A Jew in the Roman Bathhouse: Cultural Interaction in the Ancient Mediterranean by Yaron Z. Eliav (review)

Reviewed by: A Jew in the Roman Bathhouse: Cultural Interaction in the Ancient Mediterranean by Yaron Z. Eliav Dennis Mizzi A Jew in the Roman Bathhouse: Cultural Interaction in the Ancient Mediterranean. By Yaron Z. Eliav. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 2023. Pp. xv, 368, 3 maps, 1 diagram, 26 b/w figures. Yaron Eliav's A Jew in the Roman Bathhouse is an immensely rich and multi-layered book that explores the nuances of cultural interaction in the Graeco-Roman world through the lens of the Roman bathhouse—specifically, by examining the attitudes of Jews living in ancient Palestine towards this quintessential Roman cultural institution, which in time came to embody the very notion of romanitas. Thanks to the availability of a large body of rabbinic material from the third century c.e. onwards, which represents the most comprehensive literary corpus emanating from a Roman province and includes no less than five hundred references to the Roman bathhouse, Eliav is able to tap into the mindsets and perceptions of his ancient subjects and thus bring to life a unique provincial perspective on the topic. Eliav has at his disposal "thousands of pages written by local provincial residents of the Roman world in their own language and in their own words" (5), in stark contrast to the rest of the empire's periphery, whose subjects remain largely voiceless, their experiences gleaned through archaeology, chance inscriptions or papyri, and visual art. The book is divided into three parts, bookended by an introduction and a conclusion. The first part sets the stage and consists of three chapters. The first provides a general overview of the typical Roman public bathhouse, with a special focus on its spatial layout and various characteristic features. The second reconstructs the idea of the bathhouse in the Jewish literary imagination, based on descriptions in rabbinic literature. The third chapter interrogates the archaeological record to trace the emergence of Roman bathhouse culture in ancient Palestine. Having established that the institution had already made significant inroads in the region during the early Roman period (first century b.c.e. to early second century c.e.), Eliav proceeds to examine how Jews interacted with it. This constitutes the second part of the book. The first of the three chapters in this section examines the status of the public bathhouse in the eyes of the rabbis: was it a sinful place, and did visits to the bathhouse contravene rabbinic laws (halakha)? In contrast to previous scholarship, Eliav answers these questions in the negative. Indeed, as the next two chapters illustrate (rather vividly, one must say), rabbinic literature is full of anecdotes attesting to the rabbis' intimate familiarity with the physical, social, and cultural dimensions of the public bathhouse. More importantly, these same passages depict rabbis and other Jews as regular patrons whose behaviour deviated little from the norm. For instance, not only did Jews visit the same establishments as non-Jews, but, as was customary, they also bathed in the nude, most likely with no segregation of the genders. Furthermore, a majority of rabbis seem to have shared the outlook prevailing across the Roman Mediterranean that classified sculpture as either sacred or profane, depending on the context, and this allowed them to frequent bathhouses adorned with statues of Graeco-Roman deities without committing idolatry—because the bathhouse was not perceived as a sacred space. The same picture, one of a shared cultural landscape, [End Page 188] obtains in the last two chapters, which constitute the third and last part of the book. Here, Eliav explores the mechanisms through which social status and hierarchy were reproduced in the public bathhouse, as well as the use of magic as a tool to counteract the dangers (associated with demons) lurking within the place, such as wet floors, violence and aggression, or unwanted sexual advances. Across these five chapters, Eliav mounts a strong and convincing case, depicting rabbis and other Jews as comfortably embedded in Roman bathhouse culture. This is not to say that they embraced this institution wholesale; rather, they adapted it to fit their context, their laws, their sensibilities. The public bathhouse, in other...

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