In the light of this conclusion it may be deduced that the movement began in Cyrene, and an attempt at organized rebellion had already been made in Alexandria which failed because it did not include most of the Jews of the city, had been quickly isolated, and suppressed by the Roman government. Only in the course of a year, in 116, according to Eusebius, did the war spread to Egypt, evidently on the arrival of the Jews of Cyrene under their leader Lucuas.[1392]
We have no absolute evidence concerning the time of the outbreak of the rebellion in Cyrene.[1393] Eusebius’ words leave no room for doubt that the Cyrenean Jews reached Egypt only in 116, nor should it be forgotten that the ostraka used as receipts for the Jewish tax (τὸ Ἰουδαϊκὸν τέλεσμα) at Edfu (Tell Tevet = Apollinopolis Magna) cease in that year, and are not renewed until the years 161-5.[1394] On the other hand it is clear according to Eusebius’ account that fighting was going on in Egypt in the autumn of 115, as is shown, for instance by P. Giessen 19 (see p. 315). This being so, it seems probable that the rising broke out in Cyrene in 115, and in Egypt between October 115 (when Lupus’ proclamation was issued) and the beginning of 116.
A conclusion in favour of a date earlier in the year 115 for the outbreak in Cyrene, i.e. in agreement with Eusebius’ date (at the beginning of Trajan’s eighteenth year) is Longden’s,[1395] who dates the destructive earthquake at Antioch which devastated the city and cost numerous lives,[1396] to the opening of 115. The said earthquake also seriously damaged Rhodes and the cities of Asia Minor. Trajan, who had meanwhile returned to Antioch from the Parthian War, was slightly injured in the disaster, and one of the year’s consuls was killed, an event which enabled the precise dating of the event. The numerous passages of the Sibylline Oracles which repeat prophecies of similar natural cataclysms which are to herald the advent of the Messiah, and the fact that Antioch was among the cities designated for destruction,[1397] as well as the personal presence of the Emperor on the scene of the catastrophe — all these evoke the possibility that the event was a signal for revolt among the Jews of the east.[1398] Against this attractive conjecture it can however be claimed that the time elapsing between an outbreak at Cyrene at the beginning of 115 and Lucuas’ invasion of Egypt in early 116, is too long, as this period of twelve months would have given the Romans time to concentrate forces from a distance for a counterattack on the Cyrenean Jews before they left the country. This strategic consideration appears to be decisive, and it seems better to place the date of the Cyrene outbreak in the middle of 115 at earliest, at least till more definite evidence is forthcoming.
We have no more exact information on the date of the attack in Cyprus, but an inscription at Soli deserves attention. This records the setting up of a statue of Trajan not later than August of 117.[1399] This makes it difficult to believe that the tumultus on the island was suppressed later than 116 or at the beginning of 117. An extreme terminus ad quern for the suppression of the rising is furnished by an inscription dedicated at Beyruth to Gaius Valerius Rufus, commander of a vexillatio (detachment) of the VII legion Claudia, which had operated in Cyprus to suppress the revolt.[1400] This dedication was set up shortly after August, 117. As Valerius managed to hold another military post after the Cypriot operation, and the inscription was put up during the discharge of a third civilian duty when Hadrian had already ascended the imperial throne, his command in the island is likely to have belonged to 116. It is further worthy of note that Hadrian personally dedicated a statue in honour of the deceased Trajan at Curium in 117 or 118.[1401] As the Emperor, then, seems to have come to Cyprus during the rebellion (see p. 269) and was again in Antioch in August, 117, the statue must have been erected in August of the same year immediately after Trajan’s death.
The chronology of the events connected with the rising in Judaea and Mesopotamia will be discussed when we come to treat of those countries.
3. The Archaeological Evidence for the Extent of the Revolt
i. Cyrenaica
The effect of the Jewish rebellion in Cyrene is recorded in three forms: a) the written sources, i.e. in the ancient historians and in documents epigraphical and papyrological; b) by the archaeological remains, i.e. in buildings which exhibit signs of destruction at the time of the revolt or of rehabilitation after it. Sometimes this type of evidence supplements the epigraphical testimony; c) in administrative or topographical changes (e.g. the foundation of new settlements) seen after the rising. These changes are evidenced both by epigraphy and by literature.
Most of the evidence of the first two categories is concentrated at present at the city of Cyrene, firstly because archaeological excavation here has been carried out on a scale far exceeding that in the other towns of the country; secondly, because excavation here has penetrated to the city’s earliest strata. It is further probable that the Jewish population of Cyrene or its vicinity was immeasurably larger than the Jewish population of the other towns of Cyrenaica, hence the destruction there was more thorough and extensive. But this assumption remains hypothetical so long as excavation has not been carried out on a larger scale and to a greater depth in such centres as Ptolemais, Teucheira and Berenice.
1392
“And having extended the rebellion on a large scale, the following year they waged a considerable war... but in the city (sc. Alexandria) the Jews were hunted down and slain. And as the Jews of Cyrene had lost their allies, they ravaged the country areas of Egypt under the leadership of Lucuas.”
1393
A Jewish epitaph from Teucheira dicussed in
1395
1396
Iudaei... toto orbe saevierunt absque magnis multarum urbium ruinis, quae crebri terrae motus isdem temporibus subruerunt.