Cassius Dio on the Jews

Or The History of the Jewish Attempts to Subvert the Roman Empire

Lucius Cassius Dio Cocceianus - or simply Cassius Dio - is one of the most utilized and best known of all later Roman historians and has long been one of the standard intellectual touchstones of classical history as his only extant work 'Roman History' is one of the widest in scope and one of the most detailed accounts we have of the later Roman Empire as well as providing scholars with a good idea as to how earlier epochs and thinkers were perceived at this time among the Roman governing elite: of which Dio was famously part.

Dio is also one of our key sources on jewish history at around this time as he mentions and discusses the jews on numerous occasions in his 'Roman History'. That said Dio's information has long been frowned upon by jewish and philo-Semitic authors precisely because Dio is perceived to be intensely anti-jewish and unlike Seneca the Younger: it is rather simpler to attack Dio for holding similar views because he - as they say - is no great philosopher and as such does not have the protection of his other intellectual output to save him from the vim and venom of the jews and their allies.

Indeed if we base our textual historical understanding on the common mix of Dio, Josephus, Tacitus and Philo (the most commonly cited authors on jews in Rome) then we come to a kind of impasse as the two jews (Josephus and Philo) give a rather rosy picture of the jews - although Josephus can be read negatively as well as positively - while Dio and Tacitus make no bones about the fact that the jews were - to them - dangerous subversives who needed to be removed from the Roman Empire post haste or at the very least brutally chastened.

This picture is usually resolved by jews and philo-Semites by selecting Philo and the more positive aspects of Josephus, while downplaying or writing off as 'malicious gossip' or 'rhetoric' the more unpleasant passages of Tacitus and Dio. However, I would argue that Philo - as an ambassador for the jews of Alexandria to the Emperor Caligula - was certainly the most obviously biased of the lot and while Josephus is not much better: he does maintain a spirit of criticality and balance that Philo simply lacks.

Dio and Tacitus on the other hand do not contradict what other disparate sources - notably Suetonius, Appian, Martial, Strabo, Ovid, Juvenal, the Emperor Claudius and so on - have to say about the jews. In fact, these other authors complement what Tacitus and Dio have to say and as such we should consider Tacitus and Dio not as 'biased Roman sources', but rather as a hostile witness to the events they describe. That said we need to bear in mind that not everything Tacitus and Dio say will necessarily be true, but we should not be so quick to dismiss something if we do not like it if it is backed up with suggestive confirmatory evidence.

The first mention we have of jews in Dio's 'Roman History' is in his thirty-seventh book, which states:

'This was the course of events at that time in Palestine; for this is the name that has been given from of old to the whole country extending from Phoenicia to Egypt along the inner sea. They have also another name that they have acquired: the country has been named Judaea, and the people themselves Jews. I do not know how this title came to be given to them, but it applies also to all the rest of mankind, although of alien race, who affect their customs. This class exists even among the Romans, and though often repressed has increased to a very great extent and has won its way to the right of freedom in its observances. They are distinguished from the rest of mankind in practically every detail of life, and especially by the fact that they do not honour any of the usual gods, but show extreme reverence for one particular divinity. They never had any statue of him even in Jerusalem itself, but believing him to be unnameable and invisible, they worship him in the most extravagant fashion on earth. They built to him a temple that was extremely large and beautiful, except in so far as it was open and roofless, and likewise dedicated to him the day called the day of Saturn, on which, among many other most peculiar observances, they undertake no serious occupation.

Now as for him, who he is and why he has been so honoured, and how they got their superstitious awe of him, accounts have been given by many, and moreover these matters have naught to do with this history.' (1)

In the above we can see that Dio is picturing the customs and characteristics of the jews rather accurately in that he correctly acknowledges that the jews are unique ('distinguished from the rest of mankind'), have a unique religious system ('they do not honour any of the usual gods'), are generally monotheistic ('show extreme reverence for one particular divinity'), are iconoclastic ('never had any statue of him') and that the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem was a large and extravagant complex ('temple that was extremely large and beautiful'; 'they worship him in the most extravagant fashion').

So far so good, but we note an interesting reference in the passage that could easily go unnoticed but is in fact far more telling in informing just how reliable a source Dio is on the jews.

I quote the specific part of the previous section we need to consider further:

'They have also another name that they have acquired: the country has been named Judaea, and the people themselves Jews. I do not know how this title came to be given to them, but it applies also to all the rest of mankind, although of alien race, who affect their customs. This class exists even among the Romans, and though often repressed has increased to a very great extent and has won its way to the right of freedom in its observances.' (2)

Now here we see that Dio is aware of the problem of gentile converts to Judaism as well as 'God-fearers', which is indicated by his reference to the title of jews being used not only by those born into Judaism but also by those who are not and have since become enamoured with the ways of the jews. Dio further tells us that these gentiles affecting jewish customs and ways are even to be found among the citizens of Rome and it (Judaism) has 'won its way to the right of freedom in its observances'.

What is Dio saying here?

Clearly Dio could be interpreted as saying that jews have been persecuted in the past but have now proven to be loyal subjects of the empire and therefore Judaism is no longer repressed by Imperial order. Now this is the preferred reading among philo-Semites, but the problem of context rears its ugly head in so far as Dio places this statement directly after his extended reference to a significant number of Romans effecting jewish ways.

This is not likely to be coincidence but is rather Dio subtly offering the contextual reason why Judaism has become accepted in the Empire, because the jews have succeeded in converting a significant number of Roman power-brokers and/or their families to their cause and these Romans working in the jewish interest - 'God-fearers' - have subsequently succeeding in getting Judaism at least accepted if not legalised within the Empire.

This suggests - as I have argued in relation to other classical authors - the existence of what we can tentatively term an ancient 'Israel Lobby', which used covert and/or overt converts and those sworn to serve the jews as the priestly class of Yahweh ('God-fearers') to effect change in Roman policy that was perceived as beneficial to jews. This is not to suggest, of course, that those was an organised conspiracy but rather a convergence of individual and group interests on the part of the jews in the Empire - and particularly those in Rome - that allowed them to temporarily operate as a fractious unit.

Indeed, we can observe that in such significant - although not total - concentrations of jewish effort - which are unusual but not uncommon in jewish history - one can see the individualistic and egotistical nature of jews. In so far as they - even when operating in a loose collective - are eternally battling for position, scheming to become the predominant figure and/or spreading malicious gossip about each other as a method of trying to assert dominance and their personal superiority over their fellows.

This competition in concentration is indicated by Dio's comment that the number of converts and 'God-fearers' have greatly increased among the citizens of Rome themselves. Now it is implausible to suggest that all this was part of a highly organised scheme or was controlled by the jewish priestly class in Judea as we have no evidence of this. However, what is far more plausible is a situation akin to the spread of Christianity among the Romans: whereby there was no centralised Church as such, but rather lots of smaller sects and a few larger groups all competing for converts and trying to outdo each other in their preaching and miracle-mongering.

This is further suggested by the references by Horace to jewish tendency to credulity (3) in addition to their messianic attempts to make all Romans converts or 'God-fearers' (4) as well as Epictetus' reference to this same phenomenon. (5) Thus, we can reasonably derive from Dio the picture of the streets of Rome as being the religious battleground between the jews and their gentile - usually pagan - foes where each side was locked in a desperate battle for followers and the concomitant donations and patronage.

That the jews - along with their possibly closest competition the Cult of Isis - were so successful and as such had to continually suppressed by the Roman authorities is well-attested by Dio when he talks of the former suppression of the mystery cult of Yahweh. It is also mentioned as having been suppressed on several occasions by Suetonius, (6) while Ovid paraphrases the seduction of gentiles by the cult, (7) Martial calls the jews religious con-men (8) and Seneca the Younger laments that the 'conquerors are now ruled by the conquered'. (9)

All this suggests - as we have no other intellectual rubric (other than to suggest that they were all paranoid/delusional/prone to flights of fancy as jews and their supporters delight in implying) to utilize - that the jews were not so much a proverbial hive of insects dominated and driven by a single goal, but rather - for lack of a better term – a virus; in the form of a human biological group that was generally prone to act the same way but often differed and tried to evolve on its own independent of its fellows.

As such it is difficult to see in this subversion of Roman society by the mystery cult of the Yahweh a proverbial hidden hand - as remember that it is quite possible that the jewish king Herod Agrippa I had a hand in suppressing the jewish riots in Rome led by the followers of Chrestus in the reign of the Emperor Claudius - (10) but rather is more sensibly understood (and with far fewer assumptions) as a proverbial feeding frenzy of jews seeking to exploit the opportunities that Rome offered - via the medium of commerce or religion (a serious point that Ovid makes in the course of jesting about the Sabbath) - (11) paralleled in history only by the same jewish feeding frenzy that characterised the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in North America and Europe.

This proverbial 'freeing' of the jews from the confines of the lands of Palestine: Dio attributes to the wars the Romans fought just prior to the Civil War (between Julius Caesar and his detractors) (12) as well as the later activities of Roman generals and rulers such as Mark Anthony. (13) In the instance of Mark Anthony - a triumvir with Augustus (Octavian) and Lepidus - we can see that as ruler of the East he involved himself in the still yet formally unconquered - although informally under Roman rule (i.e., a client kingdom) - land of Judea as the jews were once again fermenting trouble.

Dio describes how Anthony routed the armies of Antiochus in the north and then swung south to deal with the jews – who were once again in revolt - led by the last of the Hasmonean dynasty: Antigonus II (or in Hebrew: Matityahu [lit. 'Matthew']).

What happened next is best narrated by Dio when he states that Anthony:

'Also conquered in battle Antigonus, who had put to death the Roman guards that were with him, and reduced him by siege when he took refuge in Jerusalem. The Jews, indeed, had done much injury to the Romans, for the race is very bitter when aroused to anger, but they suffered far more themselves. The first of them to be captured were those who were fighting for the precinct of their god, and then the rest on the day even then called the day of Saturn. And so excessive were they in their devotion to religion that the first set of prisoners, those who had been captured along with the temple, obtained leave from Sosius, when the day of Saturn came round again, and went up into the temple and there performed all the customary rites, together with the rest of the people. These people Antony entrusted to a certain Herod to govern; but Antigonus he bound to a cross and flogged, a punishment no other king had suffered at the hands of the Romans, and afterwards slew him.' (14)

Thus, Dio states that Anthony was engaged in what we would call today: a just war.

Anthony was simply avenging the fact that the jews had risen against their Roman masters - Dio implies it was for religious reasons (as with nearly all jewish risings and revolts of this era) when he suggests that the jews 'devotion to their religion was excessive' (read 'Sabbath' for 'Saturn') and that they were captured 'fighting for the precinct of their god' (i.e., fighting to defend the Temple of Solomon against the Roman legionaries) - by killing the Roman troops that the triumvirate - through the relevant triumvir (Anthony) - had assigned to Antigonus. This is one of the first instances in non-Biblical jewish history of a theme Dio returns on later: the religiously driven massacre of gentiles by jews and then even more terrible counter massacres of jews by gentiles.

Or put somewhat more simply: religious jews murder gentile 'idolaters' (as per the many precedents in the Torah and the then recent books of the Tanakh for just this type of action being perceived as a Mitzvah) at the instigation of a fanatical priesthood who may or may not have been using their religion as an political crutch for their geopolitical dreams of a revived jewish empire (in alliance with the Parthians who the Triumvirate were fighting). This then causes the gentiles to become understandably angry - per Dio's point that 'the jews had done much injury to the Romans' - who then promptly come to hate the jews and then in reprisal for jewish actions: the gentiles then launch an even more savage counter massacre of any jew they can get their hands-on.

Jews and their supporters frequently mention the second massacre in the cycle (gentiles on jews), but rarely do they mention the first and even if they do they have an intellectually unfortunate tendency to style it as a 'revolt of the oppressed' or the actions of a 'small minority' rather than a religiously-inspired attempt at gentile genocide. One can remove such quibbles by pointing out that they take the jews out of their historical context and treat them as they (the jews) view themselves: chosen and above the standards of mere gentiles.

As such jews and philo-Semitic writers on this issue by trying to style the cycle of jewish massacre and gentile counter massacre as one of gentile irrationality and jewish innocence indirectly prove the contextual argument I have made to be true.

Or put more simply: if you necessarily assert that jews are 'unique' and 'special' (which can only be done inside the rubric of their self-description as the 'chosen') then you therefore suggest that jews historically have believed just this and therefore that they believe themselves religiously (and as Judaism works on lineage therefore biologically) superior then they believe others religiously (and biologically) inferior. As such then one comes out with the same logic that I would argue the jews in the time of Antigonus - and after - were using: that they - the jews - were the chosen of the one true god and therefore it was completely intolerant to their religious sensibilities for them to be ruled by mere gentiles.

This is further proven by Anthony's choice of Herod to rule the jews: precisely because Herod was what has come to be called a mamzer in Halakhah. In other words Herod (so-called the Great) was born to a non-jewish mother - a Nabatean converted to Judaism (but not jewish by birth) - and a jewish father (remember the priestly patrilineal right to assign jewishness is codified only later) and as such his claim to be jewish (let alone of priestly lineage) was highly disputable and also made him the object of supreme hatred among the religious jews.

This made Herod a highly attractive client king of the jews for the triumvirate precisely because he was only quasi-legitimate in Judaism and ruled on Roman sufferance alone as it was they who put the iron in his glove so-to-speak, while Herod would be too busy trying to subdue his own people  while trying to gain a substantial - and would likely never again a majority - following that Rome could feel some measure of safety in the East and return stability of a sort to Judea by ensuring that there was no rebellious priestly leader like Antigonus to unite behind.

Dio then illuminates this pragmatic if short-term policy on Anthony's part by pointing out that Anthony had Antigonus executed by crucifying him as a traitor: although both Josephus and Plutarch believe him to have been beheaded. Either method of execution is possible although I err on the side of crucifixion on the grounds that it was the common Roman method for dealing with traitors and political subversives while also being more of a public spectacle (and thus a demonstration of power), which the Romans quite probably would deem necessary to demonstrate to the jews that their leader was dead, buried and that they should just accept the reality of Roman rule not the religious fantasy of Yahweh's rule.

Mark Anthony's policy of placing Herod on the throne of Judea - Dio implies - was partly the cause of the later problems to do with the jews in the Roman Empire. As Anthony had brought Judea unofficially into the Empire and while Dio never doubts the righteousness of this action: he does doubt whether it was wise to bring the people of Judea into the Empire. As gaining territory is one thing, but gaining an intractable group of people who then spread a dangerous and politically subversive cult among your own powerbrokers is quite another entirely.

This meaning is indicated by Dio's otherwise inexplicable lament contained within his mention of the jews in the reign of Tiberius.

To wit:

'As the Jews flocked to Rome in great numbers and were converting many of the natives to their ways, he banished most of them.' (15)

The lament I refer to is the sub-text to Dio's assertion that the jews 'flocked to Rome' - i.e., the jewish proverbial feeding frenzy to which I earlier referred - and were 'converting many of their natives to their ways', which then caused Tiberius to banish them from Rome. When we place this subtle assertion of the undesirability of both the jews and Judaism in Rome (ergo their removal and banishment) in the context of Dio's earlier assertions about how the jews do 'much injury to the Romans' (16) and that they are completely 'unique' in the world in terms of their customs. (17) In the additional context of the words Dio attributes to Josephus ('you may imprison me now, but a year from now, when you have become emperor, you will release me') (18) and that the jews were a subversive group in the reign of the Emperor Domitian. (19)

It becomes clear that this is a lament on Dio's part for he is here suggesting that the subversion of Rome and the rise of the mystery cult of Yahweh may be particularly dated from the time of the Triumvirate of Augustus, Mark Anthony and Lepidus: when the jews began to be formally incorporated within the Empire (later officially done by Augustus) and thus the jews as citizens - or simple residents within - the Empire were enabled to 'flock to Rome' and cause the situation that Dio describes.

Indeed, Dio's view of the jews as a subversive group that was using religion to undermine Roman culture and its political hegemony in their own individual and group interests is further evinced when he refers to the revolt of the jewish followers of Chrestus in Rome itself.

To wit:

'As for the Jews, who had again increased so greatly that by reason of their multitude it would have been hard without raising a tumult to bar them from the city, he did not drive them out, but ordered them, while continuing their traditional mode of life, not to hold meetings. He also disbanded the clubs, which had been reintroduced by Gaius.' (20)

Dio clearly is concerned with the numbers of jews positively overrunning Rome at this point: however we must bear in mind that Dio erroneously categorizes as jews all those gentiles who affect jewish customs and ways. (21) A distinction that the philosopher Epictetus correctly argued against as assigning outward form as a representation - when it often isn't - of one's true religious and intellectual beliefs. (22)

So, when Dio talks of the fact that jews had once again greatly increased in number he is referring more to jewish proselytizing activities rather than an uncommonly large amount of jewish migration to Rome or a significantly higher than average birth and survival rate among jews.

When Dio clarifies this, he refers to the fact that 'by reason of their (the jewish) multitude it would have been hard without raising a tumult to bar them from the city' or put in simple terms: it would be very difficult to banish all the jews from Rome, because there were so many 'God-fearers' and converts in positions of influence and power. It would have spelled a period of political and social instability for the Empire that the politically weak Emperor Claudius - dependent as he was on his Greek freedman and the loyalty of the Praetorian Guard who had elevated him to the position - was simply not willing to risk.

This reading of Dio is further confirmed by his reference to not 'driving out' the Judaisers (i.e., it would be difficult to banish or execute them all because of who they were), but rather ordering them not to hold meetings or come together in assembly while allowing them to continue to worship and perform the rites of the mystery cult of Yahweh. These references to the prohibition of assembly but the allowance of worship directly imply the fact that many of those concerned weren't proverbial country bumpkins from an obscure corner of the Middle East, but rather Roman citizens of good family as well as concomitant power and influence.

After all it is would be quite feasible - and indeed was done on more than one occasion - to banish all the jews from Rome, but the problem - as Dio later suggests - was not so much the jews themselves, but rather their 'God-fearers' and converts who served their individual and/or group interests and as such - like modern Noahides - would not react well to having their teachers and gurus expelled from the city.

This reading is further confirmed by Dio's own - quite deliberate - wording when referring to the outbreak of the first jewish revolt in Judea when he states:

'While Nero was still in Greece, the Jews revolted openly, and he sent Vespasian against them' (23)

The point to focus on here is when Dio says 'the jews revolted openly', which necessarily reveals the conviction that the jews had long been in secret revolt, but had only now chosen the moment for an overtly physical war against the Romans in the manner that they had attempted to do to under Antigonus and then later tried to do under Bar Kochba. Essentially then Dio is stating that the jews are an anathema to Roman civilisation and as such are - as Diodorus Siculus described them - (24) hateful towards anything that is non-jewish.

This dichotomy between the secret and open revolt of the jews against the Romans is also represented in Dio's citation of the alleged claim made by Josephus upon having been originally taken to Vespasian when he was a general under Nero.

To wit:

'From a dream he learned that when Nero Caesar should lose a tooth, he himself should be emperor. This prophecy about the tooth became a reality on the following day; and Nero himself in his dreams once thought that he had brought the car of Jupiter to Vespasian's house. These portents needed interpretation; but not so the saying of a Jew named Josephus: he, having earlier been captured by Vespasian and imprisoned, laughed and said: "You may imprison me now, but a year from now, when you have become emperor, you will release me."' (25)

What Dio is stating here is not obvious upon first reading as the preferred explanation among jews and philo-Semites is a simple reading of a legendary claim that Josephus made to Vespasian - perhaps as a form of flattery - upon first being captured and brought to him as a leader of the jewish rebellion against Rome.

Now the problem with such an interpretation is that it ignores the context in which Dio has placed the quotation as well as Dio's own foregoing discussion: whereby - irrespective of whether Josephus said it or his reasons for having done so - Dio is using it to make a very specific point. In so far as Josephus laughing upon being captured and imprisoned by a manifestly superior armed force is deliberately suggestive of holding a certain amount of power over your erstwhile captor.

This is then qualified by the statement that Josephus then allegedly makes: where he states quite bluntly that when Nero is dead, Vespasian will become Emperor and in so doing will be forced to free Josephus.

The implication of this is quite startling in so far as Josephus is made to say that effectively: Vespasian can imprison him now but when we get back to Rome Vespasian will be forced to release him because of all the power of the 'God-fearers' and converts to Judaism in Rome. As such we can see that Dio is using a wordplay to make Josephus' claim a prophecy of what had happened, but also to preserve the probable original boast of - to paraphrase - 'you wait till my friends in Rome hear about this'.

This alleged quotation from Josephus thus gives us a sense of the historical dichotomy that Dio is presenting us with: in so far as jews are - in times where they feel they are weaker than their enemies - gathering strength (in a secret conflict with Rome) and when they feel they are strong enough they rebel into open warfare with Rome leading to the cyclical massacre of gentiles by jews and the counter-massacre of jews by enraged gentiles. It was this very cycle of escalating jewish and answering anti-jewish violence that prompted the ethnic cleaning of jews in Mesopotamia and Egypt by the Emperor Trajan (26) and then the criminalisation of Judaism by the Emperor Hadrian. (27)

In essence then what Dio is related to us is the existence of a series of politically dangerous and religiously subversive groups that were particularly active in the highest social and political circles of Rome, which operated as a kind of ancient 'Israel Lobby' actively working in the disparate - although sometimes converging - perceived individual and/or group interests of the jews.

Dio's view of the secret war of the jews against the Romans leading to open revolt against all that was Roman is illustrated by his juxtaposing two positions that are difficult to reconcile unless one considers - as Dio evidently does - the possibility of a jewish conspiracy against Rome. We particularly see this in Dio's account of the suppression of the first jewish revolt and the years of successive jewish revolts that followed it: up until the time of the Emperor Hadrian who took the extraordinary step for a Roman Emperor of criminalizing an entire religion and going out of his way to suppress it.

Once again to remove any suggestion of misinterpretation on my part I quote Dio's words in full:

'Titus, who had been assigned to the war against the Jews, undertook to win them over by certain representations and promises; but, as they would not yield, he now proceeded to wage war upon them. The first battles he fought were indecisive; then he got the upper hand and proceeded to besiege Jerusalem. This city had three walls, including the one that surrounded the temple. The Romans, accordingly, heaped up mounds against the outer wall, brought up siege engines, joined battle with all who sallied forth to fight and repulsed them, and with their slings and arrows kept back all the defenders of the wall; for they had many slingers and bowmen that had been sent by some of the barbarian kings. The Jews also were assisted by many of their countrymen from the region round about and by many who professed the same religion, not only from the Roman empire but also from beyond the Euphrates; and these, also, kept hurling missiles and stones with no little force on account of their higher position, some being flung by the hand and some hurled by means of engines. They also made sallies both night and day, whenever occasion offered, set fire to the siege engines, slew many of their assailants, and undermined the Romans' mounds by removing the earth through tunnels driven under the wall Asfor the battering-rams, sometimes they threw ropes around them and broke them off, sometimes they pulled them up with hooks, and again they used thick planks fastened together and strengthened with iron, which they let down in front of the wall and thus fended off the blow of still others. But the Romans suffered most hardship from the lack of water; for their supply was of poor quality and had to be brought from a distance. The Jews found in their underground passages a source of strength; for they had these tunnels dug from inside the city and extending out under the walls to distant points in the country, and going out through them, they would attack the Romans' water-carriers and harass any scattered detachments. But Titus stopped up all these passages.

In the course of these operations many on both sides were wounded and killed. Titus himself was struck on the left shoulder by a stone, and as a result of this accident that arm was always weaker. In time, however, the Romans scaled the outside wall, and then, pitching their camp between this and the second circuit, proceeded to assault the latter. But here they found the conditions of fighting different; for now that all the besieged had retired behind the second wall, its defence proved an easier matter because its circuit was shorter. Titus therefore once more made a proclamation offering them immunity. But even then they held out, and those of them that were taken captive or deserted kept secretly destroying the Romans' water supply and slaying any troops that they could isolate and cut off from the rest; hence Titus would no longer receive any Jewish deserters.

Meanwhile some of the Romans, too, becoming disheartened, as often happens in a protracted siege, and suspecting, furthermore, that the city was really impregnable, as was commonly reported, went over to the other side. The Jews, even though they were short of food, treated these recruits kindly, in order to be able to show that there were deserters to their side also.

Though a breach was made in the wall by means of engines, nevertheless, the capture of the place did not immediately follow even then. On the contrary, the defenders killed great numbers that tried to crowd through the opening, and they also set fire to some of the buildings near by, hoping thus to check the further progress of the Romans, even though they should gain possession of the wall. In this way they not only damaged the wall but at the same time unintentionally burned down the barrier around the sacred precinct, so that the entrance to the temple was now laid open to the Romans. Nevertheless, the soldiers because of their superstition did not immediately rush in; but at last, under compulsion from Titus, they made their way inside. Then the Jews defended themselves much more vigorously than before, as if they had discovered a piece of rare good fortune in being able to fight near the temple and fall in its defence. The populace was stationed below in the court, the senators on the steps, and the priests in the sanctuary itself. And though they were but a handful fighting against a far superior force, they were not conquered until a part of the temple was set on fire. Then they met death willingly, some throwing themselves on the swords of the Romans, some slaying one another, others taking their own lives, and still others leaping into the flames. And it seemed to everybody, and especially to them, that so far from being destruction, it was victory and salvation and happiness to them that they perished along with the temple. Yet even under these conditions many captives were taken, among them Bargiora, their leader; and he was the only one to be executed in connexion with the triumphal celebration.

Thus was Jerusalem destroyed on the very day of Saturn, the day which even now the Jews reverence most. From that time forth it was ordered that the Jews who continued to observe their ancestral customs should pay an annual tribute of two denarii to Jupiter Capitolinus. In consequence of this success both generals received the title of Imperator, but neither got that of Judaicus, although all the other honours that were fitting on the occasion of so magnificent a victory, including triumphal arches, were voted to them.' (28)

In this long section of Dio's 'Roman History' the first thing we need to note is that Titus was not the bloodthirsty tyrannical oppressor of the jews as often later suggested by Rabbis and early jewish historians as well as even the occasional modern Israeli one. We can see this in Dio's mention of Titus' abiding to the accepted forms of classical warfare: of trying to reason with rebels before you expend precious military resources in putting them to the sword. Dio states that Titus sought to win the jews over by offering promises of reforms and gifts, to negotiate and even privileges if only they would put down their weapons and give up their messianic dream of world conquest.

That the jews refused to heed Titus' pragmatic words and that they would not - in Dio's words - yield tells us that we are dealing here with numerous hard-line religious fanatics who are ostensibly prepared to fight and die for all they hold sacred.

This is, of course, not quite as cut and dried as it might seem as we have to remember that Josephus - so lionized by later jewish historians - was himself a religious fanatic who - when it came to actually living up to the ideas he espoused - preferred the coward's way out and felt it to his personal advantage to surrender himself to Vespasian and then work for the Romans as an interpreter/negotiator against the perceived interests of his fellow countrymen.

Some might think this at odds with Dio's earlier statement that Josephus boasted to Vespasian of the power of the jews in Rome: (29) however this potential contradiction is resolved if we understand that Josephus when he came before Vespasian was the commander of a jewish garrison who had killed themselves in a suicide pact (although Josephus had chosen not to honour his part in it while watching his troops kill each other and themselves) and as such his frame of egoistic reference was still very much within the jewish revolt in spite of his tangible betrayal of it. Soon after his capture this began to change and Josephus saw that his best chance for future success lay not as a leader in a new jewish world order ordained by Yahweh, but rather as a historian chronicling and lionising jews to the Romans as well as possibly a priest and guru to Roman 'God-fearers' and converts.

As such then we are dealing with the jews here as a mix of religious fanatics - convinced it is in their best individual interests to fight as hard as possible so that they could avoid the displeasure of Yahweh in life and death - and those more secular and Machiavellian jews who went along with the tide of jewish apocalyptical thought as the best route to future power and position.

When that vision of the future began to peter out in the face of overwhelming Roman military superiority these same jews began to quietly jump ship to the Roman side: sometimes successfully like Josephus and sometimes unsuccessfully. The unsuccessful ones of course tended to end up as either Roman slaves, crucified corpses or butchered by their fanatical kin: especially after - as Dio records - some jews pretended to switch sides then poisoned (i.e., destroyed) the Roman's water supply and killed as many Romans as they could before fleeing back to their kin.

That we are dealing with something more than a common revolt is indicated by an easily missed explanation in Dio's account of the siege of Jerusalem:

'For they had many slingers and bowmen that had been sent by some of the barbarian kings. The Jews also were assisted by many of their countrymen from the region round about and by many who professed the same religion, not only from the Roman empire but also from beyond the Euphrates; and these, also, kept hurling missiles and stones with no little force on account of their higher position, some being flung by the hand and some hurled by means of engines.' (30)

Separated from the flowing narrative of Dio's text: the issue I am alluding to becomes a lot easier to spot.

To wit: the fact that jews from not only Judea, but also from its neighbouring provinces as well as all over the Empire (including Rome) as well as jews from outside of the Roman Empire were significant elements (hence Dio's mention of them) in the first jewish revolt. This effectively means that the jews conducted a massive international conspiracy to revolt against the Roman Empire and managed to keep this massive undertaking secret from the Roman authorities, which is to any reading an incredible if rather disturbing historical achievement.

This becomes all the more ominous when one reads the prefacing point to this assertion by Dio: that the jews were supported by troops sent by 'barbarian kings'. Now the 'barbarian kings' referred to are very unlikely to be small kingdoms on the borders of the Empire - like Armenia - as to aid even so vast an undertaking as a conspiracy against the heart of Rome itself would be akin to inviting the Roman legions to invade and put your kingdom to the sword. Far more likely is the 'barbarian kings' referred to are the client kingdoms of the Parthian Empire: Rome's great rival in the East who also had a history of collaborating with the jews in their attempts to revolt. (31)

It is also the reason that the Emperor Trajan - while fighting the Parthians years later - took the extraordinary action of undertaking to ethnically cleanse the jews of Mesopotamia as they were perceived to be intractable foes of Rome and also long-time allies of the Parthians. (32)

This then means that the jews spreading the mystery cult of Yahweh to gain power and egoistic fulfilment in competition with each other. Only then to openly rebel in cycles of genocidal anti-gentile violence against Rome but were also political agents for Rome's greatest imperial rival: Parthia.

In effect the jews were - much as they were later to successfully do with the Islamic armies in Spain - a somewhat incoherent ancient fifth column. Whereby they tried to open the doors to the less fortified hinterland of their present rulers to their ruler's enemy. Who in return would grant them autonomy and likely enough territory to allow them the resources and time to rebuild their armies in a well-trodden precursor to attempts to establish a new imperial hegemony in place of an old one (Rome and Parthia).

The Parthians had everything to gain from allying with the jews precisely because Judea was a frontier province and as such one with significant fortifications, which could act as a funnel for Parthian forces both into Syria and Egypt allowing them to threaten both Rome's breadbasket (Egypt) and one of its most profitable centres of trade (the various caravan routes through Palestine and Syria) in addition to gaining direct access to the Mediterranean.

Thus, the mention of the foreign jews rising with their kin and also the significant presence of non-jewish soldiers in the midst of the rebels transforms the first jewish revolt from a mere rebellion: into a wholesale Roman military and political crisis perpetrated largely by jews. Indeed, it puts the first jewish revolt in a wholly different context of the jews launching total war against the Roman Empire. That several legions under two of the most capable living Roman generals - Vespasian and his son Titus - should have been dispatched to either block a Parthian invasion or put the jews to the sword is indicative of the scale of crisis considering that rebellions were usually suppressed using the local legionary garrison and any auxilia in the general area rather than the use of a whole Roman army!

Dio's account of the siege of Jerusalem focuses on two general themes: jewish fanaticism and the jewish conduct of the war. What Dio describes is a jewish army that is trying to fight a guerilla campaign against the Romans: who the jews have quickly come to realise are far superior militarily. Thus, the jews resort to the same tactics that had been used by Moses and have subsequently been most recently used by jews during the so-called 'Israeli War of Independence': those of genocide and terrorism. In essence Dio records that the jews in the first jewish revolt went around killing as many civilian and soft military targets as possible: as those were the most vulnerable to attack and were likely to yield the lowest possible jewish casualties.

Most historians of the first jewish revolt are unclear as to why the jews so quickly adopted these tactics: did they underestimate the Roman capability to respond quickly and in force? Did they overestimate their own military capability? Were they deluded by their own apocalyptic religious beliefs? Did they overestimate the willingness of their powerful 'God-fearers' and converts in Rome to prevent a Roman military riposte being launched against them?

I would argue that it is a little of all of these explanations, but the proverbial glue that holds them all together and makes sense of why the jews got the Romans so wrong is the overestimation of Parthia's willingness to commit their military resources to an all-out war against Rome in East. As such the Parthians would be willing to provide some troops - hence the jewish confidence - but not enough to be decisive and only when the jewish revolt looked like it had succeeded would the Parthians deploy their military resources in a significant capacity. As such then we can see that the heart of the first jewish revolt - according to Dio - is the fact that the jews were acting as knowing agents of a foreign power against Rome and as such had betrayed the Empire and its subjects.

This also makes sense of Titus' original willingness to grant clemency to what were - after all - rebels in so far as pragmatically it would be easier for him to quickly stabilize the situation if he could set up a rival jewish regime so-to-speak. That he seems to have quickly abandoned this idea in the face of the fanatical actions of the jews against him and his forces is suggestive that Titus had by this time reasoned that the jews were not interested in being Roman citizens per se, but rather had very distinct ambitions of their own.

This then brings us on to the other theme of Dio's narrative of the siege of Jerusalem: that of jewish religious fanaticism. This is suggested by Dio in his reference to the fact that jews revolted against Rome all around the Empire and had mostly previously flocked to Judea to take up arms against the Roman forces. This represents a kind of religious frenzy that is only paralleled in history by other large-scale religious wars such as the various Christian crusades, Islamic jihads, the Boxer rebellion in China, the Japanese war against Christianity and the battles of the Sikhs with the Muslims in India.

We can see this fanaticism represented in the brutality of the early jewish attacks on the Romans in how they aimed for the maximum amount of dead rather than the maximum military value: as if the jews were interested in purely striking militarily they would have tended to attack the Romans in columns rather than committing atrocities against civilians and isolated parties of Romans, which were neither militarily effectual or politically prudent. However, they are the actions of a movement guided by a spirit of apocalyptical religious fanaticism buoyed up by their own initial success in pulling off so large a conspiratorial revolt successfully.

However, as the conflict continued it became increasingly apparent that it was merely a matter of time before the jews would be overcome by Roman military might and that the substantial Parthian military aid that would be required was no longer likely to materialise. This led to a further split in the jewish camp between those who held strong religious beliefs and feared Yahweh more than Roman swords - i.e., it was to their perceived net benefit to continue fighting to the bitter end rather than to be placed once again under the proverbial yoke of Roman rule - and those who feared Roman swords more than they did Yahweh (i.e., it was to their perceived benefit to try to persuade Titus into being merciful again so they could survive and somehow purchase the opportunity to start afresh).

This split in the jewish camp is represented in Dio's account by his reference to the slight clemency given to Roman prisoners who had been captured during the siege of Jerusalem (33) and then - when the Jerusalem had fallen the fanatical jews killing each other - committing suicide and in some cases throwing themselves into the flames in the jewish tradition of martyrdom: Kiddush Hashem ('Sanctifying the Name'). (34)

This split is quite explicable if one views jews as an egocentric and highly individualistic group who thrive not on altruistic service to the group, but rather on acting in their own perceived individual interests. It is difficult to explain from an ethnocentric standpoint precisely because jews are acting in two very contradictory ways with little in common to the question that is the psychological touchstone of ethnocentric theory: 'what is good for jews?'

One wonders therefore how can mass suicide be 'good for jews'?

As while the jewish attempts to compromise do make sense from an ethnocentric perspective: the fact that you have large number of jews committing Kiddush Hashem simply doesn't. As what group advantage can possibly be gained from mass death? Surely it would be to the general best advantage of jews - if they were a highly altruistic people - to make what terms they could with Titus (allowing them to carry on as jews even if as slaves and eventually allowing them to rebuild by purchasing each other's or their own freedom from their gentile masters) rather than throwing themselves into the flames.

Thus Dio's account - which is one of our principal textual sources along with Josephus - for the first jewish revolt is wholly at odds with an ethnocentric explanation of jewish behaviour, but makes perfect sense if you view the events from an egocentric explanation of jewish behaviour.

Dio's narration of the end of the first jewish revolt ends with his account of the measures taken by Vespasian and Titus against the defeated and much depleted jews. These were that those of the jewish leaders who had survived were to be killed but surprisingly only their senior leader – named Bargiora - was ritually strangled during the Triumph of Titus in Rome. In addition, each individual jew who wished to carry on worshipping Yahweh had to pay money annually towards the worship of Jupiter Capitolinus (in Rome) in order to do so, which was both a tax and a deliberate religiously-based humiliation of the jews by Vespasian and Titus.

Thus providing further evidence that for the Romans the fundamental origin of the problem was perceived to be jewish religious fanaticism and that by taxing the jews for their religious beliefs: they could both cover the cost of the military campaign and reconstruction of Judea plus prevent the build-up of sufficient jewish wealth (as the tax in any given family would have a been a significant amount of their annual income) to allow the jews to revolt again.

This once again was somewhat more measured than could have easily been the case and probably originates in the legendary pragmatism associated with the Flavian dynasty in general, but particularly Vespasian himself. In essence he was keen to rebuild and forget if the jews would: however as time has shown the jews have neither forgotten or forgiven Vespasian and Titus for ruthlessly crushing their messianic aspirations in 70 A.D.

We can in see in Dio's wry remark as to the fall of the Temple occurring on the Sabbath (when jews can do no work) his quite specific dislike of all things jewish as in doing so he suggests that the 'unique' ways of Judaism have led to its demise. In so far as the jews could not even put out the flames destroying the centre of their religion because that same religion forbade them to do it.

In Dio's mention of the fact that the jews had to 'pay an annual tribute of two denarii to [the Temple of] Jupiter Capitolinus' (35) we find another piece of irony on Dio's part as Dio - as we know - (36) was well aware that the jews only worship one god and as such would be horrified to be forced to support the worship of the Romans - which remember was an anathema to them - in order to worship Yahweh. Thus, showing that Dio is taking every opportunity and delight in recounting the humiliations suffered by the defeated jews at the hands of the victorious Romans.

Dio can almost be interpreted here as delighting in the suffering of the jews inflicted upon them for their 'injury to the Romans' and as such is perhaps using his literary endeavours to achieve some measure of intellectual peace from the jewish power of his day by laughing at his political and biological enemies in his historical scholarship.

After the defeat of the first jewish revolt at the hands of Vespasian and Titus: Dio next mentions the jews in relation to the rule of the Emperor Domitian (the last of Vespasian's own Flavian dynasty) and it is here that we begin to see Dio's cataloguing of the activities of the mystery cult of Yahweh in more open form with the strong measures imposed by Domitian in trying to expunge it from the Roman citizenry and in particular the Roman elite.

Dio records it in two separate passages thus:

'At this time the road leading from Sinuessa to Puteoli was paved with stone. And the same year Domitian slew, along with many others, Flavius Clemens the consul, although he was a cousin and had to wife Flavia Domitilla, who was also a relative of the Emperor's. The charge brought against them both was that of atheism, a charge on which many others who drifted into Jewish ways were condemned. Some of these were put to death, and the rest were at least deprived of their property.' (37)

And:

'After Domitian, the Romans appointed Nerva Cocceius emperor. Because of the hatred felt for Domitian, his images, many of which were of silver and many of gold, were melted down; and from this source large amounts of money were obtained. The arches, too, of which a very great number were being erected to this one man, were torn down. Nerva also released all who were on trial for maiestas restored the exiles; moreover, he put to death all the slaves and the freedmen who had conspired against their masters and allowed that class of persons to lodge no complaint whatever against their masters; and no persons were permitted to accuse anybody of maiestas or of adopting the Jewish mode of life. Many of those who had been informers were condemned to death, among others Seras, the philosopher.' (38)

If we combine these two passages from Dio it gives us an interesting view of the Emperor Domitian; particularly in so far as he was specifically prosecuting those Romans who had - in Dio's words - 'drifted into jewish ways' and that this charge was closely associated with atheism. This might seem strange to us, but we must remember that to the Romans the skies were filled with many different gods, goddesses, spirits, fantastic creatures and immortalized heroes - not least the deified Emperors - who often imbued men and women with their spirit or walking on the earth.

As such the worship of an invisible god who forbade any image or icon of himself to be made sounds suspiciously like atheism as one is - by believing in one god with no image or corporeal form - suggesting that no other gods or goddesses other than the one invisible, omnipotent and omnipresent deity exist. Therefore, a monotheist of this kind would have seemed like a believer in no gods precisely because they denied the existence of other gods, while not worshipping anything corporeal or material in their temples other than thin air. Thus, to an ancient Roman - like Domitian - those who held to the mystery cult of Yahweh were in fact worshipping nothing and were thus by definition atheists.

However, it is doubtful that Domitian was actively persecuting atheists because they were atheists: as there was a long history of classical scholarship from Epicurus to Cicero who had doubted the very existence of any deities and the reality or historicity of the mythological systems associated with them. To be sure atheists could be considered subversive to the Roman state as they were effectively not worshipping the Imperial cult - i.e., the deified past Emperors - which was so important to the preservation of Imperial authority as represented by the person of the Emperor.

That said various forms of intellectual atheism and agnosticism had a long history within the Roman elite and as such it is reasonable to argue that Domitian was actually attacking something more with his use of informers - akin to Sejanus' earlier use of them in the reign of Tiberius - than a few intellectual and elite doubters in the gods. The key to this is provided by Dio's comment that the charge of atheism was used to condemn 'those who had drifted into jewish ways' to execution or the loss of all property.

Now let us remember that Vespasian and Titus - Domitian's predecessors in the Imperial purple - had used this same method against the jews years earlier again whereby they had sought to kill the leaders of the jews and then impoverish the jews in general for the pleasure of worshipping Yahweh to the extent that they could never rise in revolt again. (39) If we then further recall that the jews had been converting large numbers of powerful Romans into 'God-fearers' or - for lack of a better term - crypto-jews. (40)

Then Dio's mention of Domitian's execution of the Roman Consul Flavius Clemens and his wife Flavia Domitilla (both of whom were related to the Imperial family and were important political figures in Roman governance) on the charge of – effectively - being jews and thus being traitors to the Empire starts to make sense.

This is particularly so if we recall Dio's comment that the jews kept increasing the number of their followers and servants in spite of being savagely suppressed several times by different Emperors - of which Domitian was but one example - and it thus throws light on the fact that what Domitian was doing was trying to - like Nero before him and Trajan after him - break the power of the jews in Rome once and for all.

That we are dealing with a subversive religious cult is suggested by Domitian's use of slaves and freedmen as informers as these are the some of the few people who would know of the actual beliefs and doings of their masters and mistresses.

Thus, Domitian reasoned quite rationally that he was going to have difficulty breaking this jewish power in Roman political life as locating those who had 'drifted into jewish ways' (and thus become en hoc to the jews by entrusting themselves to the jews for their spiritual well-being) would be difficult because they would likely only practice such rites in the privacy of their own homes or in small gatherings. As such Domitian would need eyes and ears on the inside of his enemies’ villas and who better than the ever-present household slaves and servants who could also be offered freedom and new lives as incentives for coming forward.

Some might argue that this use of slaves and servants as informers necessarily brings the charge of Judaizing into doubt and that the charge of 'drifting into jewish ways' was nothing more than a political ploy on Domitian's part to get rid of his political enemies. Now this is indeed a possibility, but this is invalidated as a general argument - although we cannot rule out some cases of this having occurred - by the simple question of: why 'jewish ways'?

Why didn't the Emperor Domitian invoke the precedent of the Emperor Augustus and persecute his enemies instead as followers of the orgiastic cult of Bacchus instead? If Domitian had just been interesting in killing off his political enemies with false charges, then he could have used any number of them and manufactured evidence accordingly. Why did he choose to accuse people of atheism through 'drifting into jewish ways' as Dio says?

The answer is – ironically - given by Dio when he narrates the aftermath of the legal abolition of Domitian's methods and use of slaves and freedman as informers against their 'God-fearer' and convert masters. Dio states that 'no persons were permitted to accuse anybody of maiestas or of adopting the Jewish mode of life': now the Roman charge of maiestas refers to the charge of saying or doing something that is diminutive towards the Roman people.

What Dio is thus telling us here is that Domitian's campaign against the jews was not a mere exercise in blaming scapegoats, but rather one against a subversive cult: precisely because maiestas would refer in effect to a form of treason against Rome and the adoption of the 'jewish mode of life' was clearly linked by Dio to this. If they are therefore linked then we can quickly see that Domitian was actually launching a widespread campaign against Roman traitors who were working with the jews who had in recent history attempted to betray Rome more than once to Parthia.

Thus, to Domitian breaking the power of these 'God-fearers' and converts among the Roman elite political class was of paramount importance to the continuance of both his rule and the continuation of the traditions of his ancestors. In addition, combating those who had become en hoc to the jews would also help pave the way for a Renaissance in the worship of the Imperial cult and thus also increase both the state's income and also restore law and order to their former levels with the Empire.

This interest in reviving the Imperial cult as a part of Domitian's motivation for trying to root out political and religious subversives also accounts for Dio's mention of the numerous statues and monuments that Domitian had created of himself: as in order to restore the Imperial cult he also had to inculcate the worship of himself among the people.

The reaction against Domitian after his death is perhaps representative of the extraordinary - for the time - methods that he had used to ferret out a problem that was beyond the day-to-day understanding of most Romans and as such seemed more irrational and tyrannical than it was. It is noteworthy that immediately after his death the new Emperor Nerva promptly banned all the methods that Domitian had used and started killing all those who had helped the Emperor. This tentatively suggests the tantalising possibility - although I cannot prove it - that Nerva and his fellows were engaging in a blood purge - similar to that described in the Book of Esther - of all those who had opposed the jews.

That Domitian was likely fighting a very real problem as opposed to an imagined one - as frequently claimed by jews and philo-Semites - is suggested by another massive conspiratorial revolt of the jews in North Africa only a few years later.

Dio narrates it thus:

'Meanwhile the Jews in the region of Cyrene had put a certain Andreas at their head, and were destroying both the Romans and the Greeks. They would eat the flesh of their victims, make belts for themselves of their entrails, anoint themselves with their blood and wear their skins for clothing; many they sawed in two, from the head downwards; others they gave to wild beasts, and still others they forced to fight as gladiators. In all two hundred and twenty thousand persons perished. In Egypt, too, they perpetrated many similar outrages, and in Cyprus, under the leadership of a certain Artemion. There, also, two hundred and forty thousand perished, and for this reason no Jew may set foot on that island, but even if one of them is driven upon its shores by a storm he is put to death. Among others who subdued the Jews was Lusius, who was sent by Trajan.' (41)

Dio does not record it (and probably did not know it), but this is the same revolt in which his fellow historian Appian of Alexandria had to flee for his life in the face of jewish religiously motivated barbarity. (42) Now in reading the passage the first impulse of the modern reader is to dismiss the specific genocidal crimes that Dio lays at the door of the jews as being fantastic and implausible. However, this is not an intellectual judgement but rather an emotional one: precisely because we have several textual sources on this particular revolt - including Dio - all of which agree as to ferocity and brutality of the jews towards the Greeks and Romans. Notwithstanding Appian of Alexandria: we also have the later testimony of Eusebius of Caesarea.

Who states that:

'In the course of the eighteenth year of the reign of the emperor Trajan, a rebellion of the Jews broke out and destroyed a great multitude of them. For both in Alexandria and in the rest of Egypt and especially in Cyrenaica, as though they had been seized by some terrible spirit of rebellion; they rushed into sedition against their Greek fellow citizens, and increasing the scope of the rebellion in the following year started a great war while Lupus was governor of all Egypt.

In the first engagement they happened to overcome the Greeks: who fled to Alexandria and captured and killed the Jews in the city, but though losing the help of their townsmen, the Jews of Cyrene continued to plunder the country of Egypt and to ravage the districts in it under their leader Lukuas. The emperor sent against them Marcius Turbo with land and sea forces including cavalry. He waged war vigorously against them in many battles for a considerable time and killed many thousands of Jews, not only those of Cyrene but also those of Egypt who had rallied to Lukuas, their king.

The emperor suspected that the Jews in Mesopotamia would also attack the inhabitants and ordered Lusius Quietus to clean them out of the province. He organized a force and murdered a great multitude of the Jews there, and for this reform was appointed governor of Judea by the emperor.' (43)

Now clearly both Dio and Eusebius are talking about the same event and both of them record that the rising of the jews was animated by a hatred of gentiles that was beyond the comprehension and intellectual reference points of both authors. Dio recites the specific crimes, while Eusebius settles for summing up his distaste by referring to the 'terrible spirit' that was animating the jewish violence towards gentiles.

That all our sources agree as to the barbarity and brutality accompanying this attack on the Romans and Greeks in North Africa - under the aegis of another newly arrived jewish messianic figure - means that we cannot dismiss what Dio says as an exaggeration or Roman propaganda: precisely because we have no evidence-based reason to do so other than to fallaciously claim that it is 'self-evident'.

The problem with that, of course, is that Dio is working hard to be as neutral and objective as possible: although he does not always succeed in this. That he doesn't routinely ascribe such horrors as sawing gentiles in half, cannibalism and other war crimes to the jews or any others is actually good evidence that Dio is to be believed not dismissed in this instance.

Further we have to note the context in which this jewish revolt occurred in so far as it is within an atmosphere of apocalyptic jewish messianic violence and as such the jews involved almost certainly felt that - as they were following the messiah - they were able to do whatever they liked and release all their pent up hatred of and grievances against gentiles.

A not dissimilar comparison may be drawn to the historic jewish attacks on gentiles in and around the jewish festival of Purim: where religious jews - while drunk or in inspired by religious inspired hatred - decide to desecrate gentile places of worship, injure or kill gentiles and/or openly or privately physically attack symbols of gentile power over the jews. (44)

We know from Appian that the jews in this revolt went out of their way to deliberately destroy at least one noteworthy pagan temple - that of Nemesis outside Alexandria - (45) so thus we are able to draw a parallel between the release of jewish social restraints and normal religious scruples in this revolt and those historically accompanying the festival of Purim in Judaism. As such then we see that the jewish behaviour towards the Romans and Greeks as recorded by Dio is not only plausible, but also quite likely to have been the case.

This obviously does not throw a very positive light upon the jews.

This is something that Dio appears to consider to be self-evident and also notorious: hence his lack of comment as to the vile nature of what he has recorded. He does however make an important reference when he refers - once again - to the international dimension of the revolt in so far as it spread from North Africa to Cyprus, which again suggests that we are dealing once again with a massive conspiratorial revolt among the jews directed against gentiles.

This is confirmed by Eusebius when he points out that the Emperor Trajan evidently believed that the jews of Mesopotamia were also planning to join the revolt and based on the experience of the participation of the Mesopotamian jews in the first jewish revolt against Rome: his action to ethnically cleanse the jews from Mesopotamia is put into the light of a practical if ruthless policy decision against a serially subversive entity that could potentially rise up at any moment and present him – Trajan - with considerable military difficulties. (46)

Another piece of confirmatory evidence of this fear of a fresh jewish revolt in Palestine is Trajan's transfer of one of his commanders in the extirpation of the jews of Egypt Lucius Quietus to the post of governor of Palestine, (47) which was clearly intended to transfer a man who had experience in crushing the troublesome jews to perform a similar action in Palestine by crushing jewish dreams of independence and revolt once and for all.

Clearly then in this passage from Dio we have a strong case for arguing that the rise of anti-jewish sentiment and action in a given area is actually a function of jewish behaviour and conduct: as Trajan clearly would not have acted as he did against the jews had not they actively provoked such a brutal response and nor is it feasible to suggest that Dio is exaggerating as all our sources agree.

Therefore we have to conclude that this revolt - as recorded by Dio - is a brutal and forgotten chapter of jewish history that should be reopened as it gives us a great deal of insight into the capability of jews to do manifestly evil deeds which pointedly removes the a-historical notion of the 'eternally persecuted' jew and rather places the jewish people into the role of the agent provocateur of the historical accusations made and actions taken against them as a group.

Having dealt with the rebellion of the jews in Egypt in the reign of the Emperor Trajan and the horrific crimes the jews committed against the Romans and Greeks as well as the brutal and ruthless response by Trajan to that revolt. We can move on to the next and last of Dio's mentions of the jews in his 'Roman History', which takes us up to one of the most important moments in the jewish history: the beginning of the Diaspora.

To wit:

'At Jerusalem he [Hadrian] founded a city in place of the one which had been razed to the ground, naming it Aelia Capitolina, and on the site of the temple of the god he raised a new temple to Jupiter. This brought on a war of no slight importance nor of brief duration, for the Jews deemed it intolerable that foreign races should be settled in their city and foreign religious rites planted there. So long, indeed, as Hadrian was close by in Egypt and again in Syria, they remained quiet, save in so far as they purposely made of poor quality such weapons as they were called upon to furnish, in order that the Romans might reject them and they themselves might thus have the use of them; but when he went farther away, they openly revolted. To be sure, they did not dare try conclusions with the Romans in the open field, but they occupied the advantageous positions in the country and strengthened them with mines and walls, in order that they might have places of refuge whenever they should be hard pressed, and might meet together unobserved under ground; and they pierced these subterranean passages from above at intervals to let in air and light.

At first the Romans took no account of them. Soon, however, all Judea had been stirred up, and the Jews everywhere were showing signs of disturbance, were gathering together, and giving evidence of great hostility to the Romans, partly by secret and partly by overt acts; many outside nations, too, were joining them through eagerness for gain, and the whole earth, one might almost say, was being stirred up over the matter. Then, indeed, Hadrian sent against them his best generals. First of these was Julius Severus, who was dispatched from Britain, where he was governor, against the Jews.

Severus did not venture to attack his opponents in the open at any one point, in view of their numbers and their desperation, but by intercepting small groups, thanks to the number of his soldiers and his under-officers, and by depriving them of food and shutting them up, he was able, rather slowly, to be sure, but with comparatively little danger, to crush, exhaust and exterminate them. Very few of them in fact survived. Fifty of their most important outposts and nine hundred and eighty-five of their most famous villages were razed to the ground. Five hundred and eighty thousand men were slain in the various raids and battles, and the number of those that perished by famine, disease and fire was past finding out. Thus nearly the whole of Judea was made desolate, a result of which the people had had forewarning before the war. For the tomb of Solomon, which the Jews regard as an object of veneration, fell to pieces of itself and collapsed, and many wolves and hyenas rushed howling into their cities. Many Romans, moreover, perished in this war. Therefore Hadrian in writing to the senate did not employ the opening phrase commonly affected by the emperors, "If you and our children are in health, it is well; I and the legions are in health."' (48)

In the above passage Dio is clearly enjoying the devastation wrought by the Emperor Hadrian against the jews, which - in spite Dio's attempts to maintain intellectual neutrality - we can see in Dio's use of large amounts of otherwise unnecessary description. For example, when Dio writes of Julius Severus' operations to ethnically cleanse the jews from Judea he describes them as enabling the Romans 'to crush, exhaust and exterminate' the jews (rather like Martin Luther's exhortation to kill, smite and exterminate the rebelling peasants in the wake of the beginning of the Reformation).

It is clear then that Dio is actually both positive and supportive of Hadrian's and Severus' actions against the jews: an issue that has largely gone unnoticed and unremarked in both anti-Semitic and philo-Semtic work on his 'Roman History'.

In his narration of the events of this last jewish revolt against the Romans in Judea we find that Dio has once again adopted his two themes in regard to the jews: that they were revolting because of their religious fanaticism and also that they had once again adopted the tactics of the guerrilla against the militarily superior Romans.

Dio relates that in aftermath of the many revolts and betrayals of Rome that the jews had been involved in: the Emperor Hadrian - taking his lead from his Imperial predecessor Trajan - had decided to carry on an aggressive policy of eliminating the jewish religion totally. This found expression in the rebuilding of Jerusalem as a Roman city and the construction of a large Roman temple complex over the remains of the temple of Solomon after their destruction during the second jewish revolt led by the famous 'false messiah' Simon Bar Kochba.

The Romans had by this point grown impatient with the jews who had refused to be 'Romans when in Rome' and insisted - as they have done frequently since - on being a 'nation within a nation' while hypocritically enjoying many special privileges conferred upon them. Indeed, the jews in Rome had - as I have discussed extensively in this article - been a privileged group within the Roman Empire ever since the Emperor Augustus had granted them special rights and privileges for their perceived loyalty to his cause during his civil war with Mark Anthony and Cleopatra.

Thus, we can easily see the frustration and anger the Roman Emperors had increasingly begun to exhibit in their dealings with the jews and the Emperors were gradually more and more unwilling to compromise or merely banish the jews, but rather had begun to cast around for a - if you will - final solution to the jewish question. The second jewish revolt therefore merely provided a catalyst for these policy ideas and arguments - that were increasingly being floated at the highest level of Roman governance even in the face of 'God-fearer' and convert opposition and obstruction - to be enacted.

The policy that seemed most prudent to both Trajan and Hadrian - as Dio implies - was a more advanced version of what the Emperor Vespasian and his son Titus had tried to do. Simply put it was felt that if you could eliminate the jewish religion then you could eliminate the problem of constant rebellions, revolts and the general aloofness and arrogance of the jews.

This entailed removing the temple of Solomon - which had now acted several times as a proverbial nerve centre for jewish revolts against Rome and its attendant priests who had often been in the vanguard of advocating and then leading such revolts - and also the city of Jerusalem as the concentric spiritual centres of Judaism and thus by removing these it was felt that the religion of the jews would in time shrivel and die.

The Romans likely always envisioned that the process of undertaking this elimination of Judaism would entail some further violence (as evinced by Hadrian's presence with a large number of troops nearby that is mentioned by Dio) (49) but they evidently believed the jews militarily unable to put up much significant resistance. As such with the Romanization of Judea progressed a pace Hadrian felt that the time had come to apply himself to the many other pressing matters that he had to deal with and left with a large portion of his forces. (50)

This Roman belief that the jews were fundamentally unable to launch a significant military campaign after their near fatal losses in the second jewish revolt is also indicated by Dio in his reference to the fact that the Roman forces in Judea did not strike quickly to put down localised groups of jewish religious rebels. (51) Preferring instead to wait for the Romanization to proceed further before marching to eliminate this apparent nuisance banditry.

Dio however relates that the jews were once again conspiring to make one last throw of the dice against the gentiles and the Romanization of Judea was - in contrast to the Roman belief - radicalising most of the jews once against them as they felt that this was their last stand. (52) Their last opportunity to stop the destruction of Judaism by the gentiles: although we should once again remind ourselves that this was largely brought about because of continual jewish persecution and murder of gentiles not because of an irrational animus against the jews on the part of the Romans.

Dio relates this hatred as being founded on the jewish demand that the gentiles should not live among them and as such tacitly points out how hypocritical such behaviour was then - as now - on the part of the jews in so far as they had the run of the Empire as its citizens, but could not stomach one gentile to be on their land while they were quite happy living on gentile land. Clearly then Dio is indicating - as Diodorus did before him - (53) that the jews have a great hostility towards gentiles and as such are hateful to every nation.

This then makes sense of why the jews would undertake yet another political conspiracy against the Romans almost immediately after the failure of the second jewish revolt: they felt that they had no choice as the gentiles now were not only present - which was Dio says was intolerable to the jews to start with - but were destroying the centres and institutions of Judaism while resettling formerly jewish occupied land with gentiles. Thus, to the jews it was all or nothing: either they would conquer or they would be destroyed.

Therefore, the jews conspired to provide inferior weapons to the Roman forces which were then rejected only to then be distributed among the rebels giving the jews a way to quickly and secretly rearm and train whatever forces they had left. This conspiracy was in addition to the ongoing fortification of mines and caves - which proliferated in the hilly terrain of Judea - from which the jewish religious fanatics could then make sallies against the Romans.

It is clear however that from the start the Roman estimation of the military capacities of the jews was correct in theory but not in practice: as the jews - as Dio records - maintained a guerrilla war of 'covert' and 'overt' acts against the Romans (54) and by so doing had created a vanguard of religious fanatics who succeeded in stirring up the rest of the jews against the Roman forces garrisoning Judea as well as those gentiles who lived under their protection.

Dio at this point makes another noteworthy assertion - once again bringing this conspiratorial revolt of the jews into an international light - in so far as he asserts that:

'Soon, however, all Judea had been stirred up, and the Jews everywhere were showing signs of disturbance, were gathering together, and giving evidence of great hostility to the Romans, partly by secret and partly by overt acts; many outside nations, too, were joining them through eagerness for gain, and the whole earth, one might almost say, was being stirred up over the matter.' (55)

An overly literal reading of this passage might suggest that what Dio is referring to here is to the spread of the general spirit of revolt to other provinces bordering Judea and that his comment that the 'whole earth was being stirred up over the matter' is a reference to the scale of this spirit of revolt. However, if we consider this passage in the light of what Dio has previously stated about jews and how they have historically allied with the enemies of the Rome: then it once again throws a much more sinister but clearer light onto Dio's words.

If we remember that the jews were historic allies of Parthia then it comes as little surprise to see that the jews had once again attempted to give the Parthians a strategic gateway through the Roman defences (of which Judea was a key part). Thus, enabling the Parthians to attack into the strategically vital areas of Egypt and Syria - with Hadrian now absent - as well enabling the jews to escape the perceived destruction of their religion by the Roman Empire.

This then means that when Dio talks of the agitation of 'many outside nations' - he is referring to a potential Parthian attempt to invade the eastern Roman Empire - which makes sense of Dio's suggestion that 'the world was being stirred up over the matter' as Parthia was Rome's great rival in the East and as such it would have been a clash of two ancient superpowers. Thus, it would have indeed 'stirred up the world' and once again the jews were responsible for their own downfall and the treatment meted out them.

We may also suggest that a secondary meaning may be attached to Dio's phrase - which again can be viewed as a piece of wordplay - 'stirred up the world' whereby he may in fact be referring to the desperate attempts - and pro-jewish agitation - on the part of the 'God-fearers' and converts in Rome to stop the Romanization of Judea and also prevent the elimination of the jews.

This would also fit Dio's description in so far as we know from earlier passages that Dio was deeply concerned about the extent of power wielded by the jews in Rome and as such his reference could also be taken to doubly mean that while the Parthians were preparing a potential invasion: the Roman 'God-fearers' and converts were demanding that the Romans abandon their Romanization of Judea possibly warning that - based on past experience of such alliances - it could act as a gateway for an attack from Parthia.

We find confirmation for such a view in what Hadrian did next in so far as he dispatched one of his best generals Julius Severus with military reinforcements from Britain to Judea to deal with the re-escalating jewish problem. The use of Severus tells us that Hadrian was concerned about the possibility of a widening of the conflict as Hadrian could have easily - if there had not been a significant external dimension to this revolt - ordered his military governor in Syria to deal with the issue.

However, because Hadrian felt it necessary to keep his Syrian forces intact and fresh in the event of a Parthian invasion he sent another of his best generals with fresh troops from the other side of the Empire to take charge of the situation in Judea with the bulk of the Roman forces in Syria and Egypt ready to march for Judea should the conflict escalate as it was threatening to.

This international aspect to this third jewish revolt also explains Severus' radical strategy in dealing with the jews in so far as Hadrian had tried to enact a peaceful Romanization of Judea, but now the jews had once again allied with Parthia: there would be no mercy shown to them. As such Severus' strategy was as simple as it was effective: use the superior number and quality of his troops to eliminate these small jewish fortifications and groups piecemeal.

So rather than marching as one or several columns against the jewish strongholds: Severus used small numbers of troops - probably operating in cohorts or even centuries - to ambush or bottle up the jews whereby they either starved to death, died of thirst or were executed by the Roman soldiers. As such we can see that Severus had learned a great deal from the previous battles against the jews where the Roman over-concentration of their forces had led to them being the subject of ambushes, guerilla attacks and a scorched earth policy on the part of the jews.

Severus simply turned the tables and by using smaller units ambushed the ambushers and quickly began to destroy the jewish ability to continue to fight. However, Severus was in no mood to show mercy and he systematically - as Dio records - wiped out jewish fortifications as well as jewish settlements. In essence this third jewish revolt was the straw that broke the camel's back whereby the Romans had had enough and were determined that not only would the jewish religion be eliminated but that no jew would remain in Palestine.

As Dio records of the numbers of the jews after Severus' campaign of annihilation: 'very few of them in fact survived.' (56)

Thus Dio records what he thought was potentially more or less the end of the jews: although - we may reasonably suspect from his language at times - that Dio was aware that the jews had not disappeared and had - in spite of their loss of Palestine - rebuilt a large part of their previous following among the Roman elite as the Emperor Diocletian, for example, in 302 A.D. unleashed a fresh wave of terror against the jews in yet another arguable attempt to destroy the power of the 'God-fearers' and converts in Rome once and for all.

It is thus clear that Cassius Dio was not only an opponent of the jews, but also a man who greatly disliked them on a very personal level - ergo his borderline celebration of Severus' attempt to wipe out the jews and his treating Domitian's use of informers and treason trials against Judaizers with intellectual kid gloves - and as such should be regarded as an author in the tradition of classical anti-Judaism. He disqualifies himself from anti-Semitism by his fundamentally religious view of the jewish question - demonstrated in his professed belief that converts to Judaism were jews like any other - however Dio remains in spite of this an important and often overlooked source for those who seek to defend the West - as Dio defended Rome - from the self-serving and egocentric actions of the jews.

References

(1) Cassius Dio 37:16.5-17.4

(2) Ibid., 37:16.5-17.1

(3) Horace Sat. 1:5

(4) Ibid., 1:4

(5) Epict. Disc. 2:9

(6) Suet. Tib. 36; Claud. 25

(7) Ovid Ars Ama. 1:3

(8) Mart. Epi. 12:57

(9) Aug. Civ. Dei. 6:11

(10) Suet. Claud. 25; Cassius Dio 60:6.6

(11) Ovid Ars Ama. 1:11

(12) Cassius Dio 39:56; 48:26.1-3

(13) Ibid., 49:22.1-6

(14) Ibid., 49:22.3-6

(15) Ibid., 57:18.5; compare to Suet. Tib. 36

(16) Cassius Dio 49:22.4

(17) Ibid., 37:17.2

(18) Ibid., 65:1.4

(19) Ibid., 67:14.1-2

(20) Ibid.,  60:6.6; compare to Suet. Claud. 25

(21) Cassius Dio 37:17.1

(22) Epict. Disc. 2:9

(23) Cassius Dio 63:22.1

(24) Diod. 34

(25) Cassius Dio 65:1.3-4

(26) App. Rom. Hist. 14:90

(27) Cassius Dio 69:13.2

(28) Ibid., 65:4-7

(29) Ibid., 65:1.4

(30) Ibid., 64:4.2-3

(31) Ibid., 39:56

(32) App. Rom. Hist. 14:90

(33) Cassius Dio 65:5.4

(34) Ibid., 65:6.3

(35) Ibid., 65:7.2

(36) Ibid., 37:17.2

(37) Ibid, 67:14.1-2

(38) Ibid., 68:1.12

(39) Ibid., 65:7.2

(40) Ibid., 37:17.1

(41) Ibid., 68:32.1-3

(42) App. Rom. Hist. 24

(43) Eusb. Pamp. Ecc. Hist. 4:2.1-5

(44) On this see Elliot Horowitz, 2007, 'Reckless Rites: Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence', 1^st Edition, Princeton University Press: Princeton and Israel Jacob Yuval, 2008, 'Two Nations in Your Womb: Perceptions of Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages', 2^nd Edition, University of California Press: Berkeley.

(45) App. Rom. Hist. 14:90

(46) Eusb. Pamp. Ecc. Hist. 4:2.5

(47) Ibid.

(48) Cassius Dio 69:12-14

(49) Ibid., 69:12.2

(50) Ibid.

(51) Ibid., 69:13.1

(52) Ibid., 69:12.2

(53) Diod. 34

(54) Cassius Dio 69:13.1

(55) Ibid., 69:13.1-2

(56) Ibid., 69:13.3-14.2