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Executing John the Baptist
#1
In Mark 6.22, king Herod Antipas of Galilee orders the execution of John the Baptist. The man who is supposed to do the job, is a speculator, a Roman officer. Obviously, no Mark wants to stress that no Jew wanted to kill a prophet.

As I understand, it was not uncommon for a speculator to live at a foreign court; but could he accept orders from a non-Roman king?
Jona Lendering
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#2
Why shouldn't he? Given the situation, the choice would have been between causing a public scene and offending a loyal ally versus overstepping the bounds of strict military protocol. From what I've read of government style in Roman Judaea, killing a local was well within the latitude of individual judgement for a principalis, and client kings IIRC could have their subjects executed as they pleased.

That is assuming Mark is right about that bit, of course.
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#3
Well, whether the speculator could take orders directly from the king or not, it would have been easy enough to send for word from the governor or other official Roman legal guy, and get approval, either for a specific event, or a general order. ("I authorize you to execute or dismember whomever the king wants, except for Roman citizens.* for example.)
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#4
Quote:From what I've read of government style in Roman Judaea, killing a local was well within the latitude of individual judgement for a principalis, and client kings IIRC could have their subjects executed as they pleased.
I'm not quite sure; Pilate got into trouble when he killed a couple of locals too many and was pensioned off.
Quote:it would have been easy enough to send for word from the governor or other official Roman legal guy, and get approval, either for a specific event, or a general order.
A general order is what I had in mind as well; a speculator, being a scout, was supposed to act on his own. Usually, there would have been little time to ask for confirmation of orders; he might as well have some sort of "license to kill" when he thought he had to.
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#5
Quote:a speculator, being a scout, was supposed to act on his own. Usually, there would have been little time to ask for confirmation of orders
Not to speculate on the speculator :wink: but if he needed to make explanation, something like "It was to keep order, and the king told me to do it, etc., etc." would be plenty sufficient. Heck, any soldier who was attacked in any way was already authorized to defend himself with deadly force if needed, right? So for somebody in charge of making things go smoothly, executing some troublemaker on the request of Herod? Snap! Off with his head. Next?! Cry

Now sending it in to Salome on a silver platter, that would probably be the job of one of the king's eunuchs or something.
M. Demetrius Abicio
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#6
Quote:if he needed to make explanation, something like "It was to keep order, and the king told me to do it, etc., etc." would be plenty sufficient. Heck, any soldier who was attacked in any way was already authorized to defend himself with deadly force if needed, right?
I'm not quite convinced, yet. In the first place, our man was not attacked. In the second place, the use of violence was restricted: Pilate was pensioned off after he had attacked the disciples of the Samaritan prophet. When a prefect had to accept limitations to his powers, a speculator can not have been above the law either.

In the third place, his obeying the order was not in Rome's interest. Antipas was acting like a drunkard: no father in Antiquity would have allowed his daughter -a girl of six or seven years old!- to dance in front of strangers. Refusing the king's order would have been acceptable, and -as the events were to show- smarter: the masses became restless, something that will not have pleased the Roman governor in Syria.

I think that the man in Damascus, whose successor was to pension off Pilate for a lesser mistake, may have regretted what had happened, and I think that it is possible that he said to the speculator: "Please think twice before you accept orders from a foreigner".

Knowing the Roman fondness for legal subtilities (Pliny's letters to Trajan are full of them), I think it is not too bizarre to assume that the man who killed the Baptist was reprimanded for accepting orders from a foreign (and possible drunken) foreigner. But it would be nice if we had parallel sources about Roman soldiers attached to foreign courts.
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#7
Quote:a speculator, being a scout, was supposed to act on his own. Usually, there would have been little time to ask for confirmation of orders; he might as well have some sort of "license to kill" when he thought he had to.
I thought a speculator was also a spy, torturer and executioner? Intelligence officer? Also, under the early Emperors weren't they also bodyguards to them, which could mean Herod could have been assigned one as a symbol of Rome's protection, justice, and a convenient eye & ear in his court?

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#8
Quote:
Jona Lendering:2avz00jf Wrote:a speculator, being a scout, was supposed to act on his own. Usually, there would have been little time to ask for confirmation of orders; he might as well have some sort of "license to kill" when he thought he had to.
I thought a speculator was also a spy, torturer and executioner? Intelligence officer? Also, under the early Emperors weren't they also bodyguards to them, which could mean Herod could have been assigned one as a symbol of Rome's protection, justice, and a convenient eye & ear in his court?
As far as I know (= as far as my dictionary knows), "executioner" is post-classical; if this is correct, Mark can not have used "speculator" as a synonym for "executioner". Our man must have been some sort of liaison officer.
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#9
Quote: From the Latin Vulgate Bible: 26 Et contristatus est rex: propter jusjurandum, et propter simul discumbentes, noluit eam contristare:
27 sed misso speculatore præcepit afferri caput ejus in disco.
He clearly uses the word speculator, although, of course, the Vulgate was written quite some time later than the event, that word is clearly used.
Quote:From the King James Bible, same passage: 26And the king was exceeding sorry; yet for his oath's sake, and for their sakes which sat with him, he would not reject her. 27And immediately the king sent an executioner, and commanded his head to be brought: and he went and beheaded him in the prison,
In this translation, executioner would seem to be the synonym for speculator, wouldn't it?

New International Version says executioner, Revised Standard says "a soldier of the guard". I can't type Greek characters, but the word in the Greek/English interlinear appears to transliterate "speculatora", but is translated (in this edition) "guardian". New American Standard says executioner, but the Jerusalem Bible uses "bodyguard".

Does that help muddy the waters a little more? Sorry. Best I have. What words are used in other languages?
M. Demetrius Abicio
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#10
Well, to be honest, I have no high opinion of Biblical translators; in Dutch, there is a clear distinction between camels and dromedaries, and still they manage to translate gamal with camel - an animal that did not live in the Near East at all! What the loanword speculator means in an early first-century context, can better be deduced from parallels in contemporary inscriptions etc, than from more recent translations. What do English dictionaries say? Guardsman? Secret agent? Executioner? Do they give an indication if it's classical or post-classical?
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#11
As M. Demetrius points out, the word used in the original Greek text is spekoulátôr. I remember to have read (for example in Le Bohec) that the equites speculatores of the Praetorian Cohorts were also a bodyguard for the Emperor, so a speculator could rightly also be translated as a bodyguard.

Another interesting point that I found in a commentary to Mark's gospel (but I do not know how strongly based in primary sources) is that the use of the word spekoulátôr would suggest that Antipas' army was modeled on the Roman example and used Latin titles. So, the executioner of John the Baptist would be a bodyguard of Antipas rather than a Roman officer
Gabriel
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#12
Quote:As M. Demetrius points out, the word used in the original Greek text is spekoulátôr. I remember to have read (for example in Le Bohec) that the equites speculatores of the Praetorian Cohorts were also a bodyguard for the Emperor, so a speculator could rightly also be translated as a bodyguard.
Yes, but what's the evidence before Otho? As far as I know, he was the first one to employ people like that. I may be wrong.

Quote:Another interesting point that I found in a commentary to Mark's gospel (but I do not know how strongly based in primary sources) is that the use of the word spekoulátôr would suggest that Antipas' army was modeled on the Roman example and used Latin titles. So, the executioner of John the Baptist would be a bodyguard of Antipas rather than a Roman officer
That's interesting, and certainly possible. Which commentary is it?
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#13
Quote:
Maiorianus:33f3asmj Wrote:As M. Demetrius points out, the word used in the original Greek text is spekoulátôr. I remember to have read (for example in Le Bohec) that the equites speculatores of the Praetorian Cohorts were also a bodyguard for the Emperor, so a speculator could rightly also be translated as a bodyguard.
Yes, but what's the evidence before Otho? As far as I know, he was the first one to employ people like that. I may be wrong.

Yes, that's also what I read. At the same time, this could suggest another research thread. Since the Gospel of Mark is often considered to have been composed shortly after the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem (therefore at a time when the speculatores were actually acting as bodyguards), spekoulator may not be the word used in the days of Antipas, but the word that Mark would most naturally use to identify the bodyguard of a leader. While it might be somewhat puzzling that Mark use a Latin transliteration in a Greek text, I found at least two comments here and here suggesting that Mark was actually writing for a non-Jewish, possibly Roman audience. Hence the choice to use terms that would make immediately sense to Latin-speaking readers (by the way, both comments refer to spekoulator exactly in this context)

Quote:
Maiorianus:33f3asmj Wrote:Another interesting point that I found in a commentary to Mark's gospel (but I do not know how strongly based in primary sources) is that the use of the word spekoulátôr would suggest that Antipas' army was modeled on the Roman example and used Latin titles. So, the executioner of John the Baptist would be a bodyguard of Antipas rather than a Roman officer
That's interesting, and certainly possible. Which commentary is it?


It is actually a modern commentary in Italian. You may find the text here. The contributions on the website are from a number of scholars specialised in the Early Christian Literature but, as I said, no primary source or other reference is provided, so I cannot say how much this is the personal opinion of the author or a widely shared view. Maybe I might ask him through the site...
Gabriel
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#14
I would interpret it in this way as well. The author was most likely using a term which was understandable for his audience and was in use at his time.

The army, ranks, structure everyone was "familiar" with at this time was the Roman army with its (latin) terms. So to me, no real surprise he uses the latin term of the day in his greek text even if the term was different during Antipas reign (greek or aramaic or whatever it may have been).

Kind of a stupid comparison but nowadays if you'd have to write an article for a newsmag (not for specialists) you'd probably write "herodes' bodyguard" instead of "herodes somatophylakes, which is the greek name of his guards".
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#15
Thanks Gabriel! Laudes for that.
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