During the first and second centuries A.D., the supremacy of the Roman Empire was aggressively challenged by three Jewish rebellions. The facts surrounding the initial uprising of A.D. 66-74 have been filtered through the biased accounts of Judeao Roman historian Flavius Josephus. Primary information regarding the subsequent Diaspora Revolt (A.D. 115-117) and the Bar Kochba Rebellion (A.D. 132-135) is limited to fragmentary anecdotes emphasizing the religious implications of the two insurrections. In contrast, this analytical history focuses objectively on the military aspects of all three Judean uprisings. The events leading up to each rebellion are detailed, while the nine appendices cover such topics as the nature and number of the Jewish rebels and the factual reliability of the controversial Josephus. One appendix hypothesizes an alternative history of the war between Jerusalem and Rome.

Ancient Palestine was a ferment of social conflict and ideological rivalries. Full-scale insurrectionary revolt exploded in AD 66, a revolt which took on a revolutionary character as moderate upper-class Jewish leaders were pushed aside and replaced by more radical plebeian elements. The defeat of local Roman forces led to the appointment of Vespasian to command and the invasion of revolutionary Palestine by a huge Roman army in AD 67. The war was characterized by hard guerrilla fighting in the countryside, bitterly fought sieges - culminating in the siege, fall and destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70-1 - and appalling atrocities. Mopping-up operations ended with the spectacular siege of Masada in AD 73. The author synthesizes textual and archaeological evidence to produce an essentially narrative account to these events, but also deals in detail with the historical and cultural context of the revolt.

A highly illustrated account of the Jewish Revolt against Roman rule in the 1st century AD. In AD 66 a local disturbance in Caesarea caused by Greeks sacrificing birds in front of a local synagogue exploded into a pan-Jewish revolt against their Roman overlords. Gaining momentum, the rebels successfully occupied Jerusalem and drove off an attack by the Roman legate of Syria, Cestus Gallius, who was defeated at the battle of Beth Horon. The emperor Nero dispatched the Roman general Vespasian along with reinforcements and, having crushed the revolt in Galilee he became embroiled in the events of the Year of the Four Emperors that would lead to his assumption of the Imperial throne. His son Titus was left to carry on the war which culminated in the dramatic siege of Jerusalem in AD 70. Remorselessly, the legions strangled the life out of the defense street by street, leaving nothing but rubble and ashes in their wake. The apotheosis of the conflict was the final stand of the last holdouts in the Temple precinct itself, and the utter annihilation of this, the physical manifestation of Judaism itself. Packed with detailed description as well as battle maps, this book details each step of the fighting. The last remnants held out in the mountain fortress of Masada until AD 73 when with the Romans breaking down the walls the defenders committed mass suicide bringing the revolt to an end.

This book examines why in AD 66 a revolt against Rome broke out in Judaea. It attempts to explain both the rebellion itself and its temporary success by discussing the role of the Jewish ruling class in the sixty years preceding the war and within the independent state which lasted until the destruction of the Temple in AD 70. The author seeks to show that the ultimate cause of the Revolt was a misunderstanding by Rome of the status criteria of Jewish society. The importance of the subject lies both in the significance of the history of Judaea in this period for the development of Judaism and early Christianity and in the light shed on Roman methods of provincial administration in general by an understanding of why Rome was unable to control a society with cultural values so different from its own.

This monograph examines two insurgencies conducted by the Jews in ancient times: The Maccabee Revolt against the Seleucid Empire from 166-164 BC and the Revolt against the Roman Empire from 66-70 AD. The monograph proposes that all insurgencies have a nature and the nature of insurgency is as critical to understanding an insurgency today as it was two thousand years ago. Ancient Jewish history provides an excellent case study of a successful and failed insurgency. The Jewish revolt against the Seleucid Empire (Maccabee Revolt 166-164 BC) was a successful insurgency, which gained the free practice of religion for the Jewish people and ultimately an independent Jewish State. This independence lasted for one hundred years until 63 BC when Palestine was annexed by the Roman Empire. Subsequently, the Jewish people again revolted in 66 AD against Roman rule, but the result of the insurgency was a failure catastrophic to the Jewish people and the prospects for an independent Jewish state. The monograph contains four sections: Introduction, Prelude and Nature of Insurgency: The Maccabee Revolt, Prelude and Nature of Insurgency: The Revolt against Rome, and Conclusion. The model for analysis is the nature of insurgency as defined by US Army Doctrine. The respective natures of each insurgency are each examined separately to provide data for analysis. The data for each insurgency is then compared against the other to determine why one insurgency failed and the other succeeded.

This is the first book to examine the causes, events and consequences of a major conflict in ancient Palestine, and assess the accounts of its star witness, Josephus. The Jewish war, culminating in the siege of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple, can be called the most significant event in Roman military history. The war demanded a massive concentration of forces and was the longest siege in the whole of the Imperial period. Lasting roughly five months it took four legions, twenty infantry cohorts, and eighteen thousand men supplied by four independent kings to affect a victory. In fact, the forces committed to the siege, were larger than those deployed for the invasion of Britain in AD 43. The Jewish revolt was not inspired by any ideological objection on the part of the Jews toward Rome, nor any Roman anti-Semitism: instead a variety of underlying causes helped spark the revolt including social tensions, the divisions amongst the ruling class, the rise of banditry and poor harvests, and, perhaps most significantly, the apocalyptic storm brewing over 1st century Palestine. All revolutions change history, whether they are successful or not, and the Jewish war against Rome in AD 66-73 was no exception - the ramifications were enormous and still have an impact on the world today. The revolt had a profound influence on the development of Judaism and Christianity. If this revolt had not occurred, two major religions would simply not exist, certainly not in their present forms. The other exceptional fact about the Jewish war is the extraordinary amount of information that has survived. For that we have to thank one man, Flavius Josephus, a Jew of Pharisaic origin and eyewitness to the events he describes. Born Joseph ben Mattiyahu, he held a command in Galilee during a pivotal stage of the revolt and was captured by the Romans. Eventually, through his skillful manipulation of events, he became a client and friend to the future Roman emperors, Vespasian and Titus and worked as a translatorand mediator during the fateful siege of Jerusalem. To the Jews, he became a traitor.

A conflict that erupted between Roman legions and some Judaeans in late AD 66 had an incalculable impact on Rome's physical appearance and imperial governance; on ancient Jews bereft of their mother-city and temple; and on early Christian fortunes. Historical scholarship and cinema alike tend to see the conflict as the culmination of long Jewish resistance to Roman oppression. In this volume, Steven Mason re-examines the war in all relevant contexts (such as the Parthian dimension, and Judaea's place in Roman Syria) and phases, from the Hasmoneans to the fall of Masada. Mason approaches each topic as a historical investigation, clarifying problems that need to be solved, understanding the available evidence, and considering scenarios that might explain the evidence. The simplest reconstructions make the conflict more humanly intelligible while casting doubt on received knowledge.

An eyewitness account of a turning point in Judaism, Christianity, and all of Western civilization, this work chronicles the Jewish revolt against the Roman Empire from AD 66–70. Written by a leader among the Jewish resistance who switched sides and collaborated with Rome, it is among the few sources of information about 1st-century Judaism.

Josephus’ account of a war marked by treachery and atrocity is a superbly detailed and evocative record of the Jewish rebellion against Rome between AD 66 and 70. Originally a rebel leader, Josephus changed sides after he was captured to become a Rome-appointed negotiator, and so was uniquely placed to observe these turbulent events, from the siege of Jerusalem to the final heroic resistance and mass suicides at Masada. His account provides much of what we know about the history of the Jews under Roman rule, with vivid portraits of such key figures as the Emperor Vespasian and Herod the Great. Often self-justifying and divided in its loyalties, The Jewish War nevertheless remains one of the most immediate accounts of war, its heroism and its horrors, ever written.