Language:
English
Year of publication:
2004
Titel der Quelle:
Past and Present
Angaben zur Quelle:
182 (2004) 3-29
Keywords:
Trajan,
;
Jews History
;
Eretz Israel History 586 B.C.-70 A.D., Exilic and Second Temple period
;
Eretz Israel History 70-1517, Roman, Byzantine and Arab periods
Abstract:
The quickest route to prestige and power in Roman society was through successful leadership in war. Examines the impact of this ideology on relations between Romans and Jews in the early Roman Empire. Before 66 AD, the Jews were not perceived as a special threat; but Vespasian and his son Titus, of humble origins, needed a military image to accede to power, which they accomplished by the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple. Their successors also required such propaganda. Although Nerva's rule fostered Jewish hopes for rebuilding the Temple, these were quashed by his adoption of Trajan as his heir. Under Trajan anti-Jewish prejudice did not decline. Despite post-70 wars against other enemies, the Jews were still viewed as the natural enemies of the Roman state. The Jews' eventual realization that a Roman emperor would not rebuild the Temple, which he might well have done if he viewed its destruction as an accident rather than a great achievement, fueled the 115-117 uprising in the diaspora. Thereupon, Hadrian undertook a brutal "final solution" that killed many Jews and installed a Roman colony on the site of Jerusalem. The continuation of this triumphalist policy ignited the Bar Kochba revolt, which resulted in the Romans' expelling most of the surviving Jews from their land.
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