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A Note on the Date of the Syrian Governorship of M. Titius

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

Thomas Corbishley
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Extract

The traditional date for the Syrian governorship of M. Titius, ‘about 10 B.C.’, is derived from a passage in Josephus, where he is referred to in connection with Herod's supposed ‘third journey’ to Rome. The circumstances of this third journey have caused considerable perplexity to those who have investigated the details of the reign of Herod the Great. The trouble is due to a confusion in Josephus himself, who can be shown to be narrating a series of events as occurring after, which in reality refer to the years immediately before, 12 B.C. The ‘third journey’ was never undertaken or, indeed, contemplated, and the context in which the name of Titius occurs is to be dated to 12 B.C. and not later.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 24 , Issue 1 , 1934 , pp. 43 - 49
Copyright
Copyright © Thomas Corbishley 1934. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 Jos., AJ 16, 270Google Scholar.

2 Cf. e.g., Otto in P-W, Supp. ii, 122 n., s.v. ‘Herodes.’

3 AJ 16, 194.

4 BJ 1, 468–512 (with the omission of occasional The following table of relationships may be helpful:

‘explanatory’ interpolations) are to be read before the account of the trial in 452-454, side by side with or in place of 447–451, which they elaborate.

5 The account begins in 16, 6, and continues with digressions to 16, 270.

6 For the evidence dating this to 12 B.C., cf. Schürer, , Gesch. des jüd. Volkes = Jewish people in the time of Jesus Christ (Edinburgh: Clark, 1890), Div. i, vol. i, p. 412Google Scholar.

7 BJ 1, 456.

8 For the year of Agrippa's return, cf. Dio liv, 28. There appears to have been nothing to keep Agrippa in Asia after the seas were navigable, and as he had been absent from Rome some three years and was about to undertake another campaign (in Pannonia) it is reasonable to think that he would leave for Italy in March or April.

9 § 190: ἔξωθεν must also be a reference to this Roman visit (cf. § 88).

10 Probably Nic. Dam., cf. §185, ὅς γε καὶ τὸν Μαριάμμης θάνατον καὶ τῶν παίδων αὐτῆς οὕτως ὠμῶς τῷ βασιλεῖ πεπραγμένον εἰς εὐπρέπειαν ἀνάγειν βουλόμενος ἐκείνης τε ἀσέλγειαν καὶ τῶν νεανίσκων ἐπιβουλὰς καταψεύδεται κτλ.

11 Cf. BJ 1, § 433.

12 P-W l.c.

13 xvi, p. 748.

14 Cf. Dio liii, 32 for Agrippa's ὑποστράτηγοι in Syria.

15 Strabo (xvi, p. 748) καὶ τὰ τρόπαια ἔπεμψεν … καὶ … τέτταρας παῖδας γνησίους ἐνεχείρισεν. Cf. Justnus xlii, 5, 12; Veil, ii, 94.

16 Bleckmann's article in Klio xvii (1921) pp. 104 sqq.Google Scholar should be consulted on this point The conclusions of the present article make it unnecessary to compress either Titius' or Quirinius' governership with in one year (as Bleckman suggests) since they apparently shared five year (13–8 B.C.) between them, and not merely the years 11–8 B.C.