Trafika Europe 6 - Arabesque

captivity

of knowing who was what, because they all yelled and swore in Greek. It is true that block and tackle devices had been introduced on the docks, but the bulk of freight handling nevertheless proceeded by hand. Baleswereunloadedand lugged to be swallowed by the enormous city without a trace and then discharged into the sewers, which likewise flowed into the Tiber. No wonder the Jews took care not to drink from it, and, as for washing, they never washed in it, and during epidemics the dockers were segregated. Infectious diseases were diagnosed in Palestine according a well -known formula: if on three successive days, three corpses out of community of five hundred werecarriedoff three separate times, then it was the plague. If it was fewer, then it was not the plague, and there was no

need to impose quarantine. At times like that, the poor in some congregations would deny they had corpses, so that breadwinners could keep working, and only later would they report a death. The archisynagogoses took a strong stance against this, as did Levites, who were well-paid experts at burial. An uproar would arise over this every other day or so, as would be expected anywhere that persons lived surrounded by other persons, bound together. Joseph made one last try to obtain a man’s work for his son. The post of grammateus had fallen vacant in their community. The grammateus was a scribe, a notary and secretary, the archisynagogos’s right-hand man, a man of influence,

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