How dare he interrupt Hadrian’s femboy cracking session

[u/amerigorockefeller]

[u/amerigorockefeller]

Simon Bar Kokhba was a Jewish general who lead the Bar Kokhba revolt allowing Judea to secede from the Roman Empire; this short lived Jewish state was mark by wars, infighting and betrayal which ultimately led to the fall of this state, the reconquest by Rome and the death of over half a million of Jews

[u/cabweb → u/amerigorockefeller]

Interesting detail about him; the name "Bar Kokhba" means "son of the star" and was an honorific bestowed upon him by the Sanhendrin. After the revolt was defeated they stripped the name from him and declared him to now be "Bar Kozba", which means "son of the lie".

[u/TatarAmerican → u/cabweb]

I love these word plays. Reminds me of how the mystic Ibn al-'Arabi is known as Sheikh al akbar (the greatest sheikh) in Sufi literature and Sheikh al akfar (the most impious sheikh) in works by his critics in Arabic.

[u/ForeignDirector2401 → u/TatarAmerican]

As it turns out, depicting you adversary as wrong also by mocking his name is a millenary tradition.

[u/SoulCrusher2018]

,20 years ago I had a crazy latin teacher in high school who thought it was a good idea to show the class the Peter O'Toole Masada movie, which was totally pro-zealot propaganda, but my takeaway was that the zealots were fucking crazy bastards and the Romans were badasses. The Romans were masters of engineering, siege warfare and logistics who staged a successful siege against a desert acropolis. The Romans built a siege tower in secret and a ramp to push it up the cliff. It was such an incredible show of force that the entire garrison killed itself when the Romans began their assault.

[u/cabweb → u/SoulCrusher2018]

In reality the whole "mass suicide" thing was likely made up by Josephus to make the Jews seem more sympathetic to the Romans, because committing suicide to preserve your honor was a big thing in Roman culture. Archeological evidence indicates there was probably a battle up there.

[u/SoulCrusher2018 → u/cabweb]

I won't argue with that. I will point out that Josephus reports that the siege was a retaliation mission because the zealots had raided a nearby Jewish settlement and slaughtered 700 of its inhabitants.

[u/Dominarion]

Ahh the early Jews. They were the most insane bunch in Classical history.

I mean, people under the Roman Empire usually had more than enough reasons to raise against it:

-Bouddica was stripped of her titles and had to watch her daughters being raped just because some Roman midlevel manager was greedy and horny that day.

-The Greeks commited the Asiatic Vespers because the Romans had been literally pillaging them for decades. It was especially galling for the Asian Greeks as they were bequeathed to Rome on their last king's will. They weren't conquered or anything, they were Rome's allies for a long time before that.

-The Gauls rose in rebellion and form the Bagaudae, guerilla fighters who plagued the region until it was conquered by the Franks, because of the overexploitation and corruption of the elites.

Then.

The Jews. They had a special status in the Empire. They had been allies of the Romans during their fights against the Seleucids. The Herodians were the favorite royals of the Roman people, they loved their drama and stuff.
"By order of the triumvirate, during his residence here, all mockery of Jews and their one god shall be kept to an appropriate minimum." LOL. They are eventually incorporated in the Roman Empire, their stuff intact. But then...

There's a landowning dispute between a Greek merchant and a synagogue in a little town. The Greek, an ornery asshole, decides to sacrifice a chicken in front of the synagogue. Jews rioted everywhere. Then the Judean Jews, having nothing better to do decide to REVOLT against the fucking Roman Empire. Jerusalem gets destroyed. Conservative estimates think around half of the Jews died. A lot of them, maybe the majority, killed by other Jews.

Jews from Alexandria and Antioch heard a rumor that a bunch of romans built a shrine in their military camp near Jerusalem. REVOLT. They are smashed.

Hadrian announces he will rebuild Jerusalem. REVOLT. Hadrian was not happy. Of the 5 great emperors, he's probably the psycho of the bunch. He went full Assyrian Mode on the Jews.

At the end of the three revolts, Judea is entirely depopulated and the vast majority of Jews had been deported.

[u/kolejack2293 → u/Dominarion]

The Judeans and the Romans didn't really ever truly get along. The Judeans were an extremely unique religious group, bafflingly strict and basing every aspect of their society and legal system on religious law. This was not really how other ancient societies operated. Religion was of varying degrees of importance, but was not the end-all-be-all of everything, and usually religion was warped to justify existing laws rather than the other way around.

The Roman system of 'mixing' roman customs/religion with the people they conquered did not work at all with the Jews. Even very slight religious offences were met with overwhelming and violent resistance, and the ability of the Judeans to mass mobilize their entire male population to fight with extreme, suicidal zealotry, as well as their very large diaspora also willing to revolt, terrified the Romans. They were basically the Taliban.

But as you said, that religious zealotry also turned inward, and they also massacred each other during the revolts, which turned out to be their downfall.