Ovid on the Jews
Publius Ovidius Naso - better known as Ovid - was and is the doyen of the decadent love poem in world literature. He is best known for having been exiled for offending the Emperor Augustus by writing in praise of all the sexual vices - such as sex outside of marriage - that the Emperor was trying to suppress with new laws.
As such a lot of Ovid's writing is about the sensual side of things and his fame concomitantly centred around that: it is perhaps surprising for the modern reader to learn that Ovid fired some not-so-playful barbs at the jews and indeed that this opposition - as I mentioned in my article on Horace - (1) possibly played a role in Ovid's banishment as we should remember that one of Octavian's wife Livia's closest body-slaves - whom she loved dearly - was a jewess named Acme. (2) Towards whom Livia and/or Octavian may have taken advice from or been sensitive to attacks about.
Ovid first fires a barb at the jews in his work 'Ars Amatoria' when he states:
'Don’t miss the Portico that takes its name from Livia its creator, full of old masters or where the daring Danaids prepare to murder their poor husbands, and their fierce father stands, with out-stretched sword. And don’t forget the shrine of Adonis, Venus wept for, and the sacred Sabbath rites of the Syrian Jews. Don’t skip the Memphite temple of the linen-clad heifer: she makes many a girl what she herself was to Jove.' (3)
This seems at first glance to be quite an innocent passage comparing different religious rituals, but the keen-eyed reader will have picked up the touch of sexual undertones to what Ovid says. When he talks of the Danaids he is talking about betrayal by and the ill-use of women. The reference to the 'Memphite' cow is a reference to the story of Jupiter seducing Io - a nymph priestess of Hera - who he changed into a cow to escape and thus what Ovid is saying is that the followers of Isis (i.e., Memphites [from Memphis in Egypt]) deflower unsuspecting virgins (possibly with animals) in their rites.
If we put the reference to 'the sacred Sabbath rites of the Syrian Jews' in that context then it stands out as we don't commonly associate sex with the Sabbath. However, there are two possibilities as to meaning:
A) Ovid is talking about the duty beholden on all jews to have sexual intercourse with their wives - regardless of whether they want to or not - on the Friday night of the Sabbath so as to fulfil the commandment of the Torah to 'go forth and multiply'.
B) Ovid is talking about the use of sex by jews as a way of gaining entry into Roman society and/or looking to revenge themselves on it.
The first of these is the superficially more likely of the scenarios: as it is a jewish practice of long-standing and probably derives from before the Babylonian Talmud ruled that it should be considered a Mitzvah to do so. However, it is a bit of a square peg in the circular hole of Ovid's comparison in so far as all the others concern the seductiveness of women and how they can use that sexuality to men's advantage. Thus, a more pedestrian meaning of Judaism commanding the jewish husband to sleep with his jewish wife before the Shabbos rituals the next day is somewhat problematic as it simply does not fit the context of Ovid's statement.
More plausible in terms of Ovid's though process, but less so in terms of formal jewish practice is the second. Our evidence for this practice comes primarily from jewish sources before the Roman period and from non-jewish sources after, but we have little to suggest such a practice being actively pursued during the Roman era. That said it would not be unreasonable to assert that jews did engage in the practice of using sex as a way of gaining entry to and/or revenging themselves on Roman society based on the evidence before and after that period.
We need only remember two important points to show the plausibility of such a thesis:
A) That the use of sex to gain advantage and/or revenge is sanctified by the story of Esther in the Tanakh and openly celebrated in the joyous festival of Purim in the jewish religious calendar. Purim is, of course, the openly jewish festival which it is often held to be a duty for jews to get drunk (i.e., 'make merry in celebration') for the jews have been victorious by the guile of Mordecai and Esther against the gentiles lead by Haman and have executed them on the gallows that was intended for the 'chosen people'.
B) That jewishness in halakhah is normally a consequence of the mother being jewish, which - although it likely started out as a way to prevent jewish men taking non-jewish wives - could very easily be used as a way to gain entry into elite society by marrying daughters off with large dowries to members of the elite down on their financial luck without needing to risk one's descendants being halakhically non-jewish.
That Ovid understands this is indicated by a comment about jews that he makes in his 'Metamorphoses':
'And Astreus next,
Whose mother was a Jew,
His sire uncertain' (4)
Ovid is clearly firing a two-pronged barb at jews here: firstly is the obvious meaning in that jewish women are proverbial prostitutes in spite of their strict legalistic religious beliefs and that as such no jew knows who his father truly. That is a calculated insult on Ovid's part (indicating his distaste for all things jewish), but the secondary meaning of the recognition of the maternal line being the important one is also present.
After all Ovid is clearly pointing out by implication that if a jew's mother is jewish then he is a jew and it does not matter if his father was or not (so therefore the jewess can sleep with anyone [a-la Ovid's studied barb]). This clearly demonstrates that Ovid well knows that jewishness runs matrilineally and not patrilineally generally speaking, which was the very opposite of the norm in the ancient and classical worlds and as such would be counter-intuitive for Ovid unless he knew that this was indeed the case.
As such it is reasonable to conclude that Ovid knew this was the case and was utilizing a simple point of polemic to also make a studied insult to the jews in keeping with the common Roman and Greek view of the fundamentally alien nature of both jews and Judaism.
As Ovid understood this key point of jewish religious law it thus makes the second possibility - that jews used sex to gain entry to and/or revenge themselves on Roman society - more plausible as it suggests that as Ovid understood that jewishness was matrilineal: his meaning could be read as a jewish attempt at subversion by gaining power via 'marrying in' to the Roman financial and political elite.
The ability of jews to buy their way into the Roman financial and political elite is also indicated by Ovid's mention in 'Ars Amatoria' of a peculiar situation that occurred on the Sabbath.
To wit:
'It is fine to start on that day of tears when the Allia flowed with the blood poured from Roman wounds, or when the Sabbath day returns, the holy day of the Syrian Jews, less suitable for buying things.' (5)
What Ovid is saying quite bluntly here is that on the days of the Sabbath the marketplaces of Rome are not very full as the jews are not present, because they are forbidden to work and as such are not manning their shops and stalls. So thus, it is a less suitable time for Romans to buy things, because there aren't very many traders about and thus they have less selection to choose from.
Now if Ovid is correct in asserting this then we have the key as to why jews would be able to marry their daughters into Rome's financial and political elite: they are merchants, some of them are likely to have become rich and thus would have had aspirations beyond their nominal station as non-Romans. Thus, they would have had the ability; as well as the privileged status, enable them to intermarry with Roman citizens (6) and as such - with the violently separatist and self-interested attitude of the jews - would have easily been seen by even so liberal a thinker as Ovid as a threat not only to Rome but to his very life.
As such we should understand that Ovid, like so many Roman and Greek authors of the time whose work has come down to us, was very concerned about the subversive nature of jews and Judaism.
Indeed, we can even as go as far as to state that in retrospect they had every right to be worried!
References
(1) https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/horace-on-the-jews
(2) Harry Leon, 1960, 'The Jews of Ancient Rome', 1st Edition, Jewish Publication Society of America: Philadelphia, p. 14
(3) Ovid Ars Ama.1:3
(4) Ovid Meta. 5
(5) Ovid Ars. Ama. 1:11
(6) Martin Goodman, 2008, 'Rome and Jerusalem: The Clash of Ancient Civilizations', 1st Edition, Penguin, pp. 164-165