Trafika Europe 6 - Arabesque

györgy spiró

Sanhedrin as it was called in Judaea, the council which met at irregular intervals to decide on the affairs of the various congregations, as it had an interest in seeing that one and all purchased the produce of the official Transtiberian Jewish slaughtermen, and should only drink wine that was sold by the powerful Jewish wine victualers of Rome. It was possible to make an even bigger profit on wine than onmeat because drinking wine was compulsory on feast days; wine victualers also sold the two-handled flasks, fired from white clay and freed of impurities, from which the wine was supposed to be drunk. Romans, both Jews and non-Jews alike, drank a lot of wine because wine did not loosen the bowels, whereas water often did. Somehow, the same victualers who shipped pure olive oil

from Palestine to the Roman communities, as the use of Italian oil was judged a capital offense, upheld time and time again by the leadership of the congregations, given that substantial numbers of wine and oil importers were to be found among the elders of this collective leadership. Uri self-righteously consumed a good deal less of the ration than he was entitled by its regulators, so that he too, along with his father, could consider himself a breadwinner. On the days his ration was be handed to him, the whole family would be with him, which is to say his father,mother, and twosisters; together they would all carry their allotment back home. The wealthier among them would go with a handcart; they rest would take sacks and wicker baskets, because a handcart was too expensive.

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