The rising in Cyprus was headed by a leader named Artemion (Ἀρτεμίων),[1348] while the leader of the rebels of Cyrene is given one name by Eusebius, another by Dio.[1349] Dio calls him Andreas, Eusebius — Lucuas, and there is no certainty if one man is meant, or two. It is however a fact, that each historian had heard of one leader only. Eusebius calls Lucuas “their (i.e. the Jews’) king”.[1350] Eutychius ibn Batrik,[1351] whether or not he derived the information from Eusebius, writes that the Jews returned to Jerusalem in Trajan’s reign and crowned a king there. The monarchical or one-man leadership characterizes the Jewish revolutionary groups of 66-73, and if this phenomenon can be explained by the need for a single commander in a warlike situation, this is inadequate as an explanation regarding the Sicarian movement headed by Judah of Galilee, whose leadership descended hereditarily through three generations. Judah’s place was taken by his sons Simon and Jacob, their’s by Menahem, and Menahem was succeeded by his nephew Ele’azar ben Yair.[1352] It may be supposed, therefore, that those men enjoyed the reputation of a hereditary charisma; furthermore, Judah, Simon[1353] and Menahem are all alleged to have aspired to royal status.[1354] The tendency to hereditary leadership was characteristic, it seems, and perhaps peculiar, to a given current or perhaps to several currents of the revolutionary movement, and appears also to have been manifested by the rebels of Cyrene in Trajan’s time. It is not irrelevant to recall that a similar hereditary leadership of the descendants of Jesus, persisted in the early Christian community in Eretz Yisrael, and this was probably one of the factors which drew upon them the suspicions of Domitian and Trajan (see above, p. 248).
The uncompromising attitude of the Jewish rebels of Cyrene to idolatry is reflected in the clearest possible fashion by the archaeological testimony. The evidence of the systematic destruction of buildings, and especially of temples, during the revolt, is clear and prominent at Cyrene and has left not inconsiderable traces at other places in Libya,[1355] and to some extent in Alexandria and Cyprus. This extremist attitude to images as an expression of idolatry is associated in Eretz Yisrael more especially with the opponents of the Herodian dynasty and of Rome, from the time of the conquest of Judaea by Pompey. Examples are the tearing down of the eagle figure from the fagade of the Temple under Herod,[1356] the resistance to the introduction of the Roman military standards into Jerusalem under Pontius Pilate,[1357] and the destruction at Tiberias of the palace of Antipas, adorned with animal figures, after the outbreak of the Great Rebellion in Galilee.[1358] It can hardly be doubted, from Josephus’ accounts, that the first and last actions were the fruit of the influence of the extremist revolutionary groups such as the Sicarii and the Zealots, if not actually carried out by them.
In short the insurrectionary movement at Cyrene and elsewhere in the reign of Trajan reveals some of the features most characteristic of the current collectively (and in a sense erroneously) known as the Zealots; the influence of the same trend is visible in the rising in Egypt as well. The spirit of the movement was messianic, its aim the liquidation of the Roman regime and the setting up of a new Jewish commonwealth, whose task was to inaugurate the messianic era.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE WAR
1. Trajan and the Empire
It is the view of some historians that Trajan’s attack on Parthia in 114 was not inevitable; Roman control of Armenia was not necessary to ensure her military position and although Parthia was a nuisance at most times and hostile at others, quick to complain of the actions of a governor of Syria,[1359] or to support a false Nero,[1360] she was neither united within nor ready for real war.[1361] But this need not mean that there was no real clash of interests. Rostovtzeff has pointed out that an independent Armenia was acceptable to neither side; herself a potential aggressor, as a Roman protectorate she threatened Mesopotamia, while under Parthian influence she furnished access to the Black Sea states, to Asia Minor and to the hostile Sarmatians.[1362] Nor did complete calm prevail in the eastern provinces. The mood of Judaea during the Jewish revolt will be gauged presently. The very annexation of “Provincia Arabia” to the Empire lights up the real situation. Only Rostovtzeff manifested, albeit obliquely, some understanding of the significance of this operation, remarking,[1363] with reference to the hellenistic period, that “Palestine, a country organized from very ancient times, and now in a recalcitrant mood, they (the Ptolemies) surrounded with a screen of fortified cities of the Greek type.” The liquidation of the client kingdom of Nabataea and the establishment of the new province of Arabia, then, may have had three objects: the control of the trade routes over the Negev between Arabia and Gaza and between Arabia and Damascus along the line of the present railway to Mecca; the protection of the frontiers of Syria and Judaea against the raids of desert tribes, including the Arabs; and the containing of Judaea, still fermenting and recalcitrant, within a military zone designed to cut her off completely from influences outside the Empire — whether from Parthian intervention or from direct contact with Babylonian Jewry.[1364] Syme has observed[1365] that Q. Pompeius Falco, governor of Cilicia and Pamphylia under Trajan, passed on in an unusual manner to a second praetorian governorship of Judaea. He reached the consulate in 108, hence his second praetorian post fell in 106/7, a short time after the acquisition of the new province. Pompeius had served in Judaea previously and taken part in the Dacian War, hence it is to be suspected that he was transferred to Judaea for a second term owing to some unrest then prevailing there. A recently published inscription from Ephesus[1366] throws some additional light on events in Judaea during Pompeius’ second governorship. This is a dedication made in 123/4 by two delegates of the Samaritan city of Flavia Neapolis in honour of Pompeius, who is here called Saviour and Benefactor (σωτῆρα καὶ εὐεργέτην). It would seem reasonable to connect the events implied by this text with the year 107, and to believe that Neapolis stood in some danger during the disturbances which then took place. It is further known that ’Avdat in the Negev suffered destruction and abandonment shortly after the year 128, due, in all probability, to the penetration of new nomadic elements from the east;[1367] whether this trouble had begun some years before we do not yet know. At Mampsis occupation appears to have ceased about 130.[1368]
The closing off of Judaea by fortified zones was nevertheless such as to secure quiet in that province, and it shows that Trajan was not blind to the prospects of a Jewish outbreak in his rear when he attacked Parthia. The said fortifications were along the via Traiana, which extended from Hauran to the Red Sea. Trajan indeed had received a training thoroughly conducive to an understanding of the political and military problems of Syria and Judaea.
1354
1364
Much light on this consideration is shed, in my opinion, by certain phenomena of the 3rd century, which may be regarded as valid also in the time of Trajan. I refer to the messianic aspirations expressed in the frescos of the synagogue at Dura Europos (see here p. 322), and the words of
1366
1367
A. Negev,