Tiberius Expels Jews from Rome

There was a Jewish man who had fled from his homeland due to an accusation of transgressing certain laws, as well as fearing punishment for the same, and he was in all respects a wicked man. He, then living at Rome, professed to instruct men in the wisdom of the laws of Moses. He joined to himself three other men, in all respects of the same character as himself, to be his partners. When Fulvia, a woman of great dignity who had come over to the Jewish religion, began to spend time with them out of habit, they persuaded her to send purple [i.e., valuable material] and gold to the temple at Jerusalem, and upon receiving them, they employed them for their own uses and spent the money themselves, as it was for this reason that they initially requested it of her. Whereupon Tiberius, who had been informed of the matter by Saturninus, the husband of Fulvia, who desired that an inquiry be made about it, ordered all the Jews to be banished from Rome. At that time the consuls enlisted four thousand men among them and sent them to the island of Sardinia, but they punished a greater number of them, who were unwilling to become soldiers, on account of keeping their ancestral laws. Thus were these Jews banished from the city on account of the wickedness of four men.