ABSTRACT
The procurator Gessius Florus’ plundering of the Temple treasury marks the point at which subversive activity by individual groups turned into open popular revolt. Josephus also specifies the date this took place: the 16th of Artemisius (April/May) 66 CE.1 Florus was forced to withdraw to Caesarea, leaving only a single Roman cohort behind in Jerusalem. The Zealots captured Masada (under the leadership of Menahem, son of Judas the Galilaean),2 while in Jerusalem the Temple Captain (segan) Eleazar, son of Ananias the High Priest, ordered the suspension of the daily sacrifice for the emperor. This was the decisive act of the rebellion and constituted an official breach in relations between the Jerusalem religious community and their Roman overlords:
At the same time in the Temple courts Eleazar, son of Ananias the High Priest and a very confident young man, who was Temple Captain, persuaded the ministers of the Temple to accept no gift or offering from a foreigner. This it was that made war with Rome inevitable; for they abolished the sacrifices offered for Rome and Caesar himselfಸ3
A power struggle now broke out in Jerusalem between the remaining mem-bers of the peace party (the High Priests, the Pharisees and the Herodians) and the Zealots, who now had the support of Eleazar the Temple Captain (the reasons for this are unclear and are much debated in the research). The peace party asked King Agrippa II for military support, but this proved largely ineffective. After bitter fighting, Agrippa’s troops had to retreat to Herod’s palace, and the rebels set fire to the palace of Ananias the High Priest and that of Agrippa and
Berenice. They also burned down the public archives, for reasons given by Josephus as follows:
ಸthen they look their fire to the Record Office, eager to destroy the money-lenders’ bonds and so make impossible the recovery of debts, in order to secure the support of an army of debtors and enable the poor to rise with impunity against the rich.4
