The Ancient History of Israel and the Holy Land - Historian Barry Strauss
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 23 minutes
Words per Minute
163.28374
Hate Speech Sentences
129
Summary
In the wake of the 7/11 attacks, anti-Semitism has reemerged as a major issue in American culture, and with it, so has the question: How did Jews come to be in the land of Judea? This week, we talk to Baris Strauss, a leading historian and author of the new book Jews vs. Rome: The Ancient History of the Jews in the Holy Land, about the history of the Jewish people in Judea and the Roman Empire.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
When you let aero truffle bubbles melt, everything takes on a creamy, delicious, chocolatey glow.
00:00:19.300
Getting ready for a game means being ready for anything.
00:00:25.780
That's why I remember 988, Canada's Suicide Crisis Helpline.
00:00:31.880
Anyone can call or text for free confidential support from a trained responder, anytime.
00:00:37.260
988 Suicide Crisis Helpline is funded by the government in Canada.
00:00:48.480
Now, Jews are indigenous to the land of Israel, but they're not the only people there.
00:00:53.440
This is the independent state that finds itself in a civil war.
00:00:57.560
They hate each other, and they turn to the Romans, who have just conquered Syria in the year 63 B.C.
00:01:04.780
Herod, with the help of the Romans, conquers Jerusalem and is established as king of Judea.
00:01:10.300
When Herod dies, this is the signal for a Jewish rebellion against Rome.
00:01:15.160
I imagine, once you've slaughtered the Roman garrison, forgive my French, you're kind of f***ed, right?
00:01:22.460
Is there anything at all from the ancient history of this land that might be worth people knowing in relation to today's ongoing conflict?
00:01:38.000
We know our audience, and every so often something comes along that we think you'll genuinely want to see.
00:01:43.980
October 8th is a documentary you can watch today on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, or YouTube Premium.
00:01:49.320
It looks at the explosion of anti-Semitism on college campuses and across social media in the aftermath of the October 7th attacks,
00:01:56.900
and examines how extremist networks and foreign actors have shaped narratives inside American institutions and public discourse.
00:02:04.440
Featuring interviews with prominent voices from politics, media, and culture,
00:02:08.500
it asks serious questions about how we got here and what it means for the future.
00:02:12.980
If you care about what's happening in our culture right now, this film is worth your time.
00:02:26.740
Great to have you back on the show. You're one of our absolute favourite historians we talk to.
00:02:31.320
Our last episode on the Roman Empire absolutely crushed it, as you know.
00:02:36.560
And I don't know if you noticed, Israel's been in the news a little bit.
00:02:40.220
Yeah. And it just so happens that your latest book is called Jews vs. Rome.
00:02:45.620
So we thought the ancient history of what has since become the Holy Land would be an amazing conversation.
00:02:54.220
So talk to us about that part of the world, and also Jews.
00:03:05.900
So, you know, the earliest evidence we have of Jews, or rather of Israel, comes from around the year 1210 BCE, or BC, either one is okay.
00:03:16.900
And it's an Egyptian stele that talks about the defeat of Israel.
00:03:25.200
So let me just preface this by saying, I'm going to talk as a secular historian, and nothing that I say should shake anyone's faith or be meant to challenge anyone's faith.
00:03:37.260
But from a secular point of view, we have this early evidence of Israel at the end of the Bronze Age.
00:03:51.140
And then jumping ahead a few centuries to the 9th century BC, we have some additional references to Israel from inscriptions, from one called Moab, so what's now Jordan.
00:04:07.720
And on one reading, not all scholars would read it this way.
00:04:16.320
Then, as we go ahead in time, we have lots of archaeological evidence.
00:04:21.660
We have names that refer to names that appear in the Bible.
00:04:25.720
We have letters that come from around the beginning of the 6th century BC, so the early 500s, that are clearly referring to Jews.
00:04:36.000
They talk about the God of the Jews, the God who sometimes referred to in English as Jehovah, Y-H-W-H.
00:04:48.300
There's lots of evidence of their being there, lots of evidence of their being there in the land of Israel.
00:04:52.980
As we move on in time, and as we get to the period that I wrote about, which is the 1st century BC and the 1st two centuries CE or AD, an absolute abundance of evidence for their presence there.
00:05:09.320
And for the presence of Jews, not just in ancient Israel, but also in the diaspora.
00:05:15.460
So, in various parts of the Roman Empire, mostly the Eastern Roman Empire, so Egypt, Libya, Cyprus, Syria, Turkey, Greece, and then further east in what's now Iraq, ancient Mesopotamia, large Jewish settlements as well there.
00:05:35.540
And the land of Israel, is it roughly around where Israel is today?
00:05:40.480
It is roughly, so if we're going to look at the map of Israel at the time of King Herod in the 1st century BC, it would include all of what is now central and most of northern Israel and the West Bank as well, Judea and Samaria.
00:05:56.520
But it would also include part of Syria and Lebanon and part of Western Jordan.
00:06:03.440
It would not include the Negev Desert, so it would end around where Beersheba is, so in south-central Israel.
00:06:11.380
And so, the period in which you talk about in the book, this land, is it called Judea at this point?
00:06:26.000
So, a really important event is the Maccabean Revolt, so in the year 167.
00:06:30.820
So, Judea, it was, if we go back to the 6th century BC, so we have the Neo-Babylonians conquering Judea, destroying Jerusalem and the Temple, and deporting the elite to southern Iraq, the so-called Babylon, the famous Babylonian captivity.
00:06:49.100
And then, in the year 539, that empire is conquered by Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, and he liberates the Jews and allows them to go back to Judea and reestablish Jerusalem and the Temple.
00:07:03.720
Some of them do, many of them stay in Babylon, where they're living quite well, and so we have these two communities.
00:07:11.440
Judea is a Persian province for about 200 years.
00:07:14.420
Then, it's conquered by Alexander the Great, and it comes under Greco-Macedonian rule.
00:07:18.720
And it goes back and forth between the Seleucids, the dynasty ruling Syria, and the Ptolemies, the dynasty ruling Egypt, both Greek-speaking dynasties.
00:07:28.380
Then, in the year 167, there is a revolt by the family of the Maccabees, and they're successful in winning their independence from what is now the decaying Seleucid Syrian Empire.
00:07:44.040
And by the year 140, they are autonomous, and by around the year 120, they are an independent state.
00:07:51.500
This is really big and important, because it's the first independent Jewish state in centuries.
00:07:57.480
There had been a kingdom of Israel and a kingdom of Judah earlier in the Iron Age, but now we've got this reestablished independent Jewish state.
00:08:06.480
Very important because this, as far as we can tell, this is really the period when they established the Torah as the law of the land that will affect, that will be in effect for everyone who lives there.
00:08:20.420
And they extend the area that they control, they conquer people who are converted either voluntarily or involuntarily to Judaism.
00:08:30.900
So Judaism becomes more of a thing, more of an established thing.
00:08:39.020
This is the independent state that finds itself in a civil war.
00:08:45.380
There are two claimants to the throne in the middle of the first century B.C.
00:08:51.000
They hate each other, and they turn to the Romans, who have just conquered Syria in the year 63 B.C.
00:08:57.360
It's Pompey, Pompey the Great, Caesar's great rival to be.
00:09:02.000
And they say, choose one of us to be the ruler.
00:09:06.860
Also, there's a report that a third group of Jews go to Pompey and say, we hate them both.
00:09:12.560
Please choose a committee of Jews to run the place under Roman supervision.
00:09:19.940
He goes for one of the two brothers, and he then invades Judea and is invited into Jerusalem and lays siege to the temple.
00:09:32.520
He takes the temple, enters the Holy of Holies to the horror of the people there.
00:09:37.640
Judea, he swears that he didn't take anything with him, no souvenirs, didn't touch any of the gold or silver there.
00:09:44.760
And he punishes Judea by decreasing it in size and demoting the king to what is called a tetrarch.
00:09:55.140
And Judea is now under the thumb of Rome, but not for long, because the losing side looks to Iran.
00:10:04.920
So there's a series of ancient Iranian empires.
00:10:07.500
And you can stop me at any point, because I can...
00:10:16.460
Now there's one that has replaced the first one.
00:10:22.060
There's still a large Jewish community living in Parthia.
00:10:26.720
There are many connections, constantly people going back and forth between Parthia and Judea.
00:10:33.960
And so the people who've lost out to the Romans are looking for help from Parthia.
00:10:41.340
This is after the assassination of Julius Caesar, 44 BC.
00:10:47.600
And a Parthian prince now invades the Roman Empire.
00:10:51.240
He conquers Syria, part of southern Asia Minor, and also conquers Judea, and puts the representative
00:10:59.360
of the other faction in the dynasty on the throne, and now makes Judea a Parthian province,
00:11:11.920
A representative of the Roman faction in Judea now makes his way to Rome and convinces the
00:11:21.260
This is the time of the dispute, which becomes a civil war between Mark Antony and Octavian,
00:11:30.220
The one thing they agree on is they're going to choose this Jew and make him king of Judea,
00:11:42.400
And his name, I think you will know, his name is Herod.
00:11:45.600
He's a young guy, very ambitious, very talented, both politically and militarily.
00:11:52.220
And he makes his way back to Judea and then devotes himself to conquering it for himself
00:12:01.560
The Romans intervene, they defeat the Parthian prince.
00:12:05.000
Actually, they behead him in a battle and they ship his head around to various places
00:12:13.360
And finally, Herod, with the help of the Romans, conquers Jerusalem and is established as king
00:12:25.640
Now, in the book, you paint a very, you describe Herod wonderfully.
00:12:37.800
So let's delve into it because he's a huge figure in both in history and in religion.
00:12:48.020
One of the things that Christians and Jews agree about is they both hate Herod.
00:12:52.460
And he's reviled in the New Testament, but also in the Talmud.
00:13:19.200
Luckily for Herod, he's not there because Cleopatra hates him.
00:13:24.500
She gives him a task kind of beneath his dignity while the Battle of Actium is fought.
00:13:33.700
And when the victor, Octavian Caesar, comes to the Near East and he comes to Judea, even
00:13:41.020
before he comes to Judea, when he's on a Greek island, Herod goes there, hat in hand, so to
00:13:46.660
speak, sackcloth and ashes, throws himself at Octavian's mercy.
00:13:52.800
And he says, yeah, I was Mark Antony's best friend.
00:14:00.400
You want somebody to defend Rome's interests in the East, I'm your man.
00:14:06.140
And now Herod, as king, wants to indicate that he's the guy who can really help Rome in the
00:14:14.220
And Octavian, who becomes the Emperor Augustus, he buys it.
00:14:27.920
He's going to rebuild it as a place that's friendly to Rome as well as to the Jews.
00:14:32.520
And he does it by creating a new city, a port city, Caesarea by the Sea, Caesarea Maritima.
00:14:49.860
He has his engineers build an artificial harbor, which is quite impressive and remarkable.
00:14:55.500
But also the centerpiece of the city is a temple to Augustus.
00:15:00.040
And it's got a hippodrome, which is also going to be used for gladiatorial games, the Actian
00:15:10.400
There are Jews living there, but it is mostly a pagan city.
00:15:16.100
It's near the modern-day city of Nablus on the west bank in Samaria.
00:15:20.900
It's called Sebaste, which means Augusta in Greek, also a pagan city to Augustus.
00:15:26.540
Finally, on the road to Damascus, he builds a spectacular temple whose ruins you can see
00:15:37.480
In Jerusalem, he'd love to build a temple to Augustus, but he knows he can't do that.
00:15:46.480
He's a Jew descended from one of the groups who was conquered by the Maccabean kings and
00:16:02.520
And his most famous building thing is the temple.
00:16:05.280
He rebuilds the temple, which was not so spectacular when it was re-erected by the refugees who came
00:16:15.140
He builds it to be one of the greatest, if not the greatest and most spectacular religious
00:16:21.700
And part of the foundation wall for the temple still stands.
00:16:25.040
It's the famous Western Wall or Wailing Wall in Jerusalem.
00:16:28.040
And actually, it's bigger than that, but that's the part that's most famous and venerated
00:16:33.060
Barry, can I do what I do best, which is ask an uber-stupid question?
00:16:37.240
What is the significance of the temple beyond its religious function?
00:16:41.660
Why is it such a, to this day, a point of great importance and contention?
00:16:46.600
So the temple for the Jews is the house of God.
00:16:49.740
It's the house where God comes down to earth and where people can talk to him.
00:16:56.400
For a Jew in the ancient world, you know, a pilgrimage to the temple is as important
00:17:01.940
as a pilgrimage, as the Hajj is today for a Muslim.
00:17:05.100
So going to Jerusalem and going to the temple is as important as going to, as important as
00:17:11.280
And according to the Torah, according to the Jewish law, if you have sins that you need
00:17:17.760
to atone for, you go to the temple and make a sacrifice.
00:17:21.740
If you're a wealthy man, it will be, or a woman, because women can do this too, it will
00:17:30.620
But if you're a poor person, it's going to be a dove or a pigeon is what you would
00:17:35.960
And there are three great pilgrimage festivals in the year.
00:17:42.500
Passover in the spring, Shavuot, weeks, Pentecost.
00:17:49.820
And then Sukkot, which literally means booths, uh, in the fall.
00:17:54.640
It's a harvest festival, but also commemorating the exodus in which the Trojan of Israel lived
00:18:00.960
So you, um, uh, the equivalent of the Hajj would be going to Jerusalem for one of these
00:18:10.440
Going to the temple is, uh, not a simple thing.
00:18:13.240
You would first purify yourself, um, at the pool of Siloam, uh, which is physically in
00:18:20.760
And then you would take the pilgrim road up to the temple and there would be singing.
00:18:26.480
Uh, there would be priests who would chant psalms and prayers.
00:18:29.720
And, uh, the temple that, uh, Herod built was quite spectacular.
00:18:34.140
And there are various ways, various levels or stages of getting into it.
00:18:42.680
Going into this year, I told myself I was finally going to stop guessing about my health.
00:18:47.380
Like most people, I want more energy, better focus, and to be still strong and sharp years
00:18:52.640
But every time I've gone to the doctor, I walk out with basically nothing.
00:19:05.100
Superpower makes it simple to actually understand what's going on inside your body.
00:19:09.540
You do one blood draw, either at home or in a nearby lab, and they analyze over a hundred
00:19:15.460
That's heart health, hormones, metabolism, vitamins, minerals, and even environmental toxins.
00:19:20.500
What I love is that you don't just get numbers.
00:19:22.500
You get a personalized action plan, supplements, nutrition guidance, lifestyle changes, and even
00:19:27.800
your true biological age that you can track over time.
00:19:31.700
Price-wise, this is a no-brainer compared to the alternatives.
00:19:38.340
Right now, it's $199, while other testing services charge $500, $1,000, sometimes more
00:19:49.740
Superpower is just $199, and for a limited time, you can get an additional $20 off with
00:19:55.700
Head to superpower.com and use code TRIGGER at checkout for $20 off your membership.
00:20:01.740
After you sign up, they'll ask you how you heard about them.
00:20:04.140
So, make sure to mention Trigonometry to support the show.
00:20:07.440
Once again, head to superpower.com and use our code TRIGGER at checkout.
00:20:12.880
And the act of building this grand temple is part of Herod's assertion of his power, attempt
00:20:22.400
Yes, but it's all absolutely, but it's a way to cement his relationship with the Jews.
00:20:28.540
So, for the Romans, he's built temples to Augustus.
00:20:32.620
To the Jews, he has rebuilt the temple in the most spectacular way.
00:20:36.320
And the Talmud, which was written several centuries later, and which is very anti-Herod, says,
00:20:42.920
if you never saw Herod's temple, you never saw a beautiful building.
00:20:46.320
There are many descriptions of how quite spectacular it was and how Jews from around the world would
00:20:52.260
donate to the temple gold and silver doors and various ornaments, et cetera, and so forth.
00:20:59.500
So, and Herod makes Jerusalem, brings its greatest period of prosperity until the 20th century.
00:21:07.840
It's never as prosperous or as important a city again.
00:21:11.740
And that's so fascinating because you have this ruler who is a Jew, who built this incredible
00:21:17.940
temple, which is still revered to this day, or a part of it is, made it as wealthy as it
00:21:25.940
has been and for a significant period of time as it will ever be.
00:21:36.500
Okay, he's loathed and despised for a variety of reasons.
00:21:38.640
For one reason, if you are a pious Jew, you think that Judea, the land of Israel, is the
00:21:43.880
holy land, and he's desecrating it by building pagan temples to other gods because there's
00:21:51.420
And he's also doing things that a pious Jew would abominate, like having gladiatorial games,
00:21:58.460
killing other human beings, killing animals, which is part of their games as well, killing
00:22:08.640
All of that is absolutely anathema to a pious Jew.
00:22:14.880
But he's also a tyrant who, he kills Jewish sages.
00:22:23.740
One of the things that he does is he puts an eagle up on the entranceway to the temple.
00:22:28.420
And late in his reign, a group of students, I call them Torah students, they rappel up
00:22:38.760
the temple wall and try to take the eagle down.
00:22:42.020
They're arrested, and Herod has them and their teachers executed.
00:22:53.640
He has his three most talented sons executed because he feels they're a threat to his rule,
00:23:00.780
So, and when he's dying, one of his last commands is that he wants the elite of Judea, the religious
00:23:12.960
Fortunately, after his death, that command is not carried out.
00:23:18.560
And he builds forts all around Judea, strongholds.
00:23:25.000
Places for him to take refuge in when the population rises up against him.
00:23:31.240
So for all those reasons, he's reviled, a tyrannical figure.
00:23:36.060
And it's really interesting in the book, because you say when he's dying, he has this horrible
00:23:43.800
And practically everybody in the population goes, yeah, he deserved that.
00:23:50.080
Well, you know, I think that in some ways he can be compared to Stalin.
00:23:53.580
I mean, he is an incredibly talented politician, a builder in some ways, the guy who saves
00:24:04.100
And I think that there certainly were people in Judea who liked Herod, but there are many
00:24:11.780
The other thing about Herod, and it needs to be said, is that Judea was a very complicated
00:24:16.660
Now, Jews are indigenous to the land of Israel, but they're not the only people there.
00:24:23.300
So first of all, there are Greek speakers in this period.
00:24:27.040
There are a series of cities in Judea outside of Jerusalem, and many, if not most of them,
00:24:34.780
Some of these are colonists who came when the Macedonians and Greeks conquered the place.
00:24:39.460
Some of them are Syrians who have moved south into the city.
00:24:43.280
Some of them are native Canaanites who were not Jewish and who adopted Greek.
00:24:52.220
There's also the Samaritans who live in Samaria.
00:24:56.220
They follow the Torah, but they do not recognize the supremacy of Jerusalem.
00:25:04.580
They have their own temple on Mount Gerizim outside of Nablus.
00:25:09.320
There are also small groups of Arabs in the north and in the south.
00:25:13.380
And finally, there are the Idumeans who live in what's now central southern Israel.
00:25:18.380
They've converted to Judaism, but they're also a somewhat separate ethnic group.
00:25:27.380
And there are many Jews who don't like the fact that Herod makes deals with all these people.
00:25:32.980
And he wants to be their king as well as the king of the Jews.
00:25:36.440
So there are all sorts of reasons why people don't like him.
00:25:40.600
And is there also an element of him being seen as a foreign stooge?
00:25:44.080
Yes, both because of his relationship with Rome and because he's half Idumean and half Arab.
00:25:51.580
So just as Stalin was seen as a Georgian and not really a Russian by people who don't like him,
00:25:57.180
so Herod is seen as a foreigner by people who don't like him.
00:26:00.280
And it's really interesting because we're talking about this man who was a fantastic politician.
00:26:09.560
Yet when it comes to possibly the most important decision of any leader's career,
00:26:21.540
And, you know, his fear of his own sons is the undoing of his dynasty.
00:26:27.480
Because after he goes, he is replaced by a troika, three of his sons.
00:26:34.860
Augustus isn't really all that impressed by any of them.
00:26:38.560
One rules over the central part of the kingdom, the main part of the kingdom.
00:26:45.800
And another rules over part of the Golan and parts that are in Lebanon and Syria.
00:26:51.840
So the kingdom is divided up among the three of them.
00:26:55.620
And the one, and immediately when Herod dies, this is the signal for a Jewish rebellion against Rome.
00:27:02.420
And they're very unimpressed by the main son, who's going to replace him.
00:27:07.520
And the governor of Syria, who is young, vigorous, very good soldier,
00:27:13.560
immediately comes down to Judea and suppresses the rebellion quite brutally,
00:27:17.760
ending up the last act as he crucifies 2,000 people around the walls of Jerusalem.
00:27:26.380
But Augustus gets the picture that the guy who he's appointed to replace Herod just isn't all that impressive.
00:27:37.660
You're out and sends him to exile in the south of France.
00:27:41.220
Not too bad, but not like being the ruler of Judea.
00:27:45.740
And now Judea, the main part of it, becomes a Roman province in the year 6,
00:27:51.360
which is a signal for another revolt, which is also repressed quite handily.
00:27:56.580
And I think it's worth mentioning at this point,
00:27:59.820
because one of the things that I read in the book actually was how this society,
00:28:05.880
so the Jewish society, the elites weren't the military.
00:28:09.780
They weren't people you would normally associate with being the people making the decisions.
00:28:17.840
So, I mean, there are Jews who are in the military.
00:28:20.780
Herod has an army which consists of many different peoples,
00:28:28.200
But this is a society that's quite different than some of the societies that the Romans conquer.
00:28:34.780
they conquer people who are pretty similar to them in their religion,
00:28:37.940
in their militarism, in their desire to build public buildings,
00:28:44.180
and to hold public office and succeed in that way.
00:28:48.660
I mean, this is a society in which exactly, as you say, Francis,
00:28:52.240
there are, there are, it's a priestly society that has a different attitude towards what they want to get ahead.
00:28:59.820
Now, that being said, there are Jews who assimilate,
00:29:03.100
and there are Jews who want to be like the Romans, succeed in Roman society.
00:29:07.660
There's still two Jewish rulers in the northern part of the country.
00:29:18.960
So, and many of the wealthy are quite content to work with Rome.
00:29:34.240
Eventually, Rome goes, let's not do any of this.
00:29:49.240
I think you're referring to the mission of Jesus Christ.
00:29:52.580
So, Jesus, we think, was born in the year 4 BC, the last year of Herod's rule.
00:29:59.880
And we think his mission comes to a culmination around the year 30 AD.
00:30:15.560
and the golden age of messianism in Jewish culture.
00:30:19.100
That is, by apocalypse, the idea that the world as we know it is going to come to an end
00:30:26.260
and that an age of redemption is going to begin and that the kingdom of God is going to begin.
00:30:36.420
Well, it means, first of all, that the house of David will be restored
00:30:39.840
and that a descendant of King David will become the King Messiah, and that he will bring in redemption,
00:30:48.180
that God will rule, that everyone will recognize the rule, the validity of the one God,
00:30:54.800
that the Jewish people will be free and independent and able to practice their religion
00:31:04.540
And there are various figures who claim to be the Messiah.
00:31:09.780
Now, the Messiah was thought to be a human being, a descendant of the house of David,
00:31:15.900
not a godly, not a figure who is more than human, not a divine figure,
00:31:20.920
certainly of divine inspiration, but a human being.
00:31:24.340
And there are many people who believe this at the time.
00:31:30.020
Jesus is, in some ways, very similar to these figures.
00:31:33.740
I mean, he is someone who says that the kingdom of God is at hand,
00:31:38.320
that the redemption is at hand, and he is going to usher it in.
00:31:44.200
But unlike some of these figures, he is not an advocate of armed rebellion against Rome.
00:31:51.600
He is an advocate of spiritual resistance, spiritual rebellion, if you will.
00:31:59.560
Jesus is like and different than other figures from this period.
00:32:04.240
So, one thing about the Jews, the Jews in the first century of our era
00:32:11.600
but in other ways, they're just like modern Jews.
00:32:14.020
And one of the things about them is that they dispute with each other.
00:32:20.520
And there's already been, for well over a century, there's been a group of Jews who said,
00:32:26.020
we don't recognize the legitimacy of the ruling dynasty, the descendants of the Maccabees,
00:32:36.920
And they moved to the desert, to a place called Qumran, which is in the Judean desert near the Dead Sea.
00:32:49.080
And they're the people who've left us the Dead Sea Scrolls, these fantastic documents
00:32:54.840
that open a window into Jewish sectarian belief in this period.
00:33:04.340
And Jesus and his followers, like those people,
00:33:07.580
have real problems with the temple in Jerusalem and what's going on there.
00:33:12.820
Jesus preaches that your sins can be forgiven by following him.
00:33:18.900
You don't have to sacrifice at the temple anymore.
00:33:21.760
And that the temple will be destroyed and rebuilt in the time of the redemption.
00:33:29.200
These are heretical doctrines from the point of view of the priests.
00:33:34.700
And Jesus also, after his mission in the Galilee,
00:33:38.700
well, his mission in the Galilee, Jesus is Galilean.
00:33:40.820
He comes from Nazareth, though he may have been born in Bethlehem.
00:33:47.100
He gets in trouble with the king who rules, the prince who rules the Galilee.
00:33:52.120
But he goes to Jerusalem, famously, the culmination of his mission.
00:34:05.820
And it's traditional time for rebels to show themselves.
00:34:09.020
It's when the Romans have extra troops in Jerusalem because they're expecting trouble.
00:34:13.680
And from their point of view and from the point of view of the high priest,
00:34:18.540
And that, of course, leads to the trial and to the crucifixion.
00:34:30.340
And afterwards, Jesus' followers, heartbroken, regroup and decide, well, what does this mean?
00:34:38.500
We thought that Jesus was the Messiah and was going to bring in the kingdom of God.
00:34:46.320
And they believe that Jesus comes back and speaks to them and sets them on a mission to continue his mission.
00:34:52.520
So, it's the beginning of what becomes Christianity.
00:34:56.300
In the earlier period, scholars would refer to them as followers of Christ or followers of Jesus.
00:35:01.040
Jesus, in the beginning, they thought of themselves as Jews.
00:35:11.460
But you mentioned this thing about Jews being similar to the way some are now.
00:35:16.460
You know, this thing, three Jews, five opinions, that kind of thing.
00:35:19.580
The rebellious nature of that area and that province, was that because everybody was constantly trying to free themselves of the shackles of Rome or other major powers in the region?
00:35:32.620
Or is this group of people very particularly rebellious?
00:35:37.320
First of all, there are lots of rebellious groups in the Roman Empire.
00:35:51.020
You've been under the thumb of foreign rulers for centuries.
00:35:56.980
And then, about a century later, it's snatched away.
00:36:00.360
That must have been devastating and humiliating for them under those circumstances.
00:36:05.900
Secondly, you have this kind of engine of apocalypticism, saying the kingdom of God is at hand.
00:36:13.420
Everything that you see here is going to be swept away and the golden age is coming.
00:36:21.780
But they also have something else, and that is the diaspora.
00:36:25.600
And the diaspora makes them, they're not the only people in the ancient world to have a diaspora.
00:36:31.620
But what's unusual about their diaspora is that one of its feet is in the Parthian Empire.
00:36:37.760
And there are still Jews in Judea who say, you know, we were better off under the Iranians.
00:36:44.620
Ironically, ironically, today, you know, the Islamic Republic of Iran is Israel's greatest enemy.
00:36:50.800
But in antiquity, and actually through most of history, Iran has had very good relations with the Jewish people and with the state of Israel when there's been a Jewish state there.
00:37:01.700
So, there's still plenty of people in Judea who are saying, the Romans, you know, we have an alternative.
00:37:12.920
It's the only empire left standing in the ancient world who drives the Romans crazy.
00:37:18.480
And the Romans fight the Parthians and, I should say, the Iranians because eventually there's another empire that replaces the Parthians.
00:37:27.660
They're still fighting the Iranians when the Roman Empire is gone and it's the Byzantine Empire.
00:37:32.060
So, the fact that the Jews have what they might see as the Iranian safety valve, that's also one of the reasons they rebel and why they're constantly trying to get help from the Parthian Empire.
00:37:55.900
It has 38 million users and over 20,000 five-star reviews on Trustpilot, which frankly is rare for any tech product, let alone a VPN.
00:38:07.340
CyberGhost encrypts your internet traffic, which means your provider, your employer, your school, or anyone else on public Wi-Fi cannot see what you're doing online.
00:38:17.020
It routes your connection through secure servers in 100 countries, hides your IP address, and keeps no logs at all.
00:38:23.440
So, your activity isn't being tracked or stored.
00:38:26.340
On top of that, it unlocks regional content from 40 streaming platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Disney+.
00:38:42.280
We rely on it when we're traveling for the show because it's simple, fast, and it just works.
00:38:47.420
Right now, you can get CyberGhost for about two bucks a month with four months free.
00:38:52.120
A 45-day money-back guarantee and 24-7 support.
00:38:57.260
That's protection for your browsing data and access to blocked content online for two bucks a month.
00:39:05.300
To grab the offer, go to CyberGhostsVPN.com slash trigonometry or click the link in the description of this episode.
00:39:22.620
I'm sure someone will clip it and point me at and say he's a Roman apologist.
00:39:26.000
And that will mean someone tries to cancel me somewhere.
00:39:28.300
But generally speaking, if you think about all the empires, particularly at that time, a little bit before, a little bit after, was it that bad being a Roman citizen?
00:39:45.520
If you want to be independent and you can't be independent anymore, that's not so great.
00:39:52.600
And also, if your country has been Romanized in ways that you don't like, that's also not so great.
00:40:00.860
So, you know, before the Romans, you think, hey, this is the Holy Land.
00:40:04.660
And now you've got the Romans and, oops, there's a pagan city here.
00:40:17.240
I mean, you had to pay taxes before, but now you're paying taxes to the Romans.
00:40:20.460
There are Roman troops and there are incidents that happen.
00:40:24.680
There are Roman troops who will tear up Torah scrolls.
00:40:29.480
There's a famous or infamous, almost funny incident where a Roman soldier moons some Jewish people.
00:40:40.880
Still, nonetheless, it's not that bad until, if we jump ahead a bit, we get...
00:40:48.980
Wait, before we jump ahead a bit, one more other question on this.
00:40:54.060
Prior to the emergence of Jesus of Nazareth and later, obviously, Christianity,
00:40:59.220
are the Jews the only people in this part of the world who are monotheistic who believe there is one God?
00:41:05.900
Is that a big dividing line that causes friction?
00:41:13.680
But, and also, it should be said that the Iranians, as Zoroastrians, they're leaning towards a kind of monotheism.
00:41:33.300
Some of them will complain they call the Jews atheists because the Jews don't believe in the gods.
00:41:39.240
But, honestly, the Romans are among the great pragmatists of history.
00:41:43.520
They don't really care who you worship as long as you're not a political problem.
00:41:48.080
And one of the great signs of this, and one of the really clever things that Herod did,
00:41:52.240
was he knew that he couldn't have a temple of Augustus in Jerusalem.
00:41:58.300
He has daily sacrifices in the temple in Jerusalem on behalf of the Roman emperor.
00:42:04.400
And those sacrifices are paid for by Augustus and his successors.
00:42:09.160
It shows that, you know, they're shaking hands.
00:42:16.400
Well, the reason I ask is, obviously, we live in a world in which it's sort of almost uniformly accepted
00:42:26.700
But the Jews didn't, at this point, think, well, we're better than the Romans because we've got one God.
00:42:32.480
And the Romans thought they were better than the Jews because they had the gods.
00:42:36.860
So, absolutely, I just don't think this is a religious conflict.
00:42:40.480
There are only two times, there are only two people in the ancient world who the Romans go after for quote-unquote religious reasons.
00:42:50.320
They go after the Druids, not because they really care what the Druids believe,
00:42:53.560
but because they believe, rightly, that the Druids are the engine of opposition to the Roman conquest of Britannia.
00:43:02.340
Their problem with the Jews is that the Jews are, first of all, playing footsie with the Parthians.
00:43:10.760
Secondly, the Jews don't, they're the only people who get a free, in the eastern part of the empire,
00:43:15.300
the only people who get a free pass, they don't have to worship the emperor.
00:43:17.780
But as long as they're making daily sacrifices in the temple on behalf of the emperor, it's okay.
00:43:23.860
Caligula has a problem with that, and he tries to force them to set up a statue of the emperor in the temple,
00:43:33.040
Fortunately, he's assassinated before it can be carried out.
00:43:36.940
But in general, the Romans just don't care, as long as you're not a political problem for them or a military problem.
00:43:45.640
Okay, so come back to the chronology of the story.
00:43:58.900
So briefly, between the years 41 and 44, the Romans restore the monarchy of Herod.
00:44:07.280
And Herod's grandson, Agrippa, a man named Agrippa, is appointed king.
00:44:26.340
He's been raised in Rome, and he is the kingmaker who helps to make Claudius the emperor after Caligula is assassinated.
00:44:34.160
So they think he's a very safe guy and should be rewarded, and they make him king of Judea.
00:44:39.000
He rules only for three years, and then he dies young, either of a stroke, let us say, or some disease, or poison.
00:44:48.680
There's some reason to think he was poisoned by his enemies.
00:44:51.400
And at that point, the Romans say, nah, forget it.
00:45:00.640
You know, Augustus was an emperor who not only was Herod very clever in balancing things with Rome,
00:45:06.140
Augustus was very clever in balancing things with the provinces.
00:45:12.040
And he's quite content with having a ruler like Herod who he can cooperate with.
00:45:19.520
Augustus's successors are not always as clever as Augustus.
00:45:24.000
We get Caligula, who almost starts a rebellion in Judea because he wants to have a statue of him put up in the temple.
00:45:33.660
And Nero, as you know, is not the world's nicest guy.
00:45:38.000
And Nero loves the Greeks, not real fond of the Jews.
00:45:42.040
And he appoints a Greek to be a governor of Judea.
00:45:47.680
And basically, after the Great Fire in Rome, Nero needs money.
00:45:52.160
He needs it really bad because he wants to rebuild Rome as Nero City, Neuropolis, is going to be.
00:46:00.380
And he gives the governor basically carte blanche to squeeze the provincials until the pips squeak.
00:46:06.960
So the governor, who is a Greek, sides with the Greeks in Judea in ethnic conflict with the Jews.
00:46:20.480
And when there's a protest, a peaceful protest in Jerusalem,
00:46:23.760
he sends in the troops to massacre the civilians in Jerusalem.
00:46:29.120
And as a Roman historian who writes about it says, at that point, the Jews had had enough.
00:46:35.680
So you've got an emperor who's making life more difficult for the Jews.
00:46:40.880
But you also have movements in Jewish society that are less tolerant of the Romans.
00:46:47.000
You have one group called the Daggermen, the Sicarii.
00:46:57.280
Of course, being Jews, their favorite group to kill or people to kill are other Jews.
00:47:01.400
But they're considered to be collaborators against the Romans.
00:47:05.720
And then you get priests, a new generation of young priests who, as often happens in history,
00:47:17.840
But, you know, we don't have to do this anymore.
00:47:20.440
We can rebel against the Romans and we can get away with it.
00:47:27.280
This young group, the Greek for enthusiast is zealot.
00:47:32.460
They model themselves on a figure in the Torah who is extremely zealous in rooting out what
00:47:40.320
he sees as paganism and does not show away from violence to do it.
00:47:47.400
The signal for the revolt in the year 66 is they say, you know what?
00:47:53.380
You can't sacrifice in the temple if you're a foreigner anymore.
00:47:56.600
What that means is that you can't have sacrifices on behalf of the emperor anymore since it's
00:48:04.460
That is, in effect, a declaration of independence, which the Romans are not going to tolerate.
00:48:11.160
And then when the Romans start making a fuss about this, they then massacre the garrison
00:48:17.680
in Jerusalem, which is more than a signal of independence.
00:48:25.280
For good measure, there are Jews who are killing each other.
00:48:32.160
And then the dagger men are, the leader of the dagger men is killed and the rest of them
00:48:37.720
And they spend the rest of the revolt in a fortress near the Dead Sea called Masada,
00:48:46.140
But now we've got to the point in the year 66 when Judea is in revolt.
00:48:58.720
But doesn't that kind of mean that, look, Herod was brutal.
00:49:09.860
But in some of those types of countries or provinces, particularly in that time, the
00:49:16.180
only real option to have any kind of sustained peace was a Herod-like figure.
00:49:21.180
And of course, as you know, there are Stalin, the Stalin nostalgia in Russia today.
00:49:25.880
But, yeah, and there were definitely, so, you know, at the time of the American Revolution,
00:49:31.580
or excuse me, the American War of Independence against the rightful king, John Adams said,
00:49:38.520
There were three groups in the revolution, he says afterwards.
00:49:45.520
And one group just wanted to keep their heads down.
00:49:47.460
And the place was divided one-third, one-third, one-third.
00:49:50.240
We don't have any statistics like that from antiquity, but it's a pretty good guess that
00:49:56.840
And we know that there were collaborators with the Romans and that the ruling, there
00:50:01.340
are still descendants, members of the dynasty of Herod, they're ruling in the north.
00:50:06.420
They also have a lot of say in authority in Jerusalem.
00:50:17.300
And don't think the Parthian king or our brethren in the Parthian empire are going to come to
00:50:28.900
But they are practically killed for what they say.
00:50:34.300
They send soldiers who help the Romans to put down the rebellion.
00:50:39.100
So there are Jews who basically say Stalin was great, Herod was great, you know, forget
00:50:45.580
Also, there is an element of the revolt that's a social revolution, not all of it, but there
00:50:51.140
are people among the rebels who want to help the poor, who want to take wealth away from
00:50:59.260
So that's very disturbing to the wealthy as well.
00:51:03.220
And I imagine once you've slaughtered the Roman garrison, forgive my French, you're kind of
00:51:16.900
But yes, once you've slaughtered the Roman garrison, that's it, you know.
00:51:21.720
So the governor of Syria, so the Romans don't have a legion in Judea.
00:51:26.400
They basically controlled Judea with local troops, non-Jewish troops.
00:51:30.820
A lot of them are Samaritans who don't get along with the Jews.
00:51:36.140
The governor of Syria, the neighboring province, comes south with about 30,000 men.
00:51:41.660
And he goes to Jerusalem and basically says, cut it out.
00:51:48.460
And in fact, he's an older guy, probably past his prime.
00:51:52.760
His troops are harassed on the way to Jerusalem.
00:51:55.320
And then when he leaves Jerusalem, it's now the rainy season.
00:52:00.140
And he's heading back to the coast to go back to Syria in a narrow valley.
00:52:06.680
And the rebels managed to destroy the better part of a legion.
00:52:11.120
And that is, you know, a four-long fire as far as Nero is concerned.
00:52:18.720
So after this, he chooses one of his best generals.
00:52:22.260
He doesn't have many left because he's had his best generals killed.
00:52:25.800
Because like Herod, he's afraid of rebellion with good reason.
00:52:29.420
There had already been an uprising against him.
00:52:33.200
But he's got one good general left, a man named Vespasian.
00:52:42.140
Vespasian doesn't come from the Roman nobility.
00:52:44.580
In fact, he is a descendant of what the Romans would look down on as a middle-class family
00:52:59.980
And now, as far as the Romans were concerned, like the two worst places were Britain and Judea.
00:53:11.280
There's a lot of people on the internet who would agree with that.
00:53:29.080
But maybe it's worth you describing Jerusalem at this point.
00:53:35.180
Because I actually, in preparation for this interview, watched some stuff on YouTube showing what the city was like.
00:53:45.680
Well, so, I mean, it was chosen very intelligently as a capital.
00:53:54.800
And Israel is very, it's almost like a topographical map.
00:54:00.980
But there's the coastal plain, and then there's the rolling hills, and then you get up to what are almost mountains.
00:54:08.220
They call them mountains by American standards.
00:54:17.140
So, it's really impossible to take, or very hard to take.
00:54:21.000
It's only on the fourth side, the northern side, where it's relatively flat and it's relatively vulnerable.
00:54:27.840
One of the Jewish kings wanted to fortify, so the city is really well fortified by Herod, but it needed to be ultra-fortified on the northern side.
00:54:39.120
And when King Agrippa I tried to do that, the Romans stopped him because they knew that was dangerous.
00:54:47.360
A little bit smaller than the old city of Jerusalem today, but super highly fortified.
00:55:04.320
And people have laid up large supplies of food so it can feed itself for a very long time.
00:55:11.340
So, you're not going to lightly lay siege to Jerusalem.
00:55:20.180
And he comes from the north, and he attacks the north first.
00:55:24.660
He goes after the Galilee, and he wipes the floor with it.
00:55:29.160
There are some cities that immediately said, we love Rome!
00:55:35.960
And there's one city in central Galilee called Jodhapata.
00:55:45.480
Josephus is our main source for the revolt, because afterwards, he wrote memoirs.
00:56:03.880
And depending on which story of his you believe, because he had different stories at a different
00:56:07.920
time, he was trying as hard as he could to defeat the Romans, or he was trying as hard
00:56:12.180
as he could to convince the rebels to stop this crazy rebellion.
00:56:18.980
And Vespasian lays siege to Jodhapata in June of the year 67.
00:56:24.860
And for about six weeks, Josephus and his fellows withstand the Roman legions.
00:56:33.220
You know, it's going to be like 90 degrees Fahrenheit there, really hot and miserable.
00:56:41.240
In the end, the Romans take the city, as the Romans usually do.
00:56:47.780
And Josephus and the other leaders of the revolt are in a cave.
00:57:18.740
And, by the way, there are, in math, there's something called the Josephus problem, how you can use simple arithmetic to rig a lottery so that you win it.
00:57:40.700
He's going to be shipped off to Rome to the tender mercies of Nero, which would be awful.
00:57:53.180
And I want to tell you that you're going to become the emperor of Rome.
00:58:07.620
Vespasian then goes to the capital of the Jewish king of the north, Agrippa II.
00:58:16.380
And he helps Agrippa II to put down a revolt in another very impressive fortification, a place called Gamla, which means camel.
00:58:27.180
And there, too, the Romans have to fight to take the place.
00:58:31.420
Very dramatic place if you ever have a chance to visit it.
00:58:38.980
And they massacre the people there, just as they did at Giordopata.
00:58:54.020
And then the next year, he's now, what's happened in the north is that those who want to continue the rebellion try to escape.
00:59:03.660
And they make their way to Jerusalem, which is under the control of the rebels and is this great fortress.
00:59:09.620
Vespasian knocks off cities one by one around Judea, trying to isolate Jerusalem.
00:59:20.520
And then, at the end of the spring, the word comes from Rome.
00:59:35.500
Am I supposed to continue this suppression of the rebellion or what?
00:59:41.220
And in effect, for the next two years, the war is at a pause.
00:59:49.500
And they have the leisure to do what they want.
01:00:05.180
There's the rebels who have come from the north, led by a man named John.
01:00:08.820
And there are the rebels who have come from the east, led by a man named Simon.
01:00:51.820
As bad as this killing of each other is, even worse is the one thing they do that seems really crazy.
01:01:04.780
So there's enough food left over for the soldiers to feed themselves.
01:01:09.400
But there's not enough food left over for the civilians of Jerusalem to live.
01:01:14.580
Political scientists refer to something called credible commitment.
01:01:18.040
We might say burning your bridges because then you have a credible commitment because you have nowhere else to go.
01:01:23.740
They have now given the ultimate credible commitment.
01:01:26.340
If you're not part of this, we're not even going to feed you.
01:01:36.240
You might say it from the point of the military point of view.
01:01:43.700
Tax season is the one time of year you're forced to look at your full financial picture.
01:01:51.320
And the uncomfortable question of where the rest went.
01:02:00.420
What I actually like about it is that it doesn't just track what you've spent and make you feel bad about it.
01:02:06.400
It's built around planning ahead and hitting real goals.
01:02:09.580
Whether that's paying off debt, saving for something big, or just finally understanding where your money is going before it disappears.
01:02:19.480
Monarch, the all-in-one personal finance tool designed to make your life easier.
01:02:23.940
It brings your entire financial life, budgeting, accounts and investments, net worth, and future planning together in one dashboard on your phone or laptop.
01:02:33.400
Feel aware and in control of your finances this tax season and get 50% off your Monarch subscription with code Trigger.
01:02:41.800
Achieve your financial goals for good with Monarch.
01:02:44.780
Use code Trigger at Monarch.com for half off your first year.
01:02:53.940
The way you describe this land at the time, it just sounds like revolutionary fever is everywhere.
01:03:09.200
And so people are behaving in these very irrational ways.
01:03:12.480
Yes, but at the same time, they're not completely irrational.
01:03:20.280
They're sending embassies to the Parthians to get help, and they do get some help.
01:03:25.200
So one player who I've left out is Queen Helena, Queen Helena, who is the Queen of Adiabin,
01:03:34.800
She's active in the earlier part of the century, in the 30s and the 40s, and she and her sons convert
01:03:39.840
to Judaism, their pagans, and she, after she turns the throne over to one of her sons, her
01:03:48.600
She moves to Jerusalem, and she spends a number of years there learning about Judaism, building
01:03:55.660
And in fact, her dynasty ends up building three separate palaces in Jerusalem, feeding the
01:04:02.340
So she's a beloved figure, and arranging for her ultimately to be buried in Jerusalem.
01:04:21.840
On the other hand, she's creating a foothold, a handhold, excuse me, in the West.
01:04:30.380
Her kingdom, she's a vassal of the Parthian king, but she now has an opening to the West.
01:04:36.120
And her sons, her grandsons, are educated in Jerusalem, and they're there at the time
01:04:41.560
of the rebellion, and they and their followers join the rebellion, and they support the rebels.
01:04:45.880
So the rebels are getting some support from Parthia, but not the massive aid that they wanted.
01:04:52.160
But Barry, as you look at it from the outside, okay, you go, they're at each other's throats.
01:05:04.700
But wasn't there part of them going, hang on, look, lads, there's about 50,000 Roman soldiers
01:05:18.840
And, you know, when the Talmud looks back on the revolts, and the Talmud criticizes the
01:05:23.440
revolts, it condemns them, it says that Jerusalem and the Temple were not destroyed because of
01:05:29.220
They were destroyed because of the Jews and what they call senseless hatred.
01:05:38.640
So, we've got to the point where they're at each other's throats.
01:05:45.860
There's pretty much a civil war happening within Jerusalem.
01:05:53.580
I mean, so, there are really two groups, Simon and John.
01:06:01.220
And so, Simon controls one area and John controls another area.
01:06:06.440
But neither one is fully in control of the city.
01:06:13.980
So, Simon has more power than John, but the city's effectively in a deadlock there.
01:06:27.740
The Romans are having a civil war of their own.
01:06:33.340
The year six, so Nero commits suicide in the year 68.
01:06:36.700
And an old man named Galba, who's the governor of Spain, comes and becomes emperor in Rome.
01:06:41.300
He's immediately deposed, or pretty soon deposed, by a man named Otho, who is deposed by a man named Vitellius.
01:06:53.140
And he gets the support of a very important player, the governor of Egypt.
01:06:59.820
Named Tiberius Julius Alexander, who's also a great soldier, great military guy.
01:07:10.540
And Vespasian now is proclaimed as emperor in July of 69.
01:07:18.600
So this is, Romans called this the year of the four emperors, because there are four different
01:07:31.180
And he organizes an army which goes to the west and ultimately conquers Rome and makes him emperor.
01:07:45.700
Life seems to be going on as usual in Jerusalem, although much of the country, it's cut off from
01:07:53.820
And there are people who think Jerusalem is this fantastic fortress.
01:08:02.420
I think John says something like, the Romans will conquer Jerusalem when they can fly.
01:08:12.740
So in the year 70, Vespasian says, we've got to take care of business.
01:08:17.620
He sends a new army under his son Titus with the help of the governor of Egypt, Tiberius
01:08:22.460
Julius Alexander, who is his chief of staff, in effect.
01:08:32.980
The Jews' forte from the military point of view is irregular warfare, raids, ambushes,
01:08:47.240
But there's only so far they can go, especially because people are dying and starving in the
01:08:52.420
And anyone who can leave is trying to leave until the Romans cut that off.
01:08:56.640
To make a long story short, there is a very, very hard fought siege.
01:09:03.100
But in the end, the Romans thoroughly conquer the city and they destroy the temple and they
01:09:12.440
And by the autumn of 70, Jerusalem is a ruin and the revolt is all but over.
01:09:30.680
And the Romans have dealt with this sort of thing before.
01:09:33.720
They put down rebellions, but there's still pockets of rebels.
01:09:37.600
And it's three or four years later when, and we're not actually sure whether it was the
01:09:42.520
winter of 73 or the winter of 74, probably the winter of 74, when the Romans finally snuff
01:09:49.240
out the last pocket of resistance at Masada, this famous fortress in the Judean desert.
01:09:59.800
And they discover to their shock when they get to the top that all but six people there
01:10:05.920
have committed suicide or submitted to a mass execution, killing of each other.
01:10:11.640
There are over 900 people there, men, women, and children.
01:10:15.040
And they're all dead, except for a few who have hidden in a drain pipe and survived.
01:10:29.380
So, I mean, most of them say, well, that was that and let's move on.
01:10:36.640
Some of the rebels in Judea have fled to Egypt and to Libya.
01:10:41.800
They start, try to incite revolts there, but the Romans are able to suppress them.
01:10:50.200
The first thing they do is that there was a second Jewish temple in Egypt, which had
01:10:54.820
no doubt been built before the Torah became the law of the land.
01:11:02.060
But the one big, biggest mistake the Romans make is they decide to punish the Jews of the
01:11:12.280
They've never done anything like this before to rebellious people.
01:11:15.240
The Jewish tax, the so-called Jewish fund, Fiscus Eudiacus, and every Jew every year has
01:11:25.280
They have to pay a tax to the chief god of Rome, to Jupiter of the Capitoline Hill.
01:11:33.480
You have a tax, that's humiliating enough, but the tax says, your god is nothing.
01:11:40.640
And now you have to pay a tax to the chief god of Rome.
01:11:43.960
Earlier on, there was the expectation that every Jew would pay a tax to the temple in Jerusalem.
01:11:50.080
And that was kind of a big deal in the diaspora.
01:11:53.040
Now they have to pay a tax to the chief god of Rome.
01:12:04.700
I mean, if you think back to what Churchill said after the Second World War, in victory,
01:12:18.340
And so you have this resentful population within the Roman Empire who keep rebelling,
01:12:24.720
who are treated uniquely badly for rebellious people.
01:12:34.760
So, first of all, you know, there's still a very large Jewish population living in Judea.
01:12:40.160
I mean, many of them have been killed and many of them have been enslaved and exiled.
01:12:43.180
But there's still large numbers of them living all over the country.
01:12:51.860
We have Jewish literature from this period in which they say they're talking about getting
01:12:58.620
But most of them are probably just trying to get by.
01:13:03.100
There might not have been another rebellion except for the fact that the Romans decided
01:13:09.020
And in the year 115, the Roman Emperor Trajan goes eastward and begins conquering the Parthian
01:13:16.900
First, he takes Armenia, a larger kingdom in antiquity today that's ruled by a member of
01:13:25.800
And then he conquers all of Iraq down to the Persian Gulf.
01:13:30.760
The next year, in 116, there is a revolt in the Roman rear.
01:13:36.460
The Jews of Libya, Egypt, and Cyprus rise in rebellion.
01:13:41.820
At the same time, there is an insurgency in Iraq.
01:13:46.400
And among the leaders of the insurgency are the Jewish population of Iraq.
01:13:55.380
We have no ancient sources to prove that there is collusion, but I will eat my hat if there
01:14:01.340
wasn't collusion between these two groups, between the Parthians in the east and the Jews
01:14:07.920
The Romans have to take a legion and send it to the west to put down this rebellion.
01:14:17.200
They also have to deal with Jewish insurgents in the east.
01:14:20.540
And to make a long story short, their conquest of Parthia is a total flop.
01:14:29.140
They succeed in putting down the rebellion in the west.
01:14:31.600
Unfortunately for the Jewish rebels, Jews, which had been a significant part of the population
01:14:36.280
of Egypt, Libya, and Cyprus, are now all but wiped out.
01:14:40.140
And they also send a very hard-line governor, the guy who'd been the commander putting down
01:14:46.540
the rebellion in insurgency in Mesopotamia, they send him to become the governor of Judea
01:14:51.140
to make sure that any rebels there, and there may have been some riots there, to make sure
01:15:00.640
The way you paint the Jewish people in this story, you know, it's, they were constant thorn
01:15:09.980
Yes, but the Romans didn't handle them well, didn't play it well.
01:15:14.560
And I'm not sure there would have been a second revolt if not for Parthia.
01:15:18.860
I insist that Parthia, ancient Iran, is a big part of the story.
01:15:23.900
And the fact that there's, the Jews have this unique diaspora that's there as well as in
01:15:30.600
And the fact that the Romans are obsessed with fighting Parthia, beat Parthia, that's
01:15:37.640
And Barry, if we fast forward super a very short, very long period of time, almost to the
01:15:43.580
present day, is it fair to say that Judea, which since has become Israel, for the rest
01:15:49.960
of known history, basically is just a part of the world that is controlled by some other
01:15:55.640
bigger force, changes hands all the time, and until you get to 1948.
01:16:01.040
I mean, there is a third major rebellion, the Bar Kokhba revolt in the 130s, and that too,
01:16:05.320
I believe, has a Parthian connection, but that is defeated with great difficulty by the
01:16:11.700
And then there are some other revolts later on, and another Iranian conquest of Judea,
01:16:17.860
followed immediately by the, almost immediately by the Arab conquest.
01:16:22.340
Yes, it is fair to say that there are different empires that control, that control Judea, or
01:16:28.280
what had been Judea, what is now, what was then, the Romans renamed it as Palestine.
01:16:32.460
Palestine, and Palestine is controlled by one empire or another until the 20th century.
01:16:39.900
And before we head to Substack, where our audience will ask you their question.
01:16:45.540
Is there anything at all from the ancient history of this land that might be worth people
01:16:51.600
knowing in relation to today's ongoing conflict?
01:16:55.120
I mean, one thing is that the Jews are indigenous to Judea, to Palestine, to the land of Israel.
01:17:02.920
It's not as if the Zionists threw a dart at the map and decided, we're going there.
01:17:07.400
They went there because this was the Jewish ancestral land, Jewish prayers from antiquity
01:17:14.320
to today, talk about Jerusalem and talk about the land of Israel.
01:17:17.600
And Jewish pilgrims and Jewish settlers came back to Judea over the centuries, again and
01:17:26.020
They weren't the majority after, by the early Middle Ages, they're no longer the majority
01:17:37.240
Because I think Melanie Phillips made it the first time she was on the show, long before
01:17:42.260
Is that not a little bit like me turning up in Africa and going, well, my ancestors are
01:17:49.820
No, because, I mean, it's because they're always there.
01:17:57.380
There are always Jewish pilgrims whose ambition in life is to settle in the Holy Land.
01:18:04.700
And ancestors in Africa, I mean, no, I mean, that's a paleontological, anthropological, biological
01:18:13.500
But, okay, I mean, maybe a different way of looking at it is, let's say a bunch of Native
01:18:19.540
Americans had fled North America at the time of Columbus.
01:18:24.140
And then they come back and carve out a state for themselves in the middle of the United
01:18:29.660
States and say, actually, we've always lived here.
01:18:36.460
But imagine that the United, that's a good analogy, but imagine that the United States
01:18:42.320
Imagine that the United States was the tool of empires over history.
01:18:46.020
And they're just different people marching through.
01:18:51.880
And Native Americans who are living elsewhere now want to come back and reestablish themselves
01:18:58.880
in this new environment when new states are going to be created out of old states.
01:19:09.300
And, of course, by treaty, Native Americans have rights in the United States that they're
01:19:14.000
In New York State, where I come from, New York State has ignored various treaties that it's
01:19:19.740
signed earlier on in American history about Native American rights.
01:19:34.540
And disunity is a problem in Israel today, but it's an ancient problem as well.
01:19:40.260
And many people in Israel have looked back to this period and said, look what happened
01:19:46.500
You know, there's only so far—yes, we can disagree politically, but there's a danger
01:19:52.260
I mean, another thing is, if you look at the geographical location of Israel, for better
01:20:00.580
And, you know, obviously, the United States is the key ally of Israel today, but Israel
01:20:12.980
It has to pay attention to the Arab states around it.
01:20:15.440
It has to pay attention to Turkey, who's becoming a very important player in this conflict.
01:20:20.320
And it has also looked—its relationship with India is very important as well.
01:20:24.680
And with China important, maybe not so solitary for Israel right now, but it looks in both
01:20:33.060
And as you tell the story, and I'm thinking about Israel, and I think about the story of
01:20:39.240
Jerusalem and Judea, and particularly with the way the fall of Jerusalem, it makes me
01:20:45.760
think about, you know, if you want to maintain Israel, the price of that is eternal vigilance.
01:20:53.300
I mean, absolutely, the price of that is eternal vigilance.
01:20:56.360
I mean, if you go to Israel today, you will see that it's a society in which the military
01:21:00.880
and military life is infinitely more important than it is in your standard Western democracy.
01:21:05.940
One other point that I want to make about that's important for today is the role of religion.
01:21:10.900
Religion can play a very salutary role, and I personally think faith is an important part
01:21:16.260
of people's lives, but it can also play a not-so-salutary role.
01:21:20.280
And while there were rebels who were pragmatists and who were serious about getting help from
01:21:25.020
Parthia, there were others who allowed their religious beliefs to get the better of them
01:21:31.180
and who had ideas that simply were not practical and couldn't work.
01:21:39.500
We see pragmatists, but we also see people on both sides who are letting their religious
01:21:46.860
And maybe if Israel wants to be successful, it needs a Stalin.
01:21:54.980
That's going to get clipped out of context, you idiot.
01:21:58.160
It's a metaphorical reference to something we discussed earlier in the episode.
01:22:02.420
Barry, if people have watched this for the first time as an interview with you, they'll
01:22:09.120
You're a brilliant historian, fantastic writer.
01:22:11.160
Of course, everyone should get Jews vs. Roman and read it.
01:22:16.340
Before we head over to Substack and ask you questions from our audience, which only they
01:22:20.260
get to see, what's the one thing we're not talking about that we really should be?
01:22:23.660
Oh, what's the one thing we're not talking about?
01:22:31.820
If you want to know more about the Roman Empire, my book, Ten Caesars, I think is a great introduction
01:22:37.320
to it, but also the war that made the Roman Empire.
01:22:40.260
If you want to know about Cleopatra and Mark Antony and Octavian, that's the place to get
01:22:47.340
And I think it's fantastically relevant to warfare today.
01:22:53.120
And if people haven't seen our episode with you about the fall of the Roman Empire, it's
01:22:59.540
Head on over to Substack, triggerpod.co.uk, where we're going to ask Barry your questions.
01:23:04.660
Don't forget to click the link in the description of this episode to grab the special CyberGhost
01:23:18.040
It says, how is it that both Christianity and Islam recognize that Jews were given the
01:23:22.320
land of Israel by God, but then deny their indigenous claims?