Civic & religious hostility · Egypt · 38 CE
Philo described how Roman authority and local hostility converged in Alexandria.
Explore EgyptPublished by WTJPublication updated
38 CE
Civic & religious hostility · A dispute over the city becomes an attack on its Jews
Philo described how Roman authority and local hostility converged in Alexandria.
A city of competing communities
Roman Alexandria contained Greek, Egyptian and Jewish populations with different civic positions and relationships to imperial power. Jewish religious practices could be portrayed as rejection of wider civic loyalties. These tensions belonged to a specific ancient city, rather than to the modern Egyptian nation.
The prefect permits persecution
Philo’s account links the Roman prefect Flaccus to the anti-Jewish violence of 38 CE. Local hostility and questions of imperial loyalty helped make Jews targets. An authority responsible for protection instead enabled persecution. Philo is a Jewish witness with his own perspective, so his account requires historical interpretation.
Religious difference becomes disloyalty
Opposition to placing imperial images in synagogues could be presented as hostility toward the emperor. That move transformed a religious commitment into a political accusation. It offered a familiar mechanism: a minority’s distinct practice was treated as proof it threatened the society around it.