Life in ancient Israel: Lifestyles of
the Affluent
By Cynthia Ripley Miller
My
third book, a work-in-progress, in my Long-Hair Saga series is set in the 5th
century in Jerusalem. In researching the period, culture, terrain, and customs,
I came across a few surprising facts and details that existed even earlier.
Some are surprisingly similar to the habits and customs of today.
Records
and Ruins
In
the cities of Sepphoris, Caesarea, Bethsaida, Masada, and Jerusalem:
Archaeologists
have discovered that particularly affluent residents in ancient Caesarea enjoyed
such luxuries as a ‘toilet near his table’ and a toilet was found in a Roman
villa near the dining room at Sepphoris in Galilee.
Affluent
Roman homes were large and spacious and had spacious grounds, olive and grape
presses, wine cellars, frescoed walls, and family tombs.
Roman
aristocrats could also afford to eat meat every day and from silver and
goldware, whereas the poorer classes ate off dishes made from pottery.
They
paid taxes and paid as much as ‘2/3 of their profits to local governors and the
Romans.’
Wealthy
women kept to their homes, and ancient literature makes many references to
women looking out their windows. It seems this was a ‘common motif in ancient
literature.’
Servants
were essential. Some country landowners had more than 50 servants to make their
lives easier and comfortable.
The
wealthy could afford dyed textiles of an assortment of colors, purple being one
of the most popular. Only the wealthy could afford to wear their hair long,
oiled, and intricately braided.
Religion and Politics in Jerusalem in the 5th
Century AD
In
the Roman period referred to as Late Antiquity (1st through the 7th
century), Jerusalem became a Roman colony. It was rebuilt and named Aelia
Capotolina by the Roman emperor Hadrian in 130 AD. A pagan, Hadrian built a
statue of himself and placed it in front of the temple he built to Jupiter on
the site of ‘the second Jewish temple, The Temple Mount.'
This
action, along with several other ‘idolatrous’ acts, caused the Jews to launch a
third Jewish revolt, which failed. Afterward, the Jews were banned from the
city ‘on pain of death.'
This
exclusion of the Jews from Jerusalem lasted for centuries, with one small
reprieve in 363AD by Constantine’s nephew Emperor Julian. Still, later, the
privilege was denied them, and the one occasion allowing them to visit once a
year on what is assumed to have been Tisha b’Av.
The
Bordeaux Pilgrim who visited Jerusalem in 333-334 wrote, ‘There are two statues
of Hadrian, and, not far from them, a pierced stone to which the Jews come
every year and anoint. They mourn and rend their garments and then depart.’
They weren’t allowed back into Jerusalem until 1187 when Saladin captured the
city, summoned the Jews, and allowed them to resettle in Jerusalem.
After
Constantine, and in the late Roman era or Late Antiquity, Christianity spread
throughout the Roman Empire. It became the predominant religion of ‘Palaestina,’
and Byzantine Jerusalem ‘was almost completely Christian’ although other
religions existed as well.
This
is a light view of the ancient world of Jerusalem, involving customs, beliefs,
and cultural aspects that existed in Jerusalem earlier and in Late Antiquity.
As always, I’m amazed at the political turbulence, dramas, and societal
developments taking place and driving this period toward the medieval era. Through
the strife, Jerusalem and Israel have survived and made an impression on the
world.
Simon
Sebag Montefiore wrote in his biography, Jerusalem, ‘Life in Herodian,
Crusader, or British Jerusalem was always just as complex as life is for us
today. There were quiet evolutions as well as dramatic revolutions.’
Cynthia
Ripley Miller is the author of On the
Edge of Sunrise and The Quest for the
Crown of Thorns: Books 1 & 2 in the Long-Hair Saga, a series set in
late ancient Rome and France. A Chanticleer International Chatelaine Award
finalist and A Circle of Books Award winner, Cynthia has lived and traveled in
Europe, Africa, North America and the Caribbean, taught history and English. Her short stories have appeared in the
anthology Summer Tapestry, The Scriptor, and
at Orchard Press Mysteries.com. Cynthia blogs at Historical Happenings and Oddities: A Distant Focus and on her
website, www.cynthiaripleymiller.com. She
lives outside of Chicago with her family, along with a sweet German Shepherd
and a cute, but bossy, cat.
“In this thriller, set in fifth-century Rome, rivals race to possess
Christ’s crown of thorns. Ripley Miller (On the Edge
of Sunrise 2015) astutely brings to life a Rome teetering precariously on the
brink of collapse … The plot advances energetically, and the combination of
political and romantic drama—spiritual as well—is rousing. The reader should be
glad to have read this volume and eager for a third. Intelligent and artfully
crafted historical fiction … .”
- Kirkus Reviews ~ The Quest for the Crown of Thorns: Book Two of the Long-Hair Saga
 |
 |
| The Quest for the Crown of Thorns: Book Two of the Long-Hair Saga. |
Sources:
Montefiore,
Simon, Jerusalem
Vamosh,
Miriam, www.haaretz.com/jewish/archaeology
Temple
Mount, Wikipedia
