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The Universal Famine under Claudius

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2011

Kenneth Sperber Gapp
Kenneth Sperber Gapp
Affiliation:
Princeton Theological Seminary
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Harvard Theological Review , Volume 28 , Issue 4 , October 1935 , pp. 258 - 265
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Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1935

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References

1 Acts xi, 27–30.

2 There were famines at Rome in 41 (Seneca, de brev. vit. 18. 5; Aurelius Victor, de Caes. 4. 3), in 42 (Dio, LX, 11), and in 51 (Tacitus, Ann. XII, 43; Suet., Claudius 18. 2; Orosius, Hist. VII, 6. 17; A. Schoene, Eusebii chronicorum libri duo, Berlin, 1875, II, pp. 152 f.). There is no evidence for famine at Rome in 43 (cf. Dio, LX, 17.8), nor in 47 (cf. Tac, Ann. XI, 4), nor in 48 (cf. Dio, LX, 31. 4; Tac, Ann. XI, 26). There was a famine in Greece about 49 (A. Schoene, loc. cit.), a shortage of military supplies in Armenia in 51 (Tac, Ann. XII, 50), and speculation in grain at Cibyra (cf. M. Rostovtzeff, Gesellschaft und Wirtschaft im Römischen Kaiserreich, Berlin, 1929, note 20 to chapter VIII). However, the universal famine cannot satisfactorily be explained by assuming that it consisted in a sequence of local famines, for such a sequence lias no objective unity.

3 Pliny, Nat. hist. V, 58, XVIII, 167 ff.; Strabo, XVII, I.3,4; Amm. Marc., XXII, 15. 12 f. The accuracy of these accounts has been demonstrated by L. Borchardt, Nilmesser und Nilstandsmarken (Anhang zu den Abhandlungen der K. Preuss. Akad. der Wissenschaften, Phil.-Hist. Klasse, Berlin, 1906, Abt. I, pp. 1–55).

4 Pliny, Nat. hist. V, 58.

5 Pliny, Nat. hist. XVIII, 168.

6 A. E. R. Boak, Papyri from Tebtunis, Part I (Michigan papyri, Vol. II), Ann Arbor, 1938; cf. the review by Allan Chester Johnson, The American Historical Review, XL, 1935, pp. 480–183.

7 A. E. R. Boak, op. cit. no. 123, verso, XI, 26–27; no. 127, I, 8, 12–14,16,17, 38. In A.D. 3 the price had been three drachmas an artaba (F. Preisigke, Sammelbuch Griechischer Urkunden aus Ägypten, Strassburg, 1915-, no. 7341, 22–23); in 33 the price had been three drachmas an artaba (U. Wilcken, Griechische Ostraka aus Aegypten und Nubien, Leipzig, 1899, II, no. 1372); in 65 the price was only two drachmas and one obol an artaba (J. Tait, Greek Ostraka, London, 1930, I, p. 108, no. 210).

8 Subsidiary arguments for the occurrence of famine may be drawn from the economic conditions of this year. Unusual distress is indicated by the fact that about one-sixth of the documents in P. Mich. 123 reveal indebtedness on the part of the inhabitants of Tebtunis. The rather large numberof contracts for the nursing of slave children seems to imply that an unusually large number of children were exposed by parents unable to provide sustenance for their offspring. The leases of land reveal an unusual situation. More than a third of the leases (63 in a total of 136) specify pasturage or the raising of fodder. Inasmuch as cereals were the predominant crop in Egypt, this proportion may indicate that the cultivation of wheat in 45–46 was considered unprofitable because of a very high Nile; cf. A. C. Johnson, loc. cit. Stefan Waszynski (Die Bodenpacht, I, Leipzig, 1905) lists in all 133 leases of land, of which only seven deal with pasture land. This ratio has not greatly been affected by documents published since that date, apart from the Michigan papyri under consideration. See also F. Preisigke, S. B. no. 7461, and the low rent of one and one-third artaba per aroura in P. Lond. 604B (Vol. III, pp. 76 ff., about A.D. 47).

9 Acts xi, 27–80. On the meaning of δλη ἠ oἰκoυμνη see Th. Zahn, Einleitung in das Neue Testament3, (Leipzig, 1907), II, p. 422. Karl Schmidt (Die Apostelgeschichte, Erlangen, 1882,1, pp. 157–164) would restrict the meaning of the phrase to the eastern and central possessions of Rome. C. C. Torrey (The Composition and Date of Acts, Harvard Theological Studies, Cambridge, 1,1916, pp. 20 f.) limits the significance of the phrase to Judaea upon the assumption of an Aramaic source for this portion of Acts.

10 Josephus, Antiq. XX, 51–53, 101, III, 320 f.; Eusebius, Hist, ecdes. II, 3, 8.12; A. Schoene, loc. cit.; Orosius, Hist. VII, 6. 12; Zonaras, VI, 13 (= Paris 1, 28SD); Bede, Hist, ecdes. 1,3. For the date of this famine, see Th. Zahn, op. cit. II, pp. 641 ff.; Foakes-Jackson, F. and Lake, K., ed.. The Beginnings of Christianity, London, 1920-, Part I, V, pp. 452–455Google Scholar. The season of the year may be fixed with some probability in spring, for Josephus (Antiq. III, 320) refers to the Feast of Unleavened Bread. The beneficence of Helena was certainly not extended in mid-winter, for the supplies which she purchased arrived very quickly (Josephus, Antiq. XX, 52).

11 The incident at the passover, recorded by Josephus in Antiq. III, 320 f., must refer to this famine, although there is some difficulty with regard to the high priest mentioned by Josephus (cf. F. Foakes-Jackson and K. Lake, loc. cit.). H. Thackeray, in a note on this passage in the Loeb edition of the Antiquitates, places the incident during the rule of Nero on the ground that it is said to have occurred shortly before the great war. Yet from the point of view of the institution of the Mosaic ordinances about which Josephus is here writing, the reign of Claudius fulfills this requirement.

12 Orosius, Hist. VII, 6. 12.

13 The views here summarized are based upon a study of all famines in the Roman world to the time of Trajan, and will be presented fully in my doctoral dissertation.

14 This was probably the reason that permission was given in 24–23 B.C. to export from Egypt to Judaea for the relief of famine more than three and a half million modii of wheat (Josephus, Antiq. XV, 299–316), although there was a famine at Rome in 28 (Velleius Paterculus, II, 94. 8; Suet. Tiberius, 8).

15 Cf. Münzer in Pauly-Wissowa, Real-encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, 2te Reihe, VII, 777 f.

16 Cf. Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum, no. 8973; J. Palanque, Famines à Rome à la fin du IVe siècle, in Revue des études anciennes, XXXIII, 1931, pp. 346–356; also Dio, LIV. 1. 2.

17 In Egypt these estimates were based upon the rise of the Nile (Strabo, XVII, 1. 48). In republican Sicily the Lex Hieronica provided for a yearly enrollment of farmers and for a yearly declaration of the acreage under cultivation (Cicero, in Verrem, actio II, III, 88, 120). In other provinces similar estimates presumably were made.

18 On the Praefectus annonae, see Hirschfeld, O., Die Eaiserlichen Verwaltungsbeamten, Berlin, 1905, pp. 240 ffGoogle Scholar.

19 Karl Schmidt (op. cit., I, p. 162) refers to the possibility of communication between the Jewish residents of Puteoli and Antioch.

20 On the responsibility of local officials for the supply of grain, see M. Rostovtzeff, in Pauly-Wissowa, VII, 185 f.

21 Cf. Hamack, A., Luke the Physician, New York, 1907, pp. 20 ffGoogle Scholar.