DATING

The implication of differing audiences suggested by the different languages used can also be deduced from the dating formulae employed in these documents.

Table 2. Dating formulae:

2.1 in Nabatean documents before AD 106, regal formula: “in year twenty- three of Rab'el the King, King of the Nabataeans” (P Hever 1 [94]).

2.2 in Greek and Jewish Aramaic documents in both Arabia and Judaea, and the Nabataean Aramaic documents of the Babatha archive, three forms (beyond days and months) of dating can appear:

(1) imperial regnal year, “in the ninth year of imperator”, (for example, P Yadin 14 [125], P Mur 18 [55], 115 [124]).

(2) consular year, “in the consulship of’, (for example, P Yadin 5 [110], P Mur 114 [124]).

(3) provincial year: “by the era of the επαρχεία [of Arabia]”, starts to appear P Yadin 5 [110]; “by the new era of the επαρχεία [of Arabia]”, P Yadin 16 [127]=from date of first census (H M Cotton “Ή ΝΕΑ ΕΠΑΡΧΕΙΑ ΑΡΑΒΙΑ: the new province of Arabia in the papyri from the Judaean Desert” (1997) 116 ZPE 204, 206-207); there is no dating by provincial era in Judaea.

2.3 in Hebrew documents, by “year in the freedom” or “redemption of Israel” P Hever 49, 7, 8, 8a, 13: starting 66-70, and again in 132; dating also by year of “Simon Bar Kochba, prince of Israel” (P Yadin 44-46).

The Hebrew documents use formulae that are entirely their own, “by year in the freedom” or “the redemption of Israel”, or “of Bar Kochba, prince of Israel”, whereas Greek and Aramaic documents in Judaea, and the Aramaic documents after AD 106 in Arabia, use imperial regnal year, consular year, or, in Arabia, the Roman provincial year.

These distinctive ways of dating divide the documents into categories less specific than the categories created by language: both Greek and Aramaic documents (in Judaea, and after AD 106 in Arabia) date in ways that unmis- takeably reflect Roman dominion. Yet the Arabian documents also date by provincial era, whereas Judaean documents do not,^[134] possibly reflecting either a significant fact about the Roman presence or a significant local reaction to that presence.³⁶ This acceptance of “era of provincialisation” as a form of dating in Arabia suggests a sensitive or accepting awareness of the Romans in that province that may not have existed in Judaea.

Sensitive accommodation and adjustment certainly seem to be especially characteristic of the Greek legal documents from Arabia. The dating formulae, shared with the Aramaic documents, are only the most obvious of these adjustments; scholars have also pointed to the Latinisms present in the Greek texts, Latinisms that comprise not only Roman things, like the denarius, the tribunal, and the basilica, but also Roman legal language and, with that language, the possibility of Roman legal concepts and activities, like the use of επίτροπος in the Roman sense of tutor (not the Greek κύριος), καλή πίοτει for bona fides, and, most striking, the question-and-answer formula of the Roman stipulation, translated as επερωτηθεις ώμολόγηοα.³⁷ Babatha was a woman who fled to the Nahal Hever cave with no fewer than three Greek translations of the Roman formula of the actio tutelae in her leather pouch, so it is easy to believe that she was investigating the legal possibilities

36 The Roman acquisition of Arabia seems to have occurred without major conflict, and subse­quently one legion was used as a garrison (and built the via nova Traiana): Bowersock, Roman Arabia (n 15) 81-89. M Goodman, “Babatha's Story” (1991) 81 JRS 169, 170-171 deemed the presence of the Roman army in Arabia after ad 106 “pervasive” and the Roman presence dense;

N Lewis, R Katzoff, and J C Greenfield, “Papyrus Yadin 18” (1987) 37 IEJ 229, 234 concluded that this “strong military presence” influenced the style of the documents.

37 Roman money and dates; also Latin words in Greek letters and endings: acta (P Yadin 12), agitur (P Yadin 28-30), basilica (P Yadin 16), collega (P Yadin 14), librarius (or libellarius, see G Bower­sock, “The Babatha Papyri, Masada, and Rome” [1991] 4 JRA 336, 339); (P Yadin 15, 20-22), miliarius (P Yadin 11), praesidium (P Yadin 11), tribunal (P Yadin 14); Roman concepts trans­lated into Greek, bona fides=KoAy πίοτει (P Yadin 16); ΜίΜη^έπράχθη (P Yadin 12, 23, 25-26); ^ίσ^έπίτροπος (P Yadin 13-17, 20, 22-5, 27, 37, with Cotton, “The Guardian (ΕΠΙΤΡΟΠΟΣ) of a Woman” [n 31]); conventus^apovoia (P Yadin 14); гecupeгatoгes=ςενoκpίτaι (P Yadin 28), with D. Norr, “The Xenokritai in Babatha's Archive (Pap. Yadin 28-30)” (1995) 29 Israel Law Review 83-94; stipulations=έπεpωτηθεZς (P Yadin 5, 17, 18, 20-22, 37; restored in P Hever 63); swearing to genius=TV%n of Roman emperor (P Yadin 16).

of the Roman legal system in Arabia for the likes of herself, and trying to exploit the opportunities it offered to the best of her abilities.^[135] The extreme correctness of dating by provincial era in Greek legal documents from Arabia is paralleled in these other technical importations and adjustments. Here too, however, the legal documents from Arabia and Judaea differ, and the different responses must reveal something of the local assessment of the likelihood of the use of secular Roman courts, and with it the protagonists' relationship to the ruling Roman power.

D.