New riots at the accession of Claude; the imperial edict orders the Jews not to claim more rights than they have

The death of Caligula was followed, in Alexandria, by a new clash between the two populations of the city: the Jews, whom earlier violence had driven from several districts, attempted to retake their homes by force, and the Greeks confronted them.

Claudius, barely proclaimed, addressed a letter to the city, preserved by a papyrus. In it he confirmed to the Jews of Alexandria the use of their ancestral customs, but enjoined them not to seek more rights than they had hitherto possessed, not to bring coreligionists from Syria or Egypt, and not to interfere in the city's civic games. To the Greeks, he ordered that they allow the Jews to practice their religion.

This document is the only official Roman text that defines, for a given city, the status of a Jewish diaspora community. It closes the question of Alexandrian civic rights, which the Jews had been claiming since the Lagid period.