The Temple Tax Redirected as a New Punitive Roman Tax on the Jews

After the Roman victory over the First Jewish Revolt and the destruction of the Second Temple, a new punitive tax was levied on the Jews. Vespasian decreed that the annual half shekel (didrachmon) that Jews throughout the empire paid to the Temple annually, the equivalent of two Roman denarii, would go to a new fund, the fiscus iudaicus (Jewish tax). The money collected would support the rebuilding of the temple of Jupiter on the Capitol in Rome, and those Jews who failed to pay the tax would be prosecuted. The Jewish tax is also mentioned by the Greek historian Suetonius and the Roman historian Dio Cassius.