War
in the East Early in the
second century, Emperor Trajan, like a latter-day Alexander,
had electrified the whole Greek world by a major campaign
against the Parthians. Elevated to the purple in 98 AD, Trajan
had already conquered Dacia (101-106) and had annexed Nabataea – an
Arab province to the east and south of Judaea – before turning
his attention to the east in 114. Trajan had several reasons
for making war in Asia: a driven ego; plans for the assimilation
of Armenia; a desire to free Rome’s Asian trade from dependence
on Persian goodwill; and avenging the ignominious defeat of Crassus
and the Syrian legions a century before. But the invasion placed
a gigantic strain on the Roman state.
From the first,
the Jews viewed the campaign with horror.
Many of their brethren were trading partners, living a prosperous existence
within the Parthian empire. One estimate of the number of Jews in Mesopotamia
at this time is one million (Cantor, The Sacred Chain, p61). Palestinian
Jews saw Rome’s protagonist as their ally, a land
of refuge – not an enemy. A success for Rome threatened financial
ruin to Jewish merchants (and Arab exporters) who, as middlemen,
controlled Rome’s ‘international’ trade with India and
the mysterious Land of Silk. And many Jews, despite the destruction of
the temple, clung to the old hope for a warrior-messiah, destined to
liberate Jews from Rome. An extension of Roman dominions was not what
they had in mind, quite the reverse: Rome’s pre-occupation on the
eastern front became a new opportunity for rebellion.
Hadrian
Confronted by the Jews
In the period
before the campaign, Trajan had posted his old tutor, Pliny the
Younger, to the governorship of Bithynia and Pontus (northern
Turkey), a strategically important province. From here Pliny
sent letters complaining of the ‘stubborn and obstinate’ Christ-followers
(almost certainly Jews) who threatened public order with their ‘morbid
superstition.’ Perceiving no threat, Trajan famously
urged a lenient approach.
But further
south, the threat from the Jews and their sects was seen differently. Hadrian,
a member of Trajan’s entourage
for twenty years, was posted to Antioch as the Syrian governor
and military legate. His task: to organise and equip the army for
the impending Asian war. To meet the huge expense, Hadrian raised
new taxes on the eastern cities and levied landowners for the cost
of troops passing through their estates. Though acceptable to the
Greeks – the war was for Helles civilization after all– the taxes
incensed the already seething Jews. In this racially mixed
city, Hadrian saw at first hand the resistance the Jews maintained
against the Majesty of Rome and he was no friend of Jewish troublemakers.
The profound
consequences of this confrontation of the most pro-Hellenic of
men with Jewish fanatics no one could possibly have imagined.
Parthia, fully aware of the impending assault, sent her agents
across the frontier with funds for her most reliable fifth columnists:
the Jewish Zealots.
As Trajan
swept south with his army from Armenia, the Jews broke into
open rebellion throughout the eastern empire.
Rebellion & Suppression
The years 115-117,
found Rome facing enemies across an immense field of battle.
The Persians, in alliance with the Armenians, counter-attacked,
and everywhere from newly conquered Mesopotamia to Egypt, Rome
was forced to divert troops to suppressing revolt by the Jews.
A Jewish messiah, ‘King
Lukuas’ was proclaimed at Cyrene (in modern Libya).
Judaea was convulsed by a widespread uprising and the grain
supply from Egypt to the front was interrupted by rebels. In
Cyprus, rebels forced Greek and Roman citizens to fight each
other in gladiatorial combat. Hadrian was assigned the task
of pacifying the islands and adjacent provinces.
As a man haunted
by religion he made offerings to the gods, consulted oracles – and summoned
Persian Magi, ‘wise men from the East !’
Within eighteen
months Hadrian had re-established order in Syria and Cyprus.
Trajan’s leading general, Lusius Quietus, suppressed Judaea
and Cyrene. After an unsuccessful siege of Hatra in the heart
of the desert, which cost many thousands of Roman lives, Trajan
himself successfully pressed on with the war, capturing the Parthian
capital of Ctesiphon in 116 and reaching the Persian Gulf
itself. In the words of Edward Gibbon, Trajan ‘enjoyed
the honour of being the first, as he was the last, of the Roman
generals, who ever navigated that remote sea.’
The Roman conquest
of Mesopotamia brought nearly all Jews under Roman
dominion for the first time. But in August of 117 the conquering
hero Trajan died while returning from the front. His energetic and brilliant
successor – Hadrian – in command of the legions of Syria,
was proclaimed emperor in Antioch. Hadrian inherited the throne
of the largest empire the world had seen. He was greeted by his favoured
Hellenes as ‘restorer and enricher of the world’ and
by the Jews with apprehension.
More realistic
than his predecessor, he consolidated rather than extended the
frontiers and immediately abandoned the province of Mesopotamia.
One of his first acts as emperor in 118 was to promote the
pacifier of the Jews of Egypt, Quintus Marcus Turbo, to the key
governorship of Pannonia and Dacia.
What
happened to Egyptian Jewry after 118 AD ?
"The crushing
of this widespread Jewish sedition marked the demise of
that flourishing Jewish centre for centuries to come ...
a bloodbath
of immense proportions did indeed occur."
– Oded Irshai (The Illustrated History of the
Jewish People, p61)
Decimated by
Roman troops deployed in the Jewish quarters, with their urban
and religious organisation shattered, remnants of Egyptian Jewry metamorphosed
into embryonic Christians ('... in the eyes of the local
Greeks, Christianity was just another brand of Judaism.' – Irshai).
Notable among
them was a young man – he would have been
about eighteen at the time of the insurrection – studying
in the very city of Alexandria and witness to the carnage: Valentinus. Another
was Basilides.
Following
in the tradition of synthesis and syncretism of long-standing
in Alexandria (e.g. Philo a generation earlier), these 'proto-Christian
theorists', Valentinus and Basilides competed
against each other, had their own cult followings, and produced
their own 'gospels'. And then ...
It is intriguing
to note that two proto-Christian theoreticians Ignatius and Saturninus had
been in Antioch at the same time as Hadrian. And lo! and behold,
a revised gospel was to subsequently appear:
Hadrian's original
choice of successor was Lucius Commodus, the pacifier of Judea,
though in the event, Lucius died before Hadrian.
Hadrian moved
his court to Alexandria. The Jews of Jerusalem sent a delegation
to him, led by the aged priest Akiba, but to little avail. Hadrian despised
the Jews for their insularity and arrogant claims for a single
concept of the divine. Their treachery had hardened his contempt.
For twenty years there would be hostility between the enlightened
Roman monarch and the zealots of Jehovah – with consequences
beyond imagination.
Copyright © 2004
by Kenneth Humphreys.
Copying is freely permitted, provided credit is given to the author
and no material herein is sold for profit.
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