War upon war
Okay, I left off last time saying that things were about to get worse in Judea/Israel--which seems impossible given that the situation in Palestine was pretty terrible.’
But, as it turned out, the first great Jewish-Roman War was only the start of a long series of bloody, genocidal conflicts.
A bust of the emperor Trajan, who military would crush the Diaspora Revolt with much bloodshed and the destruction of Jewish communities. This image is from Wikipedia and is credited to Carole Raddato from FRANKFURT, Germany, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. You may see it here: https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/emperor-trajan/VAFRbvyPL4JQ4A?hl=en
To explain why, I have to start by confessing my own ignorance. Before I began this piece, I assumed the First Jewish-Roman War was also the last. After all, Jerusalem was in ruins. Masada had fallen. Surely there wasn’t enough left of Israel to pose a threat to Romans anymore.
In fact, if I thought about it at all (which wasn’t often) I wondered why the Romans had been so brutal in their dealings with the Jews. After all, there had been similar revolts among other subject peoples -- Celts, Germans, and so on. But, while those revolts had been ruthlessly put down, there hadn’t been the kind of mass slaughters that attended the First Jewish-Roman War.
Indeed--I wondered--why did they bother? Why were they so very fierce in dealing with this tiny little country, with its tiny little population, which surely posed no threat to the Great and the Powerful? Surely it made as little sense as, say, mighty Russia invading Estonia and using nuclear weapons to do it?
The answer, as it turned out, was that I had completely misunderstood the situation. When the Romans looked at the Jews, they did not see a pin-prick of a country with a minute army and an odd religion. They saw a serious threat, and they were right to do so.
Okay, look at a map. At the time this is all going on, there were Jews in Judea, of course. But they weren’t restricted to that. Even then, the Diaspora was enormous. There were vast Jewish colonies in Egypt, Syria, today’s Libya, Greece, Asia Minor...even Rome itself, where an estimated 30,000–50,000 Jews lived at the time. Indeed, Jews may have amounted to between 5 and 6% of the entire population of the Empire. That’s a lot of people.(1)
And you could go further afield. There were large colonies in Babylon, in what was then the Parthian Empire--a deadly enemy of Rome. And, further South, whole tribes in what is now Arabia had adopted Judaism somewhere along the line. Put it all together, and you’re looking at a population of between 4 and 6 millions worldwide. Of them, about 2/3rds lived in the Diaspora.
All of these communities were linked. Each had a synagogue, or many of them, and they all exchanged mail and/or sent messengers to one another. In an age when “news” usually didn’t travel further than the end of your own block, these communities knew what was happening the world over. They may have known more about what was happening in the empire (and beyond!) than the Emperor did himself.
Also, they were skilled. They were traders, physicians, intellectuals, merchants, and...soldiers. At the time, Jewish troops were considered prime--excellent fighters and well-disciplined. So, many of these people knew how to use weapons and how to fight in (or lead) an army.
At this time, then, Jews were among the most important, the most populous, and most influential groups in the Eastern Mediterranean.
And, if the Romans had ever forgotten that fact, they were about to be reminded in a particularly unhappy way.
In the year 115 CE, the Roman Emperor, Trajan, was off campaigning against the Parthians. His army was thus occupied elsewhere. And then...
Almost all the centers of the Diaspora rose in revolt. How it was arranged, planned, and co-ordinated, we’ll never know. But however it was organized, the “Diaspora Revolt” was engineered, it shattered the peace of the Empire. From Libya, to Egypt, to Cyprus, to Roman Mesopotamia, Jews took up arms and waged war with the Romans...and with their neighbors. There is evidence of the mass killings of Greeks and other non-Jews.(2)
But, once again, in spite of initial success, the Revolt was doomed. The Roman armies regrouped and returned...and wrecked a horrific vengeance.(3) It was a war of extermination. The Diaspora communities in the Empire were savaged. Many were utterly annihilated.(4)
Then, somehow, once again, it was all over. Once again the survivors stood in the rubble, wondering what had happened and why.
However...
There was to be a final act. And it would be terrible.
Footnotes:
1. Estimates of the Jewish population in the Roman Empire are, of course, problematic. These are best guesses rather than hard facts. But, here are some sources that seem to be eminently trustworthy: Seth Schwartz, The Ancient Jews: From Alexander to Muhammad (Cambridge, 2014), ch. 2; E. Mary Smallwood, The Jews under Roman Rule (Brill, 2001); and Erich Gruen, Diaspora: Jews Amidst Greeks and Romans (Harvard, 2002).
2. Again, the actual loss of life in the Jewish-Roman Wars is difficult to calculate. However, I generally accept these numbers. I am using here the following sources:
*“Jewish-Roman Wars,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish-Roman_wars#Impact_on_the_Jewish_population
*“First Jewish-Roman War,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Jewish-Roman_War#Aftermath
“Diaspora Revolt,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaspora_Revolt#Destruction_of_Jewish_communities
*“Bar Kokhba revolt,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_Kokhba_revolt#Consequences
3. “The Diaspora Revolt,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaspora_Revolt
4. To give the Romans their due, consider how it seemed to them. A culture and a nation which they had promoted, and even protected for many years, had risen against them. Worse, they had done so in the middle of war with the hated Parthians. It felt to them as if they’d been stabbed in the back at the worst possible time
And, maybe...maybe...they had a point. Maybe the best way to think about it to is consider the progressives of Europe, who went out of their way to defend multiculturalism and the Islamic communities in their midst...only to have terrorists murder European journalists, filmmakers, and cartoonists. Maybe that’s how it felt to the Romans.
Je suis Charlie!
~~~
Copyright©2026 Michael Jay Tucker
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