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668 XV. THE JEWS IN PHRYGIA.

the cities where we can identify Jewish inscriptions, legends and names.
We cannot doubt that this large Jewish population exercised a great
influence on the development of the district and of the cities ; and we
therefore proceed to investigate the traces of it in the inscr.

In no. 399 bis (third century) the law of the Jews is mentioned ;
and we recognize there (with M. S. Reinach), not the law of Moses,
but a regulation agreed upon between the city and the Jewish commu-
nity for the protection of Jewish graves. Before a.d. 70 the Jews
constituted, according to Roman law, a separate self-administering
community, ' the Nation of the Jews' in Apameiax; but after that
date the separate existence of the Jews as a nation was terminated,
and the law recognized no distinction between the Jews and other
provincials (except in respect of religion). It is remarkable that
a separate law of the Jews should have been recognized in Apameia
near two centuries later.

. Probably the Jewish community in Apameia is as old as the founda-
tion of the city (280-261 B.C.). The Seleucid kings used the Jews as
an element of the colonies which they founded to strengthen their
hold on Phrygia and other countries2. Seleucus Nicator granted the
Jews the full rights of citizenship, equal to those of Macedonians and
Greeks, in all the cities which he founded3; and this may doubtless
be taken as an example of the general Seleucid policy, for the later
kings 4 guarded the privileges of these Jewish Ratoikoi5 in spite of the
jealousy of their fellow-citizens. For example, distribution of oil was
made to all citizens at the public expense ; but, as the Jews objected to
use oil made by Gentiles, the gymnasiarchs were ordered to give them
an equivalent in money G, a right confirmed by Mucianus in Antioch
67-69 a.d. This and various other privileges were guaranteed to the
Jewish Kutoikoi; and the whole probably constituted the ' law of the
Jews' in Apameia, no. 399 bis. Experience showed that the Jews were
a useful and loyal part of the Seleucid colonies; and when Antiochus
the Great desired to strengthen his cause in Phrygia and Lydia about
200 B.C., he brought 2000 Jewish families from Babylonia and settled

1 to Wvos Tav 'lovUmav at Smyrna, them citizenship in the Ionian cities,
S. Eeinach Rev.des Et. JaivesYH p. 161 : Josephus Ant. XII § 125 (which means
the Alexandrian Jews had an Ethnarch that he planted colonies of Jews in
at their head. these cities). See also p. 669, note 1.

2 See pp. 10, 34, 196, 257, 421. 5 See pp. 199 f, 583, 703.

3 Josephus Ant. XII 3, 1 (§ 119) B Josephus Ant. XII § 120. On the
quoted p. 34 note. Gj'mnasiarchs see p. 443.

4 AntiochusTheos26i-248B.c.granted
 
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