© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2006 Review of Rabbinic Judaism 9 1 An earlier variant of this essay appeared as “Was There a Third-c. Economic Crisis in Palestine?” in John H. Humphrey, ed., The Roman and Byzantine Near East, vol. 3 ( Journal of Roman Archaeology Supplement 49) (Portsmouth, 2002), pp. 43–54. I am most grateful to Benjamin Isaac, Kenneth G. Holum, and Hayim Lapin for their invaluable counsel during the writing of this paper. 2 Michael Avi-Yonah, The Jews under Roman and Byzantine Rule: A Political History of Palestine from the Bar Kokhba War to the Arab Conquest (London, 1976), p. 89; Gedaliah Alon, The Jews in Their Land in the Talmudic Age (Tel Aviv, 1970), vol. II, pp. 82–93, RABBINIC SOURCES FOR THE STUDY OF SETTLEMENT REALITY IN LATE ROMAN PALESTINE 1 Doron Bar Hebrew University During the third century C.E. a severe political and economic crisis befell the Roman Empire. For almost fifty years, between 235 and 284 C.E., the empire struggled against the tumultuous events within its realm. Only toward the end of the third century, with the rise to power of Emperor Diocletian and the introduction of his reforms, did the imperial political and economic situation recover somewhat, ushering in a new era of prosperity. To date, most scholars have held that the effects of the crisis were felt throughout the eastern part of the empire and that the inhab- itants of Palestine, too, suffered from its consequences. Moreover, some historians who deal with the history of the Jews during this period have particularly emphasized the severity of the crisis felt by the Jews, perhaps due to Jewish vulnerability following Bar Kokhba revolt (132–135 C.E.) or because at that time in history they were a minority among the rest of Palestine’s population. According to the common view, the crisis affected the status of Palestine cities and the quality of life in them as well as the villages, whose numbers shrank. Galloping inflation brought in its wake the desertion of land by the Jews, a drop in food production, and addi- tional, wide-ranging effects on the economic structure. The added weight of heavier taxes came in the wake of serious defense difficulties stemming from attacks and invasions by nomadic tribes who arrived from the eastern and southern deserts bordering Palestine, bringing in a massive flux of emigrants from Palestine. 2 RRJ 9_f5_92-113II 3/31/06 7:34 PM Page 92