The Jewish Tax (Fiscus Iudaicus)

After the Roman victory 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. 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 Roman biographer Suetonius (ca. 69–135 CE) recalls attending a hearing in which an elderly man accused of failing to pay the tax was subject to physical examination to determine whether he was Jewish.