In the ancient world there was virtually no such thing as private life. A tiny number of the aristocracy or the very rich were able to afford a measure of privacy. But for the great majority, life was lived publicly and visibly. The streets were mostly narrow, the houses and tenements were mostly cramped, there was noise and smell everywhere, and everybody knew everybody else’s business. We can assume that many of the Jews in Tarsus would have lived close to one another, partly for safety ( Jews, absenting themselves from official public “religion” including the celebrations of the imperial
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