Latin or Greek in Judea ca. 30 AD?

[Guest soundpainter]

After seeing The Passion of the Christ, me and some of my friends have been argueing whether

Pilate's Roman soldiers in Judea really spoke Latin (as they did in the film), or would the film have been more "historical" if the Romans had spoken Greek? Did Romans at that time levy legions outside Italy in the Greek-speaking parts of the Empire, or were all legionnaries Latin-speaking and brought from Italy? I'd be really grateful for an answer, especially if you can provide some reference so I can win the debate, and show my friends accurate sources so they believe me! (My "bet" is that they should have spoken Greek...)

 

By legionnaries, I mean milites and not auxialiries or such, who were of course recruited from "barbarian" tribes.

 

 

HI, I thought it was aramaic. I wonder if the milites were from Miletus??

 

Just found an interesting article. Look up Ala I Sebastenorum or Cohors I Sebastenorum). ... suggest Samaritans........The Samaritan Pentateuch shows that the people of Samaria by now spoke a variety of Aramaic

[Primus Pilus]

Yes, Roman auxilia in Judaea probably spoke various languages (including aramaic) based upon their ethnic origins, but the legionaries in the film would've been of Italian origin and most likely would've spoken Latin as the first choice. The non Romans in the film are the people speaking Aramaic. The actors playing Roman soldiers (Pilatus excluded) were speaking Latin. Whether Gibson's portrayal is right or wrong is not the question here, but the men in the film beating Jesus are clearly Roman legionaries. Citizen legionaries serving in Judaea at the time were from the western part of the empire where Latin was prevalent.

 

See my first post in this thread for an explanation of legionaries present in the early 1st Century AD.

[Ginevra]

The actors playing Roman soldiers (Pilatus excluded) were speaking Latin

 

yes they are and they really seem italian actors. I dunno if their voices are the original ones but i recognized the accent...

 

And of course i agree with Primus Pilus.

[Honorius]

i always thought Pilate was spanish... i read that from somewhere but i dont remember where..

[Andrew Dalby]

i always thought Pilate was spanish... i read that from somewhere but i dont remember where..

According to the best printed encyclopedic source I can lay hands on (/Der kleine Pauly/) he was a Roman knight (eques Romanus). His immediate family origin seems unknown. But his nomen, Pontius, is already recorded in the Roman Republic and the logical assumption would be that he descends from that family, therefore Italian. You might alternatively speculate that one of his ancestors was a freedman.

[Gaius Octavius]

Because a person came from Spain (or any other province), didn't make him a Spaniard. E.g., an American born in Britain is still an American.

[Andrew Dalby]

Because a person came from Spain (or any other province), didn't make him a Spaniard. E.g., an American born in Britain is still an American.

Well, that's a complicated question, isn't it? Such a person may consider him/herself either or both, and probably has a right to choose a nationality. There is dual nationality too, though someone who has three passports told me at dinner yesterday that US law doesn't hold with dual nationality. The person speaking has Canadian, New Zealand and German nationality: he considers himself British but has no right to a British passport (sorry, off topic).

 

In Roman terms, is Martial a Spaniard or a Roman? Is Catullus a Cisalpine Gaul or a Roman? Most people actually belong to more than one set (as a mathematician would say).

[Gaius Octavius]

Doesn't matter how many passports one has. You are what you are. The Pope is a German even though he has a Vatican passport.

 

A Brit of 100 years ago, went to India and had a family there. A son of the latter, who never set foot in G.B., had a family. Were the members of the 3rd generation Indians or Brits?

[Andrew Dalby]

Doesn't matter how many passports one has. You are what you are. The Pope is a German even though he has a Vatican passport.

 

A Brit of 100 years ago, went to India and had a family there. A son of the latter, who never set foot in G.B., had a family. Were the members of the 3rd generation Indians or Brits?

 

Yes, there are quite a few such -- and a great many more who have migrated the other way, and are now third generation, of Indian or Bangladesh origin, settled in Britain. But you can't make me choose a family identity for them, because I say that people can belong to more than one set. And we will get shepherded into the Arena, or even Tartarus, if we're not careful!

 

I quite agree with you on the passport question, of course, and I could quote B. Traven on this. 'I don't need any paper. I know who I am.' (quotation, from memory, from the English translation of /The Death Ship/).

 

But, in line with your thinking, Octavius, and going back to your earlier example of the American born in Britain, when did his line of descent or family identity become American? Say, for example, his grandparents were Mexicans, or Irish, or British? By your argument, wouldn't he be Mexican or Irish or British too?

 

Anyway, getting back to Romans, one seems to see -- quite naturally, I think -- that people could belong to more than one group. My example was Martial. Evidently a Roman citizen. So was his father, no doubt. His earlier ancestry? There'll be a point beyond which we don't know. His mother? Her ancestors? We don't know. Now of course he's Roman, but he's also Spanish and proud of it, proud of the town he came from and its local landscape and local gods and their strange Spanish names, proud of his Spanish looks (epigram 10.65). I wouldn't dare tell him he's NOT Spanish.

 

Again, Martial addresses one of his poems to a British lady. He calls her 'a daughter of the blue Britons, but with a Latin mind' (epigram 11.53). Her name, Claudia Rufina, is just as Roman as Pontius Pilate's! What would you call her, British or Roman? I would say she's both.

[ricus suavus]

Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic were all spoken in Judea at this time as evidenced by archaeology. The Pontius Pilate inscription stone found in 1961 in Caesarea Maritima, Israel is obviously in Latin; the official language of the Roman government. Paul, the apostle, obviously spoke and wrote in Greek. The Jewish priests spoke and wrote the language of their Sacred Scriptures, Hebrew. And the Targums, or Aramaic translations of those scriptures for the rest of the population before they lost their identity as Jews of Judea and began speaking Syriac, were provided for the synagogues; particularly in Galilee. Gibson's movie depicted the Romans speaking Latin to the Jews because he thinks the Roman Catholic Eucharistic celebration should still be done in Latin.

[Primus Pilus]

Gibson's movie depicted the Romans speaking Latin to the Jews because he thinks the Roman Catholic Eucharistic celebration should still be done in Latin.

 

I don't know Gibson's motivations, nor do I care. Regardless I've pointed out several times in this thread that Roman legionaries in Judaea in the early 1st century AD were largely from Italia and Cisalpine Gaul. If it was legionaries and not auxilia that beat Jesus (as depicted in the film) than it is quite appropriate that they would be depicted speaking Latin. Whether there are alterior motives or not, the speaking of Latin by mostly Italian and Gallic legionaries makes perfect sense.

[dnewhous]

I don't know Gibson's motivations, nor do I care. Regardless I've pointed out several times in this thread that Roman legionaries in Judaea in the early 1st century AD were largely from Italia and Cisalpine Gaul. If it was legionaries and not auxilia that beat Jesus (as depicted in the film) than it is quite appropriate that they would be depicted speaking Latin. Whether there are alterior motives or not, the speaking of Latin by mostly Italian and Gallic legionaries makes perfect sense.

 

I feel like I am beating a dead horse, but is it possible they would have needed a translator? (Did I ask that question years ago?)

[Andrew Dalby]

I don't know Gibson's motivations, nor do I care. Regardless I've pointed out several times in this thread that Roman legionaries in Judaea in the early 1st century AD were largely from Italia and Cisalpine Gaul. If it was legionaries and not auxilia that beat Jesus (as depicted in the film) than it is quite appropriate that they would be depicted speaking Latin. Whether there are alterior motives or not, the speaking of Latin by mostly Italian and Gallic legionaries makes perfect sense.

 

I feel like I am beating a dead horse, but is it possible they would have needed a translator? (Did I ask that question years ago?)

 

I don't know. You have to be rich to have an interpreter (even if the interpreter is a slave, he would be an expensive slave). If you're not rich and need to communicate, you have to learn more than one language yourself.

 

In the case of Romans in the East: if they were rich and educated, they would have done some serious Greek at school and 'university' (Athens was the fashionable place). Ordinary legionaries, if of northern or central Italian rural origin, are less likely to have been multilingual in advance of their service (Etruscan was dying). But southern Italy was multilingual (Latin, Greek, Oscan), and if you grow up multilingual it's easier to learn other languages in adult life. After all that, how much Aramaic you picked up would depend how long you were there and how much you needed to communicate with locals. Legionaries tended to stay put, is that right? And often settled locally after service?

[Primus Pilus]

After all that, how much Aramaic you picked up would depend how long you were there and how much you needed to communicate with locals. Legionaries tended to stay put, is that right? And often settled locally after service?

 

Absolutely in the imperial era, and legions originally recruited in Italia (as an example) could quite possibly also replace some Italian retirees with locally recruited troops. With that in mind, the makeup would definately change over time. Clearly there is no question that a legion serving in Judaea at this time was probably a diverse group of possible languages and cultures. They would most likely learn some basic communication skills from the people they were in contact with.

 

However, I contend that if the bulk of the main body speaks a single main language, then new recruits would already know, or learn that language in order to communicate with the larger group. While its quite possible that locally recruited (Judaea or other eastern provinces) replacements knew of, or were aware of Aramaic or any other language, its most likely that they would try to conform to the most common denominator. I can't imagine a centurion would be very happy if every time he was giving commands in Latin, the Aramaic speaking recruits looked around and shrugged their shoulders. On the other hand, a centurion who spoke Greek (a replacement in this case) but had an overwhelming force of original Latin speakers would probably attempt to conform. It's also quite possible that a legion originally recruited in Italia or Gallia (X Fretensis for instance) but served in Syria and Judaea for the better part of at least 3 centuries probably would've dropped the Latin at some point as more and more local languages came to penetrate the ranks. At AD 30 though, I am sticking by the notion that Latin was still dominant.

[Gaius Octavius]

Could it be that the non-Latin speaking recruits were given schooling in Latin as part of their training?