 40 percent tax). And finally, there was a famine during part of this time period (Horsley and Hanson, 1985: 61).9 Horsley and Hanson maintain that banditry arises directly from the peasants’ inability to grow enough crops (Horsley and Hanson, 1985: 49–62). Thus, the peasants of Palestine faced a triple threat: alien rule, double taxation, and famine for at least part of this period. These conditions nourished a rise in epidemic banditry (Horsley, 1981: 412, 417–9; Horsley and Hanson, 1985: 49–50).
This description of conditions has sparked some pushback from other scholars who want to emphasize religious motivations in the first-century CE Jewish movements in Palestine (Isaac, 1992), who want to characterize the so-called bandit leaders in Palestine as rebels or political rivals (Grünewald, 1999), or who argue for a more nuanced assessment of the phenomenon of banditry in the ancient world (Shaw, 1984). These scholars observe that doubtless such conditions as economic stress increased the number of men seeking refuge in bandit gangs, but what about those men with families? The bandit route probably would not have been open to them. As historians have noted, many of the ancient persons came under economic stress, but a very small percentage of them turned to banditry (Grünewald, 1999: 17).10 If we may accept Hobsbawm’s figures, bandits in any society never exceed 1 percent of the total population and usually are half that or even less (Hobsbawm, 2000: 23–4).11
In this essay, I hope to answer one basic question about the phenomenon of ancient banditry in the Roman Empire, approximately contemporaneous with the events of first-century CE Palestine: Did a rise in banditry signify a concomitant governmental-economic collapse? In other words, can one reason backward: If there is a rise in banditry, then must there have been a preceding rise in the exploitation of the peasantry? To answer this question, I will offer four propositions:
Not everyone called a bandit really was one.
Bandits were everywhere in the Roman Empire; they did not just arise during economic stress.
Economic collapse was not necessarily the causal factor in becoming a bandit. There was a multitude of reasons for that life’s choice.
A new economic theory may argue that it was/is not governmental-economic collapse that accounts for a rise in banditry, but rather a kind of “Goldilocks” societal situation that facilitates it.
First, not everyone called a bandit really was one. Let us begin by defining what a latro/λῃστής was. Brent Shaw wrote that bandits were “men who threatened the social and moral order of the state by the use of private violence in the pursuit of their aims” (Shaw, 1984: 4; emphasis mine). The key words here are the ones highlighted: “private violence.” The bandit engaged in armed robbery—often ending in murder—but represented no government. The bandit stood on a spectrum between one who committed ordinary “theft” (furtum) on the one end and being a legitimate “enemy” (hostis) on the other. The latro/λῃστής committed serious armed robbery in a gang. He was usually upon capture executed by wild beast, burning, or crucifixion (Grünewald, 1999: 15; Shaw, 1984: 21–2; Hengel, 1989: 32; pace Hanson, 2002: 296).
“Every latro was a robber but not every robber was a latro,” writes Thomas Grünewald (1999: 16). He offers a fourfold description of latrones/λῃσταί: (1) they used weapons; (2) they worked in gangs; (3) they aimed for plunder; and (4) they showed “malice aforethought” (that is, they often murdered their victims; Grünewald, 1999: 16).
Before we ask why anyone would want to become a bandit—was it to correct injustice, to rob from the rich and give to the poor?—we might well delineate the types of persons labeled “bandit.” Here we can profitably compare Hobsbawm’s distinctions from his most recent and thorough critic, Grünewald. Table 7.1 (also including Hanson) quickly illustrates their similarities and differences.
Hobsbawm (2000: 19–20, 23) |
Hanson (2002: 293)12 |
Grünewald (1999: 3)13 |
|---|---|---|
Urban robbers |
||
Rural impoverished gentlemen |
||
Peasants |
||
Mere robbers |
Thieves |
Robbers (“real bandits”) |
Haidukry |
||
Raiders |
Raiders |
|
Social bandits |
Social bandits |
|
Noble robbers |
||
Resistance fighters |
Rebels |
Rebels |
Avengers |
Avengers |
|
Revolutionaries |
||
(Political) rivals |
As Table 7.1 demonstrates, both Hobsbawm and Grünewald assign a category to the pure bandit or criminal, as well as other categories in which the bandit is either “noble” or social (so Hobsbawm) or metaphorical (Grünewald); that is, the bandits are not really actual criminals, but rather political opponents and rebels according to Grünewald, or injustice rectifiers according to Hobsbawm.
If we are to credit the category of “social bandit” that Hobsbawm invented and that some New Testament scholars have accepted, then the origin of that group might be quite different from that of the real criminal. Horsley has argued, following Hobsbawm, that bandits appear in agrarian societies where peasants have been exploited, and their numbers increase in times of economic crisis and social disruption. In such conditions, social bandits arise to right the wrongs of society. These social bandits—like the legendary Robin Hood—defend the value of justice of the peasantry and punish the wealthy (Horsley, 1987: 39). Horsley holds up Eleazar ben Dinai, whose bandit group was active for around twenty years, as the Jewish Robin Hood (Horsley, 1981: 412–4).14 During this period, “vast numbers” (so Horsley) of peasants were forced into a proletariat and became day laborers. It was a growing economic crisis (Horsley, 1981: 417).15 Thus, Horsley would conclude, in answer to our question in the title of this essay, that the rising number of bandits in Palestine did indicate economic crisis.
Grünewald’s position is that all of the persons labeled “bandit” in Josephus were actually rebels (i.e., political usurpers) or Josephus’s own political rivals (Grünewald, 1999: 91–109).16 To discuss a rise in banditry based on Josephus may be an exercise in futility since most were not actual bandits. It was common in the Roman Empire to label one’s political rivals as latrones. Cicero, for example, observes Grünewald, called Catiline, his political enemy, a bandit. According to Grünewald, he referred to Mark Antony nearly forty times as a bandit (Grünewald 1999: 17, 161). It is common, even today, for nations to label troublesome rebels as “bandits” or “brigands.”17 Thus, we (and Josephus) use these terms metaphorically as a way of disparaging someone, argues Grünewald. So, when we ask who became a bandit, we need to be sure we are talking about real bandits.18
This practice—it seems to me—is something like our use of the term “thug.” Many of the “bandits” in Josephus were bandits in the same way that calling a political rival a “thug” in American politics does not literally mean that the rival stands outside Walmart and physically assaults shoppers.
Second, bandits were everywhere in the Roman Empire both before and after the first century CE. As Shaw observed: just as slavery affected the empire widely, so too banditry was integral to imperial society (Shaw, 1984: 8). Grünewald cites with disagreement the contention of the great historians Michael Rostovtzeff and Geza Alföldy that banditry broke out in the Roman Empire due to a crisis. Their mistake was to trust the flattering sycophants who claimed that Augustus had rid the world of bandits and pirates (Grünewald, 1999: 17).19 He did not; they were always there.
The real bandits were very bad people who terrorized travelers20—both rich and poor—and preyed upon local farmers throughout the Roman Empire for centuries before and after the ministry of Jesus. So widespread was the phenomenon that Ulpian’s Digest (13.6.5.4) lists as the common causes of death: old age, sickness, and bandits. It is even classed alongside natural causes of death such as storms, fire, and earthquakes (Dig. 13.6.18; Shaw, 1984: 9).
Both Paul (2 Cor 11:26) and Jesus (Luke 10:25–37) allude to the dangers of travel due to violent bandits. It was not uncommon for a person to set out on a journey and never be seen or heard from again. Pliny the Younger narrates the stories of two such individuals (Ep. 6.25).21 It was so dangerous that poor persons would try to tag along behind wealthy ones because the latter traveled with armed guards,22 or at least the poor attempted to travel together in an entourage (Epictetus, Diatr. 4.1.91–95). Some persons journeyed with a pack of dogs for protection. Still, that did not always help. Persons with guards—even military commanders with soldiers—could be intercepted by bandits, robbed, and killed (Grünewald, 1999: 20).
Death by bandits was one of the many dangers one faced in antiquity. One family, whose story is told in the Jewish tractate Semahot, suffered most of the horrors of the ancient world: the father was burned at the stake for heresy, the mother was killed by the sword, the daughter was given to prostitution, and the son was killed by bandits (Sem. 8.12; 12.13).
Sometimes entire families, including children, were simply wiped out by roving gangs of latrones. For example, an inscription states that a man, along with all seven of his children, was killed by bandits. Another inscription commemorates the death of a ten-year-old girl who was murdered by bandits just because she wore jewelry. In the fifth century CE, an entire monastery of Christian ascetics—“of the most perfect life and holiness”—living near the ancient village of Tekoa in Palestine, was slaughtered by Arab bandits (John Cassian, Conf. 6.1), causing the theologian to descend into troubled meditations. Even gladiators—trained in the art of fighting—would often be overcome by the gangs and killed by them. There are numerous tombstones from this period that attribute the death of the individual to bandits. Their tombstones read merely: interfectus a latronibus, “killed by bandits” (Shaw, 1984: 10).23 Enough said; observers understood what the inscription meant.
So dangerous were the bandits that a whole class of skilled men arose: bandit hunters who tracked them down and brought them to justice. Alongside this class was the even more lethal “bandit killer,” who skipped the bring-them-to-justice step and simply dispatched them immediately (Shaw, 1984: 14; MacMullen, 1966: 2–58).24 It takes a brutal person to stop a brutal person was evidently the thinking. Often the Romans would station guards (called stationarii) at the worst spots for bandits. There are inscriptions celebrating certain of these guards for having killed many bandits (MacMullen, 1966: 259–60). The point is that banditry was ubiquitous in the Roman Empire, and “noble bandits” were rare, if indeed they even existed at all. These were bad people, feared, hated, and hunted (Shaw, 1984: 9–10; Grünewald, 1999: 24; MacMullen, 1966; Hengel, 1989: 35–8).
Both Shaw and Grünewald stress the ubiquity of banditry. There was no rise in banditry; it was always there. It had at least since the fifth century BCE in Greece been considered even an acceptable occupation. And in a warrior culture, raiding beyond one’s borders was a given. Bandits did not arise suddenly because of social evils. They were already there, although their ranks might have swelled somewhat under certain social and political conditions (see below; Shaw, 1984: 25; Rengstorf, 1967: 257–8).25
Third, one did not necessarily become a bandit because of economic collapse. There were many reasons for choosing that lifestyle. We ask in this essay not who became a rebel or a political rival—who might be labeled a “bandit”—but who became a real bandit, a criminal who robbed with “malice aforethought,” to use Grünewald’s terminology. Grünewald eliminates from discussion at the outset many of the bandits described in Josephus. They were political rivals—so Grünewald—and not real criminals. As to why one rises up in rebellion or political rivalry, he leaves to us to opine (as I have done in the opening paragraphs of this essay). But his main interests are, first, describing real banditry and, second, showing the legendary character of the so-called noble bandit (or social bandit). The latter was a literary fiction, not a historical reality (Grünewald, 1999: 7–11, 161–2).26
So who became a criminal type bandit or “real bandit”? The following were the strongest candidates to join the ignominious group:
Fugitives from slavery
Army deserters and army veterans
Shepherds
Impoverished peasants (who could not find work in a farm)
Restless young men wanting freedom and adventure
Interestingly, these candidates are listed by both ancient historians and by Hobsbawm (Hobsbawm, 2000: 38–9; Grünewald, 1999: 57, 161; Hengel, 1989: 33). Enslaved individuals often fled to a life of banditry. The infamous Bulla Felix—referred to above—allegedly told a captured Roman centurion to go back and tell his enslavers to feed their enslaved people so that they would not become bandits (Dio Cassius, Hist. rom. 77.10.5). The implication is that harsh treatment of enslaved people often left them little choice but the dangerous route of banditry. When one escaped his enslaved life, where would he go? The options were limited if one wanted to avoid recapture.
Soldiers who found the rigors of army life unbearable and so deserted before their commitment was up naturally turned to a life of banditry. They probably calculated that either the harsh discipline or their chances of survival in battle did not warrant their continued loyalty to their military commitment. Further, many military veterans found that their retirement—in the form of land allotments—was not secured. The amount of land might not be enough or might even be denied at retirement. They needed to “supplement.” They had military skills that were valuable to the bandit gangs and would have to endure much less discipline and perhaps endure less risk to their life than in the Roman army (Hobsbawm, 2000: 38; Shaw, 1984: 29).
Shepherds were tempted to engage in livestock rustling (cattle or sheep/goats) because of their proximity to other herds and the remoteness of their work in the mountains. Their nomadic life, moving along with the herds, afforded them less oversight. They then easily morphed from being a shepherd who occasionally rustled cattle to become a full-time bandit. This source of new bandits was perhaps the oldest one. Shepherds notoriously engaged in rustling since time immemorial (Lincoln, 2005: 53; Shaw, 1984: 31).
As the land increasingly was gobbled up both by large landowners and by the division of small farms among the heirs, there soon was not enough land to provide a living as a freeholder on one’s own farm. Nor could one necessarily hire out as a day laborer. In some areas of the empire, there were not enough farming jobs to be had. What was a young man to do in that case? Among other options—which included fleeing to the city or selling himself into slavery—he could select a life of banditry.27
Finally, as Martin Hengel speculated, there were simply many young men who longed for more excitement and adventure in life than the yearly drudgery of farming. The critical age was between puberty and marriage, writes Hobsbawm (since most of the bandits were young and single). In those years—perhaps one could say from age thirteen to twenty—young men are most impressionable, most attracted to action (i.e., violence), and footloose (Hengel, 1989: 33; Hobsbawm, 2000: 36). But once he has a family, it is “harder for a man to revolt against the apparatus of power” (Hobsbawm, 1965: 18). Thus, many young men simply wanted adventure, and a period of time as a bandit seemed like a good idea.
These were desperate (or bored) persons who either needed to make a living and could find no other way to do so, who could no longer take the rigors of the military, who—as shepherds—were tempted into rustling livestock, or who found life on the farm in a backwater village too limiting and decided to see the world before they took upon themselves the “burden” of a wife and children. These were not noble bandits or social bandits. They took to a life of crime on this scale—a life of stealing that stood between petty thievery on the one hand and joining an enemy army on the other hand—for various reasons, none of which was to right the wrongs of society. Grünewald’s argument is that brigandage (real banditry) was pervasive, and he doubts that it indicates very much about the effectiveness of the government or the efficiency of the economy of Palestine in the late Second Temple period.
But were there no Robin Hoods among them? Even Grünewald, Hobsbawm’s most thorough critic, allows that there were avengers in their ranks. Usually, though, these were enslaved individuals getting revenge on their former, harsh enslavers. But it is doubtful, in his view, that there were social reformers—either in Palestine or elsewhere in the empire—like the social bandits envisioned by Hobsbawm (and Horsley and others). For one thing, all classes were attacked by bandits: enslaved persons, freedmen, household managers, entire families, soldiers, municipal officers, and so on (Shaw, 1984: 41; pace Horsley, 1979: 45). The bandits did not attack the rich to give to the poor (pace Horsley, 1979: 45). They attacked everyone to give to themselves.
Fourth and finally, a new economic theory may have relevance to our discussion. Banditry had existed for centuries before the first century BCE in Palestine (Isaac, 1984; 1992). It did not suddenly arise to right the injustices of the world. Yet, it probably grew in numbers—although we should still think the numbers were very small—at certain points during that time period. If we accept Hobsbawm’s own data (2000: 23–4),28 that might mean that in the Galilee, for example, the total number of bandits grew from 175 (0.1 percent of the population) to 1400 (0.8 percent of the population) at the most, assuming a population of the Galilee during our period of 175,000 (Meyers, 1997: 59; Hoehner, 1972: 53).29 Based on this type of banditry (i.e., real banditry), what did a rise in its numbers mean?
One gets the impression from Horsley and others that economic collapse brings on banditry, especially social banditry. But now there is a new economic theory that could have bearing on our understanding of banditry in first-century CE Palestine. This theory has been presented in a recent issue of the Economist magazine (anon., 2011). This article summarized a paper presented at Britain’s Royal Economic Society (in 2011) by Olaf de Groot, Anja Shortland, and Matthew Rablen. They argued that even within a pirate-infested country like Somalia, most pirates come from the relatively stable part of the nation and not from the region characterized by anarchy. They argued that pirates (I presume the same for landlocked bandits) need a basic level of law and order in order to operate. There is a kind of “sweet spot” in the pirate-bandit career. Too much government effectiveness makes the outlaw life difficult, if not impossible. But too little government effectiveness can work the same way. These economists describe piracy as a “market-dependent” crime. One needs a fence or middleman, and one needs transport of stolen goods. These requirements depend on some basic rule of law. Paradoxically, you need some law in order to break the law with profit.
Thus, the economists prognosticate that for countries with very poor levels of governance (as measured by the World Bank Index), a bit of improvement in law enforcement, stability, and security will paradoxically lead to a rise in piracy: “Piracy can be endemic in weakly ruled states but rarely takes root in ones where the state has completely collapsed.”30 Thus, countries like Haiti, Liberia, and Sierra Leone will have few bandits since they are too dysfunctional. On the other hand, really well-governed countries produce few bandits. Thus, the presenters suggest, countries such as Cambodia and Cameroon will be overrun with bandits because they fit the “sweet spot” or Goldilocks criteria. One might diagram this theory as presented in Table 7.2.
Dysfunctional governments |
Weakly effective governments |
Effective governments |
||
|---|---|---|---|---|
Level of brigandage |
High |
X |
||
Low |
X |
X |
If there is any merit to this theory, then a rise in banditry—per Josephus31—in Palestine in the first century CE was either due to a decrease in government efficiency (from strong Herodian rule to weaker Roman rule) or a slight increase in government effectiveness (from dysfunctional Herodian to weak Roman rule). Whatever the dynamic (I would think it was the former),32 this theory argues not for a collapse in political-economic function—a period of “abnormal hardship” (Hobsbawm, 1965: 24)—but for a weak system, a system middling between effective government and dysfunctional government. The government and its presumed economically parallel result functioned fairly well—at least well enough. This “sweet spot” in government effectiveness allowed the banditry that was already present to grow in numbers somewhat. The other numerous references to bandits in Josephus were actually just name-calling of his rivals or an attempt to denigrate political rebels. They were not true bandits.
Thus, the assertion that Judea and/or the Galilee were in a state of near governmental anarchy and concomitant economic collapse or crisis (“abnormal hardship”) seems exaggerated. The drastic polarities in my subtitle (“Prosperous or Desperately Poor?”) are, as polarities usually are, hyperbolic. In truth, governmental effectiveness and economic efficiency were somewhere in the middle of those two opposites.
Conditions did change under the Romans, but probably not as much as we have heretofore believed due to the influence of Josephus. I think the strong rule of Herod the Great morphed into a somewhat weaker rule under the Romans, leading to a Goldilocks political-economic condition that nurtured a modest rise in banditry. Thus, the bandits you have always with you, but they do not always find the optimal conditions to pursue their career.