Les Midis du l'Institut d'études anciennes et médiévales

Titre: Roman Governance in Pre-70 Judaea: What the Incidents under Cumanus (51–52 CE) Suggest 

Conférencier: Steve Mason, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen

Résumé:
A long-prevailing view, in scholarship as in popular culture (Ben-Hur, Life of Brian, The Passion of the Christ, Rome, Those who are About to Die), sees Rome’s rule of Judaea as brutally oppressive, even an ‘occupation’. Recent decades have witnessed the proliferation of anti-imperial and anti-colonial (or at least postcolonial) readings of texts produced by Jews and Christians in this period. Lacking the time for a deep dive into the many particular aspects of this question, in this lecture I take up a single cluster of three incidents described by Josephus — with some differences in his two histories — that occurred in 51/52 CE. The imperial legate (a senior senator) in Syria was Ummidius Quadratus, the equestrian prefect / procurator Ventidius Cumanus. By unpacking some crucial dynamics in these episodes, I hope to show why we should question the prevailing picture. This is a small sample, but it encapsulates aspects of the larger picture of Rome's governance.

Gratuit et ouvert à toutes et à tous!