The Great Revolt: The First Jewish-Roman War
by From Epics of History: More Prisoners of Eternity.
The Romans conquered Judea in 63 BC. Though many Jews were happy to co-operate with the occupiers and prosper under their rule, others disagreed. The trouble was they often disagreed with each other more than they ever did the enemy. They never combined to resist Roman rule, but nevertheless resist they did.
The first great rebellion of the Israelites against Roman rule was as much the result of ethnic and religious tensions between Jews and Greeks as it was resentment of Roman arrogance and the hatred of the punitive taxes they imposed.
The Romans had first occupied Judea in 63 BC. It was always an uneasy occupation not helped by the Roman contempt for the Jewish people and their strange monotheistic religion. They suffered frequent indignities at Roman hands including Roman soldiers exposing themselves at religious festivals, and being mocked and jeered at as they left the Jewish Temple. The Romans chief obsession, however, was the raising and collection of taxes, the more the better, and they exploited the people mercilessly. They also took it upon themselves to appoint the Jewish High Priests from among known and favoured Jewish collaborators. The land of Israel was a tinderbox waiting to be lit.
In Jerusalem the soon to depart Roman Procurator Gellius Florus had entered the Jewish Temple and stolen valuables and silver, he said for the Emperor, but in reality to line his own pockets. This not only outraged the local populace but led to Florus being openly mocked and laughed at in the street. Roman nobles did not like being ridiculed, and the small Roman Garrison in Jerusalem was reinforced. A number of Jewish leaders were then rounded up and executed. In response the Jews attacked the Roman troops and wiped them out.
According to the Jewish historian Josephus, who is considered by many Jews to have been a traitor and was very much in the Roman camp, the revolt broke out in 66 AD in the region of Caesaria and was provoked by Greeks who were seen to be disrespectfully sacrificing birds outside a Synagogue during an important religious ceremony. Judea, which was always in a state of heightened tension, if only because the Jews seemed to hate each other far more than they hated the Romans, was at boiling point. Violence broke out and in the figure of Elianza ben Simon aka Hariana, they found someone to lead and direct it. As the violence spread the Jewish puppet King Agrippa II, perhaps knowing his own people only too well, fled to the Roman camp. The Roman Governor of nearby Syria Cestius Gallus, yet again faced with a revolt by this disputatious and troublesome of people, tried to quell the revolt. His attempt to do so ended disastrously when his complacency led to his legions being crushed at the Battle of Beth Horon. It now dawned on the Romans that this was no local affair but a full-scale rebellion, and as they scrambled around for a response the rebellion quickly spread.
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