The Early Roman Period in History and Memory

As a result of Hasmonean infighting and eventual civil wars, Judea became a client state of the Roman Republic beginning around 63 BCE, one consequence of which was repeated administrative reorganization. Between the Roman general Pompey’s conquest in 64–63 BCE and the reign of the Roman-installed King Herod (r. 37–4 BCE), Roman officials had already reorganized the administration of Judea several times: first Pompey himself, then Gabinius in the 50s BCE, who divided the territory into new administrative districts and limited the role of the Hasmonean king Hyrcanus. Further shifts came with Julius Caesar (r. 49–44 BCE) in 47 BCE, who reversed Gabinius’ policies. The assassination of Caesar in 44 BCE initiated a period of civil war among the Roman elites that played out in the provinces, a state of affairs not resolved until 31 BCE, when Octavian defeated Mark Antony at Actium and consolidated power, eventually becoming the emperor Augustus (r. 27 BCE–14 CE). In 40 BCE, the Parthians (from Iran) invaded the Roman east, including Palestine, and supported Antigonus, a son of Aristobulus II, as king of the Hasmonean dynasty. Herod, an Idumaea-born former governor of Galilee, made his way to Rome and was declared king of Judea by the Roman Senate, although he still had to reconquer Judea. By 37 BCE, Herod had established himself as king. After Herod’s death in 4 BCE, another period of administrative reorganization saw the partition of the kingdom among Herod’s sons, the deposition of Herod’s son Archelaus (6 CE) and imposition of direct Roman rule in part of Herod’s kingdom, the assignment of all of Herod’s kingdom to Herod’s grandson Agrippa I (r. 41–44 CE), and the imposition of direct Roman rule from 44 CE onward, with the exception of assignments of territory to Agrippa II (son of Agrippa I) in the 50s CE.

Herod himself faced considerable challenges. In Jerusalem and Judea proper, for instance, his ancestral status as an Idumean convert to Judaism and a nonpriest meant that he could not rely on the kind of “natural” prestige the Hasmoneans had as high priests. Herod’s solution to this particular problem was to marry into the Hasmonean family and appoint priests from outside the traditional priestly aristocracy. He also projected his rule through internal improvements in the form of great building projects, which could be interpreted as a kind of “brand” that provided monumental responses to the circumstances of his rule. Thus, Herod’s massive rebuilding of the Jerusalem Temple and surrounding compound in part branded him as the legitimate custodian of the Temple. The foundation of cities with Roman dynastic names (Caesarea, Sebaste) reinforced his role as faithful client of Rome. And always, Herod’s own projected persona was grand, powerful, and effective.

Josephus describes considerable disruption at the end of Herod’s reign upon his death in 4 BCE, marked by violence in each of the major areas under his rule following his death. This may perhaps be understood as a response to the end of three decades of consistent—and politically savvy, if not brutal—rule in which power was closely held by a single king. Herod’s political position as client king (rex amicus et socius populi romani), his attempt to divide the kingdom among his less politically effective sons, and the purges of the last prominent Hasmoneans and members of his family for real or imagined palace intrigues meant that there was no clear path forward for his subjects.

After Herod’s death came the second wave of Roman administrative experiments. Josephus’ account of events in Palestine under Roman prefects and procurators gives the strong impression of worsening economic conditions and political mismanagement; increasingly aggravated ethnic tensions between Jews and Greeks and between Jews and Samaritans; strong-arm tactics by wealthy priests; messianism and prophetic movements (e.g., Jesus); and revolutionary activism (e.g., the Sicarii). Most scholars follow Josephus in seeing Judea as caught in a worsening spiral of violence, factionalism, and anti-Roman sentiment. However, some have suggested that Josephus emphasized violence and conflict in order to blame a minority faction among the Jews, so as to justify the ultimate Roman response—of his benefactors—that resulted in the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple.

The First Jewish Revolt against Rome

In 66 CE, a revolt broke out in Jerusalem that encompassed the whole territory of Judea, the result of Roman mismanagement coupled with political upheaval in both Rome and Jerusalem. The revolt culminated in the Roman destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 CE. Outside Jerusalem, it was a few more years before the fall of the last fortress, Masada, in 73 or 74 CE. The selections included in the Posen Library contain Josephus’ description of the causes and outbreak of the revolt, the siege of Jerusalem, the destruction of the Temple, the celebration of the triumph at Rome, and the fall of Masada.

For our understanding of the course of the revolt and its suppression, we are overwhelmingly dependent upon Josephus, who claims to have witnessed many of the events he describes. As a Jerusalem priest who participated in the early stages of the revolt before going over to the Roman camp, and who wrote The Jewish War under the patronage of Emperor Vespasian in Rome, he was also an interested party with respect to how the events were described and interpreted. Josephus and the new Flavian dynasty, for which suppression of the revolt was an essential element of imperial promotion, shared an interest in emphasizing the magnitude of the military undertaking. And a major undertaking it was, especially when Titus, Vespasian’s son, made the decision to take the city relatively expeditiously by siege rather than waiting to starve out its inhabitants. Yet it is important to remember, too, that for the better part of two years, from the death of the emperor Nero in June 68 CE until the arrival of Titus in Rome in early 70, internal Roman imperial politics and military conflicts took precedence over any serious effort to subdue Judea. The lull in Roman activity while Vespasian was occupied with his bid to become emperor allowed for considerable factional violence in Jerusalem, which further weakened the Jewish rebel forces.

The precipitating events of the revolt had to do with the Roman governor of Judea, Gessius Florus, and his clashes with the Jews of Jerusalem in the spring of 66. While life in Judea during the decades after Herod’s death and before the revolt had been mostly quiet, the causes of the unrest that led to the revolt were simmering, with periodic outbreaks of violence directed at the Roman occupier. These underlying causes included the impact of Roman rule on Palestine—with the absence, after Herod the Great, of a stable, centralized authority; the dire need for economic reform on behalf of the poor; internal discord among rival Jewish factions; and the eventual Roman plunder of the Temple treasury. The abuses by the emperor Gaius (Caligula) continued an extended period of mismanagement by—and hostile relations with—poorly chosen governors.

Members of the Jerusalem aristocracy were active in the revolt and among its leaders early on. Thus, for instance, it was an officer of the Temple who ordered the cessation of the sacrifice in honor of Rome, and former high priests were among the commanders of the revolt. It is conceivable that the Judean ruling class, failing to occupy the role expected of them by the Roman rulers, ultimately sided with revolutionary factions.

In addition, the revolt involved deeper conflicts among the provincial population of Judea. Josephus describes a conflict between Jews and non-Jews at Caesarea as the precipitating event for the war. We also hear of serious conflicts between Jews and Samaritans in 51 CE. Finally, the revolt had, or at least had capitalized upon, class dimensions. Among the early acts of the revolutionaries after the outbreak of the revolt was the destruction of the records office in Jerusalem (Josephus, The Jewish War 2.427). This may have been politically symbolic with respect to Roman rule, but it also eliminated documentary proof of debts on landed property and may well have been carried out in order to gain—or reward—the support of the poorer classes. Overall, the historicity of Josephus’ accounts of provincial discord, economic unrest, and an atmosphere of widespread political violence should be judged in light of his own vested interests in both justifying the responses of his Roman patrons and defending the Jewish people who suffered most on account of the crimes committed by the rebels.

The Bar Kokhba Revolt

The second Jewish rebellion against Rome, from 132 to 135 CE, known as the Bar Kokhba revolt, marks the last major Jewish insurrection against the Romans, with a possible exception in fourth-century Galilee.1 The motivations for the Bar Kokhba revolt seem to have been largely messianic or eschatological. Certainly, later rabbinic texts record that some of his contemporaries believed Bar Kokhba to be the Messiah (y. Ta‘aniyot 4:5), and the title nasi and its association with Simeon bar Kosiba, a priest, may reflect the vision of a restored Israel and Temple found in the biblical book of Ezekiel. The slogans on the coins and documents—for example, “the liberation of Jerusalem” or “of Israel” and “the redemption of Israel”—may also have eschatological overtones (see Second Revolt Coins).

This messianic fervor, though a substantial factor, was only one of the complex underlying causes of the rebellion. The nonpeaceful provincialization of Judea, namely the confiscation of all or nearly all Jewish land, may have contributed to the rebellion. A widespread Roman military presence persisted in Judea. Previous Jewish unrest in Egypt, Cyrenaica, and Libya during the Diaspora Revolt of 115–117 CE may have fueled separatist protonationalist sentiments. And while scholars debate the relative impact of Hadrian’s project of rebuilding Jerusalem as a modern Roman city, named Aelia Capitolina, there is general agreement that this endeavor contributed to a widespread wave of anti-Roman agitation among Judeans.

Scholars are divided over the extent and severity of the Bar Kokhba revolt, the focal point of which seems to have been Judea proper. After the revolt, Jewish settlement in Judea declined, and Christian sources report an outright prohibition against Jews living in Jerusalem and its environs. Subsequent rabbinic tradition reflects on this period as one during which certain Jewish practices were prohibited, although these prohibitions were no longer in place by the mid-second century CE. It was also in the wake of this revolt that the region previously conquered by the Hasmoneans and called Judea was renamed Syria-Palaestina by the Romans. The devastating impact of the three rebellions—the First Jewish Revolt, the Diaspora Revolt, and the Bar Kokhba revolt—cannot be overstated.

Read more about the early Roman period: 

• The Roman Conquest of Judea

• The Rise and Rule of Herod the Great

• Herod’s Successors

• Women and the Herodian Dynasty

• The First Jewish Revolt

• Violence and Revolts in the Diaspora in Antiquity

• The Bar Kokhba Revolt and Its Aftermath

• Bar Kokhba Letters and Archaeology