Introduction

The crushing of the two Judaean revolts against the Romans, in the first and second centuries CE, marked the end of Jewish military efforts for nearly two millennia. When the first uprising (66-70 CE) concluded in catastrophic defeat and the destruction of Herod’s Temple in Jerusalem, the last of the Jewish zealots, led by Elazar Ben Yair, took refuge at Masada on the Dead Sea shore and, after a lengthy siege, chose to commit suicide with their families rather than fall into enemy hands. The outcome of the second revolt (131-135 CE), led by Bar Kochba, was even more calamitous; the Jewish community was annihilated in a bloodbath and the Romans expunged even the name of Judaea, renaming the province Palestina (after the Philistines who had lived on the coast between Gaza and Ashdod about a millennium earlier). Jerusalem became the Roman city of Ilia Capitolina and a shrine for Jupiter was built on Temple Mount.