Note 139 — Chapter X · SYRIA AND THE LAND OF THE NABATAEANS.

When Salvianus (towards 450) remonstrates with the Christians of Gaul that they are in nothing better than the heathens, he points (de gub. Dei, iv. 14, 69) to the worthless negotiatorum et Syricorum omnium turbae, quae maiorem ferme civitatum universarum partem occupaverunt. Gregory of Tours relates that king Guntchram was met at Orleans by the whole body of citizens and extolled, as in Latin, so also in Hebrew and in Syriac (viii. 1: hinc lingua Syrorum, hinc Latinorum, hinc ... Judaeorum in diversis laudibus varie concrepabat), and that after a vacancy in the episcopal see of Paris a Syrian merchant knew how to procure it for himself, and gave away to his countrymen the places belonging to it (x. 26: omnem scholam decessoris sui abiciens Syros de genere suo ecclesiasticae domui ministros esse statuit). Sidonius (about 450) describes the perverse world of Ravenna (Ep. 1, 8) with the words: fenerantur clerici, Syri psallunt; negotiatores militant, monachi negotiantur. Usque hodie, says Hieronymus (in Ezech. 27, vol. v. p. 513 Vall.) permanet in Syris ingenitus negotiationis ardor, qui per totum mundum lucri cupiditate discurrunt et tantam mercandi habent vesaniam, ut occupato nunc orbe Romano (written towards the end of the fourth century) inter gladios et miserorum neces quaerant divitias et paupertatem periculis fugiant. Other proofs are given by Friedländer, Sittengeschichte, ii.5 p. 67. Without doubt we may be allowed to add the numerous inscriptions of the West which proceed from Syrians, even if those do not designate themselves expressly as merchants. Instructive as to this point is the Coemeterium of the small north-Italian country-town Concordia of the fifth century; the foreigners buried in it are all Syrians, mostly of Apamea (C. I. L. iii. p. 1060); likewise all the Greek inscriptions found in Treves belong to Syrians (C. I. Gr. 9891, 9892, 9893). These inscriptions are not merely dated in the Syrian fashion, but show also peculiarities of the dialectic Greek there (Hermes, xix. 423).—That this Syro-Christian Diaspora, standing in relation to the contrast between the Oriental and Occidental clergy, may not be confounded with the Jewish Diaspora, is clearly shown by the account in Gregorius; it evidently stood much higher, and belonged throughout to the better classes.