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THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA
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THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

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the series of the chief Phenician cities. The city of Arka, from which the name is derived, is the modern ruin Tell 'Arka in the Lebanon, northeast of Tripolis, on a brook called River of 'Arka (not the SabbatiThe city occurs in Egypcal River of Josephus!). tian inscriptions, about 1500 B.C., as '(I)rkan{a)tu (W. 31. Muller, " Asien und Europa," p. 247); in the Amarna Letters (122 et seq. ) as Irgata, Irganatu. The

Assyrians mention Irkanat as hostile under Shalmaneser II. Tiglath-pileser III. subjected Arka (Delitzsch, "Paradies," pp. 272, 284; Schrader, "Cuneiform Inscriptions and the Old Testament, " i. 87, 246). In Roman times Arka (Arke, etc.) was an important town, called Csesarea Libani. It was a Roman colony

and famous for the

As a

fortress it

cult of

Venus Arcitis {Macrobius).

played a prominent part in the Cru-

The strange form Ariki in the Septuagint, in Josephus, and in the Samaritan text is not intelligible, j.

W. M. M.

je.

ARKOVY, JOSEPH:

Professor of clinical dentistry at the University of Budapest; born in Budapest, February 8, 1851. He graduated in 1876 from the university of his native city, and then went to London, where for several years he pracIn 1881 he estabtised in the German Hospital. lished a clinical hospital at Budapest, which was

amalgamated in 1890 with the general clinics as the Department of Dentistry. " Arkovy is the pioneer of scientific dentistry in Hungary, and the author of several works on the subject, the more important of which are: "A Fogak Gondozasa" (1881); "A Fogbel es Gyokhartya Bantalmak" (1884); and "'

"

" (1885). He has Hungarian, German, Arkovy has been bap-

Diagnostic der Zahnkrankheiten

also published several essays in

and English dental journals. tized.

Bibliography Pallas,

Acta Reg.

Lexikon,

Scient. Univ. Hung., 1883-1885

I.

M. W.

s.

ARLES (Latin Arelas or Arelate, Hebrew ta'fnx, ninx, kHn, nxbnx, h^-in, i!nx, ^-ik, "IN^HIK aintf): City of France, in the department of Bouches du Rh6ne ancient capital of Provence. The date of the settlement of the Jews in Aries is According to a legend, the emlost in antiquity. peror Vespasian placed Jews on three vessels, which were abandoned by their captains in the open sea. One of these came to Aries, another landed at Bor•b-a,

deaux, and the third reached Lyons (" Siddur," Roedelheim, 1868, ed. Baer, p. 112). This legend makes it probable that there were Jews in Aries during the first centuries of the common era. But the first official docu-

ment concerning them dates from 425. Early Settlement. In that year the emperor Valentinian III.

and

addressed to the pretor of Gaul,

to Patroclus, bishop of Aries, a decree, enjoin-

ing them to forbid Jews and heathens to take up the career of arms, to enter the magistracy, or to possess Christian slaves (Papon, " Histoire Generate de Provence," i. ii.). These restrictions, however, were not carried out, or, at any rate, did not last long; for some years later the bishopric of Aries was oc-

Arkansas Aries

cupied by Saint Hilary (429-449), who cherished the most kindly feelings toward Jews in general, and especially toward those of Aries. In 476 the Roman dominion in Gaul came to an end, and Provence fell into the hands of the Visigoths. Euric conquered Aries, where he settled for a long time. So long as the Visigoths remained attached to Arianism, the Jews enjoyed all civic rights. In 508, when Aries was besieged by the Franks and Burgundians, the Jewish inhabitants valorously defended the city. Aries fell into the hands of Clovis, and Bishop Ctesarius was openly accused by the Jews of treason. The bishop's adherents, however, accused a Jewish soldier of having thrown a letter to the besiegers, inviting them to climb the wall at a certain place. The soldier was put to death, and the bishop was acquitted. But this relatively happy state of the Jews did not last. Aries, like most towns of southern France, fell under the dominion of the Merovingian kings, whose fanaticism weighed heavily upon the French Jews. The bishops were encouraged by Chilperic himself (561-584) to attempt the conversion of the Jews; and Virgilius, bishop of Aries, displayed such zeal for the salvation of Jewish souls, that even Pope Gregory the Great thought it necessary to moderate it by a stern rebuke (see"i3. Gregorii Papte I. Magni EpistolaV' ii. lxv.). With the death of Dagobert I. (638), on which occasion the power passed into the hands of the Carlovingian dynasty, the state of the Under French Jews in general considerably the Carlo- improved. The Carlovingian princes

vingians.

efficaciously protected them from the attacks of the clergy. Jewish history has nothing to record of this happy period. It takes up the thread again with the death of Louis le D6bonnaire (814-840), when Boso, count of Provence, supported by Pope John VIII. and the clergy, founded the kingdom of Burgundy with Aries for capital. In 850, the Jewish communities of Lyons, CMlon, Macon, and Vienne, to save their children from baptism, sent them to Aries, where Bishop Roland showed himself most favorably disposed toward the Jews. The usurper (879-888), as a token of his gratitude toward the clergy, transferred his rights over the Jews of Aries to Rostang, archbishop of this town. Boso's son and successor did the same in 921 to Bishop Manasse. This form of transfer was sanctioned later by the German emperors, who acquired rights of suzerainty over Provence. Thus Conrad III., in 1147, granted to the archbishop of Aries, Raymond of Montredon, among other of his regal prerogatives, the jurisdiction over the Jews of Frederick Barbarossa in 1 154 confirmed his diocese.

The archbishop unpower beupon the stowed upon Jews of Aries. And yet their state was tolerably favorable in comparison with that of the Jews of other towns in France, who suffered much from the The archbishop watched carefully over Crusaders. and extended these derstood

how

his property,

privileges.

make

the most of the him, and laid heavy taxes to

and permitted none

to interfere

with

his Jews.

According to Benjamin of Tudela, the Jewish of Aries counted at the second half of the twelfth century about 200 families. At their

community