Download PDF | (BAR British Archaeological Reports International Series 325) Carol A. M. Glucker - The City of Gaza in the Roman and Byzantine Periods-BAR Publishing (1987).
180 Pages
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book is a revised version of an M.A. thesis originally submitted to the Aranne School of History in Tel Aviv University. The research was carried out under the supervision of Prof. Benjamin Isaac, who read and commented on the work at every stage and was unstintingly generous with his time and his helpful and constructive criticism.
He taught me a very great deal, both on points of detail and in general approach to historical research. Prof. Shimon Applebaum read the final version of the thesis and made a number of valuable suggestions, many of which have now been incorporated in the present work. Prof. Israel Roll, Prof. Asher Ovadiah and Dr. Arieh Kindler all gave generously of their time to answer my questions on specific topics. My husband, Prof. John Glucker, apart from providing support and encouragement throughout the long process of writing, was of very great assistance in checking the Talmudic passages discussed in Chapter 4 and explaining their meaning and what inferences could be drawn from them. I am very grateful to all these scholars for their valuable assistance, without which this work could not have been completed, but, naturally, I take full responsibility for such errors of substance or of opinion as remain.
I am also very grateful for the support and research facilities provided by the Department of Classics of Tel Aviv University, in particular by its head, Prof. Shalom Perlman and the departmental secretary, Mrs. Shulamit Arieli. I should also like to thank Mr. David Philbey who drew the plans. Carol Glucker London 1986.
INTRODUCTION.
During the Roman and Byzantine periods Gaza became one of the largest and most prosperous cities of Palestine. Yet it played little part in the disturbances that troubled the province and its history was uneventful. Its magnificant buildings have disappeared and, because its site has been occupied continuously down to the present day, very little archaeological investigation has been possible.
So Gaza has attracted relatively little interest among modern scholars. Yet there does exist evidence for the development and history of the city. In particular, we have documents from the Byzantine period, written in Gaza and providing valuable evidence for the life of the city at that time. One, the Vita Porphyrii of Marcus Diaconus, gives an eye-witness account of a crucial transition in the city's history, the destruction of the pagan temples and the official imposition of Christianity on the people of Gaza.
The others, the speeches of Choricius of Gaza, describe vividly the buildings and festivals of the city at the time of its greatest prosperity and eulogize some of its most famous citizens. There is, moreover, some new archaeological evidence, discovered in the last twenty years, and a few new inscriptions have come to light. The materials exist, then, for a fuller study of of Roman and Byzantine Gaza than has yet been provided in the present century.
The purpose of this work is, therefore, to re-examine the literary sources of Gaza, in the light of modern research, together with the new information provided by archaeology and epigraphy, and to attempt to give as full an account as possible of the history of the city, paying attention to such factors affecting its development as its geographical position trade. and I shall also collect the inscriptions of Gaza, bringing previous collections-up-to-date by the addition of inscriptions published in the twentieth century.
A: GAZA THROUGH THE AGES.
The history of the city of Gaza is long and turbulent. Throughout the centuries and the millennia it has been attacked and destroyed, restored and repopulated by one wave of invaders after another. The foundation of the city lies in the distant past and the identity of its founders is unknown.
One theory connects the foundation of Gaza with the Minaeans of South Arabia in the first half of the second millennium BC, arguing that they built it as a trading colony and an outlet for their traffic in spices to the Mediterranean Stephanus of Byzantium mentions that Gaza was also known 2 as Minoa, a name which he connects with the Cretan Minos, and it is suggested that this is a confused relic of an ancient tradition linking Gaza with the Minaeans. But it is difficult to believe that the nane of these long forgotten founders could have been preserved in the city throughout the centuries, despite several changes of population, finally to reach Stephanus in the sixth century All, and it is probably unsafe to read too much into the scholastic speculations of the later Greeks, who were anxious to link their cities with the myths and legends of the Classical past.
Moreover, none of the early records refers to the spice trade in connection with Gaza, and when the city first appears in history, in Egyptian records of the Late Bronze Age, its importance rests not on its supposed function as a trading post of a South Arabian kingdom, but on it geographical position as the southernmost town of Canaan, the first after the long march through the desert that separated Egypt from the fertile lands of the north. It stood on the main trunk road that ran from Egypt along the coast of Palestine and Phoenicia, with an eastern branch leading to Demascus and onwards to Mesopotamia.
This road, referred to once in the Bible as 'The Way of the Seas and once as 'The Way to the Land of the Philistines, 16, and later as the Via Maris, was the vital link between Egyp and the other early empires, both for trade and for warfare and conquest.8 Gaza's postion on the Way of the Sea and its abundant water supply and natural fertility made it the obvious place where every trading caravan and every army would stop to take on fresh water, provisions and baggage animals, either before the strenuous desert march or after it.
The conquest and control of Gaza has, therefore, always been of crucial importance to every general who has ever tried to invade Egypt from the north, or Palestine from the south, down to the present day.9 In the second half of the sixteenth century BC, when the Pharaohs of the Egyptian New Kingdom re-established their sovereignty over the city-states of Canaan, after the expulsion of the Hyksos, Gaza was chosen as the main base of the Egyptian administration and as the residence of its governor. nor.10 The inscriptions of Thut-тове III (с. 1468-1436) refer to Gaza as 'That which the Ruler Seized', a title indicating it status as an Egyptian base.11
The city's role in the Egyptian empire is also apparent in the Taanach tablets (dated either to the later part of the reign of Thutmose III, or to that of his successor, Amen-hotep II), in which the ruler of Taanach is instructed to send men and materials to the commander at Gaza12 The El Amarna letters (dated to between c. 1402 and c. 1347) refer to Gaza as the head quarters of the commissioner of one of the three districts of Canaan. 13
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