TRIGGERnometry - The Ancient History of Israel and the Holy Land - Historian Barry Strauss

00:00:00.000 When you let aero truffle bubbles melt, everything takes on a creamy, delicious, chocolatey glow.

00:00:06.340 Like that pile of laundry.

00:00:07.820 You didn't forget to fold it.

00:00:09.260 Nah, it's a new trend.

00:00:10.740 Wrinkled chic.

00:00:12.120 Feel the aero bubbles melt.

00:00:13.920 It's mind-bubbling.

00:00:19.300 Getting ready for a game means being ready for anything.

00:00:22.420 Like packing a spare stick.

00:00:24.160 I like to be prepared.

00:00:25.780 That's why I remember 988, Canada's Suicide Crisis Helpline.

00:00:29.280 It's good to know, just in case.

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.

00:00:45.680 Judea was a very complicated place.

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. 0.92

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. 0.98

00:01:15.160 I imagine, once you've slaughtered the Roman garrison, forgive my French, you're kind of f***ed, right? 1.00

00:01:21.360 You're kind of, yeah.

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?

00:01:31.540 Sure.

00:01:31.980 Before we start, a very quick recommendation.

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.

00:02:18.360 Head to october8film.com to find out more.

00:02:23.740 Baris Strauss, welcome back.

00:02:25.180 Thank you. Great to be here.

00:02:26.740 Great to have you back on the show. You're one of our absolute favourite historians we talk to.

00:02:29.980 Oh, thank you. Thank you.

00:02:31.320 Our last episode on the Roman Empire absolutely crushed it, as you know.

00:02:35.900 Yeah.

00:02:36.560 And I don't know if you noticed, Israel's been in the news a little bit.

00:02:39.460 A little bit, yeah.

00:02:40.220 Yeah. And it just so happens that your latest book is called Jews vs. Rome.

00:02:45.520 Yes.

00:02:45.620 So we thought the ancient history of what has since become the Holy Land would be an amazing conversation.

00:02:52.880 Great.

00:02:53.280 Here we are.

00:02:53.980 Yes.

00:02:54.220 So talk to us about that part of the world, and also Jews.

00:03:00.340 When do Jews come into existence? 1.00

00:03:02.380 Okay.

00:03:02.700 Are they living in that area at the time?

00:03:04.980 Yeah.

00:03:05.020 Talk to us about that.

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. 0.98

00:03:16.900 And it's an Egyptian stele that talks about the defeat of Israel.

00:03:22.280 That's the earliest evidence that we have.

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.

00:04:04.500 We have an Assyrian one.

00:04:06.020 They talk about Israel.

00:04:07.720 And on one reading, not all scholars would read it this way.

00:04:12.180 They also talk about the house of David.

00:04:14.000 That's from the 9th century.

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.

00:04:43.540 We don't know how to pronounce it.

00:04:44.940 So, they're there.

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.

00:06:09.080 So, roughly, roughly.

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?

00:06:18.080 It's called Judea, yes.

00:06:18.980 And it's under Roman control?

00:06:20.880 It becomes under Roman control. 0.58

00:06:22.980 So, a couple of important events to add.

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. 0.59

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. 0.57

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. 0.94

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. 0.97

00:08:30.900 So Judaism becomes more of a thing, more of an established thing.

00:08:35.520 The territory of Judea becomes larger.

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.

00:08:49.140 What do they do?

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. 0.92

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. 1.00

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.

00:09:30.620 It's a siege that lasts several months.

00:09:32.520 He takes the temple, enters the Holy of Holies to the horror of the people there. 0.95

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.

00:09:52.860 I guess we'd call him a local ruler.

00:09:55.140 And Judea is now under the thumb of Rome, but not for long, because the losing side looks to Iran. 0.98

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...

00:10:09.680 No need.

00:10:10.380 Okay.

00:10:11.340 We don't really need us here.

00:10:13.020 You just go for America. 0.67

00:10:13.880 Okay, a series of ancient Iranian empires.

00:10:16.460 Now there's one that has replaced the first one.

00:10:19.620 It's called the Parthian Empire or Parthia.

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.

00:10:38.480 They get it about 25 years later.

00:10:41.340 This is after the assassination of Julius Caesar, 44 BC.

00:10:45.620 Roman Empire is in turmoil.

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 0.99

00:10:59.360 of the other faction in the dynasty on the throne, and now makes Judea a Parthian province,

00:11:06.680 an Iranian province again.

00:11:09.100 And the Romans don't take this lying down.

00:11:11.920 A representative of the Roman faction in Judea now makes his way to Rome and convinces the

00:11:19.280 Romans to make him king.

00:11:21.260 This is the time of the dispute, which becomes a civil war between Mark Antony and Octavian,

00:11:28.680 the future Augustus.

00:11:30.220 The one thing they agree on is they're going to choose this Jew and make him king of Judea, 0.82

00:11:34.280 which the Roman Senate does.

00:11:36.900 They give a banquet for him in Rome.

00:11:38.660 It's probably not kosher.

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

00:11:58.020 and for Rome.

00:11:59.200 It's a long process.

00:12:00.300 It takes three years.

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

00:12:10.060 saying, I think the rebellion's over, folks.

00:12:13.360 And finally, Herod, with the help of the Romans, conquers Jerusalem and is established as king 0.86

00:12:21.760 of Judea in the year 37 BC.

00:12:25.640 Now, in the book, you paint a very, you describe Herod wonderfully.

00:12:31.520 He's got many strengths.

00:12:32.780 Yes.

00:12:33.880 Got a few, shall we say, character defects.

00:12:35.940 He has a few character defects.

00:12:37.800 So let's delve into it because he's a huge figure in both in history and in religion.

00:12:44.080 Right.

00:12:44.520 Yes.

00:12:44.920 Particularly the Christian religion.

00:12:46.200 So let's talk about Herod.

00:12:47.200 Yes.

00:12:48.020 One of the things that Christians and Jews agree about is they both hate Herod. 0.65

00:12:52.460 And he's reviled in the New Testament, but also in the Talmud.

00:12:57.380 And yet, so Herod's a really interesting guy.

00:12:59.820 He's a super smart politician.

00:13:01.980 And he, first of all, he's a total survivor.

00:13:06.200 Early on, he is a client of Mark Antony.

00:13:09.920 He is in Mark Antony's pocket.

00:13:12.240 If the Romans had pockets, they are like this. 0.98

00:13:16.580 But Mark Antony loses the Battle of Actium.

00:13:19.200 Luckily for Herod, he's not there because Cleopatra hates him.

00:13:22.720 And she won't let him go to Actium.

00:13:24.500 She gives him a task kind of beneath his dignity while the Battle of Actium is fought.

00:13:31.240 But it turns out to be great for him.

00:13:32.980 He's not there.

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.

00:13:51.820 He's very smart.

00:13:52.800 And he says, yeah, I was Mark Antony's best friend.

00:13:56.360 But you know what?

00:13:57.100 I'm a great friend.

00:13:58.380 And now I'll be your best friend.

00:14:00.400 You want somebody to defend Rome's interests in the East, I'm your man.

00:14:04.760 Octavian buys it.

00:14:06.140 And now Herod, as king, wants to indicate that he's the guy who can really help Rome in the

00:14:13.720 East.

00:14:14.220 And Octavian, who becomes the Emperor Augustus, he buys it.

00:14:18.540 He thinks this is great.

00:14:19.960 And Herod is his man. 0.62

00:14:21.940 So Herod shows it in a variety of ways.

00:14:24.880 He's going to rebuild Judea.

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.

00:14:41.820 Very interesting place.

00:14:43.460 If you go to Israel, you can visit it today.

00:14:45.240 The ruins are quite substantial.

00:14:46.960 And he builds it as a Roman city.

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

00:15:06.880 games commemorating the Battle of Actium.

00:15:10.400 There are Jews living there, but it is mostly a pagan city.

00:15:13.320 He builds another pagan city. 0.91

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

00:15:32.580 today, a temple of Augustus.

00:15:34.860 So he's got Augustus coming and going.

00:15:37.480 In Jerusalem, he'd love to build a temple to Augustus, but he knows he can't do that.

00:15:42.880 Instead, and Herod's a Jew. 0.94

00:15:46.480 He's a Jew descended from one of the groups who was conquered by the Maccabean kings and

00:15:52.420 that converted to Judaism.

00:15:54.700 But he is a Jew. 0.70

00:15:55.780 His mother, by the way, is an Arab.

00:15:57.820 So he's part Jew, part Arab, but a Jew. 0.93

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 1.00

00:16:13.440 from Babylon.

00:16:15.140 He builds it to be one of the greatest, if not the greatest and most spectacular religious

00:16:19.400 site in the ancient world.

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

00:16:32.340 by Jews. 1.00

00:16:33.060 Barry, can I do what I do best, which is ask an uber-stupid question? 1.00

00:16:36.180 Not at all, please. 0.99

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. 0.71

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

00:17:10.020 going to Mecca.

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 1.00

00:17:26.720 be something expensive.

00:17:29.420 It could even be a bull.

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

00:17:34.880 sacrifice at the temple.

00:17:35.960 And there are three great pilgrimage festivals in the year.

00:17:40.480 There's still three great festivals today.

00:17:42.500 Passover in the spring, Shavuot, weeks, Pentecost.

00:17:47.760 Uh, in, um, the beginning of the summer.

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

00:17:59.120 in booths, uh, in the Sinai desert.

00:18:00.960 So you, um, uh, the equivalent of the Hajj would be going to Jerusalem for one of these 0.97

00:18:06.460 three great pilgrim festivals.

00:18:08.680 Going to the temple.

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

00:18:19.100 the lower part of the city.

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.

00:18:38.900 So it would be, uh, an extraordinary event.

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

00:18:52.060 from now.

00:18:52.640 But every time I've gone to the doctor, I walk out with basically nothing.

00:18:56.680 Everything's fine.

00:18:57.780 Drink more water, sleep a bit more.

00:18:59.880 No real insight, no plan, just vibes.

00:19:02.860 That's why superpower stood out to me.

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

00:19:14.280 biomarkers.

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.

00:19:35.260 Superpower used to cost $499.

00:19:38.340 Right now, it's $199, while other testing services charge $500, $1,000, sometimes more

00:19:44.340 for similar, often inferior information.

00:19:47.100 Your blueprint activated with Superpower.

00:19:49.740 Superpower is just $199, and for a limited time, you can get an additional $20 off with

00:19:54.860 our code TRIGGER.

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 0.85

00:20:19.760 to establish his status and reputation.

00:20:22.400 Yes, but it's all absolutely, but it's a way to cement his relationship with the Jews. 0.98

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. 0.97

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.

00:21:30.320 Right.

00:21:31.100 And yet, he's absolutely loathed and despised.

00:21:35.840 Why is that?

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 0.99

00:21:43.880 holy land, and he's desecrating it by building pagan temples to other gods because there's

00:21:49.500 only one God.

00:21:51.420 And he's also doing things that a pious Jew would abominate, like having gladiatorial games, 0.99

00:21:58.460 killing other human beings, killing animals, which is part of their games as well, killing 0.99

00:22:06.060 beasts, killing prisoners. 0.99

00:22:08.640 All of that is absolutely anathema to a pious Jew. 1.00

00:22:14.880 But he's also a tyrant who, he kills Jewish sages. 1.00

00:22:20.860 He massacres people. 0.99

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 1.00

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.

00:22:46.200 So he does that as well. 0.91

00:22:47.740 And finally, he's a monster to his own family. 0.99

00:22:50.500 He has one of his many wives executed. 0.97

00:22:53.640 He has his three most talented sons executed because he feels they're a threat to his rule,

00:22:58.860 and they probably are 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 0.99

00:23:11.120 elite, all to be executed.

00:23:12.960 Fortunately, after his death, that command is not carried out.

00:23:15.740 But he is reviled for all of those reasons.

00:23:18.560 And he builds forts all around Judea, strongholds.

00:23:23.260 What's the point of these 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

00:23:40.240 condition, like it's like a rotting flesh.

00:23:43.280 Yes.

00:23:43.800 And practically everybody in the population goes, yeah, he deserved that.

00:23:48.860 Absolutely.

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

00:24:01.460 the country. 0.97

00:24:02.100 But in other ways, he's a monster.

00:24:04.100 And I think that there certainly were people in Judea who liked Herod, but there are many

00:24:10.340 who disliked him as well.

00:24:11.780 The other thing about Herod, and it needs to be said, is that Judea was a very complicated

00:24:15.600 place.

00:24:16.660 Now, Jews are indigenous to the land of Israel, but they're not the only people there.

00:24:21.460 There are other ethnic groups.

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,

00:24:32.200 have Greek-speaking majorities.

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.

00:24:49.540 They don't like the Jewish rulers. 0.89

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. 0.67

00:25:02.440 They do not accept the temple there.

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. 0.97

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. 0.60

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.

00:26:04.900 Right.

00:26:05.660 Strong leader.

00:26:06.780 Yes.

00:26:07.120 Makes astute decisions.

00:26:09.120 Yes.

00:26:09.560 Yet when it comes to possibly the most important decision of any leader's career,

00:26:15.140 which is to appoint a worthy successor.

00:26:17.480 Yes.

00:26:18.380 He kind of makes a hash of it.

00:26:19.760 He does make a hash of it, absolutely.

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. 1.00

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.

00:26:42.600 One rules over Galilee and part of the Golan.

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. 0.83

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.

00:27:24.320 That makes the point.

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.

00:27:34.040 And after about a decade, he fires him.

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.

00:28:14.200 They were the religious people.

00:28:16.300 They were the priests.

00:28:17.300 Yes.

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,

00:28:25.040 but there's a large Jewish contingent in it.

00:28:28.200 But this is a society that's quite different than some of the societies that the Romans conquer. 0.61

00:28:32.980 So when the Romans conquer the Greeks, 0.95

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.

00:28:47.400 The Jews are different. 0.99

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.

00:29:13.660 They collaborate with Rome.

00:29:15.580 Herod sends his sons to Rome to be educated.

00:29:18.960 So, and many of the wealthy are quite content to work with Rome.

00:29:24.360 But ordinary people are different.

00:29:27.240 So, Herod dies.

00:29:29.820 His sons, the less useful of them, take over.

00:29:34.240 Eventually, Rome goes, let's not do any of this.

00:29:37.400 You're going to be controlled by us.

00:29:38.840 What time period are we up to at this point?

00:29:40.880 What year?

00:29:41.200 So, we're up to the year 6 AD, 6 CE.

00:29:44.240 Quite an important event is approaching.

00:29:46.100 Yes.

00:29:46.340 If my history doesn't...

00:29:47.700 Yes.

00:29:49.240 I think you're referring to the mission of Jesus Christ.

00:29:52.260 Yes.

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.

00:30:07.560 And Jesus is...

00:30:10.240 This is a period...

00:30:13.240 It's the golden age of apocalyptic vision

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.

00:30:32.920 And...

00:30:33.560 What does that mean?

00:30:34.460 What's the kingdom of God?

00:30:35.300 What's the kingdom of God?

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

00:31:00.340 without rule by Romans or anyone else.

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.

00:31:50.800 Far from it.

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 0.99

00:32:08.800 are different than modern Jews in some ways, 0.99

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.

00:32:18.140 They disagree about the right thing.

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,

00:32:30.840 who also appointed themselves high priests.

00:32:33.120 These people are totally illegitimate.

00:32:34.800 They're not descended from the house of David.

00:32:36.400 We quit.

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.

00:32:43.580 And there they had a community.

00:32:45.880 They live in other places as well.

00:32:47.600 They're called the Essenes. 0.83

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.

00:33:00.720 There are other sects within Judaism.

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.

00:33:45.520 Believers would say he was.

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.

00:33:57.860 And he goes to Jerusalem, not at any old time.

00:34:01.080 He goes during Passover. 0.73

00:34:03.360 Passover is the festival of freedom.

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,

00:34:17.040 Jesus is trouble.

00:34:18.540 And that, of course, leads to the trial and to the crucifixion.

00:34:23.580 And Belize would say to the resurrection.

00:34:25.680 So, all of this is going on at the same time.

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.

00:34:42.900 But now, something different is going on.

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. 0.86

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.

00:35:05.680 But then things changed later on.

00:35:08.360 And this is kind of going back a little bit.

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.

00:35:19.280 Yes.

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?

00:35:36.520 Yes and no.

00:35:37.320 First of all, there are lots of rebellious groups in the Roman Empire.

00:35:40.820 So, the Jews are not unusual in that way.

00:35:43.620 But they are unusual for a couple of reasons.

00:35:45.920 So, first of all, put yourself in their shoes.

00:35:51.020 You've been under the thumb of foreign rulers for centuries.

00:35:54.300 And then suddenly, you win your independence.

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.

00:36:11.920 Redemption is at hand.

00:36:13.420 Everything that you see here is going to be swept away and the golden age is coming.

00:36:20.980 So, they have that.

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. 0.77

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.

00:37:08.120 That alternative is Parthia.

00:37:09.200 And Parthia is Rome's chief rival.

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. 0.98

00:37:25.700 They fight the Iranians for centuries. 0.99

00:37:27.660 They're still fighting the Iranians when the Roman Empire is gone and it's the Byzantine Empire. 0.98

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.

00:37:44.800 We get asked this all the time.

00:37:47.740 Which VPN do you use at Trigonometry?

00:37:50.580 The answer is simply CyberGhost VPN.

00:37:53.760 CyberGhost isn't some fringe tool.

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+.

00:38:33.280 And it works on up to seven devices at once.

00:38:36.660 Phones, laptops, tablets, even your smart TV.

00:38:40.020 You can share it with your family if you want.

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.

00:39:03.960 Totally risk-free.

00:39:05.300 To grab the offer, go to CyberGhostsVPN.com slash trigonometry or click the link in the description of this episode.

00:39:12.240 It's completely risk-free.

00:39:14.180 So, check it out today.

00:39:15.280 Hey, look, I'm not a Roman apologist.

00:39:18.400 I don't even think that's a thing.

00:39:19.700 Anyway.

00:39:20.240 It will be a thing at some point.

00:39:21.840 It will be a thing.

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?

00:39:40.500 No, it wasn't that bad being a Roman citizen.

00:39:43.260 But it depends what you want.

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. 0.99

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.

00:40:08.040 There's a pagan city there.

00:40:09.140 There's a pagan city there.

00:40:11.120 You don't like that either.

00:40:12.300 You also don't like paying taxes.

00:40:13.700 And there are Roman troops.

00:40:17.240 I mean, you had to pay taxes before, but now you're paying taxes to the Romans. 0.80

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. 0.95

00:40:29.480 There's a famous or infamous, almost funny incident where a Roman soldier moons some Jewish people. 0.96

00:40:35.920 And that drives them crazy.

00:40:37.860 So there's this stuff going on.

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?

00:41:05.000 Yes.

00:41:05.900 Is that a big dividing line that causes friction?

00:41:09.900 I don't think so.

00:41:10.860 Okay.

00:41:11.340 Really?

00:41:11.640 So I'm not the only...

00:41:12.420 Other scholars would disagree.

00:41:13.680 But, and also, it should be said that the Iranians, as Zoroastrians, they're leaning towards a kind of monotheism.

00:41:24.360 But it's not as monotheistic as the Jews. 0.95

00:41:27.360 The Romans make fun of the Jews. 0.95

00:41:30.000 Look at those people. 0.98

00:41:31.000 They don't have a decent statue of their God. 0.91

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, 0.98

00:41:52.240 was he knew that he couldn't have a temple of Augustus in Jerusalem.

00:41:56.140 But he does the next best thing.

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.

00:42:12.160 These two sides are getting along.

00:42:14.240 It's really a brilliant solution.

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

00:42:22.520 that monotheism is, you know, superior.

00:42:25.740 Right.

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.

00:42:31.200 Oh, of course they did.

00:42:32.480 And the Romans thought they were better than the Jews because they had the gods. 0.91

00:42:36.860 So, absolutely, I just don't think this is a religious conflict.

00:42:40.140 Right.

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.

00:42:47.160 The Jews and the Druids in Britain.

00:42:50.320 They go after the Druids, not because they really care what the Druids believe, 0.91

00:42:53.560 but because they believe, rightly, that the Druids are the engine of opposition to the Roman conquest of Britannia. 0.99

00:42:59.480 That's their problem with the Druids.

00:43:02.340 Their problem with the Jews is that the Jews are, first of all, playing footsie with the Parthians. 0.99

00:43:09.640 They don't like. 0.77

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, 0.99

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,

00:43:30.980 which would have caused a revolt.

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.

00:43:49.360 Jesus is crucified, dies on the cross.

00:43:52.820 Believers will say resurrected.

00:43:54.100 Yes.

00:43:55.440 And what happens to Judea after this?

00:43:58.900 So briefly, between the years 41 and 44, the Romans restore the monarchy of Herod. 0.87

00:44:07.280 And Herod's grandson, Agrippa, a man named Agrippa, is appointed king.

00:44:17.820 Why do they appoint him king?

00:44:19.120 Because Agrippa has been raised in Rome.

00:44:21.000 By the way, Agrippa's a Roman name.

00:44:22.740 He's named after Augustus's right-hand man.

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.

00:44:55.080 It's back to being a Roman province. 0.98

00:44:56.620 So Judea becomes a Roman province.

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.

00:45:09.800 He knew when to push and when to step back.

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.

00:45:31.060 And then we get Nero after Claudius.

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. 0.81

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.

00:45:58.660 And it's expensive to rebuild the city.

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.

00:46:14.520 And he mistreats the Jews in various ways.

00:46:18.140 He takes money from the temple.

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.

00:46:52.080 They are assassins.

00:46:53.900 And they carry daggers under their cloaks. 1.00

00:46:57.280 Of course, being Jews, their favorite group to kill or people to kill are other Jews. 1.00

00:47:01.400 But they're considered to be collaborators against the Romans. 1.00

00:47:04.260 But they're very anti-Roman.

00:47:05.720 And then you get priests, a new generation of young priests who, as often happens in history,

00:47:11.500 the young want to rebel against their fathers.

00:47:14.180 They say, our fathers were wimps.

00:47:16.200 They just went along with the Romans. 0.94

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. 0.99

00:47:23.920 And so they're called enthusiasts.

00:47:27.280 This young group, the Greek for enthusiast is zealot.

00:47:30.060 That's where we get our word zealot from.

00:47:32.460 They model themselves on a figure in the Torah who is extremely zealous in rooting out what 0.79

00:47:40.320 he sees as paganism and does not show away from violence to do it.

00:47:45.160 And that's their attitude as well.

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

00:48:02.360 sponsored by the Romans.

00:48:04.460 That is, in effect, a declaration of independence, which the Romans are not going to tolerate. 0.64

00:48:11.160 And then when the Romans start making a fuss about this, they then massacre the garrison 0.90

00:48:17.680 in Jerusalem, which is more than a signal of independence.

00:48:22.720 It's an act of outright rebellion. 0.98

00:48:25.280 For good measure, there are Jews who are killing each other. 1.00

00:48:29.600 There are dagger men who are killing zealots. 0.95

00:48:32.160 And then the dagger men are, the leader of the dagger men is killed and the rest of them

00:48:35.940 flee from Jerusalem.

00:48:37.720 And they spend the rest of the revolt in a fortress near the Dead Sea called Masada,

00:48:43.600 a fairly famous place later on.

00:48:46.140 But now we've got to the point in the year 66 when Judea is in revolt.

00:48:50.920 So Judea is in revolt.

00:48:53.960 Right.

00:48:54.420 And I'm not, again, a Herod apologist.

00:48:58.720 But doesn't that kind of mean that, look, Herod was brutal.

00:49:04.600 He was awful.

00:49:05.580 Right.

00:49:05.980 You know, he wasn't.

00:49:07.300 He wasn't.

00:49:08.140 Yeah, yeah.

00:49:08.860 Stalin. 0.56

00:49:09.320 Let's bring him back.

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.

00:49:20.780 Yes.

00:49:21.180 And of course, as you know, there are Stalin, the Stalin nostalgia in Russia today.

00:49:25.640 Yeah.

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,

00:49:36.700 look, there were three groups.

00:49:38.520 There were three groups in the revolution, he says afterwards.

00:49:40.840 One group wanted independence.

00:49:42.760 One group wanted to be under the king.

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

00:49:55.440 it was pretty similar.

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. 0.65

00:50:06.420 They also have a lot of say in authority in Jerusalem.

00:50:09.400 They go to Jerusalem.

00:50:10.480 They plead with the rebels, don't do this.

00:50:12.320 It's insane.

00:50:12.940 It's suicide.

00:50:14.080 You can't defeat the Romans. 0.98

00:50:16.060 It's not going to happen.

00:50:17.300 And don't think the Parthian king or our brethren in the Parthian empire are going to come to

00:50:21.920 our aid.

00:50:23.240 It's just not going to work.

00:50:24.900 Stop this insanity before it's too late.

00:50:28.900 But they are practically killed for what they say.

00:50:32.480 The rebels aren't going to hear it.

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 0.97

00:50:44.920 this nonsense.

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

00:50:56.440 the rich.

00:50:57.240 Even some would talk about freeing slaves.

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 1.00

00:51:09.960 fucked, right? 1.00

00:51:10.560 You're kind of, yeah. 1.00

00:51:11.500 You're kind of effed.

00:51:12.460 Once you've forgiven.

00:51:14.640 This is a family show, so I'll just say effed.

00:51:16.900 But yes, once you've slaughtered the Roman garrison, that's it, you know. 0.89

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. 0.91

00:51:30.820 A lot of them are Samaritans who don't get along with the Jews.

00:51:34.000 But now you've got to bring in the legions.

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.

00:51:46.060 But it doesn't work.

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.

00:51:58.860 It's October.

00:52:00.140 And he's heading back to the coast to go back to Syria in a narrow valley. 0.80

00:52:05.400 He's ambushed.

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.

00:52:17.180 And it's time to get serious.

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.

00:52:31.480 And there will soon be another one.

00:52:33.200 But he's got one good general left, a man named Vespasian.

00:52:36.460 He says, I choose you.

00:52:38.920 You've got to put down the revolt.

00:52:40.100 He's not worried about 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

00:52:49.560 from the Sabine country north of Rome.

00:52:51.940 But he's a good general.

00:52:53.020 He's fought in Britain.

00:52:54.640 He's beat up some Brits.

00:52:56.980 And, you know.

00:52:59.980 And now, as far as the Romans were concerned, like the two worst places were Britain and Judea. 0.50

00:53:06.300 You know, these are really bad people.

00:53:08.960 He's giving us trouble all the time.

00:53:11.280 There's a lot of people on the internet who would agree with that.

00:53:13.640 So, he comes with a new army.

00:53:17.480 Now we're closer to 60,000 men.

00:53:19.420 And it's now the year 67.

00:53:21.460 Wow.

00:53:22.140 And what happens then?

00:53:23.580 By the way, maybe, sorry about it.

00:53:25.360 Sorry to interrupt my own question.

00:53:27.620 That's an extra level for me.

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.

00:53:41.400 Right.

00:53:41.540 And it's mightily impressive.

00:53:43.020 It's not an easy place to come in.

00:53:44.820 No, no, not at all.

00:53:45.680 Well, so, I mean, it was chosen very intelligently as a capital.

00:53:51.520 So, Jerusalem sits, it's in the hill country. 0.68

00:53:54.800 And Israel is very, it's almost like a topographical map.

00:53:58.140 Do we still have topographical maps?

00:54:00.140 I don't know.

00:54:00.540 I hope so.

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.

00:54:10.800 They're not really mountains.

00:54:11.900 But they're pretty high hills.

00:54:13.480 That's where Jerusalem is. 0.56

00:54:14.620 On three sides, it's surrounded by valleys.

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.

00:54:45.180 But really hard to take.

00:54:46.540 Impressive place.

00:54:47.360 A little bit smaller than the old city of Jerusalem today, but super highly fortified.

00:54:54.060 And the temple sits on a hill above the city.

00:54:57.260 So, that's even more fortified.

00:54:59.180 In addition, it's got a spring.

00:55:01.580 It's got a natural source of water.

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. 0.63

00:55:14.320 You really don't want to have to do that.

00:55:16.500 And Vespasian turns up with 60,000?

00:55:18.940 Vespasian turns up. 0.95

00:55:20.180 And he comes from the north, and he attacks the north first. 0.89

00:55:24.660 He goes after the Galilee, and he wipes the floor with it. 0.96

00:55:29.160 There are some cities that immediately said, we love Rome!

00:55:31.720 And they become his base.

00:55:35.960 And there's one city in central Galilee called Jodhapata.

00:55:42.040 And the commander of it is Josephus.

00:55:45.480 Josephus is our main source for the revolt, because afterwards, he wrote memoirs.

00:55:51.580 And he writes a memoir about the revolt.

00:55:54.420 He is the general in charge of Galilee.

00:55:56.700 He's a priest, a minor priest.

00:55:59.500 And he's been to Rome.

00:56:00.940 He speaks Greek.

00:56:02.120 He has a view of the wider world.

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.

00:56:15.400 In any case, he's in charge of Jodhapata.

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.

00:56:31.420 Wow.

00:56:32.060 And it's hot.

00:56:33.220 You know, it's going to be like 90 degrees Fahrenheit there, really hot and miserable.

00:56:37.820 And they don't have a natural spring.

00:56:39.620 So they're running out of water.

00:56:41.240 In the end, the Romans take the city, as the Romans usually do. 1.00

00:56:45.040 They massacre the inhabitants.

00:56:47.780 And Josephus and the other leaders of the revolt are in a cave.

00:56:51.580 They're about, I think there are 42 of them.

00:56:54.000 And they decide on a mass suicide pact.

00:56:56.400 Josephus says, this is crazy.

00:56:57.620 We should just surrender.

00:56:58.540 No, no, no, no. 1.00

00:56:59.100 I'm going to commit suicide. 1.00

00:57:00.540 Suicide by a lottery. 1.00

00:57:03.220 You know, or, you know, I'll kill you. 1.00

00:57:05.680 You kill the next one, so on and so forth. 1.00

00:57:08.500 Until there are only two men left.

00:57:10.860 And one of them is Josephus.

00:57:12.460 And Josephus is the last guy.

00:57:14.060 Come on.

00:57:15.760 So he survives.

00:57:17.280 He surrenders to the Romans.

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.

00:57:29.440 Josephus claims it was fair.

00:57:31.580 But he goes to the Romans.

00:57:35.720 He's brought before Vespasian. 0.84

00:57:37.480 And he knows that he's in chains.

00:57:40.700 He's going to be shipped off to Rome to the tender mercies of Nero, which would be awful.

00:57:45.540 But he has a plan.

00:57:47.000 And he says to Vespasian, look, I'm a priest.

00:57:50.400 I see things that ordinary people don't see.

00:57:53.180 And I want to tell you that you're going to become the emperor of Rome.

00:57:56.300 And Vespasian says, hmm.

00:58:00.720 Okay, you get to live.

00:58:01.980 And I'm not going to ship you off to Nero.

00:58:04.520 So it's the year 67.

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.

00:58:24.580 Because it looks like a camel's hump.

00:58:27.180 And there, too, the Romans have to fight to take the place. 0.93

00:58:31.420 Very dramatic place if you ever have a chance to visit it.

00:58:34.440 And they do.

00:58:37.940 They eventually take it.

00:58:38.980 And they massacre the people there, just as they did at Giordopata.

00:58:43.560 They massacre the men.

00:58:44.540 They enslave the women and children. 0.98

00:58:47.960 And now it's the end of the fighting season.

00:58:50.320 And Vespasian rests up for over the winter.

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. 0.94

00:59:20.520 And then, at the end of the spring, the word comes from Rome.

00:59:25.060 Nero has been deposed.

00:59:26.560 He's committed suicide.

00:59:28.100 There is a new emperor.

00:59:29.860 And Vespasian says, hmm, what does this mean?

00:59:33.100 What are my orders now?

00:59:35.500 Am I supposed to continue this suppression of the rebellion or what?

00:59:39.220 So he calls a halt.

00:59:41.220 And in effect, for the next two years, the war is at a pause.

00:59:45.740 And the rebels are in Jerusalem.

00:59:49.500 And they have the leisure to do what they want.

00:59:53.180 And what do they want to do? 0.97

00:59:54.640 Kill each other. 0.98

00:59:56.900 The devil makes work for idle hands. 0.99

00:59:58.520 The devil makes works for idle hands.

01:00:00.400 And so there are various factions.

01:00:02.200 There's the daggermen. 0.99

01:00:03.600 There's the zealots.

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.

01:00:15.500 John is a wealthy man, a man of property.

01:00:18.240 He has no interest in the social revolution.

01:00:20.600 Simon is a champion of the poor.

01:00:24.420 They're both very good leaders.

01:00:26.480 But Simon is especially charismatic.

01:00:28.540 And Simon gets the Idumaeans to support him.

01:00:32.160 And the Idumaeans have a very good army.

01:00:34.700 So there is a bloodbath in Jerusalem. 0.99

01:00:37.320 These people killing each other.

01:00:40.680 There are three factions.

01:00:42.480 There's Simon's faction.

01:00:43.660 There's John's faction.

01:00:44.940 There's the zealots.

01:00:45.960 And ultimately, there's just two factions.

01:00:49.040 John's factions and Simon's faction.

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.

01:00:59.380 They burn the food supply.

01:01:01.460 They burn each other's food supply.

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.

01:01:30.560 But then ultimately, they can't feed them.

01:01:32.560 Can I be blunt?

01:01:33.400 Please. 1.00

01:01:34.040 They fucking deserve to lose. 1.00

01:01:36.240 You might say it from the point of the military point of view. 1.00

01:01:39.600 This is insane.

01:01:41.340 This is absolutely insane.

01:01:43.700 Tax season is the one time of year you're forced to look at your full financial picture.

01:01:49.700 What came in?

01:01:50.500 What went out?

01:01:51.320 And the uncomfortable question of where the rest went.

01:01:54.260 I didn't just want to look back in horror.

01:01:56.280 I wanted to actually do something with it.

01:01:58.960 That's why I use Monarch.

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.

01:02:17.340 Simplify your finances with Monarch.

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.

01:02:49.280 That's 50% off at Monarch.com code Trigger.

01:02:53.940 The way you describe this land at the time, it just sounds like revolutionary fever is everywhere.

01:03:01.160 Revolutionary fever is everywhere.

01:03:02.500 Everyone is going wild.

01:03:03.800 Everyone's going crazy.

01:03:04.720 Everyone thinks that the kingdom of...

01:03:06.840 Everything's about to change.

01:03:08.720 Right.

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.

01:03:15.400 I mean, that's true.

01:03:16.100 There are crazies.

01:03:17.980 But they're also...

01:03:19.120 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,

01:03:31.520 which is roughly today's Iraqi Kurdistan.

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

01:03:46.780 husband, who had been the king, dies.

01:03:48.600 She moves to Jerusalem, and she spends a number of years there learning about Judaism, building

01:03:54.260 a palace there.

01:03:55.660 And in fact, her dynasty ends up building three separate palaces in Jerusalem, feeding the 0.56

01:04:01.120 people there when there's a famine.

01:04:02.340 So she's a beloved figure, and arranging for her ultimately to be buried in Jerusalem.

01:04:08.020 And indeed, her tomb still exists.

01:04:10.060 You can visit it.

01:04:11.160 Remarkable place in East Jerusalem.

01:04:13.440 But what is she doing?

01:04:14.980 What's this all about?

01:04:16.500 I think on the one hand, it's conversion.

01:04:19.300 She has a religious experience to convert.

01:04:21.840 On the other hand, she's creating a foothold, a handhold, excuse me, in the West. 0.90

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.

01:04:56.880 And look, I get that.

01:04:57.840 You know, there's a spirit of revolution.

01:05:00.580 You know, people want power.

01:05:02.160 They want money.

01:05:03.040 All of these things.

01:05:04.700 But wasn't there part of them going, hang on, look, lads, there's about 50,000 Roman soldiers

01:05:11.320 over there.

01:05:12.000 They've got one of their best generals.

01:05:13.760 They're just sitting there.

01:05:14.960 Eventually, they're going to come.

01:05:16.640 Yeah.

01:05:17.240 Yeah, they should have.

01:05:18.440 Absolutely.

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

01:05:28.580 the Romans.

01:05:29.220 They were destroyed because of the Jews and what they call senseless hatred. 0.99

01:05:33.820 Senseless hatred of Jews against each other. 0.98

01:05:36.720 That's why they were destroyed. 0.98

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.

01:05:49.160 Yes.

01:05:49.560 What happens at this point?

01:05:51.080 Does one group become dominant?

01:05:53.580 I mean, so, there are really two groups, Simon and John.

01:05:58.300 And the city's on different levels.

01:06:00.320 It's actually on a hill.

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.

01:06:10.220 But Simon has more power than John.

01:06:13.620 Okay.

01:06:13.980 So, Simon has more power than John, but the city's effectively in a deadlock there.

01:06:17.460 Yes.

01:06:18.020 The city's in a deadlock.

01:06:19.360 It's completely divided.

01:06:20.780 It is therefore weakened.

01:06:22.160 Yes.

01:06:22.880 Yes.

01:06:23.080 So, what happens?

01:06:24.940 What are the Romans doing at this point?

01:06:26.440 It's been two years.

01:06:27.740 The Romans are having a civil war of their own.

01:06:29.820 Okay.

01:06:31.260 It's civil war versus civil war.

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.

01:06:48.120 And Vespasian's in the east.

01:06:50.600 He's a general of the east.

01:06:51.820 He sees all this going on.

01:06:53.140 And he gets the support of a very important player, the governor of Egypt.

01:06:57.200 The governor of Egypt happens to be a Jew.

01:06:59.820 Named Tiberius Julius Alexander, who's also a great soldier, great military guy.

01:07:04.940 And he throws his support behind Vespasian.

01:07:08.140 He's got legions in Egypt.

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

01:07:23.480 emperors.

01:07:24.460 Galba, Otho, Vitellius, and Vespasian.

01:07:28.200 Vespasian leaves Judea. 0.81

01:07:29.920 He goes to Egypt.

01:07:31.180 And he organizes an army which goes to the west and ultimately conquers Rome and makes him emperor.

01:07:39.000 The suppression of the rebellion is on pause.

01:07:41.860 The Romans are doing nothing. 1.00

01:07:43.880 The rebels are in Jerusalem.

01:07:45.700 Life seems to be going on as usual in Jerusalem, although much of the country, it's cut off from 0.89

01:07:51.780 much of the country.

01:07:53.820 And there are people who think Jerusalem is this fantastic fortress.

01:07:58.920 The Romans will never conquer us. 0.98

01:08:01.060 We're safe here.

01:08:02.420 I think John says something like, the Romans will conquer Jerusalem when they can fly. 0.61

01:08:08.340 It turns out he was wrong.

01:08:09.960 It turns out he was wrong.

01:08:11.420 It turns out he was wrong.

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.

01:08:26.640 And they lay siege to Jerusalem.

01:08:29.440 The Romans do not have an easy time of it.

01:08:32.980 The Jews' forte from the military point of view is irregular warfare, raids, ambushes, 0.92

01:08:39.100 guerrilla attacks.

01:08:40.040 And they have water, which the Romans don't. 1.00

01:08:42.720 So they give the Romans a run for their money. 0.97

01:08:47.240 But there's only so far they can go, especially because people are dying and starving in the

01:08:52.080 city.

01:08:52.420 And anyone who can leave is trying to leave until the Romans cut that off. 0.96

01:08:56.640 To make a long story short, there is a very, very hard fought siege.

01:09:01.260 It lasts five months.

01:09:03.100 But in the end, the Romans thoroughly conquer the city and they destroy the temple and they 1.00

01:09:09.660 basically destroy the city.

01:09:11.160 The city is left in ruins.

01:09:12.440 And by the autumn of 70, Jerusalem is a ruin and the revolt is all but over.

01:09:20.060 So Jerusalem has fallen.

01:09:23.440 Yes.

01:09:24.180 Is that the end of the story now?

01:09:26.420 No.

01:09:28.680 There's still pockets of rebels.

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.

01:09:36.440 And they'll get around to it.

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 1.00

01:09:49.240 out the last pocket of resistance at Masada, this famous fortress in the Judean desert.

01:09:56.080 And the Romans are able to take Masada. 0.92

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.

01:10:20.960 So the Judea has been completely conquered.

01:10:24.660 Yes.

01:10:25.000 Rome is dominant.

01:10:26.640 Yes.

01:10:27.200 What happens to the Jewish people now?

01:10:29.380 So, I mean, most of them say, well, that was that and let's move on.

01:10:34.560 But they're still rebels.

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.

01:10:48.100 But the Romans make some big mistakes.

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.

01:10:58.140 The Romans tear that down as well. 0.99

01:11:02.060 But the one big, biggest mistake the Romans make is they decide to punish the Jews of the

01:11:06.580 empire by doing something unprecedented.

01:11:08.980 They impose a tax on all of them.

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 1.00

01:11:21.520 to pay a tax to Rome.

01:11:23.640 And not just to Rome.

01:11:25.280 They have to pay a tax to the chief god of Rome, to Jupiter of the Capitoline Hill.

01:11:30.980 It's as if to add insult to injury.

01:11:33.480 You have a tax, that's humiliating enough, but the tax says, your god is nothing.

01:11:38.100 Your god is gone.

01:11:39.080 We've destroyed his temple.

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.

01:11:55.680 And this tax lasts for centuries.

01:11:57.400 And why do you say this was a big mistake?

01:12:00.220 Because it's utterly humiliating.

01:12:01.960 And it foments more rebellion.

01:12:03.520 It foments more rebellion.

01:12:04.700 I mean, if you think back to what Churchill said after the Second World War, in victory,

01:12:09.020 magnanimity.

01:12:10.180 This is the opposite of magnanimity.

01:12:12.960 In victory, you humiliate them.

01:12:14.820 It's not a good thing to do.

01:12:17.440 And it foments more rebellion.

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.

01:12:29.060 Yes.

01:12:30.500 And where do the Jewish people go from that?

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.

01:12:46.640 And they're trying to get by.

01:12:49.220 They don't have the temple.

01:12:50.500 They want to rebuild the temple.

01:12:51.860 We have Jewish literature from this period in which they say they're talking about getting

01:12:56.540 rid of the Romans and rebuilding the temple.

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 0.73

01:13:07.160 to conquer Parthia.

01:13:09.020 And in the year 115, the Roman Emperor Trajan goes eastward and begins conquering the Parthian

01:13:14.940 Empire.

01:13:15.380 He's doing pretty well.

01:13:16.900 First, he takes Armenia, a larger kingdom in antiquity today that's ruled by a member of

01:13:24.400 the Parthian royal family.

01:13:25.800 And then he conquers all of Iraq down to the Persian Gulf. 0.96

01:13:30.760 The next year, in 116, there is a revolt in the Roman rear.

01:13:35.040 There's an uprising.

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.

01:13:45.400 Sound familiar?

01:13:46.400 And among the leaders of the insurgency are the Jewish population of Iraq.

01:13:53.580 Now, we don't have a smoking gun.

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

01:14:07.220 in the west.

01:14:07.920 The Romans have to take a legion and send it to the west to put down this rebellion.

01:14:13.300 It's no small thing.

01:14:15.340 The rebels are doing quite well.

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.

01:14:27.200 They're driven out.

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

01:14:56.140 that's snuffed out as well.

01:14:59.580 I'm sorry, go ahead.

01:15:00.640 The way you paint the Jewish people in this story, you know, it's, they were constant thorn 1.00

01:15:08.480 in the Roman side.

01:15:09.980 Yes, but the Romans didn't handle them well, didn't play it well. 0.58

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

01:15:28.620 the Roman Empire is a big part of the story.

01:15:30.600 And the fact that the Romans are obsessed with fighting Parthia, beat Parthia, that's 0.95

01:15:35.560 kind of, that's kind of their thing.

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 0.89

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.

01:16:00.780 Yes.

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

01:16:10.660 Romans.

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.

01:16:44.900 Yes.

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?

01:16:54.680 Sure.

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. 0.86

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

01:17:23.720 again and again.

01:17:24.420 It never stopped happening.

01:17:26.020 They weren't the majority after, by the early Middle Ages, they're no longer the majority

01:17:32.440 there, but there are a presence there.

01:17:35.300 Can I stress test this argument a little bit?

01:17:37.240 Because I think Melanie Phillips made it the first time she was on the show, long before

01:17:40.560 this latest outbreak of the conflict.

01:17:42.260 Is that not a little bit like me turning up in Africa and going, well, my ancestors are

01:17:47.320 from here?

01:17:48.700 Give me some land here.

01:17:49.820 No, because, I mean, it's because they're always there.

01:17:54.680 You know, there's always Jews living there. 0.99

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

01:18:10.900 fact. 0.88

01:18:11.260 I was being, you know, ridiculous. 0.92

01:18:13.500 But, okay, I mean, maybe a different way of looking at it is, let's say a bunch of Native 0.61

01:18:19.540 Americans had fled North America at the time of Columbus.

01:18:23.580 Right.

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.

01:18:31.960 This is our land.

01:18:32.820 We deserve to be here.

01:18:33.820 Look at our Holy Scriptures, you know.

01:18:36.460 But imagine that the United, that's a good analogy, but imagine that the United States

01:18:41.180 wasn't 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.

01:18:48.940 There's no independent country here.

01:18:51.880 And Native Americans who are living elsewhere now want to come back and reestablish themselves 0.95

01:18:58.880 in this new environment when new states are going to be created out of old states.

01:19:04.340 They would have a point.

01:19:06.020 I think they would have a point.

01:19:07.400 They would have an argument about that.

01:19:09.300 And, of course, by treaty, Native Americans have rights in the United States that they're

01:19:13.360 denied.

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.

01:19:23.800 So, it's not a totally false analogy.

01:19:27.080 So, first point, Jews are indigenous.

01:19:29.360 Yes.

01:19:29.620 Anything else?

01:19:30.540 Yes. 1.00

01:19:32.180 Jews are disputatious. 1.00

01:19:34.540 And disunity is a problem in Israel today, but it's an ancient problem as well. 0.97

01:19:40.260 And many people in Israel have looked back to this period and said, look what happened

01:19:44.580 there with our disunity.

01:19:46.500 You know, there's only so far—yes, we can disagree politically, but there's a danger

01:19:50.940 of going too far today.

01:19:52.260 I mean, another thing is, if you look at the geographical location of Israel, for better

01:19:56.700 or worse, it's in the center of things.

01:20:00.580 And, you know, obviously, the United States is the key ally of Israel today, but Israel 0.57

01:20:07.400 cannot afford to only look west.

01:20:09.500 It also has to look east.

01:20:11.440 It has to pay attention to Iran. 0.76

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

01:20:31.820 directions.

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. 0.77

01:20:51.960 Absolutely.

01:20:52.880 Yeah.

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.

01:21:36.740 And we see that in the region today as well.

01:21:39.500 We see pragmatists, but we also see people on both sides who are letting their religious

01:21:45.080 ideas get the better of them.

01:21:46.860 And maybe if Israel wants to be successful, it needs a Stalin. 0.92

01:21:50.520 A Stalin?

01:21:51.340 I hope not.

01:21:52.360 No.

01:21:53.080 I don't think it needs a Stalin. 1.00

01:21:54.980 That's going to get clipped out of context, you idiot. 0.99

01:21:58.160 It's a metaphorical reference to something we discussed earlier in the episode. 0.99

01:22:02.420 Barry, if people have watched this for the first time as an interview with you, they'll

01:22:07.280 now know why we're such big fans of yours.

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.

01:22:14.160 It's also available as an audiobook.

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?

01:22:25.900 All my other books.

01:22:28.120 You've written ten.

01:22:29.140 Yeah.

01:22:29.500 I mean, how they are.

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

01:22:46.880 the story.

01:22:47.340 And I think it's fantastically relevant to warfare today.

01:22:51.180 So read all my books, folks.

01:22:52.480 Of course.

01:22:53.120 And if people haven't seen our episode with you about the fall of the Roman Empire, it's

01:22:57.100 magnificent.

01:22:57.880 Thank you.

01:22:58.180 Barry, thanks for being here.

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

01:23:10.160 VPN discount.

01:23:11.680 It's completely risk-free.

01:23:13.780 So check it out today.

01:23:16.640 It's a loaded question.

01:23:17.860 Sure.

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?

TRIGGERnometry - March 11, 2026

The Ancient History of Israel and the Holy Land - Historian Barry Strauss

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript