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Julius Gaius, Praetor, Consul of the Romans, to the magistrates, council and people of Parium, greeting. The Jews in Delos and some of the neighbouring Jews, some of your envoys also being present, have appealed to me and declared that you are preventing them by statute from observing their national customs and sacred rites. Now it displeases me that such statutes should be made against our friends and allies and that they should be forbidden to live in accordance with their customs and to contribute money to common meals and sacred rites, for this they are not forbidden to do even in Rome. For example, Gaius Caesar, our consular praetor, by edict forbade religious societies to assemble in the city, but these people alone he did not forbid to do so or to collect contributions of money or to hold common meals. Similarly do I forbid other religious societies but permit these people alone to assemble and feast in accordance with their native customs and ordinances . . . if you have made any statutes against our friends and allies, you will do well to revoke them because of their worthy deeds on our behalf and their goodwill toward us (Julius Caesar ap. Josephus, Ant. 14.213–216).

[The Jews] celebrated their deliverance, for the king had generously provided all things to them for their journey until all of them arrived at their own houses. And when they had all landed in peace with appropriate thanksgiving, there too in like manner they decided to observe these days as a joyous festival during the time of their stay. Then, after inscribing them as holy on a pillar and dedicating a synagogue at the site of the festival, they departed unharmed, free, and overjoyed, since at the king’s command they had all of them been brought safely by land and sea and river to their own homes (3 Macc 7:18–20).

In this passage, the dedication of an Egyptian synagogue is associated with an obscure festival that seems to have been celebrated annually in Egypt to commemorate the deliverance of the Jewish population there from the wrath of one of the early Ptolemaic rulers.