A City at a Crossroads: How Gaza Became One of the Greatest Intellectual Centers of the Roman Empire

The years 2023 and 2024 will certainly go down in history as some of the darkest in Gaza’s long and infrequently violent history.

The recent destruction of schools and universities in the Gaza Strip has attracted attention media and the concern of the United Nations, which raised the query of whether the damage might be regarded as “Scholasticism”.

Such reports raise questions on the city’s mental history, something that isn’t discussed outside of academic circles. This is a shame, because there was a period in the late Roman Empire (Fifth and sixth centuries AD) when Gaza was one of the great mental centers of the Mediterranean world.

Gaza and the Roman Empire

This history of Gaza under the rule of the Roman Empire dates back to the city’s refounding in the 60s BCE, after it had been destroyed many years earlier by Alexander Jannaeus (ruler of the neighboring Kingdom of Judea), in accordance with Jewish historian Josephus Flavius.

During the period of relative peace in the Roman Empire, the city was not a victim of the imperial attentions of its more powerful neighbors, whether Egyptian, Greek, Judean, or Roman. The Gazans were capable of make the most of their location at one of the great geographical crossroads.

Gaza was on the essential route from Egypt to the historic cities of the Levant, which correspond to modern Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, and Syria. It also provided access to the Mediterranean at the end of one of the essential trade routes from Arabia, through the city Petra.

Until the Fifth century Gaza appears to have been primarily a trading center, but later became known for its schools and trade.

Between Pagan and Christianity

The late Roman Middle East was a center of mental activity.

During this era, the universities of Alexandria (Egypt), Constantinople (Istanbul), Antioch (Antakya), and Gaza might be considered the Ivy League of their time.

Although there have been no formal universities in the modern sense of the word at the time, these ancient mental centers produced famous teachers who attracted the best and brightest of the Roman elite.

If you wanted to achieve the late Roman world (and you were not in charge the Goth army), your entry into the civil administration of the latest, powerful Christian Church depended largely in your education.

We know quite a bit about the curriculum of Gaza schools. The basis of this elite ancient education was the study of literature and rhetoric.

The curriculum focused on classical Greek texts (versus Latin or Syrian The young men learned how you can write speeches on various topics.

In some cases, these speeches were addressed to the emperor. But these speeches were not only exercises in flattery; we all know of one school teacher who Timothy of Gaza (or , to make use of his Greek title), who wrote a speech addressed to the emperor Anastasius (reigned 491–518 AD) during which he asked him to abolish the tax on merchants.

Other examples of Gazan eloquence were less politically obvious. Much of the curriculum involved writing on topics suggested by ancient Greek literature, mythology, or history.

It is vital to preserve the pagan (on this case non-Christian) elements in the curriculum. As a rule, the later Roman Empire was not distinguished by religious tolerance, neither between Christians and non-Christians, nor between Christians of different theological beliefs.

We know from the ancient biography of a Fifth-century bishop named Porphyry that this bishop participated in the destruction of the remaining pagan temples in Gaza. However, generally, Gazan intellectuals were capable of balance their Christian beliefs with their love of classical (pagan) culture.

At least two Christian intellectuals from Gaza whose works have survived to today are examining biblical creation stories written in the style of Plato’s dialogues from the 4th century BC. These works contain mainly pagan elements Neoplatonic philosophy with Christian interpretations.

Procopius and the miraculous clock

The best, or at least most influential, of Gaza’s intelligentsia was Procopius of Gaza. Procopius was a prolific author and teacher. He is credited with inventing a type of biblical commentary, often called the , which combined fragments from earlier scholars in a kind of precursor to today’s biblical commentaries.

However, if there may be one work that sums up the educational efforts of the Gaza schools and at the same time paints a picture of the city, it’s Procopius’s description of the Gaza clock.

One of the necessary exercises in Roman education was learning to explain an object, something called . Procopius’s clock became something of a textbook example and captured the attention of ancient readers.

The clock itself was a mechanical marvel. Located in Gaza’s essential marketplace, it appears to be a monumental version of a cuckoo clock with the figure of Hercules appearing at the hour.

The appearance of Hercules at each hour corresponded to 1 of his hours. mythical workswhether it’s killing the Nemean lion or cleansing the Augean stables.

Procopius compares the (otherwise unknown) inventor of this clock to a modern Hephaestus, the Greek god of craftsmanship. The clock mechanism was powered by water.

This clock, like the famous schools of late Roman Gaza, eventually disappeared. We don’t know when this happened, but the centuries after Gaza’s mental golden age brought a return to conflict.

Almost 1500 years have passed since the time of Procopius, his students and the engineer who designed the clock. Yet Gaza stays a living city, with poets and teachers.

One can hope that in the near future, modern schools in Gaza will reopen and mental life will have the opportunity to flourish again.