ABSTRACT
In the course of the first two centuries, the Jews revolted three times against Rome within a period of some seventy years. These revolts caused considerable disruption, engaged substantial Roman forces and senior commanders each time for several years, and had a major impact on the history of the empire at the very highest level, being primary causes of Nero’s fall, of the Flavian ascent to power and of Trajan’s Parthian disaster. Yet the Jews-in the eyes of any rational observer-were bound in the end to be defeated. To explain both their determination and their foolhardiness it has been all too easy to invoke the messianic temper of the times and to suppose that the rebels acted in the assurance of the expected destruction of the Gentiles, the promised victory of Israel, the translation of an elect group and, if not the End of Time, at least the opening of the final act of the drama. Such reasoning underlies numerous interpretations, especially perhaps those offered by historians of Rome.1 Thus the outbreak of revolt is explained less in terms of the nature of Roman rule and more primarily by the peculiar character of this subject population.
