Fraud, forgery and sedition: 1,900-year-old papyrus records Roman trial against Jews
New research on the longest Greek papyrus from the Judean Desert ever discovered offers unprecedented insights into life in the Land of Israel in Bar Kochba era
A 1,900-year-old papyrus recently deciphered for the first time has offered an unprecedented testimony on life in the land of Israel on the eve of the Bar Kochba revolt (132-135 CE), new research by a group of Austrian and Israeli scholars has shown.
The papyrus was rediscovered by chance in 2014 in the archives of the Israel Antiquities Authority by Hannah Cotton Paltiel, professor emerita of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Cotton Paltiel was volunteering in the authority’s scrolls laboratory when she realized the artifact, mistakenly labeled as Nabatean, was written in ancient Greek. As the scholars worked to decipher it, they discovered the papyrus recorded a criminal trial against two Jewish defendants, Saulos and Gedalias, who might have been connected with the revolt as it was being planned.
“We are talking about an extraordinary papyrus from many points of view,” Dr. Anna Dolganov of the Austrian Academy of Sciences told The Times of Israel in a phone interview after the publication of an academic paper in the journal Tyche earlier this month. The paper was co-authored by Dolganov, Prof. Fritz Mitthof of the University of Vienna, Cotton Paltiel, and Dr. Avner Ecker of the Hebrew University.
Given the name “Papyrus Cotton” to honor its discoverer as it is customary in the field, the papyrus includes 133 lines of text.
“It is the longest Greek papyrus ever found in the Judean desert,” Dolganov said.
Based on the inventory number, the researcher explained that the artifact was likely unearthed by Bedouin antiquity dealers in the 1950s, as were many other finds from the area.
According to the researcher, the content of the papyrus — the private notes of an attorney preparing for the trial — is especially striking.
“This is a very rare genre for us to find because these documents were normally thrown away after the trial ended,” Dolganov said. “However, in this very special case, someone thought this papyrus was important enough to carry it with them to what would become the place of their death.”
The empire strikes back
Caves in the Judean desert were the last hideout of Jewish refugees of the Bar Kochba revolt against the Roman Empire.
Led by Simon bar Kochba, the rebellion occurred 62 years after the Romans destroyed the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE and 15 years after the Jewish Diaspora Revolt (115–117 CE). After the Bar Kochba revolt’s violent suppression that killed hundreds of thousands of people, the empire deported or exiled the near totality of the surviving Jewish population in the Judeae province, which was then merged with the Galilee and other territories and renamed Syria Palaestina.
“We know that the refugees tried to find shelter in remote caves in the Judean desert, bringing their most valuable possessions,” Dolganov said. “The Romans besieged those caves until the occupants died.”
The researchers could date the papyrus accurately because it mentions a visit by Emperor Hadrian to the area that took place in 129-130 CE.
The papyrus was written in Greek because Greek was the administrative language of the Hellenistic kingdoms in the region before the Romans conquered them, and the empire preserved it.
Dolganov emphasized that we do not know who the carrier of the papyrus was, but it was likely someone in the circle of the prosecution. In light of where the artifact was found, they might have been Jewish.
“We know from other Roman provinces that locals were active in the provincial and judicial administrations,” the researcher said. “Therefore, it was likely that the prosecutors themselves were either local Jewish or Greek elites. In addition, the prosecutors usually had scribes and assistants. Therefore, the carrier of the papyrus could have been one of them too.”
“Not all Jews were against the Roman imperial rule,” she added. “Jewish urban elites in particular were not happy with the fact that these rebellions created an environment of violence where they themselves became the targets.”
Tax evasion or ploy for emancipation?
In contrast, the Jewish affiliation of the defendants is beyond doubt in light of their names, Saulos and Gedalias. As they stood accused of several crimes, including fiscal fraud, forgery and sedition, their identity played a very significant role, Dolganov argued.
“The trial unfolded about 15 years after the last major Jewish revolt, the Diaspora Revolt, which was extremely dangerous for the Romans,” she said. “It looks like the prosecution used the specter of that rebellion to cast suspicion on these Jewish defendants. At least rhetorically, the prosecution played the Jewish card to make these people look even worse than they already did, even if they might have just committed banal tax fraud.”
Ahead of the Bar Kochba revolt, Jewish rebels worked for years to excavate a network of tunnels under over 130 settlements. Therefore, according to Dolganov, it is also possible that Saulos and Gedalias were indeed connected to it.
The papyrus goes into great detail to describe the behaviors that sparked the trial.
Saulos appeared to sell slaves to a friend who lived in a different province, Arabia (roughly equivalent to modern-day Jordan). However, the slaves were not effectively transferred but rather seem to have disappeared from the radar of the Roman authorities.
“Most likely, the purpose was to avoid paying taxes on the slaves,” said Dolganov. “However, it is also possible that this was a scheme intended to set the slaves free, especially if we were talking about Jewish slaves. Saulos might have been fulfilling the Jewish requirement of redeeming slaves.”
Whatever the purpose of the deal was, Saulos needed a document to prove the allegedly fictitious sale. Gedalias, who was the son of a notary and possibly a Roman citizen, helped him forge one.
“From our modern perspective, we tend to think that ancient states were not necessarily so sophisticated in the way they managed documentation, but the Romans were, and they had really high standards of proof,” Dolganov noted. “If something about a document did not convince them, they would track down all the details of what people were up to.”
While the text does not indicate how the trial ended and what happened to Saulos and Gedalias, the elaborate description of the case prompted Ecker to describe it as “the best-documented Roman court case from Judaea apart from the trial of Jesus.”
“The only other criminal trial in the court of a high Roman official ever recorded in Judaea — or in the region in general, apart from Egypt — is the trial of Jesus,” Ecker told The Times of Israel. “In other cases, we have references to trials but not its preparations or proceedings.”
Dolganov said that she is looking forward to continuing to study the papyrus.
“I think the last has not been said about this document,” she concluded. “I believe it will be a source of a lot of new research in the future.”
