The Jews revolt against Rome had a significant impact on the Jewish history. When the Jews came back from captivity in Judea to Babylon and built the temple, the Jews were submitted to Persian rule. Alexander the Great took power within the period, and Greek culture took over the whole region including the Jews. The Jews were calm, but this ended when Antiochus IV Epiphanes a Syrian Greek tyrant declared war on Jew culture. Before this, there was no evidence of Jews trying to revolt against foreign powers until the Maccabean revolt where Jews were prosecuted. This led to first independence of Jews since the construction of the second Temple.
Eight Maccabian monarchs sustained this independence until the passing of Queen Salome Alexandria in 67BCE. Her death triggered a civil war between supporters of her sons Hyrcanus and Aristobulus who both claimed the throne. They made a great mistake by approaching Pompey in 63BCE A Roman general allowing foreign interference to Jews culture. This happened in a period where Romans wanted to control Jews for economic reasons and war. Pompey chose Hyrcanus to be the monarch a move that his brother was opposed to and this made Pombay invade Israel and controlled the kingdom slaughtering thousands of Jews, leading to decades of Roman oppression and immense taxation crippling Jews.
In 54BCE, Roman pro council Crassus looted all the Gold in the temple treasury with the aim of funding his expedition against Parthian. Later in 46BCE, Herod then the governor massacred thousands of Jews to enforce excessive taxation. Two years later, Cassius sold Jews as slaves to foreign towns for failure to pay taxes as demanded by Herod who aimed to use in funding his war against Marc Antony.
The situation became worse in 42BCE when Marc Antony installed Herod as a Client king. Herod piled more pressure on taxation to build new cities, Greek temples and palaces. Before his death in 4BCE, he installed an image of an eagle on the temple portraying Roman leadership and killed Jews who tried to remove it. Herod son Archelaus took over and killed over 3000 Jews. The Jews became desperate and pleaded to Rome for their home to be close to Syria and bee ruled by Syria. Rome ascended to the request, and this marked an end to the terror under client kings. As a result, Roman put a system of procurators who acted as local governors in Syria. The governors overtaxed people to accumulate wealth. They also didn’t recognize Jewish culture.
In 30CE, procurator Pontius Pilate gave his soldiers to move across Jerusalem with images of the Roman emperor, a move that angered the Jews. In 37 to 41CE, Emperor Caligula demanded that a statue of him be erected on the holy temple a step that Jews were ready to oppose by all means. The move did not succeed. Jews were prepared to protect the introduction of idols, and this led to the formation of Jewish Brigades who targeted Roman villages and wealthy Jews. This lawlessness began in 48CE and lasted for two decades.
In 66CE, under Gessius Flores, a Roman procurator to Judea the war worsened as Jews and Gentiles fought over the city of Caesarea as each claimed it was built for them by Herod. In 66CE, Nero ruled in favor of gentiles, but Jews bribed Gessius to overturn the ruling. Gessius did nothing and later demanded more from the temple. He was mocked and turned his wrath on Jews killing several Jews. Jews prevented Gessius army from raiding the temple treasury. Jews never resolved if they needed to revolt against the radical roman governor.
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