![]() The only positive result of this year of chaos was to make many people regret Nero. Galba, the commander of the Spanish legions Otho, put up by the praetorian guard at Rome Vitellius, the nominee of the army of the Rhine - all in turn failed to rally enough military support to hold what they had won. For a whole year the Empire was in the throes of civil war. The same misgovernment which had provoked the Jewish revolt led in 68 to risings in the western provinces and to the downfall and suicide of Nero. The issue was for a moment in the balance during the upheavals which shook the Roman Empire in 68-69. After the Roman reconquest of Galilee in 67 (when Josephus seized his chance and ratted to the enemy) the priestly nobility were liquidated without ceremony and the high priesthood filled by lot. In such circumstances it is not surprising that the Zealots, supported by the poorer classes, made a dead set at the priests. Josephus, who was in their counsels and commanded under them in Galilee, admits that they hoped for a speedy Roman victory and were secretly preparing to surrender the country which they professed to defend. The priestly nobility were thus committed to war with Rome whether they liked it or not. Of Syria, marched on Jerusalem, but was routed with great loss of men and material. Men, women and children in the surrounding Greek cities made The single cohort leftīy Florus in Jerusalem surrendered to them on promise of quarter,īut were massacred by the Jewish rank and file. They managed toĬapture and kill a Zealot leader, a surviving son of Judas of Galilee, Movement which they could no longer prevent. The priestly nobility made desperate attempts to control the The economic roots of the movement are revealed by the fact that one of the first acts of its leaders was to burn all records of debt - " the nerves of the city ", says Josephus with natural bias. ![]() Driven to desperation, the people fought back, seized the temple, forced Florus to retire to Caesarea and made the priests discontinue the daily sacrifice for the emperor. The rich were now no longer able to control the poor. To cow opposition Florus ordered an indiscriminate massacre of the people and scourged and crucified many of them, including some wealthy Jews who happened to be Roman citizens. Since temples in addition to their religious uses served as banks, this forced the wealthier citizens to co-operate in a half-hearted fashion with the resistance. The revolt began when the procurator, Gessius Florus, raided the temple treasury to meet unpaid taxes. But in Palestine, unlike other provinces, there was a resistance party of long standing capable of leading the masses. In common with the whole Empire, Palestine had been drained dry by the misgovernment of Nero. As usual, therefore, with revolutionary movements, the historian has to hew his way through a forest of prejudice to get at the truth. We owe our only detailed accounts of it to Josephus, the rich priest and traitor, whose venom against his countrymen is exceeded only by his admiration of himself. In 66 the great Jewish revolt against Rome broke out at last. Archibald Robertson, The Origins of Christianity, International Publishers, 1954, rev.
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