Jürgen K. Zangenberg
Presumably, none of us likes to pay taxes, although we—as citizens of democratic states—all understand that public tasks decided upon by the majority have to be funded by all. Taxation implies and presupposes participation in the political process. Nobody knows this better than those citizens of colonial Boston who refused to pay taxes to a king who did not want them to take a share in his power over them—and rebelled.
In antiquity, taxes had different connotations and practical implications than today. Taxes were raised by various bodies on the imperial, provincial, and local levels; and there were not a few types of taxes, including taxes on property, goods, or the pure existence of a person (caput). Those who made decisions over taxation policies rarely shared their authority with those who were ruled. Rulers raised and eased taxes at will, manifesting themselves as benign or harsh leaders of their subjects. In a passage likely taken from Herod’s friend and advisor Nicolaus of Damascus, Josephus still applauds Herod for easing taxes after a famine had struck Judea (A.J. 15.365).
For those who collected taxes on behalf of the government, they were an easy means of income, while those who had to pay them saw them as a most obvious sign of being oppressed. Very often, taxpayers were not allowed to share in power and decision-making processes in the Roman Empire and its predecessor states. But differences were great between various parts of the empire. In the East, for example, people were accustomed to being taxed, though not being happy with it.
Where Roman rule was extended to territories without any comparable system, however, the often chaotic and brutal mechanism of taxation and its no less violent consequences became evident in all its aspects. Let me give an example: When Varus took over the newly occupied regions east of the Rhine to form the new province of Germania, he reorganized the indigenous legal system by introducing Roman law as the only source to settle internal disputes, and he tried to transform traditional systems of economic exchange by introducing taxes (see Tacitus, Ann. 1.59.4–5: jurisdiction, taxes; Dio Cassius, Hist. rom. 56.18.3–4: jurisdiction, taxes; Florus, Epit. II 30: jurisdiction; Velleius Paterculus, Hist. 2.117.2–4: jurisdiction, taxes). When Augustus took over the former core territory of Herod’s kingdom, he had a census organized by the Syrian financial procurator Quirinius (Josephus, A.J. 18.1–2; Luke 2:1–2). Such a census not only counted the population to be entered into tax registers, but also established every inhabitant’s legal status and property—a clear sign that Judea would from then on be more tightly connected to Roman rule, and its inhabitants taxed as provincials.
Most of these taxes, one needs to know, had to be paid in kind since Germanic society was not yet sufficiently monetized, which means that a large part of the surplus was no longer available for internal exchange of goods and to maintain social relations, but was channeled to the new masters of the land. Right from the beginning of provincialization, Rome deeply interfered in formerly decentrally organized social and economic affairs. Strict taxation was not only a demonstration of the victors’ superiority; it was also used to break the last sparks of freedom and force the last dissenters into submission. Often this approach worked through sheer power and intimidation; in other cases, such demonstrations of authority backfired. Originally, the Frisians had been loyal to Rome thanks to Drusus’s lenient, apparently more or less symbolic method of taxation. However, after offering their wives and children into bondage without receiving relief, they went into open rebellion in 28 CE when a subordinate officer charged with collecting the cowhides refused them because they were too small. The Romans sent the army to restore order but were defeated, and Frisia was lost to them for good (Tacitus, Ann. 4.72–73).
Being taxed as such was apparently considered acceptable if the system was based on mutual benefit (such as new opportunities for indigenous leaders) and respect. If that mutual benefit and respect is lacking, however, taxation becomes a symbol of lost freedom; and the taxed must then make a choice and ultimately decide on which side they want to stand. It is interesting to see how often the leaders of such rebellions have been in Roman service before (the Cheruscans Arminius and Segestes: Tacitus, Ann. 1.55–60, and Velleius Paterculus, Hist. 2.118.2; or the Frisian Cruptorix: Tacitus, Ann. 4.74). Taxation, therefore, has not only economic, but also sociopsychological implications.
These examples from the extreme northwest of the Roman Empire illustrate that motivations for and sentiments against taxation were generally not that different from what we know of those at the eastern end of the Mediterranean world, which is the primary focus of this volume. Let us therefore now turn to the book itself.
Before the book delves into the details of regional taxation and resistance, John T. Fitzgerald introduces us to broad and lively ancient discussions about the legitimacy of taxation. In his programmatic article, Fitzgerald makes clear that two superior powers were the source of all taxation in the ancient world: the gods, represented by their priestly servants (“the temple”), and the kings with their palatial entourages (“the palace”). According to ancient ideology and practice, taxpayers and tax recipients were connected in a kind of “axis of reciprocity”: in return for wealth, the superior powers will protect their subjects, showing how deeply influential models of economic exchange became for defining political and religious relationships. Fitzgerald’s remarks are especially interesting because they show how deeply rooted both the acceptance of taxes was in the ancient world, and how great expectations were that people would receive something in return for their loyalty as taxpayers. This “axis” could break on either side: if taxes were not “returned” by care for the subjects, the willingness to pay them would decrease. And if taxes were refused, rulers would see themselves justified to extract by force what they considered their god-given right. It is therefore crucial to keep both expectations in balance to keep the system running, even if—as Fitzgerald rightly remarks—they always remained asymmetrical.
I am not sure, however, how far Fitzgerald’s distinction between “tribute” and “taxation” is indeed helpful for the situation in antiquity. No other author in this volume seems to follow him.1 The distinction between “falling within redistribution or outside of it” might be cut too much along modern lines, although Fitzgerald does have a point if one compares how classical Athens taxed its own citizens, on the one hand, and made its allies pay tributes, on the other. What does, however, characterize all systems of taxation and tribute is that they were “asymmetrical,” giving those who wielded power over resources (wealth, military, access to gods) the decisive edge over those who did not, or only wielded such power occasionally. Though Athenians and Spartans differed in political outlook and values, they both sought to maintain control over their allies by either extracting money from them or, in the case of the latter, ensuring that pro-Spartan oligarchs stayed in power. Exacting money, therefore, is only another means of forcing subordinates to offer loyalty. Depriving the dependent partner of some of his material wealth by diverting it would limit his ability to make independent decisions that might go against the will of the superior. Taxation is clearly an instrument to rule over “insiders,” while tributes fulfil the same goal regarding subordinate “outsiders.”
It is therefore not surprising that Greek authors such as Isocrates or, more than five hundred years later, Aelius Aristides entered into lively and controversial discussions about which taxes or tributes were just and fair, and which might come close to or need to be called outright enslavement. When is resistance against tributes justified, and when is it rightly punished as insubordination? We can imagine that similar debates would take place in other cultures when some groups experienced taxation as too heavy or unjustified. While the reasons for such opposition might differ according to varying cultural identities across different regions of the Mediterranean, the criterion of “justness” seems to be a basic requirement. Taxation based only on sheer force is dangerous; demanding and paying taxes needs a commonly accepted ideological Überbau (“superstructure”). If the Überbau is broken, resistance is at hand, often in the name of an alternative, competing Überbau. I think we can assume, even reconstruct, similar discourses about just taxation to be accepted, and unjust taxation that ought to be resisted also in Judea before the outbreak of the First Revolt. Both Josephus (A.J. 18.4) and the New Testament (Mark 12:13–17 parr.) give valuable insights into the breadth of the debates and the various arguments that often resembled contemporary discourses in Roman literature on taxation as being a form of servitude (Tacitus, Hist. 4.59, 74; Valerius Maximus, Mem. 4.3.8, on Macedon). Jewish rebels not only killed the hated tax collectors, but also plundered oppressors and their sympathizers alike, to put their possessions to new use by either transforming them physically (coins with new inscriptions made from old silver) or integrating them functionally into their own households (defaced bronze jugs). Even here, plunder is not only robbery, but also a form of “reversed tribute,” demonstrating that power relations have now turned against the oppressors, while the oppressed have become free.
Agnes Choi takes the “first look on the ground” in this book, using Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt, the “bread basket of the ancient world,” as a case to analyze the mechanics of assessing and collecting taxes. Like no other region of Hellenistic and Roman antiquity, Egypt has provided us with very detailed, sometimes even personal, evidence in the form of thousands of documents on papyrus and other writing materials. These documents allow us to take a uniquely detailed look into not only the system of taxation, but also its social implications. For Choi, Egypt as “bread basket” does imply transporting grain to Rome, but it starts with how the grain was collected from the producers to be shipped elsewhere. In this process, Choi sees many specific roles and responsibilities of figures from both the rural, agrarian context and the urban context. The backbone of the Egyptian system was the tax farmer, a private entrepreneur who bought leases from the government that allowed him to collect the taxes from a particular village or area and reap benefit for himself from such a transaction. Often, the tax farmer would not collect the taxes himself, but do this via governmentally supervised collectors. Typically for Egypt, the taxes were assessed annually based on the size of the property and the extent of the Nile floods. The papyri allow fascinating insights into the complexity of the recording and assessment system involving several levels of local, district, and governmental officials such as scribes and supervisors, all designed to avoid fraud and secure an equally fair share of burden for all producers. While recording took place at the spot in the rural environment, local records were collected and assessed in the district capitals and later in Alexandria, where the final decisions were taken about the amount of tax to be raised in that particular year. In Egypt, the tax was paid in kind; that is, usually in wheat, more rarely in barley, by being collected from the harvest, either at the village threshing floor or later, at the granary in the town. Here the tax farmer came, claimed the officially allotted amount of grain (= taxes), paid the cultivator for it, and took his share of the grain and sold it at a higher price elsewhere; the rest remained with the cultivator. Choi rightly emphasizes how time consuming and labor intensive this process was. Tax farming apparently was not money easily made.
Could we perhaps go a step further? In the New Testament, we do hear about village scribes, and in Josephus about tax archives. Mostly, these scribes are perceived as safeguarding tradition and setting up and copying legal and religious documents. However, with the ability to read and write, and being versed in appropriate legal formulae, were at least some of these scribes not also able to measure fields and calculate the harvest to provide the basis for taxation? What would prevent us from combining the existence of village scribes with the existence of tax offices in the residential cities of Tiberias or Sepphoris? Choi clearly shows that the existence of scribes and tax offices only makes sense if both are considered elements of a joint rural-governmental administration. Of course, the New Testament does not mention such expertise when it talks about scribes, as it is not interested in correctly representing administrative details in general. The synoptic tradition shapes the scribes very much according to the needs of later Christian congregations, thereby creating hybrid figures with a strong emphasis on the preservation of Jesus traditions and a correspondingly reduced impulse for the accurate representation of details of the pre-revolt Galilean administration, which to them was either alien or a thing of the past. If such a scribe-tax record combination is acceptable, what would prevent us from adding a third player, the tax farmer (publicanus), who is also frequently mentioned in the synoptic tradition, to come close to a system that Choi is describing? How comparable are the situations in ancient Egypt and Palestine?
It is therefore very helpful that the following article by David B. Hollander focuses on just that system of tax farming by bringing Roman tax collectors into closer view, their “business concept”—and their poor reputation. While formally relatively low (around 10 percent according to Keith Hopkins), Roman taxes became high and a perceived burden both economically as well as psychologically. This was due not only to the entrepreneurs who acted as intermediaries between the Roman authorities who levied taxes per province, but also to the amount that each individual ultimately had to pay. So, there was a potentially high difference between “declared” and “effective” tax rates. The former almost remains an only theoretical item, while the latter is difficult to calculate because it depends upon many local factors. Effective tax is a product not only of governmental decisions, but also of the private desire to create revenue. Apart from that, Hollander rightly reminds us of several uncertainties and emphasizes that “the level of Roman taxation might never be resolved to everyone’s satisfaction” (p. 61). Regarding Palestine, it is evident that in addition to governmental taxes and fees, there also were various other tributes to be paid to religious authorities, at least if one belonged to a Jewish family (tithes, temple tax). The financial burden might, in fact, therefore have been higher in Judea than in many other parts of the empire (a topic that G. Anthony Keddie later takes up in his essay). Rightly refraining from coming up with quantitative statements about Roman taxes, Hollander nevertheless mentions three factors that need to be taken into consideration when analyzing people’s responses to taxation: “The Roman tax system was routinely opaque,” “Roman taxes were perversely inconsistent,” and “Roman taxes were flagrantly unfair.” Rejection of taxation might have been aggravated by the unequal distribution of benefits and revenues officials drew from taxation (how much was returned?) and the arbitrary distribution of privileges (for citizens or certain priests), and subsidies that had more the character of spontaneous favors than of support people could rightly claim and count on. Accountability was certainly not a strength of the Roman administration, so people could rightly feel fleeced. What responses did such unpredictability create on the side of the taxpayers? How much aggression did it arouse when people felt cheated about their taxes by someone whose sumptuous way of life was a direct result of others being exploited? In any case, the New Testament is a telling witness of how strongly tax collectors as individuals were despised by the population and how much people desired the entire system to stop (examples of repentant tax collectors). Resistance against tax collectors, however, is no in-principle rejection of taxes.
G. Anthony Keddie takes up the issue of Roman provincial censuses and analyzes their sociopolitical implications. Carrying out a census, he rightly argues, is much more than simply writing up lists of how much property somebody possesses to later take some of it away. According to Keddie, censuses construct and regulate: they draw lines between members of communities and lump others together; they define and record legal, ethnic, and social status. In short, they first create what they later charge: provincial subjects. The situation in Judea, of course, was different than the one I touched on above regarding Germania. Unlike the Cheruscans, who had, according to our ancient sources, so far enjoyed freedom and independence and had not known taxes, the Judeans had been subject to priests and kings for generations and were accustomed to giving away some of their property to God and throne. While the census symbolized the transition from freedom to subjection for the Cheruscans, what did it mean for the Judeans? What more did the transition from Herod to Augustus and his governor mean than the shift from one lord to another? Did the Romans not only change the administration and introduce new and more effective agents, but also establish new taxes (land tax in addition to traditional capitation tax)? In Egypt, the Romans apparently did; so also in Judea? Perhaps not. Much more important than a means to raise money, the census enabled the Romans to make Judea part of their empire. They added a whole new layer on top of the existing societal pyramid: Roman citizens. There might not yet have been many of them, but their sheer existence automatically relegated the previous, mostly indigenous elites to second rank. Roman citizens were exempt from taxes that others had to pay, enjoyed a much higher degree of political participation than noncitizens, and enjoyed various other public and economic privileges. Former elites could, but did not automatically, receive equal status with Roman citizens, but this required the effort of loyalty. Next to this, a census defined and recorded not only legal differences between citizens and noncitizens or pertaining to material wealth, but tax registers also often recorded the physical characteristics of every single member of a household. In the end, a tax official needed to be able to identify and count every family member to check if taxes had correctly been paid in the past and, if necessary, to correct the bill. Evading these procedures would not only make a person (i.e., usually the father of the house) liable to punishment, it would also jeopardize other civil rights; for example, making an inheritance and thereby providing for the next generation. By recording physical appearance, marital and social status, property and children, and so on, the census not only turned an occupied or annexed territory into an area of Roman exertion of power, it also populated this provincial area with subjects under a new elite. It might have been just this redefinition of people and their identities, of elements that still counted and other that did not, which may have made people the most aware of what they had lost: self-determination.
There are several examples in ancient literature that describe what happens when resentment turns into resistance and outright revolt. Among them, Flavius Josephus’s account is certainly the most detailed and dramatic. In his article, Mordechai Aviam adds the archaeological story and describes what we know about the most important sites in the Galilee before, immediately preceding the Roman onslaught, and after it. He concludes that despite large losses of life and devastation of property, the Galilee recovered quickly. I am not so sure about this. Much, of course, depends on the quality of our evidence; that is, of properly dated, documented, and published excavation and survey results. Aviam is right to point out that most of what we have as evidence for destruction comes from Yodefat and Gamla. The picture here is indeed dramatic, well dated, and very detailed.
There are, of course, sites that do not show any evidence of destruction, like the big Decapolis or coastal cities in the periphery of the Galilee, but these did not take part in the revolt and were therefore not affected by Roman punitive actions—as was Sepphoris, which, although a predominantly Jewish city, remained loyal to the Romans, as well. From other sites that did play a role in the war, like Magdala or Tiberias, no evidence of destruction has apparently come to light and been published, though Yizhar Hirschfeld was able to excavate a small part of an early first-century CE palatial house that was covered by a destruction layer containing pottery that suggests a fire at around the time of the revolt. Unfortunately, the evidence has not been published yet. Evidence from excavations at Magdala is inconclusive (especially the dating of the various synagogue phases) since neither pottery nor stratigraphic scenarios have been published. Aviam’s scenario that the synagogue was blocked during Magdala’s preparation for war and remained out of use afterwards is certainly attractive, but cannot be considered proven. No destruction of 67 CE was observed in the Franciscan part of the town, nor was any documented in Capernaum. Here, too, we still lack detailed stratigraphic documentation, so the last word might not have been spoken on these sites. Aviam rightly states that there was no long fighting in Magdala because the rebels retreated out onto the water and were defeated there.
Leaving Tiberias and Magdala out of the picture, the destruction and depopulation of Yodefat and Gamla do resemble the devastating destruction that Jerusalem had to bear. With their fortifications and their function as regional centers, Yodefat and Gamla certainly attracted many refugees and rebel soldiers who hoped to put up a stand against the Romans. Apart from purging rebel nests in caves in mountainous areas, the entire destruction of all villages was not necessary. It was enough for the Romans to encircle as many rebels as possible in Yodefat and Gamla, which they successfully achieved, and then move on to Jerusalem and encircle the rest of the Galilean rebels and their Judean brothers-in-arms there. I cannot imagine that the Galilee recovered quickly. As I have said, our evidence from the Galilee does suggest massive destruction at rebel concentrations with high loss of life and wide-scale purges in the surrounding areas. The effects of this policy must have been devastating for the local population. Moreover, one needs to ask if we have enough evidence from the immediately post-67 CE period to propose any sort of direct continuity. Tel Rekhesh is indeed an interesting site, but it is so far the only one where such continuity can apparently be observed. Other sites, like Capernaum, with its large-scale excavations, do not show signs of a violent break of habitation; however, this does not mean that life continued peacefully.
Thus, in the end, the impact indeed appears dramatic only at the sites that Aviam considers exceptions. So, should we not better take Aviam’s exceptions—Yodefat, Gamla, and Magdala—as evidence for the rule, not necessarily for a uniform Roman way of military action, but for the devastating effects that Vespasian’s campaign had? Tel Rekhesh might then be symptomatic of the fact that the Romans did not need to destroy every single village because they had already achieved their goals through the spectacular victories at fortified bastions like Yodefat and Gamla.
For many years, the village/town identified as Khirbet Qana has proved one of the key sites in contemporaneous Galilean archaeology. C. Thomas McCollough has been involved in its excavation for many years and zooms in on that site. Such detailed work “on the micro level,” as McCollough calls it, makes a lot of sense, since—despite huge progress in Galilean archaeology in general—we are still far away from broad conclusions. Often enough, if one looks on the ground, things suddenly become blurry and murky. Khirbet Qana is one of the few sites with well-documented post-70 CE structures, and so could fill the gap that Aviam’s survey article left when it comes to questions of continuity before and after the revolt. McCollough is especially interested in patterns of economic behavior and recognizes signs of significant change after 70 CE that reflect a complex response to colonization, including both accommodation and resistance. But the picture that McCollough presents can only insufficiently be expressed by the term “continuity”; it is more than that. Through the influx of “assets” (McCollough mentions both population and wealth) into the Galilee, the formerly isolated village became more connected to transregional trade and industry. Next to all “continuity,” there is also a lot of “new beginning.” Were there new immigrants from the south who filled the gaps that the many victims of the revolt had left? In any case, in spite of only giving in to “market dynamics,” Cana engaged in selective and opportunistic behavior by combining economically feasible activities with a “nonquantifiable ‘spirit’ of resistance to the values and mores of the dominant power” (p. 114). The fact that villagers were able to make choices, develop a hybrid stance towards the ruling power, Rome, and find a new place between adaptation and resistance suggests that times had really changed after two revolts with bloody consequences for both sides. Apparently, more local autonomy was granted that led towards an undeclared symbiosis between Roman authorities and local Jewish dignitaries. On the basis of only archaeological evidence, we cannot know who exactly initiated and organized these changes. But McCollough gives us an important hint by mentioning a house close to the synagogue, larger than other dwellings, which might have been inhabited by a priestly, certainly local, elite family (p. 118). Did these people come from Jerusalem after the revolts or were they descendants of the pre-70 CE indigenous regional elites? We can find traces of local societal differentiation even before 70 CE not only in the larger cities like Sepphoris and Magdala, but also in more traditional local centers such as Yodefat (e.g., the “painted house”; see Aviam above). Not only in Jewish Galilee, these local elites were often the motor of innovation and inculturation. Later, they became crucial as sponsors of synagogues and local leaders behind the intellectually oriented rabbis. It is very likely that all this proceeded without any active intervention by Roman authorities, who had no intention of interfering in local affairs as long as things ran smoothly. Did this new balance between rulers and ruled have effects on taxation? Did the local elites receive privileges (like Hollander mentions), and did they feel that they should utilize their socially prominent positions not only to carry out their elite tasks of “home rule” but also to safeguard the stability of the area for Rome? I could well imagine that there was—despite all cultural barriers and religiously inspired taboos—some kind of mutual respect, common among Mediterranean elites, which made collaboration possible. As long as stability was guaranteed, these local elites were free to handle their internal affairs according to their own traditions and had all opportunity to further develop their Jewish identity, like dietary and purity laws. Refusing to participate in certain activities popular with the dominant culture was not considered an offense or a sign of insubordination. It almost seems that there were only winners in such bright times!
It is therefore fortuitous that David A. Fiensy deliberately takes a look at the “dark side” of Galilean life (to modify a popular Monty Python theme). Who sat there? Was it the notorious “social bandits” who have been haunting research for several decades? Fiensy challenges that idea and bluntly disconnects poverty from socially deviant behavior. According to him, social banditry was a common and ubiquitous phenomenon in the Roman Mediterranean, and there were many reasons for somebody to leave home and “go into the wilderness” and lead a life as a “bandit.” To Fiensy, all comes down to a basic value system culminating in the dictum “if one can gain power, one should” (p. 126). Opportunities, apparently, make “bandits,” and these opportunities may differ radically with respect to region and social situation. Banditry might not always be an indication of economic hardship and political instability. In that sense, I agree with Fiensy. Regarding first-century CE Galilee, one might even consider if the relative prosperity during the early first century CE might not have had a paradoxical effect on society. Economic prosperity (although unequally distributed) might have led to a growth in population, but since resources (available land and opportunities to earn money, both of which allowed one to create one’s own household) were not growing at the same pace, people were marginalized and had no other choice than to organize their existence outside of society. That these groups did not cut all ties to mainstream society, that many of them sought to base their movements and way of life in religious motives and nonconformism, and that some even tried to establish a counter-society with hierarchies and power struggles does not speak against the broader picture, but is part of it. “Social bandits” are notoriously diverse. Their existence is not the product of a common ideology (though some eagerly saw themselves along such lines), and social banditry might not be an indication of a generally impoverished and socially fragile society, but its presence could reveal that the seed of social conflict and eventual collapse is already inherent even in an apparently affluent society.
In the final essay, James Riley Strange brings a group of people back onto the agenda that has not received sufficient attention: refugees who fled north from devastated Judea to the Galilee after 70 CE; in our jargon probably more accurately termed “internally displaced persons.” These newcomers, Strange claims, can be contoured with the help of archaeology. Although Judeans and Galileans shared almost all aspects of material culture, a certain lamp type appeared after 70 CE in the Galilee that has a distinctly “southern” pedigree. Strange himself leads excavations at Shikhin, a rural site close to the regional center of Sepphoris where these lamps were not only sold and used, but also produced. So these (admittedly rare) southern influences are not simply a result of transporting the goods up north through trade, but rather that the people themselves, who liked and made these objects, had come up north. One may wonder, however, if such a small segment of material culture like certain (not all!) lamp types provides a sufficient basis for Strange’s rather far-reaching hypothesis. In a way, however, Strange’s ideas are attractive because they partly answer the question of how the Galilee was so quickly repopulated that it seems like a continuity to us (see my comments on Aviam’s article), and he may also help us pin down the new, upcoming elite that McCullough discusses by a potential element of their material culture. One should not forget that new developments rarely start with a bang, but with a whisper. Only future research will show if and how the whisper grew into a fully resounding choir.
All things considered, this is a refreshingly diverse “down-to-earth” volume. Of course, theory (economic, social) does play a role in more or less all articles, but opinions about how to theoretically describe economy and taxation in ancient Galilee and beyond are certainly not in the foreground. Wherever they are discussed, they never diverge so much that dialogue becomes impossible because general approaches to the phenomena are incompatible. Some readers might of course deplore what they diagnose as “lack of theory.” But in the end, the wealth of detail and evidence “from the ground” is necessary in order to be able to move forward towards developing a new, refined model for the ancient Galilean economy. We still know too little about everyday life, so any progress on individual sites and all aspects of material culture is very much appreciated. I personally believe that the hermeneutical helix from data to theory and back needs to move “from the bottom up.” This volume offers tremendous help, many data, and challenging observations to walk the helix.
The downside of such a grassroots approach, however, is that the wealth of data and observations that each essay offers to us, often stands alone by itself. It is not that these essays are in any way “isolated.” They do, however, require that the readers to do a lot of synthetical thinking by themselves. The “unity” that the Mediterranean world constituted in all its diversity might sometimes not sufficiently come to the fore among the various articles. How can I relate, for example, data from classical Athens to observations about early Roman Egypt in a way that helps me better understand post-70 CE Galilee? Who helps me, the reader, sail the murky waters between all those beautiful islands? How can I reach one island from the other without losing my way? To a certain extent, the diversification evident in this volume is a product of the way each author worked on his or her respective article. Most of the articles go back to papers held at a conference where participants were able to hear what colleagues presented, and communication ensued. These articles did not originate in isolation. But what came later? Apart from the editors, I may have been the only person in the privileged position to look at each island from above and realize the vast sea between them all. Does it mean that I have a suitable map to be able to connect them? No! Perhaps there is none—yet. Perhaps there may be one in the future? It should be a rewarding challenge for all those distinguished contributors to this book and beyond to take on the next step and to consider how such a map could look. Thanks to this book, we see many beautiful islands more clearly than before; let us see if we can bring them together and put them on a map—as hypothetical as this may be.