Note 173 — Chapter XI · JUDAEA AND THE JEWS.

When Strabo was in Egypt in the earlier Augustan period the Jews in Alexandria were under an Ethnarch (Geogr. xvii. 1, 13, p. 798, and in Josephus, Arch. xiv. 7, 2). Thereupon, when under Augustus the Ethnarchos or Genarchos, as he was called, died, a council of the elders took his place (Philo, Leg. 10); yet Augustus, as Claudius states (Josephus, Arch. xix. 5, 2), “did not prohibit the Jews from appointing an Ethnarch,” which probably is meant to signify that the choice of a single president was only omitted for this time, not abolished once for all. Under Gaius there were evidently only elders of the Jewish body; and also under Vespasian these are met with (Josephus, Bell. vii. 10, 1). An archon of the Jews in Antioch is named in Josephus, Bell. vii. 3, 3.