HISTORY OF THE JEWS AT ROME.

Maori Messenger : Te Karere Maori, Volume I, Issue 7, 1 September 1855, Page 25

HISTORY OF THE JEWS AT ROME.

Ever since Pompey (about seventy-nine years before Christ) entered Jerusalem, and set his profane foot within the sacred preeinets of the temple, that city, has been more or less connected with Rome and its history. At all events, from that time arc traces of Jews being settled at Rome. Certain it seems that Pompey brought the first Jewish slaves to Rome, and that from his time Jewish freemen were heard of at his residence. Nothing indicates their having been in any way molested as to the exercise of their religious rites, or that their religious persuasion was' looked upon as a particular hinderance to their residence. Many princes and nobles of the Jewish nation then resided at Rome, and were received in the highest circles, on an equal footing with the many other distinguished personages from all parts of the then known world, whom the pride of Rome gathered around her to do her homage; and, in return, to correct their simplicity of mind and manners, under the gloss of a superior civilisation. Julius Caesar seems to have been favourably inclined towards the Jews, if we may judge from the fact, that at his premature death they manifested much real grief. The Emperor Augustus also treated them kindly, and his death they bewailed for a whole week in succession. It appears that, at that time, they were not confined to any particular part of the city; though there is a notice found in Philo, that Augustus assigned to the Jews (mostly released slaves) the quarter called Trastilerina, yet they were by no means confined to it, but had liberty to reside according to their own pleasure. Many of them lived at Trastevere, near the place occupied at present by the Ghetto.