Lampon (Greek, Δάμπων)

Enemy of the Jews; lived in the first century at Alexandria. During the reign of Caligula an outbreak against the Jews occurred at Alexandria in the year 38, which Flaccus, then governor of Egypt, made no attempt to check. Philo ("In Flaccum," § 4) designates as the ring-leaders (ταραξοπόλιδες) two citizens of Alexandria, Isidorus and Lampon, who for their complicity in the riot were executed under Claudius (ib. §§ 15, 17). The proceedings in the case before the emperor at Rome are extant in two papyrus fragments, supplementing each other, one at Berlin and the other in the museum of Gizeh.

Perpetual Lamp.(From the synagogue at Strasburg.)

The passage in which Lampon tries to justify himself is found in the Gizeh papyrus, which breaks off at the point where the emperor commands that Isidorus and Lampon be led away to death. That their execution really took place appears certain from a papyrus found at Oxyrhynchus, according to which a certain Appianus, in defending himself before one of the Antonine emperors, refers to the martyrdom of Isidorus and Lampon.

Bibliography:

  * T. Reinach, in R. E. J. xxxi. 161-178, xxxii. 160, xxxiv. 296-298, xxxvii. 219 et seq.;
  * Grenfell and Hunt, The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, part i., No. xxxiii., London, 1898;
  * Grätz, Gesch. 4th ed., iii. 331;
  * Schürer, Gesch. 3d ed., i. 68, 503.



G. S. Kr.