On the Date of Composition of Additions B and E to LXX Esther

Additions B and E to LXX Esther have been variously dated from the second century BCE to the first century CE. This study links the two Greek Additions, on the one hand, with Philo’s writings through the concept of the “evil-hating justice” and, on the other hand, with the historical persons and events related to the Jewish-Alexandrian conflict of 38-41 CE, and dates their composition or final redaction to the early forties of the first century CE.

of Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II);10 between 120 and 100 BCE;11 before 114 BCE;12 between 114 BCE and 94 CE;13 end of the second century to the beginning of the first century BCE;14 between 103 and 76 BCE (reign of Alexander Jannaeus);15 shortly after the persecution of the Alexandrian Jews by Ptolemy IX Lathyrus in 88 BCE;16 78/77 BCE;17 between 80 BCE and 90 CE;18 around 50 BCE;19 and in the early Roman era.20 As regards the place of composition of these two Additions, many scholars assign them to Egypt on the basis of their "Egyptian flavour"21 and the similarities that they exhibit with 3 Maccabees, a book of undeniable Egyptian provenance.22 In this study we will argue for a date of composition or final redaction of Additions B and E to LXX Esther in the early forties of the first century CE. To this purpose we will adduce a combination of lexical, literary, and historical evidence.

The "Evil-hating Justice" (μισοπόνηρος δίκη) in Addition E to LXX Esther and in Philo
In Add Esth E:4, King Artaxerxes speaks of those wicked schemers-a hinted reference to Haman-who, puffed up by the boasts of those who are inexperienced in goodness, assume that they will escape the evil-hating justice of God, who always observes everything (τοῖς τῶν ἀπειραγάθων κόμποις ἐπαρθέντες τοῦ τὰ πάντα κατοπτεύοντος ἀεὶ θεοῦ μισοπόνηρον ὑπολαμβάνουσιν ἐκφεύξεσθαι δίκην). Of especial interest in this verse is the combination μισοπόνηρος δίκη, "evil-hating justice," which is not found in the other Greek versions of Esther. In the Alpha Text the two elements that make up this combination are not coupled together,23 whereas one of the two elements, the adjective μισοπόνηρος, seems not to have occurred in the Greek Vorlage of the Vetus Latina of Esther and is missing in Josephus' paraphrase of Esther.24 In fact, the combination μισοπόνηρος δίκη is not attested anywhere else in Greek literature except in six works of Philo25 and in a few late Byzantine authors.26 In his works Philo uses, aside from μισοπόνηρος, several other nouns, adjectives, and participles as modifiers of δίκη, the personified Justice: ἀδέκαστος 23 At 7:23(4) the Alpha Text reads: ἀλλὰ καὶ τοῖς τῶν ἀπειραγάθων κόμποις παρελθόντες τὸ τοῦ πάντα δυναστεύοντος δικαιοκρίτου μισοπόνηρον ἐκφυγεῖν διειληφότες, τὴν δίκην. The adjective μισοπόνηρος is here substantivized: τὸ μισοπόνηρον (=ἡ μισοπονηρία, "the hatred of evil") is to be taken either as object of the infinitive ἐκφυγεῖν, in which case τὴν δίκην is the object of the participle παρελθόντες (see the French translation by Cavalier,Esther,: "mais aussi, négligeant la justice à cause des vantardises de ceux qui ignorent le bien et décidés à fuir la haine des méchants du juste juge qui dirige tout"), or, given the distance that separates παρελθόντες from τὴν δίκην, as object of the participle παρελθόντες, in which case τὴν δίκην is the object of the infinitive ἐκφυγεῖν (see the German translation by De Troyer and Wacker [Kraus and Karrer,Septuaginta Deutsch,612]: "sondern im stolzen Prahlen derer, die vom Guten nichts wissen, sind sie auch noch davon überzeugt, sie könnten an dem Hass auf das Böse, der von dem alles gerecht beurteilenden Mächtigen (ausgeht), vorbeikommen und dem Gericht entfliehen"). The English translations of the Alpha Text by Clines (Esther Scroll,241: "transgressing because of the boasts of those who know nothing of goodness, imagining that they will escape justice, the evil-hating attribute of the righteous Judge, who rules over all") and Jobes (NETS,437: "gone astray due to the boasts of those who are inexperienced in goodness, they even imagine they will escape the evil-hating justice of the just Judge who rules all things") do not follow in this verse the grammatical construction of the Greek text. 24 At E:4 the Vetus Latina of Esther reads: dei semper omnia conspicientis malignitatem concipientes putant se evadere <iudicium> ("when they design an evil plan they think they will avoid the judgment of the god who always sees everything"; trans. Bellmann and Portier-Young, "Old Latin," 285). Its Vorlage, instead of τὸ μισοπόνηρον, likely read τὸ πονηρόν/τὴν πονηρίαν, which the translator rendered by "malignitatem." In the MS VL 151, which is thought to be closest to the oldest, unrevised form of the Vetus Latina of Esther, the infinitive "evadere" lacks a complement; "iudicium" was supplied by the modern editor on the basis of the revised MSS VL 123 and 109. See Haelewyck,Hester,fasc. 1,43. Josephus' paraphrase (A.J. 11.275) reads: λήσεσθαι τὸ θεῖον ἐπὶ τούτοις νομίζουσι καὶ τὴν ἐξ αὐτοῦ διαφεύξεσθαι δίκην. 25 Philo,Conf. 128;Migr. 225;Mos. 2.53;Decal. 177;Spec. 3.140;Flacc. 107. 26 Ignatius Diaconus,Vita Nicephori,pp. 146.4 and 205.7 (de Boor); Philagathus, Homiliae, 22.6 (Rossi Taibbi); Demetrius Cydones, Epistulae, 436.30 (Loenertz); cf. Theophanes Confessor, Chronographia, p. 255.8 (de Boor), ἡ μισοπόνηρος δικαιοσύνη τοῦ θεοῦ. Eusebius, in his Ecclesiastical History (9.7.2), likely draws on Philo, when he writes that Justice with its "sleepless hatred of wickedness" followed close on the heels of Maximinus, a persecutor of the Church: τῆς παρὰ πόδας αὐτὸν μετελθούσης ἱερᾶς δίκης ἡ ἄϋπνος κατὰ τῶν ἀσεβῶν μισοπονηρία.
Μισοπόνηρος is one of Philo's favourite adjectives;30 he uses it twenty-four times,31 more than any other ancient author, whereas in the Septuagint it occurs only once, in Add Esth E:4. 2. As the juxtaposition of synonyms or antonyms is a favourite stylistic feature of Philo,32 he uses not only μισοπόνηρος in conjunction with δίκη but also φιλάρετος, "he who loves virtue" (Conf. 128, ἡ φιλάρετός τε καὶ μισοπόνηρος δίκη), which is another adjective that he has a fondness for, occurring sixty-four times in his works. He also uses the antonym of μισοπόνηρος, φιλοπόνηρος (2x). 3. Philo has a liking for the μισο-compounds; aside from μισοπόνηρος, he uses eleven such words.33 Five of them-μισάρετος, μισογύναιος, μισόκαλος, μισοπονία, and μισοτεκνία-are not previously attested (although this does not mean that they were coined by Philo).34 27 The combination ἀπαραίτητος δίκη occurs six times in Philo's works but it is only in Migr. 225 that δίκη is personified. 28 All the lexical searches in this study were carried out on the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG) online database. 29 The combination τιμωρὸς δίκη first occurs in Euripides (El. 675) and in Plato (Leg. 716a, 872e; Epin. 988e), and the combination ἀπαραίτητος Δίκη in a tragic adespoton (Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, Adespota, fr. 495 Nauck) and in Demosthenes (1 Aristog. 11). 30 See van der Horst,Flaccus,194. 31 Philo,Sacr. 28;Conf. 46,49,128,131;Migr. 225;Mut. 108;Mos. 1.47,149,328;Mos. 2.9,53,167,279;Decal. 87,177;Spec. 1.55;Spec. 3.31,75,126,140;Spec. 4.9;Flacc. 107;Legat. 193. 32 See Siegfried,Philo von Alexandria, Μισάδελφος (1x), μισάλληλος (1x), μισανθρωπία (12x), μισάνθρωπος (3x), μισάρετος (8x), μισογύναιος (1x), μισόκαλος (4x), μισόπολις (1x), μισοπονηρία (1x), μισοπονία (1x), μισοτεκνία (1x). 34 See Runia,"Verba Philonica, 4. All but two of the previously cited δίκη-combinations that Philo uses are, as far as we can tell from the extant ancient Greek sources, not borrowings from Jewish-Greek or secular Greek literature. The two δίκη-combinations that are previously attested originate in Classical Greek and not in Jewish-Greek literature, septuagintal or otherwise. 5. Aside from μισοπόνηρος δίκη, the other two μισοπόνηρος-combinations that Philo has a liking for-μισοπόνηρος φύσει, "evil-hating by one's nature" (6x) and μισοπόνηρον πάθος, "evil-hating emotion" (7x)-are also previously unattested, and the same goes for some other combinations consisting of a μισο-compound adjective and a noun such as μισόκαλος φθόνος, "good-hating envy" (3x) and μισάρετος φθόνος, "virtuehating envy" (1x). 6. The use of a μισο-/φιλο-compound adjective as modifier of a personified abstract concept is typical of Philo, as attested by such combinations as φιλάρετος καὶ μισοπόνηρος δίκη, μισάρετος καὶ μισόκαλος φθόνος, μισάρετος καὶ φιλοπαθὴς νοῦς/φύσις, φιλοσώματος καὶ φιλοπαθὴς νοῦς, etc. 7. In his preserved works, Philo does not quote from or allude to the book of Esther.35 8. The concept that the combination μισοπόνηρος δίκη expresses is at home with Philo's theology, as we shall see further on. It thus seems more likely that it was Addition E to LXX Esther, a text characterized by many intertextual borrowings,36 that drew the combination μισοπόνηρος δίκη from one of Philo's treatises. That said, we cannot exclude two other, less likely and, in any case, unprovable possibilities: that Philo may have known the Greek Esther and its Additions in their LXX version but, with the exception of μισοπόνηρος δίκη, did not quote from them or allude to them as, for example, Josephus was to do about half a century later;37 or, that both Aside from its instances in Add Esth E:4 and in Philo, the adjective μισοπόνηρος and its cognates are elsewhere used in relation to God and his justice only in 2 Macc 8:4, ἐπεκαλοῦντο τὸν κύριον … μισοπονηρῆσαι. The members of the μισοπονηρ-word group, attested as early as the Attic orators, were likely transferred into the religious domain from the sphere of Ptolemaic judicial terminology, as they frequently occur in petitions from the Ptolemaic, and later the Roman, period, in which the petitioners appeal to the justice and the "hatred of wickedness" of a strategos or even of the king himself. See, e.g., P.  Flaccum (104,189), the personified justice is also self-subsistent and independent of God, yet in Flacc. 146 she is assigned the same attribute, "overseer of human affairs" (τὴν ἔφορον τῶν ἀνθρωπείων δίκην), that God has in Flacc. 121 (τὸν ἔφορον θεὸν τῶν ἀνθρωπίνων πραγμάτων). As van der Horst remarks, "'Justice' is here, as elsewhere in Philo, nothing but a personified function of God."43 The two earliest preserved instances of μισοπόνηρος δίκη in the Philonic corpus, which, as previously noted, seem to be found in Conf. 128 and in Migr. 225, do not exhibit any strong intertextual links with Add Esth E:4, as is the case with most of the later ones: in these two instances, the evil-hating justice is not presented as an assessor or an attribute of God, does not watch over human affairs, and does not punish a persecutor of the Jews. It thus seems unlikely that, the first time he made use of the concept of μισοπόνηρος δίκη, Philo was inspired by or intended to allude to Add Esth E:4.
Philo's concept of the personified Justice draws upon representations of the Greek mythological deity Dike, daughter of Zeus and Themis, in Hesiod, 42 The combination of the two attributes that God and his justice possess in Add Esth E:4-"evil-hating" and "all-seeing"-is found elsewhere only in a third-century CE binding spell from North Africa: Audollent, Defix. Tab in Sophocles, in Plato, and in the Orphic hymn 62 (addressed to Dike),44 but is also informed by the Jewish conceptions of divine justice and the contemporary circumstances of the Jewish community in Alexandria. 45 Foster points out that, in the Exposition of the Law, Philo presents Dike as the defender of the law and the punisher of its trespassers, whereas in the Allegorical Commentary and the Historical-Apologetic works Dike has the role of the avenger of the people of the law and the punisher of the enemies and persecutors of the latter.46 According to Foster, this shift reflects Philo's response to the anxieties and tribulations of the Alexandrian Jews at a time when their modus vivendi with the Greeks and the Romans was on its way to collapse. Philo may have conceived the exercise of judicial functions by God in tandem with the personified Dike as a counterpart to the judicial authority exercised by the Roman emperor and his prefect in Egypt: Philo grasped this Greek hypostasis [Dike] and used it to express a hope in the kingship and rule of God; no matter how difficult life had become for the Alexandrian Jews he could advise them to hope with certainty in God's care and in Dike's vengeance.47 … Philo constructed a theology that was parallel to the political power structure in Roman Egypt precisely because he and his community were not a part of that power structure. Philo used a Greek mythological personification of justice because it fit that system and made clear the hope he held of vindication against such an awesome opponent as the emperor.48 Scholarship has not failed to notice that Philo's In Flaccum shares with Esther and 2 Maccabees the motif of the just and retributive punishment of those who attack God and his people. When Flaccus is executed at Caligula's command, Philo comments that "it was the will of justice that the butcheries which she wrought on his single body should be as numerous as the number of the Jews whom he unlawfully put to death" (Flacc. 189 [Colson]).49 Likewise, Haman is hanged on the pole that he had prepared for Mordecai (Esth 7:10), and King Antiochus IV is seized with severe intestinal pains, "and that very justly, for he had tortured the bowels of others with many and strange inflictions" (2 Macc 9:6 NETS). According to Pelletier, the aforenamed books share three common themes, which are typical of the aretalogical genre: misfortune (e.g., illness or persecution), divine intervention, which reverses the situation, and recognition by humans of the intervention of God. In the case of persecution, the third theme is further developed into three phases: the defeated persecutor is not spared although he acknowledges his just punishment, those saved from persecution sing hymns in which they give thanks to God, and in some cases they celebrate an annual feast commemorating their victory (the latter element is missing in In Flaccum).50 Meiser and Borgen have pointed out further similarities between In Flaccum and 2 Maccabees, such as the striving to produce a pathopoeic effect, the all-knowing author's rendering of a character's inner thoughts (both characteristic, according to Meiser, of the "mimetic" historiography), the fictitious ante mortem speech and prayer (Flaccus) or vow and letter of repentance (King Antiochus IV) of the persecutor, and the emphasis on theodicy and on God's providence for his people.51 The above-named scholars do not claim, on the strength of the similarities that they adduce, that Philo was acquainted with Esther or with 2 Maccabees, although such claims have been made by other scholars.52 For the reasons that we previously gave, we consider it unlikely that Philo borrowed the combination μισοπόνηρος δίκη from Addition E to LXX Esther. Instead, we consider it likely that the author of Addition E drew this combination from Philo, and more specifically from In Flaccum. If this is so, Additions B and E were written (or reached their final form) after the anti-Jewish pogrom launched in Alexandria in the summer of 38 CE, during Flaccus' prefectship, after Flaccus' execution in 39 CE, after the armed Jewish uprising in Alexandria that followed , who defiled the temple and imposed tribute on the Jews. Although it seems possible that the Greek translator of Esther intended to associate Haman with Bagoas/Bagoses, it is to be pointed out that the author of LXX Addition E chose to make a different association, as he supplanted the appelation "Bougean" with "Macedonian" (unlike the composer of the Alpha Text, who at 7:25(10) calls Haman "Bougean"). as Haman."61 "Macedonian" seems to be used here metonymically for "Greek" and may be meant to allude to Flaccus' siding with the anti-Jewish Alexandrian Greeks.62 7. Haman is characterized as insolent (Add Esth Ε:2, μεῖζον ἐφρόνησαν; Ε:3, τὸν κόρον οὐ δυνάμενοι φέρειν; E:12, ὑπερηφανία), which is also the case with Flaccus (Flacc. 124, 152, μέγα πνέοντα; cf. 41, δοξομανής). Moreover, Haman is said to have been puffed up by the boasts of those who are inexperienced in goodness (Add Esth E:4, τοῖς τῶν ἀπειραγάθων κόμποις ἐπαρθέντες). This statement has no correspondence to the canonical text of Esther, unless the author of Addition E wanted to insinuate that Haman was misled by the two chief bodyguards who sought to kill King Artaxerxes (Esth 2:21; cf. Add Esth A:17). However, the author of Addition E may have meant it as an allusion to Flaccus, who, according to Philo, was carried away by his former enemies, Dionysius, Isidorus, and Lampo, leaders of the Greek anti-Jewish party and "devisers of evils" (Flacc. 20, κακῶν εὑρεταί), who won him over by flattery (Flacc. 126, Ἰσίδωρός τε καὶ Λάμπων, οἵ … δεσπότην καὶ εὐεργέτην καὶ σωτῆρα καὶ τὰ τοιαῦτα ἀνακαλοῦντες; 172, πλῆθος ἀσύντακτον καὶ πεφορημένον, ὑφ᾽ οὗ κολακευόμενος ὁ δυστυχὴς ἠπατώμην). Furthermore, in Add Esth E:5 King Artaxerxes states that many rulers, duped by the persuasiveness of "friends" to whom they entrust the affairs of the state (τῶν πιστευθέντων χειρίζειν φίλων τὰ πράγματα), get involved in irremediable misfortunes (ἀνηκέστοις συμφοραῖς). In Flacc. 105, Philo expresses a similar idea in similar terms: during the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius, some governors of the provinces (ἔνιοι γὰρ καὶ ἐπὶ Τιβερίου καὶ ἐπὶ τοῦ πατρὸς αὐτοῦ Καίσαρος τῶν διεπόντων τὰς ἐπικρατείας) filled their countries with irremediable ills (τὰς χώρας ἐνέπλησαν κακῶν ἀνηκέστων). We will go a step further and argue that the author of Additions B and E hints at events that occurred not only during Flaccus' prefectship but also earlier, during the period when another Roman high official, Sejanus, is said to have taken anti-Jewish measures.
Sejanus had an astonishingly rapid rise to power in the teens and twenties of the first century CE.63 In 15 CE he was appointed by Tiberius as praetorian prefect. In 26 CE he saved the emperor's life and gained his unreserved trust. 61 Foster, Alexandrian Situation, 41-42. 62 On the term "Macedonian" used in an Alexandrian context, see Tcherikover, Fuks, and Stern, Corpus Papyrorum, 1:14-15, 24, 47. See also Stein,"Essai d'adaptation,and Wynn, On the rise and fall of Sejanus, see Bird, "L. Aelius Sejanus," and Champlin, "Seianus Augustus." When Tiberius moved to Capri a year later, Sejanus became the most powerful man in Rome and was treated as if he were the princeps.64 The emperor made him adviser and assistant in all matters65 and termed him his "partner in toil" (socius laborum) and "assistant in power" (adiutor imperii).66 In 31 CE Sejanus was named consul together with Tiberius (consulatus socius) and was even promised to share the tribunicia potestas with the emperor, which would render him co-ruler of the empire and Tiberius' successor.67 The honours that he received included the erection of numerous statues of him, so that his face was "number two in the whole world."68 At the height of his power, he was accused by Tiberius of plotting a conspiracy against him and was executed in October 31 CE, followed by his children and adherents. His name and memory were blackened, as testified by an inscription from Umbria, which calls him a "most pernicious enemy of the Roman people."69 Josephus, Tacitus, Suetonius, and Dio Cassius inform us about a number of anti-Jewish measures that Tiberius took in Rome in 19 CE: he abolished the Jewish rites and obliged the Jews to burn their religious vestments and other accessories; he expelled the Jewish community from the city, drafting four thousand Jews for military service in Sardinia; he threatened those who refused to obey with so heavy a punishment as enslavement.70 The aim of these measures, the inspiration of which has been assigned by some scholars to Sejanus,71 was probably to put a stop to the growing proselytism of Roman citizens to the Jewish faith.72 Philo accuses Sejanus of attacking through "false slanders" the Jews of Rome and of orchestrating a persecution of the Jews in the provinces, which he did not have the time to carry out, shortly before 31 CE.73 His persecution, according to Philo, aimed at destroying the entire Jewish nation-a grave accusation, which is not supported by other sources except Eusebius, who is, however, dependent on Philo.74 The Alexandrian philosopher even considers Flaccus-who was appointed praefectus Aegypti by Tiberius a year after the execution of the praefectus praetorio-as the continuator of Sejanus' anti-Jewish policy,75 and recounted the latter's persecution in a now lost prequel to his treatise In Flaccum.76 Tiberius' anti-Jewish policy changed drastically as soon as Sejanus was removed from the political scene. Philo again informs us that, after Sejanus' demise in 31 CE, Tiberius charged his procurators in every place to which they were appointed to speak comfortably to the members of our nation in the different cities, assuring them that the penal measures did not extend to all but only to the guilty, who were few, and to disturb none of the established customs but even to regard them as a trust committed to their care, the people as naturally peaceable (εἰρηνικοὺς τὰς φύσεις), and the institutions as an influence promoting orderly conduct (εὐστάθειαν). testable proof,82 of conspiring to overthrow and assassinate Tiberius,83 just as Haman was accused of plotting to assassinate Artaxerxes and usurp his throne (Add Esth E:3, τοῖς ἑαυτῶν εὐεργέταις ἐπιχειροῦσιν μηχανᾶσθαι; Add Esth Ε:12, ἐπετήδευσεν τῆς ἀρχῆς στερῆσαι ἡμᾶς καὶ τοῦ πνεύματος). Sejanus was executed and his sons and associates were also put to death shortly after, while his name was exposed to infamy. Such was the fate met by Haman, too (cf. Add Esth E:18, ἐσταυρῶσθαι σὺν τῇ πανοικίᾳ; Add Esth Ε:15, τρισαλιτηρίου). After the death of Sejanus, Tiberius adopted a non-aggressive policy towards the Jews and sent letters to his procurators throughout the empire instructing them to show proper regard for the Jewish laws, as they promoted the stability of the state. Likewise, after Haman's execution, King Artaxerxes communicated to his satraps his new pro-Jewish policy, which absolved the Jews from the accusations laid against them and allowed them to live in accordance with their laws and customs (Add Esth Ε:15, τοὺς Ἰουδαίους εὑρίσκομεν οὐ κακούργους ὄντας, δικαιοτάτοις δὲ πολιτευομένους νόμοις; Add Esth Ε:19, ἐᾶν τοὺς Ἰουδαίους χρῆσθαι τοῖς ἑαυτῶν νομίμοις).
Artaxerxes' reference to his συναρχία ("joint rulership") with Haman provides an especially strong clue for the identification of Haman with Sejanus, who was practically Tiberius' co-regent. The author of Additions B and E would have likely known that an Achaemenid despot would never have shared his power and that even a Ptolemaic or Seleucid monarch would have hardly coruled with a person other than a family member or used the term συναρχία with regard to his ἐπὶ τῶν πραγμάτων, "the one who is in charge of the affairs of the state" or "chief minister," as Haman is termed in Add Esth B:6. The fact that Artaxerxes' συναρχία does not involve Queen Esther, who, nevertheless, is designated in Add Esth E:13 as τῆς βασιλείας κοινωνός, "partner to the kingdom," seems to allude to a type of rulership like that exemplified by Tiberius and Sejanus rather than to a Ptolemaic or Seleucid one.84 Artaxerxes' accusation that Haman contrived a conspiracy and an assassination plan against him-an 82 See Bird, "L. Aelius Sejanus," 88-92; Hennig, L. Aelius Seianus, 144-56; Champlin, "Seianus Augustus," 366 n. 13. 83 On Sejanus' alleged plan to murder Tiberius, see Tacitus, Ann. 6.8, consilia caedis adversum imperatorem. Valerius Maximus, a contemporary writer, speaks of Sejanus' attempted "parricide" (9.11, ext. 4, parricidii cogitatione). 84 It is to be noted that the term συναρχία occurs only in the LXX version of Add Esth B:4. The corresponding verse in the Alpha Text uses the term μοναρχία, "monarchy" [3:17(5) πρὸς τὸ μηδέποτε κατατίθεσθαι τῇ ὑφ᾽ ἡμῶν κατευθυνομένῃ μοναρχίᾳ], as does Josephus in his paraphrase of Esther (A.J. 11.217, ἔθνος [the Jews] … τὴν μοναρχίαν μισοῦν). The Vetus Latina of Esther at B:4 reads: quod a nobis regitur ("what is decreed by us"; trans. Bellmann and Portier-Young, "Old Latin," 276). That the use of the "somewhat surprising" term συναρχία "may suggest a display of modesty on the king's part," as Fox, Redaction, 53, maintains, is accusation that has no counterpart in the canonical Esther-provides another strong link between Haman's and Sejanus' lives and deeds, yet it has to be pointed out that the author of Addition E borrowed this dramatic element quasi-verbatim from 3 Maccabees, where King Ptolemy IV Philopator accuses his "Friends" of scheming to overthrow and kill him.85 If Philo's full account of Sejanus' anti-Jewish activity was preserved, and if the full text of Tiberius' letter to his provincial governors (which Philo summarizes in Legat. 161) had survived as was fortunately the case for Claudius' letter to the Alexandrians, we would be in a better position to assess whether Additions B and Ε allude to a universal threat posed to and overcome by the Jews in 28-31 CE.
In his doctoral dissertation entitled "The socio-historical contexts of the recensions of Esther" (1990), Wynn assigned Additions B and E to the Roman era, and more specifically to the period of tension between the Alexandrian Greeks and Jews, which culminated in the anti-Jewish pogrom in 38 CE, without, however, connecting them with Flaccus and with Philo's historical treatises. Wynn remarks that "Ahasuerus may be seen in parallel to the Roman emperor, Haman to the citizens of Alexandria, and Mordecai and Esther to the Alexandrian Jews"86 and that "the temptation is to draw a parallel between Addition E and the letter of Claudius to the Alexandrians written in 41 C.E." He adds, however, that "some hesitancy must be held in regards to dating this recensional stage of Esther to such a late date"87 and in his conclusion he confines himself to stating cautiously that "this text [the version of Esther which included the Additions B and E] probably reflects the conditions of the early Roman era but probably not as late as the persecution documented by Philo during the reigns of Gaius and Claudius (37 C.E.) [sic]."88 De Troyer is another scholar who has referred to the above-discussed period in relation to Greek Esther-though not the LXX version but the Alpha Text. She agrees with Bickerman that the translation of LXX Esther was made by Lysimachus in Jerusalem during the reign of Alexander Jannaeus (103-76 BCE) and that it included Addition E (and B), although she cannot establish with certainty whether Lysimachus composed these Additions, as Bickerman believes, or simply inserted them into his translation. She argues rather unlikely, considering the authoritative tone of the king, who designates himself as "the master of the whole world" (Add Esth B:2). 85 3 Macc 6:24, ἐπιχειρεῖτε τῆς ἀρχῆς ἤδη καὶ τοῦ πνεύματος μεθιστᾶν λάθρᾳ μηχανώμενοι τὰ μὴ συμφέροντα τῇ βασιλείᾳ. 86 Wynn,238. 87 Wynn, 239. 88 Wynn,248. that this version was the Vorlage of the Alpha Text, which was produced in Rome in 40-41 CE, when a Jewish author, who may have been Philo, rewrote Lysimachus' version-Addition E included.89 According to De Troyer, in composing the Alpha Text, its author had "one specific person in mind,"90 namely, Herod Agrippa I, grandson of Herod the Great, who intervened to Caligula on behalf of the Alexandrian Jews, when the latter suffered under Flaccus, and on behalf of the Jerusalem Jews, when Caligula threatened to erect his statue in the temple, and who also urged Claudius to issue edicts in favour of the Jews in Alexandria, Syria, and the rest of the world.91 De Troyer holds that "Mordecai is to be identified with Agrippa I, Haman with Flaccus, the unstable governor of Alexandria, and king Ahasuerus with emperor Claudius" and that "the identity of the figure of Esther is not so easily established."92 In acknowledgement of the importance of the figure of Agrippa, she even proposes to call the Alpha Text "The Agrippa Text."93 Our position vis-à-vis the above two theories is as follows.
We share Wynn's opinion that Additions B and E were not part of Lysimachus' Greek version but belong to the last redactional stage of LXX Esther, which, despite Wynn's reservations, is to be dated to as late as shortly after 41 CE.
We accept (but with regard to Additions B and E to LXX Esther, not the Alpha Text) De Troyer's identification of Haman with Flaccus (and, we add, Sejanus) and of Artaxerxes, in Addition E, with Claudius (and, we add, possibly even Tiberius). In designating Mordecai as "saviour and perpetual benefactor" (Add Esth E:13, τὸν ἡμέτερον σωτῆρα καὶ διὰ παντὸς εὐεργέτην), the author of Addition E may have had Herod Agrippa I in mind,94 yet this one and only reference to Mordecai in the two Additions does not allow us to further substantiate this connection, and what is more, the two epithets are not used in relation to the Jews but to King Artaxerxes, who was saved twice by Mordecai (Esth 89 De Troyer,End of Alpha Text,393,402. 90 De Troyer,401. 91 See Philo,Flacc. 103;Legat. 179,Josephus,. Agrippa also protested to Petronius, the Roman governor of Syria, against a number of Greek youths who set up an image of Claudius in the synagogue of the Phoenician city Dora; Petronius reprimanded severely the leaders of the city and ordered that the perpetrators be brought before him to account for their actions (see Josephus,. 92 De Troyer,End of Alpha Text,402. 93 De Troyer,403. 94 The combination σωτὴρ καὶ εὐεργέτης occurs only in the LXX. In the Alpha Text [6:5(3); 7:26(13)], Mordecai is designated only as σωτήρ. Literary and epigraphical sources commemorate Herod Agrippa I as εὐεργέτης, "benefactor," but not as σωτήρ, "saviour." See Marshall,Jesus,Patrons,Benefactors,  that was likely meant to allude specifically to this Philonic work, in the same way that he seems to have borrowed from 2 Maccabees (8:34, 15:3) the adjective τρισαλιτήριος, "thrice-sinful," and used it in Add Esth E:15 with reference to Haman in order to draw a connection between the latter and the anti-Jewish general Nikanor.100 That said, we cannot rule out the possibility that Additions B and E entered LXX Esther sometime after the composition of 3 Maccabees, the date of which cannot, however, be pinpointed with certainty,101 and were then retouched and recontextualized in the early forties of the first century CE by a redactor who wanted to allude to contemporary persons and events.102 In any case, the 99 On the similarities between the letters of King Artaxerxes in Additions B and E to Esther and the letters of King Ptolemy IV Philopator in 3 Maccabees, see Motzo, "Rifacimento greco e III Maccabei," 285-88; Moore,Daniel,Esther,Jeremiah,Hacham,"3 Maccabees and Esther," 772-80; Magliano-Tromp, "Egyptian Judaism," 60-67. 100 See Domazakis,Neologisms, 3 Maccabees is usually dated to between 100 and 30 BCE, although later dates have also been proposed. See Johnson,Historical Fictions, Another likely clue that the LXX version of Additions B and E was composed (or redacted to its final form) in the Roman period is the use of the term διατάγματα (instead of προστάγματα that occurs in the Alpha Text) to designate the royal decrees in Add Esth B:4 (τά τε τῶν βασιλέων παραπέμποντας διηνεκῶς διατάγματα). Bickerman, "Notes," 250 n. 41, states that the word διάταγμα "never occurs in Ptolemaic documents." Modrzejewski, "Πρόσταγμα," 205-6, affirms that "the term πρόσταγμα appears in the papyri of the Ptolemaic epoch as a technical term for the definition of a special kind of royal ordinances which can assume the epistolary or the non-epistolary form ... In the Roman and Byzantine epochs this term is used to design[ate] the imperial edicts and the edicts of the prefect of Egypt (promiscuously with the common term διάταγμα)." Passoni Dell' Acqua, "Liberation Decree," 77, also states that διάταγμα "takes on technical connotations for imperial decrees during the terminus post quem for the composition of Additions B and E to Esther can only be set by 3 Maccabees.103 If the latter book was composed as late as in the time of Caligula, as some scholars have posited,104 we may even venture to consider the possibility that its author also composed the two royal letters of Additions B and E to Esther, duplicating, so to speak, the two royal letters of King Ptolemy IV Philopator in 3 Maccabees (3:12-29 and 7:1-9).

Conclusion
Esther scholars contend that Additions B and E were written for the purpose of enhancing the "dramatic interest" and the "sense of authenticity" of the Esther Roman age: during the Ptolemaic period it appears in the papyri with the sense of 'provision, order, decree' and does not seem to officially designate a royal decree." However, she points out that in Add Esth B:4 "the cod. B [Vaticanus] gives προσταγματα in the first draft, with the προ[σ]-erased and δια written over the erasure: this can be explained by the fact that, when the correctors were at work, the most common term was διάταγμα, and πρόσταγμα might have seemed rather unusual and to be avoided." It should be noted, though, that, with the exception of the uncertain scriptio inferior in Vaticanus and the minuscule 249, all the textual witnesses of LXX Esther read διαταγματα; moreover, had the correctors of Vaticanus found the term πρόσταγμα in Add Esth B:4 "unusual and to be avoided," they would have changed it to διάταγμα in the canonical sections of LXX Esther, where it also occurs (2:8 τὸ τοῦ βασιλέως πρόσταγμα; 8:14, 17 ἐξετέθη τὸ πρόσταγμα; 9:4 προσέπεσεν τὸ πρόσταγμα τοῦ βασιλέως); yet, this is not the case. It seems more likely that it was the original scribe of Vaticanus who, in Add Esth B:4, found the term διαταγματα "unusual" and wrote προσταγματα instead, because elsewhere in LXX Esther the royal ordinances are designated as προστάγματα, and that the first of the two correctors, who was contemporary with the scribe (possibly the diorthotes of the scriptorium), changed προσταγματα to διαταγματα, considering the latter to be the original reading in this particular verse-a correction retained by the scribe/corrector who re-inked the Codex in the tenth or eleventh century (on the correctors of Codex Vaticanus, see Metzger, Manuscripts, 74, and Parker, "Codex Vaticanus," 1:1074). Cf. LXX Esth 2:4, καὶ ἤρεσεν τῷ βασιλεῖ τὸ πρᾶγμα, where the reading of the original hand of Vaticanus is προσταγμα, which the corrector changed to πραγμα-the reading found in all the other MSS-by placing expunging dots above the letters OCT. We also refer here to Dorothy,Books of Esther,192, who maintains that the form of Addition B to Esther "evidences more affinities with a Roman decree than with a Hellenistic letter." 103 A discussion about whether Additions B and E originated outside of Egypt and underwent various redactional stages has to deal, inter alia, with the arguments advanced by Bickerman, "Notes," 249-50, concerning the "Seleucid flavour" of these two Additions. We take this discussion up in a forthcoming study. 104 See Grimm,Das zweite,dritte und vierte Buch,Kopidakis,Γ´ Μακκαβαίων,[31][32][33][34]Collins,Athens and Jerusalem,. For counter-arguments, see Barclay,Jews,203,and Johnson,Historical Fictions, story105 according to the practice of Greek historiographers and authors of historical novels who quoted official documents in their works in order to "set forth vital points" of their narratives.106 Although one cannot deny that the two royal letters contained in Additions B and E to Esther served that purpose, it should also be considered that they might have arisen (or at least that their final form might have arisen) as a response to a contemporary historical situation, which, as we argued in this study, was the persecution and the subsequent reestablishment of the Jewish community in Alexandria in 38-41 CE. The same historical situation gave rise to Philo's treatise In Flaccum, whose anti-Jewish protagonist is punished by the same "evil-hating" divine justice that overtakes Haman, the villainous persecutor of the Jews, in Addition E to Esther. The expression "evilhating justice" (μισοπόνηρος δίκη), a favourite of Philo, which elsewhere occurs only in Addition E to LXX Esther, betrays the debt of the author of the latter text to the Alexandrian philosopher and allows us to glimpse the historical personalities that likely lie behind the biblical figure of Haman in Additions B and E: Flaccus, the Roman prefect of Egypt under Tiberius and Caligula, and possibly Sejanus, the all-powerful prefect of the praetorian guard under Tiberius, both of whom Philo, in his historical treatises, excoriates for persecuting the Jews. The letter of King Artaxerxes in Addition E, which rescinds his previous extermination order and allows the Jews to observe their own customs, was likely informed by the letters confirming the religious rights of the Jews that the emperor Claudius sent to Alexandria, Syria, and the rest of the Roman Empire in 41 CE-and especially by the one he addressed to the Alexandrians in the autumn of that year. It is shortly after the publication of the latter letter that we are to place the composition (or the final redaction) of Additions B and E to LXX Esther.